By the time we reached Belém, the port city in Brazil, we all knew it was going to be a bust. Even Tony, who was almost as greedy as Flanagan. But we had no choice at that point, we had to go through with it.

We hired a river boat to take us to this place called "The Island of Innocence." We knew from the name that it was going to be a wild place. The boat cost us a fortune. It didn't matter which one we used, as soon as they saw what we were transporting, they tripled their price. Flanagan was going to lose his shirt on this one. It took days to get there.

"No description," said Sabrina.

"Huh?"

"He just took a ship to Brazil, then a multiple-day trip down river. Where's the description? Did he not notice his surroundings? He could have added so much to the book with a little description."

There was no doubt in my mind that the quality of writing in the book was annoying Sabrina.

The trouble started when we met Vlad. He was a little older than us—probably around thirty—and caught a ride with us down river. Thinking back, he planned it. He was waiting for the right group of lunks to come along to help him pull a job. When he saw us, he knew he'd found them. We were a little desperate. We knew we were going to go back to Flanagan empty-handed, and none of us wanted that. So on the second day on the river when he brought up the job, our ears perked up. Especially Tony, but I can't blame him alone. Vlad told a good story. His English was good, but his Russian accent was a little hard to understand at times. Even so, he had us, and he knew he did.

So the story was this (at least, this is what he told us. I came to find out that there was more to it than what he let on): It was all about eggs. That's right, eggs. He wouldn't go into any more detail than that, except to say that they were valuable. Someone in Fordlandia (yeah, can you imagine naming a town that?) had some valuable eggs, and Vlad needed help stealing them. Eggs! Were they from a golden chicken or something? To this day I've never seen them, so I have no idea what made them so valuable. Bruce thought they were maybe dinosaur eggs, but Bruce was a little soft in the head. I liked him. He was a good guy. Just a little soft. Like me, I don't think he was cut out for a life of crime.

"Sounds like a Honeycutt," I said.

Anyway, so this guy we were supposed to steal them from was also a Russian. He was some bigwig there, so he lived in one of the big houses. Vlad said he couldn't do it alone. He needed help. He said the guy who hired him would pay us a fortune for them. At first we thought it would be a way for Flanagan to make money on this deal, but then we all thought, "Fuck Flanagan. He doesn't have to know."