"What's going on over there, Carlos?"
"Looks like some sort of meeting," I grin.
"I can just imagine, if it's anything like the last one."
"He must be a talent scout or something," I mug, briefly looking away from the high-resolution scope trained on the window across the street.
"Don't let me interrupt you," Elena replies haughtily. "I'm sure you admire that kind of talent."
"Matter of fact...."
"And you're getting paid to watch this stuff regularly. Your pals would be envious."
Every word drips with sarcasm.
"No harm intended. It's my job to watch over there."
"Carlos, sometimes you make me so mad! She's somebody's daughter. Don't forget that."
Ouch!
"It's a tough world and everybody's got to make a living...."
"And be used like the girls in that horrible place over there."
"Stop it, Elena. You're ruining this."
"Good! You shouldn't be watching it." And she stomps out into the little kitchenette in the run-down apartment.
I think about the daughter comment, and it burns in me. I had one, Verena, before she destroyed herself with drugs. After that, my marriage fell apart and I'm on my own now, a private investigator far from my Lima home base. I haven't been with a woman for a long time and feel the need badly. So I'm watching what I've been missing.
This damn stakeout is tedious hours of absolutely nothing but a sore ass from the wooden chair by the window. Watching the new talent being road tested by the management is about the only perk in this whole dull assignment. Almost two weeks now and nothing to show for it, except this steady progression of lurid over-the-desk fucking.
The boss across the street is burly, with a barrel chest. He's stripping his shirt off right now. Elaborate tattoos cover muscular arms from wrist to shoulder, and I know from previous surveillance that there is another across his strong upper back. This is not somebody to mess with.
The young woman off to one side looks frail by comparison. She's much smaller and seems to be staring down at the man's mid-section. I know the reason because I've seen the prodigious weapon at work on other occasions. She probably wonders how she'll be able to manage it.
He's a big, ugly brute, his face scarred across the cheek facing the window. His arm comes up and the woman cowers before he loops it behind her neck and abruptly pulls her forward. I can see now that she is almost naked, clad only in tiny panties. Her bare breasts are full and round, jiggling like ripe fruit ready for picking. That's exactly what Antonio DaSilva intends to do.
Our windows are cracked open because of the intense humidity in this tropical city. The heat of late afternoon is absolutely oppressive, causing sweat to pour down my forehead. With no air conditioners rattling, I can hear sharp orders in Portuguese, though there's no sound from her. Why protest against the inevitable?
He mashes against her body, mashing those beautiful soft tits tight to his firm chest. Then he pushes his mouth hard against hers, lewdly pressing between unwilling lips. Suddenly, I hear a crisp slap to her resisting cheek, a warning about consequences. She yelps, then yields, her eyes boring belligerently into his tough, empty face.
Then I see him reach down to rip away what little she still wears, the last barrier to what he demands from this upstairs meeting. This time there's no resistance. Instead, the young woman stands impassively while he gropes her. She knows that there's no stopping Antonio when he wants one of the girls.
After a minute, I look away from the camera to see if my partner is watching this live show, but she's nowhere to be seen. This clearly disgusts her, and I feel unclean now for watching so intently. Her comment stings again, reminding me of my own fragile daughter from the past.
I know what's coming next because I've seen it before with others. The brute will stretch her out across his big desk and hammer away. She'll probably cry out, maybe even pretend to orgasm just to hasten him along. But he'll last for a long time, until the sprawling woman is little more a limp doll at the end of his thrusting tool.
The next time, it'll be somebody else. He seems to have the pick of the litter, a different one every time he wants this. I admit to myself that what I see is quite disgusting. I've never treated a woman roughly like this big animal across the street.
"You ugly bastard!" I spit out, turning away from the camera. "I hope they fry you! I'll find out. I'll find out."
Then I close the lens and push the chair back from the window. Who am I kidding anyway? Nothing significant to the investigation is going to take place during the next half hour or more. Nothing I haven't already seen before. And I know that Elena is angry with me for watching. We might be working together for a long time at the rate this whole thing is inching along.
I need her on this assignment. Her institution hired me with the stipulation that we work together closely on this case. It requires my investigative skills and her extensive cultural knowledge. It will be almost impossible to bring the deception into the light of day without her. Better to curtail any unnecessary voyeurism than lose my partner. Besides, she's good company in this lonely work.
"Are you there, Elena?" I call toward the little kitchen, but there's no response. I take a few steps toward the tiny bedrooms and call out again.
No reply.
"Must have gone out while I was watching," I mumble to myself, embarrassed now for being so absorbed that I didn't even hear her leave.
She'll be a handful to deal with when she comes back, if I know Elena. She's one fiery Hispanic woman!
I'm sick and tired of Manaus and this shithole of an apartment in the most dangerous part of the city. And I'm surprised that Elena has gone out by herself. She's a brassy lady, but this is a tough area where she'll get no respect. The narrow streets are lined with hookers on their beat and every kind of lowlife thief and huckster. People here will do anything for money, even murder if the price is high enough.
I'm worried for her.
The city is in the heart of Brazil, midway along the Amazon. Here the roads and rivers from the interior converge to funnel people out to sea, either by land or water. This wide water highway allows large boats to navigate downstream right to Belem, near the mouth.
Both cities are hot and wet all the time. Located right at the equator, the sun is overhead every day, drawing up water into great clouds that empty out in late afternoon. High temperatures and too much rain- there's no relief from it! Water everywhere, in the streets and ditches, on flat rooftops, everywhere!
And to make it worse, there's not a breath of moving air. Just stifling heat and humidity, literally sucking the moisture out of my sticky, sweaty skin. Dammit, I hate Manaus!
This old Portuguese port boomed in the days when the tropical rain forest was hacked and burned to plant rubber trees. This was before the World War II discovery that synthetic rubber could be made from oil. In their heyday, these plantations created immense wealth for investors. But big money here has always lived alongside deep poverty and a desperate scramble to live.
That's what I've been watching today. Young women, some of them already haggard beyond their years, are plying their trade on the streets and in the bars, using their bodies to earn daily bread. Upstairs across from our stakeout, Antonio- owner, manager, I'm not sure yet- satisfies himself by banging the new girls to keep them in line. It's a mean and hard life where flesh is the currency.
Why Manaus? What the hell am I doing in this stinking place watching some thug routinely fuck women? And why am I accompanied by someone who knows absolutely nothing about investigative surveillance? I ask myself these questions, and they're tough to answer.
The whole thing goes back to a tip from an old friend nicknamed 'Jaguar'. When I met him, he operated a touring company out of Lima called Andean Experience. I was a travel agent then and used to funnel business to his three-week ancient culture bus tours across Peru and into Bolivia. The Inca, Machu Picchu, and Cuzco: tourists are all over that stuff. [Background: Andean Experience, Ch.01, Jaguar's Curse, in Non-Erotic.]
Eventually he tired of seemingly endless trips across the country in his Mercedes minibus. He'd fallen hard for an American tourist, Marina, and settled in Lima with her for good. Now he's Head of Acquisitions at the National Archeological Museum and uses his education and experience to add to the museum's huge collection.
