Read Online Captains of the Sands by Jorge Amado - Free Book Online Page B

package is full of perfume. It’s what the other one has we’ve got to get.”
    He made a sign for the two of them to wait on the other side of the street, went over to the main gate of the house. As soon as he was there a huge dog came up barking. Pedro Bala tied a rope around the lock in the gate while the dog ran back and forth barking softly. Then he called the other two:
    “You,” he pointed to Cat, “stay here on the street to give the alarm if anyone comes. You, João, come in with me.”
    They climbed up the bars of the fence. Pedro Bala pulled on the bolt with the rope and the gate opened. Cat had gone to the corner. The dog, when he saw the gate open, rushed into the street and rummaged in a garbage can. Pedro Bala and Big João jumped over the wall, closed the gate so the dog couldn’t get in, went on in through the trees. In the lighted window of the house the shape of the woman continued pacing. Big João said in a low voice:
    “I feel sorry for her.”
    “Who told her to go to bed with other men…?”
    The black boy remained near the house to pass on a signal from Cat if someone was coming. They had special whistles for such cases. Pedro Bala went around the house, reached the kitchen. The door was open, the same as the one to the room over the garage. Before going up the stairs that led to the room, however, Pedro peeked into the kitchen door. There was a light in the pantry and a man playing solitaire. “It must be that servant,” Pedro thought and quickly withdrew to the garage stairway. He went up two steps at a time and entered the man’s room. There wasn’t any light. Pedro closed the door, lighted a match. There was only a bed, a trunk, and a coatrack against the wall. The match went out but Pedro was already on top of the bed, which he went over with his hands. Then he looked under the mattress. There wasn’t anything there either. He got off the bed then and without making any sound went over to the trunk. He lifted the lid, lighted a match that he held in his teeth. He went through the clothes carefully, there wasn’t anything. He spat out the match (then hethought that maybe the man didn’t smoke and put it in his pocket) and went over to the coatrack. Nothing in the pockets of the clothes hanging there. Pedro Bala lighted another match, looked all over the room.
    “The man must have them. They’ve got to be there.”
    He opened the door of the room, went down the stairs. He reached the kitchen door, the man was still sitting there. Then Pedro Bala noticed that he was sitting on top of the package. A tip was showing under the man’s leg. Pedro thought that everything was lost. How was he going to get the package from under the man’s leg? He went out the kitchen door to where Big João was. Only if he and João attacked the man. But there’d be a lot of hollering and everybody would know about the robbery. And the man who’d hired them didn’t want to hear about anything like that. Suddenly he got an idea. He went over close to where he’d left João, whispered softly. Big João came right away. Pedro spoke very softly:
    “Look, Big Boy, that servant there is sitting on top of the package. You go to the street door, ring the bell, and then disappear. It’s so the man will get up and I’ll snatch the package. But scram out right away so the man doesn’t see you, he’ll think he was dreaming. Give me enough time to get to the kitchen.”
    He went quickly back to the kitchen door. A minute later the bell rang. The servant got up hurriedly, buttoned his jacket, and went to the front of the house through the hall, where he turned on a light. Pedro Bala went into the pantry, switched the packages, and ran off to the edge of the estate. He leaped over the fence, whistled for Cat and Big João. Cat came right away. But Big João didn’t appear. They went back and forth looking but the black boy didn’t appear. Pedro began to get nervous, thinking that the servant might have