The Curse of the Lost White City

by James Gray

  “How safe is it?”

  “Sure, very safe. This is Canada, remember. It’s as corrupt as anywhere else, Mr. Fortin, and as you probably know, human nature is the same all over the world. We Russians are champions in this department.” He paused for a gulp of coffee. “A man in my trade must be creative and a little careful at times, especially when doing business in the United States. That’s why I like to work here in Canada. It’s much easier. Canadians are a lot like Russians. In fact, I sometimes deal with a Canadian fellow down there, a real cowboy. I have exclusive access to some very nice pieces from a newly discovered site.”

  “Where would that be?” I asked casually.

  “It’s a small world, Mr. Fortin; these are trade secrets.”

  At that moment a kitsch Russian-style yo ho heave ho ringtone emanated from his pocket. The Russian retrieved his cell phone, excused himself and disappeared into a bedroom. He shut the door and ran the water to drown out the sound of his conversation.

  Eddy looked at me and winked. Boris Gulkin was cool; he seemed to know what he was talking about. Moments later, Gulkin came out and excused himself again.

  “Business, business, business. It’s amazing how many clients I have in this little city. Believe it or not, I have some who work in the government.” The phone rang again and he left the room for a minute. When he returned, he seemed preoccupied and pressed to end our meeting. He discretely closed the cover of his PC.

  “So, my dear sirs, you call me when you’re ready to place an order. Da. After selecting, you can deposit 25 percent of value up front. When the goods are delivered to your home, and when you’re certain that your wife loves you more, just deposit the rest in my account, and then, comrades, the deal is done.”

  “Very good, Mister Gulkin, I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

  “I understand, but don’t wait too long. Presently, I can deliver within thirty days. Waiting is not good for people in hurry like you, Mr. Fortin. Your wife won’t be pleased. I am here for another four days.”

  In the elevator, I said, “Nice stuff, Eddy, our first scene is in the can.” We shook hands, heartily congratulating each other for our fine performance. That evening, Eddy and I screened the sequence shot with the mini-cam. It was far from perfect, but it did the job.

  “Do you think he was suspicious?” I mused.

  “Sure, but he has no fear of getting busted and absolutely no scruples. He could probably sell ice to an Inuit. Peddling articles robbed from prehistoric Mayan sites means nothing to him.”

  The next day, Eddy returned the spy camera to the rental house and took the bus to Montreal where he had a meeting scheduled with a possible partner. Late that afternoon, I walked over to the local bank, rented a safety deposit box and placed the footage of our Château Frontenac scene inside.

  That evening, the phone rang while I was finishing a dried-out slice of leftover pizza. “Hey, Jacques Legris,” Eddy said. “I have good news. The Native Television Network wants to get involved. They like our synopsis; I signed an agreement with them yesterday. We’ll have some money to work with — not much, but enough to get started.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No, for once I’m serious. I have all the production equipment we need to shoot and edit so we won’t have to rent a thing. The rest of the financing will follow as we proceed.”

  “Hey, you’re one hot producer, my friend! We’ll celebrate when you get back to town.”

  “There’s only one hitch.”

  “There’s always only one, go ahead.”

  “They want you as the guy in front of the camera.”

  “There’s no way I’m going to return to being in front of the camera. It would be a step backwards for me.”

  “Ha, I got you there. I am kidding this time. They asked for a Native person on camera and I think it’s a good idea.”

  “Sure, it could be a real plus. Does the Native Television Network pay well?”

  “Enough to do the film. And I have the rights to sell it in any other country that I want.”

  We were finally in business.

  It was late spring by the time Eddy finally finished the tedious job of locking off the contracts with the film’s financers. Most of that had taken place in Montreal. The day that he showed up at my flat in Québec City he looked a little dishevelled but happy to be ready to begin the next step. It didn’t take long before we shifted into high gear and began to turn our ideas into reality. We started by making lists, lists for everything: equipment for the boat, freeze-dried foods, sauces, a new inflatable dingy, an outboard, tools and spare parts, a repaired sail, emergency flares, rope, pots, pans, snakebite antidote and a whole slew of medical supplies. Eddy made another trip to Montreal to meet with the Native Network people. They had become hesitant. The synopsis that we had written still wasn’t what they had in mind. There wasn’t enough Canadian content to satisfy their criteria and Eddy was getting nervous.

