Текст книги "Two Graves"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 34 страниц)

52

THROUGH THE WINDOW OF THE LITTLE CABIN, CORRIE could see an early-morning frost glittering on the ground and rimming the twigs of the surrounding beech trees. A weak sun struggled through the checked curtains, and the woodstove, well stoked, radiated a welcome warmth. Jack bustled over it, oiling a griddle. A pan of sizzling bacon sat nearby.

He glanced over. “Jack’s special blueberry pancakes, coming up.”

“Let me help,” said Corrie, starting to get up.

“No, no!” Jack turned, his apron already smeared. He was not, she had to admit, much of a cook. But then, neither was she.

“ I’mrunning the show, you just sit there.” Without asking, he grabbed the coffeepot and refilled her mug.

“I don’t like doing nothing.”

He smiled. “Get used to it.”

Corrie sipped the coffee. She had arrived by the afternoon bus the day before, making sure no one followed her, and had walked from Frank’s Place all the way to the cabin. Her father had been ridiculously glad to see her. She had filled him in on the details of her investigation, and he was excited.

“So is it really true Charlie doesn’t hustle the customers?” Corrie asked. While Charlie seemed convincing enough about other matters, she still found it hard to believe a car salesman could be scrupulously honest.

“Not that I ever saw,” said Jack. “Old Ricco once had him into the office, left the door open, and was raking him over the coals for not getting with the program. Said it was ‘hurting morale.’ ” Jack laughed. “Can you believe it? Honesty hurting morale.”

“So why do they keep him on if he won’t cooperate?”

“Charlie can really sell ’em.” He ladled batter onto the griddle to the chorus of a friendly hiss.

One thing was starting to dawn on Corrie. Her father’s problem wasn’t dishonesty, but the opposite: a sort of inflexible, priggish honesty that bordered on self-righteousness. She’d learned from him that he’d been let go from a previous job—selling stereo equipment—because he refused to go along with certain shady sales tactics. In that job, too, he’d threatened to go to the Better Business Bureau. And he hadn’t succeeded in selling insurance for similar reasons of punctiliousness.

She watched him as he bustled about the stove. She couldn’t help wondering what she would have done in the same situation. Would she have gone along with the credit scam? Probably not, but she sure as hell wasn’t the type to go running to the law over something as small as jacking up interest rates by a point or two. The credit card companies, banks, and mortgage companies pulled that sort of shit a million times a day. She probably would’ve just quit the job.

Once again, she wondered if she was really cut out for law enforcement. She simply didn’t have the instincts of someone who took satisfaction in punishing wrongdoers. How did Pendergast do it?

Jack flipped the pancakes with a flourish. “Take a look at that.”

They were indeed perfectly golden brown, the tiny wild blueberries leaking a delicious-looking purple stain. Maybe he was going to pull it off, after all.

“Real maple syrup to go with it,” Jack said, lifting up the bottle. “So Charlie’s got an actor friend who’s going in there wearing a wire. I love it. I should’ve thought of that.”

“It won’t be admissible as evidence.”

“Maybe not. But all they have to do is start poking around and asking questions, and the whole crappy business will come out. It’s a good idea—really good.”

Corrie’s cell phone rang. She took it out. “That’s Charlie now.” She answered, putting the phone on speaker.

“Corrie,” said Charlie breathlessly. “You won’t believe this. It’s unbelievable. We’ve nailed them. We don’t need my friend after all. I’ve got the smoking gun—proof that they framed your father.”

“What? How?”

“Yesterday, after you left, Ricco and the boys had a sales meeting. I was excluded. After the meeting, they all went over to the Blue Goose Saloon—to talk about the break-in, probably—leaving me to cover the showroom myself for the last hour of the day.”

“And?”

