The Diamond Bubble

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  The Diamond Bubble

  A Captain José Da Silva Mystery

  Robert L. Fish

  This book is most affectionately dedicated to my lovely daughter, Catherine Ann Fish.

  I.

  Paulo Raimundo Acâcio Aquilar—“Fat” Paulo to his extremely few friends, or better said, acquaintances—tramped happily down the shaky gangplank leading from the kitchen deck of the S.S. Bolivar to the wide, cobbled pavement of the Rio de Janeiro quay. His small eyes were intent upon the unsteady wooden platform beneath his feet; his mind was already happily planning his evening’s entertainment. Fat Paulo was proud of himself and of the manner in which he had handled his assignment that day, and he expected to reward himself properly.

  An irritated shout brought his eyes up from the gangplank; the final load of provisions was being wheeled toward him up the narrow walkway. He halted, pulling to one side against the slack rope railing, drawing in his considerable stomach to allow the heavy hand truck passage. The sweating stevedore pushing it sneered at him; Fat Paulo was not the most popular of the luggage porters on the docks. Paulo stared back blandly, shrugged slightly, unbuttoned the single remaining button on his blue tunic to allow his stained undershirt to express his contempt, and glanced idly upward.

  The side of the huge luxury liner rose abruptly above him, a towering, sweeping curve of blinding white, geometrically pitted with portholes, sheer and overwhelming in the blazing sun of late afternoon. The upper deck rails, backed by the oblique tilt of the giant stacks, stood out in sharp outline against the cloudless blue sky. Figures were gathered there, handkerchiefs in hand, waving their farewells to a raucous group of friends and relatives below on the pier; their waving motions unconsciously caught the beat of the samba band playing loudly and rhythmically from some hidden spot on the main deck. Pompons soared through the air to be snatched by excited children below; brightly colored paper streamers wove a twisted and lazy path through the hot, still air, falling limply on the dock, or draping themselves listlessly about the gaunt supports of the giant dock cranes waiting patiently for all this nonsense to end to allow them to return to productive labor.

  Paulo smiled, a smile partially compounded of this reiterated proof of the childishness of all tourists, but mainly based upon a secret knowledge denied these people who paid a fortune for their pleasures. Especially denied them, he thought, and his smile deepened. He brought his eyes down once again, the smile still marked upon his thick lips, and walked the last tenuous steps of the gangplank to step at last to the firmness of the cobbled quay. Above him the sound of parting rose, mixed with the harsh screaming of sea gulls wheeling overhead. The passenger gangplank amidships was now free, swinging lazily and erratically from the firm, almost motherly grip of one of the dock cranes, like a kitten being retrieved from danger by a mother cat. The fat man paused to unhook his porter’s badge from his cap and slip it into the side pocket of his blue blouse.

  He was through working for the day, and the thought of this freedom was pleasing to him. It had been a good day’s work, and one which he was sure would be both productive and successful, and now—until Friday and the sailing of the S.S. Paraguay—he was free. Free for the beach and to watch the Santos team playing at Maracaná Stadium; free for the bars and the girls and sleeping as late as he wished with whomever he chose. Money in his pocket and more to come. And his own automobile! True, the car was not a new one, although ten years of age was far from old as Rio cars were measured, and true, it could stand a new paint job—not to mention a new motor—but what other dock porter had transportation of any type, let alone an automobile? Or what book-keeper, for that matter, or what factory worker? Even the crooked clerk who assigned work on the pier and robbed the porters left and right, did he have a car? He did not. He had to be content with a Vespa, and one that was several years old at that.

  Paulo nodded his head in the oft-repeated conviction that while Luck had been late in coming to him, the fact was that it had finally arrived. He crossed the crane tracks, whistling softly to himself, and moved in the direction of the outer gate, skirting the huge armazéns filled with the fruits of foreign commerce, paying no attention to the band music swelling on the deck high above him. At the pier gate a line of porters waited patiently for work on other ships; Paulo elbowed his way through them, his attitude clearly demonstrating his superiority over these less-fortunate beings. A hand reached suddenly from the ragged queue, clutching the fat man by his sleeve.

