The Tarantula Stone. Philip Caveney

was an easy decision. He had always detested the mindless stupidity of patriotism and he wasn’t about to get his ass blown away for any damned cause. South America seemed as good a place as any to hide himself from the draft board and, besides, he was feeling lucky around that time. So he buckled down for a month or so, worked himself like a dog and managed to raise just enough cash to buy himself a one-way ticket to Rio de Janeiro. Leaving was easy. There were no ties for him in New Mexico, no family, no special girl who might have a hold on him. Of course, he had no idea about how to go about becoming a garimpeiro – diamond prospector – but he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

      And so it was that he had arrived in Rio with nothing but a few dollars and the clothes he stood up in. He had wasted little time in making inquiries in the local bars and eating places. Of course, there had been problems. The native language hereabouts was Portuguese and few people could speak more than the odd word of English. His ‘inquiries’ usually consisted of his saying the one word, garimpeiro (he had picked it up from the newspaper article and did not have the least idea how to pronounce it), whilst striking himself repeatedly on the chest. He was rewarded with blank stares, sad shakes of the head and, occasionally, a string of Portuguese jabberings with accompanying gestures that meant absolutely nothing to him. At last, on his third day out, sunburned and riddled with mosquito bites after sleeping rough in the open, he had some kind of success. He met an old man in a dingy cantina who could speak passable English and seemed to know exactly what to do.

      ‘If you wish to be a garimpeiro, senhor, you will need a patron, patrão. Senhor Caine is the top patrão around here. For fifty cruzeiros, I will take you to him.’

      Martin shook his head. ‘I don’t have any cruzeiros, old man.’

      The man’s grizzled face had split into a wide, gummy grin. ‘Not yet,’ he admitted. ‘But Senhor Caine will give you money. For now, a promise is good enough.’

      Martin frowned. It sounded too good to be true. ‘Well, I tell you what. This guy gives me any dough, the fifty Cs are yours.’

      He had followed the old man through the sprawling ghettos of Rio, observing, as he passed, the awful poverty that existed away from the clean, well-ordered main streets where the richest people in the world came to squander their money in the elegant stores, casinos and night clubs. Back here, reality was the sight of a skinny Indian woman begging in the streets while three emaciated children clung to her skirts. The old man led Martin to a large crumbling office building. At a paint-blistered door, he rang a bell and, shortly after, a thick-set swarthy man in an ill-fitting black suit appeared. He stared disdainfully for a moment and then leaned forward so that his ear might be whispered into. He gazed thoughtfully at Martin for a moment, as though appraising him.

      ‘Wait here,’ he barked suddenly in toneless, heavily accented English. He slammed the door and the old man turned back to Martin with a reassuring grin.

      ‘What did I tell you, senhor. Senhor Caine is an important man. He’ll fix you up. The … the money … you would not break a promise to an old man, senhor?’

      ‘Relax.’ Martin slipped off his battered slouch hat for a moment and mopped at his brow with a bandana. The heat was intense. After a few moments, the door opened again and the thick-set man reappeared. He ushered Martin inside.

      Beyond the doorway, Martin followed the man in the black suit along a gloomy roach-ridden hallway. There was a vile smell in the air that suggested bad sanitation. They moved on, up a rickety flight of wooden stairs and through another doorway at the top. A small metal plaque bore the legend Charles Caine Incorporated. Martin’s companion opened the door and stood aside to let the American enter. He found himself standing in a small airless office; at the desk a fat man in an expensive but badly crumpled suit appeared to be busy with a jumble of papers. He had a pale, almost baby-like face and what little hair was left on his head had been teased into an oily series of black curls that drooped down onto his forehead. His eyes were small and piggish, but they glittered with a low animal cunning. Behind him stood an impassive stooge in a suit that must have been run up by the same tailor who had garbed the man who answered the door and who now moved round the desk to join his opposite number. The two stood flanking the fat man like attendant flunkies waiting on an emperor. Martin could see quite clearly the bulges under their left armpits where gun holsters nestled. He frowned and turned his attention back to Charles Caine.

      His first reaction was one of instant distrust. An old garage mechanic Martin had known back in New Mexico had once told him, ‘Never trust a guy who looks like he eats better than you do.’ Caine was the first overweight man Martin had encountered since his arrival in Rio. Most people here had the sallow, hunted look of those who did not know where their next meal was coming from. Not so Mr Caine. He looked content as only a wealthy man can, and there was something about the shrewd little eyes gazing abstractedly at the rows of figures before him which suggested that this man should be trusted only as far as he could be thrown. Martin’s nostrils twitched as a smell reached them, the sickly sweet odour of lavender water.

      Caine glanced up as if noticing Martin for the first time, but of course this had all been a calculated ploy intended to belittle the newcomer. At any rate, it didn’t cut much ice. When Caine spoke, his voice had a strange, piping, high-pitched tone, but his accent was shot through with the unmistakable tones of a cultured Englishman.

      ‘So … er … Mister …? I’m sorry, I believe we have not yet …?’

      ‘Taggart. Martin Taggart.’

      ‘Mr Taggart. An American. Moreover, an American who wants to become a garimpeiro. An interesting break from tradition, but then we get all kinds in here.’ He grinned, displaying a set of even white teeth that looked too immaculate to be real. ‘I would have thought, Mr Taggart, that like all true-blooded Americans you would be busy preparing yourself for the er … glorious struggle with Japan and Germany; but then, perhaps you find the whole business of war as trivial and tiresome as I do.’ He studied Martin for a moment as if expecting a reply to this, then continued in a different tone. ‘Ah well, a man’s reasons are his own, I suppose. At least it will prevent your running back to your country for a while. The call-up brigade have never been well known for their understanding of those who evade them.’

      Martin had to try hard not to register a reaction. The fat boy was obviously a good deal sharper than he looked. It hadn’t taken him more than a few moments to figure out the lie of the land. ‘A garimpeiro,’ Caine continued, pretending that he was unconcerned whether his arrow had hit home or not. ‘Yes, well, you might do at that. You look hungry enough … you look as though you can handle yourself in a tight spot. Show me your hands, please.’

      Martin stepped obediently closer to the desk, extended his hands, palms uppermost. Caine reached out suddenly and took them in his own.

      ‘Ah, now look at these hands, Agnello,’ he purred, half-turning to address the man in the black suit. ‘Here is a fellow who has done some hard work in his time. Not like your lily-white hands, Agnello, hands that have done nothing more than pull a trigger or wield a knife; and not like mine either, hands that have only signed papers and … counted money.’ He gave a little giggle, a rather unpleasant sound; and he gazed for a moment at his own pudgy, stubby hands, the fingers of which glittered with a series of ostentatious diamond rings. Martin took the opportunity to pull his own hands away from Caine’s grasp. The fat man smiled at him a moment, a trace of mockery in his expression. Then he nodded.

      ‘Yes, well, Mr Taggart, I am after all a patron; I have many garimpeiros in my employ, hundreds. What’s more, I am always ready to take on more, regardless of their nationality. Good fortune owes allegiance to no flag, my friend.’

      ‘I’d say you’re proof of that, Mr Caine. How does an Englishman come to be a patron in Rio de Janeiro?’

      Caine shook his head. ‘Oh, a long story, that one; and a strange and muddy path from the playing fields of Eton to this weird backwater. Let us just say that I am by nature an opportunist, Mr Taggart. It’s not just diamond prospecting that I have interests in. I have my fat fingers in a whole series of delectable pies