“Old Ricco had gotten something out of his safe for the meeting and didn’t shut it properly. Left it open just a crack. So I went in there—I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity—and inside I found an envelope of cash, something like ten grand, with a note on it to a guy named Lenny Otero. Attached was a report from this guy Otero, all written in longhand, which detailed his expenses and fees for a certain ‘project’ he had recently completed.”

“What project?”

“Framing Jack Swanson for bank robbery.”

“It saidthat?” Corrie couldn’t believe it.

“Son of a gun!” said Jack, leaping from his chair and smacking his fist in his palm.

“Who’s that, your dad?” said Foote.

“Yeah. I’ve got the phone on speaker.”

“Good. Anyway, it doesn’t just come out and say it like that—not in so many words, of course. The report is written in a kind of oblique way, not naming names or anything, but when you read the whole note it’s as clear as day. Otero even asks Ricco at the end to burn the report. This is a smoking gun—no mistake about it.”

“That’s fantastic!” Jack said. “What did you do with it?”

“I had to leave it in there—but I photographed it with my cell camera. I’ve got the pictures right in my pocket. So listen, here’s what we need to do. We’ve got to go straight to the police, give them the pictures, and get them to raid that safe ASAP—I mean ASAP. The dealership opens at ten, that’s in three hours. We’ll just have to hope Ricco doesn’t come in early today. Corrie, you and I have to take this to the cops right now, this morning, so they can get a warrant and search that safe. We know it’s in the safe at least until ten o’clock. But if we wait much beyond that, God only knows, by eleven Ricco might have made the payment and burned the note and the safe will be empty.”

“I understand,” said Corrie. Jack was crowding her, his face tense.

“Listen, Corrie. I’ll come get you. We have to go together—two of Ricco’s employees will be better than one.”

“Yes, but…” She thought fast.

“Just tell him where we are,” said Jack. “You can trust him.”

She shook her head.

“How far away are you?” Foote asked.

“A little over an hour by car, but—”

“That far? Shit. Look, I know you don’t want to give away where your father’s hiding, but we can’twait.”

“All right. I’ll meet you. There’s a country store in Old Foundry, New Jersey, called Frank’s Place. I’ll be there in an hour.”

“How will you get there if you don’t have a car?”

“Don’t worry about me, the cabin’s not too far. I’ll be there.”

She hung up. Jack seized her and hugged her. “This is great!” he said. Then his expression changed suddenly as acrid smoke filled the small cabin. “Oh, no. I’ve burned the pancakes!”

53

THE DOCKS OF ALSDORF, SUCH AS THEY WERE, LAY ALONGSIDE the Rio Itajaí-Açu, a broad, brown, odorous river flowing out of the deep forested interior of the southernmost provinces of Brazil. The docks were a busy area, thronging with fishermen unloading their catches in great wooden wheelbarrows, fish dealers shouting and waving wads of money, ice mongers trundling blocks, whores, drunks, and peddlers pushing food carts loaded with soft pretzels, knockwurst, sauerbraten, and—even more strangely—kebabs of tandoori chicken.

Amid these multitudes an odd figure made his way—a stooped man dressed all in khaki, with a salt-and-pepper Van Dyke beard, hair clamped down under a Tilley hat. He was carrying a backpack bristling with butterfly nets, bait-station setups, jars, traps, collecting heads, funnels, and other obscure lepidoptery equipment. The figure was trying to get down to the landing quays, pushing through the heedless crowds, his shrill, querulous voice protesting in broken Portuguese as he shoved his way toward a shack at the far end of the floating quay, which sported a hand-painted sign reading ALUGUEL DE BARCOS.

Belmiro Passos, a skinny man in a T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, occupied the shack, eating a large soft pretzel and watching the figure approach. Behind Passos were boats—mostly battered Carolina skiffs with decrepit Yamaha engines—which he would rent to anyone for almost any purpose, legal or otherwise. His customers were primarily travelers going up– or downriver, visiting hard-to-reach villages, or fishermen whose own boats were out of order. Occasionally, Belmiro would rent to the rare adventure tourist, naturalist, or sport fisherman. As he watched the figure draw near, he immediately pegged him as a naturalist, and not only that but a butterfly collector, of which there were not a few who came to Santa Catarina State because of its varied and exotic butterfly population.

