Insects 2: The Hunted

by John Koloen

  “Thank you so much Mister Howard,” he said, “Thank you for helping me and giving me a job.”

  Duncan gave a puzzled look to Suarez’s lawyer, who smiled.

  “That’s what the judge said,” the lawyer said in an aside. “I think there was confusion on his part. I’m sorry I didn’t catch it at the time, but I was focused more on the amount of the bond. It’s not a big deal. You can fire him, if you want to, and he’ll still be free on bond. It’s just that he thinks you’re his boss. You can explain it to him. I need to be going.”

  Duncan was unsure what to do, whether to tell Suarez there had been a mistake and he didn’t have a job, or whether to put him on his payroll. He would need a guide on the expedition he planned and, despite his age, the young man had proven his worth during the first expedition. When he explained the situation to Suarez, the guide’s smile disappeared.

  “You want to find the bugs?” he said, incredulously.

  “Yes, I’m here to find specimens.”

  Suarez lowered his head and shook it slightly.

  “I don’t know, Mister Howard,” he said, his voice barely audible so that Duncan had to lean toward him.

  “It’s just going to be you, me and maybe one or two others,” Duncan said. “There’s a village that we can fly into. We can rent ATVs. There won’t be any floods. It won’t be like the last time.”

  “I don’t know, Mister Howard. I’m thankful for your help but I still have, how you say it, pesadelos, nightmares.”

  “Me too,” Duncan said. “But this will be different. Besides, there’s a saying in my country that if you get thrown by a horse you should get back on it.”

  Suarez gave him a baffled look.

  “That way you overcome your fears,” Duncan explained.

  “Does it work, getting on the horse?”

  “I don’t know. It’s an expression. A saying. It applies to anything you do that ends in failure. It’s so you don’t become a quitter.”

  Suarez thought about it for a moment.

  “Tell you what, you think about it and I’ll call you tomorrow,” Duncan said.

  “I don’t have a phone,” Suarez said apologetically.

  Duncan counted out five hundred reals from his wallet, handing them to Suarez.

  “This is an advance on your salary. Go buy yourself a phone and call me with the number.”

  Suarez brightened as he stared at the currency before shoving it into his pants pocket. Not only would he be able to afford a phone, but groceries as well. As they parted, Suarez hoped the electricity hadn’t been cut off at Javier Costa’s rent house. Things had a way of changing rapidly when you were in jail.

  51

  THE THREE OF them sat at a table in a bar near their hotel: the soundman, the producer and the consultant. It had been a long, trying day and they wanted to blow off steam. Boyd was glad to see that Joe the Asshole hadn’t been invited, but he wondered whether it was because of their encounter that morning. Secretly, he hoped it wasn’t. He wasn’t a fragile person and didn’t want special treatment or even the appearance of special treatment. He just wanted to be one of the guys.

  “Oh, we never go drinking with Joe,” Walker said.

  “Yeah, he’s a mean drunk, gets angry over nothing,” Murphy added.

  “Sometimes he starts fights,” Walker said. “You just never know what he’s thinking.”

  “Why do you put up with him?” Boyd asked, nursing his beer.

  “Well, for one thing, he’s fearless,” Murphy said.

  “I worked with him several years ago,” Walker said. “You know how they say there’s two kinds of people, those who run from the fire and those who run into the fire? Well, Joe’s one of those who runs into the fire so he can video the firefighters.”

  “Yeah, he’s worked in war zones, Serbia, the Middle East, Asia. He’s even been wounded. He’s got a lot of interesting stories about his assignments.”

  “’Course, you don’t know how much of it is bullshit,” Walker said.

  “There’s that. The other thing is that he always comes out as the good guy, you know. Like he’s a saint.”

  “There’s nobody else you can get?” Boyd asked.

  “I don’t know of anybody who takes the chances to get the shot that Joe takes,” Murphy said. “As a producer, that’s gold. I don’t have to tell him anything, really. Once he gets on a shoot, he’s telling me what he should be doing and, you know, most of the time he’s right. The guy knows his business. I sometimes think of myself as a new second lieutenant and he’s my grizzled sergeant. And you know what the Army tells second lieutenants?”

  “Listen to your sergeant,” Walker said.

  Boyd took it all in and realized before he’d finished his second beer that he could either learn to get along with the videographer or quit. He figured there was no way Murphy would replace him, but he didn’t want to continue talking about him so he asked what they knew about Nolan Thomas. Murphy and Walker looked at each other across the table and shrugged.

  “The guy is, what do you call it, standoffish,” Walker said.

  “Aloof,” Murphy agreed. “He’s very smart, no question about that. But he thinks we’re working for him and that gets awkward pretty quick.”

  “Yeah, one time, this was like two days before you came onboard and the day after we met him, we were sitting around talking, trying to explain what we were doing and what our expectations were and all that,” Walker said.

  “Yeah, we talked for like ten, fifteen minutes, you know. He looked like he was listening, but then he asks, ‘So, who’s going to carry my specimen cases?’ and we look at each other like, wow, he didn’t hear a word,” Murphy said. “Not a word.”

