Carats and Coconuts

by Scott, D. D.

  “Good question. I’m still trying to piece together the answer.”

  “Their shady escapades worked for awhile, though, right?”

  “Indeed. By stealing the rough gems from the Sol Larga then unloading ‘em in the markets of Antwerp Belgium, they made a fortune.”

  “When did you begin to suspect that Stanley was up to more than his Witherspoon duties?”

  “When their enterprises grew as large as the river Theodore Roosevelt’s history-making expedition traversed, the same river that winds through this Reservation…the River of Doubt.”

  “How so?”

  “Mining here is relatively easy because it’s alluvial, which means the gems are close to the surface, most often found in the riverbeds with nothing more than a pan sifting the river bottom. But the doubt comes in as to who owns the treasure…the Brazilian government or the indigenous people on the land.”

  “Go on.”

  “Add to that the fact that Stanley set up a corporation called FU Imports. I figured the ‘U’ was for Stanley and Myra’s daughter Ugenie, but I didn’t know the ‘F’ till Fosito took your grandpa’s bribe. One of Stanley’s smuggling partners must be Police Chief Fosito.”

  “Right,” Roman said then laughed. “FU stands for their names and not…”

  “Gotchya,” I said, nodding my head at FU’s in-your-face bravado. “Anyhoo…Stanley was responsible for converting U.S. funds into Brazilian money. Fosito would evidently then arrange for the merchandise to get past all the government roadblocks and checkpoints. The same blockades that were supposed to be keeping Stanley and his wildcat mining crew from pilfering the Sol Larga’s stones.”

  “But where did Stanley come up with the kinda cash he’d need for that large-scale operation? Is that where the big corporate backing comes in to play?”

  “This is where things got even more dangerous. And when circumstances also dictated the breaking point between him and Myra,” I said, taking a large swig of the dark Colombian brew in my Sol Larga hand-crafted mug.

  Maybe the rich frothy brew would coat my uneasy stomach. “Stanley forged documents with Fosito’s help and his government contacts, tricking a large investment bank into thinking they had the Brazilian government’s authority to mine the Sol Larga lands.”

  “Which amounted to how much cozy cash?”

  I took another swig of liquid courage.

  “Oh, about $100 million.”

  “I see. So on blind faith, without ever setting foot in these forests surrounding the River of Doubt, some $20 billion dollar investment bank used $100 million of its investors’ money, no questions asked?”

  “The principals of Maple Lynch were personal friends of Stanley’s. They then also brought in their associates, who had been their college fraternity brothers.”

  “The norm for the way the world’s economy works, right?”

  “It appears that way.”

  “So what are you not telling me?” Roman asked, refilling my empty mug.

  “What makes you think I’ve left something out?” I asked, damn near dropping my next eight ounces of Colombian fortitude.

  “I know you, Zoey Witherspoon. Sometimes better than I think you know yourself.”

  Well, here we sit, I thought, at the turning point that could determine which of us lived and which of us joined Stanley in the river sludge.

  Chapter Seven

  I’d had an idea brewing for a while as to how to catch Stanley. Actually, over the holidays, I’d formulated a plan with my mom’s help.

  The way we had it figured, we’d have to catch Stanley in the middle of one of his smuggling deals. After we caught him, we’d make it very worth his while to change teams, so to speak.

  In other words, if he didn’t want to play by Witherspoon rules, we’d be happy to hasten him to his river sludge doom.

  So now, all I had to do was catch the little schmuck.

  Okay…and then I had to convince him to tell us all his smuggling secrets…except for one.

  If I didn’t manage to shut his tiny ass up about that one major issue, Roman and I would be joining him in Sludge-ville.

  Stanley’s smuggling schemes involved not just Police Chief Fosito but also Brazilian state mining company lieutenants. To keep the mining company reps on their side, they needed to keep a steady flow of cozy cash lining their pockets.

  For the time being, Maple Lynch was padding those pockets. But if my plan worked, they might not for much longer, which would really shake things up.

  If we interrupted Stanley’s money flow, we’d have a chance to control his schemes.

  All his partners knew their scheme depended on paying bribes for unauthorized mining. But what if the rough stones mined never made it to their Antwerp payoffs?

  That should do the trick and make Stanley’s investors turn against him very quickly.

  Allow me to lay out the cozy cash trail for you…

  Stanley borrowed funds for his schemes from Maple Lynch, which is a subsidiary of a $20 billion Toronto-based company that coincidently is the second largest residential mortgage lender in Canada. That meant the National Banks of Canada, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund and a large Hong Kong investment company that had partnered with them were indirectly involved in the gemstone smuggling biz. It didn’t matter that they didn’t know they were associated with a smuggling biz based out of an Indian reservation in the Amazon Rainforest.

  A-mazing how the cozy cash world works, right?

  Mortgages, coffee, sugar, gemstones…all related if you follow the cash.

  The money Stanley borrowed from these investors was used to buy stones from the Sol Larga and steal even more. To boost his regular trade, Stanley was stealing from the Indians for pure profit. And the Sol Larga hadn’t a clue.

