‘Oh, come. We’ve had a drink a dozen times in the past months. Strangers? Hardly. We all know why you’ve been searching those damned forests for the past four months and other huge stretches of the Amazon and Paraná basins for the past four years. For the fabled Lost City of the Mato Grosso-if that is indeed where it is—for the golden people who lived there—who may still live there—most of all for the fabled man who found it. Huston. Dr Hannibal Huston. The famous explorer who vanished into the forests all those many years ago and was never seen again.’
‘You talk in clichés,’ Hamilton said.
Hiller smiled. ‘What newspaperman doesn’t?’
‘Newspaperman?’
‘Yes.’
‘Odd. I’d have put you down for something else.’
Hiller laughed. ‘A con? A convict on the lam? Nothing so romantic, I’m afraid.’ He leaned forward, suddenly serious. ‘Listen. As I said, we all know why you’re out here—no offence, Hamilton, but goodness knows you’ve told everyone often enough—although why I don’t know-I’d have thought you’d have kept it secret from everybody.’
‘Three good reasons, my friend. In the first place, there has to be some reason to account for my presence here. Secondly, anybody will tell you that I know the Mato Grosso better than any other white man and no one would dream of following me where I go. Finally, the more people who know what I’m after the greater the likelihood that some person, some time and in some place, will drop a hint or a clue that could be invaluable to me.’
‘I was under the impression that you didn’t require hints or clues any longer.’
‘That’s as maybe. Just you go ahead and form any impressions you like.’
‘Well, all right. So. Ninety-nine per cent of the people laugh at your wild notions, as they call them—though God knows there’s not a man in Romono would dare say it to your face. But I belong to the one per cent. I believe you. I further believe that your search is over and that the dream has come true. I’d like to share in a dream, I’d like to help a man, my employer, make his dream come true.’
‘I’m deeply moved,’ Hamilton said sardonically. ‘I’m sorry—well, no, I’m not really—but something gives here that I just can’t figure. And besides, Hiller, you are an unknown quantity.’
‘Is the McCormick-Mackenzie International?’
‘Is it what?’
‘Unknown.’
‘Of course not. One of the biggest multinational companies in the Americas. Probably the usual bunch of crooks using the usual screen of a battery of similarly crooked international lawyers to bend the laws any which way that suits them.’
Hiller took a deep breath, manfully restraining himself. ‘Because I’m in the position of asking a favour of you, Hamilton, I won’t take exception to that. In point of fact the record of McCormick-Mackenzie is impeccable. They have never been investigated, far less impeached on any count.’
‘Smart lawyers. Like I said.’
‘You can be glad that Joshua Smith is not here to hear you say that.’
Hamilton was unimpressed. ‘He the owner?’
‘Yes. And the Chairman and Managing Director.’
‘The multi-millionaire industrialist? If we’re talking about the same man?’
‘We are.’
‘And the owner of the largest newspaper and magazine chain in the Americas. Well, well, well.’ He broke off and stared at Hiller. ‘So that’s why you—’
‘Exactly.’
‘So. He’s your boss, a newspaper magnate. And you’re one of his newspapermen, and a pretty senior one at that, I would guess—I mean, he wouldn’t send out a cub reporter on a story like this. Very well. Your connections, your credentials established. But I still don’t see—’
‘What don’t you see?’
‘This man. Joshua Smith. A multi-millionaire. A multi-billionaire. Anyway, as rich as Croesus. What’s left on earth for him that he doesn’t already have? What more can a man like that want?’ Hamilton took a long pull at his whisky. ‘In short, what’s in it for him?’
‘You are a suspicious bastard, aren’t you, Hamilton? Money? Of course not. Are you in it for the money? Of course not. A man like you could make money anywhere. No, and again no. Like you—and, if I may say, a little bit like myself-he’s a man with a dream, a dream that’s become an obsession. I don’t know which fascinates him the more, the Huston case or the Lost City, although I don’t suppose you can really separate the two. I mean, you can’t have the one without the other.’ He paused and smiled, almost dreamily. ‘And what a story for his publishing empire.’
‘And that, I take it, is your part of the dream?’
‘What else?’
Hamilton considered, using some more Scotch to help him with his consideration. ‘Mustn’t rush things, mustn’t rush things. A man needs time to think about these things.’
‘Of course. How much time?’
‘Two hours?’
‘Sure. My place. The Negresco.’ Hiller looked around him and gave a mock shudder which could almost have been real. ‘It’s almost as good as it is here.’
Hamilton drained his glass, rose, picked up his bottle, nodded and left. No-one could have accused him of being under the weather but his gait didn’t appear to be quite as steady as it might have been. Hiller looked around until he located Serrano, who had been looking straight at him. Hiller glanced after the departing Hamilton, looked back at Serrano and nodded almost imperceptibly. Serrano did the same in return and disappeared after Hamilton.
Romono had not yet got around to, and was unlikely ever to get around to, street-lighting, with the result that the alleyways, in the occasional absence of saloons and bordellos fronting on them, tended to be very poorly lit. Hamilton, all trace of his unsteady gait vanished, strode briskly along, clearly unbothered by the fitful or nonexistent lighting. He rounded a corner, carried on a few yards, stopped suddenly and turned into a narrow and almost totally dark alleyway. He didn’t go far into the alley—not more than two feet. He poked his head cautiously out from his narrow niche and peered back along the way he had just come.
He saw no more than he had expected to see. Serrano had just come into view. Serrano, it was clear, wasn’t out for any leisurely evening stroll. He was walking so quickly that he was almost running. Hamilton shrank back into the shadows. He no longer had to depend on his hearing. Serrano was wearing steel-tipped shoes which no doubt he found indispensable for the subtler intricacies of unarmed combat. On a still night Serrano could have been heard a hundred yards away.
Hamilton, no more than another shadow in his shadowy place of concealment, listened to the rapidly approaching footsteps. Serrano, almost running now, looked neither to right nor to left but just peered anxiously ahead in quest of his suddenly and mysteriously vanished quarry.
