by Robert Moss
“Wait!” Hossbach cried out.
One of the men who hesitated was felled by a bullet between the shoulder blades. He dropped like a tree under the woodcutter’s axe.
Hossbach was blundering after the others, tripping over roots and fallen branches.
He regained the trail in time to see his horse fly past, with the others stampeding behind. A mestizo on a black horse galloped along at their heels, firing his rifle into the air.
Hossbach took aim and squeezed off a couple of rounds, but the rider flung himself down against his horse’s neck, so the bullets went wide. He aimed for the horse, but the trigger snapped on an empty chamber.
Hossbach swore. His men opened fire as two horsemen came darting out of the woods, but neither of them fell. He watched Johnny and the Englishman racing into the sunset.
“They’re probably headed for Esperanca,” Throat Slitter suggested.
“How far?”
“Fifteen, twenty miles.”
“Is there anywhere we can find horses in this godforsaken jungle?”
The guide rubbed his stubbly chin. “Not unless we catch them ourselves.”
They started walking west, jangling spurs. They had a stroke of luck. They came across a saddleless straggler — a pretty palomino mare — chewing her way through a maté bush. Throat Slitter got a rope round her neck and unwound his Indian belly-belt, a dozen feet of tough, knitted wool that he wore around his waist. He tied one end of the belt around the horse’s neck, just behind the ears, and made a turn around the nose. Gripping the other end, he had an improvised rein.
“I’ll take her,” Hossbach announced.
Throat Slitter gave him a surly look but handed over the rein.
At his first attempt to hoist his bulk up onto the mare’s bare back, Hossback slipped and fell heavily in the dirt. The men laughed.
Throat Slitter vaulted on to the mare’s back and reached out a hand.
“Here. You can ride pillion if you want.”
There was pink murder in Hossbach’s eyes, but he accepted.
5
Maitland was in excellent spirits, although the fisherman had charged him a small fortune to rent out his boat. It was a broken-down tub reeking of bilge water and gutted fish, but the diesel engine seemed serviceable enough. It was the best thing on offer in Esperanca, a huddle of adobe huts with a couple of cantinas on a main street that was a blur of red dust and black flies. If Hossbach managed to follow them that far, he would be hard put to follow them any further in an Indian canoe or a leaky dinghy. On the strength of that, Harry had decided to sail all the way downstream to a point just above the Iguacu Falls, within easy striking distance of their rendezvous at the Paraguayan town of Acarai. He had trailed a couple of lines over the side of the boat. There were dourados in these waters, and nothing in the world tasted better. There were piranhas, too, as he warned Johnny when he stripped off, intending to take a dip.
They had left Inocencio in Esperanca with the horses. Harry had told him to go back to Fox Hill by a different route and alert a friendly officer in the state police that they had been attacked by horse thieves. Here on the frontier, you weren’t forgiven for stealing a man’s horse.
They caught a couple of dourados and cooked them on the primus stove at the end of the day. In the falling light, dark, vertical clouds bristled above the rain forest like spears. Harry could tell that the falls were near, from the swarms of butterflies with vivid black and red wings that danced across their bow. One of them perched above the wheel. When its wings were folded, the pattern resembled the number eight or the symbol of infinity. The falls had a magnetic attraction for these creatures. Harry fancied he could hear the distant thunder of the waters and calculated that they were half an hour, at most, from their landfall.
Johnny was throwing fish bones over the side.
He looked back and said, “We have company.”
Maitland followed the pointing hand and saw the sleek motor launch he had watched through a telescope the day before. The one Inocencio had said belonged to contrabanders. The launch was coming on fast; nothing he had seen on the Parana River would match it. He wondered whether the skipper was making for the same anchorage.
He slapped the side of his cheek. He had forgotten how ferocious the mosquitoes were on the Paraguayan side.
The launch was almost within hailing distance. There were a lot of people on board. Maybe they were pleasure trippers, not smugglers, as Inocencio, with his sour view of human nature, had maintained.
Maitland raised his arm above his head and waved.
