The Diving Dames Affair Page 3

  The young lawyer smiled. "Of course the description would fit Getuliana just as well," he murmured.

  "Getuliana?"

  "Another of our bright new cities - scheduled population of one million, mostly to be employed in light industry, red carpet to be unrolled at the beginning of 1970. But it's still in the steel frame and cement-mixer stage now - and I shouldn't wonder if there weren't some hydroelectric schemes tied up with that."

  "Where exactly is this place?"

  "Beyond the Sierra Divisoes, about 300 miles from here. It's on the fringe of the Matto Grosso west of Goiás."

  "And you think a dam's a possibility in the neighborhood?"

  "I wouldn't know. The site's between the Rio Grande and the Rio das Mortes - both of which flow north into the Araquaia - so I should guess so. But the man you want to ask is Moraes: he can tell you everything about Getuliana."

  "Moraes?"

  "The contractor who pulled off the deal to build the entire city center. If there are options around he'll know where and what they are - and if it would be worth your while to go up there or not."

  Dom Federico de Moraes occupied three floors of a concrete polygon situated across a parched square from the government office where Solo had met the young lawyer. A big, gray man with empty eyes, he was sitting behind a teak desk staring at the wall when Solo was ushered in by a pretty Negro secretary.

  "You wished to see me about some aspect of the building of Getuliana, Senhor – ah - Williams?" he rumbled, glancing at Solo's card.

  "Not precisely, Dom Federico. At least not the city itself. My interest centers rather" - Solo risked a long shot - "on the dam."

  "Ah, the San Felipe project!"

  "Precisely. The San Felipe project."

  "But I cannot see what interest that can have for an American. Especially an American lawyer."

  "One had been informed - perhaps wrongly - that there might be land options negotiable on the fringes of the site, in areas cleared but not inundated. The corporation I represent would be interested in such options… either for development or simply for the mineral rights."

  A door shut softly behind a dividing screen of potted plants. A tall, thin man in a white suit sauntered into the room. "Oh, sorry, Moraes," he said. "I didn't realize you had company." But he made no attempt to leave, dropping into a tan leather armchair shaped like half a golf ball and staring at Solo with unabashed curiosity.

  "It's all right, Wassermann," Moraes said. "This gentleman has been sent here under a misapprehension. He seems to think there are some options available in connection with San Felipe!" He chuckled throatily.

  "Options?" The thin man sat upright, his tanned, skull-like face a mask of incredulity. "At San Felipe? You must be joking! May I ask exactly where you got that idea, sir?"

  "In Rio."

  The two men exchanged glances over the desk. "But I'm afraid I don't understand," the contractor said. "There never have been any options available in connection with this project. The whole thing is what you Americans call a package deal. Doctor Wassermann here conceived the whole idea of building the city and opening up this barren area, persuaded the government to give him the go-ahead, raised the necessary finance in Europe and elsewhere, and negotiated the contracting deal - for everything, absolutely everything - with my company. The dam at San Felipe is simply to provide electricity for the city; that is all."

  "One would be interested to learn who gave you the idea," the man in the white suit pursued. "We are more than adequately financed; we do not want your American dollars here. Nothing personal - but you can't buy your way in everywhere, you know."

  Solo inclined his head. "Accepted, gentlemen," he said. "That was not my intention. It was just that I heard of the possibility of options and I considered it - foolishly, as it turns out - worth the visit to investigate."

  "Yes, but heard from whom," Wasserman insisted. "There has been very little publicity - mainly because the whole project is being handled by one concern - and I'm amazed it's a talking point in Rio at all."

  "A woman, actually," Solo said, deciding to trail a line in deep waters. "A woman who works for the D.A.M.E.S… at San Felipe."

  Again the two businessmen exchanged glances. "Ah, the welfare ladies!" Moraes said smoothly after a moment. "Yes, of course. They are engaged in – er - resettling the natives displaced by the new lake. Although that part of the Matto Grosso plateau is relatively bare, a big reservoir such as the one formed by the San Felipe dam is bound to drown quite a few villages and farms in the valley it fills up. The D.A.M.E.S. has been most helpful in explaining to the country folk how they will benefit, and smoothing out the task of rehousing them elsewhere."

