Isle of the Snakes

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  Jorge closed his eyes and then opened them for one second. “Just keep quiet,” he said darkly.

  Luis closed his mouth and sank back. So Jorge had taken care of Da Silva last night, eh? He really had courage, the little one! A captain of police! He glanced over at the small, vicious profile admiringly. We’ll find it, he thought; when Jorge wants something badly enough, he always gets it!

  FIVE

  Old taxicabs excite no undue notice in Brazil; there are no other kind. The one which Captain Da Silva was driving appeared in all respects like its shabby counterparts; the wrinkled fenders, bad paint job, fogged windshield, torn upholstery, and rusted body would have earned it a fraternal place in any taxicab line in any Praça in any city in the country.

  But there were several differences. The horn ring, for example, contained a powerful short-wave broadcaster; the receiver was set in a standard car-radio frame mounted haphazardly beneath the dashboard. The warped glove compartment concealed a combination safe that would have defied all but the best of box men, and any box man capable of opening it would have found, instead of the usual dog-eared documents, or cleaning rags, or expired insurance papers, a simple package containing, of all things, the body of a small dead snake nested in a pool of sawdust.

  A mechanic would also have been properly amazed had he a chance to examine the engine beneath the crumpled hood. At one time, faced with a choice of extracting maximum speed from the car or probably winding up dead in a ditch, Da Silva had coaxed it up to 128 miles per hour. The innocent-looking windshield was bulletproof, as were the scratched panels that made up the body. Even the license plates were deceptive, for they announced the cab as coming from Paraná; a set for each of the other states was stored in the trunk.

  The general misrepresentation extended to the passengers. Da Silva, seated behind the wheel, was carelessly attired in a leather boné, that tiny cap prescribed by law for all cab drivers, a tan shirt properly grease-stained and sporting his driving documents well visible poking from one pocket, trousers that gave evidence of many months in constant friction against seat covers, and shoes that were wrinkled but clean. Wilson, at his side, was as standard as the movies could make people believe American tourists were standard: his open-necked sport shirt exhibited purple poinsettias against a vivid tropical background of red ferns and green fish; and while he had insisted that he couldn’t see five feet through the dark glasses he wore, Da Silva had been adamant. He wore Italian-silk trousers and two-tone shoes over his normal solid-gray socks. The socks were the one things he had refused to change; the ones Da Silva had delivered, he insisted, would have hurt his feet. Two fishing rods stuck out of the slightly opened rear window; one was properly expensive, while the worn rings of bamboo on the other shamefacedly admitted it belonged to the driver.

  It was a bit after one in the afternoon. They had lunched sensibly, economically, and antiseptically on hard-boiled eggs and bottled beer while the car was being filled with gasoline. (The attendant had been a bit perturbed to find this standard model he was servicing consumed some thirty-seven gallons of gasoline; his first thought was that it was running out of some leak as fast as he was pumping it in, but Da Silva assured him this was not the case. “An extra tank,” he told the driver easily. “Gas stations are few and far between in the western part of Paraná.”) Now, off the main Dutra Highway and winding down the hard-packed sand road that curled about, seeking the foot of the serra, Wilson broke a long silence.

  “Did you let your office know where you were going?” he asked idly.

  “I told them I was going down to Urubuapá,” Da Silva said. “I didn’t give them any of the details.” He looked over at Wilson. “Why?”

  But Wilson was already off on another flight of thought. “Zé,” he said, “you amaze me.”

  “I do?” Da Silva shrugged. His peaked boné was pushed back over his curly hair; he had trimmed his mustache to a more taxi-driver shape and looked years younger as a result.

  “You do,” Wilson said positively. “For several reasons. First of all, after all you’ve told me, and all that’s happened, when you picked me up this morning you didn’t even look at the snake. You just shoved it into the glove compartment and off we went. I should think you would have taken it apart to find out the secret.”

  “Why?” Da Silva asked innocently. “I know what the secret is. Don’t you?”

