I have absolutely no idea what time it is. The captain probably mentioned what the local time was, but I now can’t remember if I changed my watch yet.
Unhelpfully, I can’t remember the time difference either. Europe is ahead of the US, I think, but I wouldn’t swear to it. I stepped out of the plane and it is dark here, very dark and humid, but I can’t remember if that means it’ll be dark back home too. Again, this is where knowing what time my watch is set to would be useful. I don’t want to wake anybody up, but my dumb ass best pal doesn’t always shut off his phone when he should. He’ll leave the damn thing on and then blame you for calling when it’s not convenient. Call me crazy, but the logical thing to do when you don’t want to be disturbed is to turn your damn phone off.
The artificial light in this office is blinding after the dimmed lights of the cabin. Pretty much everyone else on the plane was asleep, but I felt a little too wired. I got a little shut eye in the charter on the way over the Atlantic, but once I made the connection at the other end I was on a commercial flight and no longer had any privacy. That was necessary to make sure that nobody can just call my jet hire and ask where I stopped at, but the downside is that I felt a little exposed. The success of this whole venture was dependent on me making that connection and touching down at the final destination without being recognised, so mixing with too many people who might have a clue who was hiding under the cap was risky. A small plane is no guarantee of anonymity.
It’s just lucky for me that the guy who checked my passport was little and old and probably doesn’t give a crap who ‘Justin Timberlake’ is.
Oh well, I guess staring at my fucking watch isn’t going to help me work out whether it’s telling US or Europe time. In the unlikely event that plan was going to work I’m thinking it would have done so already. I scroll through my numerous contacts until I hit ‘Ayala, Trace’ (I really need to work out how I inadvertently made it list by surname and swap it back) and I push the call button. For once in his life, Trace has actually remembered to turn his cell off and so I get his voicemail.
“Hey, it’s Trace, you know what to do.”
“Hi, it’s Justin,” I say in a tone that’s a little higher pitched than I’d like. Why am I nervous? I’ve only gone on vacation for crying out loud; I’m a grown man, we’re allowed to do that. There’s no need for my palms to be sweaty.
Well, in my defence, it is kind of hot in here.
“Umm… sorry for the lack of notice but I decided to get away for a while so I’ve gone on a little, uhh, trip for some down time, location undisclosed. I’m going to turn my Blackberry off so I’m not going to be taking any calls or e-mails and shit. I left a message for my momma before I went but if anybody calls you asking where I am, just tell them I’m on holiday for a while and I’ll call them when I get back or some shit. Ciao.”
I may have accidentally on purpose signed off in Italian so that if he starts wondering where I am he starts thinking Italy. He’d be right on the Mediterranean part, just entirely off track on the country and language fronts. That’s good. I don’t want anybody tracking me down.
I’m interrupted in my thoughts by the information guy finally re-entering the room and coming up with the goods in broken English. His skin looks like leather; clearly he doesn’t hold much affection for sunscreen. “Here go. Car is waiting on curb to take you to Los Cristianos, Carlotta will meet you outside and show you apartment.”
“Great, thank you. I mean, gracias.”
“De nada,” he says quickly with a wave of his hand. I have no idea what that means, but I smile anyway. I have to do that a lot in my line of work, just smile and nod. “You best go quick, is three o clock.”
Shit, it’s three am? There goes my cunning plan to beat jet lag. On the bright side, I can now see that I did in fact change my watch to local time - that was going to bug me all night.
