Carioca Fletch (22 page)

It seemed everyone was trying to lay a hand on Campos. With tremendous skill, ducking and dancing, he kicked free of the crowd.

He turned and ran up the path.

Shouting, young men ran after him. Tripping over each other, almost all the men and children who had been following Fletch joined the pursuit. Yelling, some lifting their skirts up, many of the women pursued Gabriel Campos as well.

Shrieking
Gabriel Campos! Gabriel Campos!
tall old Idalina Barreto went after him in her rapid, sturdy pace, losing ground in the midst of this marathon.

Fletch sat on a nearby rock.

Dor de estomago … de cabeca … febre … nausea
.

A few meters away, Laura Soares was in a group of women from the
favela
. They were all talking at once. Most of them were pregnant and therefore could not join in the pursuit of Gabriel Campos.

Laura was asking questions. She kept looking across at Fletch.

Higher up in the
favela
, the chase was still going on. On a road along a ridge, Fletch saw Gabriel Campos running between the houses. Easily one hundred people were streaming after him. He had a good lead on them.

Idalina Barreto’s high, shrill shriek dominated all other sounds. “
Gabriel Campos! Gabriel Campos
!”

From somewhere down in the depths of the
favela
came the sound of a samba drum.

After a while, Laura came over to Fletch. She stood over him a moment without speaking.

Fletch said, “I’m awfully tired. And I still have to call Sergeant Barbosa of the Rio police.”

Laura said, “His name is Gabriel Campos.”

“I heard.” He looked up to where Idalina Barreto was. The old lady had climbed far fast. “I hear.”

“The women say he was your friend when you were boys. He, one other boy, and the Gomes brothers. Who are the Gomes brothers?”

“Idalina’s brothers.”

“See?” she said. “You do know.”

“I was told, Laura. Yesterday. I was told.”

“You taught them all the skill of
capoeira
. Of everyone, Gabriel learned the best. After you were killed, he was master of the
capoeira
school of
Escola
Santos Lima. For years, he was famous for it. One year, he was even
Mestre Sala
.”

“I see. He wanted Janio—his teacher—out of the way.”

“He was placed on the board of directors of the samba school.”

“He would never have had such honors if Janio were alive.”

Laura made some sign in the dust with the tip of her sandal.

“I must get sleep.” High in the
favela
, the pursuit, the shouting continued. Fletch said, “I wonder what they will do with him.”

“I don’t want to know. How, why did you pick out Gabriel Campos? You must tell me.”

“You mean, did Gabriel Campos murder Janio Barreto forty-seven years ago?”

“Did he?”

“I don’t know.” Beyond exhaustion, Fletch stood up from the rock. “But I do know that, disguised as a goat, last night he tried to slit my throat.”

“I forget if you said if you have ever been to New Bedford, Massachusetts.” Sergeant Paulo Barbosa asked.

“No,” Fletch said into the phone. He sat heavily on his bed in The Hotel Yellow Parrot. “I have never been to New Bedford, Massachusetts.”

Laura had gotten Sergeant Barbosa on the line. Placing the call had seemed too complicated to Fletch in his sleepless condition.

“It is very nice in New Bedford, Massachusetts,” Sergeant Barbosa told him again. “Much too cold, of course, for me. When you go back to your country, you must visit New Bedford, Massachusetts.” Fletch noticed the presumption that sooner or later everyone does go back to his country. It was the same presumption Idalina’s father made of Janio Barreto. “You must visit my cousin’s gift shop in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She has everything in her gift shop that every other gift shop has.”

“All right.” Fletch’s head was nodding. “I promise.”

“That would be very nice. Now, about that North American woman you lost…”

Fletch’s eyes popped open. “Yes?”

“I don’t think we have found her.”

“Oh.”

“What we have is a telephone call from the mayor of a very small town on the coast, south of here three hundred kilometers. The town of Botelho. It is very nice there. Very sealike. It is on the ocean. You should visit there anyway.”

“Yes,” Fletch said drowsily. “I’ll visit there, too. I promise I will.”

Laura was pulling the drapes closed against the sunlight. She had already stripped for bed.

“The mayor of Botelho said that on the weekend, Saturday, I
think it was, a North American woman showed up there in Botelho.”

