Smoking Baboon Snippet: Rosie in South America

      Rosie wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and settled back into the chair. She stared into the fire and collected her thoughts. After a few moments, she spoke, "After we split up in ..Colombia, Louie, things got tough," she paused to light another cigarette, "I barely made it outta there alive. First chance, I hopped a bus headed south. I switched buses four times just in case Pinto and his gang were still after me. Took ten days to get up into the mountains and finally arrive in Bogotá.

       I hooked up with an old American guy named Jerry de Vrees, from White Plains, driving a supply truck down to the Rio Negro; he let me hitch a ride. That took another two weeks – jeez, my kidneys are still bouncing around from that trip – he talked to the research guys he worked for and got me a spot on their boat, but no free ride; I had to work for passage. Two months of cooking, cleaning fish and doing laundry – in the stinkin' river, no less – until we reached the port town of Macapa, on the Amazon. That was one hot, miserable, rainy, buggy trip...

      Ernie and Juan, the research guys on the river boat, set me up with a berth on the tanker, Lao Tsing, sailing to Rio de Janeiro. Good thing they did, too; I found out later that there was a real healthy 'white slave' trade going on down at the docks with about half the freighter captains in on the action – those two guys were life savers. Finally made it to Rio two weeks later.

      I was flat broke, so I went to work…doing one of the things I know how to do best. Got a job pole dancing at the Crazy Horse Brasilia, not a bad gig; I had some money in my pocket and a place I shared with one of the other dancers, Julietta; another Italian.

      I was looking to do something meaningful with my time besides stripping. I found out through talk with some of the 'regulars', at the club, that there was a pretty scary illegal trade going on in capuchin monkeys. These little guys are almost extinct in the wild now due to poaching; they're much too valuable to research labs and training to care for quadriplegics to be left alone. The dealers can get anything they want for these monkeys. You know me, I just couldn't let that go…I asked some questions, took a few pictures…poked around some."

      Rosie finished her beer and lit up another French Oval. "So, now I got Raul Souto breathing down my neck; King of Endangered Species, Brazil. He's even worse than Pinto in Cartagena. More money involved than with the parrot trade; this guy wants me dead just 'cause I asked a few questions.

      In Rio and some of the other big cities in Brazil, there are bands of street kids called Pajaro Frutero, six – seven years old, who will do anything for a few pennies. They kill just to earn the right to live on the streets…they make their 'bones' and nobody messes with 'em. Souto sicked 'em on me right away. I had a hundred of the blood-thirsty little bastards after me one night. One more place I had to get out of in a hurry.

      My room mate, Julietta, had a cousin, Paulo, on the container ship, El Gatto, headed for Africa. She sweet talked him and got me aboard. I was headed for South Africa…and a job, maybe, on a wildlife preserve. Wound up doing a year with the Afrikaners rescuing rhinos and elephants from poachers and black marketeers.  Life was too boring and normal on the wildlife sanctuary, though. Like working a nine-to-five job. I had to get back into some meaningful action."