The Fall Guy

by Ritchie Perry

This completely reassured me. To my mind his word was worth about as much as a ninety-seven year old virgin.

  ‘Meet me at the Atlantico in half an hour,’ I instructed him. ‘I’ll be in the outside bar.’

  As soon as he’d hung up I took a table in the garden of the Park Hotel which was directly across the street from the Atlantico, affording a good view of the proposed meeting place. Fifteen minutes later, as the first plain-clothes men began to infiltrate the area, I judged it expedient to leave the Park, ambling a few hundred yards along the front to one of the better sea food restaurants. There I reflectively munched my way through a large plate of camarao paulista, washing down the prawns with a couple of litres of chop, before I contacted Pinto again.

  ‘I’m ashamed of you, Vicente,’ I told him once we were connected. ‘After you’d given me your word as well.’

  Pinto laughed happily.

  ‘You’re forgetting something, Philis. Now you’re a criminal there’s a price on your head.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what the reward is but I can promise you I’m a damn sight more valuable on the hoof than I am in jail. That’s what I want to talk to you about. Of course, if you prefer we can fix it up over the phone but…’

  I allowed my voice to tail off.

  ‘No, no,’ Pinto came in hastily. ‘It would be far better if we met.’

  ‘OK, I’ll try the Atlantico again. Make sure you’re alone this time.’

  Repeating the stipulation was pure formality. Now I’d suggested paying him Pinto would come prepared to talk business, postponing thoughts of a second double-cross. Nevertheless he’d have plenty of support close to band in case my offer wasn’t up to par. It was my intention to ensure it was.

  *

  The Atlantico Hotel held a special position in Santos, two featured, quite apart from the standard of service, making it stand out. Firstly, its situation couldn’t be bettered, a mere street’s breadth from the beach and bang on the busiest intersection in the city. Secondly, and far more important, there was its hundred yard long veranda bar, under cover but open on the street side, a bar which had a unique place in the mores of Santos society. Every night the lucky few packed the terrace, watching the colourful cavalcade going past while they ate and drank in comfort. The pavement in front of the bar was the arena for the traditional mating ritual of the city, the place where young women of marriageable age strolled past, hand in hand and sporting their most enticing plumage, and the youths strutted, endeavouring to exude machismo at every step. At noon, on a weekday, however, the bar was virtually deserted and I had a table to myself.

  I’d been sitting there for ten minutes, more interested in bikini-clad passers-by then in my beer, when Pinto hove into sight, his drab, insignificant exterior concealing a drab, insignificant soul. We greeted each other without a great deal of enthusiasm. Pinto was wondering how he could collect whatever I had to offer and rake in the reward as well, I was thinking what a horrible little ponce he was, rather disgusted at having to deal with him.

  ‘At the latest count you’re wanted for murder, assault and resisting arrest,’ Pinto said to start the ball rolling. ‘I’m not sure I can do anything to help you.’

  This was his subtle way of letting me know he was going to be expensive to buy. I grinned at him to show I understood.

  ‘Mere technicalities,’ I said airily. ‘In any case, I’m dead. Or hadn’t you heard?’

  ‘You won’t be dead for long — too many people in Santos know you. I shall have to arrest you in a day or two to prevent word getting back to my superiors.’

  The preliminary fencing was beginning to bore me.

  ‘I realize it’s going to be difficult for you, Vicente. Three thousand US dollars should be more than enough to keep the patrolmen off my back. They’re the only real threat.’

  Pinto’s eyes glazed over while he did a rapid conversion. It was a hell of a good bribe, probably the best he’d ever been offered, especially as he wasn’t figuring on any of the money going further than his own pocket. There was no sense in sharing if he was going to have me arrested as soon as I’d handed over the dollars. Luckily I could read Pinto’s venal mind like a book and knew he wasn’t a man you could buy but could only secure his co-operation until something better came along.

  ‘Of course,’ I continued casually, sure I had him hooked, ‘there’s your cut to be considered as well. I’m prepared to give you, personally, another five thousand.’ I paused to light a cigarette. ‘I’ll hand it over when my business in Santos is finished — a fortnight at the outside.’

