Lovers and Gamblers

by Collins, Jackie

  At first he had thought the dark-skinned, wild-haired girl was part of some Indian tribe. But Paul had recognized her as she had stumbled exhausted into their arms. Incoherently she had told them her story, finishing off with a request about Louis’s safety.

  ‘We haven’t seen him,’ Paul replied. ‘Maybe he was lucky like you.’

  ‘Lucky?’ The tears filled her eyes. ‘I have been in hell. So alone… so frightened. Please find Louis – please.’

  Al glanced at Paul. They both knew she was asking the impossible.

  ‘Let’s get her back to the plane,’ Al said.

  ‘What about Nino?’ she asked quickly. ‘He’s not far away. I can’t leave him, I can’t… I promised…’

  ‘The bastard can stay where he is…’ Paul began. ‘If it wasn’t for him…’

  ‘Take us to him,’ Al said quietly. ‘I guess he’s regretting the whole gig just as much as we are.’

  * * *

  By early afternoon Bernie was feeling a lot better. His huge bulk propped up in bed, he was able to flick through Evan’s collection of magazines.

  ‘What the fuck…’ he boasted, ‘tomorrow I’ll be up and about. Jeeze… I can see it now. Goddamn press gonna accuse me of engineering the whole shitbag. They know I’ll do anything for a hot story!’

  ‘You can’t help having a reputation that goes before you,’ Dallas replied jokingly.

  ‘Yeah,’ Bernie mused, ‘you’re right. I can name my price after this. Whatcha think? Think they’re gonna come for us today?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’

  He slapped a spider, squashing it on his arm. ‘Goddamn insects! Gonna drive me crazy!’

  Cathy, lying beside him, groaned. She had been semiconscious all day, and her leg was looking worse than ever. Dallas did not know much about medicine, but she did know if Cathy’s leg was gangrenous it would have to come off if her life was to be saved.

  She only hoped that Al had found the other half of the plane, and that maybe the radio had been working, and that maybe…

  Pipe dreams.

  She lifted Cathy’s head and gave her a few sips of water.

  It was hopeless and she knew it.

  * * *

  It was just beginning to get dark when Al and Paul arrived back at the plane. Between them they carried Nino, and Cristina stumbled along behind.

  Dallas and Evan helped them haul Nino up into the plane, and then they assisted Cristina.

  ‘Thought we’d never make it back,’ Al gasped. He grinned at Evan. ‘Hey, boyo – feeling better?’

  Evan nodded.

  ‘Did you find anything?’ Dallas asked anxiously.

  ‘Only these two. She needs taking care of – the kid’s bitten and scratched to pieces. He’s in a bad way. Snake bite.’

  ‘Evan – get me the antiseptic lotion and bandages. Al, we’ve found a portable radio, I thought if we could tune into a news station…’

  ‘Where?’

  She showed him where the radio was and left him to it while treating Cristina. The girl was a mess. Dehydrated, confused, feverish. Dallas took her into the bedroom compartment, laid her on the floor, and gently got her clothes off. Then she dabbed at the scratches and cuts and bites with the antiseptic lotion. With horror she realized that whatever it was that had bitten the girl had laid eggs under the skin, and larvae were pushing their way up, horrible tiny black heads popping through the skin.

  She didn’t know what to do. So she just covered the girl with the antiseptic lotion and hoped that it would kill them off. Then she dressed her in a pair of Al’s slacks and a shirt, and fed her a couple of water biscuits and some orange juice.

  Nino was another matter. He was delirious, and seemed to be experiencing difficulty in breathing. The gash on his forehead was quite obviously infected, and his body twitched in desperate spasms of pain.

  Dallas knew about snakes. They had kept them at the zoo in Miami. But there were so many different species, and she had no idea what type had bitten Nino. Without an anti-venom being administered immediately, she did not hold out much hope for his chance of survival.

  She fed him some water and covered him with a blanket. It was all she could do for him.

  Al had managed to locate a news programme. He listened to the faint crackly newscaster intently. Paul and Dallas crowded around him.

