The Diamond Bubble

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  There was a pause and then Archimedes was back on the line. “A client, you lunatic! Keep quiet!” The pause extended itself a moment longer and then Archimedes was back again. “No, one of them didn’t take the ship …” He seemed to be thinking.

  “But how could you have known?” This still did not make sense to Paulo.

  “Certainly not because you called to tell me! I found out by reading the newspapers, you fool! Don’t you ever read the papers?”

  This question struck Paulo as obviously being rhetorical, since he could not read or write and assumed that everyone knew it. “At any rate, Senhor Archimedes,” he said, willing to let the subject drop, “I saw him leave the dock, and—”

  Archimedes interrupted abruptly. “Where are you calling from?”

  Paulo pointed about him with his free hand. “From a bar in the Rua Buenos Aires. I can see the building from here.”

  “What building?”

  “Where he is, of course. Where I followed him to. It’s one of those buildings about a block below the Avenida Vargas, on the south side of the Rio Branco. He went into this building, but by the time I got there he must have already gone up the elevator.”

  “It’s the American Club,” Archimedes said wisely. “That’s what it is. That’s what it said in the newspaper.” He paused to think.

  Paulo shook his head stubbornly. “I don’t think so. It doesn’t look like a club. It looks like an office building.”

  “Because it is an office building, you cretin! The American Club has the top two floors. They are having a party there. In his honor,” Archimedes added, as if that somehow explained the situation further.

  “Then that explains why he was wearing a tuxedo,” Paulo said, nodding. “I thought it was early in the day, even for an American …” He suddenly realized they were getting away from the main topic and hastened to return, anxious to clarify the facts and get on his way. “Well, I’m sorry I didn’t call like I was supposed to, but as long as you know he isn’t on the ship—that’s why I called.”

  Archimedes hadn’t heard a word; he had been busy thinking. “Where’s your car?”

  “In the Praça Mauá.” It suddenly dawned on Paulo that it was very possible he was about to receive instructions that would put a serious crimp in his plans for the evening’s entertainment. “Look, Senhor Archimedes,” he said reasonably, “is it really so important? After all, he’s only one of four, and also—”

  “Also what?” Sarcasm dripped from each word.

  “Well, his wife is still on board. I know that, because I took the two of them to their stateroom, and he’s the only one that left. So maybe she—”

  “Maybe you ought to have your ears cleaned so you could hear better!” Archimedes was through bandying words. “You listen to me! Take your car and park it somewhere near where you are now—”

  Paulo almost wailed. “You can’t park anywhere near here. They tow cars if they park around here …”

  “—somewhere near where you are now, where you can watch the building. And when he leaves, you follow him. I want to know where he goes and who he sees. Do you understand?”

  Paulo shook his head miserably. This looked like a definite end to the lovely plans he had concocted for the night. One last hope appeared to him and he grasped it. “But while I’m going for the car, he may leave here …”

  Archimedes restrained his temper with an effort that was almost audible over the telephone. “He’ll be there for hours—it’s a party, I told you! A party in his honor!” His voice dropped chillingly; his next words were spoken softly and clearly. “Maybe it isn’t important—I don’t know. But I know this: we have a working organization, and the way it works is that I do what the man above me says and you do what I say. And we didn’t build this organization by refusing to do what we were told. And we didn’t build it by being careless. We take no chances, slight or not. Is that clear? Do you understand?”

  “But—”

  “Or would you like to go back to really being a porter again? Not just looking like one, but really being one? Would you really like to earn an honest living? Working?”

  This obviously required no answer. Paulo sighed hopelessly, accepting defeat. “All right. I’ll do it.”

  “Thank you.” The sarcasm left the voice; it became deadly serious. “And this time call. Wherever he goes, whoever he sees, telephone. There’s a reason why he didn’t take that ship, and I’m sure it isn’t because of a party. Do you hear? Call!”

  “I’ll call,” Paulo said without heart, and heard the telephone at the other end click down, cutting the connection. He stared at the receiver in his hand a moment as if some of the blame for his predicament somehow properly belonged to it, and then with a sad shrug he placed it softly back on the hook.

