"The scoop on those soldiers," he said, in a faultless English accent, "is that whilst they are looking for a ruthless guerrilla leader, he has just kidnapped two British journalists"
It was Bridget's fault we were in South America. A few months earlier the aptly nicknamed `Bitch of the Broadsheets' had been abruptly replaced as editor of a Saturday magazine by a young guy who had been, among other things, her protege.
She got a big pay-off, enough to keep anyone comfortably without work for a couple of years. I gave her six months max.
"I want to go to South America," she said to me. "Why don't you come?"
"Rio?" I said.
"Nah-the real South America."
The thought of Bridget-whose usual axis when she was in the money was Harvey Nicks, Grouchos, and the River Cafe-hanging out with llamas, looking at Inca remains, and wearing those silly hats with ear flaps in the real South America was one I couldn't easily get a handle on. It made no more sense when she told me she meant Colombia.
"It's the tourist destination of the future," she said.
"We are talking about the Colombia full of murderous guerrillas, ruthless drug barons, out of control militia, corrupt police, shopkeepers putting bounties on street children's lives, other terrible human rights violations, and hopeless government officials?" I said. "That Colombia?"
"That's what the travel pages are saying," Bridget said. "Apparently it's a paradise."
"Bridget, you're a journalist. Since when have you believed what's written in the press?"
We batted it backwards and forwards and the bottom line eventually was that whilst I was willing in principle to go with her to Colombia, I couldn't afford it. Then a PR I knew turned into my fairy godmother-an unlikely event, I know, unless you were a corrupt Tory MP back in the mid-nineties.
Richard Baker was the least likely fairy godmother you'd wish to meet, especially on a dark night. He was big, tough, and ruthless-but then he was in rock `n' roll public relations. That industry could teach the Emperor Nero a thing or two about being cut-throat.
"How'd you like to cover the Rock Against Drugs Tour?" he said, after the usual chit-chat.
"Music's not really my thing anymore. I'm getting a bit old for it."
"Hardly think thirty-two is over the hill," he protested. "On this tour, you'll be the youngster. Otis Barnes is topping the bill. Plus a bunch of hippies who've done the drugs but are now set on stopping other people having as much fun as they had."
The Late Great Otis Barnes was a name out of my past. Known as the "Late Great," even though he was alive, because his career had been in freefall after a great run of hits through the seventies and eighties.
Drugs and booze had pulled him down, but he'd made a remarkable comeback the year before, knocking that year's bubblegum off the number one perch with "Sinner Man," the song from the film Confessions.
The accompanying album had been raved about by just about everybody for its heady mix of blue-eyed soul, jazz, Robert Johnson style blues. and Celtic folk.
"Where's the tour going?" I said.
"Gonna end up doing some stadiums in the States-probably get the usual suspects coming on board to swell the bill then-but the first leg is South America. Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Peru."
"Colombia? Well, that's very serendipitous-but isn't that something like a death wish version of taking coals to Newcastle? Since most Colombians make their living in some way from drugs I don't think they're going to listen too closely do you? And the drug barons will be really pissed off. Aside from anything else they'll hate the music-they're tango men from way back"
"Yeah, but this tour is funded by Peace International and they want to get the message across to the kids in South America and, presumably, give the drug barons a poke in the eye.There'll be a lot of security."
"So where does it go?"
"After Buenos Aires, Rio, and Brasilia, we do the Bogota National Stadium, onto Peru for Lima and Cusco-wherever the hell that is-and then a big climax in a son et lumiere extravaganza at Machu Picchu, ancient monument on top of a mountain in the Andes.You get the coverage, you can join it where you like."
"Bridget's on at me to go to Colombia. Says it's the next big tourist destination."
"Bridget? How the hell is she? Hey, remember that night in Riga-"
"Only too well," I interrupted. I had known Richard for about three years. Some nine months before he had run a PR trip to Latvia to show off the splendours of the Baltic States to a bunch of journalists who'd pass the news on to their readers, if the journos could remember it when they sobered up.
