The tank hesitated, while the crewmen inside shifted places, the living and the dead. Fu Antos mounted it during that hesitation, and poured liquid Greek Fire down the vent. Flame erupted. Now the tank was dead.
Fu Antos's mighty ki protected him from the narcotic smoke, but even he was not entirety immune. He moved out of it before it affected his mind.
The battle still raged in the jungle. The soldiers, mobbing the outnumbered ninjas, had at last brought down several. One ninja was struck amidships by a bazooka shot, and simply disintegrated. Another was caught close-range in the stream of bullets from an M-3 machine gun. Though his cloak protected him somewhat, the sheer impact knocked him over. Two other men emptied their guns into him at point blank range. Each bullet hit close upon the last, so that the effect was cumulative, and he was battered to death without ever suffering perforation.
With ninja casualties mounting, it was time to break off. Fu Antos made a signal, and abruptly the ninjas departed. But now the wind shifted. The awful smoke rolled toward the remaining men. Again they ran. But that meant the smoke no longer covered the convoy.
The ninjas reappeared. They climbed into the deserted vehicles. But they were not able to operate the tanks or personnel carriers, lacking the knowledge. So they planted explosives and blew them up after unloading the cases of weapons and ammunition. Hidden in the forest, they opened the cases, so as to transfer the supplies to more convenient carrying form. And they received a shock. The first case, marked GRENADES, contained a jack-in-the-box with a face like Mirabal's, its tongue sticking out. And a note saying "Congratulations! You have just become the proud owner of this box of rocks." And the rest was—stone.
Mirabal had outsmarted the ninja after all.
So far.
Chapter 8
The Love of Oba
Now Oba took me to her apartment. Actually it was both more and less than that. It was in a big two-story house in one of the poorer sections of town, that had been partitioned into small rooms, each occupied by a person, couple, or family. We passed into a central courtyard, with a communal laundry, and thence up to her room.
She opened a round red can of guava paste labeled Conchita, cutting out some pieces and putting them on hard soda crackers from a big square box. I didn't know what it was, so she put one in my mouth. I chewed dutifully, and it was delicious. I gulped some cool water, and that was delicious too. In fact, I was feeling very good, riding an ebbing wave of euphoria. Then she showed me her bed, and suddenly my day and night of action caught up with me, and I lay on that bed like a felled tree.
It was late afternoon when I woke. Oba was gone. I was not worried; I knew she had other things to do besides watch me snore. She had left some more food on the table where I would find it: a pot of black coffee, more crackers and paste, and some tasty soft white cheese. Simple fare, but good. I checked the little ice chest, but there seemed to be no milk. That's the difference between me and the Brazilians: I'm a milk drinker. Ah, well: coffee, then, and fresh-baked bread.
She had also left two big crumpled dirty blue and red l0-cruzeiro notes for me. I was especially touched by this gesture; this was probably all she could spare, though it was only about two and a half dollars in American money. Well, I would repay her. I pocketed the money.
I ate quickly, then cleaned up. God, I was filthy! I had forgotten about the dirt I had smeared over myself yesterday. I must have been a real spectacle, dancing in that black mass in my bare feet and caked dirt. I found a razor and shaved, aware that the instrument's normal use would have been on the legs of a pretty girl. Odd that so many women shave their legs to silken smoothness, but not their arms. Just which limbs do they expect to bear the closest scrutiny?
There was a bidet in the room. You know, one of those strange female saddle-shaped urinals they use in Europe. What the hell: I straddled it as well as I could and relieved my bladder. I had encountered one of those things when I attended the martial-arts tournament in Nicaragua, and it really set me back. It conjured all sorts of half-obscene visions-bare distaff posteriors squirting fluid, that sort of thing—well, I never claimed to be sexually sophisticated. I got a kind of kick out of using it, and had to finish up quickly before getting a masculine reaction. If I ever write my memoirs, that sort of detail won't be in them, though. Don't we all have thoughts we are ashamed of!