  ‘Two thousand five hundred now, the rest when you leave,’ Pinto countered without hesitation, adapting superbly.

  ‘Not a chance.’

  After a moment’s delay Pinto stuck out his hand.

  ‘Let’s shake on it,’ he suggested.

  He could afford to be friendly, thinking he’d made the deal of a lifetime. He wasn’t to know five thousand dollars was my total cash reserve and two thousand of this was destined to see me out of the country. Pinto was going to turn nasty when he discovered he’d been conned, very nasty if I was a judge of character. This was something I’d have to bear in mind later.

  *

  The first step was to take a look at the Arcadia and, if possible, have a word with the captain. With this aim I took a taxi to the General Camera, the hub of the red light district and, until the advent of Reece, my centre of operations in Santos. Most people would probably have consulted the Port Authority to find out where the ship was anchored but I preferred to do things the easy way. As an essential part of business every bar in the zona had an up to date, accurate roster of all ships due, expected or present in the harbour. Many of the girls, with regulars on the various vessels, couldn’t afford to get their dates mixed and the juggling I’d had to do in my line of work paled into insignificance beside what some of the tarts were involved in. The classic example was Dulcie, a lush octroon whose thing was marriage. Her score, unless she’d chalked up another while I was away, was two Englishmen, one German and, for God’s sake, an Arab. She worked from the Bataan Bar and this was where I headed. For obvious reasons the schedule there was up to the second.

  On second thoughts I decided it might have been wiser to consult the Port Authority after all. It took less than a minute to learn the Arcadia had docked at Pier 14 two days before and that the dockers weren’t due to begin loading the coffee until the next day, extricating myself from the bar took well over an hour. News of my Reece-inspired arrest at the Stockholm had already passed into local legend, with garbled reports of my infamous exploits down south equally widespread. My arrival at the Bataan attracted acquaintances from every bar in the vicinity and I was deluged with questions, having to employ all the expertise of a lifetime’s lying to keep them happy. In return I learned one invaluable fact. Someone, who was either Pepe or his double, had been ploughing up and down the street pumping people for information about me. I no longer had the slightest doubt about Joao’s veracity.

  A quick phone call to Paulista to arrange Pinto’s first, and last, payment, then I set off to Pier 14 in the oppressive, afternoon heat. The Arcadia proved to be a smallish ship, badly in need of a few coats of paint. On board there was a sloppy looking Customs official, his olive uniform streaked with sweat. I raised a hand in greeting, took advantage of what shade there was in the lee of one of the sheds, undid my last but one shirt button and lit a cigarette.

  I’d never been an avid observer of parked ships and I didn’t bother to start cultivating the habit now. Instead I watched the man sitting in a DKW across the road who was going through the motions of reading a newspaper. For all I knew he really could be keeping abreast of world affairs. Perhaps he preferred being roasted alive to sitting under an electric fan with a cool drink, because with the temperature hovering around the 40 degrees Centigrade mark it must have been like trying to read in a blast furnace. Although he was a long way away and largely conc
ealed by the newspaper it was impossible to miss his shirt, a Hawaiian affair tastefully decorated with blue, scarlet and yellow cowpats. On the count of bad taste alone he couldn’t possibly be a friend. Whether he was an enemy or not I’d have to find out later.

  Killing my cigarette I sweated off a couple of pounds walking the few yards to the gangplank, shared a dirty joke with the Customs man and went aboard. Up on deck it was still about as lively as the ‘Marie Celeste’ on a wet Monday and I didn’t have enough energy to waste it hiking around looking for the watchman. Taking things easy, I climbed the steps to the bridge and flipped on the tannoy.

  ‘Attention below decks, attention below decks,’ I shouted. ‘Torpedo off the port bow, iceberg dead ahead and kamikaze approaching from starboard. Don’t panic but can anyone tell me how to find reverse?’

  Thinking this over as I returned to deck level I decided the sun was killing my sense of humour. Apparently the crewman theoretically acting as watchman shared my opinion.

  ‘Ha bloody ha,’ he said in a distinct Liverpudlian accent before going to slash over the side.

  He was a squat, hairy character with only the grubby towel round his waist between him and total frontal nudity.