  “Hey, Fat—Paulo—where do you go?”

  “Home.” He paused a moment, savoring the pleasure of the situation, smiling in a superior manner. The teeth disclosed by his lopsided grin were stained and broken. “I’ve done enough work for today.”

  “Just one ship?” The other porter’s tone was properly amazed. He jerked his head in the direction of the water’s edge. “They’re going to load coffee onto the Rio Tunuyan …”

  “So let them load coffee.” Paulo sounded quite magnanimous about it. “Brazil needs it.” He tugged his arm free.

  The other looked at him suspiciously. “You must have a rich uncle.”

  “A rich friend. And beautiful.”

  The other laughed, but it was a wistful laugh and a bit questioning. Opportunities to make money were not unknown on the docks, but it was a closely knit organization that controlled such opportunities. His next question showed a sad attempt at subtlety. “Has she a sister?”

  “Only a grandmother,” Paulo said, winking. “Eighty-eight years old with a wooden leg.”

  An uncouth sound came from one of the other porters in the line. Paulo pushed past, paying no attention, stripping his faded blue cap from his bullet-shaped head, marveling at the fantastic fortune that enabled him to be in his position. Less than six months before and he had been standing in that same line, passing the endless hours staring at his battered shoes, shifting restlessly from foot to foot, waiting patiently for a chance to load coffee or unload machinery—or even fertilizer, for that matter. And now … He sighed in satisfaction.

  Behind him the confusion of departure rose further; the service gangplank was now being slowly ingested into the ship’s side, a patently paltry meal for so huge a monster. Ropes were being unlooped from the quayside stanchions and flung into the bay to be sucked up by the deck winches; squat tugs nosed into position. A hoarse scream tore the air, ripped from the ship’s whistle, leaving only faint wisps of steam trailing into nothingness in the hot afternoon air. Paulo walked through the gate; the arrival or departure of ships no longer meant anything to him. Pompons and streamers and bands playing on decks were for tourists; loading and unloading were for laborers. And he was neither.

  His car was parked in the Praça Mauá where he had left it, but now tightly wedged between the vehicles of two inconsiderate late arrivals. For a moment his good temper almost deserted him; he glared at the offending cars with the bitterness of any automobile owner in the situation. And then he shrugged. After all, they had done his car no damage, and he was in no particular hurry. Time was unimportant. He walked past his landlocked car, unconsciously stroking a fender in passing, still amazed that it legally belonged to him. With one last affectionate look over his shoulder he crossed the wide square, nimbly avoiding the flood of traffic despite his girth. The small marble table of a sidewalk café beckoned and he sank into it, fully prepared to remain there until he could extract his car and drive home.

  A waiter appeared at his elbow even before he could hiss, and Paulo nodded to him benignly. “Scotch whisky.”

  For a moment the waiter stared at him blankly. Scotch whisky? This one? Scotch whisky was no drink for dock porters. Normally, when things were going good and work was plentiful, they drank pinga, and when ships we
re rare and money rarer, they usually made do with beer, and the cheapest beer at that. And then, realizing that he himself drank nothing but imported brandy (true, only after the owner went home, but still …), he marched off toward the inner bar. Paulo relaxed, at peace with the world, leaning back in his chair and idly comparing the various and luscious gifts a bountiful nature had pleasantly bestowed on the girls hurrying by.

  His peace was short-lived. As he lifted his eyes from the flaring hemline of a passing frock, he happened to glance across the wide Praça in the direction of the Touring Club exit leading from the docks. He was in time to see a tall figure emerge and walk slowly along the railing separating the dock area from the square. The figure paused a moment to wave in the direction of the departing ship and then turned, assessing the traffic. At the first break in the solid line of cars and buses he moved across, gained the near curb, and continued evenly down the south side of the street.