I looked around the room. I had been oblivious to its detail, yesterday—actually this morning, but it seemed like yesterday—but now I was rested and had idle time. The windows had heavy red drapes, and from one of them I could see the big Maracana Stadium. There was a radio but no TV, a big dresser with a mirror, the table with its two chairs-and that was about it for furniture, apart from the bed. Oba was obviously not rich. There were pictures of Saint Lazarus, a leper with two dogs, and Saint Barbara with a sword in one hand and a small castle behind her. That of course reminded me of my remarkable evening.
There was an old Singer sewing machine, one of the non-electric pedal jobs, and a clothing dummy, and bolts of cloth, patterns, spools of thread and such like. She was evidently a seamstress in her spare time, or maybe that was her main occupation. There was a picture of a man, a rather handsome mulatto with curly short black hair and a powerful jawline. Her boyfriend? Then why had she been willing to pick me up? Could be she was merely helpful, a nice girl; best not to presume too much.
Still Oba didn't reappear. What did I know of her, anyway? Maybe she had gone to fetch the Death Squad. No, I had to have some faith; I had tried to help her, and maybe she had a small yen for me, so she helped me back. She'd be home in due course. What the hell. I was no pimp, to lie around being served by a woman. I needed money to buy my passage home, and to repay Oba for her kindness. I had to go out and see how I could earn it. I found a pencil and printed a note on some of the bread-wrapper: OBA—I WILL RETURN. J.S. That should reassure her.
I went out and down the stairs to the central patio. There were a number of people around, and they stared at me, no doubt taking me for Oba's lover. Well, let them take! I made my way to the street and on to a broad avenue going by the stadium. I was careful to note the address so I could find it again.
Soon I was back in the crowd. Again I rode the wave of it knowing it would bring me to where the action was.
And it took me to a major martial arts festival.
Suddenly I knew how to get out of Brazil. Martial arts is my bailiwick.
I entered a large open space. Further along were huge tents, like a circus, and I could hear sideshow barkers calling. But what interested me was up close: a trained fighting bear, and a sign with the figure one thousand cruzeiros. Obviously anyone who could beat the bear would win that prize.
I paused to do some crude calculations: 1,000 cruzeiros—I had to refrain from thinking of them as "crud-zeroes"—would translate into about one hundred and thirty dollars, if I had my exchange ratio straight. An airplane ticket to America would cost me about four hundred dollars—so it wasn't enough. Also, I would need clothing, so the Death Squad spies wouldn't recognize me at the airport, which they surely had staked out. Good Brazilian businessman clothes, probably at least another hundred dollars. Plus some for bribes—hell with that! So I needed a stake of five hundred dollars, and I surely was not going to steal any of it from any voodoo idols. This bear prize could be a start toward that total.
I approached more closely. Actually there were two animal matches; the more popular one was a chimpanzee. It was the chimp who paid one thousand cruz; the bear paid five thousand. That was more like it; I could win my grubstake outright, over six hundred dollars.
But first I watched the chimp. He wore red boxing pants and red boxing gloves, and was much smaller than a man. But the animal was tough. Many men tried it, paying the entry fee of ten cruz—and the chimp beat them all easily. Chimpanzees, like all apes, are much stronger than men.
No one dared even attempt the bear. I knew the odds were much worse for it, but the prize was much bigger to
o. So I paid the entry fee of twenty cruz—praise the voodoo god for Oba's generosity!—and took the ring against the ursine champion. It was a European black bear, six feet tall and over four hundred pounds. Its claws were clipped and it was muzzled, but it remained a monster. Had I not been desperate...
I came in fast with a tai otoshi body drop, hauling the bear over my leg. It staggered but did not fall; its hind legs were too short and its gravity too low for this to be effective. It reared again on its two hind feet and tried to grab me in a bear-hug. This time I went in deep with a ko-soto-gake small outside hook, going into sutemi by throwing myself down along with the bear, carrying it across my hooking leg. This worked; it rolled on its back. However, merely throwing it was not enough, in this match; I actually had to subdue it. So I put a kesa-gatame scarf hold on it, my arm circling its neck, holding it down. But again it was too strong for me, and shaped wrong. I changed to another holddown, kata-gatame, but still it was getting away. So at last I went into a modified hadaka jime strangle from behind. In addition to the pressure of my arms around its neck, I crossed my legs around its waist in an illegal (in contest judo—but this was hardly that!) scissors hold and squeezed as hard as I could. This was a hold not even a bear could break readily, though it certainly tried. I knew it was losing consciousness.
