River Dogs

By Jak Akerman

Interior Protection Agent Paolo Herez is charged with tracking down the vilest killers in South America. Remembering how her husband had almost died at these killers’ hands some years earlier, Paolo’s young wife pleads with him not to accept the assignment. But there are too many lives at stake for him to refuse.
He flies from Rio to Manaus, Central Amazonia, and then takes a boat upriver, deep into the rainforests, where he has to fight to be accepted as a fugitive in a lawless, backwater town.
His boss’s suspicions prove correct when eventually the killers arrive in the town to hire pistoleiros.
Paolo learns vital information before he has to save a vulnerable new friend from the killers, and is wounded during their escape.
Retreating to a Catholic Aid Station, he recovers from his injury, and then continues to locate one of his Department’s outstations where he receives orders to return to Rio.
Back at headquarters he learns that his boss has been assassinated and that his wife is comatose in hospital after a failed kidnap attempt.
Now it’s hardball, regardless of consequences.
He extracts information from suspect Government officials and discovers more about the plot to annihilate several indigenous tribes so as to acquire their land for mining development. He doesn’t know it, but he will be too late to save them all.
The killers’ base is a remote logging station. Unknown to Paolo, the station’s English manager is a reluctant conspirator in the unfolding plot. The manager, Ben, had initially become involved thinking his reward would finance a new life with his slave house-girl, Danhilla. Ben cannot see his love for Danhilla is unrequited. When, upon his return from an attack upon an upriver village, he finds Danhilla has been raped and beaten, his rage is volcanic and merciless.
Meanwhile, following a helicopter battle over a Munducuras village, Paolo is captured by the killers. Only the intervention of Ben, begged by Danhilla, brings an end to Paolo’s torture.
Imprisoned, Paolo is freed by Danhilla when she learns he is going to be killed, and in the black of night together they flee through the rainforest on horseback, pursued by the killers.
The tables are turned when Paolo and Danhilla ride straight into a contingency of Interior Protection Department agents waiting to swoop on the logging station at dawn.
A climatic battle ensues, the result of which sees Paolo defeat his torturer to watch the man being washed away, minus a leg, by a river clouded purple with his blood, and finally out into a floodplain where the piranhas are circling.
Paolo finds a huge stash of US dollars and rewards Danhilla for saving his life, promises to return her to her family. As he leads her away to safety, he tells himself that this has been his last mission.
End

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jak Akerman
• Release date: May 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311329974

Jak Akerman

Hi there.Thanks for your interest..I was born in Enfield, Middlesex, UK, where I was educated at Ambrose Fleming Technical Grammar. Won a couple of writing prizes while there. After beginning my working life as a Customs and Excise agent, moving on to become an Estimator with a construction firm, I moved down to the South West where fate, and my love of the sea, led me to research my first book, tak[ng a job as a 'deckey learner' fisherman, sailing on the Blue Sonata out of Starcross, Devon. To earn while i was writing I worked as an off-shore-marine fire protection engineer working the Channel ferries out of Lowestoft and ships such as the Oriana out of Southampton, oil platforms such as the Brittania.I have traveled Brazil, Rio and the great rivers of Amazonia, where I was surprised to see natives in football shirts carrying their 'dinner' over poles between their shoulders. Then California twice, in my research as a writer. I have written three novels and I am working on a fourth. It's called 'The Shadow Chamber' and it's gonna be a great thriller.I absolutely live for writing. Because I sure can't paint, play football or fly a plane.Thanks for looking

Book preview

RIVER DOGS

a novel by JAK AKERMAN

Copyright©P.A.Akerman 2017

distributed by Smashwords

All rights reserved by the author

RIVER DOGS

Central Amazonia, Brasil. 1964

Their bullet ridden corpses lie contorted and stiff . Scavenged by wild boar. Swarmed by fat, brown flies.

The rains had washed away their blood since the attack. Yet the prehistoric forests surrounding their destroyed, palm thatch huts remained the same. Just as they had been at the dawn of time.

‘T’ shirted, coffee-skinned men from the trading vessel, ‘Carlita’, had waded to the banks of the wide, black river, the Rio Negro, and then stopped in their tracks as the thick, sickly, smell of death caught in their throats.

