The Dream Merchant

by Fred Waitzkin

  It was the amused expression on the gunman’s face, a kind of dare, that cut through Jim’s distraction. On another day, in a better mood, Jim might have allowed Rolf’s explanation, which was significantly true, if lacking any trace of remorse: the men would have suffered terribly and died. Jim could accept Rolf’s business shenanigans, and even his brutality, because he was a very efficient worker, highly unusual among Jim’s hired guns, who mainly sat around smoking and drinking beer while waiting for war.

  Jim was exhausted and irritated. He had been working around the clock on his enormous machine. In its tentative first hours of operation, tons of raw gravel and water had come shooting out the front of the sluice box, without filtering out any gold; time had been lost. Jim was trying to determine the optimum mix of gravel and water pressure so as to not overrun the riffles. Jim and Rolf walked past the east end of the runway. Ahead of them, Jim’s apparatus was daunting in the austere evening light.

  Over time the machine would give Jim everything, but first he needed to master its beastly appetites and messes. Just turning the thing on created hills of waste gravel called cascalho. Mountains of the stuff rapidly built up on the ground along both sides of the long trough and especially on the open front end where the men did the final sifting for gold. After one sixteen-hour shift the mounds had become unmanageable and it was necessary to bring in the Cat and push away the gravel, which left a four-foot gully. Jim usually drove the Cat himself.

  The sluice box had taken over his imagination. Each morning Jim could hardly wait to race from bed and get his hands on it again, to learn something new, and to pull out the gold from behind the riffles, which was pure lust.

  Jim walked east with Rolf, explaining the rules of the camp and what he was trying to accomplish with the sluice box while Rolf nodded as if the machine were key to his welfare and prosperity as well as Jim’s. He told Rolf that he was trying to improve things for all his men and that rules were rules, no exceptions. Finally they were past the sluice box and up against a seeming impenetrable wall of darkening forest. Jim pointed the stainless-steel rifle at Rolf and told him to get moving. Everyone in the camp knew what it meant to walk in there alone, and particularly at dusk. Had Rolf even turned around to plead his case, Jim would have shot him.

  * * *

  Luis had found Maria in the slums of Manaus and she soon became the feature act in the cantina. The men called her Maria Full of Grace. She was short, less than five feet, with small breasts and a petite ass, and she had a dark mark on the end of her little nose. Maria was a kind of sexual child. She had jet-black hair that she kept short, like a boy. She could be adorable and flirtatious, but other times she had an inner smile that was spiritual and entirely captivating.

  Many evenings, when it was late and the music was no longer playing, Maria was lifted onto the bar by the men and she would begin to dance while leaning back against a rough wooden pole that rose into the thatched ceiling. Her lips glowed soft pink. When she lifted her skirt her womanly legs came as a shock because the rest of her was childlike. Maria closed her eyes and thrust her hips ahead and swayed to the rhythm of the droning and screaming insects and birds outside that came in waves, in this odd cadence of shrieks and soft eerie silences. She fell deeply into herself while she slowly took off her clothes until she was completely naked. The men were riveted by her dance. Each of them tried to catch her eye, wanted her to dance for him alone. She wore only a distant smile. Who are you smiling for, Maria?

  By this late hour the girls were no longer innocents. The tenderness of earlier encounters had passed. The girls were undressed or mostly undressed. It was the last of the night and they sat on the laps of their suitors, fondling their genitals and putting their breasts into the faces of the men, some of them still smeared with dried mud from the day’s labor. The faces of the women were swollen with desire. No one was pretending. The men reached for their pouches of gold to check what was left.

  On the little bar Maria made love to herself. Her shaved mound was pure as a baby’s ass. She was into her own world, untouchable for all the pleasure she promised and allowed on special nights, when she was in the mood. A hundred men yearned for her. Many would have married Maria and believed in the sanctity of their lives together. Though Maria aroused the cantina with her dancing, many nights she would not go with a man. She could have made much more than any other girl in Jim’s cantina, but she made less. After her dance she would come off the bar and sit in a corner by herself lost in thought. The men knew they must leave her alone. If you talked to her or touched her arm she became incensed and then the night fell apart, and the men left the cantina feeling forlorn.