Then a bell clanged. Oh, no! The owner had called the end of the round, and would not let me continue the strangle. I got up. Now I realized that there had been some small print in the terms, that I had not been able to read anyway, so that the bout had to be finished within a short round. I could take my winnings of 1,000 cruz for lasting one round, or go for a second round. And I knew the bear would not allow itself to be caught in that strangle again. With ill grace I accepted my winnings. A few more seconds and I would have won the full prize, but one fifth of a loaf was better than none. I should have known that the rules would be set up to favor the entrepreneur, not the client.
I continued on down the street to the big tents. There was a sign at the largest one, printed in three languages: Portuguese, Japanese, and English. It was a Sumo tournament and exhibition, Japanese wrestling. Anyone could enter by paying the fee, but in this case I knew the rules. Few were entering, for a professional sumo wrestler is an impressive hunk of man, huge and fat and strong.
I needed more money than the truncated bear purse had provided, and that sort of cash was available for the sumo winners. Judo is an excellent all-around martial art, overlapping the techniques of karate, kung fu, aikido and wrestling. Many serious judokas will study other martial arts, to increase proficiency in judo. I had done the same, and one of the arts I had dabbled in was sumo. In fact, one of the things I did in my own dojo was to have my young students strip off their jackets and do sumo. It was good exercise, it made for variety, and it was fun; the kids loved it.
Of course I would be at a disadvantage against a classical sumo wrestler in his own specialty. But I knew there would be no top-ranked sumotori here. Brazil had a sizable colony of Japanese settlers, the largest in Latin America, about half a million, but this was hardly Japan itself. So I figured I had a reasonable chance for the purse.
Actually, I could make my money without reaching the finals. Betting was legal here; all I had to do was bet on myself and win a couple, and I'd have my money. Or, playing it safe, bet half my money, or five hundred cruzeiros. That way if I lost, I'd still have a stake. The five hundred cruz would be about sixty-five dollars, if I won three times and doubled it each time, that would come to, let's see, five hundred and twenty dollars. Just about right, without even risking my other half of the bear winnings. That would be reserved to repay Oba.
So I entered. What did I really have to lose? If I didn't enter, I would be stuck here anyway.
The tournament was inside the big tent, on a raised platform marked with a circle. All around the edges of the tent were hawkers' booths and little sideshows; maybe I would have a chance to look into some of them after the tournament. I'm a sucker for such entertainments, and I was also hungry. The first thing I'd do after this was buy some good ice cream.
But now my first match came up. The object in sumo is to make any part of your opponent touch the ground—other than the soles of his feet, of course—or shove him out of the ring. Kicking, punching, hair-pulling and gouging are forbidden. In sumo, the "ring" really is a ring, about fifteen feet across, with no ropes around the edge, only a white ring on the floor marking the boundary. The platform is supposed to be made from sixteen rice bales, supported by four pillars at the four points of the compass, each painted a different color. This platform was painted, but the floor was wood, not rice. Too bad; I rather appreciated the niceties of tradition.
I had to don a Fundoshi, the tight-fitting black loin cloth. Around my waist was a fat cord of hemp; it was permissible to take hold of this, and it gave good leverage. My opponent wore the same. He was a veritable mountain of flesh; I judged he outweighed me by 150 pounds. No wonder the local boys weren't having much luck!
The judge, or gyoji, was dressed in a brocade kimono. In real sumo there is also a jury of five men, but here it was up to the lone judge.
There were normally a lot of formalities associated with sumo, and combatants could take a long time preparing for a match, though the match itself was usually short. But this was degraded sumo, and the local Brazilian entries were generally so inept that little preparation was required. My opponent had little way of knowing I was different.