2

Ipanema, suburb of Rio de Janeiro

They would be safe for the next few hours. Neither chastised nor beaten. Or shot.

This was their long-awaited party night, and their parade had closed the mosaic avenidas of Ipanema.

Drums clattered and pea-whistles trilled as dusk fell over the three thousand transvestites and gays accompanying the dancers and Samba bands playing aboard a mile-long stream of flat-bed trucks.

A young mulatto posing on the cab roof of the lead truck, leaning against its buck rails, twirled his waist-length, sleek black hair, fiddled with the laces of his basque, smiled at the crowds as he teasingly fingered the cleavage of his hormone-induced breasts.

They were allowed by President Joao Goulart’s regime to go public only once a year and this was their time, their Carnaval de Pantaneiros.

FREEDOM, placards and hatbands declared, and from the beaches of Ipanema fireworks illuminated the twilight in showers of colored stars as the suburb bubbled in the evening heat. Crowds filled the streets, made it hard to get through to a bar, restaurant, hotel. Hard to get anywhere.

Two thousand feet atop Corcovado Mountain, the statue Christ the Redeemer stood with open palms, humbly welcoming visitors to Rio. Above a bank of golden floodlights, as seen from the streets, the one hundred and fifty tons of smoothly chiseled granite looked as small as a bracelet charm in the half-light. Far below, Sugar Loaf Mountain was just a dark thumb rising from Guanabara Bay.

Abilio Meza sat alone in the crowded Girl from Ipanema Restaurante, a minute’s stroll from the rolling surf of Ipanema beach. Bars and strip clubs, restaurants and hotels, lined the streets where prostitutes of both sexes plied their trade.

He had pre-paid for his table, reserved for its adjacent and wide-open view of the street, and now, through the fat slits of his eyes, he studied the oncoming parade, began swaying his shoulders to the samba beat, all the while pervaded by a hunger that had nothing to do with the fillet of steak, quails’ eggs and salad plated before him.

He saw the mulatto in the basque leading the celebration. He rode on top of the cab of a flat-back truck adorned with flowers and leaned against its buck-rails, proudly waved and grinned at the crowds. Behind him, on the back of the truck, a samba band played, the following procession streets long.

The gays and transvestites not dancing aboard the trucks were mingling with the onlookers, laughing and fooling with strangers. One of them in high heels, a sparkly slit-skirt, gazelle legs, led a small group who were jovially mocking the driver of a car who had missed the diversion signs and was now trapped in the melee.

Garish outfits abounded. One wore a billowy, pure white wedding dress complete with a glittering tiara pinched into his glossy black hair.

Two of the gays approached the Girl from Ipanema Restaurante and began making passes from the street, pursing their painted lips through the unshuttered windows of the restaurant, causing the diners to laugh over their food.

‘I’m not looking for anything!’ One of a group of American tourists cried with a grin.

‘But I love Americanos,’ the first of the gays responded. ‘We could have so much fun!’

‘You’re out of luck with me, honey. Bye-eeee,’ the American sang.

The gay leaned across the cill, blew his target a kiss before giggling and dancing away.

Instantly, he was replaced by the second, this one wearing a black chiffon mini-frock and widow’s veil, pearl earrings and necklace.

‘My lover,’ he called to the Americans, ‘has left me alone on this Earth. Will you not comfort me?’

‘Only the real thing gets any comfort from me,’ followed the smiley reply. ‘Sorry, sweetness.’

Look at that one.

Abilio Meza stiffened on gazing at the boy in the fantastic white wedding dress for he was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. He was young and vibrant, had skin that positively shone, unblemished, the colour of polished bamboo. Their eyes met, a physically reeling sensation for Meza, a moment of instant intrigue and overwhelming desire.

The boy pirouetted, the skirts of his magnificent white wedding gown flaring to reveal white-stockinged legs, and his sultry dark eyes fixed on Meza, this time with a wild feline intensity, and he danced closer to him.

Meza’s Adam’s apple bobbed: Abilio Meza, the hugely obese man in the sharp mohair suit, sitting at his private table, and the young gay in the immaculate gown, flamingo pink lips, heading seductively towards him.

The boy posed on the street. ‘Does the Senhor like my gown?’ He purred.