  Paulo’s mouth fell open. He stared, unconsciously raising his bulk from his chair as if the small additional difference in distance might help to clarify his view, but he knew at once he was not mistaken. Not only the height and the white hair, but the tuxedo, permissible on a passenger aboard ship on sailing day, but certainly rare on the street at that hour. Paulo’s eyes fled to the bay in the hope of seeing the S.S. Bolivar still tied there, but it was a forlorn hope and he knew it. Several hundred yards of open water between the ship and the quay were being steadily widened under the calm pressure of the tugs.

  It was not possible! This one should be on the ship to the United States—he himself had placed him in his stateroom but minutes before! Good God, what now? He came to his feet hurriedly, turned, and collided with the waiter who had appeared, carefully balancing a precious glass of scotch whisky on a tray the size of a napkin. Paulo grasped his arm roughly, nearly upsetting the teetering glass.

  “The telephone! Where is it?”

  The waiter stared at him blankly. Paulo gave him a violent shake for emphasis, and only the waiter’s years of training enabled him to save the glass from spilling.

  “The telephone!” Paulo was gritting his teeth; the sound, combined with the glare on the fat man’s face, convinced the waiter that a discussion on manners would best be postponed.

  “It’s inside, on the counter …”

  The fat man swung around and then paused, mentally kicking himself. The telephone? What was he thinking of? It was an idiotic thought, a ridiculous thought—his quarry would have disappeared long before he could even make the connection. With sudden resolution he reached out, downed the drink in one gulp, and started to leave. A hand, tiny but rigid with shock and determination, grabbed at him.

  “The whisky!” The waiter’s bravery was tempered by the knowledge that he had already put up the money for this drink at the bar. “Five hundred cruzeiros!”

  Paulo reached into his pocket, drew forth the required size bill, and flung it in the general direction of the waiter, tearing himself loose in the same gesture. It was not until he was a block down the street, with the man he was following plainly in sight, that he realized he had been outrageously overcharged. He pushed the thought away, albeit reluctantly. Another day he would speak with that waiter, and in no uncertain terms, but right now …

  They crossed the maze of tiny intersections that scar the Avenida Rio Branco at its terminus with the Praça Mauá, with the gap between them slowly narrowing, past the travel agencies with their colorful posters, past the souvenir shops and the money exchanges, with the shadows of buildings lengthening under the glare of the late-afternoon sun, until, at the intersection of the wide Avenida Getúlio Vargas, they were less than a hundred feet apart, but well separated by the crowds streaming from offices as the day’s work ended. Paulo had little fear of losing sight of his man; the large head, topped by its shock of white hair, stood out clearly. Plus, of course, the tuxedo. Americans! Paulo thought, and then hurried as the light changed and his man stepped from the curb.

  The white-haired American did not seem to be in any particular hurry, and this fact confused Paulo. A further nagging thought was that every step he took led him further from his car parked back at the praça. Resentment at the American for leading him on this chase began to grow. Why hadn’t he stayed with the other merrymakers on board the ship? Why hadn’t he remained with his wife? Why wasn’t he being towed out into the bay at this moment instead of walking evenly down the Avenida Rio Branco? And even more ridiculous, what on earth do I expect to gain by following him?

  A momentary feeling of panic began to edge into Paulo’s thoughts. He was accustomed to follow orders, not to make decisions, and his orders had not anticipated anything like this. But before his panic had time to mount, the white-haired man before him had turned into the entrance of a tall building, and Paulo hustled forward, jostling people in his path. The lobby of the building, by the time he had arrived, was jammed with home-going office workers forcing their way to the street. The white head was no longer visible.

  Paulo stared about helplessly. And now what? True, the building seemed to offer only the one exit to the street, or at least the chances were that his quarry would not consider another, particularly since he had given no evidence of knowing he was being followed. Paulo hesitated, shaking his head. What to do? What to do? He breathed a silent vicious wish that the man had stayed aboard ship where he belonged, a wish he dismissed as absurd even as he voiced it to himself. What to do at the moment? Telephone? Of course; now there was time!

