The slightly amused expression on the official’s face indicated that he had already received information about the big rust bucket anchored beyond the channel. He drew the papers toward him and flipped through them casually. “It will take some time to process these,” he said. “We will probably want to visit your ship. Where is the captain?”
“I am the master of the Rolvaag,” said Britton.
At this the official’s eyebrows shot up. There was a shuffling of feet from the back room of the customs house, and two more officials of indistinct rank came through the door. Heading to the stove, they sat down on a bench beside it.
“You are the captain,” the official said.
“Sí.”
The official grunted, looked down at the papers, casually leafed through them, and looked up at her again. “And you, señor?” he asked, swiveling his gaze to McFarlane.
Glinn spoke. “This is Dr. Widmanstätten, senior scientist. He speaks no Spanish. I am the chief engineer, Eli Ishmael.”
McFarlane felt the official’s gaze linger on him. “Widmanstätten,” the man repeated slowly, as if tasting the name. The two other officials turned to look at him.
McFarlane’s mouth went dry. His face hadn’t been in the Chilean newspapers for at least five years. And he’d had a beard at the time. Nothing to worry about, he told himself. Sweat began to form at his temples.
The Chileans stared at him curiously, as if detecting his agitation with some kind of professional sixth sense.
“No speak Spanish?” the official said to him. His eyes narrowed as he stared.
There was a brief silence. Then, involuntarily, McFarlane blurted out the first thing that came to mind: “Quiero una puta.”
There was sudden laughter from the Chilean officials. “He speaks well enough,” said the man behind the table. McFarlane sat back and licked his lips, exhaling slowly.
Glinn coughed again, a hideous racking cough. “Pardon me,” he said, pulling out a grimy handkerchief, wiping his chin, scattering yellow phlegm with a savage shake, and returning it to his pocket.
The official glanced at the handkerchief, then rubbed his delicate hands together. “I hope you are not coming down with something in this damp climate of ours.”
“It is nothing,” said Glinn. McFarlane looked at him with growing alarm. The man’s eyes were raw and bloodshot: he looked ill.
Britton coughed delicately into her hand. “A cold,” she said. “It’s been going around ship.”
“A mere cold?” asked the official, his eyebrows assuming an uneasy arch.
“Well … ” Britton paused. “Our sick bay is overflowing—”
“It’s nothing serious,” Glinn interrupted, his voice thready with mucus. “Perhaps a touch of influenza. You know what it is like on board ship, everyone confined to small spaces.” He let out a laugh that devolved into another cough. “Speaking of that, we would be delighted to receive you aboard our vessel today or tomorrow, at your convenience.”
“Perhaps that won’t be necessary,” said the official. “Provided these papers are in order.” He leafed through them. “Where is your mining bond?”
With a mighty clearing of the throat, Glinn leaned over the desk and pulled an embossed, sealed set of papers from his jacket. Receiving them with the edges of his fingers, the official scanned the top sheet, then flipped to the next with a jerk of his wrist. He laid the sheets on the worn tabletop.
“I am desolated,” he said with a sad shake of his head. “But this is the wrong form.”
McFarlane saw the other two officials glance covertly at each other.
“It is?” asked Glinn.
There was a sudden change in the room; an air of tense expectation.
“You will need to bring the correct form from Punta Arenas,” the official said. “At that time, I can stamp it approved. Until then, I will hold your passports for safekeeping.”
“It is the correct form,” said Britton, her voice taking a hard edge.
“Let me take care of this.” Glinn spoke to her in English. “I think they want some money.”
Britton flared. “What, they want a bribe?”
Glinn made a suppressing motion with one hand. “Easy.”
McFarlane looked at the two, wondering if what he was seeing between them was real, or an act.
Glinn turned back to the customs official, whose face was wreathed in a false smile. “Perhaps,” Glinn said in Spanish, “we could purchase the correct bond here?”
“It is a possibility,” said the official. “They are expensive.”