Riga is a very hip city with a range of tempting alcohols. On this particular night, we'd probably tried them all.
At five the next morning, Richard was attempting to bugger the Latvian national hero in the city center park when Bridget and I saw two angry-looking policemen heading towards him. The buggery was only in jest, you understand-the war hero was a marble statue-but still the two gun-toting rozzers weren't amused.
There were two things the cops in Riga wouldn't stand for: public drunkenness and someone taking the piss out of their country. Richard looked guilty on both counts. The cops had the reputation for hauling ne'er do wells back to the station to beat the living crap out of them. Seeing these two sauntering over, Bridget and I dragged Richard off and we legged it blearily back to our hotel for the start of another rock `n' roll day.
Now Richard and I sorted out access arrangements and I blagged the commission from one of the broadsheets. I was due to join the tour in Bogota. Bridget and I had flown in a week early but hated Bogota so much we'd got out as fast as we could.
I thought she was going to Cartagena to see an old friend she was being very cagey about so I booked for the Amazon through a slightly dodgy American travel agent. Then at the last minute Bridget insisted on coming along with me.
"I've read about these kidnappings in South America," she whispered as, an hour after our arrival at the wooden hut, we huddled together keeping a wary eye on the guerrilla leader talking to one of his men out on the veranda.
A couple of tough-looking men were leaning back in plastic chairs, another guy at the door had a carbine of some sort laid across his shoulders, his forearms resting on it.
"If your family proves recalcitrant, the kidnap gang start cutting bits off you."
"Considering I don't have any family," I said, shuddering just a tad, "they could have their work, er, cut out with me"
"My mother will get the ransom note then phone her stockbroker to see what her shares are priced at," Bridget said. "Depending on how well they're doing, she might pay up"
"It'll be the government they'll approach. They probably don't want money, they want their comrades releasing."
"Ferdinand Porras, at your service," the guerrilla leader said, swaggering over and lowering himself into one of the hammocks. He lay back, his arms stretched above his head. "Wanted by the armies of four South American countries" He looked at me. "Nice suit."
I guess I assumed all guerrillas-pronounced gucriyas here in South America-would look like Che Guevera: scuzzy beard, fatigues, beret. This guy was in his Hawaiian shirt, chinos, and bare feet.With manicured toe nails yet. Swept back, lightly-oiled black hair, Spanish good looks-a slight flare of his nostrils and an uptilted chin as he spoke. Saturnine. Definitely saturnine.
"We're in sympathy with your goals," I said.
"Yeah-stop the rainforests," Bridget said.
"Save the rainforests," I said, flashing Bridget a look.
"Whatever. I shop at Body Shop. I bought a Lynne Franks' book once."
I stared.
"I didn't say I read it," she said, catching my look.
Porras looked bewildered for a moment, then scratched his head and yawned.
"Kidnapping is a very honorable tradition here in South America," he said. "The guerrillas inherited the practice from the bandidos. When I was growing up I knew many families whose children were kidnapped."
> "Their mistake for knowing you?" Bridget said. He glance at her and smiled thinly.
"One family had all four children kidnapped over an eleven year period. Most middle class families send their children away to America or Europe for education not for snobbish reasons but to escape this perpetual threat of kidnap. I myself studied at the London School of Economics."
"That's why your English is so good?" I said, seeing nothing wrong with ingratiation at this point in the proceedings.
"Partly."
"How long will you keep us?" Bridget said in what I could tell she hoped to be an ingratiating voice. It came out sounding like Bette Davis being coy in Whatever Hapened To Baby Jane.
"Don't worry," Porras said. "The first generation of guerrillas used to kidnap people, keep them incommunicado for six months or so, then start lengthy negotiations. But I learned about economics at the LSE.
"I realized it made more sense, that we could increase turnover, by speeding up the process. Now we reckon to complete every project-that's from initial kidnap through to banking the money-in around three months."
