Meanwhile Horton had made it back to the Lagoon Club.
'Get me a drink' he barked at Trixiebell, the large breasted feminist cocktail waitress. (When she burned her bra it took the fire department four days to put it out!!)
'Mind if I join you?' said a familiar voice.

'Well you might ask laddie' said the Chief, in his native Perthshire brogue. 'You didn't think I'd let you get away, did you? I've got this town sewn up tighter than a hooker's skirt.'
The Chief knew that it was pointless trying to explain. A glaze formed over his eyes as he wandered back to his childhood in Scotland during WWII. Those were hard times but they forged the iron character that now sat sipping laphroig. He smiled as he remembered his widowed mother being courted by a sargeant in the US Army. She would paint a line on the back of her legs with Marmite so it looked like she was wearing stockings. A masterpiece of social trompe l'oeil.

And the Chief retired from the Force. He opened a small Investigations Agency in the wrong part of town.

The Millennium had come and with it came changes. Life was not easy for the Chief in his new vocation. Days without work were commonplace. It was on one of these days, when his wallet was flat as the tyres on his straight eight Buick and the landlord was knocking louder than the hooker upstairs and he was about to hide from him inside a bottle of cheap bourbon, when SHE walked in. What a Broad. She had legs - he counted them. Then he counted them again. He looked her up and down, she was just as hot both ways.

She had been shoe-horned into a little black velvet number. Her raven hair cascaded over her shoulders. More hair than a builder's cleavage. She was half Australian, half Chinese, not fancy but more style than a farmer's wall and her body threw more curves than Babe Ruth.

'Thats history,' she said, referring to her very public affaire de coeur with Horton 'since you put him away for thirty years. My Argentinian boy is cheating on me.' she added without emotion. 'Here's the address. I want photos.'

Then she was gone, but not before flashing a smile forged on the anvil of seduction and tempered in the oil of passion .The Chief knew what was on offer it was just a question of whether...

The next day was hot, too hot . The heat hung over the eastside like a six dollar suit on a one eyed fatman and the Chief was sweating in places he didn't know he had places. He'd been standing on the side walk like a hooker outside the Vatican when he saw Him. The guy was dressed to kill.

'I knew it!' he muttered 'Buffem Tool Company!'

Buffem tool, Louisiana, Missouri, supposedly out of business, were in fact alive and well in Argentina.

'Indian good luck charm my ass!' spat the Chief. He fell in behind the Malvinas stealing gigolo and called the Marples boys. 'We're back in business. I've got a lead on the Buffem crowd, but hurry, he's as thin as a racing snake and twice as fast.'

The trail led all the way to Buenos Aires. The chief stepped out of the airport into the heat and was greeted by a vision. He was no stranger to beautiful women, unlike the Marples boys whose only expectations in that department was a heartbeat and a full set of limbs, and they were prepared to compromise on the limbs. Here was a beautiful woman but also a hard woman. A woman who would eat you up and spit you out without breaking her stride. The sort of woman who could make a man run roughshod over moral dogmas and rent asunder the shackles of sexual convention. In short a powerful bewitching, teasing temptress dovetailed into designer denim and more dangerous than a pit-bull on a diet.

ëI was told you needed help to find Rico?í she murmured. The words floated into the chiefís ears and tuned his brain into a furnace. ëThatís right, its urgentí he replied, ëcome with me thení she whispered. As if he had a choice!

They found themselves in the doorway of an old house that sagged like a broken smile. Suddenly a lavender í59 Cadillac fishtailed out of a side street and caroomed off a kerb. A hubcap chased a stray dog up the road. Her name was Rio and they were waiting for Carlos who would lead them to Rico.

'No funny stuff Senor, the only way you'll end up lying next to me is if we are run down by the same car'

The Chief reached for his Scotch pattern Mathieson springlock......but it was too late. A tall, thin man with breath like an airplane breakfast was pointing a rosewood boatsway into his face.

'Don't even think about it', he purred. 'Drop it, I'm much cleverer than you!'

The Chief didn't need encouraging, he had learned long ago that the three things you should always avoid were, a strange dog, a flood and a man that thought he was wise. The lights of the factory blinded them as they were forced inside. The guy with the tuxedo smiled the smile of a man with more sides to him than a Rubiks cube. The cigarette woman stared at the Chief, and he recognised her from La Ropa Vieja in Miami.

'We meet again.' She smirked ,in a voice that oozed illicit bedroom fun. La Ropa Vieja, the Chief daydreamed, a fabulous restaurant in Little Habana, and he was a good judge. He was a man who only ate in places where the port was four years older than the chef. Reality snapped back.

Their hands were freed, and then it hit the Chief like a Frenchman's breath after lunch, Carlos was Rico!!

'I see you understand', smirked the cigarette woman, 'but don't worry we will explain when we get to Brazil!'

The Chief's mind went into overdrive as he tried to piece the jigsaw together. C.I.A.! of course, the cigarette babe had Langley written all over her. There had always been a whisper back in Miami that this surgically enhanced, trawlerman's daughter from Seattle was government, moreover Carlos/Rico was American, not the kind, mind you that the Chief liked. To him an American was a good, redblooded guy who got up in the morning, drank Maxwell House with a Marlboro, ate toasted Wonderbread and went to work in a Chevy. This guy was about as sincere as the Mayor of Tinseltown, who lived in a world where money wasn't even a currency. The Chief glanced at a confused Rio, her looks put a pause in his heart.

'Destination Brazil', announced Rico, 'it will all become clear, I assure you we are on the same side'.

The Chief had his doubts ..... they left for Rio de Janeiro.

Varig flight 168 tumbled down the runway. The chief tried not to think of the fact that 'maintenance' to a South American Airline was normally limited to ex-wives, but soon he was asleep ...... he was back in Miami, eating at La Carreta with Rio, walking hand in hand down Calle Ocho, watching model wannabees in skimpy bathing suits rollerblading down Ocean Drive .....

The Tom Jobim Airport arrived with a jolt. Within a suspiciously short time they were through immigration and sitting at the roof bar of the Caesar Park Hotel in Ipanema. Everyone drank Caiperhinas, even the Chief, despite Guiness being his preferred breakfast cocktail......