The Tarantula Stone. Philip Caveney

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СКАЧАТЬ face, neck and armpits. He was still not sure what he was doing here; looking for a little reality perhaps. The fancy main-street bars and cafés had none of the qualities he was seeking. That was for the tourists, a category to which he liked to think he did not belong. Here, there was only grime and squalor, but at least that was more honest; and it was in places like this that he tended to pick up his stock in trade. He gazed slowly around at the interior of the bar, noting the rusted tin tables, the mottled fly-blown mirrors; and then that the other occupant of the bar was looking at him curiously.

      A grizzled old-timer in a slouch hat and a grubby khaki shirt, he was gazing at Austin with the quizzical expression of a man bored with his own company. He was also nursing an empty glass.

      ‘Drink?’ offered Austin, waving his own glass to make his meaning clear.

      ‘Hell, don’t mind if I do!’

      Austin was pleasantly shocked. He had expected a string of unintelligible Portuguese for a reply, but this was clearly a fellow American. In an instant, the old man was perched on the stool opposite and the two were shaking hands with the kind of warmth only employed by compatriots in a distant land.

      ‘Mark Austin, Washington DC.’

      ‘Martin Taggart, somewhere in Wyoming. I forget where.’ The old man’s eyes twinkled but there was, Austin thought, an unmistakable trace of sadness in them. His voice was slow, gruff, laconic. Somehow it seemed to speak of wide experience.

      ‘Well then, Mr Taggart …’

      ‘Martin. All my friends call me Martin.’

      ‘Martin then! What’ll it be?’

      ‘Oh, I’ll have just whatever you’re drinking.’

      Austin ordered a bottle of cachaça – the local raw white rum – and another glass. He took out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to the old man. Taggart shook his head.

      ‘No thanks. I gave those things up a long time ago. Never went back to them. No sir …’

      Austin shrugged, put the cigarettes away. The cachaça arrived and the two men drank together in silence for a while.

      ‘So, what brings a feller like you to Rio?’ asked Taggart at last. ‘More importantly, what brings him to a piss-hole bar like this one?’

      Austin considered the question for a moment. He’d had a couple of drinks so he thought: what the hell, come right out with it.

      ‘Adventure,’ he said.

      Taggart raised his eyebrows. ‘Come again?’

      ‘Adventure. I’m looking for adventure. You see, I’m a writer and adventure is my thing. I write the stories as fiction, but I like to base them on real-life happenings. I’ve done my last four novels that way and it seems to work for me, so …’

      ‘A writer, huh?’ Taggart sipped his drink. ‘That pay well?’

      Austin grinned. ‘I don’t do so bad,’ he replied. ‘Say, maybe you read my last one, Children of the Kalahari? I think it was published here.’

      Taggart shook his head. ‘No, I don’t believe I did.’ He shrugged. ‘But then I don’t read much, these days. Adventure, huh? Well, I’m afraid you won’t find much of that in Rio de Janeiro, my friend. Not any more, anyway.’

      Austin topped up Taggart’s glass. ‘Been here a long time?’ he inquired.

      ‘Oh yeah, hell of a long time. Since before the war. Seen some changes around here, I can tell you.’

      Austin nodded. ‘Well, I’m going up-jungle tomorrow. The Rio das Mortes. Maybe I’ll find something there.’

      Something suspiciously like recognition dawned in the old man’s eyes. ‘The das Mortes? Yeah … well, even that’s changed, you know. The Indians been killed off or pushed out of their territory. Hell, there’s even a damned ferry on the das Mortes these days, any two-bit tourist can go and have himself a look. None of that kind of business when I was there.’

      ‘You were there? When?’

      ‘Oh. Long ways back. Bad story. You wouldn’t be interested.’ Taggart shook his head. There was something evasive in his manner, something that fired Austin’s curiosity. It had been a casual incident very much like this one that had given him the basis for his bestselling book, Hour of the Wolf. These old-timers had their stories and the world tended to forget about them. Still, Austin was an old hand at wheedling out what people didn’t like to discuss. He fed the old man a ready stream of cachaça and gradually Taggart’s reluctant tongue was loosened.

      He produced a yellowed scrap of paper from his shirt pocket. It was folded but Austin could see that it was inscribed with various pencilled lines and figures.

      ‘Looks like a map,’ he observed.

      ‘It is,’ replied Taggart, his voice slightly slurred with drink. ‘Sort of a map, anyway. Place on the river. That’s where the tarantula stone …’

      ‘The what?’

      Taggart sighed, shook his head. ‘Hell, it’s a long story. You don’t want to be burdened with it.’ He made as if to put the scrap of paper back into his pocket but Austin stayed his hand.

      ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘The day’s free, I’ve got nothing special to do and we’ve a bottle of cachaça to drink. I’d like to hear the story. Speak away, I’m listening.’

      Taggart sighed again but then he shrugged. ‘Well, let me see now. It all started back in ’forty-six … well, earlier than that, I suppose. But to get it straight, I’ll begin at that point and backtrack a little. Yes, ’forty-six. The war just over with. That was one hell of a year …’

Chapter 1

      Even in the relative cool of the airport lounge, Martin Taggart could not stop sweating. Directly above his head, a large electric fan clicked rhythmically round, beating the humid air into some kind of restless motion; but the perspiration still trickled from his armpits, making dark stains against the fabric of his khaki shirt. It oozed in a viscous stream down the gully of his spine, glued his collar to the back of his neck and made the soft leather pouch that hung round it stick like an island against the tanned flesh of his chest.

      For perhaps the hundredth time that morning, Martin’s right hand came up to touch the pouch, his fingers probing the round hard shape that nestled in there. The diamond seemed bigger every time he touched it. It was the size of a chicken’s egg and Martin could only begin to guess at its true value. It would make him rich, that was for sure … provided he could get away with it.

      He glanced nervously around the lounge, momentarily afraid that somebody might be reading his thoughts, but the motley assortment of passengers were, just like him, waiting impatiently for their flight to Belém. Out on the brilliantly sunlit concrete of the runway, the plane already stood like a great silver queen bee, attended by the restless assembly of gasoline trucks and maintenance men; but glancing at his watch, Martin could see that there were still twenty-five minutes to wait. It would be the longest twenty-five minutes СКАЧАТЬ