  30.

  Iliana continued to keep her room in a small residential hotel near center city but now she was using Jim’s estate as her home base. She set up her office in one of the bedrooms and more often than not she stayed the night. Each week the gold was delivered to the estate. It was guarded here by Jim’s men until Iliana made her weekly sale and then she called him on the radio with the news. She was now a 10 percent partner in the operation, but she acted like the boss. Iliana drove to town in Jim’s old Mercedes surrounded by his gunmen. She directed them to do personal chores. She was an independent operator, virtually unchecked and unchallenged. Jim couldn’t be everywhere at once and he preferred spending his time in the camp, particularly now with the precious metal literally flowing down the chute; also, he didn’t have patience for negotiating with vendors in Portuguese and he disliked keeping the books.

  Iliana stole from the first week. She negotiated for the highest selling price and then she reported to Jim a different amount, 5 percent less or 7 percent less, always less. How could he know for certain what she was getting? He didn’t speak the language and the gold numbers were always fluctuating; scales were calibrated differently; there were many explanations. And she was always reporting large sums of money, which gladdened him. In the first month, even with the sluice box at half speed, Jim’s gold sale had soared from $30,000 to nearly $150,000. The weekly report from Iliana was a high point for Jim in the camp.

  Iliana pushed the envelope. In addition to her conventional chipping, she coerced gold buyers to pay her commissions under the table. If they refused she took away her business. She threatened and bargained relentlessly or she used her appealing smile or she suggested even more was possible if the money was right. She didn’t care. Her primary convictions were about money. She was appeasing herself after a run of heartbreaking losses. She was very smart and she had tools. Men were easy to break down. They were weak and foolish and easily blinded by an attractive woman. She believed that she could navigate herself out of any mess. She held Jim’s face between her two hands and extolled their growing success. Their enormous machine would feed them gold for years, she assured him. They would keep moving the sluice box north to the Rio Novo. They were just beginning.

  * * *

  Iliana had traveled fast from having nothing to needing everything. She didn’t love Jim, but she had to possess him and deceive him.

  Her impediment was Angela, a Caboclo without style or education. Iliana ordered the girl around crudely or ignored Angela altogether. Whenever Jim was away, Iliana wanted to drive the girl from the house, but she didn’t dare. She was bursting to say to Jim, Why do you need this whore? She’s so crude. I’ll give you everything.

  For Angela, the new woman was hardly more than a nuisance. Angela was very hearty, but also, she operated on a different wavelength. She didn’t share Iliana’s ambitions, so there really wasn’t any fight except in Iliana’s head. Angela didn’t think about a future with Jim—the idea was inconceivable. She was from the jungle and yearned to go back. She was tuned to the wind and night sounds, the screeches, yelps, and growls from over the green security wall that gladdened her and made her think of home.

  Angela wasn’t resentful about Jim’s long periods away in the camp. But when he came back she was happy to see him and live with him inside their
guessing game. When he fell asleep she gently closed the door behind her and returned to her little room. The future, or any pledges he might make about the future, meant little to her. Repeatedly, this struck him as fresh and appealing and also it made him yearn for her all the more.

  Angela’s charm and beauty were irresistible. Iliana couldn’t top it, but she tried. She pulled Jim into her room. She always left the sheets for the girl to wash.

  Iliana tried everything to win him. She tried to please him with great runs of passion. She offered him cocaine, but Jim didn’t like the feeling. She acted like a little girl. She discovered that the best way to convince him was to please herself, to put his hands on her throat. He found it astounding that this driven woman would allow such vulnerability; it was this contradiction that kept him believing they were on the same side, more or less. She trusted Jim to give her back her breath. But if he’d lost himself and squeezed the side of her neck for an additional few seconds their partnership would have ended on the spot. More than once, with his hands squeezing her throat and her face turned crimson, he considered allowing this mistake. It was such a powerful fantasy that she seemed to engender.

