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Ricardo's Wallet
I ride into town and go directly to Lalo`s office. I wait for a few minutes while he takes care of a customer, then follow him to a shop, I suppose. We go to the outskirts of town. Not a very nice neighborhood. We stop at a humble house on a dirt street, where a few old trucks and motorcycles laying around. A strange looking old guy comes out, he`s wearing a funny hat and an even more funny mustache and he`s followed by even more funnier looking small dogs. What kind of place is this? Lalo takes me aside and tells me not to worry, this guy is an excellent mechanic and he charges very cheaply, then introduces me to Mr. Larco. The old guy starts talking about races and then about our common friend, Walter, from La Paz, Bolivia. This conversation calms me down, and we decide to leave the bike in his hands while we go have some lunch, after what I'm suppose to come back to work on the bike with the old guy. We get all the stuff on Lalo`s car and head to his house. When we get there I discover horrified that I have left my Aerostich jacket on Mr. Larcos's neighbor's front wall. We drive back as fast as the small car allows, I`m suffering like an idiot, not only would I loose the jacket, but also the bunch of stuff I have inside the pockets, including my wallet.
When we get there I`m almost crying, I don`t really care about the stuff, but please, not my jacket. That would really ruin my trip. For incredible that it may seem, the jacket still is in the same place where I stupidly left it. When I pick up the jacket, a couple of kids from the terrace tell me: "there is your jacket sir, nobody has touched it". Of course, the wallet is not in its pocket. Mr. Larco bursts into flame. He kicks open the neighbor house door and start yelling and screaming to a couple of ladies to return my wallet. Then runs into his house and gets back carrying an old Remington rifle and a single bullet which he loads into the weapon. The ladies inside are crying and saying they didn`t take the wallet. My lawyer friend, horrified, orders the old guy to get rid of the rifle, which he then hands to me!! I hide the weapon as well as I can in the driveway, since there is a lot of people already gathering to see what the scandal is all about. Then the lady of the house shows up with a video camera directing it to the yelling old guy and us. Oh my god, what a mess! On top of it all, a police truck stops, and Mr. Larco calls the cops and accuses the neighbor lady, saying that she has stolen things from him in the past.
Ok. Ok. I`ve lost another wallet, but my "dummy" wallet with originals of my personal documents is safely stored in my clothes backpack. Sorry Dr. Greg! I`m so glad I didn`t loose my beloved Aerostich jacket, that I`m willing to forget about the $150 I had in the wallet. Plus I can get immediate replacement for my credit card. We leave the scene hoping for things to calm down, and when we are back, after an hour or so, the bike seems not to have been touched. Oh damn it, now I`m gonna have to do all the work myself. Larco comes out smiling, and tells me to go test it. What did you do to it? He says, I was not going far with my inlet valves almost close. I test it and she`s running great. He even installs a left side view mirror that is missing from the bike. How much? 10 bucks, Thank you very much. 10 bucks plus another stolen wallet.
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