He even spoke in soft tones, thought Meza, tones that complemented his alluring figure and crimson nails, and the man’s piggy eyes gleamed with lust.

Meza nodded and smiled a puzzled smile.

‘He likes me also, I can see,’ said the boy.

‘Would you care to take coffee with me?’ The fat man lifted his great bulk fractionally from his seat. ‘Or perhaps something else?’

The boy was carefree and self-assured. He twiddled his long, shiny black hair. ‘My name is Rosa, and Rosa can see you are a wealthy man. How much would you like to spend on me?’

Meza’s heart took a bounding leap. ‘Everything,’ he breathed.

Rosa leaned through the cill. His fingers were soft, long and elegant. He gently clasped Meza’s hand. ‘You have twenty-five thousand cruzados?’

‘I have that and much more. And I have all night,’ whispered the fat man.

The young Americans were watching and chuckling amongst themselves.

‘Another one of the faggots has scored!’ One of them laughed outright.

‘I have a place not far from here,’ Rosa was saying, still caressing Meza’s hand. ‘Tonight is our wedding night. Yes?’

‘Stay there, Rosa.’

Meza lifted his great bulk from the seat as Rosa feigned to swoon at an exciting prospect. The waiter nodded to him as if to say he understood why he was leaving, palmed the handful of notes and watched the obese man in the expensive suit waddle from the restaurant, unaware that other patrons smirked at him.

Suddenly, almost as if realising an impossible dream, Abilio Meza had his every wish in life holding his hand. All about, people were happy and laughing, crowding, and he was there with the most beautiful boy of them all. Just him and his beautiful boy.

‘Have you no wish to know my name?’ Meza asked, speaking above the noise of the bands, his face glistening with sweat in the evening heat.

Rosa clasped his hand tighter, swung their arms in lovers’ fashion. A child beggar wandered by them. ‘You may tell me if you wish. But will it be your name or just an invention. Tonight is ours whatever. Tonight I am yours.’

A mixed group of four drinking from cans accidentally jostled them. Some men in a street-bar were laughing hysterically. A few revelers were being helped up onto one of the floats where semi-naked teenagers were drinking from bottles and dancing to the beating of samba drums and the blowing of whistles. Meza kissed his boy on the cheek.

‘Where are you taking me?’ He asked, without too much concern yet bursting with anticipation.

‘I have a place in Leblon. Very private,’ Rosa smiled.

Meza was beside himself. He gently pulled Rosa closer to him as they walked, felt the exciting slenderness of the boy’s waist, the small bones of his lower ribs.

‘My name is Abilio, Rosa, and I do not think tonight is the only night we shall enjoy.’

They walked hand in hand towards Rua Visconde de Piraja. Here, the crowds had thinned yet the streets remained busy. One of the poorer gays in a cheap skirt and a stuffed blouse dodged through the traffic ahead of them, glanced back at Rosa in envy of his gown. The heat was stifling. High atop Corcovado Mountain Christ the Redeemer remained a small golden charm glowing in the night sky.

Rosa hailed a Radio Car. It swung across the road and pulled up beside them. He felt Meza’s hands on his buttocks as they climbed into the cab and he flinched, moved sharply into the cab.

‘Two-eight-two Venancio Flores,’ he said quickly to the driver, then composed himself and smiled sweetly at Meza. ‘Be patient, my lover. Let us savour our time together.’

‘I cannot wait, Rosa. I think I am the luckiest man in Brazil.’

Rosa shifted another inch away from the fat man.

The cab sped along Rua Visconde de Piraje, passing crowded bars, clubs, a half-dozen Policia Militar with batons and shotguns who were grouped around an armoured personnel carrier parked on a canal bridge.

Within minutes they were driving through Leblon, an area where the streets were only dimly lit, an area of apart-hotels, mostly quiet but for a small gathering of youths outside of a cheap lambada club a little way from where the cab stopped.

Meza took out his wallet and stuffed some notes into the driver’s hand. Rosa was getting out his side of the cab, his wedding dress bunched around him. He was smiling still, yet for a micro-second Meza thought he saw a dark threat in the boy’s eyes. Imagination, he told himself. Imagination.

