Trail of Feathers (21 page)

   I leant on the river ferry’s railing, looking out at the pandemonium on the quay. Even more passengers than before were fighting to get aboard. As I stood there, staring, still in shock, I considered what seemed like an unreal situation. How could I set off in search of a wild tribe with a paedophile as a guide? Worse still, this was a paedophile molesting his own brother. The decision was an easy one. I returned to Cesar’s cabin. Although almost unable to look such a degenerate in the eye, I said that we would not be going into the jungle together.

   To my surprise, he didn’t seem at all perturbed. He told me to take the supplies, and that he would return the money I had paid. He’d be glad to pass up such a dangerous journey, he said.

Feeling as if a prize-fighter had punched me in the face, I rattled back to Hotel Selva with a convoy of motocarros. The receptionist supervised, as the sacks were taken to my old room.

Words cannot express my sense of defeat.

I told the receptionist what had happened, what I had seen on the ferry.

 ‘Bueno si, oh yes,’ she said freely, ‘everyone knows that Senor Vargas likes his little boys.’

‘Do they?’

‘Of course they do,’ she replied, ‘there are no secrets in Iquitos.’

‘But they’re sus hermanos, his brothers!’ 

‘Is that what he told you?’ 

I admitted it was.

‘That’s a lie. They aren’t his brothers, but sus novios, his boyfriends.’

Over at Ari’s Burger, I was in no mood for Florita’s pouting. She must have sensed this, because she brought over a banana milkshake and hurried away. I sat in a corner facing the wall, unable to speak.

The old American chain-smoker came over. ‘Heard you just found out about César,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me César was a paedophile?’ 

He thought for a moment.

‘You were so happy with him,’ he said, ‘no one wanted to spoil your trip.’

The fact that César liked children was bad, but it was just the tip of the iceberg. He was the most wanted man in town. He had been convicted dozens of times for ripping-off tourists and acting as a pimp, for theft, drug dealing and a range of sex offences.

‘César Vargas,’ he said, snorting, ‘he’s the Dennis the Menace of the Amazon.’

In the afternoon I sat on a bench in Plaza de Armas with my head in my hands. The usual scrum of boot boys and chewing-gum dealers hung well back. Word had spread of my misfortune. Whatever the circumstances, I couldn’t allow myself to do business with a known paedophile.

The first drops of rain splashed onto the tiled surface of the square. In the Amazon, where it pours almost every day, the rain can drench you in under three seconds. But it isn’t seen as the scourge of nature it is in the West. Rain is the lifeblood of the jungle.

I left the bench and sought refuge in the Gringo Bar.

A smattering of young women were carousing with older foreign men, to the sound of the Bee Gees. As I entered the bar, there was silence. Everyone turned to look at me. The girls stopped fondling, the glasses ceased clinking. Even the Bee Gees fell silent.

The barman, an old American with a bald head and a Hawaiian shirt, slapped a tumbler of guaje juice down in front of me.

‘It’s on the house,’ he said.

I thanked him and sat down in the corner. A middle-aged man asked if he could join me. He had grey hair, fleshy white legs and a sunburned nose. He was an American called Max. Everyone would tell you behind his back that he was CIA, an ‘active cell’. He said he had retired from the Agency, and that he bred snakes. Like most of his fellow countrymen lying low in Iquitos, I suspected he had been lured by the cheap beer and the inexhaustible supply of available jungle women.

As far as Max was concerned, I was now one of the boys. I’d been bitten by the jungle, as he put it. I’d been initiated.

‘But even if I can get some more money sent’ I said, haven’t got a guide. I need someone who knows the jungle, someone who has no fear of the Shuar.’

Max called out for another drink.

‘You need a man who can trek through the rain-forest in the dead of night,’ he said. ‘A man who can kill an anaconda with his bare hands,- who can live on a diet of tree grubs washed down with his own urine,- a man who’s taken ayahuasca a hundred times, who’ll protect you if it means sacrificing his own life …’ Max paused, ‘a man who has no fear.’

‘Does such a man exist?’

Wiping the froth from his mouth, Max glanced at the wall clock.

‘He should be here in five minutes,’ he said.

The Texan I’d met at Ari’s swept in out of the rain and slapped a soggy dossier on the table.