The response was less than friendly.
The first shot, from a high-velocity rifle, cracked the glass in the sole surviving window of the wheelhouse, just beside Maitland’s ear. The other bullets flew high or fell short.
Johnny was already hunkered down, sighting along his Winchester, waiting for the launch to get within range. Now they could see Hossbach in his desert tan and Throat Slitter’s red bandanna. Hossbach’s gang must have hijacked the launch at Esperanca, or bought the captain.
Maitland tried to coax more speed out of the engine, till he heard an ominous clanking and the deck started to shudder underfoot. They could never outrun Hossbach’s boat.
He took off his belt and used it to lash the wheel into place. Then he crawled along the deck, close to Johnny, and traded shots with the pursuers. It was hopeless. The launch was almost alongside, and the German had got hold of a Hotchkiss gun. It spat lead across their deck, driving wood splinters into Harry’s legs and hands.
The launch came at them full throttle.
“They’re going to ram!”
Johnny, the sailor, took charge. He yelled to Maitland to cover him and leaped for the wheel. He wrenched the boat around till they were hugging the Paraguayan shore. He saw a jumble of tin-roofed shacks and a sagging jetty — the place where he had intended to land — drift past. Muscovy ducks flapped, squawking, out of the mangroves.
The boat was gathering speed, but for the wrong reason. The current was tugging them along, down to the falls. The crash of the waters blotted out the thrum of the engines. In a few minutes, Johnny realized, he would have to run the boat aground or risk being dragged over the precipice.
Maybe he could lure Hossbach on to a sandbar. The big launch must have a deeper draught than the fishing boat. He veered round to the landward side of an island, into a shallower channel. The launch did not follow. He lost sight of it behind a wilderness of palms and lush tropical plants. The light was fading fast. Everything was indistinct except for the shimmering haze up ahead, the spray from the seething waters of Iguacu.
The island dropped behind, and the launch hurtled at them, shuddering against their hull. Johnny heard a crash behind him. One of Hossbach’s men had flung himself onto the deck. He grabbed the boathook and lashed out with it. He caught the boarder along the side of the jaw and knocked him over the side. He wrestled with the wheel, driving the boat in towards the shore. Their bow scraped against a basalt rock, but the pull of the river was now irresistible. The boat was being swept along like a cork towards the falls. Johnny heard a cry of alarm from the bigger boat.
He called to Maitland, “Jump!” Land was only a few yards away.
But Maitland was struggling with another boarder, lashing out with feet and fists. Hossbach took a blow to his chest but recovered and was after him with a knife, a kind of knife Johnny had only seen once before, in a Fourth Department weapons course. He did not throw the thing, he fired it. As Maitland’s leg shot out again, aiming for the groin, Hossbach released a catch. The razor-sharp blade hissed from its socket and embedded itself deep in Harry’s thigh.
Maitland gasped and fell backwards, so his head was dangling in the river.
Hossbach was scrabbling around among ropes and fishing lines for the Winchester. He glanced up, and his mouth dropped open as he saw Johnny thrusting down at him with the boathook. His last thoughts were lost as the hook tore his throat out.<
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On the other boat they were trying desperately to reverse engines. It was a lost cause. The falls were calling them. “Harry!”
Maitland was trying to draw the knife blade out of his leg. It sliced into his hand, even through the folded handkerchief.
“Leave that! We have to jump now!”
“I don’t think I can.”
There was a stubby promontory ahead, with branches that overhung the river. Johnny snatched up a coil of rope, tied one end around Harry’s waist and twisted the other round his forearm.
He climbed up onto the roof of the wheelhouse. There would only be one chance. None, unless the branch held. “Get to the side!” he shouted down to Maitland.
He saw the black silhouette looming up and flexed his leg muscles, willing himself not to feel the ache in his feet, still swollen from the beatings. He bent at the knees, like a diver.
