The Power of Five Oblivion

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Weasel whittling away, the little shavings of wood floating down onto his black leather boots. Neither of the men ever came close and Pedro suspected that one of the reasons was that after several weeks of wearing the same clothes he must smell bad. Today that had to change.
    Ape looked at his watch; an expensive watch for a man who worked in a prison. Pedro wondered who had owned it before and what had happened to him.
    “Tempo!” he announced. Always the same word, spat out with no emotion. Tiempo was the Spanish for “time” and this obviously meant the same.
    Weasel put his carving in one pocket and his knife in another, and then went back into the prison complex. But this time Pedro didn’t follow him over.
    “I want more,” he called out. He spoke to them in English, then repeated the sentence in his own language. “I’m not coming in.”
    Ape turned to look at him. Not angry. Not even surprised. Just bored. He walked over to Pedro, his feet heavy in the dust.
    Pedro swore at him.
    The man punched him once, hard, in the chest, his fist pounding in above Pedro’s heart. Pedro jerked backwards, almost collapsing onto the ground.
    “OK! OK! I’m sorry!” Winded, in pain, Pedro held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, at the same time stumbling towards the door. But when he reached it, he seemed to lose his balance and fell against Weasel, who smiled, grabbed hold of his collar and threw him inside.
    Pedro had got what he wanted. Every street child in Lima knew how to pick a pocket. American tourists usually kept their wallets in the back pocket of their trousers. The English preferred the inside of their jacket, near their right arm. And if you were fast enough, there were always expensive watches – a Rolex or an Omega could get you two or three dollars in the local market (where it would be sold on for twenty times that amount). The only trouble was, you had to get close enough to make the steal … and that was what Pedro had just done in the yard. It had cost him a little pain but it had given him the excuse to brush against Weasel and in barely more than a second he had whipped the knife out of the man’s pocket and concealed it under his own shirt. Pedro was still bent over, pretending to be hurt. The knife was safely pressed against his flesh.
    The two guards threw him into the cell and locked the door, taking the key with them. Pedro already knew there were no bars or bolts on the outside. He waited until he was sure they had gone, then took out his prize and examined it. The knife had three blades, a screwdriver, a bottle opener, a nail file, scissors and tweezers. It was perfect. A gift from the gods.
    But he had to move quickly. For all he knew, Weasel would want to start whittling again the moment he turned the corner and once he discovered his knife was missing, it wouldn’t take him long to work out where it had gone. Pedro unhooked one blade and took out the tweezers. There wasn’t a lock in Lima that he wouldn’t have been able to pick. Again it was part of his street education. There was always the stupid shopkeeper who didn’t pay someone to stand by the exit or who allowed himself to be distracted by one boy while another crept into his storeroom. Pedro ignored the pain in his chest. He knelt in front of the lock, the blade in one hand, the tweezers in the other. The mechanism was old and heavy but it had been used so many times that it had worn smooth. It took Pedro just five seconds. The lock clicked. The door swung open.
    He was presented with a simple choice: left or right. Ape and Weasel had turned left and he didn’t want to run into them again. But at the same time he knew that turning right would only bring him back to the shower complex and the exercise yard with no obvious way out. There was no choice. All he could do was move as quickly and as quietly as possible and hope he wasn’t seen.
    He found himself following a narrow, arched corridor that reminded him partly of a hospital, partly of a wine cellar. The floor was stone, the walls rough, whitewashed plaster. There were no windows but electric lights burned at intervals, showing the way ahead. He passed several doors and gently tried each one of them. They were all locked. More cells? Somewhere there had to be a staircase leading up. He couldn’t hear anything now but the smell of cooking was still strong and came from ahead of him. He was aware that his stomach was