The agitated man finally broke free of the throngs of fishermen and came huffing over. Belmiro greeted him with a broad smile.

“ Yo… eu… quero alugar um barco! Alugar um barco!” the man shouted, stammering over the words and mixing Spanish with Portuguese to create almost a new language.

“We speak English,” said Belmiro quietly.

“Thank God!” The man shucked off his pack and leaned against it, panting. “My goodness, it’s hot. I want to rent a boat.”

“Very well,” said Belmiro. “For how long?”

“Four days, maybe six. And I need a guide. I’m a lepidopterist.”

“Lepidopterist?”

“I collect and study butterflies.”

“Ah, butterflies! And where you go?”

“Nova Godói.”

At this Belmiro paused. “That is very long way up the Rio Itajaí do Sul, deep in the araucaria forest. It is a dangerous journey. And Nova Godói is private. No one go there. No trespass.”

“I won’t bother anybody! And I know how to deal with people like that.” The man rubbed his fingers together to indicate money.

“But why Nova Godói? Why not go to Serra Geral National Park, which has many more rare butterflies?”

“Because the Nova Godói crater is where the last Queen Beatrice butterfly was sighted in 1932. They say it’s extinct. I say it isn’t, and I’m going to prove it!”

Belmiro gazed at the man. Fanaticism shone in his watery eyes. This could be quite profitable if handled correctly, even though he would probably lose a boat and perhaps even become involved in an unpleasant investigation.

“Nova Godói. Very expensive.”

“I have money!” the man said, removing a fat roll of bills. “But, like I said, I need a guide. I don’t know the river.”

A slow nod. A guide to Nova Godói. Another problem. But not impossible. There were those who would do anything for money.

“How about you?” the man asked. “Will you take me?”

Belmiro shook his head. “I have a business to run, doutor.” He didn’t add that he also had a wife and children he’d like to see again. “But I find you a guide. And rent you a boat. I call now.”

“I’ll wait right here,” said the man, fanning himself with his hat.

Belmiro went into the back of his shack, made a call. It took a few minutes of persuasion, but the man in question was one of those whose greed knew no bounds.

He came back out with a large smile. With what he planned to charge on this rental, he could buy two good used boats.

“I found you a guide. His name is Michael Jackson Mendonça.” He paused, observing the man’s unbelieving scowl. “We have many Michael Jacksons in Brazil, many here who loved the singer. It is a common name.”

“Whatever,” said the man. “But before I hire him, I’d like to meet this… ah, Michael Jackson.”

“He come soon. He speak good English. Lived in New York. In the meantime, we finish our business. The cost of the boat is two hundred reals a day, doutor, with a two-thousand-real deposit, which I return when you bring boat back. That does not include Senhor Mendonça’s fee, of course.”

The fanatical naturalist began counting out the bills without even batting an eye.

54

CORRIE SWANSON LEFT THE CABIN AND TOOK THE SHORTCUT over the ridgeline and down the switchback trail to the main road. She had left her father consumed with anxiety, pacing about, issuing a constant stream of unnecessary advice, warnings, and various if-this-then-that predictions. His whole future depended on her and Foote pulling this off—they both knew it.

The woods were cold and barren, the bare branches of the trees knocking against each other in a rising wind. A storm was coming, portending rain or, perhaps, even sleet. She hoped to hell it would hold off until they could go to the police and get them to raid the dealership. She glanced at her watch. Eight o’clock. Two hours.

The trail came out on Old Foundry Road, and she could just make out Frank’s Place about a mile down the road, with its dilapidated sign, the Budweiser Beer neon flickering fitfully. She began walking toward it quickly, along the shoulder of the road. As she drew closer, she could see through the windows the early-morning crowd already ensconced inside, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. She collected herself, then pushed in through the creaking door nonchalantly.

