pictures of animals and plants, then touched his heart, clenched his fist, and pressed the fist firmly against Jenny’s breastbone. “Like those…all like that,” he said. “Here in Miami not…” He made a flowing motion with his hand.
“What? What’s he saying?” said Jenny. There was a strange feeling in her chest where he had touched her.
“It’s a little vague just now. Wait here for a second, I’m going to check something out.”
With that she dashed up the steps and into the library. Jenny smiled at Juan Bautista, who looked sadly after Geli.
“She’ll be right back. We really, really want to help you, man.” She got up and pointed to the map of Amazonia. “Can you show me where you come from?”
No reaction. Jenny pointed to herself and said, “I’m Jenny. Can you say ‘Jenny’?” A blank look, but Jenny was not discouraged. Many of the foster children she had lived with had been retards, and she’d got along just fine with them. You just had to take it real slow. She pointed to one of the pictures. “This is an orchid. Sayoarrr-kidd!” She gestured to his mouth and made opening and closing motions with her hand. She saw light dawn in his eyes.
“The Little Brother of the Blood,” he said in his own language, and continued, “This is a very useful plant. We grind the tubers and soak the mash in cane alcohol and then boil it down into a syrup. We use it to treat arthritis, diarrhea, headache, temperature, cough, digestion diseases, and to help to heal wounds and boils.”
“Good,” said Jenny with a smile. “And we call it anor-chid. Now this is a monkey. Can you saymon-key?”
He could, and so on through the other pictures. At the jaguar, he said, “You know, that is very dangerous. I don’t think Jaguar would like you capturing his soul like that. A bad thing could happen.” Jenny smiled and nodded. At least he was talking.
Kevin returned looking hectic. “Hey, they found a coon’s head in a tree and blood all around, guts and all. The cops think it was a wild dog pack, that or homeless guys out hunting. Who’s this?” pointing at the Indian.
“His name’s Juan Bautista. He comes from the Amazon, and we’re going to help him keep this company from cutting down his rain forest.”
“You’re shitting me! Where’d you find him?”
“He just showed up. It’s sort of like fate.”
“Oh, right, fate. Did you tell him we don’t do shit?” He addressed the Indian. “Wrongo outfit, man. We no stoppo no cutto down treeso, only talko talko, hando out brochureso.”
“Well, we have a chance, now, Kevin. I don’t see why you have to always be so fucking down on everything. This little guy’s got the name of the company that’s doing it, and he says they’re right here in Miami.”
Geli Vargos returned, her face alight. “I looked it up and it checks out. There is a company called Consuela Holdings in Miami, and they have an office on North Miami Avenue, 540 North Miami. And I looked up the Puxto Reserve on the Net. There’s not supposed to be any logging at all there, so it has to be an illegal cut. God, Rupert’s going to go crazy over this.”
“Yeah, he’ll write a letter to the papers, that’s how crazy he’ll get,” Kevin said. “Or maybe if he’s really fired up he’ll try to get an interview on NPR. Hey, I got an idea. Let’s fucking go up there right now. Confront the bastards with what’s-his-face here, the evidence of their crimes. We got the address.”
“I don’t think that’s smart-” said Geli.
“Oh, fuck smart!” He turned to the Indian. “Look, man, we go now, right. To Consuela, tell them no choppo my trees, okay? You come with me now, yes?Pronto, Consuela,con me. ”
“Consuela,pronto, si, ” said the Indian, making a peculiar twisting motion of his head that seemed to mean affirmation.
Kevin began leading the Indian to the VW. Geli said, “Kevin, come on, don’t be an asshole. We have all this stuff here. How in hell are we supposed to pack it up if you take the truck? And you can’t speak Spanish-you won’t know what’s going on.”
“I had a year of it in school. Hasta la vista, baby!” He placed the Indian in the shotgun seat and jumped behind the wheel.