  "And, apparently, setting up an unofficial agency for the disposal of our land!" Wassermann remarked dryly.

  "I think you exaggerate a little, senhor," Solo said easily. "The lady did not specifically offer land for sale or state that options were available. She merely mentioned the area of operations, as it were, and said in passing that she guessed there must be a lot of money to be made by anyone who could get in on the ground floor. As that happens to be my business, I thought it worth coming to see, as I said."

  "How very curious," Wassermann drawled. He rose suddenly to his feet, the elegant suit, creaseless and immaculate, bright in the shadowed office. "There are many ladies of this organization at San Felipe. Do you by any chance recall the name of the one you talked to?"

  "At the moment," Solo said, looking him it the eye, "I'm afraid it escapes me."

  "I see. Permit me, then, to save you any further trouble in this connection. You may take it from me that the dam, which has inundated a valley carrying a tributary of the Rio das Mortes, is in a stretch of country wild and inaccessible. Most of the rocks are ancient porphyries, of no value for mining, building or any other work. Apart from San Felipe do Caiapo itself - a village of three or four hundred people only - there are no centers of population nearer than the unfinished city. Nor are there likely to be, since there are no roads. And nor will there be any question whatever of land or mineral options."

  "Nevertheless, since you use the services of the D.A.M.E.S., you must in some degree be prepared to work with Americans. The trust is wholly American-financed, you know."

  "That is hardly a parallel. They provide a service we need. By contributing to their funds we, in effect, pay them. Which is a bit different from accepting money from those wishing to share our future profits!"

  "Admittedly. Even so, as a businessman -"

  "Good day, Mr. Williams."

  And that was that. Solo cut his losses and left. He had found out more than he had dared to hope for: there was a dam and a reservoir; he knew now where it was.

  There was a team of D.A.M.E.S. working at it - or at least a team of women representing themselves as the D.A.M.E.S.; and this was undoubtedly where the two girls murdered in Rio had come from. The people working on the project were the same people making the new town; and it seemed fairly certain they wanted to keep their activities secret.

  Why?

  What was there about another new town in Brazil - even if there might have been graft attached to the dispensation of the contracts for doing it - that was so special?

  There was only one way to find out, Solo thought: go there.

  ---

  Picking his way between slender, modernistic pillars supporting the giant canopies designed to keep the sun off the inhabitants of Brasilia, he threaded his way across the new city. Within the plane-shaped overall design of the place, squares, gardens, parking lots, shadowed pedestrian walks, and the geometric forms of buildings merged into a homogeneous whole that was as stimulating as it was right. Here was the city of the future be fore his eyes. And yet the very perfection of the place rendered it sterile and somehow un-alive. It had sprung into being straight off the drawing board, without being allowed to develop from older and more traditional failures that were there before. And perhaps because of this, it was with a
sense of relief that he saw the car-rental headquarters was hewn from a different block. It was an unholy mixture of adobe and corrugated iron, a series of; long walls topped with rule-of-thumb roofs linked by the French truss method. The office was a wooden shack shoveled into a corner behind a double row of Plymouths. And to Solo it looked like home.

  He burst in through the rickety door and flipped a silver coin at the young Brazilian equivalent of a New' York radio cab dispenser who sat behind the worn counter. "I need to rent a car," he said. "Now."

  "'Kay, bud," the dispenser said, rolling a toothpick from side to side of his mouth. "Where you wanna go?"

  "Does it matter?" Solo asked, a little surprised both at the question and at the fact that it was couched in archaic Hollywood English.

