The Irish Beauty Contract by Philip Atlee

Author:Philip Atlee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2020-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

I flew to Iquitos the next afternoon and checked into the Prendes Hotel. The battered air-conditioner in the window of my room whined fiercely at the sultry air but could not conquer its humidity. The river port is twenty-four hundred miles up the Amazon, and only the principal street is paved. The town is largely jerry-built and ramshackle, but a few fading mansions line the dirt side roads. Once Iquitos, like Manaus, dreamed of greatness through rubber groves. But the East Indian plantations changed all that…

While I waited for the arrival of the Motor Ship Sargasso Sea, with the explosives shipment aboard it, I tried to absorb some of the local culture and artifacts, but it was a drag. The main item in the curio shops was stuffed crocodile, and I have never really wanted one. Or you could charter a launch and watch the natives poison miles of rivers and lakes with barbasco, which produces acres of dead fish. When that palled, you could—if you were really a sporting type—dangle one foot in the water and see if the red-throated pirarucu, the local piranha, would remove it.

Mostly I stayed in the comparative coolness of the bars, drinking beer and sweating. Talking to local types—river men and plantation owners. An astonishing number of them were German, second or third generation. I was in idle conversation with one of them my third day in Iquitos, when a sudden silence fell over the bar. I looked up to see Kathleen Cullen standing just inside the doorway, twirling a parasol and glancing around.

Excusing myself, I walked over and said, “You must be out of your mind.”

“Now, Joseph,” she said, “don’t fuss. Nobody loves a fussy man.” She looked cool and serene, like a mirage someone had invented, and I dropped some money on the bar and propelled her outside.

On the way to the hotel she explained that things were so dull in La Punta; she had called Colonel Montoya and found out where I was, then flown down in one of her company planes …

“And these two cats behind us?” I asked. Kathleen laughed.

She said that Jorge Montoya would not tell her where I was until she promised to take two of his men along in the plane. It was not as if I hadn’t known Montoya was watching me, anyway, and it would have been sheer waste to make the government send another plane, now, wouldn’t it?

I agreed that it would have been foolish, and we went up to her suite. It was on the same floor as mine but had a corner sala, and all its four rooms and kitchen were filled’ with icy air that felt so good I almost fainted. Sprawling in one of the big chairs, I sighed with relief and wondered aloud why somebody hadn’t told me about these accommodations.

Kathleen laughed. “You are a lamb, Joseph,” she said. “Did you think I would fly down to visit you in this steaming pesthole without making inquiries? I love you, my love, but not that much.

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