  “I know the type,” Boyd said. “Academia is filled with them. So obsessed with their work that they think the rest of the world is there to assist them.”

  “Is that what it was like with your former boss?” Murphy asked.

  “Kinda, but not really. He’s an all right guy.”

  “From what I’ve seen on TV, he’s not ready for prime time,” Walker sniffed, pulling on his silvery gray beard.

  “I’ll give you that,” Boyd said. “But then, how would you react? It’s like the world’s taking sides and you’re in the middle by yourself. You know, he’s down here?”

  Boyd suddenly regretted what he’d said. His companions instantly faced him, anticipating some juicy gossip.

  “Look, I’m not gonna say anything bad about him.”

  “No, no, why would you do that?” Murphy said. “What’s he down here for, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  I mind, Boyd thought, angry with himself for bringing it up. Certainly, he wasn’t going to mention Duncan’s job offer nor the fact that he’d told him about the village where they found the hides. He realized anything he said would be more than he should say. He could see the wheels turning in the field producer’s bright eyes.

  “You know, I’d really like to meet him,” Murphy said.

  “So would every reporter in the Western Hemisphere,” Walker agreed.

  “And that’s why it’s not gonna happen,” Boyd said, hoping to cut the conversation short. “You know, I talked to him on the phone. Once. That’s it.”

  “Let me pitch an idea to you,” Murphy said after ordering a third round.

  Carl Murphy had been a producer long enough to know a good story arc when he saw one. It was one thing to be following the secretive Nolan Thomas into the rainforest looking for predatory insects and quite another to be following the man who had actually found them and barely escaped with his life. Broken Tree Productions had contacted several of the survivors, but all of them declined to participate in a reality production. The front office hadn’t told him details of their arrangement with Thomas and at the time it didn’t matter, but now that he knew that Duncan was in the area, he started to wonder. The allure of getting Duncan involved was too much to resist. He knew if he could get this to happen his bosses w
ould throw a party.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Boyd said, “I’ll ask him but only on the condition that we change the subject. I’ve already said too much.”

  52

  MURPHY WAS ON the phone with his boss as soon as he stepped into his room. The drinking party broke up after the third round. Murphy could think of nothing other than that Duncan was in Brazil. Although Boyd had clammed up and wouldn’t provide details, Murphy had no problem filling in the blanks. As a producer, he understood the importance of creating tension in a reality show, and what could be better than pitting Duncan and Thomas against each other without either of them actually knowing about it?

  We could use two units, one with each of them, and knit the story lines together, he thought. They could go on doing whatever they do and our man Boyd could give us the play-by-play.

  “I don’t have it all figured out, but just imagine if we can get the guy who started it all into the show!”

  “What are you gonna do when they find out?”

  “We’ll be in post by then. It won’t matter.”

  53

  ANTONIO SUAREZ SAT in the shade of the patio sipping an Antarctica Cerveja, his second, his feet propped on the small table. On the table sat his cellphone and under it a small piece of paper with the number of his American patron, Howard Duncan. The phone was an older model with a prepaid SIM card that he bought from a street vendor. It was the second purchase he made after his release from jail. The first was to seek out a churrascaria and chow down on barbecue. Then came the phone and the beer.

  A bus took him to within several blocks of the house. His mind started to play tricks on the walk. Suddenly, he feared that someone may have moved in. Would he fight if it came to that? No, what would be the point? Eventually someone would take possession and he’d be on the street again. But he had a job and money in his wallet.

  What if someone was in the house waiting to rob him? Now that he had something to lose, he approached the tiny house cautiously. To his relief, the front door was locked and the air-conditioner was off, just as he had left it. Using the key his boss had given him, he pushed the door open. The air inside was dank and stinky. The garbage hadn’t been taken out since his arrest. In a burst of energy, he removed the garbage, started the air conditioner, opened the patio door and, for the first time in more than a week, contemplated a brighter future.

  While in jail, it was all about whether he’d be released on bail. When that happened, it was all about getting comfortable. After that happened, he thought about how he could tell Duncan that he didn’t want to be anywhere near the killer insects. He felt tense whenever he thought about what had happened to his boss and the others. He was deeply remorseful that he had ended Carlos Johnson’s life, but he had no choice. He could not let him suffer like that. The guilt he felt for taking a life weighed on him. He needed to confess to a priest. He would do it tomorrow, he told himself. He would describe what happened, how the student begged to be freed from the torture of being eaten alive. Surely, the priest would absolve him. Or would he? What kind of penance would be required for taking a life? He didn’t understand all of the workings of the church, but he understood how guilty he felt, and he knew from experience that he felt better after confession.

  However, he realized that by taking the money from Duncan he had as much as agreed to work for him. He’d spent some of it and thus couldn’t simply give it back. Staring at the phone, he wondered whether it would be easier to not make the call. Of course, the court had the address to the house so Duncan could find him if he was so inclined. Which he would, Suarez knew. Why else would he have given him five hundred reals to buy a phone? Only wealthy people would spend that much on a phone.