They passed through a set of tall iron gates, into the walled garden of an apartment block. Rosa was giggling, pulling Meza by the hand. The fat man was even happier now that he knew the boy did not live in a slum, and he had never felt totally comfortable in hotel rooms.

Rosa freed him while dipping into his purse for his door keys. Once inside the lobby, Meza tried to kiss his boy, but Rosa flirtingly danced away, swept up a short flight of stairs and stood by his apartment door, beckoning with his little finger. Then he was gone.

Meza followed and just glimpsed the hem of Rosa’s dress as his boy disappeared into the lounge. Now he beamed, gently closed the door and went after him. Had he not been so enraptured he would have noticed the scarcity of personal items such as photos or a record collection, ornaments.

Rosa had gone through to the bedroom.

‘You want I should chase you, my beautiful mannequin?’ Meza called with a lascivious grin.

‘Come, come,’ Rosa invited, and his boy was lying across the bed when he found him.

The fat man flopped beside the boy, the delight and anticipation shining as much as the film of sweat upon his face, one of his chubby paws groping his boy’s breasts. And they were real. Like a woman’s.

‘Mmm. Take your clothes off,’ Rosa sighed, a diplomatic avoidance of Meza’s lips. ‘Undress… I have something very special for you.’

Meza chuckled and sat up, removing his jacket as Rosa turned to a walk-in wardrobe. He snatched glances of Rosa slipping off his shoes, his stockings, his wedding dress, and as his excitement rose so his movements became agitated, almost frantic, as he shed his clothing.

The fat man was lying naked upon the bed, stroking his small, erect member, admiring the rear of his boy with the sylph-like figure. ‘Ah, my pretty, my pretty,’ he was whispering to himself. ‘Come to me. Come to me quickly.’

‘Turn over and present yourself to me,’ Rosa said, sweetly. ‘Do not look at me yet.’

‘Oh, what game is it that you play?’ Meza protested lightly, obeying. ‘You tease me.’

He heard his beautiful boy’s breath suddenly behind him, felt the electric tingle of sharp fingernails being played over a slab of fat across his back.

‘I said tonight was our wedding night,’ Rosa hissed like a snake in his ear. 'I have a present for you. A present from Cassio Fernandes.’

Cassio Fernandes…! The mention of the name threw ice-water over Meza and scrambled his thoughts. He gasped, his eyes wide in sudden alarm as he heard the metallic click when Rosa sprang a viciously sharp, five-inch stiletto from its sleeve. Then he spasmed like a fish on a wet deck as Rosa drove the blade of the stiletto clean through a thick pad of his flesh and in through his ribs. Once, twice, three times, four, five. Mesa clawed at the air, gurgled bloody screams, until his body-flexes slowly ceased, and his great bulk slumped still.

Rosa blew a long breath, took a look at the shock, pain and terror locked into the wet globes of the dead man’s open eyes.

You made that hard work, you fat pig. What a mess you made.

Rosa showered off the blood and dried herself with a soft towel. She lingered over the small, dark bush between her thighs, knowing she was all woman and satisfied with her performance.

A slinky cat suit hung in the wardrobe along with a few cheap clothes. She took it out, slipped into it, and fixed her hair and make-up in the dresser mirror. In her purse she had a bottle of Chanel No. 5 and she sprinkled a little over Meza’s body, the gross lump of bloodied flesh lying across the bed like a slug on a gleaming red rose. She didn’t need to check Meza’s pulse. Instead she checked his wallet, took his ring and gold watch. She then dabbed some more of the perfume behind her ears. It made her feel good as she left.

Out on the street, a taxi pulled up beside her.

‘Get an eyeful of this,’ the driver said to himself. ‘This is one beautiful woman.’ And he leaned across his seat, opened the door for Rosa.

3

A maze of dangerous slums and alleyways twisted down from the mountainsides of the Two Brothers to the corroded back streets of Leblon. Cops in twin-cab pick-ups cruised the back streets. Six-handed. Like gangsters.

The Sinuca bar nestled among the clubs and small hotels of Leblon, six blocks from the ocean on a corner of Rua Joa Lira. It was little more than a room, twenty by thirty, white wall tiles streaked with brown nicotine. Steel shutters were rolled down at night but during business hours it was wide open onto the street. The bar was busy with its usual lunchtime crowd and a pretty mulatto girl was passing by when a stream of beer hit the pavement at her feet.