When he made his leap, he sensed it would fall short. They had taken too much of his strength. His fingertips grazed the branch he was aiming for, and he was falling, into that murderous current. He went under. He came up again, gasping for air. But the river was sucking him down. Then something slammed into his chest. He clutched at it and felt wood — a submerged root, or a tree trunk. It held his weight. He made the rope fast around it and tugged for Harry to follow.
He saw the Englishman fall, rather than jump, off the boat. He pulled him in, hand over hand.
They clawed their way up onto the rocks and watched the two boats, like lovers clasped in a suicide leap, sail over the falls.
6
Johnny pushed open the frosted glass doors of the Casino Acarai. Inside, they were playing a scratchy record of El Ultimo Beso on the phonograph. A pair of short, dumpy Indian girls in bright prints waited for custom at the bar. The raw light favoured neither them nor the peeling walls. Most of the patrons were clustered around the roulette table, slapping down wads of Brazilian, Argentinian and Paraguayan currency which the head croupier accepted imperturbably and distributed between the cash slot and his own pockets. He was a villainous-looking character with a pencil moustache, slicked-down hair and a static, risorius grin.
“How will I know the contact?” Johnny had asked Maitland.
“Bet on twenty-two,” was the answer. “Only on twenty-two. Bet big, and at least three times.”
It was a variation of the old wheeze they had used at the Necrôpolis in Rio.
At that moment Harry was in bed under a mosquito net they had had to acquire for themselves in a dosshouse that styled itself the Hotel Acarai. Johnny had pulled the knife blade out of Harry’s leg with his teeth and bound up the wound as best he could with a handkerchief and a strip off his own shirt. The gash would need stitches, but Maitland refused to trust the local medical profession or to run the risk of attracting curiosity. In the meantime he was numbing the wound — and himself — with liberal shots of a local aguardiente labelled Gotas d’Oro, or Drops of Gold.
Johnny studied the group around the roulette wheel, to see if he could spot Bradbeer’s contact. They were an unpromising bunch: a portly dowager loaded down with flashy jewels and accompanied by an obvious gigolo; a near hysteric who turned away with his hand over his eyes each time they spun the wheel; a clutch of Argentinian sightseers. The head croupier had no fewer than three assistants. Each time he spun the wheel, they all pressed in around it, so that it was all but impossible for the players to see where it jumped.
Johnny squeezed through the crush and handed the croupier a fistful of Brazilian money. He received a small stack of mauve plastic chips. He placed about a third of them on twenty-two.
“Bolas!” the stage villain called, flourishing his croup close to the knuckles of a player who was trying to rearrange the chips he had already deployed.
Johnny didn’t see where the ball landed and didn’t much care.
His chips were whisked away.
He bet again. The winning number this time was thirteen. Nobody had it. The dowager started to blubber — whether because of her losses or because of the way her escort was feeling her up in public, it was impossible to say.
Nobody gave Johnny any sign of recognition.
He placed his remaining chips on the same number. This time, he paid attention as the ball bounced around the rim of the wheel. From his height he could see over the shoulders of the assistant croupier, who was stationed so as to block the patrons’ view. The ball came to rest on twenty-two. It would be worth quite a bit to him, with the stake he had put down. He glanced at his pile of chips and counted eight of them.
“Veinte-ocho,” the stage villain called out.
Johnny waited for them to shell out. Instead, he saw one of the assistants haul away his chips, with all the others.
“Espere—” he burst out.
“Veinte-ocho,” the head croupier repeated, with that permanent leer. “Twenty-eight.”
Johnny peered at the wheel. Sure enough, the ball was resting at twenty-eight. They had moved it.
The other players started spreading their chips. They didn’t know the game was rigged. Or else they knew and didn’t care.
Johnny was disgusted, because there was absolutely nothing he could do. He wasn’t here to make a killing at the tables. Even if he were prepared to make a scene, it could only succeed in getting him arrested; the house had four witnesses to support its story.
He went to find the men’s room. There were slices of lime in the urinal. He watched the steam rise from them and wondered about the contact. Perhaps Bradbeer’s agent hadn’t come that night or hadn’t yet arrived. After all, no time had been set for the meeting.