  "Well sure it matters, bud. Like if you was to wanna drive to Januaria, or Claros, or Rio Branco in Bahia state, then I give you a Plymouth, see. It's a long ways there, first-off, and then again the roads ain't too bad. Same thing if you was mad enough to wanna go to the railhead at Pirapora. But if you just had a mind to drive around here, maybe go up to Palma, down to Carvaihas, I'd suggest something smaller, cheaper on the gas. A Volvo, maybe, or a Fiat. 'Cause it's flat up here. On the other hand, if you were heading for Leopoldina or Goiania or any of those places, you'd be better off with a jeep. Those roads in the mountains are rugged, man."

  "I want to go to Getuliana."

  "Getuliana!"

  "Sure. If you don't mind. Bud."

  "Jesus! What you wanna do that for?"

  "I'd like to see it, that's all. Anything wrong with that?"

  "Only that it ain't there. There's nothing to see. You go to the public library here, you can see the plans. Look around this dump, and you can see the way it's going to be. But out at the site, you won't see nothing. It like this place but less so, if you know what I mean."

  "Even so, I'd like to take a run out there and look. I'm interested in town planning."

  "Yeah, sure. So am I. But an interest can turn into an obsession... Look, lemme tell you about a great trip you ran take down the valley -"

  "Thanks, but it has to be Getuliana. I'm being paid for it."

  "Well, if you're sure," the youth said doubtfully. "I guess you better take the Volkswagen, then. She ain't pretty, she ain't specially fast, she's not what you call comfortable - but she's tough, man. Real tough. And she'll save you gas ... even, God save us, on the roads around Getuliana!"

  "Great. I'll take the VW, then. Maybe you could help me work out a route, eh? You have maps here?"

  "Maps we got, bud. The road system in Bahia state. The road system in Minas Gerais. The trunk routes of Rio. The river system of Brazil. Tributaries of the Amazon. How to make the best of our railway network. Street maps of Brasilia - lots of those, in all colors, with electricity and drainage diagrams added. But a map that shows how to get from here to Getuliana…" He shook his head. "Man, that's a drag."

  "Do you know the way yourself? You've been there, I mean?"

  "Sure. I been there a couple times. But I ain't no chauffeur."

  "Understood. I just meant that maybe you could kind of show me the general way on that big wall map you have there." Solo gestured towards a six-foot plaster mural in exaggerated relief which dominated one wall of the office.

  "Pleasure, if that's all you want… You head west across the plateau here, see... practically desert all the way. Then you have to get through the Pireneos - that's this ridge here - and cross the Divisoes, After that, watch out."

  "Hostile natives?"

  The boy looked at him suspiciously. "This is a modern country, bud," he said. "You have to watch out for the roads. You'll see signs directing you to the grand new autoroute for Leopoldina and Getuliana."

  "And the road's not built yet?"

  "Oh, it's there all right. Only they haven't put in the bridges where it crosses these valleys, see… here… and here… and here. You have to take the old road - but only as far as this junction here. There's a big old church right between the two roads; you can't miss it. When you get there, turn off that road and head south west."

  "No bridges on the old road either?"

  "Oh, there were bridges, sure. Only the got kinda washed away in the rainy season and they re not fixed up again yet... Look, you'd best head for Goiás from there. It's further south, but the road's much better. Then you can strike north along this valley, cross the saddle here, and come down on Getuliana from the other side, through San Felipe - you'll recognize that because there's a big new lake and a dam there."

  Solo made a few notes and completed the necessary insurance and financial details before the boy led him out to a bright blue Volkswagen, slightly battered around the fenders but otherwise in good condition.

  "Like I say, she's tough," the boy said. "And she's got plenty of ground clearance in there. But it rains, you wanna watch out for that back end, man… like especially where they're mining that bauxite."

  "Thanks," Solo said, pressing another coin into his hand. "I guess maybe you get them late down here, huh?"

  "How's that?"

  "The movies. They're on pretty late release here, eh?... I mean, you ought to know this: On the Waterfront was a long time ago. Brando is out now. Not the in thing at all."

  "He's not?"

  "Definitely not. The in thing today is to get all British. Frightfully proper, what! Clipped voice and school English; high collar with a tie. Buttoned down. The whole scene."