  But they wouldn’t be clueless for long…

  Following a red-eye flight in the family kingdom’s jet, Roman and I were now back in Manhattan for a super-short trip. We were waiting for Stanley’s plane to arrive from Brazil.

  In fact, our plane was simply waiting to taxi out again, back to the rainforest…with us…and Stanley.

  “Here he comes,” Roman said, watching the bank of monitors we were sitting in front of in one of the customs inspectors’ secret rooms.

  “Indeed,” R said over my left shoulder, “the black crow has landed.”

  I laughed out loud at R’s use of the black crow analogy. Boy was that apropos.

  Nothing was a better omen of death than a black crow. I could almost hear their eerie cawing in the dark recesses of my mind. Like these natural scavengers, known for hanging around large-scale fields of human suffering, Stanley was getting fat off of the misery of others. He fed off the Sol Larga’s misery of living on a land rich with what others would kill to control.

  “Like a crow on the thatch, soon death lifts the latch,” R quoted, keeping the eerie caws circling around my head.

  I tried to block my raven hang-up and re-focus on the one in front of us.

  Chief Valente had told us to expect around 1,170 carats of our rough or uncut precious aquamarines and pink Morganite on Stanley’s person.

  That’s how it’s done in the U.S. The stones are usually hand-carried through customs to make them “official” imports, after which, they can then be shipped to Antwerp and sold on the open market.

  This morning, however, Stanley wouldn’t be making his usual smooth trip through customs. We’d tipped off the customs agents, and they were all ready to collect on that tip.

  Judging by the images we saw on the monitors, the customs officials had found a ton more than 1,170 carats in the sealed plastic bags wrapped in tape in Stanley’s luggage.

  “Unbelievable,” I whispered, as we continued watching the screens and listened to the speakers relaying the bust going down.

  There was a second plastic bag in Stanley’s suitcase, and it had much more than the first bag. Try another 2,340 carats of what we in the industry call Bonus Stones, which ar
e extra large gemstones and fancy-colored diamonds. From my vantage point, some were yellow and some blue.

  All-told, I’d say those Zip-locked and taped bags were worth well over fifteen mil. Yep, as in fifteen and one half million dollars. In taped and sealed bags in a suitcase belonging to a guy the size of an elf. And no, a man’s size doesn’t matter, but what he does with his package matters a bunch.

  “That lousy piece of paper ain’t gonna do the trick,” I said, listening as Stanley pleaded his case to one customs official who was examining a letter Stanley had produced. It claimed to verify he’d purchased the stones from “legitimate sources not involved in funding conflict.”

  As the inspector seized Stanley’s jewels, I laughed out loud again.

  Stanley wasn’t carrying a Kimberley Process Certificate, formally vouching that his gems were not, in fact, conflict diamonds used to finance the world’s civil wars.

  “Who would have ever thought we could actually rely on the Kimberley Process?” Roman asked.

  And he was right. That entire system has been riddled with problems, fraught with oversight failures and leaks. Because it’s not always applied consistently, it actually tends to encourage smuggling. But this time…yeah…it worked and worked like a charm.

  “So what if I take the stones back to Brazil or on to Antwerp without formally entering the U.S.? Would that work for you?” Stanley asked, his voice growing more desperate with each new plan he offered up.

  That got a big ol’ “No way” from the inspector dude.

  With that, we decided it was time for Stanley to meet his new bosses…

  Chapter Eight

  When Stanley was led into the customs screening room and saw us waiting for him, the look on his beet-red face was more priceless than his bags full of Sol Larga gems.

  “How could you know?” He asked me, the color now draining from his cheeks.

  “How could you not know I’d nail your pathetic ass?!” I returned his question, ready to turn him into sludge-fill myself.

  No one fucked with my family. Either one of ‘em.

  “How could you not think I’d figure out your schemes?”

  Stanley had no answer for that question either.

  Well, luckily for him, I had some, but he wasn’t gonna like ‘em at all.

  “A wee bit tongue-tied are we?” I asked, circling around him like a lion about to pounce on its next meal. “Let me give you your choices, you piece of shit.”

  Roman and R pulled up a chair and made sure Stanley sat in it.

  “The way I see it, you’ve got three of ‘em.”

  I was fairly certain I knew which one he’d choose, but I like to think of myself as a fair kinda’ gal. So yeah, I’d go ahead and present his options and let him decide his own fate. Although, I wasn’t really sure I could make good on all the options I was about to present. Truth be told, we could all very well end up as sludge fill, but we’d have to deal with that later.

  “Option One, you can stay with our customs inspector friends here and try your hand against federal prosecutors. Although, let me advise you, that the last poor schmuck in similar shoes to yours ended up five years later with nothing. His precious gemstones became the newest additions to The Smithsonian’s stash.”

  Stanley took a deep breath, but said nothing. Actually, his lack of emotion was starting to piss me off a bit. Time to up the ante.

  “Option Two…which if you ever want to see your lovely wife Myra or your terrific daughter Ugenie again, you may want to seriously consider…”

  That at least got him looking straight at me. The flickers of fear evident in his eyes shot arrows of hope right into my soul. Maybe he did love Myra and Ugenie. But how much remained to be seen.