  “I know what you probably think it is. A map, of course.”

  Da Silva removed his strong hands from the steering wheel long enough to spread them expressively. “Wilson, that’s sheer brilliance!”

  Wilson stared at the sharp profile with admiration. “You’re wonderful! Marvelous! You mean to say you didn’t even want to verify it?”

  Da Silva grinned. “To tell you the truth, I’m a little afraid to. If I’m wrong, and that miserable little serpent doesn’t have a mark on it, I’ll probably cut my throat!”

  “Fabulous!” Wilson shook his head. “And how long are you going to tease yourself by maintaining this quixotic, not to say ridiculous, attitude?”

  “Until we’re locked up safe and sound in our hotel room tonight,” Da Silva said, his voice quite serious. He glanced at his wrist watch. “Right now I want to get down to São Clemente before dark. I don’t like driving these roads at night, not even in this job. And also, that way we can get a reasonably early start and be in Urubuapá before noon.” He glanced over at Wilson curiously. “You said several things amazed you. What else?”

  Wilson waited as they negotiated an extremely sharp turn in the road; the rutted sand path dropped from beneath them and they rolled recklessly into a narrow hollow and out of it. The rise brought them beyond the fringe of towering eucalyptus that had been accompanying their winding way; now the ocean could be seen far below in the distance. To the left, high above them in the cloudless sky, a group of circling vultures sought carrion in the vast emptiness of the wooded hills. Wilson chose his words carefully.

  “Well,” he said at last, “to be honest, I don’t know what you are doing in this business in the first place. Or what I’m doing letting you drag me in with you. This certainly isn’t Interpol business. Four people killed, it’s true, but they were all nationals. Everyone involved is a Brazilian. That’s a pure case for Rio Homicide, and you don’t work for Rio Homicide.”

  “You sound like my boss,” Da Silva said. “Anyway, I’ve got a hunch.”

  “Don’t be smug.” Wilson was short.

  “And remember the involvement of the American, William Drury.” Da Silva paused and then corrected himself. “Or maybe it would be more accurate to say the Scotsman.”

  “And don’t be comical. You’re just irritated because they blew up your pretty Jaguar and almost blew you up with it. Zé, you’ve been in police work long enough to know it can’t be a matter of satisfying a personal vendetta.”

  Da Silva shook his head stubbornly. “You’re overlooking too many things. Forget the four dead men.” His expression indicated that he, personally, was not forgetting them. “Of course that’s a case for Rio Homicide. But just think about that snake for a minute. We’re both agreed that it carries some message, most probably a map, or directions of some sort.” The road dropped precipitously; he shifted into second without breaking into his discourse.

  “Now consider this for a minute. Urubuapá is a small, isolated fishing village with decent dock facilities. It’s a place where strangers excite no great notice. It’s a place where a fast yacht could come in and tie up and nobody would think a thing of it. It’s a place where people come to spend vacations on any one of the small islands off the shore, and nobody asks them questions. A place, in addition, with access to any place in the world. Doesn’t that combination strike some chord in that unimaginative Yankee brain of yours? Doesn’t it?”

  “Of course,” Wilson said. “Smuggling.” But still he sat a bit straighter and stared at his friend. “Just when did this idea hit you?”

  “Right now,”
Da Silva admitted. He grinned. “I’m slow—what can I do? You bring out the best in me.”

  “And you bring out the worst in me,” Wilson said sourly. “Anyway,” he added, slumping down in the seat again, “smuggling still doesn’t necessarily come under your jurisdiction. That’s a problem for the port police and customs.”

  “It’s a problem for all police officers,” Da Silva said righteously. “Just suppose that pretty girls are being brought in on a slave ship to work clandestinely in the hat-check rooms of São Paulo night clubs. No passports, of course. Now, you certainly would admit that would be a job for Interpol.”

  “You’re so right,” Wilson said. “Tonight we shall unwind your little snake, find a map, trace it to its source in the deep jungle, and find a hut where pretty girls are being hidden!”