With a loud sniff, Glinn hefted his briefcase and laid it on the table. Despite its dirty, scuffed appearance, the officials glanced at it with ill-concealed anticipation. Glinn flicked open the latches and raised the top, pretending to hide its contents from the Chileans. Inside were more papers and a dozen bundles of American twenties, held together by rubber bands. Glinn removed half of the bundles and laid them on the table. “Will that take care of it?” he asked.
The official smiled and settled back in his chair, making a tent of his fingers. “I’m afraid not, señor. Mining bonds are expensive.” His eyes were fastidiously averted from the open briefcase.
“How much, then?”
The official pretended to do a quick mental calculation. “Twice that amount should be sufficient.”
There was a silence. Then, wordlessly, Glinn reached into the briefcase, removed the rest of the bundles, and placed them on the table.
To McFarlane, it was as if the tense atmosphere had suddenly dissipated. The official at the table gathered up the money. Britton looked annoyed but resigned. The two officials sitting on the bench beside the stove were smiling widely. The only exception was a new arrival; a striking figure who had slipped in from the back room at some point during the negotiation and was now standing in the doorway. He was a tall man with a brown face as sharp as a knife, keen black eyes, thick eyebrows, and pointed ears that gave him an intense, almost Mephistophelean aura. He wore a clean but faded Chilean naval uniform with a bit of gold thread on the shoulders. McFarlane noted that, while the man’s left arm lay at his side with military rigidity, the right was held horizontally across his stomach, its atrophied hand curled into an involuntary brown comma. The man looked at the officials, at Glinn, at the money on the table, and his lips curled into a faint smile of contempt.
The stacks of money had now been gathered into four piles. “What about a receipt?” asked Britton.
“Unfortunately, that is not our way … ” The customs official spread his hands with another smile. Moving back quickly, he slipped one of the piles of money into his desk, then handed two of the other piles to the men on the bench. “For safekeeping,” he said to Glinn. Finally, the official picked up the remaining pile and offered it to the uniformed man. The man, who had been peering closely at McFarlane, crossed his good hand over the bad but made no gesture for the money. The official held it there for a moment, and then spoke to him in a rapid undertone.
“Nada,” answered the uniformed man in a loud voice. Then he stepped forward and turned to the group, his eyes glittering with hatred. “You Americans think you can buy everything,” he said in clear, uninflected English. “You cannot. I am not like these corrupt officials. Keep your money.”
The customs official spoke sharply, waggling the wad of bills at him. “You will take it, fool.”
There was a distinct click as Glinn carefully closed his briefcase.
“No,” said the uniformed man, switching to Spanish. “This is a farce, and all of you know it. We are being robbed.” He spat toward the stove. In the dread silence that followed, McFarlane clearly heard the smack and sizzle as the gobbet hit the hot iron.
“Robbed?” the official asked. “How do you mean?”
“You think Americans would come down here to mine iron?” the man said. “Then you are the fool. They are here for something else.”
“Tell me, wise Comandante, why they are h
ere.”
“There is no iron ore on Isla Desolación. They can only be here for one thing. Gold.”
After a pause, the official began to laugh—a low-throated, mirthless laugh. He turned to Glinn. “Gold?” he said, a little more sharply than before. “Is that why you are here? To steal gold from Chile?”
McFarlane glanced at Glinn. To his great dismay, he saw a look of guilt and naked fear writ large across Glinn’s face; enough to arouse suspicion in even the dullest official.
“We are here to mine iron ore,” Glinn said, in a singularly unconvincing way.
“I must inform you that a gold mining bond will be much more expensive,” said the official.
“But we are here to mine iron ore.”
“Come, come,” said the official. “Let us speak frankly to each other and not create unnecessary trouble. This story of iron … ” He smiled knowingly.
There was a long, expectant silence. Then Glinn broke it with another cough. “Under the circumstances, perhaps a royalty might be in order. Provided that all paperwork is taken care of expeditiously.”