  The news was of a major earthquake in Europe, and a terrorist group holding hostages in New York. Finally the newscaster continued, ‘The Al King mystery deepens. The singer and his nine passengers and five crew have still not been heard from. The jet plane missing since Friday night on a trip between Rio and São Paulo has apparently vanished without trace. The police and airport authorities are completely mystified. No ransom demands have been received, ruling out the possibility of a hijack attempt. Search planes sent out have failed to spot any sight of the missing jet. In India, the new government is calling for…’

  Al clicked the radio off. ‘I think we’re lost,’ he said bitterly. ‘I think we’re lost and nobody gives a fuck. You know what? I could easily become the Glenn Miller of the seventies. How does that grab you?’

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Juana fidgeted uneasily as she waited to be ushered in to see Carlos Baptista. It was the reward that had attracted her. Fifty thousand dollars! A fortune! Who could even imagine that amount of money. Fifty thousand dollars!

  She glanced around the waiting room. It was crowded. Beside her sat a thin girl wearing spectacles, and next to her a young man who was not unlike Nino, only not so good-looking. He had the same untidy hair and intense eyes, but his face was longer – more horsey. No – side by side he would not be able to hold a candle to Nino.

  Thinking of him she shuddered slightly. Where was he? The last time she had seen him had been at the airport when she had helped him. I’m just going to interview Al King – not shoot him – he had joked. But what had he done? Where had he gone? Because without doubt she knew that the disappearance of that plane with Al King aboard was Nino’s doing. And she was going to tell Carlos Baptista all about it. She was going to pick up a fifty-thousand-dollar reward. Probably.

  Didi adjusted her spectacles and edged away from the plump girl sitting next to her. The girl was fidgeting in a most aggravating way, squirming on her seat as if she had ants in her pants. Didi sighed and glanced at her watch. She had been sitting here waiting to see Carlos Baptista for one and a half hours. Her lunch hour was past, she would get back to her job as receptionist at the hotel so late that she would more than likely be fired. But if she collected the fifty-thousand-dollar reward, who cared…

  To think that she, an intelligent girl, had been taken in by a boy like Nino. She had given him everything. Her trust… Her body… She blushed at the intimacies they had shared together.

  He had used her. He had wanted to get to Al King and he had used her. All that talk of love… Oh, what a fool she had been.

  He had cleared out of his room, she had gone there on Sunday. He had vanished… What a filho da puta! But she would fix him. She would tell Carlos Baptista everything she knew. And she would get the fifty-thousand-dollar reward. Probably.

  Jorge sat in a corner of the office smoking a long thin Havana cigar. He looked drawn and haggard. He had not slept since his daughter’s disappearance.

  Carlos was at his desk, wearily interviewing the applicants who had answered his call for information. Fifty thousand dollars appeared to have attracted every nut in Rio. They filed in, one by one, with their unbelievable stories.

  One woman, apparently well-dressed and respectable, claimed that Al King was under her skirt at that very moment fucking the life out of her. ‘If you want him I can open my legs and reveal him,’ she confided. ‘But you must hand me the cheque first.’

  The young secretary, taking copious shorthand next to Carlos, blushed to the roots of her hair. The police chief sitting on Carlos’s other side chewed complacently on a pencil stub and ordered, ‘Next one in.�
�

  In three hours they had not received one piece of relevant information.

  Then the girl came in, thin, nervous, wearing spectacles. She stated her name and address and place of work. She told them her story.

  Jorge leaned forward at the mention of Nino’s name. The secretary took notes. The police chief chewed on his pencil. Carlos picked his teeth with a wedge of paper.

  ‘Is that all?’ the police chief asked when she had finished.

  ‘It’s all I know. But I can assure you that Nino will lead you to Al King.’ She stood anxiously. ‘Do I get the reward?’

  ‘When we find this Nino, if he leads us to Al King, then you get the reward,’ the police chief replied.

  She looked disappointed. ‘I’ll probably be fired…’

  Carlos intervened. ‘I’m sure you’ve been most helpful. Stop by my secretary on the way out and she will give you fifty dollars for your trouble.’

