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RUSTY

I nodded. Despite its paradoxical phraseology, I knew this threat was serious. The police wanted to scare me off from whatever it was I was doing with the micro-cassettes. I left immediately for the dirty town of Desaguadero, on the Peruvian border. As soon as arrived, I got stamps in my passport as proof to show the captain that had at least obeyed the first part of his instructions. Peruvian immigration laws prevented me from officially leaving the country on the same day as entered, but that did not stop me from walking back across the border to get a hotel for the night on the Bolivian side, which was cheaper.

I rang Thomas in prison. I had to call his mobile phone, since the inmates in the four-star section of San Pedro where Thomas had his apartment were not allowed land lines. I had not told him about the guards finding the micro-cassettes, which we were using to record our interviews, because knew he would have been angry.

'This isn't a game, Rusty,' he had lectured me on numerous occasions. 'This is my life you're playing with here. These people are not joking, man.'

When he answered the phone, Thomas was unsympathetic.

'Where were you, man? I waited all day.'

I told him I'd been arrested.

'Thanks a lot, man. You ruined my life,' he said, before hanging up on me.

I knew he would want me to call again, so waited half an hour before buying another phone card. I didn't even need to say who was calling.

'You is a stupid kid, Rusty,' Thomas said, as soon as he picked up the phone. I could tell by his voice that he had taken a few lines of coke. 'I told you this would happen if you wasn't careful.' The coke seemed to have calmed him down a little.

'So, what am I going to do?' asked him.

'We have to bribe them again. We'll have to call the governor of the whole prison. That's going to be an expensive bribe, man.'

When Thomas said 'we', in reference to spending money, he always meant that it would be my money we would spend.

I got my Peruvian exit stamp the following morning and then returned to San Pedro prison. Thomas had already arranged for me to bribe the governor. It cost us one hundred US dollars. I continued to make flippant remarks until a week later when the police tortured