“Perhaps somebody told her she should visit.”

“Very likely. It is a nice place. I have taken my wife and children there.”

“Did you have a nice time?”

“A very nice time.”

“Good.”

“The mayor said this woman just wandered around for the afternoon by herself, on the beach and so forth, you know?”

“An American tourist—”

“After dark, she went into the very excellent seafood restaurant they have there. I brought my wife and children to eat there.”

Kneeling before him, Laura was taking off Fletch’s sneakers and socks.

“Was it good?”

“Excellent. This woman ate her dinner.”

“A North American woman tourist went to a small resort town—”

“Botelho.”

“Botelho, yes. Spent the afternoon on the beach and then had dinner in a seafood restaurant.”

“Yes, that’s right. After dinner, she said nothing. Instead of paying she went straight into the kitchen and began washing dishes.”

Laura pushed Fletch onto his back and began taking off his shorts.

“That’s not Joan Collins Stanwyk.”

“She’s been there ever since. Two days. Washing dishes. Eating. The man who owns the restaurant has given her a little bed to use.”

“Joan Collins Stanwyk never washed a dish in her life. She wouldn’t know how.”

“She is a blonde North American or English lady. She speaks no Portuguese.”

“How old is she?”

Kneeling over him on the bed, Laura was taking off his shirt. The telephone wire went through the sleeve.

“Quite young, the mayor says. Slim. In her twenties. Maybe her mid-twenties.”

“Sounds to me like some female derelict from the Florida Keys washed up on a Brazilian beach.”

“Botelho. The beach is very nice there.”

“I’m sure.” Laura was sliding Fletch’s legs under the sheet. “Why did the mayor of Botelho call the Rio police about this lady?”

“Saturdays a tour bus from Copacabana hotels stops in Botelho. The mayor thought she might have gotten off the bus. So he called this police station. He asked if we were looking for a murderess of her description.”

“A murderess?”

“Truth, he doesn’t know where she came from. Or why. Botelho is a small town. He is a small mayor.”

Finally in his bed, to sleep, Fletch thought a moment. Then he said, “I don’t think so, Sergeant. Joan Collins Stanwyk didn’t have any cash on her, but she is a wealthy, responsible lady, a lady of great dignity. She has many options open to her. All the options in the world. I can’t see her ever going to a resort and getting a job washing dishes in a fish-and-chips joint.”

“Fish-and-chips? Ah, you are speaking London English.”

“Anyway, Joan Collins Stanwyk is in her thirties.”

“I didn’t think this would be the lady.”

“I’m sure it’s not.”

“Topsy-turvy. Do you remember what I said about topsyturvy?”

“In fact, I do.”

“This is a very topsy-turvy world. Twenty-seven years I have served with the Rio police. Believe me, I have seen topsyturvy.”

“I’m sure you have. Thanks for being in touch with me, Sergeant.”

Laura was in the bed beside Fletch.

“So,” she said, “they have not found the woman you are looking for.”

“No. Just some English-speaking woman has showed up washing dishes in some fish restaurant down the coast.”

Into the dark, Laura said, “The police just want you to think they are doing something about the disappeared lady.”

“Probably.” He turned on the bedside light.

“What are you doing?”

“Just calling The Hotel Jangada,” Fletch said. “See if she has returned.”

“Want me to help you?”

“This one I can do myself,” he said. “I’ve been practicing.”

At The Hotel Jangada, Room 912 did not answer.

The desk clerk said Mrs Joan Collins Stanwyk had not checked out.

Nor had she picked up the note Fletch had left for her.

Fletch—

I could not wake you up.

I tried and tried. A few times I thought you were awake, because you were talking. What you said made no sense. Did you know you talk in your sleep?

You said you were on a big white riverboat, and the sky was full of buttocks.

You said you had your goat, or someone was trying to get your goat. You seemed afraid of a kicking goat. Then, remarkably, you babbled on about an ancient Brazilian mythical figure, the dancing nanny goat.