‘The police have been after César Vargas for a long time,’ he said. ‘He’s at the top of their list, he’s a prime target. We’re going to clean up this town. This place is the best kept secret on Earth, and we ain’t gonna have it tainted with paedophile scum.’

‘He’s dealing in insects, too,’ I said limply.

The Texan screwed up his face.

‘Low life scum!’ he barked.

At that moment, the door of the Gringo Bar swung back with such force that it almost broke free from its hinges. Standing in the frame was a ferocious-looking foreigner. A shade over six feet, he was as lean as a race horse, with a back so straight as to be unnatural. He was drenched with rain and dressed from top to toe in camouflage. His boots, his khaki fatigues, and torn ninja singlet were caked in fresh mud. A bandanna had been tied tightly over his head. His unshaven face was daubed red in warpaint, its long chin etched with a diagonal scar. Around his neck were military dog tags.

His searing malachite-green eyes scanned the bar with robotic precision. Then he made for our table.

‘Here’s your man,’ said Max under his breath, ‘Richard Fowler: Vietnam vet’, jungle expert, and occasional guide.’

The soldier pressed his callused hand into mine. My first handshake since Huancayo. His palm felt like coarse grade sandpaper.

He sat down and drank a mug of Pilsen in a single draught. I asked him what had brought him to Iquitos.

‘Been living in the woods for a long time,’ he said, in a voice moulded by Marlboros. ‘Signed up for ‘Nam back in ‘68. I was with 101st US Airborne Division Jungle Operations - long range reconnaissance. Tet Offensive, Battle of Hue, Hamburger Hill, all that shit.’

Richard lit a cigarette, sucked hard, and expelled a jet of smoke through his nose.

‘The jungle’s my turf’ he said. ‘I tried livin’ back in the US, but it doesn’t love me, and I sure as Hell don’t love it.’

‘Do you know anything about ayahuasca?’ I asked.

Richard cackled menacingly.

‘Ayahuasca, sanango, chacruna, datura, I’ve done ‘em all.’

‘What are sanango and chacruna?’

The Vietnam vet gulped down a second beer in one.

‘They’re nerve agents.’

‘What about the Shuar, the Jivaro?’

‘Jivaro?’ he echoed, lighting another Marlboro. ‘They make the Vietcong look like pussy cats.’

‘Would you take me to them … to the Pastaza?’ ‘Can I bring Francisco?’ 

‘Who’s he?’ 

‘My shaman.’

‘You can bring anyone you like, as long as there’s no paedophilia or insect dealing.’

Richard looked deep into my eyes, his pupils dilating in a sea of green. It was not a conventional Iquitos stare. 

‘I promise you one thing,’ he said. 

‘What?’

‘I promise that if you hire me, I will keep you alive.’ 

The Vietnam vet’ loosened his laces and leant back on his chair. 

‘The Amazon isn’t a kid’s playground, you know’ he said. ‘If you come with me you live the jungle, you breathe it… you eat it.’

‘Eat it?’

He sucked at a dried callus on his hand.

If you don’t eat it,’ he said ominously, ‘it’ll eat you.’ 

‘But I’ve got lots of canned food.’

‘Screw the canned food’ said Fowler, ‘I’m talking about fresh chow … peccaries, caimans, larvae, anacondas. You can leave your supplies behind. They’re dead weight. In the jungle you only need one thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A sharp knife’ he said, tugging a collapsible Ka-bar blade from its sheath on his belt. I boasted about the size of my nickel-coated Alaskan moose knife. 

The Vietnam vet scoffed. 

‘Leave that behind, too,’ he said.

Fowler needed two days to put the jungle expedition together. He suggested we hire our own boat and take it right up to the Pastaza. That way we wouldn’t have to rely on the river ferries. But before he could do anything, he’d need to catch up with his belle, Senorita Jane. Like the other foreigners in Iquitos, he had succumbed to the unrealistic gender ratio. Jane would be due out of high school in a few minutes.

‘How old is she?’

‘Sixteen’ he sniffed, ‘but she looks old for her age.’

‘Isn’t that rather young?’

The Vietnam veteran slipped his knife away.

‘Are you crazy?’ he drawled. ‘Sixteen’s a damn fine age.’