  Da Silva winked at him solemnly. “All we can do is hope,” he said unctuously.

  Wilson snorted.

  But once they were in Da Silva’s room that night, with the door locked and the shades drawn, they were both quite serious as the tall Brazilian detective took the broken package from his suitcase. He shook the small serpent loose from the box and shoved the coverings and sawdust to one side. Wilson sat hunched over the desk on which they were working, his face without expression, his eyes fixed on the small striped form. The snake stared back at them unwinkingly, as if resigned to these two continuously probing its interior.

  Da Silva took a small camel’s-hair brush from his kit and delicately brushed the remnants of sawdust from the outer skin. He flipped the snake over and used the fingers of one hand to spread the thin skin open against its tendency to curl; this time he brushed even slower and more delicately. With the sawdust away, they bent closer. Wilson pulled the desk lamp over; under the increased light tiny lines became visible on the almost transparent skin.

  “It’s there!”

  Da Silva nodded abruptly and took a lens from his kit. Holding it above the faint markings, he studied them intently. Wilson waited impatiently; Da Silva was frowning.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Da Silva straightened up, still frowning. “It’s a map, all right.” He handed the glass to Wilson and the American bent down to peer at the fine lines. Under the glass they became clear, the minute symbols became legible. It was a masterpiece of miniature draftsmanship. He handed the glass back to Da Silva and smiled.

  “Well,” he said, “we’re that much closer.”

  But Da Silva still frowned. “Are we?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Da Silva stared at the snake, his face expressionless. “It’s a good map, but of what? Is it a part of the mainland, and if so, where? Is it a part of an island, and if so, which?” He bent over the snake again, glass in hand. Wilson could hear him muttering to himself as he committed the fine detail to memory. When he finally looked up he closed his eyes a moment, and Wilson knew he was picturing the faint sketch against the background of his mind.

  “All right,” Da Silva said, opening his eyes and handing over the glass. “Your turn.”

  A few minutes later Wilson set the glass down and closed his eyes to see the picture he had traced in his mind. “I’ve got it.”

  “Fine.” Da Silva carefully repacked the snake and locked it away together with his kit into his suitcase. He sat down on the edge of the bed, lighting a cigarette. “All right, now. Which way did the lagoon run?”

  “Lagoon? I thought it was a lake.”

  Da Silva shook his head. “There was an opening—small, but an opening. It’s a lagoon. Which way did it run?”

  “North and south.”

  “And how many fingers went off of it?”

  Wilson closed his eyes. “Six.”

  “And which finger is it?”

  Wilson counted in his head. “The second; it looked like the widest.” He opened his eyes. “The second from the southern end, going counterclockwise. It runs in an almost easterly direction.”

  Da Silva nodded. “Right. And how far up this finger?”

  Wilson closed his eyes again. “It’s marked thirteen hundred yards.”

  “And what’s there?”

  Wilson frowned. “A tree. That tiny zee-shaped jag on the map there must be some identification of the tree; maybe it was struck by lightning sometime.”

  Da Silva nodded in agreement; it had also been his idea. “And what else?”

  Wilson thought carefully. “Well, he only shows the one tree. Maybe it’s bigger than the others. Or in a clearing of some sort. Of course those small dashes about it indicate pantano—swamp. Maybe it’s the only one around.”

  Da Silva smiled. “Very good. And just one more thing: those little checks in the outside water. What were those?”

  Wilson shook his head. “I forgot about those. I have no idea. Do you?”

  Da Silva nodded. “A sand bar. And it indicates, I think, the line of the opening into the lagoon from the ocean.”

  Wilson frowned. “But why would an opening into a lagoon have to be marked? You’d think it would be visible.”

  “Maybe not. It may be pretty small, or overgrown. Remember, you thought it was a lake at first.”

  “That’s true.” Wilson yawned and looked at his watch. “Well, what else?”

