Little Tiny Teeth by Aaron Elkins Read Free Book Online Page A

passengers together for a bona fide cruise. That had been two years ago, and not long ago an exuberant Vargas had come through: a professor named Arden Scofield had chartered the ship for a week in late November for a scientific research cruise from Iquitos to Leticia, Colombia, a trip of 350 miles. Including Scofield, there would be a total of five paying passengers. Meals would be provided, and each passenger would have his or her own air-conditioned cabin with private bath. There were at present ten such cabins on the ship, but more would be added in the future as the cruise business prospered.
    “In other words, other than telling Phil how we like it, we wouldn’t have any responsibilities at all. Nothing to do. Just relax and enjoy it.”
    “A research cruise,” Julie said. “What kind of research?”
    “Well, apparently they’re all ethnobotanists-”
    “Ethnowhatanists?” Marti said.
    “Ethnobotanists. Sort of a combination of cultural anthropologists and botanists. They study the way various peoples live with and use their local plants. You know, how they use them for medicine, for food, for clothing, and so on. Phil says they’re going to be doing some scientific collecting – there’s a tremendous number of unknown, uncataloged flora in the Amazon basin – and talking to shamans along the way to see what they can learn from them.”
    “Learn from shamans?” Marti snorted. “And these guys are supposed to be scientists?”
    “Well, I know what you mean,” said Gideon. “A lot of the shamanistic stuff is mumbo jumbo, but they do know an awful lot about the properties of their plants, especially the curative aspects, and some of it’s very much worth knowing. It’s been put to a lot of use in medicine, and there’s still a lot to be learned.”
    They paused while the waiter cleared their plates and poured coffee for all.
    Phil had offered a few other details, which Gideon now shared. Scofield held a dual professorship, spending most of the year at the University of Iowa, but also teaching at the Universidad Nacional Agraria de la Selva in Tingo Maria, Peru, where he ran an extension program that trained Amazonian coffee and cacao farmers in ecologically sound farming techniques.
    Twice a year he took some of his American students and other interested people down to Peru on a botanical field expedition. Until now, they had always been treks in the Huallaga Valley near Tingo Maria, three hundred miles south of Iquitos and the Amazon, but this year he’d wanted to do something different: an Amazon River expedition. Hence, his hiring of the Adelita.
    “So what would this cost us?” John asked.
    “Well, Phil says he can get there and back for a six-hundred-dollar fare: Seattle to Iquitos, and then Leticia back to Seattle.”
    “That’s a terrific deal,” Marti said to John. “Harvey and Cece Sherman went to Peru in June and just their round trip to Lima was something like eleven hundred dollars.”
    “And once we’re there,” Gideon said, “we’ll pay the same thing on the boat that Phil will – twenty dollars a day to cover food – a hundred and forty bucks for the week.”
    “So… seven hundred forty bucks for the whole deal?” John said.
    “Right. The regular passengers are paying over thirteen hundred just for the cruise part.”
    John set his cup on its saucer with a decisive clink. “What the hell, let’s do it. What’s the name of the town again? Iquistos?”
    “Iquitos,” Gideon said, then added with a smile: “It rhymes with mosquitoes.”

THREE
    Captain Alfredo Vargas, founder and president of Amazonia Cruise Lines, headquartered in Iquitos, Peru, conducted most of his business meetings with government officials, potential investors, and prospective clients in the bright, pleasant bar of the Hotel Dorado Plaza, self-described, with some justification, as “the only five-star hotel in the Peruvian Amazon.” While this practice might seem extravagant to some, it was