  The S.S. Bolivar, now through the narrows that separated Icaraí from the rock fortress guarding the mouth of Guanabara Bay, settled her engines into a rhythmic beat and set a steady course north for Salvador de Bahia. In her luxurious cabins passengers either soaked their heads in cold water and swore they would treat their next port leave-taking with more sobriety or stared listlessly at the junk they had purchased in Rio with the inner resolve that, at Salvador, they would be far more judicious in their selection.

  On the bridge the captain turned over the controls of the ship to the first officer and went below to take a nap before the time when he had to dress for dinner; in the bar the attendants prepared for what promised to be a long evening by polishing glasses and setting out bottles. In the purser’s cabin a group of irate passengers swarmed about that official, loudly claiming that their luggage had either been stupidly left on the dock in Rio or—which for some mysterious reason they seemed to consider far worse—had been mistakenly placed in the hold. While actually, had they but known it, their luggage was at that very moment being placed quietly in the corridors outside of their cabins.

  And in the deserted ship’s library Senhor Ivan Bernardes, of the Brazilian Customs Office, carefully studied the passenger list in his hand. The throb of the engines far below sent a slight tremor through the tiny room; Senhor Bernardes nodded, set aside his cigar, and reached into his jacket pocket for a pen. He verified four names and then carefully, with neat strokes, placed a check mark against each. Satisfied with both his accuracy and his penmanship, he returned the pen to his pocket. He wiped the ash from his cigar and pulled himself to his feet, balancing himself against the slight roll of the ship. Tomorrow would do to begin his investigation; nobody could leave the ship before Salvador de Bahia, and that was several sunny, warm, lazy days in the future.

  He looked down at the passenger list in his hand, nodded once again, and slipped it into his inside jacket pocket. He glanced at his watch. There was ample time for a cocktail before dinner, or possibly even time for two. With a quick glance around the small room that encompassed the locked bookshelves and the bare writing desks, recording their unvoiced agreement with the necessity for secrecy, he opened the door and stepped out upon the tilted deck. The flickering lights of Rio were fading in the warm dusk behind him; he took a deep breath of the damp salt air and patted the passenger list in his pocket as if for confirmation. The deck took a sudden dip beneath his feet as the liner encountered the first of the giant ocean swells running in to meet the quiet waters of the bay. He caught his balance suddenly, waited a moment, and then flipped the ash from his cigar over the rail. Tomorrow would do to begin. He started down the empty expanse of deck in the direction of the bar.

  Somewhere in the vast ship there were diamonds, and it was his assignment to locate them.…

  II.

  Cocktail parties held by the American colony in the city of Rio de Janeiro follow a rigid pattern dictated by archaic custom and dedicated to the proposition that no guest shall be comfortable. The number of people invited to one of these affairs is a fixed function of the space available and usually works out to approximately two people to one space. Drinks are proffered by waiters who
lumber through the thirsty pack as if they were all on their way to claim the last seat at a World Cup football game. Strange foods are offered on trays by other waiters who carry them about head-high with small regard for spectacles, coiffures—or, for that matter, skulls—and then expertly withdraw them the moment a hungry guest has the temerity to reach for anything. (The following day the hostess tearfully complains that nobody ate a thing!)

  The hour of the party is generally selected to afford the maximum disruption of normal schedule, coming as it does in the neighborhood of 6 P.M., the time of greatest traffic congestion and lowest energy level. Excessive heat and humidity are not prescribed essentials, but since they are always present in Rio, they have come to be accepted as part of the routine. Everyone seems to smoke too much at a cocktail party, and for some reason the smoke never seems to clear away, so that by the time the third gin and tonic is being gloomily consumed it becomes quite difficult to even tell with whom you are trading worn clichés.