  ‘Fifty? But I thought the reward was fifty thousand?’

  ‘For information leading to Al King. If your information finds him, then you get the money.’

  Didi shrugged and left.

  The men looked around at each other. ‘It looks like Nino is the one we want…’ the police chief said. ‘At least we have a lead on him now.’ He reached for the phone and issued instructions to a minion on the other end.

  Jorge was not surprised. As soon as he had heard the description of the ‘mechanic’ on the plane he had known it was Nino. He had known he was involved. But he had been unable to tell the police anything. He was ashamed to admit that he had allowed his daughter to keep company with a boy about whom he knew nothing. Now at least they had an address.

  The next person was ushered in. A plump girl in a floral dress.

  ‘My name is Juana Figlioa,’ she said, ‘and I work at the airport. I helped a boy called Nino get aboard the Al King plane…’

  Finally they were getting somewhere.

  * * *

  Of course the party in Doris Andrews’s honour had been cancelled.

  ‘I’m sorry…’ Evita had apologized.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Doris had replied. ‘As if you could host a party at a time like this… And anyway I didn’t come here for parties. I came to see you…’

  She was by Evita’s side constantly, comforting and sustaining her. It suited Jorge perfectly. He wanted to be alone with his own personal grief. He didn’t want to share the misery and uncertainty he felt. He did not want to share the feeling that somehow it was all his fault… That if he had listened to Evita… taken more care of what Cristina was doing… who she was seeing… heeded Evita’s intuition about Nino instead of laughing at her fears…

  In the event the two women were left alone together, and by Monday Evita was convinced she had only got through the long weekend because of her friend’s support.

  ‘How is your husband?’ she finally remembered to ask.

  ‘I am divorcing him,’ Doris announced simply. ‘It’s not enough that he has had me watched and followed throughout our entire marriage. It’s not enough that he had been unable to engage in sex. I understood. I was the perfect wife. But last week he became frighteningly violent towards me. He came home from the studio one day and beat me up. Yes – physically beat me. I don’t know why. I moved out immediately. Let him have the mansion and cars for now. My lawyer will see I do not suffer. My trip here was already planned, so I came here anyway.’

  ‘I’m glad you did,’ said Evita. They sat in the conservatory, a glass-walled, plant-filled room, overlooking the swimming pool. ‘What will you do when you leave here?’

  Doris shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps a trip to Europe. Would you like to come with me?’

  ‘I can’t make any plans.’

  ‘Of course not.’ She reached for Evita’s hand and squeezed it gently. ‘But when you can…’

  Evita allowed her hand to remain in the older woman’s. It was so comforting… It made her forget…

  ‘Why don’t you lie down?’ Doris asked. ‘You must be tired.’

  Evita nodded. She was tired. The doctor had placed her on tranquillizers – a heavy dose.

  Doris led her to the bedroom. ‘Jorge told me he would be home late,’ she remarked. ‘He asked me to stay with you.’

  ‘You don’t have to…’ objected Evita.

  ‘I know I don’t have to. I want to. We’re friends… I want to help. Turn, let me unbutton your dress.’

  Evita did as she was told. She knew what was going to happen but was powerless to stop it… She didn’t want to stop it…

  The dress slipped from her body, fell to the ground. She stepped over it and walked to her bed.

  She closed her eyes and waited for Doris to join her.

  She didn’t have to wait long.

  * * *

  ‘Do you want to fly to Rio?’ Cody asked.

  ‘No. What good would that do?’ Linda replied.

  ‘I just thought it might help to be on the spot.’

  ‘Would you come?’

  ‘If you wanted me to.’

  ‘I can’t eat this.’ Linda pushed the salad plate away and stared around the restaurant. ‘Look at them all stuffing their faces – as if they care.’

  ‘They probably don’t even know Dallas and Al.’

  ‘Why do you always say Dallas and Al?’ Linda snapped. ‘Paul’s on that plane too, you know. Paul and Evan. Bernie and other people. You’re as bad as the goddamn television – Dallas and Al – as if no one else is with them.’