He had not quite finished when the door opened. A man walked straight to the urinal and started unbuttoning his fly.
“Mr. Maitland, I presume?” he said in excruciating English.
Johnny glanced sideways and met the plaster grin of the croupier who had stolen his money.
The croupier was well connected and evidently well on his way to becoming a very rich man. He supplied Johnny with a new set of papers, a ride to the capital and a seat on a plane bound for Buenos Aires. The plane turned out to be a four-engine French flying boat en route to Paris from Santiago via various South American capitals. The same company, unknowingly, had flown Prestes to Brazil to start his revolution.
Bradbeer met Johnny at the airport. He would have passed for a merchant banker, slightly at sea in his present surroundings.
As they drove into the city, he asked after Maitland, expressed the appropriate concern over his injury and then turned to practical matters. He had laid on a room for Johnny at the Crillόn — damn the expense and all that, Johnny had bloody well earned it. Besides, it was a very decent pub and an easy walk from Bradbeer’s flat. He had reserved a cabin on a British steamship, the Mandalay, leaving for Southampton and points south within the week. Now, would Johnny like to check into the hotel and rest up for a bit, or would he care to stop in at Bradbeer’s place for a drink?
“Where is she?” Johnny demanded coldly.
Bradbeer cleared his throat. “She never made contact,” he said.
“What?”
Bradbeer started to fidget. “She did arrive safely. I looked into that. But you know what the instructions were. She was supposed to initiate contact.”
“You mean she simply disappeared?”
“I imagine she took up with her old gang. I mean—”
“You lost her. Damn you. You lost her.”
“Now, hang on a bit. I didn’t have a hunting license, you know. I couldn’t very well go rattling the cages of the local constabulary either, now could I?”
Johnny sat grimly with his arms folded. He was attacking Bradbeer because Bradbeer was there. It wasn’t this Englishman’s fault.
“It’s still the same place, isn’t it? In the Zona Rosa?”
“You can’t just barge in there,” Bradbeer protested.
“No, of course not,” Johnny agreed, once he had confirmed the address. “We’ll
talk about it after I get some rest.”
Bradbeer looked distinctly relieved when he dropped him at the Crillόn.
The porter affected not to notice that Johnny’s sole luggage consisted of an overnight bag he had picked up in Asunciόn.
He made a brief inspection of his lodgings and found that, on this occasion, the Firm had spared none of the little touches. He had a whole suite to himself, with a patio and a miniature fountain in which a cherub with a serious bladder problem widdled around the clock. There was a bottle of scotch with an ice bucket and two glasses.
The second glass, useless because there was no one to share, enraged him. He picked it up and dashed it against the pink marble of the mantelpiece.
7
“I’ve been waiting for you, Johnny. I’ve been waiting for a very long time.”
The flashing lights of the honky-tonk across the street drew blue and orange bars across her face.
“You look different in glasses.”
She touched the rims defensively with her free hand.
“We’re both older,” she said, keeping the pistol levelled at his chest. “You’re going grey. Keep your hands where I can see them. Higher. That’s better.”
She felt around inside his jacket for the Mauser. She checked the magazine and exchanged his gun for her own, which she tucked under her belt.
“You walked in like a choirboy,” Helene said, with a note of professional reproach.
“Where is she?”
Helene laughed. That hoarse, deep-throated smoker’s laugh, like a frog’s mating call.
“I don’t think you ever understood women, my love. She’s tougher than you. Maybe you picked the wrong one.”
“What are you saying?”
“She told me all of it. Your Englishman in Rio. Your Mr. Bradbeer. How do the Americans say it? She fingered you.”
“May I sit down?”
Helene waved him toward the bed. She sat on the edge of the desk, looking down on him. They were in the Comintern liaison office in the Zona Rosa. Helene had been stationed here since Max had ordered her out of Rio. She had spent the last weeks rescuing boat people from Brazil — the revolution had collapsed completely with the arrest or flight of all its leaders — and waiting for Johnny.
