River of Death

‘How many of them? Who did this to you—I mean, who did you do it to?’

‘Just two. Horenas. Same again.’

Although most people at the bar were still looking at Hamilton or the coins, the hubbub of conversation was slowly resuming. Hiller, glass in hand, elbowed his purposeful way towards Hamilton who regarded Hiller’s approach with his customary lack of enthusiasm.

Hiller said: ‘I hope you’ll excuse me. I don’t want to intrude, Hamilton. I understand that after tangling with head-hunters a man would like some peace and quiet. But what I’d like to say to you is important. Believe me. Could I have a word?’

‘About what?’ Hamilton’s tone was less than encouraging. ‘And I don’t like discussing business—I assume it is business—with a dozen pairs of ears hanging on to every word I say.’

Hiller looked around. Inevitably, their conversation was attracting attention. Hamilton paused for a moment, as if in thought, then picked up his bottle, jerked his head and led the way to the corner table most remote from the bar. Hamilton, as always, looked aggressive and forbidding and his tone matched his expression.

‘Out with it,’ he said, ‘and no shilly-shallying.’

Hiller took no offence. ‘Suits me. That’s the way I like it, the only way to do business. I’ll lay it on the line. It’s my belief you’ve found this Lost City of yours. I know a man who’d pay you a six-figure fee to take him there. That straight enough for you?’

‘If you throw away that rot-gut rubbish you have there I’ll give you some decent Scotch.’ Hiller did as requested and Hamilton topped up both glasses. Hiller was clearly aware that Hamilton was less interested in dispensing hospitality than in having time to think and from the just perceptibly slurred note in Hamilton’s voice it could well have been that he could be taking just slightly longer than normal to think quickly and clearly.

‘Well, I’ll say this,’ Hamilton said, ‘you don’t beat about the bush. Who says I’ve found the Lost City?’

‘Nobody. How could they? No-one knows where you go when you leave Romono—except maybe those two young sidekicks of yours.’ Hiller smiled thinly. ‘They don’t look like the type that would talk too much.’

‘Sidekicks?’

‘Oh, come off it, Hamilton. The twins. Everybody in Romono knows them. But it would be my guess that you would be the only person to know the exact location. So, okay, I’m only going on a hunch—and a couple of brand new golden coins that may be a thousand years old, two thousand. Just supposing.’

‘Supposing what?’

‘Supposing you’d found it, of course.’

‘Cruzeiros?’

Hiller kept his face impassive, a rather remarkable feat in view of the wave of elation that had just swept through him. When a man talks money it means that he is prepared to dicker, to make a deal, and Hamilton had the means to bargain. Hamilton had his quid pro quo and that could mean only one thing—he knew where the Lost City was. He had his fish hooked, Hiller thought exultantly: now all he had to do was gaff and land him. That might well take time, Hiller knew, but he had every confidence in himself: he rather fancied his prowess as a fisherman.

‘U.S. dollars,’ Hiller said.

Hamilton thought this over for a few moments then said: ‘An attractive proposition. Very attractive. But I don’t accept propositions from strangers. You see, Hiller, I don’t know you, what you are, what you do, and how come you are empowered to make this proposition.’

‘A con man, possibly?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Oh, come. We’ve had a drink a dozen times in the past months. Strangers? Hardly. We all know why you’ve been searching those damned forests for the past four months and other huge stretches of the Amazon and Paraná basins for the past four years. For the fabled Lost City of the Mato Grosso-if that is indeed where it is—for the golden people who lived there—who may still live there—most of all for the fabled man who found it. Huston. Dr Hannibal Huston. The famous explorer who vanished into the forests all those many years ago and was never seen again.’

‘You talk in clichés,’ Hamilton said.

Hiller smiled. ‘What newspaperman doesn’t?’

‘Newspaperman?’

‘Yes.’

‘Odd. I’d have put you down for something else.’

Hiller laughed. ‘A con? A convict on the lam? Nothing so romantic, I’m afraid.’ He leaned forward, suddenly serious. ‘Listen. As I said, we all know why you’re out here—no offence, Hamilton, but goodness knows you’ve told everyone often enough—although why I don’t know-I’d have thought you’d have kept it secret from everybody.’

‘Three good reasons, my friend. In the first place, there has to be some reason to account for my presence here. Secondly, anybody will tell you that I know the Mato Grosso better than any other white man and no one would dream of following me where I go. Finally, the more people who know what I’m after the greater the likelihood that some person, some time and in some place, will drop a hint or a clue that could be invaluable to me.’

‘I was under the impression that you didn’t require hints or clues any longer.’

‘That’s as maybe. Just you go ahead and form any impressions you like.’

‘Well, all right. So. Ninety-nine per cent of the people laugh at your wild notions, as they call them—though God knows there’s not a man in Romono would dare say it to your face. But I belong to the one per cent. I believe you. I further believe that your search is over and that the dream has come true. I’d like to share in a dream, I’d like to help a man, my employer, make his dream come true.’

‘I’m deeply moved,’ Hamilton said sardonically. ‘I’m sorry—well, no, I’m not really—but something gives here that I just can’t figure. And besides, Hiller, you are an unknown quantity.’

‘Is the McCormick-Mackenzie International?’

‘Is it what?’

‘Unknown.’

‘Of course not. One of the biggest multinational companies in the Americas. Probably the usual bunch of crooks using the usual screen of a battery of similarly crooked international lawyers to bend the laws any which way that suits them.’

Hiller took a deep breath, manfully restraining himself. ‘Because I’m in the position of asking a favour of you, Hamilton, I won’t take exception to that. In point of fact the record of McCormick-Mackenzie is impeccable. They have never been investigated, far less impeached on any count.’

‘Smart lawyers. Like I said.’

‘You can be glad that Joshua Smith is not here to hear you say that.’

Hamilton was unimpressed. ‘He the owner?’

‘Yes. And the Chairman and Managing Director.’

‘The multi-millionaire industrialist? If we’re talking about the same man?’

‘We are.’

‘And the owner of the largest newspaper and magazine chain in the Americas. Well, well, well.’ He broke off and stared at Hiller. ‘So that’s why you—’

‘Exactly.’

‘So. He’s your boss, a newspaper magnate. And you’re one of his newspapermen, and a pretty senior one at that, I would guess—I mean, he wouldn’t send out a cub reporter on a story like this. Very well. Your connections, your credentials established. But I still don’t see—’

‘What don’t you see?’

‘This man. Joshua Smith. A multi-millionaire. A multi-billionaire. Anyway, as rich as Croesus. What’s left on earth for him that he doesn’t already have? What more can a man like that want?’ Hamilton took a long pull at his whisky. ‘In short, what’s in it for him?’

‘You are a suspicious bastard, aren’t you, Hamilton? Money? Of course not. Are you in it for the money? Of course not. A man like you could make money anywhere. No, and again no. Like you—and, if I may say, a little bit like myself-he’s a man with a dream, a dream that’s become an obsession. I don’t know which fascinates him the more, the Huston case or the Lost City, although I don’t suppose you can really separate the two. I mean, you can’t have the one without the other.’ He paused and smiled, almost dreamily. ‘And what a story for his publishing empire.’