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more than a glance.
She was surprised no one seemed to recognize Sir Iain. It struck her that
perhaps nobody associated Publico dressed in a T-shirt and torn blue jeans
and grimacing into a microphone with his sweat-lank hair hanging down his back
with this dapper, obviously wealthy white guy from elsewhere.
"We had just about run out of leads here," Annja said. She wasn't able to keep
a note of accusation from creeping into her voice. "You didn't give us much to
work with. Especially after our one major contact was murdered."
"Sorry, Annja dear," he said with a contrite smile. "But you were fully the
skeptic, weren't you? I already told you more than you were willing to believe
that much was plain as the nose on your face."
"I'm still a skeptic," she said. "And I'm not sure what to believe right now."
She hoped Dan hadn't felt duty-bound to e-mail him about their experience the
evening before.
"What happened to Mafalda did kind of put a damper on our investigation," Dan
said. "There's nothing written down about Promessa, at least that we could
track down. I get the impression plenty of people know about this hidden
quilombo, but nobody wants to talk to strangers about it."
"Do you blame them, after what happened to Mafalda?" Annja asked.
"Ah, but there we have the key bit of evidence, don't we?" Publico said almost
impishly. He seemed to be taking a childlike delight in the intrigue. "The
fact that she was done in is itself as strong a lead as we could ask, don't
you see?"
"It means we're on the right trail," Dan agreed somewhat reluctantly.
"It may or may not," Annja said quickly. "Although it's not as in-your-face
here as it is in the megacities down south, crime is a real problem in Brazil.
It can hit anybody any time or why are we walking around surrounded by men
bristling with guns?"
"Point taken," Publico said with a grin.
"Dealing in candomblé items is a pretty well respected trade around here, but
it certainly doesn't rule out contacts with a pretty bad element. Mafalda
might've crossed a business associate. Or turned the wrong crime boss down on
a sexual proposition," Annja said.
He raised a brow. "You really think so? I thought you found the same people in
her shop who visited you in your bedrooms the night before. And who vanished
mysteriously."
"Maybe," Annja said. Dan looked at her sharply; she paid him no mind. "The
vanishing isn't necessarily all that mysterious. We're not from around here,
and they are. They know the city much better than we do. And while I never saw
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Dan's nocturnal guest, mine and the guy in the shop well, it's not as if
wiry little guys who look like Amazonian Indians are rare in these parts."
"It was the same woman," Dan said flatly. "She threw me like I was a child."
"You think she displayed superhuman strength?" Publico asked. His voice seemed
to hold an edge of eagerness.
"I don't know. She could have just been real good at martial arts. But it was
the same woman, and she shot some kind of energy weapon at Annja."
Annja frowned. "Maybe."
Dan glared at her. "You told me "
She held up a hand. "I know. But I've thought about it. It might have been
conventional firearm using a special laser sight. Maybe it was a special
effect designed to make it look like some kind of high-tech ray gun."
"But she vanished again on you," Dan said, "when you chased her into that
tenement room."
"Well," Annja said, "again, she might just have known more about the area than
I do... ."
She let her words trail off when she noticed the other two looking at her
closely. Dan looked outraged. Publico was openly amused.
"Ah, Annja, for a world traveler, you'd think you'd realize denial is more
than just a river in Egypt," the rock star said. Publico held up a finger.
"You're both forgetting we do have a solid lead that slip of paper Dan found
in that unfortunate woman's hand."
Annja looked at Dan and sighed. "It could just be coincidental, too."
"As may be," Publico said. "But you two are going to Manaus to find out for
certain. And I shall come with you."
Chapter 13
"He was holding out on us," Annja said. "Of course I'm pissed off."
The waiting room in the offices of the River of Dreams Trading Company in
Manaus was fluorescent bright, with dark-stained hardwood wainscoting,
whitewashed walls and a white dropped-tile ceiling. An array of fern or
palmlike plants in terra-cotta pots, exotic to Annja's eyes but native to the
surrounding forest, softened the starkness of an otherwise generically modern
design, with a curved desk and chairs of curved chromed tubing with black
leather seats and backs. Big modernistic murals of the rain forest splashed
the walls with bright greens and reds and yellows. Pied tamarins, a famous
local endangered species of primate, featured prominently, peering like troll
dolls with black raisins for faces and cotton-ball wigs.
"He has his reasons," Dan said.
Publico's private jet had delivered them to Manaus shortly after noon, a few
hours earlier. It had been one of the richest cities in the Western Hemisphere
and possibly the richest in the Southern Hemisphere during its heyday as queen
of the rubber trade. Unfortunately the invention of synthetic substitutes, and
the rise of rubber cultivation in Southeast Asia, ended the frenzy in 1920.
The city had recently returned to somewhat provisional status as financial
center for Amazonia and much of South America, courtesy of the global economic
boom. The place had a seedy, superficial quality, as if all the glossy steel
and glass high rises downtown were fancy paint over cheap plastic.
The River of Dreams Trading Company waiting room did little to dispel the
impression of tackiness from Annja's mind. It was spotless, but the colors
struck her as a bit too gaudy, the smell of disinfectant too strong, the
Brazilian jazz playing from concealed speakers a little too strident. It was
all as if they were trying to hide something.
"But to wait until now to tell us that this German friend of his had dealings
with River of Dreams?" Annja said.
"Was there something that suggested to you they don't have their waiting room
bugged?" Dan asked casually, hands in his pockets, studying a mural close up.
"Just asking, you know."
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"Oh," Annja said.
"Mr. Toby will see you now," the receptionist said, preceding them down the
hallway that led into the offices.
"Toby?" Dan whispered. "Is that a first name or a last name."
"It's probably his real first name. A lot of Brazilians just use one name. And
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