THIRTY-TWO.

THE BOAT was a chalana, a floating shoe box, thirty feet long, eight feet wide, flat-bottomed, and used to haul cargo through the Pantanal. Jevy had captained dozens of them. He saw the light coming around a bend, and when he heard the knock of the diesel, he knew precisely what kind of boat it was.

And he knew the captain, who was sleeping on his bunk when the deckhand stopped the chalana. It was almost 3 A.M. Jevy tied his johnboat to the bow and hopped on board. They fed him two bananas while he gave them a quick summary of what he was doing. The deckhand brought sweet coffee. They were headed north to Porto Indio, to the army base there to trade with the soldiers. They could spare five gallons of gas. Jevy promised to pay them back in Corumba. No problem. Everybody helps on the river.

More coffee, and some sugared wafers. Then he asked about the Santa Loura, and Welly. “It's at the mouth of the Cabixa,” Jevy told them, “docked where the old pier used to be,” he said.

They shook their heads. “It wasn't there,” the captain said. The deckhand agreed. They knew the Santa Loura, and they had not seen it. It would have been impossible to miss.

“It has to be there,” Jevy said.

“No. We passed the Cabixa at noon yesterday. There was no sign of the Santa Loura.”

Perhaps Welly had taken it a few miles into the Cabixa to look for them. He had to be worried sick. Jevy would forgive him for moving the Santa Loura, but not before a tongue lashing.

The boat would be there, he was certain. He sipped more coffee and told them about Nate and the malaria. There were fresh rumors in Corumba about waves of the disease sweeping through the Pantanal. Jevy had heard these all of his life.

They filled a tank from a barrel on board the chalana. As a general rule, river traffic during the rainy season was three times faster downstream than up. A johnboat with a good motor should reach the Cabixa in four hours, the trading post in ten, Corumba in eighteen. The Santa Loura, if and when they found it, would take longer, but at least they would have hammocks and food.

Jevy's plan was to stop and rest briefly on the Santa Loura. He wanted to get Nate into a bed, and he would use the SatFone to call Corumba and talk to Valdir. Valdir in turn could find a good doctor who would know what to do when they reached home.

The captain gave him another box of wafers and a paper cup of coffee. Jevy promised to find them in Corumba next week. He thanked them and unhitched his boat. Nate was alive, but motionless. The fever had not broken.

The coffee quickened Jevy's pulse and kept him awake. He played with the throttle, raising it until the engine began to sputter, then backing down before it died. As the darkness faded, a heavy mist fell upon the river.

He arrived at the mouth of the Cabixa an hour after dawn. The Santa Loura was not there. Jevy docked at the old pier and went to find the owner of the only nearby house. He was in his stable, milking a cow. He remembered Jevy, and told the story of the storm that took away the boat. The worst storm ever. It happened in the middle of the night, and he didn't see much. The wind was so fierce that he, his wife, and his child hid under a bed.

“Where did it sink?” Jevy asked.

“I don't know.”

“What about the boy?”

“Welly? I don't know.”

“Haven't you talked to anyone else? Has anyone seen the boy?”

No one. He had not spoken with anyone off the river since Welly disappeared in the storm. He was very sad about everything, and for good measure offered the opinion that Welly was probably dead.

Nate was not. The fever dipped significantly, and when he awoke he was cold and thirsty. He opened his eyes with his fingers, and saw only the water around him, the brush on the bank, and the farmhouse.

“Jevy,” he said, his throat raw, his voice weak. He sat up and worked on his eyes for a few minutes. Nothing focused. Jevy did not answer. Every part of his body ached-muscles, joints, the blood pumping through his brain. There was a hot rash on his neck and chest, and he scratched it until the skin broke. He was sickened by his own odor.

The farmer and his wife followed Jevy back to the boat. They didn't have a drop of gasoline, and this irritated their visitor.

“How are you, Nate?” he asked, stepping into the boat.

“I'm dying.” He exhaled the words.

Jevy felt his forehead, then gently touched the rash. “Your fever's down.”

“Where are we?”

“We're at the Cabixa. Welly is not here. The boat sank in a storm.”

“Our luck continues,” Nate said, then grimaced as pain shot through his head. “Where is Welly?”

“I don't know. Can you make it to Corumba?”

“I'd rather just go ahead and die.”

“Lie down, Nate.”

They left the bank with the farmer and his wife standing ankle-deep in mud, waving but getting ignored.

Nate sat for a while. The wind felt good against his face. Before long, though, he was cold again. A chill shuttered through his chest, and he lowered himself gently under the tent. He tried to pray for Welly, but thoughts lasted only for seconds. He simply couldn't believe he'd caught malaria.