  ‘You don’t have to get mad at me. You know how I feel…’

  She was contrite. ‘I’m sorry, Cody. I shouldn’t be taking my feelings out on you. It’s this not knowing… It’s so awful. It would almost be better if they were all dead. If the plane had crashed and been found – at least we would know.’ She touched his arm. ‘I don’t mean that. I don’t know what I mean any more. I’m so mixed up. It’s all such a shitty game. Do you know I am making more money out of this than I ever made in my life? My pictures of Dallas are selling time and time again – the same with my stuff on Al. It doesn’t seem right to make money on it.’

  ‘That’s the way it goes.’

  ‘Oh, Christ, Cody, isn’t there anything we can do? I feel so helpless sitting here.’

  ‘We can go to Rio. Say the word and I’ll get the tickets.’

  ‘I don’t know… What do you think?’

  ‘I think we should go.’

  ‘You’re right. Let’s do it. But I want to pay my own way. Understood?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  * * *

  Jorge went with the police to Nino’s miserable one-roomed apartment. The two girl informants had been able to furnish them with the address.

  They busied themselves taking fingerprints and searching for information. The only things Nino had left behind were a broken pair of black sunglasses, and a filthy T-shirt. The sordid room yielded few clues. A cracked ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts, hairpins scattered over the dirty grey sheet on the bed – obviously not his. And a single gold earring was discovered under the bed. A rough hoop for pierced ears – the kind Cristina used to wear.

  ‘Does it belong to your daughter?’ the police chief asked, thrusting it into his hands.

  Jorge hesitated, weighing the earring gingerly. He was sure that it was Cristina’s. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I can’t be certain.’

  How could he admit that his daughter had been in this dirty little room? It was unthinkable that she might have lain on that filthy bed.

  ‘Perhaps you can ask your wife,’ the police chief said. ‘Yes’, agreed Jorge. What did it matter anyway whose earring it was? The important thing was finding Cristina. Alive or dead, he had to know.

  Chapter Seventy

  Sunday night was the worst yet.

  Nino kept everyone awake with his unearthly screams and agonized writhings. As if that was not enough, sometime before dawn, the rain started again. A
heavy torrential rain that poured down spilling through the blown-out windows.

  A meal of tinned caviar, maraschino cherries, and champagne seemed to have disagreed with everyone, and the toilet was occupied all night. Since the wastes could not be flushed away, a horrible stench was coming from the tiny bathroom off the bedroom.

  ‘We’ll all get sick,’ Dallas told Al. ‘We should never have used that bathroom.’

  ‘So what else was there to do? Jump off the plane every time you wanted to pee?’

  ‘Al. We’ve got to face facts. I don’t think anyone’s going to find us here.’

  ‘I told you – tomorrow I’ll search for the rest of the plane. With luck we’ll be able to radio for help. If I hadn’t have had to drag Cristina and Nino back I would have found it today.’

  ‘And if you don’t find it? If the radio doesn’t work?’

  ‘We’ll think again.’

  ‘We’ve been here two days and only seen one plane fly over. I don’t think anyone’s looking for us – not here anyway. We’ll have to make an attempt to get out of here ourselves.’

  He laughed drily. ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I think it’s our only hope. We’ll all die if we stay here.’

  ‘Worry about it when we can’t use the radio.’

  ‘But we’re wasting time.’

  He groaned and held his stomach. ‘Christ! Remind me never to eat caviar again.’

  ‘You don’t want to listen to me, do you?’

  ‘What makes you think you know what you’re talking about?’

  ‘I keep on telling you. I never had much education – the only kind I did get was about animals and survival. We have to find water – a river. If we do that and follow it, eventually we’ll find people.’

  ‘Tell me tomorrow.’

  ‘We’re not getting any stronger, we should set off soon.’

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘We’ll find help and send it back for them.’

  ‘You’re kidding. That lot alone out here wouldn’t last five minutes.’

  She sighed. ‘Since when did you start thinking about other people?’