Carats and Coconuts (12 page)

I didn’t know if Brazil was ready for
a Gram-style Maxine fixation. I did know we sure as hell
weren’t!

“
Woohoooo! Over here, Bunny
and Beefcakes!”

At the sound of Grams loud cattle-like
call, we all jumped and looked behind us in the direction she was
waving with her bird-thin arms.

“
Bunny and Beefcakes?” I
asked, knowing things were going to get interesting.

“
Bunny is my new friend from
Michigan who’s staying at my hotel, and that hunk of meat is her
personal trainer, Antonio. But you can just call him Beefcakes.
That’s what I call him, and he seems to like it,” Grams said as she
stood up and continued to wave her arms as if they hadn’t heard her
cat-call whistles.

Beefcakes Antonio looked like Antonio
Banderas. I had to agree, I could get used to having him
around.

“
After I kick whoever’s ass
y’all need me to kick for this mission, Bunny and Beefcakes are
taking me with ‘em to Carnival in Rio,” Grams said, leaving us to
greet her friends as they finished walking the last fifty feet to
our canopy.

“
Oh my God,” Granny V said,
making the sign of the cross across her chest, “Grams at
Carnival?!”

Without a word, Vitto, Roman and I
also made the sign of the cross.

I made the sign, and I’m not Catholic,
I’m Buddhist. But I didn’t have time to get into a yoga pose and
breathe in the richness of a much-needed downward facing dog and
Namaste.

So, here we are, about to try and save
our family jewels. Not Gene Simmons-style family jewels. Real royal
jewels.

But, who knew The Four C’s of the gem
world now included coconuts and crazy-asses, even if they were
lovable crazy-asses.

O
ur
beachside picnic was in my past, as well as another sleepless
night. I tried to keep my attention focused on the road ahead, a
road that was taking us deep into the Amazon Rainforest.

And no, this road couldn’t be found on
any of Brazil’s official maps. It’s simply one of the thousands of
very narrow paths that have been cut through the country’s forest
for timber logging and much more.

It’s the much more part that has me on
edge.

Seeing two majestic sapphire blue
macaws flying above us, I couldn’t help but begin to hum the songs
from one of my fave animated movies - Rio. I love Jamie Foxx’s “Fly
Love” and Taio Cruz’ “Telling the World,” so I started with those.
And to Roman’s credit, he just let me have at it.

The hums soon turned into full-on,
straight-from-the-soundtrack, karaoke-worthy renditions, missing
only the amplification of my Mr. Microphone. These days, I’d taken
to singing, and singing loud, to calm my nerves. I could carry a
pretty decent tune too, so I’m sure it wasn’t total misery for
Roman.

With each bar I belted out, I thought
about the two blue macaws circling overhead as well as those from
the movie. Okay. Yes, one in the movie was named Blu. And this
region of the world is known for blue diamonds. Perhaps a bit of
satire. Perhaps not. But considering the writers named the second
exotic bird Jewel, I was leaning towards total satire. I also found
it intriguing that in one of the fight scenes, while the smuggled
birds fought their captors, what tumbled out from their beaks but
rare gemstones the colors of the most brilliant of
rainbows.

Coincidence?

I don’t think so.

Just as exotic birds are smuggled out
from this region of the world, so are the multi-colored gems the
movie producers chose to show.

Ornithologists and gemologists have a
lot in common in the forests Rio calls home. They’re both
struggling to save Mother Nature’s magic.

Thank the powers that be, I’d seen the
birds and allowed their magnificent flights to sooth the restless
energy building up inside me. By focusing on the catchy soundtrack
of the film and the flight of the real birds it celebrated, I had a
slightly better chance of keeping my nerves in check.

It wasn’t till my very own prince
started singing along with me that I was finally able to overcome
my fears.

Who knew the guy could
sing?!

And wow! Talk about a
voice!

He could easily have been mistaken for
Josh Groban, and I’m not kidding. I could get used to a lifetime of
crooning coming from this royal hottie.

“
Have you considered how
ironic it is that we’re venturing into the world of highly-prized
gems, the same stones the ancient Egyptians as early as 2000 B.C.E.
thought were symbols of life and fertility, and we’re tracking them
to
save
our
lives?” Roman asked, as he drove us to within a few hundred feet of
our destination, the Sol Larga Reservation.

“
Yes. As a matter of fact, I
have. But thanks for saying something to totally boost my
confidence,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m tellin’ ya, between you
and Pliny the Elder, my nerves are tied tighter than a bunch of
sailors’ knots.”

“
What’s Pliny got to do with
it?” Roman asked, that ornery grin I loved so much back in
place.

“
Pliny thought the greens
and blues of beryl gems were soothing, calming, and had healing
powers. So, you’re both full of shit.”

“
Hey, at least I always tell
you the truth.”

“
Well…in this case, the
truth sucks, so you’re still at the top of my Shit List. How ‘bout
you just keep singing?”

“
Does that mean you think I
can carry a tune?”

“
Not bad. Not bad at all.
Let’s just hope we can keep a song in our hearts and then harness
some of those healing powers after we begin this
mission.”

“
Which would be?”

“
Watch and learn, my dear,”
I said, kinda’ tickled that for once I knew what to do and he
didn’t.

We got out of our Jeep and waited for
the two behind us to take the spots in the clearing next to
ours.