How do you know about such things? Sometimes, when you were talking in your sleep, your eyes were open, which is why I thought I was succeeding in waking you. You said
something about a man with his feet turned backward, another mythical figure, and when I asked, “Fletch, do you mean the
capoeira?”
you just stared off like some sort of a
almapenada
, a soul in torment. You also mentioned other Brazilian hobgoblins, the man with his head on backward, the headless mule, and the goblin with-hair-for-hands. You talked about being pursued by a one-legged boy, and when I asked, “Fletch, do you mean the
saci-perêrê
?” you stared a long time before saying, “Janio Barreto … Janio Barreto….”

Amazing thing is, you didn’t know the names of any of these Brazilian scary figures. You seemed to be seeing them in some sort of a nightmare. You were sweating profusely. Do you think you had a fever? I am amazed you have such bad dreams of such hobgoblins, like a Brazilian child, when you have never heard of them or read of them, as far as I know.

Later, when I tried again to wake you, you said, “Leave the dead alone!”

Maybe you frightened me. A little.

I canceled our reservation for dinner at Le Saint Honoré. I gave our tickets to the ball at Regine’s to Marilia, who gave them to some people she knows from Porto Alegre.

Your body is a real mess.

I decided what you need is rest.

I have gone back to Bahia. Carnival is almost over, for this year. I must start organizing my music for the concert tour.

Perhaps you would come to Bahia and advise me of what music you think should be included in the programme.

Now maybe my father will be interested in talking to you—now that he knows you have studied up on such things as the
boi-tatá
and the
tutu-marambá

Ciao
,

  Laura

Fletch had awakened into bright sunlight. He was very hungry. He was very stiff. His body was sticky with sweat.

For a long moment, he thought it was still Monday afternoon and the sun had not yet set.

“Laura?” The hotel room was totally quiet. There was no noise from the bathroom. “Laura?”

From the bed, he noticed that her cosmetics, all those bottles which issued smells if not beauty, were gone from the bureau. None of her clothes were around the room. Her suitcase was gone from the rack.

His watch was on the bedside table. It read five minutes past eleven. Even in a topsy-turvy world, the sun did not shine brightly at five minutes past eleven on Monday nights.

Slowly it dawned on him it must be five minutes past eleven Tuesday morning.

He had slept seventeen hours.

Having to ask individually each part of his body to move, he got up from his bed and walked across the room.

Instead of Laura’s cosmetics on the bureau was Laura’s letter.

He read it twice.

Had he really talked so much in his sleep, said all those things to Laura? What’s a
boi-tatá
and a
tutu-marambá
Indeed, he must have frightened her.

Vaguely, he remembered having bad dreams. The boy, Janio Barreto, was following them down that crowded, dark slum street to Carnival Parade. In bright floodlights, Fletch was hunkered down in a swirling mass of bodies, brown eyes popping in surprise at seeing him there, being kicked from every direction. Again he was under the stands at Carnival, where he did not belong, looking through his own blood at a man walking by slowly, his head on backward, turning to smile at him….

In the bathroom, he tore the bandages off himself. Scabs had formed nicely. Red marks had turned purple, and purple marks had turned black.

Hadn’t Laura seen the big white riverboat floating sedately down the stream of swirling costumes? Hadn’t that been real?

Gingerly, adding no more cuts to his face, Fletch shaved.

Janio Barreto following them through the subway to Carnival Parade had meant something to Laura it had not meant to him. What had her letter said?
Saci-perêrê
. What’s a
saci-perêrê

The warm water of the shower felt good on his body. The soap did not feel so good on some of his wounds.

In fact, Laura had not really asked him what happened to him under the stands at Carnival Parade. She thought anyone can tell a story and say it is the past. Even after his pointing out Gabriel Campos at Santos Lima, she did not really ask. She only asked how, why he pointed out Gabriel Campos.

He did not dry himself after the shower. Instead, he just wrapped the towel around his waist. The air felt too good on his wet body.

His mind a jumble, he went out onto the balcony. A small samba combo was playing, probably outside a nearby café. Across the utility area, the man was still painting the room.

Laura thought it was funny the Tap Dancers had left him in a closed coffin with his bag of money. He had seen Norival Passarinho walk after he was dead. On broomsticks, his ankles tied to the ankles of Toninho and Orlando. Then Fletch had seen Norival Passarinho really walk after he was dead, really talk. Adroaldo Passarinho. Well it
was
funny.