  He looked about. Across the Avenida Rio Branco and a few doors down the narrow street that intersected it at the nearest corner he could see the open door of a sidewalk bar; possibly from there he could telephone and still manage to keep an eye on the building entrance. His eye calculated angles rapidly and decided that it was possible. His mind, less mathematical, simply muttered a string of silent curses that the day had not turned out as he had planned, in festivity and relaxation, and then turned itself off as he darted across the traffic-laden avenue.

  Fortunately the telephone was free and with equal fortune was mounted on the white tile wall in such a position that, by straining his gross body outward, he could maintain a partial but sufficient view of the entrance to the building in which he was interested. He fumbled a coin loose, dropped it in the slot, and dialed, painfully aware as he did so that a dozen white-haired men in twelve tuxedos could be leaving the building while he slowly deciphered the numbers on the instrument. There seemed to be an interminable wait while the telephone at the other end rang; he leaned out, staring at the building, praying earnestly that his quarry had not escaped while he was dialing, and then—with startling suddenness—there was the sound of a receiver being lifted and a low voice in his ear.

  “Hotel Miracopa …”

  He swung back to the telephone so quickly that for a moment he lost sight of the building as he answered. To his own surprise his voice was breathless. “Senhor Archimedes está?”

  “Momento, pôr favor …” The operator’s tone was bored. Paulo stared at the instrument in his hand with sudden savage bitterness. And why shouldn’t she be bored? What problems does she have? All she has to do is sit there and allow third parties to exchange problems under her nose. An additional thought came as he waited—and her car isn’t stuck in the Praça Mauá, either! Well, let us pray that this call will at least take the responsibility from my shoulders and place it where it obviously belongs—someplace else.

  A voice came to his ear, oily and subservient. “Yes? Hello?”

  He began to speak quickly, eager to be rid of the business. “Senhor Archimedes—this is Paulo …”

  The subservience disappeared immediately; a muffled curse answered him. The voice dropped in volume but made up for it in intensity. “You fool! Just where have you been?”

  “Where have I been?” For a moment Paulo’s amazement at the idiocy of the question caused him to forget the more immediate problem. He stared at the mouthpiece of the telephone wit
h eyebrows raised in merited protest. “Where have I been? At the dock, of course!” He leaned from the open doorway, pointing with his free hand in the general direction of the piers at the Praça Mauá, and then waved it for emphasis. “At the dock, doing what you told me to do …”

  “And why didn’t you call?”

  “Call? Why should I call?”

  “Because you were supposed to telephone! Because you were told to call! Your instructions were that once the ship had been cast loose, you were supposed to call!” The voice dripped with quiet venom. “Or did you simply forget?”

  Paulo paused, frowning. Now that he remembered, he had been instructed to call, and it was very true that he had completely forgotten. But what on earth difference could that possibly make? If the white-haired American had stayed aboard the ship as he was supposed to do, and as any normal tourist would have done, all of this would have been—memory returned to him like a blow, eliminating everything else from his mind.

  “Wait, Senhor Archimedes! Wait! One of them isn’t even on the ship!”

  Archimedes cursed with all of the restricted freedom allowed one who was speaking from an open hotel lobby. “And that is exactly why you were told to call, so that if anything changed, you could be told what to do! I know one of them isn’t on board, no thanks to you!”

  This was puzzling. “No thanks to me?”

  “No thanks to you that I know of it,” Archimedes said savagely. “I found out less than an hour ago when I came on duty.”

  “But how could you know that he left the ship? I didn’t know myself until a few minutes ago …”

  “Because he never took the ship, you idiot!”

  “But he did,” Paulo protested. “He did. Because I even—”

  Archimedes’ voice dropped, coming to Paulo in muffled fashion, speaking now in what Archimedes considered to be English. “Yess, sair …?”

  Paulo found this confusing. “What?”