“What can I do for you?” said Frank, straightening up and making a failing attempt to suck in his gut.

“Coffee, please.”

She took one of the small tables and checked her watch again. Eight fifteen. Foote would be here by eight thirty at the latest.

Frank brought over the coffee with half-and-half and sugars. Three sugars and three half-and-halfs made the weak-ass coffee barely palatable. She gulped it down, shoved the mug out for a refill.

“Looks like weather,” said Frank, refilling.

“Yeah.”

“How’re you and your dad getting on up there?”

Corrie tore three more sugars open at once, dumped in the contents, followed by the half-and-half. “Good.” She kept her eyes on the plate-glass window that looked out across the parking area and gas pumps.

“Hunting season starts in a few days,” said Frank, operating in friendly, advice-giving mode. “Lots of hunting up there around Long Pine. Don’t forget to wear orange.”

“Right,” said Corrie.

A car pulled in, moving a little fast, and stopped with a faint screech. An Escalade Hybrid with smoked windows—Foote’s car. She got up abruptly, threw some bills on the table, and went out. Foote opened the muddy passenger door and she slipped into the fragrant leather interior. Foote was dressed in his usual suit, immaculate, but nevertheless looking tense. Even before she could shut the door he was moving, pulling onto Old Foundry Road with a screech of rubber.

“I called the Allentown police,” he said, accelerating. “Explained everything. They were skeptical at first, but I managed to turn them around. They’re expecting us and are ready to get the ball rolling with a warrant if they like what I show them. Which they will.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. I’m just protecting myself. And I think your dad got a bum rap.”

He accelerated further, checking a radar detector clamped to his visor. They were flying down the country road, trees flashing by on either side. He headed into a corner, driving expertly, the wheels whispering a complaint of rubber as they took the turn.

“Oh, shit,” said Corrie. “You just missed the turn for Route Ninety-Four.”

“Damn, so I did.” Foote slowed down and moved to the shoulder to pull a U-turn. He glanced over at her. “Hey, put on your seat belt.”

Corrie reached around by the door to pull out the seat belt, fumbling for the latch, which had somehow slipped down in between the seats. As she did so, she felt a sudden movement behind her, turned partway, and felt a steel arm whip around her neck and a hand stuff a cloth into her face, choking her with the stench of chloroform.

But she was ready.

Hand tightening around a box cutter she’d kept hidden up her sleeve, she brought it up sharply, slicing deep into the meaty part of Foote’s palm and twisting as she did so. Foote roared in pain, dropping the cloth as he grasped at his injured hand. Corrie twisted all the way toward him and brought the blade of the box cutter up against his throat.

“Gotcha,” she said.

Foote did not reply. He was gripping his injured hand.

“Just what kind of an idiot do you take me for?” she said, pressing the edge of the blade deeper into his throat. “Maybe you fooled my dad with your working-class-hero bullshit. But not me. I had you pegged from the beginning. The only honest salesman on the lot, my ass. It was all just too nice and neat and convenient. And that crap about an itemized bill in the safe, for frame-up services rendered? Shit.”

Quickly, before he could recover his wits, she felt through the pockets of his coat and pants, found a heavy-caliber revolver, pulled it out, and pointed it at him.

“So what the hell is really going on?” she asked.

Foote was breathing heavily. “What do you think? A scam. Something a lot sweeter than skimming off a few interest points here and there. I can cut you and your dad in.”

“Like hell. My dad probably started to smell a rat—that’s why you framed him.” She gestured with the gun. “I know you must have figured out where his cabin is. You probably got here early, cased the joint, and saw me emerge onto the main road.” She took a deep breath. “Now this is what’s going to happen. You’re going to drive up to the cabin. I’m going to have this gun trained on you the whole time. First, you’re going to tell my dad the whole story. Then we’re going to call the police. And you’re going to tell them the story. Understand?”

