Groaning, he rolled over, got to his feet and ran around the side of a house where a dog began barking savagely. The dog suddenly broke free from his chained leash and began chasing him, too. He crashed through the front door of a home where a family was eating their lunch. “Que cheira muito!” he yelled (meaning, “that smells great!” in Portuguese), as he grabbed a roasted chicken leg off one of their plates, the dog and the three men hot on his tail. He leaped off of their balcony and onto another rooftop, the distance of the fall forcing him to roll when he landed in order to neutralize some of the shock. The dog kept up surprisingly well until Touloure threw the chicken leg to him. “That takes care of one problem!” he thought. He sprinted toward the next rooftop, but stopped and stared at a jump that he would surely die trying to clear. He looked at the silver lockbox shining in the sunlight, and was completely out of ideas. The sound of gunfire and bullets hitting the metal rooftops formed a symphony of certain doom growing louder with each second that passed. It was then that he glanced at a clothesline leading down to the street that appeared thick enough to support him. It was a long shot, but his only shot. He put the box in his backpack, grabbed a shirt, swung it over the line, and jumped. Yelling at the top of his lungs from a mix of fear and excitement. Clothespins, button-down shirts, jeans, and underwear, rained down on the houses below when the line suddenly snapped, and Touloure crash landed on a stack of crates filled with watermelons and papaya in an alley. Had his landing been off by even a second, the feel of concrete wouldn’t have been as welcoming. He began brushing the crushed bits of fruit off his clothes, when he looked up and saw the other two men that decided to cut him off from the start. They pointed their guns at him and the leader said, “You truly are the best, Touloure, but you never think ahead,” as he demanded the box. Sweaty and exhausted, he backed up to the wall at the end of the alleyway. He took off his backpack and reached inside, feeling his hand around the box. Suddenly he heard growling and looked up to see the dog that he’d fed the chicken leg to. Touloure’s newfound ally began attacking the man closest to him, biting his outstretched arm, forcing him to drop his gun. While the other man went to help his comrade, Touloure ran up and kicked him in the nuts. He then ran out to the street and hailed a cab. “Good boy,” he thought, looking back at the dog that was still chewing away at the man’s arm.
–
When he climbed in the cab, he sat back with a sigh of relief, telling the driver to head to the airport. He decided to open the silver box and see this legendary diamond in person. He picked the lock easily, “child’s play,” he thought. As the lid opened he smelled the faint scent of a familiar perfume. To his surprise there was only a note from Rosa, his ex-girlfriend, that read, “Looks like you’re second best now.”