  * * *

  The situation in the house persisted, with quiet changes, for almost three months. Iliana angled for every loose dollar. When Jim was in town she dressed in smart outfits from New York or Paris and continued to act like they were a couple, yet she slowly came to accept that the girl was a facet of her life.

  The Manaus house was an unusual cocktail of muted passions. Angela remained in her own space. He would watch her from his window, moving across the field or planting. Sometimes she would notice him and they’d wave. She didn’t seem to mind if Jim visited the other woman. This confused him, but he was grateful. In the afternoon, even if Jim was visiting for a day or two, Angela was glued to her favorite soap opera. He waited patiently as she watched the tube; afterwards, she smiled at him and when he took her in his arms she gave him kisses and gently bit his lips.

  Jim had changed a lot. He rarely thought about the great house on the lake, and if he did it seemed gloomy and shrouded like an unhappy past. When he was away from the camp, he soon missed it. He wanted to get back with Ribamar, working out details, burning back the trees and underbrush so there would be more room to store mounds of gravel. Jim had become very directed and what remained of his softness was focused on the girl whom he couldn’t manage to possess.

  * * *

  Jim had been waiting for Angela’s birthday. He wanted to make it up to her for his preoccupations, for Iliana and his long absences in the jungle. Most of all he wanted to win Angela completely, bowl the girl over with a gesture and eliminate all doubts. The day before her nineteenth birthday he told her about the gift. He slowly described it and repeated himself until he was sure, at least fairly sure, that she understood him. He didn’t want any guessing. By now Jim had lost all patience for the game that had defined their relationship.

  The following afternoon, after he had finished his banking, Jim would send the car back for her and she would meet him in the lobby of the Tropicana, which was the finest hotel in Manaus. Together, she and Jim would roam the free-trade shops where tourists from all over the world came to buy fine clothing, the best luggage, expensive jewelry, perfumes from France, watches, electronics. Anything a girl could dream of owning was available in the gift shops at the Tropicana. Jim asked Angela to think about what she would like to have so she wouldn’t be stagestruck while surrounded by rich tourists. She could have anything at all. She could spend a thousand dollars or three thousand dollars. He wanted her to let herself go. He tried to explain what this meant. Whatever you want. Take anything at all. He gestured large things with his arms. Take them. They’re for you.

  Angela laughed at his foolish pantomime, but then her smile grew distant. He decided that she didn’t understand the meaning of so much money. A girl from the jungle wouldn’t earn three thousand dollars in ten years, unless she was one of Jim’s whores in the cantina. Angela understood what it meant to spend one dollar or perhaps three dollars. She couldn’t wrap her mind around three thousand dollars. This hesitation made Jim think even larger. They’d spend five thousand dollars on her birthday gift. What did he care? He was finally making money again after nearly four years. She could buy enough in the hotel shops to sink her tiny village. He wouldn’t say no. He’d take her from one shop to the next and help her select.

  He watched her while she tried to absorb his largess. His idea was beyond her horizons; at least that’s what he conjectured. She was from another culture. He was charmed anew by her naïveté. He could barely sleep thinking about Angela’s birthday shopping spree in the Tropicana Hotel the following afternoon.

  The next morning Jim left with his gunmen around ten. He called the estate three hours later to tell Angela that the car was on its way back for her. One of the gunmen told him that she wasn’t in the house. She had left an hour earlier on the bus.

  Angela must have come into town on her own. It was her little surprise, Jim decided. He went to the Tropicana and waited. He read the newspaper and waited. But he had a feeling in his stomach she wasn’t coming. Something was wrong. Something about the birthday present. There had been a misunderstanding. After two hours he called home and she wasn’t there. No one knew where she had gone. She must have misunderstood his intention, or she would have run to meet him. Any woman would have.

  Angela didn’t come back to the house that night, or the next night.

  She didn’t come back. He decided that she must have returned home to the village to visit her parents and little sisters. There was nowhere else she could have gone. Surely she would come back in a week or two. Or if she didn’t he’d go to the village and bring her back. He settled on this idea and calmed himself down. Jim returned to the camp and went back to work. The camp was the solution to all his problems. It quickly absorbed him.