  Though he’d thought he would sleep well on his first night of freedom, he didn’t. The nightmare had returned and instead of devouring the young American, the insects were feeding on him.

  54

  ALTHOUGH HE HAD the financial support, what Duncan really needed was a trustworthy assistant or collaborator to develop a plan and implement it. Knowing that Nolan Thomas already had a team and had located a promising site made everything seem urgent. If only Cody were working for him, he thought. If only he could convince him to work with him. But how? Unexpectedly, he found himself bumping up against his limitations. He was so accustomed to having assistants carrying out tasks that he found himself struggling with the details. In the past, he’d develop the overarching plan and others would gather the gear, the provisions, the contracts—whatever was needed to make things happen. He was a fish out of water. Should he call Boyd?

  It was a relief when Suarez finally called. I can count on Antonio, he thought.

  Suarez, on the other hand, was not nearly as excited. He hadn’t slept well and he had yet to go to confession. His gratitude for what Duncan had done to help him battled with his fear of the insects. Duncan figured this out quickly when he asked the guide how he felt.

  “I don’t know Mister Howard, to tell the truth.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Suarez sighed.

  “I feel trapped.”

  “Trapped? How could you feel trapped? I just bailed you out of jail.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. And I am grateful. But I feel bad, you know, about what happened to Mister Carlos. And I’m afraid.”

  “What happened won’t happen again,” Duncan said. “The flooding is done.”

  “I know, I know. Every time I think about it, I see him.”

  Duncan couldn’t dismiss the guide’s fear. He was fearful as well and felt he’d suffered from PTSD to some extent, but thought he was over it.

  “What are you trying to say, Antonio?”

  “I’m, I’m very grateful for all you’ve done, but I don’t want to die in the forest and I think that’s what will happen if I go with you to look for the bugs.”

  Should he play hardball? If the guide were one of his students, he would, but he was uncertain at the amount of leverage he held over him.

  “You know, the judge thinks you’re working for me. You know that, right?”

  “Yes, I know that. But the advogado said you could fire me if you want.”

  “Antonio, I’m not going to fire you,” Duncan said, trying to keep his voice from rising. “But, you know, I gave you five hundred reals.”

  “I know. And I’m grateful.”

  “Stop saying you’re grateful,” Duncan said harshly. “It wasn’t a gift. Look, I understand what you’re saying. I don’t need you to find the insects, OK. I need you to keep me from getting lost. We’ll do it differently this time. I already know where we’re gonna go.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, it’s a village. I haven’t been there, but I’ve been told we can use ATVs. It won’t be like last time. There won’t be as many people, just you, me and maybe one or two others. And no floods.”

  Suarez’s mood brightened.

  “So, I don’t have to get close to the insects?”

  “No, I already have a good idea where they are, at least where they’ve been. And all I need to do is capture a few of them. Once I’ve got them, we’re out of there. We’ll fly in and fly out. It won’t be like the last time.”

  Duncan knew he was making it up as he spoke. He was trying to allay the young man’s fears and if it meant glossing over the reality a bit, then that’s what he’d do. He knew Suarez would be a professional once they were in the field. Whether he was fooling himself was another question, which he didn’t ask. He felt confident that with only three or four healthy men on the expedition, and no one to hold them back, they’d have a good chance of succeeding. Even if somehow the insects got within striking distance, they’d be in good enough shape to climb trees to avoid them, though he didn’t say this to Suarez. It was one of the Plan B’s floating in the back of his mind. He was sure he could come up with others.

  “Mister Howard, can I ask how much I’ll be paid?”

  Duncan typed one hundred dollars into the cur
rency converter on his phone.

  “Four hundred reals. A day.”

  Suarez was speechless. Duncan thought he was hesitating.

  “And there will be a bonus when we’re done.”

  55

  “HOW DID THEY know I was here?” Duncan demanded after listening to Cody Boyd make his pitch. They were having dinner at a restaurant near Duncan’s hotel.

  “It’s on the internet,” Boyd said guardedly.

  “You didn’t tell them?”

  “I didn’t have to,” he lied. He hadn’t seen the internet article until after he’d told the producer that Duncan was in Manaus. The article was written in Portuguese and he learned of it inadvertently while reading Google translated articles from newspapers in Manaus. But it gave him cover.

  “Explain how having a film crew following me around is beneficial? Not to mention that I absolutely hate people looking over my shoulder. Hate it.”

  “I understand, but they won’t be looking over your shoulder. In fact, they won’t be part of your expedition.”

  “Oh, c’mon. I’ve seen reality shows. It’s like they’re embedded,” Duncan said.

  “OK, OK, they’re embedded. You know, I haven’t done this before. Maybe you should talk to the producer. He’s an all right guy.”

  “And what would I talk to him about?”

  “Well, you’d have to sign an agreement.”

  “What?! An agreement about what?”

  “Typical stuff. Nondisclosures, that sort of thing.”

  “You don’t really know, do you?”

  “Aw, fuck. I’m just a consultant.”

  “But you’re getting paid, right? Are they going to pay me?”