Carats and Coconuts by D. D. Scott Page B

into the guard shack, while three of his men stepped forward,
effectively blocking the rest of us from following them.
    “ Oooo…this is just like you
see in the movies,” Grams’ new friend Bunny said.
    Too bad Beefcakes didn’t share the
same enthusiasm as his geriatric sidekicks. I got the distinct
feeling that Antonio Beefcakes’ bladder was smaller than
mine.
    “ You aint’ seen nothin’ yet,
Bunny. This bitch don’t mess around,” Grams said adopting her
I’m-a-bad-ass stance, her plastic lei now just inches from the
super buff chests of the three amigos holding us at gunpoint via
machine guns. “Wait till R gives us some super-cool gadgets to try
out on you silly fuckers. Now that shit’s gonna totally rock your
worlds!”
    Holy Bejeezus. If she wasn’t on her
Maxine kick, she was in Rambo-mania Mode.
    I hoped The Foz could be bought off
quickly with the contents of Vitto’s briefcase. If not, we’d be
doomed before we even got to the lodge.
    Making me more nervous than Gram’s
outbreak was the fact that Roman had yet to say a word. In a tense
situation, when he was this silent, it meant one thing. There was a
lot more danger present than any of us knew or understood…except
him.

Chapter Four
     
    I knew from what my parents had told us before we left their
Michigan vaults that the Brazilian black market had recently seen a
huge surge in volume. The question was, how did Stanley, our former
employee, fit into the now booming smuggled gem market.
    Here’s the normal course of business
down here…on the dark side…
    A gem mined here on this reservation
can be sold in town by locals acting as middlemen for around
$8,000. Another middleman may then sell that same gem for $25,000
to a third person, who then passes it on to a buyer in Sao Paulo
who can get $250,000 for the same stone.
    People will fly in from around the
world for the promise of cheap, very pure stones in carat sizes
from five carats on up.
    I’ll never forget Chief Valente once
telling me that gems are easier to sell here than
cocaine.
    But this kind of business brings the
same kinds of violence as one sees in the drug smuggling world.
With the violence comes the corruption involved in ensuring people
look the other way.
    As Vitto came out of the shack without
his briefcase, I got the distinct impression that The Foz was also
now looking the other way.
    Little did he know that it was our
mission to see just who all and what all he was looking away
from.
    Before we could begin that journey, we
had to get through these gates and travel deeper still into the
rainforest to my family’s Witherspoon & Witherspoon on-site
headquarters.
    Thanks to Vitto, it appeared we’d just
purchased our very expensive ticket to our next
destination.
    “ How much do you suppose
your grandpa paid for our gate pass?” I asked Roman, who still
hadn’t said a single word.
    “ I’m guessing a cool hundred
grand,” Roman said in an unassuming tone as if that were simply
pocket change. “That’s what he usually starts with, which is damn
good money in these parts unless gems are part of the
deal.”
    I suppose, for a prince and his royal
family, that is merely pocket change. But to the rest of us, it
isn’t.
    “ You know, at first, Fosito
said he was here to protect the Indians, but I’m convinced the line
he’s now walking favors the other side. The government’s interests
are far from the Indians’ best interest and far from the
environmental regulation of the mining on these lands,” I said,
barely loud enough to override the sound of the Jeep’s
engine.
    I was too weary to speak any louder,
totally unsure as to who else might be watching or
listening.
    “ Without the ability to mine
from their lands, the Sol Larga can’t sustain themselves,
right?”
    “ Absolutely right. No one
cares about bringing food, medicine, and basic living supplies to
the Sol Larga. All they care about are the gems they can take away
from their land,” I said,