  “If they pull out at the last minute, I’m up to my neck in smelly brown stuff,” he said over the phone.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” was all I could say.

  There was a short silence while we thought.

  “What about our on-camera Native? Have you thought of anyone?”

  “That’s the other problem. I asked Fred. But he won’t go. He hates the tropics.”

  “Too bad. He’d be perfect. Hey, what about Zach?”

  “Zach is still up at Lac Chicomo with his new girlfriend. He won’t be back for a while, you can bet on that.” Eddy scanned through his mental repertoire. “Hmmm, Cowboy George would be pretty good. He was with us when we made the film Pakatan.”

  “Is he the guy who snored like a diesel?”

  “Yep, he’s the guy. We made him sleep outside under a canoe. Cowboy George is crazy enough; he’ll do just about anything. He also worked for the community TV station in Maliotenam for a few years.”

  “Good. He’s got some experience. What’s he doing these days?”

  “He went back to the land. Now he lives up near La Romaine on the Lower North Shore. He has his trap lines up there.”

  “I guess he got tired of working for that television station.”

  “Yeah, all they wanted was hard-luck stories like snowmobile accidents, cigarette smuggling and barricades on Route 138. He told me that he quit because he just needed some air. He loves that kind of life up there, but he also likes working with a camera crew. But Cowboy George is … well, you never really know what’s on his mind.”

  “Do you think that this project might interest him?”

  “I could always try to find out. I just hope that he’s not too far north. If he agrees to come with us, we can team him up with a local Miskito Indian, and they can exchange stories about their people and traditional ways, things that they have in common.”

  All we had to do was locate the guy and convince him to join our adventure. Eddy was the right guy to convince him. He was a good salesman; in fact, he could probably sell snow to an Inuit.

  We spent another few days between Belley’s Pub and my place organizing every detail. Our plan was this: After my boat was back in the water, I was to meet Eddy and our “Canadian content” somewhere in the Bay Islands. We would then sail southeast to the Mosquito Coast, find a place to leave Numada, and somehow venture inland in search of Ciudad Blanca. There was only one slight problem: We still weren’t sure exactly where we were going.

  After Eddy left, I wandered up Rue des Remparts to Dufferin Terrace. The long boardwalk stretched out just in front of the Château Frontenac. The weather had warmed a little and spring was finally in the air. As I strolled along the wooden terrace, I lingered to watch various street artists. A fire-eater, dog acts, jugglers and a tightrope walker playing a slide trombone, they were all preparing for the next summer’s tourists.

  Leaving the noise behind, I climbed the long flight of stairs to Rue Saint Denis. I hiked across the grassy field and climbed another hill,
finally resting beside the Citadelle de Québec, the highest point of Cap Diamond. The air was fresh and the smell of lilacs divine. I stretched out on the grass and looked down on the silver strip of the Saint Lawrence River. A container ship was leaving the narrows, heading downstream toward the Atlantic. Behind its massive moving form, I saw the faint outline of a few sailboats ghosting along in the fading light, their white sails hanging almost listlessly.

  We needed someone who knew La Mosquitia and finding the right person wasn’t going to be easy. What’s more, there was always the slight possibility that news of our expedition would reach the wrong ears. If that ever happened, we wouldn’t have to worry about a distributor, Canadian content or anything else. It would be game over.

  BACK FOR MORE …

  The Chief had a talent for showing up at the right time. I knew who it was the moment I heard heavy footsteps coming up the wooden stairs that led to my flat. As I opened the door, he dropped his heavy sea bag on the landing. He was dressed in jeans and a light blue short-sleeved shirt. He looked like he had just stepped off the ship.

  “Man, am I glad my contract is over,” he said, puffing for air as he pushed the bag aside with one foot. “Too much engine room time. I’m really out of shape.”