She stopped, glared across her shoulder and recognised an off-duty army general and his pals who were laughing at her, the general with a hand deep inside his beach shorts, jiggling his penis. She bit her lip to contain the insult she almost spat. Almost. She knew that these men could be truly evil and so she could only stifle her curses, hurry on her way.

A big Portuguese-Negroid shouldered his way into the bar, patted someone aside and took his stool. No words. No argument. When the young bartender saw him it was as though he had taken a physical blow to his guts.

‘Good morning, Senhor Fernandes,’ he uttered. ‘Draft, Senhor Fernandes?’

Fernandes dipped his forehead and the bartender hurried to find a spotlessly clean glass from beneath the counter.

Outside, a brown-skinned boy of perhaps four years of age wandered the kerbside. He had no shoes, his only clothing a ragged pair of shorts. He carried a few small nets of lemons, which he would offer up for sale to passing motorists when they slowed for the junction. Cassio Fernandes was watching him as his beer came, bitterly reminded of his own childhood, consciously making no offer of payment for the beer.

The bartender looked worried as Fernandes took a sip of his beer. He hovered a moment, fingernails scratching the counter, then meekly turned away to serve another customer. He’d get the money later.

Fernandes checked his Rolex.

The general had noticed Fernandes’s ugly mood. ‘Hey, Cassio!’ He called. ‘Don’t sit there by yourself. Come and join us.’

‘I’m waiting on someone, Sinessio,’ Fernandes replied, his voice deep and lazy. ‘Another time.’

The men in the group shrugged and continued to enjoy their banter while filling each others’ glasses. One of the poorer blacks in road sweeper’s vest found a seat at the bar and began scooping a plateful of rice and black beans into his mouth. Fernandes twisted away from him in disdain, stared the length of the Humberto de Campos.

A short road that joined the streaming traffic on Bartomolue Mitre, a destitute family, parents and three small children, sat on flattened cardboard boxes spread out on the pavement, beneath the shade of a low tree. There were apartments, a white-magic umbanda shop that sold anything from strings of horses’ teeth to saucers of nuts with magical properties, then a craft shop selling hand made local ornaments, vases, jewellery boxes made from sea shells. Staggering by the craft shop, a middle-aged drunk, dirty blue jeans and scruffy ‘T’ shirt, studiously navigated the pavement. Stupid, pathetic bastard, thought Fernandes, but there was still no sign of the teenager he had arranged to meet.

Fernandes wiped the sweat from his chubby jaw line. At fifty-two, he resembled an ex-heavyweight boxer who’d gained twenty pounds in the wrong places. Dark, soulless eyes and a mop of springy salt and pepper hair, he wore expensive slacks and polo shirt, leather sandals, different to the bare-chested men all around him. He again checked his Rolex while taking another draft of his beer.

‘Cassio!’ A gangly mulatto teenager in blue shorts and espadrilles clapped a hand on Fernandes’s shoulder. He was grinning broadly and his eyes shone with a strange kind of delight.

‘Keep your hands off me,’ Fernandes growled.

‘Hey, Cassio!’ The teenager chirped, ‘I only come over to see how my friend is doing.’

‘I am not your friend. Lose yourself.’ Fernandes used the back of his free hand against the kid’s chest to ease him away. ‘You hear me?’

‘Hah! You are kidding me. Right?’ The teenager laughed. ‘Maybe you could use a little coca? You want some, Cassio? I got plenty.’

Benko, that was what they called him, Fernandes remembered. That grin, those teeth. Give the bastard an apple. Maybe a sugar lump.

‘I am not telling you twice,’ Fernandes warned.

Now Benko seemed hurt, held a hand across his heart. ‘Aww, people are safe with Benko, Cassio. Everyone likes me. Even my bees like me. I’ll bring you a pot of my honey, yeh?’

Fernandes did not bother to get up. He snaked out one meaty brown paw, snatched Benko by the throat and hurled him into a small group of men who jumped back and cussed, stared at their spilt beer, but then just grinned nervously at each other and at Fernandes when realising it was he who had pushed Benko into them.

‘Fuck you and your honey,’ they heard him grumble.