HARK PLANNED the brunch in great detail. It was in a private dining room of the Hay-Adams Hotel. There were oysters and eggs, caviar and salmon, champagne and mimosas. By eleven they were all there, dressed casually, and laying into the mimosas.

He had assured them the meeting was of the utmost importance. It had to be kept confidential. He'd found the one witness who could win the case for them.

Only the lawyers for the Phelan children were invited. The Phelan wives had not yet contested the will, and there seemed little enthusiasm on their part for getting involved. Their legal position was very weak. Judge Wycliff had hinted off the record to one of their lawyers that he would not look favorably upon frivolous suits by the ex-wives.

Frivolous or not, the six children had wasted no time contesting the will. All six had rushed into the fray, all with the same basic claim-that Troy Phelan lacked mental capacity when he signed his last testament.

A maximum of two lawyers per heir were allowed at the meeting, and preferably one, if possible. Hark was alone, representing Rex. Wally Bright was alone, representing Libbigail. Yancy was the only lawyer Ramble knew. Grit was there for Mary Ross. Madam Langhorne, the former professor of law, was there for Geena and Cody. Troy Junior had hired and fired three firms since his father's death. His latest lawyers were from a firm of four hundred. Their names were Hemba and Hamilton, and they introduced themselves to the loose-knit confederation.

Hark closed the door and addressed the group. He gave a short biography of Malcolm Snead, a man he'd been meeting with almost daily. “He was with Mr. Phelan for thirty years,” he said gravely. “Maybe he helped him write his last will. Maybe he is prepared to say the old man was completely nuts at the time.”

The lawyers were surprised by the news. Hark watched their happy faces for a moment, then said, “Or, maybe he is prepared to say he knew nothing of the handwritten will and that Mr. Phelan was perfectly rational and lucid the day he died.”

“How much does he want?” asked Wally Bright, cutting to the chase.

“Five million dollars. Ten percent now, the rest upon settlement.”

Snead's fee did not faze the lawyers. There was so much at stake. In fact, his greed seemed rather modest.

“Our clients, of course, do not have the money,” Hark said. “So if we want to purchase his testimony, then it's up to us. For about eighty-five thousand per heir, we can sign a contract with Mr. Snead. I'm convinced he will deliver testimony that will either win the case or force a settlement.”

The range of wealth in the room was broad. Wally Bright's office account was overdrawn. He owed back taxes. At the other end of the spectrum, the firm where Hemba and Hamilton worked had partners earning more than a million bucks a year.

“Are you suggesting we pay a lying witness?” Hamilton asked.

“We don't know if he's lying,” Hark responded. He could anticipate every question. “No one knows. He was alone with Mr. Phelan. There are no witnesses. The truth will be whatever Mr. Snead wants it to be.”

“This sounds shady,” Hemba added.

“You have a better idea?” Grit growled. He was into his fourth mimosa.

Hemba and Hamilton were big-firm lawyers, unaccustomed to the dirt and grime from the streets. Not that they or their ilk were beyond corruption, but their clients were rich corporations that used lobbyists for legal bribery to land fat government contracts and hid money in Swiss accounts for foreign despots, all with the help of their trusty lawyers. But because they were big-firm lawyers they quite naturally looked down upon the type of unethical behavior being suggested by Hark, and condoned by Grit and Bright and the other ham-and-eggers.

“I'm not sure our client will agree to this,” Hamilton said.

“Your client will jump at it,” Hark said. It was almost humorous to drape ethics over TJ Phelan. “We know him better than you. The question is whether you're willing to do it.”

“Are you suggesting we, the lawyers, front the initial five hundred thousand?” Hemba asked, his tone one of contempt.

“Exactly,” Hark said.

“Then our firm would never go along with such a scheme.”

“Then your firm is about to be replaced,” Grit chimed in. “Keep in mind, you're the fourth bunch in a month.”

In fact, Troy Junior had already threatened to fire them. They grew quiet and listened. Hark had the floor.

“To avoid the embarrassment of asking each of us to cough up the cash, I have found a bank willing to loan five hundred thousand dollars for a year. All we need is six signatures on the loan. I've already signed.”

“I'll sign the damned thing,” Bright said in a burst of machismo. He was fearless because he had nothing to lose.

“Let me get this straight,” Yancy said. “We pay Snead the money first, then he talks. Right?”

“Right.”

“Shouldn't we hear his version first?”

“His version needs some work. That's the beauty of the deal. Once we pay him, he's ours. We get to shape his testimony, to structure it to suit ourselves. Keep in mind, there are no other witnesses, maybe with the exception of a secretary.”