  ‘Are you the captain by any chance?’ I enquired once he’d readjusted the towel. If he was the captain I was Little Lord Fauntleroy but it didn’t cost anything to be polite.

  ‘Do you think I’d be the only one aboard this floating craphouse if I was the captain?’ he complained eloquently. ‘Anderson won’t be back until we’re ready to up anchor. The condition he’s likely to be in we’ll be lucky to find the Atlantic, let alone hit England.’

  I didn’t take the remark all that seriously, especially as the watchman was exhibiting unmistakable symptoms of a massive hangover himself, his eyeballs so bloodshot they looked like crosses between Jaffa oranges and AA road maps. Feeling sociable I gave him a cigarette and leaned on the rail beside him. A breeze was blowing up to clear the air. In a couple of hours it might even register on the Beaufort scale.

  ‘What do you want with Anderson?’ the sailor asked.

  ‘It’s a business matter. Do you know where I can find him?’

  The sailor shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘He’s in one of the bars down the road for sure but which one is anyone’s guess. Have you met the old bugger before?’

  ‘Never,’ I admitted.

  ‘Well, he shouldn’t be too hard to recognise. When you see a wizened-up little sod sitting at a table by himself that’ll be Anderson.’

  This wasn’t the most graphic of descriptions but I didn’t press for further details — now I knew the captain’s name was Anderson it would be easy to find him. When I left the ship the DKW was still in position and, on the spur of the moment, I crossed the road to have a closer look. Hawaii shirt casually glanced up as I passed and for a second we scrutinized one another at a range of a few feet, then we both turned our heads away, neither of us fooling the other. Fairish hair, blue eyes, pale skin, none of these were Brazilian characteristics, except in the German dominated south, towns like Curitiba or Joinville. Or Porto Alegre. The man could have been one of the Europeans working around the dockyard but I wasn’t a great believer in coincidences. What with his appearance and his patent interest in the Arcadia it was easier to consider him as a yet unidentified member of the opposition.

  Intuition wasn’t sufficient cause to haul him from the DKW and trample him into the dust so I continued walking, hoping I hadn’t been recognised. We hadn’t met before, of this I was positive, and the chances were Hawaii shirt hadn’t known me from Adam for although my photograph had figured prominently in the Correio de Povo down in PA it hadn’t graced the reports in the nationals. On the other hand, if he had recognised me life should become really hectic. It could even turn into a race to see whether I found Gordinho and company first or they found me.

  For the moment there wasn’t much I could do except carry on working methodically and this involved locating Captain Anderson. It was all very well nurturing the idea of doing unpleasant things to Biddencourt and Gordinho but this was no simple task and I had absolutely no guarantee of success. On the credit side I’d already hurt their organization by destroying their laboratory and I was in a position to hit them even harder in Santos. Really I should have been able to achieve this without coming out into the open but I’d made a bad mistake. Before shooting Joao I should have made him tell me what name the cocaine was being exported under because I could hardly see Gordinho or Biddencourt putting their own names to the bills of lading. This was where Anderson should be able to help me.

  *

  By the time I’d hiked back to the General Camera I was hot, sweaty and footsore, with a persistent pain in my kidneys to remind me I should have been in bed, not trotting around in the sun. There were at least sixty bars Anderson could be patronizing and I’d no intention of doing the legwork myself when there was a vast reservoir of cheap labour at my disposal. Seventy-five per cent of the beggars in the zona were deadbeats pure and simple, characters straight from Brecht’s Threepenny Opera. A few minutes each day with a blunt razor blade and a dirty fingernail and I could have had my body covered with sores as revolting as theirs, and induced by the same method.

  Serge, the man of my choice, was one of the minority and more deserving than most. There must have been a whole shipload of White Russians who’d arrived in Santos after the war, people who’d fled to the Chinese treaty ports to escape from the Bolsheviks only to have Mao wished on them less than a generation later. Many of them had managed to pick up the threads again, others had been less fortunate, including two women working the strip who claimed they would have been princesses in a Tsarist Russia. Serge himself had arrived penniless, without his left arm and with no friends to help him. Whenever possible I put work his way, not out of pity but because I genuinely liked him. Finding Anderson for me was only a start to my present plans for him.