  * * *

  After six months operating the machine, and nearly four years since losing his factories in Canada, Jim was back in the money. He had more than eight hundred thousand stashed in his wall safe in Manaus, and each week there were more thousands coming to him from the gold sale. Only he didn’t know what to do with the money. His whole adult life, he needed wealth as a test of character—for Jim, simply the act of making money was the hot button—but after buying the basics he wasn’t sure what came next. Having a glut of wealth was the backwash of having none, and each generated pools of anxiety.

  Marvin Gesler had always made the large-money decisions beyond houses, cars, and boats. Jim couldn’t keep stuffing money into the safe. One of his men could have pried it out of the wall. Jim was afraid to use the local banks. He called Phyllis because he didn’t know where to stash his money. He instructed her to fly to Miami and take a room for a week in the old Eden Roc hotel on the beach. He prepped Ribamar about the trip, warning that the sluice box mustn’t be operated unless he was standing there himself, monitoring the final sifting of rich gravel. If he turned his back for a minute, the gold would walk. Jim reminded Ribamar to keep logs across the runway, although he understood the implications better than Jim. While Jim was in Florida, Luis would also remain in the camp. Luis was broken with anxiety, but Jim couldn’t bear to let him go and kept up the pretense that Luis was his key guy. He was a dear man and Jim believed he’d snap out of it. Before Jim left he gave Iliana his room number at the Eden Roc, where Phyllis had already checked in. Iliana offered to fly into the camp, to make sure things were running smoothly, and he reminded her to call Ribamar on the radio first and ask what supplies or spare parts he might need.

  * * *

  Jim flew to Miami feeling an unfamiliar gloom. The good life, all of his dreams, was back in the jungle clearing. It was like a premonition, he reflected to Mara and me. He felt impatience and dread at the prospect of sharing a room with his young wife. Jim was safe in the rain forest, but she could maim him.

  I should never have married Phyll
is, Jim said to us, and Mara nodded solemnly, as if they were back again on the same team. And he believed her, believed all her junk like the biggest sucker in town. But it was easy for me to say he should never have married Mara. Another man couldn’t have found respite in the jungle.

  * * *

  In the vast but worn lobby of the hotel, Phyllis greeted Jim standing beneath a giant discolored chandelier. She wore a puzzled smile and her body was all soft, particularly her shoulders and arms. It was the first glimpse of his wife in two and a half years. She was the same age as Iliana, but Phyllis couldn’t have survived two days in the jungle.

  She took his hand and guided him to a restaurant near the pool, ordered a bottle of red wine. The place smelled of chlorine and laundered towels. Phyllis was looking at him for clues, for a way inside. She was shaking her head, amazed. Jim had grown so taut, all sinew and brambles. He’d lost thirty pounds. What? he asked her impatiently.

  I’m just so happy to see you, she said.

  She jumped into the narrative to fill the void. Marvin had run off to Europe without ever making a court appearance. No one knew where he was.

  You know, Jim, you and Marvin have become big mystery celebrities in Toronto. Both of you on the lam like bank robbers. You’ve been in all the papers.

  Now her big daffy smile.

  His eyes kept slipping away from hers. He asked her a few questions about Marvin. After so much mileage Jim still had a taste for his partner. But she didn’t know much. Marvin also had lost his house, and soon after his secretary left him for a salesman. The government had built a massive case against Jim and Marvin for just under $20 million in back taxes and penalties. In the indictment Jim’s crime had been described as a tax evasion scheme as financially sophisticated as it was venal. He smiled at that. Jim could barely balance a checkbook. She smiled back.

  But he had nothing else to say. He’d become so skinny she couldn’t find him, and he had so much disdain. In her desperation, she talked a jag. Facts, goodwill, stories burbling out. Michael had left for California to join Ava. He’d done things before he left Phyllis hadn’t wanted to tell Jim on the phone. Michael had run around with a group of boys who took drugs. One night they stole a car. Jim nodded. That was it, next subject. He didn’t want to think of the boy or anything in her world. Phyllis’s singsong voice was wrenching.