“How much does she cost?” asked Grit.

“She's free. She's included in Snead's package.”

How many times in a career would you get the chance to rake off a percentage of the country's tenth largest fortune? The lawyers did the math. A little risk here, a gold mine later.

Madam Langhorne surprised them by saying, “I'll recommend to my firm that we take the deal. But this has to be a graveyard secret.”

“Graveyard,” repeated Yancy. “We could all be disbarred, probably indicted. Suborning perjury is a felony.”

“You're missing the point,” Grit said. “There can be no perjury. The truth is defined by Snead and Snead alone. If he says he helped write the will, and at the time the old man was nuts, then who in the world can dispute it? It's a brilliant deal. I'll sign.”

“That makes four of us,” Hark said.

“I'll sign,” Yancy said.

Hemba and Hamilton were squirming. “We'll have to discuss it with our firm,” Hamilton said.

“Do we have to remind you boys that all of this is confidential?” Bright said. It was comical, the street fighter from night school chiding the law review editors on ethics.

“No,” Hemba said. “You don't have to remind us.”

Hark would call Rex, tell him about the deal, and Rex would then call his brother TJ and inform him that his new lawyers were screwing up the deal. Hemba and Hamilton would be history within forty-eight hours.

“Move quickly,” Hark warned them. “Mr. Snead claims to be broke, and is perfectly willing to cut a deal with the other side.”

“Speaking of which,” Langhorne said, “do we know any more about who's on the other side? We're all contesting the will. Someone has to be its proponent. Where is Rachel Lane?”

“Evidently she's hiding,” Hark said. “Josh has assured me that they know where she is, that they are in contact with her, and that she will hire lawyers to protect her interests.”

“For eleven billion, I would hope so,” added Grit.

They pondered the eleven billion for a moment, each dividing it by various magnitudes of the number six, then applying their own personal percentages. Five million for Snead seemed such a reasonable sum.

JEVY AND NATE limped to the trading post early in the afternoon. The outboard was missing badly and low on gas. Fernando, the owner of the store, was in a hammock on the porch, trying to avoid the scorching sun. He was an old man, a rugged veteran of the river who'd known Jevy's father.

Both men helped Nate from the boat. He was burning with fever again. His legs were numb and weak, and the three of them inched carefully along the narrow pier and up the steps to the porch. When they folded him into the hammock, Jevy delivered a quick review of the past week. Fernando missed nothing on the river.

“The Santa Loura sank,” he said. “There was a big storm.”

“Have you seen Welly?” Jevy asked.

“Yes. He was pulled from the river by a cattle boat. They stopped here. He told me the story. I'm sure he's in Corumba.”

Jevy was relieved to hear that Welly was alive. The loss of the boat, however, was tragic news. The Santa Loura was one of the finer boats in the Pantanal. It went down under his watch.

Fernando was studying Nate as they talked. Nate could barely hear their words. He certainly couldn't understand them. Not that he cared.

“This is not malaria,” Fernando said, touching the rash on Nate's neck. Jevy moved to the hammock and looked at his friend. His hair was matted and wet, his eyes still swollen shut.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Malaria doesn't produce a rash like this. Dengue does.”

“Dengue fever?”

“Yes. It's similar to malaria-fever and chills, sore muscles and joints, spread by mosquitoes. But the rash means it's dengue.”

“My father had it once. He was a very sick man.”

“You need to get him to Corumba, as quickly as possible.”

“Can I borrow your motor?”

Fernando's boat was docked under the rickety building. His outboard wasn't as rusty as Jevy's, and it had five more horsepower. They scurried around, swapping motors and filling tanks, and after an hour in the hammock, comatose, poor Nate was shuffled back down the pier and laid into the boat under the tent. He was too sick to realize what was happening.

It was almost two-thirty. Corumba was nine to ten hours away. Jevy left Valdir's phone number with Fernando. On rare occasions a boat on the Paraguay would have a radio. If Fernando happened to encounter one, Jevy wanted him to contact Valdir with the news.

He sped away at fall throttle, quite proud to once again have a boat that sliced through the water with speed. The wake boiled behind him.

Dengue fever could be fatal. His father had been deathly ill for a week, with blinding headaches and fevers. His eyes hurt so badly that his mother kept him in a dark room for days. He was a tough river man, accustomed to injuries and pain, and when Jevy heard him moaning like a child he knew his father was dying. The doctor visited every other day, and finally the fever broke.

He could see Nate's feet from under the tent, nothing else. Surely he wouldn't die.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 650