Confrontation Ch. 05: Jaguar Nabbed

The next morning it takes a lot of banging around in the room to wake up Alphonse and Arturo. I take them to the cantina next door, and eventually several steaming cups of coffee rouse them. We load up the rental car, and it's time to leave this damn town behind.

But there is one more stop that I want to make, the police station. My two bodyguards are awake enough to notice that I'm dressed in my oldest clothes and a baseball cap. I haven't shaved in a few days either.

I've been thinking about what happened there yesterday and I realize that there were mistakes. My direct approach to the duty cop made it too difficult to get the information which I had recorded out behind Chicas bar the night before last. This time I'll try a different approach, one that worked a few times already. But it's only going to fly if I encounter a different cop than last time. That's a chance I'll take.

"Wait in the car, and don't go anywhere," I tell them, as I park around the corner from the police station. "I won't be very long."

"Where you going, Jaguar?"

"I'll tell you when I come back."

Then I walk to the station and come inside, looking to see if there's someone different on desk duty this early in the day. Good, another person, a pleasant-looking woman this time instead of the hardened old bastard I couldn't get any information from before.

"Can I help you, Senor?"

"I hope so. Somebody stole the spare tire off my cab. I saw him throw it into his truck and drive off. All I got was his plate number."

"Do you want to file a report?"

"I just want my tire back."

"We're so busy with other crime that I don't...."

I interrupt, sliding a bill across the counter top under my hand, along with a paper listing the licence number.

"If I know who owns the truck, I'll take care of it myself."

She looks across the office and there isn't anyone else around. So, she takes the money and the paper. Five minutes later she returns with a computer printout for me. Now I have something tangible to work with.

Aurelo P. Gonsalves, CEO

Intercontinental Freight Company Limited

2660 Via Los Angeles, Cuzco, Peru

"Muchos gratias!"

"I don't know anything about this. Adios."

The border crossing is easy enough. Passport checked, a few questions, and we're into Brazil, a place called Assis at the opposite end of the new Brazil-Peru Integration Bridge. A bus is coming in the opposite direction, headed into Peru. People file off- a few of them with baggage- and line up to enter the Customs building. I wonder how many are transporting goods they've conveniently left on the bus.

We drive through the town. Aside from the Portuguese signs, nothing really looks any different here. We're met by shabby streets blown with trash, and a line of dreary drinking holes with grim-looking men standing about. Kerchiefed old women scuttle along from the morning market, burdened with grimy plastic bags. Life is just as hard on both sides of the border.

Eventually, we're out of all this and into the rugged countryside. Its easy to see how the new paved highway has changed things by opening up the region. We can see that wide swaths of trees have been cut back from the road- whole forests cleared in some places, the stumps still standing. With the forest gone, sandy washouts mark where streams have ripped away the naked earth. Once-blue mountain streams are brown, choked with mud.

We pass areas torn apart by illegal strip mining and stream dredging for gold. Its an environmental disaster! Abandoned diggings scar the hillsides and the remains of shacks and broken equipment litter the weeds. Stream beds have been scraped bare in places, and creeks completely diverted in others. This only adds to the damage which we've witnessed today.

In a couple of hours we come to a sprawling city, Rio Branco, our destination for further surveillance. The Inter-oceanic route divides here, one branch directed northeast to Porto Velho, the other east to the inland capital, Brasilia, and Sao Paulo beyond that. I want to see if Rio Branco is an assembly or distribution point along the smuggling trail. I've don't know if we'll find anything, but luck might be with us.

This is a big city, the deepest westward reach of urban population into Brazil. Its fortunes have risen and fallen with the price of natural rubber from the plantations grown here one hundred and fifty years ago. Nearly half the population of this corner of Brazil is clustered here, many people the descendants of labourers who worked on the plantations.

I plan to spend a couple of days watching the movement of women and trucks, the suspected carriers of ancient Peruvian culture into Brazil and beyond. I'll be on the lookout for vehicles from Intercontinental Freight. And I know the best place to track both carriers- in the city's seediest night spots. My bodyguards are always willing companions on such assignments.

We find a quiet little motel and rent a couple of rooms, then pick up some beer and groceries so we can settle in for a few days. Its out on the edge of the city, not far from the highway, close to a big place we saw on the way with a gaudy green neon that flashes JOVEM [Girls] in Portuguese. If past experience is any guide, this spot has potential, so we'll drive over after sunset.

When I see trucks and trailers lined along one side of the muddy lot I know we've come to the right place. I park in the shadows to watch for any activity around the trucks. There are a couple of Intercontinental Freight rigs here, but I don't see the same level of activity witnessed at Inapari.

Some hookers go out to the drivers and disappear into sleeper units. Elsewhere, some guys bring suspicious packages and get a handful of money in return. Its another world around the trucks, where people make a living with their bodies or their guile- a dog-eat-dog scramble in the muddy lot beside Jovem bar.

I wish that I could find out more about the things being delivered to the trucks, so I come in for a closer look. Skulking around in the dark, walking quietly between trailers, I hope to overhear conversations about what is handled.

Now I'm watching either a flat bag of drugs or a priceless Peruvian piece change hands. Maybe I'm getting a bit closer to the smuggling syndicate that includes these drivers? Listening carefully, I lose track of what is going on around me.

Suddenly I feel something pushed hard into my back, a stick or a gun barrel. What the fuck! I instinctively tighten up- fight or flight time. Wisely, I stay still because I don't want to be a dead hero.

"Policia! Put those hands on top of your head and walk forward slow and easy. I don't want to shoot you," shouts a tough voice from behind.

"I'm just taking a piss out here," I protest.

A firm hand grips my shoulder and steers me toward better light. I see a police car waiting for me. The guy's partner opens the back door and then barks another order.

"Hands together behind your back."

"But I was just..."

"Shut up! We got a call about a guy out in the parking lot. There's been a lot of theft back here."

"I didn't...."

"Shut up I said! You're coming to the station."

"I have money!" I offer.

"Now you're staying for the night!"

"But I...," earns me a gloved cuff across the mouth, so I don't say anything else as they push me into the car and drive away.

Now what the Hell am I going to do? Alphonse and Arturo won't know where I am and they don't have keys for the car or the room. They'll probably get drunk in the bar and end up screwing some of the dancers. I don't know where they'll end up, or how they'll be able to get me out in the morning. The situation looks hopeless. I wonder if the cops will give me one last chance.

"My cousins are in there," I lie. "I have the keys for the car and the motel room. Alphonse and Arturo. Tell them where I'm going. Please! I beg you!"

I wait but nobody even turns around to look at me. Should I try it again, or will they listen to me? One more try.

"Please! Stop there before we go. They need to have these keys and...."

"Shut the Hell up!"