  While Serge went to work I deposited myself in the Night and Day, rather disappointed I had to listen to an Eva record instead of being entertained by the steel band. As things turned out this was no great loss, Serge reporting back before I’d finished my first drink. ‘Anderson is at the Oslo,’ he told me in English.

  He was the only beggar I knew who could speak six different languages.

  ‘Fine. Now that’s sorted out how do you fancy following somebody for me? Do you think you can manage it without being spotted?’

  ‘I can do it,’ Serge answered soberly. ‘I take it you want me to keep an eye on the captain.’

  ‘Far from it. There’s a character parked in a pale blue DKW down at Pier 14. The car had a Rio registration for what it’s worth. The fellow inside looks German — thirtyish, fair complexion and hair, blue eyes and he’s got a small scar over his top lip. As far as I could judge he’s about my build but the best way to recognise him is by his shirt — it’s blue, red and yellow, really bright so you should spot him a mile off assuming he’s left the car. If he isn’t where I last saw him scout around the Camera and see whether you can pick him up. I want to know everywhere he goes and, above all, everyone he meets. Got all that?’

  ‘I’ve got it. Where do I contact you?’

  ‘I’ll give you my number,’ I told him, scribbling down the phone number of my apartment on the Rua Maranhao. ‘I’ll be there some time tonight so keep phoning until you get through.’

  ‘And what if I don’t find him?’

  ‘Don’t let it worry you. Just do your best.’

  Serge nodded and walked out of the bar as though I’d asked him to perform the most natural task in the world. Life had kicked him in the teeth so many times he’d lost the ability to be surprised and he hadn’t even bothered to count the roll of money I’d handed him, just shoved it in his pocket. Although he’d been reduced to begging Serge had retained his dignity. This, together with his insistence on personal hygiene, was why he did so badly on his pi
tch.

  *

  I left more or less on Serge’s heels, braving the sun for the couple of minutes it took me to reach the doubtful sanctuary of the Oslo. Like everywhere else the bar was pretty dead and it wasn’t difficult to spot Anderson. As forecast he was alone, sitting in the back booth while he sneered at the other occupants of the bar, and it seemed I hadn’t been given such a bad description after all. Looking at him antisocial was a word which sprang readily to mind and, to judge by the way his face was thrown together, he’d spent a lifetime sucking lemons. Before I discovered whether he had a disposition to match I picked up a cuba libre at the bar. Fortified by a quick pull at my drink I ambled over, hoping I was correct in my assumption that Anderson wasn’t in Gordinho’s pay.

  ‘Do you mind if I join you for a minute?’ I asked politely.

  A pair of watery brown eyes focused on me.

  ‘Bugger off,’ he said hospitably. Although his voice was only slightly slurred he was a good three sheets to the wind. ‘There are plenty of other seats.’

  Obviously he wasn’t overwhelmed with joy at bumping into a fellow countryman but, undeterred, I eased myself into the seat opposite him.

  ‘I won’t keep you long,’ I said reassuringly.

  ‘Too bloody true you won’t,’ Anderson said angrily, his hand moving to grip the neck of an empty cerveja bottle. T told you to clear off.’

  Although he was going through the motions his belligerency lacked conviction and he was too far gone to be up to the effort. Either that or he still had sufficient hold on his faculties to appreciate I could break him in half if he did start anything. It was high time for a spot of the famous, patented Philis psychology.

  ‘Have a drink,’ I suggested.

  This speech was a ticket to instant acceptance. Anderson abandoned the beer bottle, slopped down the rest of his drink and shoved his glass across the stained, cigarette-scarred table top.

  ‘Make it cognac,’ he said. ‘A large one.’

  Immediately Anderson shot up a notch in my estimation because Brazilian cognac was real firewater, two or three times more potent than meths and the kind of drink which could send you blind in twenty minutes flat. Whenever I drank the muck I accompanied every tiny sip with a mouthful of iced water, operating on the certainty that if cognac reached my stomach undiluted it was likely to carry straight on down until it burned its way through the soles of my feet. Anderson had just knocked back a good gill without coming up for air and he was not only still alive but game for more of the same medicine. Obviously he was no mere social drinker.