The signal for the start of the match came. The sumotori rushed me, thinking to finish me off in the first hustle; after all, all he had to do was grab me and shove me out. That was his mistake; a man too intent on shortcuts is easily trapped. I grabbed his outstretched right arm, braced my left foot against his right knee, and hauled him over in a hiza-guruma knee-wheel throw. His forward impetus sent him flying right out of the ring. So the easy victory was mine, not his.
That trick doubled my money, at least the amount I had bet. Now I had one thousand cruzeiros, plus my Oba's-newshoes reserve. However, it had cost me the element of surprise. The other contestants were quick to recognize my martial arts ability. An amateur does not perform a perfect knee-wheel throw on a professional—not by chance. They would be alert for me now.
My second match was proof of that. It was against another man-mountain, but he did not charge me. He came in cautiously, then suddenly grabbed my neck with both hands. These big men were trained to move very quickly in the ring; never think of a sumotori as a slow hulk.
He was trying to choke me into submission, a legitimate tactic. But the strangle is fundamental to judo, as is the choke. A strangle cuts off the blood to the brain, a choke the air to the lungs. A strangle correctly applied will be effective much more rapidly than a mere choke. I had had many years practice in resisting more competent chokes than this. I tensed my neck muscles—and they were formidable, if I do say so myself—hunched my head down, and resisted his relatively crude effort. My wind was cut off, even so, for he had great strength in his hands, but it would take him two minutes to down me from asphyxiation. Meanwhile, I clamped my own hands to his neck, going for the strangle. I was ready to bet the match that I could outlast him in this particular ploy.
I was right. He lacked the tough neck for this. My thumbs sank in and put pressure on the two nerve centers at the sides of the neck over the carotid arteries. A nerve-strangle is even faster than a blood-strangle. That was it; he fell unconscious. I had my second victory.
That brought my money to two thousand cruzeiros. One more win would do it.
The sumotori of my third match neither charged nor choked. He circled me warily, then reached out, and I caught hold of his right arm. He thought I was going for another forward throw, and braced himself to counter. But I trapped his right arm in my left armpit and turned inward into a waki-gatame arm-lock. The sudden pain made him fall on one knee, costing him the match.
Good enough. Now I could collect my winnings and get out of here.
The rapidity of my victories was not unusual; in sumo it is generally settled very quickly. It is all geared to a quick heave utilizing maximum effort, like weight lifting.
But a large hand clapped my shoulder as I walked toward the partitioned changing-room. The strike was from behind, startling me. "Jason Striker!"
I turned. It was another sumotori, 350 pounds—but this one I recognized. He was a yokozuma, a grand champion of the art, one of the genuine masters. "Kiyokuni!" I exclaimed. "What brings you to Brazil?"
He lowered his eyes. "I am getting old, friend, past my prime. My rank is for life, but my body fades. The competition in Japan, the strong young ones—" He shrugged. "I had to win, for I had gambling debts. Yet I could not."
"You were in debt, yet you traveled to the Americas?" I asked, trying not to make it sound too critical.
"As an entrepreneur," he explained. "I was not ready to untie the traditional knot." He meant the knot of hair tressed on his head. A great champion, ready to quit, untied the knot in public, signifying his retirement. "My friend, the Osensei Hiroshi of Aikido—"
"My friend too," I interjected. I had not realized that these two knew each other—the huge sumo expert and the tiny Aikido expert. Hiroshi had gotten me into this present adventure, as a matter of fact, coming to plead Fu Antos' cause.
"Hiroshi suggested that I organize a troupe of wrestlers like me—too old or too new or recovering from indisposition." Now he meant drug addiction or alcoholism; that has happened to some very good martial artists, unfortunately. One of the greatest judokas of all time, Shiro Saigo, went that sad route. "I borrowed all I could to set it up. Now we tour the world. Though we are not the best Japan has to offer, we are better than any elsewhere. And we perform a valuable service, promoting the art of sumo and educating other people to the Japanese way. We give seminars on the courtesies of martial art and proper technique, and we offer limited instruction for those interested in sumo. Our fees are reasonable, and a man past his competitive prime may remain at his teaching prime much longer."