  He looked me up and down. “But you, you certain look a lot better since the last time I saw you.”

  “Yeah, but I’m still far from being back to normal. Come on in, let’s talk.” I closed the door behind him.

  As we sat together in my loft sipping coffee, I filled him in on the latest developments. Then I called the base commander in Puerto Cortés to say that we would be on the way soon.

  The Chief and I left a few days later on a flight to the very place from which I had escaped by the skin of my teeth only a few months earlier. Sitting at thirty thousand feet, I could only wonder what awaited us down in Puerto Cortés. What kind of shape would my boat be in? Had Mario kept his promise to finish the welding job? And what had become of Ben, the philosopher? And there was Dog Barker. And Valeska. Why hadn’t she answered my emails or phone calls?

  It was almost dark when our battered taxi stopped in front of the guardhouse at the naval base. Luckily, one of the soldiers on duty recognized me. Without any of the normal protocol, he swung open the heavy steel barrier and waved us in. Once inside the compound, I guided the driver around the back of a long warehouse and we cautiously entered the shipyard, weaving through the maze of dry-docked hulls. There were still a dozen odd transient sailboats in for repairs, along with the same tired-looking military vessels that had been there for years. We passed Choice, Ben’s boat, but German Joe’s steel ketch Libertade was gone. He must have finally finished off his repairs and set sail for his world cruise. Strangely enough, there was a large gap where Numada had once been. A lot of my material was scattered around in the manner of a garage sale. “A twenty-ton schooner can’t just disappear, Chief.”

  “I think you have a slight problem, my friend. So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Just keep looking.”

  We swung around the big travel lift and stopped. At the far end, in the shadow of a large military gunship, was Numada. The new plates underneath the hull were welded in place and ready for final touches of paint. Mario had come through.

  The Chief and I moved on board that night and put a little order back inside. The next morning, while we set up shop, a few yard workers sauntered over, looking surprised to see me. Rumors had been flying; some thought I’d been shot, others thought I’d been killed in a wreck, and others speculated that I had ended up in jail. No one had the right version, not even the naval base commander — whose face brightened when I coughed up the rest of money that I owed for the back rent.

  Later that week, the schooner’s diesel engine arrived from the shop. The crane lifted it up slowly and then, ever so carefully, we guided it to its place at the bottom of the spotless engine room. The engine still needed a new cooler, but we had a plan. Ben had once told me that one of the hulls in the boat cemetery at the far end of the yard had a Perkins just like mine and it was just waiting for someone to help himself. That night, while I stood guard in the shadows, the Chief snuck on board with a small backpack of tools and a headlight. Pulling a cooler off an engine abandoned in the dark entrails of a rusted-out hulk was nobody’s idea of fun. Standing watch wasn’t a picnic either. Twice, armed guards walked very close to the Chief, but I kept them busy looking the other way. When the Chief was finished, he let out a weird night-owl hoot. When it was safe for him to come out, I responded in kind. I finally saw him appear from the shadows, followed by a bucket of parts attached to a rope. He lowered it over the side, then he carefully climbed down the precarious wooden scaffolding positioned alongside the abandoned hull.

  “A piece of cake,” the Chief whispered as he hit the cement. All we had to do now was replace the worn-out parts of my own engine with the ones we had liberated from the abandoned sailboat next door. The next day, after six hours of intense open-heart surgery, Numada’s Perkins came to life.

  “It’s purring like a big, happy cat.” The Chief grinned, wiping his sweat with a cloth.

  “I owe you, Chief.”

  “You don’t owe me a thing. Just hearing that thing run again is compensation enough.”

  Over the next few days, the far end of the shipyard came to life. Although it was the weekend, most of the regulars drifted by, curious to see what Numada’s captain and crew were up to. As the Chief began work on the rudder shaft under the hot sun, I organized the upcoming jobs with the yard boss. Once the sandblasting was completed, a swing gang took over with their compressors to cover the hull with the “champagne” of primer paint. We labored under the blistering sun, taking turns cooling off under the water hose. Without complaint, everyone worked despite suffocating heat that pressed down on our heads like some invisible giant’s hand.