The official waited. Again Glinn opened the briefcase. He removed the papers and placed them in his pocket. Then he ran his hands across the base of the now-empty briefcase, as if searching for something. There was a muffled click and a false bottom sprang loose. A yellow radiance emerged, reflecting off the official’s surprised face.
“Madre de dios,” the man whispered.
“This is for you—and your associates—now,” said Glinn. “On our disembarkation, when we clear customs—if all has gone well—you will receive twice that amount. Of course, if false rumors of a gold strike on Isla Desolación get back to Punta Arenas, or if we receive unwelcome visitors, we won’t be able to complete our mining operation. You will receive nothing more.” He sneezed unexpectedly, spraying the back of the case with saliva.
The official hastily shut it. “Yes, yes. Everything will be taken care of.”
The Chilean comandante responded savagely. “Look at the lot of you, like dogs sniffing around a bitch in heat.”
The two officials rose from the bench and approached him, murmuring urgently and gesturing toward the briefcase. But the comandante broke free. “I am ashamed to be in the same room. You would sell your own mothers.”
The customs official turned in his seat and stared behind him. “I think you had better return to your vessel, Comandante Vallenar,” he said icily.
The uniformed man glared at each person in the room in turn. Then, erect and silent, he walked around the table and out the door, leaving it to bang in the wind.
“What of him?” Glinn asked.
“You must forgive Comandante Vallenar,” the official said, reaching into another drawer and pulling out some papers and an official stamp. He inked the stamp, then quickly impressed the papers, seemingly anxious to have the visitors gone. “He is an idealist in a land of pragmatists. But he is nothing. There will be no rumors, no interruption of your work. You have my word.” He handed the papers and the passports back across the desk.
Glinn took them and turned to go, then hesitated. “One other thing. We have hired a man named John Puppup. Do you have any idea where we might find him?”
“Puppup?” The official was clearly startled. “That old man? Whatever for?”
“It was represented to us that he has an intimate knowledge of the Cape Horn islands.”
“I cannot imagine who told you such a thing. Unfortunately for you, he received money from somewhere a few days ago. And that means only one thing. I would try El Picoroco first. On Callejon Barranca.” The official rose, flashing his gilded smile. “I wish you luck finding iron on Isla Desolación.”
Puerto Williams,
11:45 A.M.
LEAVING THE customs office, they turned inland and began climbing the hill toward the Barrio de los Indios. The graded dirt road quickly gave way to a mixture of snow and icy mud. Wooden corduroys had been placed stairwise along the makeshift track to hold back erosion. The small houses lining the path were a ragtag assortment made with unmatched lumber, surrounded by crude wooden fences. A group of children followed the strangers, giggling and pointing. A donkey carrying an enormous faggot of wood passed them on the way downhill, almost jostling McFarlane into a puddle. He regained his balance with a backward curse.
“Exactly how much of that little dog-and-pony show was planned?” he asked Glinn in a low tone.
“All except for Comandante Vallenar. And your little outburst. Unscripted, but successful.”
“Successful? Now they think we’re illegally mining gold. I would call it a disaster.”
Glinn smiled indulgently. “It couldn’t have gone better. If they gave it some thought, they would never believe that an American company would send an ore carrier to the ends of the earth to mine iron. Comandante Vallenar’s flare-up was well timed. It saved me from having to plant the idea in their heads myself.”
McFarlane shook his head. “Think of the rumors it will start.”
“There already are rumors. The amount of gold we gave them will shut them up for life. Now our good customs people are going to scotch those rumors and order the island out of bounds. They’re much more suited for the job than we are. And they have excellent incentive to do it.”
“What about that comandante?” asked Britton. “He didn’t look like he was getting with the program.”
“Not everyone can be bribed. Fortunately, he has no power or credibility. The only naval officers who end up down here are the ones that have been convicted of crimes or disgraced in one way or another. Those customs officials will be extremely anxious to keep him in line. That will undoubtedly mean a payoff to the commanding officer of the naval base. We gave those officials more than enough to go around.” Glinn pursed his lips. “Still, we should learn a little more about this Comandante Vallenar.”
