Showdown in Puerto Rico

Spent Christmas Day with Mike Green and some of his friends in Rincon, PR, while Maura was flying a trip in Africa. Left Mike's place about 11:00 am this morning, heading back home to Boqueron, PR. Along the way, two local Puerto Ricans were hitchhiking to Anasco and I stopped and gave them a ride. One guy was decent, but the other guy was too shady for comfort. Suddenly, he wanted out of the car, so I stopped and let him out. The other guy wanted me to go about 100 yards further and let him out. When they were both out, I discovered the shady buy had taken my new HTC EVO smart phone and charger. I was in the middle of a slum that only decades of generous welfare could create. I parked the car, walking through the slum until I saw the shady guy with a hand full of cash. I grabbed him, but he said he didn't have the phone, so I turned him loose and he ran away. By now a crowd was gathered, as I desperately explained in bad Spanish why I was a crazy gringo running into the projects and grabbing one of their friends. Finally, three of them went with me to find the thief. We drove around looking until they got bored and went home. Another guy, stimulated by possible reward money, jumped in and we drove through the town of Anasco again, driving through more slums and looking in the drug-user hideouts. Finally we spotted the thief and I almost pinned him to a house with the front bumper of the car. He took off running and the guy with me jumped out after him. Suffering a recent knee injury, I used the car to follow until the thief was tired, then I jumped out. He saw me running and threw my new phone as hard as he could across the street. The guy with me recovered the phone while I tackled the thief onto the pavement and tried to knock him out by banging his head on the pavement on the way down. He stayed conscious, so I jammed my left thumb into his right eye until he was paralyzed, while I dug the cellphone charger out of his pants pockets. When I got up a big Puerto Rican in a SCUBA wetsuit, a dive knife on his left calf, SCUBA booties on his feet, and an Army Ranger sticker on his car, was holding a Glock pistol on the thief. He handcuffed the thief and asked me to follow him to the police station. Out of six cops, one knew enough English to get my statement. In the meantime, the other cops searched the thief and found cocaine on him. On Tuesday morning, I have to go to the Prosecutor's office in Mayaguez to finish pressing charges. Don't touch my phone.