  Mr. Wilson, of the staff of the American Embassy in Rio, forced his way with more than a touch of impatience through the mob of incoming guests at the Ambassador’s cocktail party in honor of visiting Senator Joseph P. Hastings. Mr. Wilson, normally the calmest of men, had had about all he could take of this particular party. Given a chance to classify this party on a boredom level against other parties he was forced by his position to attend, he would have rated it high.

  The affair was being held on the upper level of the American Club, which occupied the top two floors of a skyscraper in the Avenida Rio Branco in downtown Rio, a location undoubtedly selected for this party by the chief of protocol because of the impossibility of parking anywhere within a mile of the site. A curved stairway led from the upper level, where the affair was being held, to the lower level, where the Men’s Bar was located, and Mr. Wilson was intent upon reaching this haven before the small amount of oxygen in the crowded area was exhausted and bodies would begin to pile up. The Black Hole of Calcutta, Wilson thought with sudden conviction, was undoubtedly misreported in the press; the odds were strong that it was merely an American cocktail party at which guests had stayed overlong.

  He jammed his way down the wide staircase that joined the two floors, elbowing his way as politely as he could through the eager pack of free-loaders tramping thirstily skyward. With an adroitness a stranger might not have credited him with, he managed to side-step the full flood at the elevator landing at the bottom and edged into a narrow alleyway leading away from the mob scene. A pair of nail-studded leather-covered doors at the end of the deserted corridor marked the end of his quest, and he pushed through into the welcome silence beyond, feeling a bit like a shipwrecked sailor sighting a rescue ship.

  The Men’s Bar, he was both surprised and pleased to note, was not only empty but serviced. With a heartfelt sigh he fell into a soft upholstered chair beside the huge windows in one corner of the room, beckoning in the same motion to the waiter who stood watchfully polishing glasses behind the long crystaled bar.

  “Brandy, please.”

  Served, he signed the chit negligently and leaned back to enjoy his freedom, cupping the balloon glass in his fingers, taking pleasure from the chill smoothness of the glass, relaxing from the fray. Through the tall undraped windows beside him he could look down on the beauty of the city and of Guanabara Bay, spread out below him in picturesque detail, surrounded by tinted mountains now catching the glancing rays of a setting sun. A tiny launch, foreshortened by the height from which he watched it, jauntily cut its way across the bay to Niterói, its wake a fine curving white line stenciled clearly against the deep blue of the water. You’re all alone down there, Wilson thought idly, and I’m alone up here. It’s wonderful, isn’t it? He sighed with gratification and tilted his glass to his lips.

  Wilson was a medium-sized, nondescript man with sandy hair and pale eyes, of a type to be passed unnoticed on the street any day. Everything about him was subdued, from the formal dress he wore at the moment in honor of the occasion to the few mannerisms he employed—which was no accident and exactly as he both planned and wished it. His standard uniformity served him very well in his job. Ostensibly he was the security officer of the American Embassy, the man to whom lost luggage or misplaced passports were reported, and the one who was also charged with the thankless task of effecting the release from jail of those American sailors who failed to note the difference between Santos and Hoboken.

  Actually, however, Mr. Wilson’s position at the Embassy was far more important. He was a member of Interpol and played a vital role in a number of government agencies which were less publicized but far more reaching. Among Embassy personnel only the Ambassador himself was aware of Wilson’s true status, and this intelligence was shared by several in similar positions in the Brazilian Government, but by no one else.

  Although his presence at this particular cocktail party was somewhat in the nature of a duty, at the moment he did not feel he was acting in any official capacity. At the moment he simply felt he was resting from a battle for survival which he had waged and which he rightly considered—by managing to find the Men’s Bar both operative and empty—he had won. He savored his triumph, his eyes lazily following the little launch as it slipped quietly across the ruffled mirrored surface of the bay, his fingers curling comfortably about his glass.

  His victory, however, was short-lived. There was a scraping sound and the leather-covered doors swung open once again, but hesitantly this time, as if the newcomer were unsure whether or not his intrusion would be welcomed—or even permitted. Wilson looked up; his initial grimace of annoyance changed instantly to a broad smile. He called softly from his corner.

  “Senator …!”