Benko composed himself and pulled away. He was sad now. ‘I’ll be happy when I go to my God. Some people…they…’

‘Don’t keep Him waiting too long,’ Fernandes sniped.

Benko’s date with the Almighty was laughable. He often mentioned it in bizarre and fleeting moments. Sometimes he would cry. A white Fiat stopped double parked on the road outside and already Benko was grinning again and striding to shake hands with the driver who stood half in, half out, of the car, waiting to speak with him.

Cassio Fernandes watched them briefly, his eyes low and expression mean, and then glanced at his watch once more. Other drivers were honking at Benko’s friend.

Marcelo Silva Ramos worked as a sandwich maker at the ‘La Scala’ samba theatre. He had taken a seven-year loan from the bank to buy the motorbike, which he now raced along the Avenida General San Martine. The young Italian drove his machine recklessly, weaving at speed through the traffic, almost hitting two youths in swimwear trying to cross the busy road. They leapt back out of his way, cursing. They were not to know that he was late for his meeting with Cassio Fernandes.

Marcelo skidded to a halt where the light shone red at the junction with Rua Mureira. A crowd crossed before him. He waited impatiently, revving his machine, but the green light was taking too long and so he spun away between a few stragglers. Another junction and to his left he could see the men drinking in the Sinuca bar. The section of road was comparatively quiet and he took a chance, ignored the no-entry sign and sped the short distance to the bar. An oncoming taxi honked at him though did not slow as he braked and nosed his machine onto the pavement outside the bar, one fist raised triumphantly, where the men that knew him laughed and pointed their glasses at him.

Marcelo kicked down the machine’s stand. He was grinning and chuckling and nodding his head as if acknowledging his own foolishness. A few fast handshakes and he swaggered inside.

‘Sorry, Cassio. That dog-fucking boss of mine.’ Marcelo, tanned and lithe in beach shorts, flicked the flowing brown hair from his eyes. ‘Hey, Dominguez! You Portuguese thief. Brahma Chopp!’

The owner was a little man with a pot belly and a piece of ear missing. He shook his head at Marcelo’s brash entrance and usual light-hearted insult, jerked a thumb at his bartender to serve the beer.

Cassio Fernandes rose ill-humouredly. ‘Forget the drink. Let’s take a walk. I need to talk to you.’

Marcelo’s grin faded. ‘Sure. Whatever you say, Cassio.’

The owner of the bar slapped his forehead as they left. Marcelo’s friends looked on quizzically, saying nothing.

They strolled along the street the way Marcelo had come. Ahead of them, a cleaner hosed the mosaic forecourt of the Diamond Hotel, two men sat on fruit crates beneath a tree, trying to sell animal game lottery tickets. A shopkeeper tended to cages of tropical birds. They were out of earshot; a big, stony-faced Portuguese-Negroid and an increasingly concerned Italian youngster.

‘There is someone I want you to find for me,’ Fernandes began. ‘Call it a favour because of my friendship with your family.’ He paused, assured himself of Marcelo’s full attention. ‘But I will pay you well, also.’

Marcelo looked puzzled. ‘Pay me to find someone? I make shit sandwiches for a living. You and my father know more…’

‘Shut up and listen.’ Cassio Fernandes stared solemnly ahead to where the traffic crossed the junction. ‘You have friends who have other friends all over this city. I am covering the whole of Rio. The man I am looking for is, was, a doctor going by the name Edwaldo Bittencourt Marques.’ Without shifting his gaze, Fernandes handed Marcelo an envelope. ‘In there is a small down payment and all there is to know about this Marques. He’s a dope freak just like you and your friends and so there’s a chance he can be found through whatever channels you use to buy your shit. I could perhaps use that bee-keeper, Benko, but he’s got a big mouth and I don’t want it made public knowledge that I need to find this doctor. Get that in your head. Don’t mention our business to anyone. Don’t even ask yourself why I need to find this person. If you come up with the information, trust me, you will be well rewarded.’ Fernandes stopped, outstretched an arm to bar Marcelo’s way, and nipped his cheek with thumb and forefinger.

‘You find this doctor for me. You have one week. One week, Marcelo, and the clock is already ticking.’