  Da Silva shrugged. “Now all we have to do is find out where this place is. And what’s thirteen hundred yards up this finger of the lagoon. Under the tree.”

  Wilson grinned. “Pretty girls?”

  But Da Silva’s mind was far away. “Maybe,” he said absently, and rose to his feet. “Well, that’s it for today, I guess. For you, anyway. I still have to get a report off to my meathead boss. And I want to get on the road by seven.”

  “I’ll be ready.” Wilson nodded his good night and closed the door behind him.

  Da Silva stood staring at the empty desk blankly; his mind was clothing the skeleton map with the flesh of his past experience in tropical areas. He could picture the softly lapping waves of the quiet lagoon and the damp heat of the narrow inlet that led through a green jungle of tangled vines and overhanging trees to the swamp area above. He could hear the shrill cry of birds and the low sucking sound of the wind pushing through the tall matted swamp grass. The tree appeared before him, stark in the open area, slashed by some ancient blast from an angry sky. The picture was so clear, almost as if he had been there once before. Why did it seem so real? What was there about it that seemed so familiar, so remembered?

  And then he knew. He had once been lost for several days, separated from his party, in the vast upriver country beyond the Tapajós in the unknown, mysterious area of the headwaters of the Amazon. He recalled the feelings he had suffered, but mostly he remembered the most terrifying part of the experience: the complete lack of identity with any known surroundings. It was the same feeling that came when he pictured the stillness of the unknown lagoon and the threats of the beckoning grasses buried in the mud banks of the inlet.

  He shuddered and sat down at the desk to do his report.

  The rough dirt road leading into the village of Urubuapá widened as it approached the outskirts of the small town. It curved east here, running closer to the sea and the shacks mounted there on rickety stilts to provide dubious cover to the boats beneath. Trestles could be seen here, leading into the sea; for the most part they were empty. The fishing boats were out. Skeletoned ribs of discarded, jettisoned hulks were scattered about, apparently too far gone for even the most optimistic salvager.

  Buildings began to appear, little adobe boxes, baking in the fierce sun. Scattered houses mounted the hills that swept upward a few hundred yards in from the wide beach; their red-tiled roofs and blinding white walls scarred the deep green of the mountain with brilliant splashes of color. A series of islands were visible off the coast, the closest ones green and inviting, the furthest ones hazy shadows against the horizon.

  The dirt road disappeared into the beach; the bumping stopped as they rolled smoothly across the clean sand and then resumed
a few hundred yards further on as they came into the main street, angled into the beach, and paved in large rectangular granite blocks. The stores here were closed; Da Silva glanced at his watch. It was noon, time for the normal two-hour lunch period. Except for a small boy sitting disconsolately on the curb, tossing pebbles at his own toes, the place was deserted. Da Silva rolled on; at the first corner he slowed down and then found what he had been looking for: an open bar. He swung around the corner and drew up before the broad step, unlatched the car door, and lifted himself wearily down. His little leather cap was perched on the back of his head; his pock-marked face shone with sweat.

  “First things first,” he said as he stretched himself. “Let’s get a beer and see about a place to sleep.”

  They stood at the marble-topped counter while the bartender, an old man with dusky, wrinkled features and a stained mustache, fumbled with the bottle opener. He wore a tattered straw hat and a plaid shirt buttoned at the wrist; he looked as if he had been assembled from scraps, rather than dressed.

  “Old one,” Da Silva said as the two beaded bottles and two glasses were pushed over to them, “have you been served?” It was the standard Brazilian invitation to strangers to join one in a drink.

  The old man nodded gratefully, poured himself a shot of pure-white pinga, drank it quickly, and wiped his mustache. The odor of the sour-sugar wafted about them, sickening in the hot still air of the deserted bar. Da Silva drank deeply of his beer and then faced the old man.

  “Old one,” he said, leaning forward, “I have here an American from abroad who would fish for the big fish. For the very big fish. He has fished in all parts of the world and has heard that the fishing is most spectacular here in Urubuapá. This is true, is it not?”