For a moment, Foote remained motionless. Then he nodded.

“Okay. Drive slow. And no funny business, or I’ll use this.” The fact was, she’d never shot a gun in her life. She wasn’t even sure the safety was off. But Foote didn’t know that.

She kept well away from Foote, covering him with the handgun, as he eased off the shoulder onto Old Foundry Road, then made the turn onto Long Pine. Nothing was said as he made his way up the switchbacks.

A hundred feet from the turnoff to the cabin, she gestured with the gun again. “Stop here.”

Foote stopped.

“Kill the engine and get out.”

Foote complied.

“Now. Walk toward the cabin. I’ll be right behind you. You know what’ll happen if you try anything.”

Foote looked at her. His face was exceedingly pale, with beads of sweat despite the cold. Pale and angry. He began walking toward the cabin, dead twigs snapping beneath his feet.

Corrie felt a hot rush of adrenaline coursing through her, and her heart was beating uncomfortably fast. But she’d managed to keep her voice calm, keep any quaver out of it. She kept telling herself she’d been in worse situations—a lot worse. Just stay cool. Stay cool and this will all turn out all right.

Just as they came up to the cabin door, Corrie heard the latch turn. The door opened suddenly, hitting Corrie in the wrist. With a cry of pain, she dropped the gun.

Her father stood in the doorway, looking from Foote to her and back again. “Corrie?” he asked, his face a mask of confusion. “I heard noises. What are you doing here? I thought you were going to town—”

Corrie leapt for the gun, but Foote was quicker. He grabbed it, shoving her roughly back at the same time. Jack Swanson stared uncomprehendingly at the gun as Foote raised it toward him. Just at the last moment, Jack leapt back into the wooded area behind the cabin, but the gun roared and Corrie could tell from the way her father’s body twisted around that the bullet had hit home.

“You bastard!” she screamed, running at Foote, the box cutter raised. But Foote wheeled around toward her, slamming the butt of the handgun into her temple, and abruptly the world shut down.

She came to rapidly, her brain clearing. She had been hastily bound with plastic cuffs, hands and feet, and dumped unceremoniously in the backseat of Foote’s car, where she was propped sideways.

She waited, unbearably tense, straining, listening. She had planned it all so carefully—and it had all unraveled in the space of fifteen seconds. What was she going to do now? What was going to happen? Oh, God, it was all her fault—she should have gone to the police instead of trying to handle it herself, but she was afraid they’d just arrest her father…

Then she heard more shots—two of them in rapid succession. And then silence. It was broken eventually by a gust of wind that started the tree branches swaying, knocking, knocking, knocking.

55

THE NATURALIST WAITED IN THE SHADE, RESTING ON HIS pack, for Senhor Michael Jackson Mendonça to arrive. The man eventually made his appearance, with fanfare: a big, broad, brown, relatively young man with a gigantic smile, long curly hair tied with a bandanna, wearing a sleeveless shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. He bulled his way through the crowd, his loud, friendly voice urging one and all to make way. He extended his hand twenty yards before he even reached the naturalist, striding up and pumping the limp arm vigorously.

“Michael Jackson Mendonça!” he said. “At your service!”

The naturalist retrieved his much-shaken hand as quickly as he could. “I am Percival Fawcett,” he said, somewhat stiffly. At least Mendonça’s English was near perfect.

“Percival! May I call you Percy?”

This was permitted with another stiff nod.

“Good, good! I myself am from New York. Queens! Twenty years in your great country of America. So… I hear you want to go to Nova Godói?”

“Yes. Although it seems that it may be difficult.”

“No, not at all!” cried Mendonça. “It’s a long journey, yes. And Nova Godói isn’t a real town, a publictown, that is. It’s way up there in the forest. Off limits to outsiders. They’re not friendly. Notfriendly.”

