What have they got to smuggle?
Scotch whisky and American cigarettes. You get yourself an agent in Panama who buys wholesale and he flies the stuff down to Asunción. They are marked GOODS IN TRANSIT, see. You pay only a small duty at the international airport and you transfer the crates to a private plane. Youd be surprised to see how many private Dakotas[254] there are now in Asunción. Then your pilot takes off to Argentina just across the river. At some estancia a few hundred kilometres from BA you touch down they nearly all have private landing grounds. Not built for Dakotas perhaps, but thats the pilots risk. You unload into trucks and there you are. Youve got your distributors waiting with their tongues hanging out. The government makes them thirsty with duties of a hundred and twenty per cent.
And Formosa?
Oh, Formosas for the small guy working himself up on the river traffic. All the goods that arrive from Panama dont go on in the Dakota. What do the police care if some of the crates stay behind? Youll buy Scotch cheaper in the stores at Asunción than you will in London and the street boys will sell you good American cigarettes at cut-rate. All you needs a rowboat and a contact. One day, though, youll get tired of that game perhaps a bullets come too close[255] and youll buy a share in a Dakota and then youre in the big money. You tempted, Henry?
I didnt have the right training at the bank, I said, but I thought of my aunt and her suitcases stuffed with notes and her gold brick perhaps there was something in my blood to which a career like that might once have appealed. You know a lot about it, I said.
Its part of my sociological research.
Its part of my sociological research.
Did you never think of researching a bit deeper? The frontier spirit, Tooley. I teased him only because I liked him. I could never have teased Major Charge or the admiral in that way.
He gave me a long sad look, as though he wanted to answer me quite truthfully. You dont save enough money in a job like mine to buy a Dakota. And the risks are big too, Henry, for a foreigner. These guys fall out sometimes and then theres hijacking. Or the police get greedy. Its easy to disappear in Paraguay not necessarily disappear either. Whos going to make a fuss about an odd body or two? The General keeps the peace thats what people want after the civil war they had and a dead man makes no trouble for anyone. They dont have coroners in Paraguay.
So you prefer life to the frontier spirit, Tooley.
I know Im not much good for my girl three thousand miles away, Henry, but at least she gets her monthly cheque. A dead man cant write a cheque.
And I suppose the CIA arent interested?
You shouldnt believe that nonsense, Henry. I told you Lucindas romantic. She wants an exciting father, and whats she got? Shes saddled with me. So she has to invent things. A report on malnutritions not romantic.
I think you ought to bring her home, Tooley.
Wheres home? he said, and I looked around the cabin and wondered too. I dont know why I wasnt quite convinced. He was a great deal more reliable than she was.
I left him with his Old Forester and returned to my cabin on the opposite deck. OToole was port and I was starboard. I looked out at Paraguay and he looked out at Argentina. The guitar was still playing in the captains cabin and someone was singing in a language I couldnt recognize perhaps it was Guaraní. I hadnt locked my door, and yet it wouldnt open when I pushed. I had to put my shoulder to it to make it give[256]. Through the crack I saw Wordsworth. He faced the door and he had a knife in his hand. When he saw who it was he held the knife down. Come in, boss, he said in a whisper.
How can I come in?
He had wedged the door with a chair. He removed it now and let me in.
Ar got to be careful, Mr. Pullen, he said.
Careful of what?
Too much bad people on this boat, too much humbug.
His knife was a boys knife with three blades and a corkscrew and a tin-opener and something for taking stones out of horses hoofs cutlers are conservative and so are schoolboys. Wordsworth closed it and put it in his pocket.
Well, I said, what do you want, you happy shepherd boy?
He shook his head. Oh, shes a wonder, your auntie. No one ever talk to Wordsworth like that befo. Why, she come right up to me in the street outside the movie palace an she say, clear like day, Thou child of joy. Ar love your auntie, Mr. Pullen. Ar ready to die for her any time she raise a finger an say, Wordsworth, you go die.
Yes, yes, I said, thats fine, but what are you doing barricaded in my cabin?
Ar come for the picture, he said.
Couldnt you wait till we get ashore?
Your auntie say bring that picture safe, Wordsworth, double quick[257], or you no come here no more.
A suspicion returned to me. Could the frame, like the candle, be made of gold? Or did the photograph cover some notes of a very high denomination? Neither seemed likely, but neither was impossible with my aunt[258].
Ar got friends in customs, Wordsworth said, they no humbug me, but, Mr. Pullen, you a stranger here.