  Part of me hated to use Myra, my mom’s best friend, and her daughter as bait. But if I hoped to take over Stanley’s operation, I didn’t have much choice. That was the only way to make it worth his while to cooperate. Hell, I didn’t know if the guy was even capable of choosing his family over his precious contraband. But I was about to find out.

  “I’m going to take that look as a sign you’d like to hear option two then…”

  Still not a word from Stanley, although his stare turned into a glare, and the icy chills beginning to frost over the formerly stuffy screening room were an indication he’d entertain my next option.

  “You say nothing of this stone seizure to your associates and act as if everything went according to plan and carry on with business as usual…”

  “How the hell am I supposed to do that without the money I’d have made from getting these stones sold in Antwerp?!”

  “The money won’t be an issue,” my prince said, his voice very low but firm and more than convincing.

  “I’m a dead man,” Stanley said, twitching in his chair.

  “Is that all you’re worried about?! Yourself?!” I shouted. “Don’t you know that Myra and Ugenie are at risk too?!”

  “Of course I know that!”

  “Then why is it that I don’t think you give a damn about anyone but yourself?!”

  “You’ve got this all wrong,” Stanley said, sounding more and more desperate as things began to heat up again in our room.

  “No. You’ve got it all wrong, Asshole. But I’m about to help you make it right,” I said, bending down so that my eyes were even with his.

  “What’s option three?” He asked, his voice almost too soft for me to hear it.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” I said, backing away from him a bit but without ever taking my eyes away from his.

  “Option Three basically goes along with Option Two. You not only pretend as if you’d unloaded this batch of stones, you go back with us to Brazil and begin to work on the next deal.”

  “I can’t do that! They’ll kill me for sure! Do you have any idea how much I’ve already taken from the Sol Larga? If they find out…”

  “They already know,” I said, enjoying how big his eyes got trying to soak in that new scoop.

  “The way we’re figuring things, you’re about to become part of a Sol Larga river bank any day now, with or without our help. So you can accept our plan and work with us, or I’ll personally see to it that your sludge fate happens sooner rather than later.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Why yes. Yes it is, Stanley.”

  I’d never been more certain of anything in my life.

  “Just a little advice…this woman always makes good on her promises,” Roman said, while he and R flanked Stanley’s seat.

  “I take it you’ll be coming with us, then?” R said, securing Stanley’s elbow, while Roman followed suit on the other side.

  “You have no idea how deep this goes, Zoey,” Stanley mumbled, shaking his head, although, to his credit, he offered no resistance to Roman and R.

  “Try me.”

  Chapter Nine

  Aboard the jet on the return flight to Brazil, I struggled with the wars in my head, which at times felt a lot more intense than the ones waiting for us in the rainforest.

  What if our plan to stop this smuggling cycle once and for all failed?

  Yeah…well…I shoved that sucker of a thought to some super-dark corner of my scared shitless mind.

  We simply could not afford to fail.

  As my mind wandered, my fingers wandered over the multi-faceted surface of one of the Bonus Stones Stanley had been trying to off-load illegally from our mines.

  This particular piece of rough cut beryl crystal was a beauty and would bring about a million dollars on its own on the open market in Antwerp.

  It was sure to make some gorgeous aquamarine-set piece of prized jewelry. I marveled at the feel of each still un-cut surface against my fingers. Each cold and smooth facet that met my fingertips was followed by a dull and bumpy section, which would give way to a brilliant opposing facet.

  How many years had this beauty been buried in a Sol Larga riverbed?

  The morning sun shining through the wind
ow next to my seat illuminated the tray table full of raw gems from Stanley’s Bonus Stone Bag. Each of the sun’s white-hot rays made the stones and their impurity gardens shimmer in the light of the new day.

  There was just something pure and magical about rough cut stones. In fact, I’d take a hunk of untouched beryl any day over the amazing jewels it would more than likely be cut into.

  I glanced at the two plastic bags still full of stones. Some of them would clearly outdo the ones I was examining with my loupes.

  Even though I knew the return of these gems to Chief Valente would serve as a nice peace offering of sorts and help to ensure the Sol Larga’s continued cooperation, my gut was still in knots.

  How many more risks would we have to take in order to stop the vicious cycles of smuggling then selling conflict stones?

  There was one thought, however, that helped offset my fears. Roman and R’s plan on how to proceed from here seemed just as solid as the crystals now resting in my palm.

  But when human greed, wealth and power were at stake, reason was nowhere to be found. Also gone was the sanctity of any life standing in the way of the accumulation of those evil triplets.

  A few of the jewels in my hand were emeralds, and they were twinkling in the sunlight that was still hitting them.

  Some civilizations believe certain stones have powers…especially emeralds. Since they were believed to ease a troubled mind, it occurred to me that perhaps I should be caressing these beauties with a little more finesse.

  My mind was troubled all right, but the irony was that these stones were causin’ the trouble.

  “You look lost over there,” Roman said.

  Those were the first words either of us had spoken on the flight back to Brazil.

  “I haven’t been much of a conversationalist, have I?”

  “No worries. You were fantastic back at the airport. I was proud of you.”