They stepped over a runnel of soapy water as the grade lessened. Glinn asked directions of a passerby, and they turned off into a narrow side street. A dirty noon mist was settling on the village, and along with it came a hard freezing of the damp air. A dead mastiff lay swollen in the gutter. McFarlane breathed in the smell of fish and raw earth, noticed the flimsy wooden tienda advertising Fanta and local beers, and was irresistibly brought back five years in time. After twice trying unsuccessfully to cross into Argentina, burdened by the Atacama tektites, he and Nestor Masangkay had ended up crossing into Bolivia near the town of Ancuaque: so unlike this town in appearance, and yet so like it in spirit.
Glinn came to a halt. At the end of the alley before them was a sagging, red-shingled building. A blue bulb blinked above a sign that read EL PICOROCO. CERVEZA MAS FINA. From an open door beneath, the faint throb of ranchera music spilled into the street.
“I think I’m beginning to understand some of your methods,” said McFarlane. “What was that the customs man said about somebody sending Puppup money? Was that you, by any chance?”
Glinn inclined his head but did not speak.
“I think I’ll wait out here,” said Britton.
McFarlane followed Glinn past the door and into a dim space. He saw a scuffed bar made out of deal, several wooden tables covered with bottle rings, and an English dartboard, its wire numbers blackened with tar and soot. The smoke-laden air tasted as if it had hung there for years. The bartender straightened up as they walked in, and the level of conversation dropped as the few patrons turned to stare at the newcomers.
Glinn sidled up the bar and ordered two beers. The bartender brought them over, warm and dripping with foam.
“We are looking for Señor Puppup,” said Glinn.
“Puppup?” The bartender broke into a broad, scant-toothed grin. “He is in the back.”
They followed the man through a beaded curtain, into a little snug with a private table and an empty bottle of Dewar’s. Stretched out on a bench along the wall was a skinny old man in indescribably dirty clothes. A pair of wispy Fu Manchu–style mustaches droo
ped from his upper lip. A thrumcap that looked like it had been sewn together from bits of old rags had slid from his head to the bench.
“Sleeping or drunk?” asked Glinn.
The bartender roared with laughter. “Both.”
“When will he be sober?”
The man leaned down, rummaged through Puppup’s pockets, and pulled out a small wad of dirty bills. He counted them, then shoved them back.
“He will be sober on Tuesday next.”
“But he has been hired by our vessel.”
The bartender laughed again, more cynically.
Glinn thought a moment, or at least gave the appearance of doing so. “We have orders to bring him on board. May I trouble you for the hire of two of your customers to help us?”
The bartender nodded and walked back to the bar, returning with two burly men. A few words were spoken, money was exchanged, and the two lifted Puppup from the bench and slung his arms around their shoulders. His head lolled forward. In their grasp, he looked as light and fragile as a dry leaf.
McFarlane took a deep, grateful breath of air as they stepped outside. It stank, but it was better than the stale atmosphere of the bar. Britton, who had been standing in the shadows on a far corner, came forward. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of Puppup.
“He’s not much to look at now,” Glinn said. “But he’ll make an excellent harbor pilot. He’s been traversing the waters of the Cape Horn islands by canoe for fifty years; he knows all the currents, winds, weather, reefs, and tides.”
Britton raised her eyebrows. “This old man?”
Glinn nodded. “As I told Lloyd this morning, he’s half Yaghan. They were the original inhabitants of the Cape Horn islands. He’s practically the last one left who knows the language, songs, and legends. He spends most of his time roaming the islands, living off shellfish, plants, and roots. If you asked him, he’d probably tell you the Cape Horn islands are his.”
“How picturesque,” said McFarlane.
Glinn turned to McFarlane. “Yes. And he also happens to be the one who found your partner’s body.”
The Ice Limit Page 13