R pulled in with Vitto and Granny
V.

Next came Grams and
Company.

“
I still can’t believe you
want her in on this,” I said to Roman, who was totally hidden by
the dust flying everywhere caused by Grams literally sliding her
Jeep in sideways next to R’s.

“
Now, that woman can drive,”
R said, elbowing Roman in the side.

With all the whooping and cheering
goin’ on in Grams’ vehicle, you’d think she, Bunny and Beefcakes
were already enjoying Rio’s Carnival. In no way, shape or form did
they appear ready for the seriousness of what we were about to
do.

And speaking of shape and form, just
looking at the three of them approaching us was enough to make you
wish you could climb a tree and watch all this from way above the
rainforest floor.

There was Grams looking very Maxine
again, eat shit grin and all.

Then there was the ultra-sophisticated
Bunny, who wore large enough jewels she could be in some
Smithsonian coffee table book filled with photos of the museum’s
gem collection and captions reading “This piece was a gift of Bunny
Winston”. They were large enough gems that wearing them could also
get her killed in this forest.

And yes, I shit you not, her last name
was Winston, although, I don’t think she was related to
Harry.

Oh, and let’s not forget Antonio
Banderas’ lost twin, Beefcakes, who smiled a lot and moved like a
human wall.

Well, one thing was for certain, I
thought to myself, there’s no way in hell we looked like a bunch of
wildcat miners, so we shouldn’t raise suspicion with the Brazilian
authorities on that front.

But speaking of a front, a nice line
of Brazilian federal police made their way toward us.

They were not one of my favorite
greeting committees.

I
n
the last few years, more than a billion dollars – that’s right, I
said billion – in diamonds and other precious gemstones have been
taken from this forest. Many of the world’s largest mining
companies believe our Witherspoon & Witherspoon Operations
could be part of the richest mines in the world.

But they’ve got a problem.

This land belongs to the Sol Larga
Indians, and mining is illegal on all of Brazil’s Indian
lands.

My parent’s operation is allowed
because they’re not a for-profit mining business. They mine for
research and conservation.

But no matter how hard they try, even
with the cooperation of the indigenous people, they can’t stop the
thriving black market from pilfering the treasures these forests
hold.

Thus, a special unit of Brazil’s
federal police are here to attempt to keep out the wildcat
miners.

“
If you ask me and the Sol
Larga’s Chief Valente, here comes our biggest problem,” I whispered
to Roman as Police Chief Maurio Fosito moved toward us, flanked by
a few of his officers.

“
Usually is,” Roman
answered, his jaw twitching, which meant his mind was preparing his
body for trouble.

“
Something along the line of
how much they get paid to look the other way?” I
ventured.

“
And who’s paying who,”
Roman finished my thought with total accuracy.

I normally love how we share brain
waves. But that time, I could only hope he wasn’t sharing all of
mine. If he was, he was in just as much danger as I was of never
making it out of this forest alive.

Unless…

We could beat our little rogue elf
Stanley and his associates at their own deadly game.

So, game on.

“
Zoey, how good to see you
again,” Police Chief Fosito said, with the sincerity of one of
Roman and Vitto’s mob soldiers when they get an unexpected visit
from their bosses.

“
You as well, Chief Fosito,”
I said, a firm believer in attempting to kill ‘em with
kindness.

I only resorted to kickin’ someone’s
ass if my first tactic failed.

“
I’ve brought some friends
with me this trip.”

“
So I see,” Fosito said
neither his voice nor his expression conveying he was particularly
happy about it.

“
Well now, I don’t know
about y’all, but I’m not necessarily feelin’ the love from The Foz
here. Are you?”

Leave it to Grams to go right for the
balls every time. There was never any honey drippin’ from her
words, just one gigantic fly swatter goin’ for pay dirt.

So much for killin’ The Foz with
kindness, I thought.

“
Why don’t you calm down a
bit, Ms…”

“
Weiss. The name is Lucy
Weiss. My friends call me Grams. But you ain’t that lucky, Foz. You
just stick with Ms. Weiss,” Grams said then harrumphed till her
tiny body shook. “And say, did ya ever notice that the people who
tell you to calm down are the ones who pissed ya off to begin
with?”

“
Another Maxine-ism?” Granny
V asked, laughing out loud.

“
Something like that,” I
said, while giving Roman the evil eye for insisting Grams be part
of our welcome wagon.

The Foz remained silent as he and
Grams remained stuck in one fierce stare-down.

I cleared my throat, knowing I had to
get this show on the road as quickly as possible and get us to the
high-security Witherspoon Lodge inside the reservation.

“
Grams is a little cranky
today. Sorry about that, Chief. If you’ll just order your men to
let us through, we’ll be on our way to Witherspoon &
Witherspoon.”

“
I’m afraid I can’t do
that,” he said, without the slightest hesitation.

“
Why not?” I asked, knowing
very well how these games were often played, although, I’d never
had to play them with The Foz. This turn of events did surprise
me.

The situation down here must be worse
than I’d thought. And that realization alone made my bladder much
weaker.

“
Business has picked up
lately, and we’ve had…what would you call it…a change in protocol,”
The Foz said, sounding way too cocky.

“
I’ve got this,” Vitto said,
stepping between Roman and I, a large brief case in his
hands.

The Foz motioned for Vitto to follow
him 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!”