Fernandes nodded gravely and then walked away, began strolling towards the Bar Raquette. Marcelo rubbed his face as he watched him go, then thought of the payments due on his motorbike. He smiled and weighed the envelope in the palm his hand.

‘How will I reach you?’ He called after Fernandes.

'I will reach you,' Fernandes called back.

4

Paolo Herez awoke to a shrill noise, a wash of sunlight that filled the room. His expression closed and he hung out a hand, planted it firmly over the clock. He would have preferred a friendlier awakening, but then, there did seem some consolation.

Smiling now, he moved closer to his wife, Maristella, lying beside him. Her caramel skin, her clean womanly smell, could arouse him more than the blare of any alarm. He stroked the cloud of luminescent black hair spreading across her pillow, softly kissed her elfin nose, the sensual camber of her lips. Then he groaned.

It came to him like a taste of sour milk: he had a meeting with his boss in Rio that morning. Hastily scheduled, it was a meeting that could only exacerbate the strain his workload had placed upon his relationship with Maristella.

She was stirring to the alarm, to his touch, and when she opened her eyes she saw him gazing down at her. She didn’t speak but her smile grew and she sank deeper into the sheets.

Paolo shook her waist. ‘Hey, none of that today.’ He hoisted himself up and onto the edge of the bed. ‘Gonna be a busy day for both of us.’

His wife half raised her head from the pillows. ‘Mmm. Turn that sun off, will you?’

‘It’s just gone six, sweetness.’

‘Too early.’

‘Hey, c’mon. The sun will disappear in envy when it sees your pretty face.’

Maristella sighed and propped herself on her elbows. Her naked breasts were magnificent, like two halves of a Galia melon, cherry-tipped and firm. ‘So I’m charmed already,’ she yawned. ‘But I know. You have to get down to Rio and I have to meet the early flight in from Recife.’

She lie there a moment, thinking, then slowly rose naked from the bed to gather her robe from her bedside chair.

Paolo watched her as he had done a thousand times before, and for the thousandth time he felt a pleasant sensation in his groin.

Maristella yawned again, looked into the dresser mirror and ruffled her whorling tresses of hair. ‘Thinking of work, it worries me why you got that call late last night. And as it has nothing to do with the medical programme…’ A glint came into Maristella’s eyes; even at that time of the morning she could still find a sense of humour. ‘Unless you have a thing going with that secretary and she’d really just phoned hoping that you’d answer.’

Paolo grinned, tied his dressing gown, went and circled Maristella in his arms. ‘No. Flor is great but you should see her sister.’ His expression changed to one a little more serious. ‘I know what you mean about that call though. Have to admit it was unusual. Still, let’s not get too concerned. I doubt if it’s anything to worry about. Get wrinkles if you worry.’

Maristella relaxed back into Paolo’s arms. ‘Then I should be looking like a dried fig, the worries I’ve had over you in the past.’

In the mirror, she saw Paolo’s eyebrows meet, and then he moved away.

‘I’ll get the coffee on,’ he breezed.

He went out of the room and through the small but tastefully furnished lounge and into the kitchen where he set the percolator going. Idly, he moved to the window where, from eight floors up on the Rua do Emperador, he could view the baroque spire of the ‘Catedral de Sao Pedro de Alcantara’ set against the sub-tropical forests which rose beyond, where the hills became the Mountains of the Atlantic Forest; a lush panorama beneath a powder blue sky. Below, the six-lane avenue was shaded by the twin ranks of curabe trees, which lined the central median. Already the traffic was moving though it would be another hour yet before the shops and bars rolled up their shutters.

Beyond the city fruit market with its central grove of tall and rod-straight imperial palms, the youngsters go-cart track ly empty, and Paolo remembered the days, twelve or so years ago, when he, Luis and Gordo would race there at weekends. The whole city was smothered in clear, bright sunlight, shining as if newly minted. But then, to spoil it all, Paolo noticed the two shabby black guys sprawled on the grass beneath one of the trees lining the median, outside of his apartment building. His youthful features hardened.

‘Anything I should be interested in?’ Maristella asked, resting beside him.

‘Just a couple of black guys laying about down there. Looks like they’ve been there all night.’

Maristella peered down to the men. ‘Probably stayed at Casa Angelica’s too long into the night and couldn’t