*

At eight the next morning I found myself sitting at my usual table at Ari’s. With my back facing the wall, I had a clear sweep of all the staring faces. The first die-hard patrons were already sipping Nescafé, black as crude oil. Florita’s colleague was mopping the floor. Noticing me, she mopped her way over to my table. She said that Florita was sick. It wasn’t an illness caused by disease, but one derived from true love. Florita was getting weaker all the time. A trip to Gringolandia was the only antidote. When she was strong enough, if she survived, she’d travel with me to Europe.

‘Her bag is packed already,’ said Florita’s friend. ‘You must buy her a ticket. Then you can be married.’

‘But I’m already married!’

‘So?’ she said, ‘you can have two wives.’

The waitress slunk back across the room, probing the mop between the legs of the chrome chairs. A salesman slipped his way over. He was offering a new range of tarantulas in frames. They came in sets of three - small, medium and large, and were designed to be hung together on a wall in order of their size. I asked him about Titanus giganticus. He looked nervous.

‘Expensive,’ he mouthed.

‘How much?’

‘Seven hundred dollars each, maybe more.’

‘Why so expensive?’

‘Hard to get,’ he replied. ‘There’s only one man in Iquitos who can get them.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘A man called César Vargas,’ he said.

The salesman broke off, grabbed his tarantulas, and scurried out of Ari’s. I looked round to see what had scared him away. César was coming towards me.

He sat down and began to berate me.

‘Why did you say you were going to have my legs broken?’

‘I never said such a thing!’

‘Well, everyone in town’s saying it.’

‘César, I don’t want to harm you.’

‘God will judge you,’ he said, ‘He knows how bad you are and how good I am.’

César had stopped eating. It was his own form of hunger strike. He wouldn’t swallow another mouthful of food until his name had been cleared. Meanwhile, he’d turned to God for guidance. His conversation was heavy with religious remarks. César had been born again.

‘Meet me tonight at the bandstand in Belen,’ he said, ‘and I will give you the money I owe you.’

*

Since hiring Richard, my confidence had been bolstered. He looked like the sort of man one could do with having along on a dangerous mission. I admired his devotion to the jungle, and was secretly jealous of him. Even with the most rigorous military training, I would never be as hardy. He was from different stock - tough as nails, with honed muscles, a foul mouth and an iron gut. He was the kind of man who could live on mealworms and termites, with no fear of insects with more than six legs. I was thankful Richard had turned up, and that César had been exposed in the nick of time.

At nine o’clock sharp I felt a muscular hand on the base of my neck. The Vietnam vet’ had crept up, and was looming over me. He was chewing on the end of a cigar.

‘You love this town, don’t you?’ he said.

‘It’s all right,’ I replied. ‘It grows on you.’

‘All right?’ It’s more than all right,’ said Fowler, slapping his hands together. ‘It’s the Saigon of South America!’

Three men were standing to attention beside him, waiting to be introduced.

‘Meet my buddies,’ Richard said.

I shook their hands.

‘This is Cockroach.’

He motioned to a teenager with an innocent face. ‘He’ll be the cook. And this here is Walter, he’s your motorista, he owns the boat.’ 

‘Who’s the third man?’

Richard moved the cigar to the left corner of his mouth.

‘That’s Guido.’

‘And what does Guido do?’

‘He’s an odd job man.’

We left Ari’s and went down to the floating market at Belen. A battered speedboat was waiting to take us down river, where the Pradera was waiting to be inspected.

‘She’s as sturdy as any craft on the Amazon,’ Richard bragged as we bounced our way downstream. ‘She’s got a big engine and the space we’ll need for a long river trip.’

‘She’s very strong,’ said Walter, the boat’s owner. ‘She’s only six months old. You will not regret hiring the Pradera.’

Two hours later, with the afternoon rain lashing down, the speedboat swerved off the Amazon and down a tributary. The current was much slower, the river-banks abundant with wildlife and breadfruit trees. We veered into a backwater off the river. The craft’s aluminium hull sliced through fields of water lilies. Then, taking a right hand bend widely, the pilot brought the speedboat to a sharp halt. Bobbing in the wake was a rotting monstrosity of a riverboat. It reminded me of the African Queen shortly before she was destroyed.

Forty feet long, it was clinker-built, with open sides and a flat roof. The lime green paint was chipped, and the woodwork was in a pitiful state. An unskilled hand had daubed in red paint at the bow the name, Pradera.