  Despite the work, I was obsessed with Valeska. I just couldn’t stop thinking about her. Where had she gone? Why was she not communicating?

  Late one extra-hot afternoon, while Mario and his crew were finishing up the last of their welding jobs, I took a break to cool off. “Chief, I’m going to swim out to that wreck over there. It’s been intriguing me for months. Want to join me?”

  “Are you crazy? You know I can’t swim.”

  “Just being polite,” I said. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

  Feeling a little guilty, I stripped to my underwear, grabbed my mask and fins, jumped off the dock into the soothing Caribbean Sea and began to swim out to the half-sunken military ship a few hundred yards offshore. Halfway out, my arm reminded me that it hadn’t mended completely, and I had to take a break. There was still a dull pain shooting up to my shoulder and telling me to take it easy. On the windward side of the rusted hulk, the deck was almost the same level as the sea. Normally, it would have been an easy climb up, but even that was a strain on my body. I was far from being back in shape. Finally, with the help of a gentle wave, I was lifted on board and crawled up the rest of the way to a dry spot where I could stand and take a look around.

  The ship was an American World War II coastal supply boat that had once sailed the South Pacific. After the war, it had been given to the Honduran Navy, which used it to patrol the Caribbean coast of Honduras. Why it had been abandoned and sunk in front of the naval base was anybody’s guess.

  Gingerly, I made my way across the slippery deck and entered what seemed like the crew quarters. Everything above the waterline had been savagely stripped, but there were still lots of remnants that were hard to erase. After a short time, I began to feel like I was intruding. Strangely, ever since I had seen her lying there, the ship had been working on my curiosity. It had something to tell me; unlike corpses, dead ships can tell tales.

  I found a narrow stairway leading to another deck and visited the officer’s quarters. There was part of a chair, a cracked porcelain sink, and a few dog-eared paperbacks scattered on a small table. In a corner, a mo
th-eaten T-shirt hung on a hook. On the floor under an open port light, a pair of cracked old rubber boots leaned to one side. Further down the narrow hall was the galley, a section that once had been the heart of the ship and the center of the universe for those who sailed her. Here, the boys would have met for a meal or a cigarette and stories. Up one more flight of stairs was the bridge. There wasn’t much left there; even the wheel had been disrespectfully removed from its place. Some graffiti was scratched on the bulkhead, and a very used New York Yankee’s cap sat on an empty shelf.

  I spotted a few old charts in a half-open drawer beneath the chart table. I pulled one out and placed it on the table. The chart had all but faded and was stained with fingerprints and coffee, but I could make out the Mosquito Coast and the date 1953 stamped in the lower corner. That gave me an idea how long the boat had been around. It also got me thinking about the Ciudad Blanca.

  How easy it would be to sail down the coast, leave my schooner and hire a few guides with river canoes to go up a river to try to find the ruins. But how to find that place’s exact whereabouts without drawing undue attention? Up to now, we had absolutely no real leads as to the Ciudad Blanca’s whereabouts, and as time slipped by, I was beginning to think that perhaps the lost city really was a lost cause. I rolled up the chart and swam back to shore with it. Once dried, perhaps that ragged old piece of paper would come in handy.

  A few days later, the Chief and I sat drinking water and trying to keep cool in the shade under the hull while we watched a crew work on a construction nearby. They had come with their wives, kids and a boatload of material all the way from a small settlement called Barra Patuca, on the Mosquito Coast.

  The little clan had been at the yard for over a month. They were building a new fishing boat from recycled steel plate they’d pulled from a wreck near their village. While the men cut and welded, the women took care of the kids, did laundry and cooked. They had set up camp in the scrapyard behind their work site. The only luxury that they had was a leaky garden hose supplying fresh water. No one complained; they just worked like dogs to finish the boat for the upcoming fishing season. Despite the primitive setup and difficult living conditions, they were in the process of making a fairly nice boat, which fascinated the Chief to no end.