  "You're kidding!"

  "Absolutely not, dear boy. Hadn't you noticed my collar?"

  ---

  Solo was still grinning when he swung the Volkswagen onto the main road to the west outside the city limits. Allowing for detours, he had over three hundred miles to go. Since it was already past noon, he would be wiser not to press for too much: he would stop for the night at Goiás and prospect San Felipe and the dam tomorrow.

  The road plunged across the empty countryside in wide sweeps, now smooth and hard-packed, now pitted, rough and covered with a layer of choking white dust. Once through the jagged rock defile breaching the first ridge, it ran gradually downhill and the spiny plants of the desert gave way to a denser vegetation. Soon the car was bowling through the middle of a forest, shaded from the fiery sun by a palisade of tall trees. Green parakeets swooped and soared in flocks, and an occasional pair of toucans flapped heavily from one side of the road to the other.

  Traffic was light. In an hour, Solo saw only three cars, a jeep, the inevitable rattletrap bus, and a convoy of heavy trucks loaded with something in steel drums which he had to wait some time to pass.

  Then the forest receded, was replaced by ragged bush, and finally gave way to a plain of tufted grasses bounded by hills violet with distance to the west. Halfway across the plain was the fork with a church between the two roads, just as the boy at the rental company had said. Ignoring the signposts, Solo turned left and found himself a quarter of an hour later in an arid region gushed with dried-up watercourses The road appeared to be quarried from the bed-rock, the dust billowed into the air and penetrated the car in choking clouds, and both fabrics and metal became too hot to touch in the shadeless glare of the sun. Several times Solo had to drive across mataburros - the primitive country bridges comprising two steel beams spanning the gap, with a series of planks laid crosswise to form the roadway. Once, finding himself stranded on one of these high above a desolate gorge, he had to stop the car, get out, collect, an armful of planks from behind and lay them down again in front of the car to fill in a space in the swaying structure before he could go on. Another time, he missed a turn-off and found himself - according to a signpost - on the way back to Brasilia. It was after dark before he finally made Goiás.

  The following morning - he had gone straight to bed after an inn dinner of feijao with eggs and roast meat, washed down by strong coffee laced with pinga - Solo decided he must get in touch with Waverly to report progress. But first he wanted to ask a few questions of the locals…
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  He went out into the town to look around.

  It was another hot day, the sun blazing from a dark blue sky between drifts of white cloud. The town was pleasant, a survival from an earlier age. There was a river, a square with green turf and a bandstand presided over by a peeling building like a Venetian palazzo, a movie theater with an ornate facade. There were narrow cobbled streets twisting awry the rules of perspective. And above the jumbled roofs with their curved tiles, wooded hills surmounted by a wild rock escarpment pierced the sky.

  Against the blinding white walls of the house, men in wide straw hats tipped back their chairs and drowsed. From inside, occasionally, the age-old profile of a woman gleamed pale against the shadow.

  Solo threaded his way through a market, enjoying the spicy smells in the shade beneath the awnings, and crossed a square loud with the clatter of small boys on ponies. On the far side, over the ever-present babble of the river, he heard a low murmur of men's voices from a window below street level. He went down half a dozen steps, pushed open a wrought iron gate, and found himself in a bodega.

  It was moist and cool after the glare of the sun, and the low-pitched conversation blended well with the woody smells of barrel and cask. Solo ran his eyes over the double line of spigots behind the counter, each with its neat label, and approached the barman.

  "I'll take a sercial, if you please," he said, "providing it's chilled but not too cold."

  Although he spoke Portuguese well, it was some time before Solo was able to break down the mistrust of strangers sufficiently to take part in the general conversation. Finally, however, as he started to sip his third glass of the dry, clean-tasting Madeira, he found himself sitting down with three men at a heavy, polished table, talking of local trade. One of the men was a wholesaler of groceries and dry goods.

  "I suppose you will find a big difference, now that they are building the new city," Solo said. "More clients will mean bigger orders of stock, and larger stocks will need larger premises and so on."