  Senator Joseph P. Hastings allowed the nail-studded door to swing silently shut behind him and crossed the room, his feet sinking into the thick pile of the carpeting. Wilson waved genially, indicating the chair across from him, and the Senator sank into it with a grateful sigh. Wilson grinned at him in quite a friendly manner; in the five days since he had made the Senator’s acquaintance he had come to both admire and like the man.

  He tilted his head toward the bar. “How about a quiet drink?”

  The Senator nodded in profound relief and leaned back. They waited in relaxed silence until the taciturn waiter had once again performed his service. Wilson accepted the tendered pencil, signed the chit, and handed the Senator his glass as the waiter retired. He raised his balloon glass in a small toasting gesture; Senator Hastings responded appropriately and then set his glass down on the small end table provided beside his deep chair. From the floor above the sound of music filtered down faintly. The orchestra, having finally decided that the proper degree of immobility had been reached, had begun playing animatedly for dancing. Wilson smiled inquisitively at his companion.

  “How did you ever manage to escape, Senator?” He tilted his head idly upward, indicating the faint noise from above. “After all, you’re supposed to be the guest of honor here tonight.”

  The Senator grinned; it made him look years younger. He was a handsome, well-built man in his late fifties. His full shock of hair was almost blinding white; his complexion was ruddy with good humor and good health. He unbuttoned his dinner jacket, moved to a more comfortable position, and withdrew a leather cigar case which he offered to Wilson. The slighter man shook his head in refusal.

  “I did my duty,” the Senator said, and began peeling the foil wrapper from a cigar. “I shook hands with the first thousand or so, not that they had the faintest idea of who I was or why I was there. Which put them in the same category as me.” He paused to puff, holding a match steadily before his cigar. “After all,” he continued with a twinkle, “I’m just a visiting senator, not a candidate for office down here.” He waved the match to extinction.

  “True,” Wilson conceded with a smile. “Plus the fact that most of these people are permanent residents here, so they can’t even vote for you in the States.”

  “A terrible t
hought,” said the Senator. “In any event, I think I was the first one here, so I ought to rate time off for sentence served, if not for good behavior.”

  “You’re forgiven,” Wilson said. “Actually, once the Ambassador left, he relieved all of us of our responsibility to suffer.”

  The Senator wiped ash into an ash tray. “I’m not sure if you’re right on protocol, but I’ll go along with you.”

  The two men smiled at each other. Wilson raised his glass to drink. He set it back on his knee. “At least your wife was spared seeing you walk out on your own party. I don’t believe I saw her here.”

  “Elly? You didn’t.” The Senator puffed on his cigar and slowly allowed the smoke to escape his lips. “She left this afternoon by ship. I managed to get her to fly down with me by jet, but risking her life once on those newfangled flying machines is just about her limit.”

  “Oh? She left on the Bolivar?”

  “Right. I took her down there and then walked over here. If it hadn’t been for this party, I confess I might have weakened and gone with her. The ship looked very lush, albeit noisy.” He picked up his drink, drank, and then continued in almost the same tone of voice.

  “So, having fulfilled my duty upstairs, I figured I was free. And after that, to be truthful, I was looking for you. Someone upstairs said if you were sensible, you’d probably be in the Men’s Bar. And having found you eminently sensible in the few days I’ve known you, I came here.”

  Wilson laughed. “Looking for me? I’m flattered.”

  “I hate to water down the flattery,” said the Senator, gazing blandly out of the window, “but actually I was looking for someone else through you.” He brought his eyes about casually. “At lunch today you mentioned a friend of yours connected with the Brazilian police in some capacity or other. A Captain Da Silva. I was wondering if he might be here this evening, as your guest.”

  “Zé Da Silva?” Wilson stared at the other with a smile in his eyes and then shook his head. “Cocktail parties are a status symbol to the American colony in Rio, Senator. Zé doesn’t fall into that category—or that trap. To begin with, he isn’t American and he has all the status he wants. Besides, he likes his comfort, which you’ll admit he wouldn’t find here. No, he—”