“I’m not in need of friends,” said the naturalist. “I won’t bother anyone. If there are problems, I can pay. You see, I’m on the trail of the Queen Beatrice. Are you familiar with it?”

Mendonça scrunched his face up in puzzlement. “No.”

“No? It’s the rarest butterfly in the world. Only one specimen was ever collected—it’s now in the British Museum, specimen number 75935A1901.” His voice took on a reverent tone as he recited the number. “Everyone assumes it’s extinct… but I have reason to believe it’s not. You see—” he was now waxing eloquent on his subject—“from what my research tells me, the Nova Godói crater is a unique ecosystem, with special conditions all its own. The butterfly lived there and nowhere else. And that crater hasn’t seen a professional lepidopterist since the Second World War! So what do you expect? Of courseno more have been sighted—because no entomologist has been there to see one! But now there is: me.”

He fumbled in his pack and extracted a laminated photograph, showing a small brown butterfly pinned to a white card, with writing below it.

Mendonça peered at the image. “That is the Queen Beatrice?”

“Isn’t it magnificent?”

“ Esplêndido. Now we must talk about expense.”

“That’s the specimen in the British Museum. You can see it’s sadly faded. The original is said to have a rich mahogany color.”

“About the expense,” continued Mendonça.

“Yes, yes. How much?”

“Three thousand reals,” said Mendonça, trying to keep his voice nonchalant. “That includes four days. Plus cost of food and supplies.”

“On top of the boat rental? Hmm. Well, if that’s what it costs, that’s what it costs.”

“All up front,” he added quickly.

A pause. “Half and half.”

“Two thousand up front, a thousand when we arrive.”

“Well, all right.”

“When do we leave?” Mendonça asked.

The naturalist looked surprised. “Right now, of course.” He began counting out the money.

The naturalist sat in the bow with his backpack, reading a book by Vladimir Nabokov, while Mendonça loaded the boat with a cooler of food, along with dry foodstuffs, a tent, sleeping bags, and his own modest kit bag containing a change of clothes.

In no time they were heading upstream, Mendonça at the tiller, the skiff cutting a creamy wake through the brown water. It was already late morning and Mendonça was thinking that they could reach the last town before the forest by nightfall. While there was no lodging there, they could at least get dinner and—especially—cold beer at a local fornecimento. They could camp in a field by the river. And there, he hoped to God, he could find out from someone how to get up the final leg of the Rio Itajaí do Sul to Nova Godói, a place that in truth he had never been to, although he had heard plenty of rumors about it.

As the boat moved up the river, passing various fishermen and river travelers, a nice breeze came over the water, cooling them and keeping away the mosquitoes. They passed the last few houses of Alsdorf, green fields coming into view, some planted with crops, others pastures for cattle. Everything was very neat and tended; that was how things were in southern Brazil. Not like chaotic, criminal-ridden Rio de Janeiro.

The naturalist put down his book. “Have you been to Nova Godói?” he asked pleasantly.

“Well, not exactly,” said Mendonça. “But I know how to get there, of course.”

“What do you know about the place?”

Mendonça gave a little laugh, to cover up his nervousness. He’d been afraid the man might start asking questions like this. While he didn’t believe half the rumors he’d heard, he didn’t want to frighten a customer off.

“I’ve heard some things.” Mendonça shook his head, steering the boat past a group of fishermen hauling in a net.

“How many people live there?”

“I don’t know. It’s not a real town, like I said. It’s on an old tobacco plantation, private property, closed to the public. It’s a German colony of the kind that used to exist all around here, only much more remote.”

“And it used to be a tobacco plantation?”

“Yes. Tobacco is one of our biggest agricultural products,” said Mendonça proudly. To underscore this he removed a pair of cigars from his pocket, offering one to the naturalist.

“No, thank you. I don’t smoke coffin nails.”