“Kevin, damn it, hold on!” said Jenny. “This is stupid. We should pack this all up and go together, and like plan it out with Rupert and all.”
Kevin cranked it up hard, sending clouds of acrid smoke into the air. “Girls, now be sure to get those petitions signed,” he crowed, “me and Tonto here gonna whip some ass at the despoilers’ headquarters.?Viva la revolucion! ”
With that he was out in the street and tooling away before they could get out another word.
Moie sits in the van quietly, feeling content. This is the first time he has been in an enclosed motor vehicle, but he is neither frightened nor impressed. He knows the wai’ichura machines are strong and quick, but he thinks they don’t give the wai’ichura much beauty. Jaguar had said he would find allies among the dead people, and allies had been provided. The dead person next to him has his death clasped deep inside him, even though he is very young. Moie senses that he wishes to make each moment dead as well, never still, making monkey noise with his mouth all the time. Now he touches a part of his machine and loud noise fills the inside of it, a painful buzzing with more monkey noises mixed in and also a drum, but the drum isn’t speaking any sense, like the drums his people used. He is a little sorry that the woman is not here, the one with the fire-colored hair, not the one who can talk Spanish, although either of them would have been preferable to this monkey. The Firehair Woman is not entirely dead, a little like Father Tim really, he can almost see the shadow of her death behind her in its usual place, and he wonders what she has done to be even that much alive in the land of the dead.
Three
In the lobby of the office building, Kevin looked at the list of tenants spread under glass before the guard’s station and was conscious of the guard looking at him. He found a hopeful line on the board and said to his companion, “You have those guys’ names, right?” Blank look. Oh, yeah, Spanish.
“?Quienes los hombres de Consuela?”More blank. He cursed, and the guard looked at him a little more sharply. “No, ah-?Como se llaman los hombres malos, los jefes de laConsuela Holdings?”
The brown face registered comprehension and the Indian took from his bag a piece of knotted fiber. As he untied each knot he said a name: Fuentes, Calderon, Garza, Ibanez. Kevin looked at the board. “Okay, there’s an Antonio Fuentes here. Let’s go make some trouble, Tonto.”
They rode up in the elevator to the twenty-third floor. The Indian was very still. Kevin was dancing on the balls of his feet and making a tuneless breathy whistle. When the car stopped, they got out and walked down the hall, looking at doors until they found one that read CONSUELA HOLDINGS,LLC in raised gilded letters. Inside, Kevin looked around and was disappointed in the amenities. His familiarity with world-bestriding firms was limited to what he’d observed in the movies. This place looked cheesier than his father’s office at the bank: a small carpeted area faced by a reception counter. A pretty Cuban secretary with long lavender nails was on the phone when they entered. She looked up and said something into the phone and pressed a button.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah,” said Kevin, “we want to see Fuentes.” And then the usual business about appointments, and then some shouting and nasty language from Kevin and the threat to call security, and then Kevin grabbed the Indian and went through a door while the receptionist frantically punched numbers into her phone. There was a little hall and at the end of the corridor another door and behind that a large corner office with a view of Biscayne Bay through windows on two sides and a large mahogany desk, behind which sat a small, dark man with dense silver hair and thick horn-rimmed glasses. Kevin got in this man’s face and said what he had come to say, about how they knew what they were doing down in the rain forest, how they were illegally logging the Puxto Reserve, and they were going to let everyone know and make them stop it, and that this man (here he gestured toward the silent Indian) was the proof, he knew all about the illegal logging and they would go to the UN if they had to, they’d boycott, they’d demonstrate….
After three minutes of this, which included a lesson on why people and the fate of the planet were more important than corporate profits, Kevin ran down. The man had not said a word; he just looked at the two of them expressionlessly, his dark eyes showing nothing but a faint ennui, as if he were waiting for a train. Then three big men in blue-gray uniforms came into the office and said they had to leave. Kevin said he wouldn’t leave without a