"Three months!" Bridget gawped at him. "I can't possibly stay here for three months." She groaned. "Look I've got places to be. Can't we give a donation or something. My credit card saves dolphins. Take that." She smiled at Porras. "Look, like Nick said, whatever you're against we are, too."
"You mean the exploitation of our natural resources by carpetbagging foreign multinational companies? The destruction of the way of life of our indiginous native tribes? Right wing death squads murdering our children on the streets of our capital?"
"Awful, terrible." Bridget shook her head. When she looked up her eyes were brimming with tears. Bridget moved by other people's suffering? Not exactly.
"I'm supposed to be in New York in two weeks for the Vanity Fair summer party," she said, her voice breaking. "Do you know how hard it is to get an invite?"
I did a double-take. "You didn't tell me about that," I hissed. "How come I'm not your Plus Guest?"
Bridget ignored me and reached out a pleading hand to Porras.
"What if they won't pay?"
"We send a finger or two to persuade them."
Bridget and I both blanched. Porras smiled.
"Has to be done.We want to offer a gold-card service, with added value. If word gets around that we aren't willing to mutilate our clients it gets harder next time."
"But who do you expect to pay for our release?" I said, genuinely puzzled."I don't have any family and our government isn't exactly going to be rushing to the bank to get the used fivers. It couldn't give a toss."
"Your newspapers. I understand one of you works for one of the richest men in the world and the other for a very prestigious left-wing newspaper. It was my favourite reading when I was a student.Why are you laughing?"
I guess it was the tension. Bridget was rocking in her seat, I was laughing so hard the tears were coming down my face, the sweat rolling down my back.
"We're not staff," I said, gasping for breath, "we're
He looked puzzled.
"You still have a fiduciary relationship with your newspapers. They still have a responsibility to you."
"Newspaper proprietors probably wouldn't even shell out for a staff writer, given they can replace him or her in a nanosecond," Bridget said. "Britain is crawling with journalism graduates. So there's no way on earth they'd shell out for freelancers."
I nodded my agreement.
"In the ordinary run of things freelancers are treated like shit. Newspapers take three months minimum to pay us, quibble over expenses, demand full copyright on our articles without paying extra, speak with honeyed words when they need us, don't even return our calls when they don't."
"You got the wrong number, buddy," Bridget said. "You want to make money out of kidnapping journalists you should get an American showbiz writer. They make more in expenses off one article than we make in fees in a year"
Porras scratched his head and opened his mouth to speak, then changed his mind. Instead, he dropped out of the hammock and walked out onto the veranda.
"Well that's done it," Bridget said. "We're either going to be here for ever or well be a snack for the local piranha later tonight."
"Joel was telling me piranha get a bad press. They're not nearly as lethal as theyre made out, unless you stray into their feeding ground at meal time."
"What happens then?"
"They strip all the flesh off your body in about forty five seconds"
"Where is Joel? D'you think he's in on this?"
Before I could answer Porras came back in. He smiled severely.
"Dinner will be at seven. Until then, please make yourselves at home. Perhaps a beer on the veranda?"
We sat on two red plastic stools on the narrow veranda, looking out across the bend of the river.To the right I could see several tributaries running off into the jungle. I couldn't see the boat we had arrived in.
"At least we might be able to make some money out of this," Bridget said. The Hostage Years. My life as a guerrilla leader's moll."
"I think that's more in your line than mine," I said. "But you're right-if we do survive we can expect good coverage in the papers. I can see the stand now: `Exploring the tributaries of the Amazon River, journalist Nick Madrid and his friend Bridget Frost soon find themselves up the proverbial creek without a paddle."'
"What makes you think your name would go first?" she said sharply.
The sky darkened and I watched a heron flap towards a tall, broad tree on the bank of the river. As the heron landed on one of the uppermost branches, I saw that there were dozens of other herons with folded wings already settled on the tree. Over the next ten minutes a dozen more found space on there, their distinctive shapes making the tree look like some surreal Christmas tree.