“Ha, ha,” said Mendonça, lighting his up. “You are funny.” He puffed. “Tobacco. The plantation was abandoned in the 1930s. After the war, Germans arrived and a small settlement sprang up. They live up there and hardly ever come to town. The Germans down here don’t like them, say they’re Nazis.” Mendonça laughed heartily.

“But you don’t believe it.”

“Here in Brazil, people think they see Nazis everywhere. It’s a national pastime. If there are five old Germans in a town, everyone says, They must be Nazis.No—the people of Nova Godói just keep to themselves, that’s all. They are like a… what is the word?… like a cult. Outsiders not welcome. Not welcome at all.”

Another big puff of cigar smoke, then another, leaving two clouds drifting behind the boat.

“Some people seem to think the murders in Alsdorf originate from Nova Godói,” the naturalist said, offhandedly.

“Murders? Oh, you speak of the rumors going around town. People here are so provincial. You ask around in any town in Brazil, and they’ll tell you the next town is all bad people. I lived in Queens, so I don’t fall for that talk.” He laughed again, making light of the rumors. He was surprised the naturalist had picked up as much as he had. No point in spooking the man until he had collected his final thousand.

“How about the otherrumor? You know—that everyone up there in Nova Godói are twins?”

At this, Mendonça froze. He had heard that rumor, but it was a deep one, only whispered about. How in the world had the naturalist heard of it?

“I don’t know anything about that,” he said.

“Surely you do. They say the town is freakishly populated with twins, mostly identical. They say there have been experiments, genetic experiments. Horriblegenetic experiments.”

“Where did you hear this?”

“In a beer hall.”

That seemed improbable. Mendonça felt a small chill. This naturalist was beginning to give him the creeps. “No, I don’t know anything about that. It’s not true.” He cast about, hoping to change the subject. “There’s an old ruin up there, though. A fort. Do you know the history of that?”

“No.”

“It was built by the Portuguese in the late seventeenth century.” Among many of his other jobs, Mendonça drove a tour bus in Blumenau; he knew almost everything. “A group of Franciscan missionaries built a monastery on an island in the middle of the Godói crater lake and converted the Aweikoma Indians. Or at least they thought they did!” He gave a belly laugh. “One day the Indians rose up. They were tired of taking care of the monks’ gardens. Killed them all. So the Portuguese military moved in, turned the monastery into a fortress, killed off or drove away the Indians. And when there were no more Indians, the soldiers left. Later, it was turned into a plantation.”

“Why are there so many Germans in this region?” the naturalist asked.

“In 1850, the Brazilian government started a program of German colonization. You know about that? Germany was overcrowded and nobody had any land, and Brazil had land that needed settling. So Brazil offered any Germans who wanted to come free land in remote areas of the country. That’s how Blumenau was settled, along with Alsdorf, Joinville, and several other cities in Santa Catarina. Thirty, maybe forty percent of our citizens here are of German descent.”

“That is most interesting.”

“Yes. The colonies were so isolated that they developed completely along German lines, with German language, architecture, culture—everything. That all changed completely in 1942, of course.”

“What happened?”

“That is when Brazil declared war on Germany.”

“I never knew that.”

“Very few do. We joined with the Americans in World War Two. Brazil made it a law that these German colonists had to learn Portuguese and become Brazilian. Most of them did, but some in the remote areas did not. And a lot of Germans left Brazil to go back to Germany and fight for the Nazis. And then some came running back again, to hide from the Nuremberg courts. Or so people say. But that was a long time ago. They are all gone now. As we say in Portuguese, água debaixo da ponte: water under the bridge.”

“No Nazis in Nova Godói?” The naturalist almost sounded disappointed.

Mendonça shook his head vigorously. “No, no! That’s all a myth!” He underscored that with another series of vigorous puffs before jettisoning the chewed cigar stump overboard. Of course, the rumors about Nova Godói never seemed to end, all sorts of ridiculous, superstitious nonsense. But Mendonça had lived twenty years in Queens. He had seen the world. He knew the difference between rumor and fact.