"Isn't that amazing?" I said, transfixed.
"Fucking marvellous," Bridget said, stifling a yawn and peering into her beer bottle to see if there was any alcohol she'd overlooked.
As the sun slipped rapidly below the horizon I thought about Otis Barnes. He'd been in my life, well, almost all my life. My old hippy dad had been a big fan.When he died-he shared Otis's appetite for drink and drugs without sadly his remarkable constitution-I inherited his record collection.
It was enormous, a kind of history of British hip, from early Stax and Atlantic through the real Britpop explosion in the sixties on into British folk and hippy America. Sadly it continued into progressive rock-all the dreadful concept albums and bombast, the Sixties Hammond organ swapped for a Wurlitzer.
But in among them all were the early albums of Otis Barnes.A protege of hard drinking Scottish folkie Euan Campbell, he started out in the boozy Celtic folk Martyn's hard-edged folk-blues rather than Al Stewart's bedsit confessionals.
He played acoustic guitar, of course, and had a wonderful slurry (even when sober) soulful, liquid voice. Hear him, you'd think he was black, especially when he covered Robert Johnson's bad boy Delta blues. He wrote great love songs but live preferred to do harder, rockier numbers and act the beery lout.
He was attractive to women as that most devastating-and most cliched-of male figures: the romantic tough guy. He'd been a boxer in his teens and had a reputation as a mean street fighter. Quick tempered, he was even quicker to put his fists up. Sadly, he was rumored to use them on his wife as readily as he was in bar brawls.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sight of a dugout canoe appearing on the bend of the river. As I watched the canoeist guide it towards the crude landing post 300 yards beneath us I became aware of someone standing beside me. Porras.
He smiled a wide but evil smile and what he said chilled me despite the heat.
"I should take a little rest for when the sun has gone you will meet your first piranha."
Bridget groaned. She was sprawled on a wooden bunk underneath a mosquito net that looked to be made of Auntie Vi's net curtains. She'd changed out of her red dress. It hung beside my wrecked
suit from a nail on the wall.We were both now wearing T-shirts and cotton trousers. I took a swig from a bottle of water I'd picked up in Leticia.
"Guerrillas aren't idealists any more, they're robber barons," she said contemptuously. "They're just after money."
Joel spoke from the floor.
"The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact in our civilization. Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity, and beauty as conspicuously as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness, and ugliness."
I leaned out of my bunk and looked down at him, lying on his back, his arms folded behind his head, his baseball hat turned to the side.When we had come in off the veranda Joel had been lying in one of the hammocks. He got out and led us down a narrow corridor to this dark bedroom. Bridget had booted him out whilst she changed-quite literally, giving him a vigorous kick up the backside.
His face crinkled into a gap-toothed smile.
"Mau and Supernian-1903," he said.
"I think Shaw was being ironic, Joel."
"What is ironic?"
"Everything these days. Joel, did you tip them off about our arrival?"
"No choice, Mr. Nick," he said without a hint of shame. "They threaten my dearest and nearest." He gestured with a thumb back down river. "One of my women lives in the village you saw. Porras threatened to hurt her unless I helped him."
"And you believed his threats?"
Joel belched unselfconsciously.
"Bad people, Mr. Nick. This man Porras calls himself a connoisseur of cruelty."
"And no money changed hands?" Bridget said.
Joel sat up, gave a nervous little smile.
"Well, sure, a little. Money is the most important thing in the world and all sound and successful personal and national morality-"
Joel yelped as Bridget punched him hard on his ear. He was on his feet and over by the door in moments.
"The Irrational Knot, 1905," he called over his shoulder as he disappeared from view.
Bridget sat up on her elbows.
"Lying bastard-he did it entirely for the money."
Two to Tango (Nick Madrid) Page 2
