Forever (64 page)

Now that the call was out of the way, she
was already feeling a little warmer and breathing a lot easier.

Until the next time.

She is getting close. I can't allow her to
get much closer. Lili knew she would soon have to give the order.
Even then, The Ghost would need time to make arrangements, to work
his way to his target.

Death! How ironic, she thought, that death,
the great equaliser, the very fate she refused to succumb to
herself, should be something she looked forward to so eagerly - for
someone else!

Ah, Ms Williams's death would solve so many
problems. Eduardo was spending altogether too much time with her.
He had none left over for his own poor mother!

A smile crossed Lili's beautiful features.
But soon now, that will change. I will have him all to myself
again
, mein schoner Mann, minha homem lindo
, and I will be
rid of that meddling Monica Williams in the process! Then things
will be as they have always been.

Soon. Yes, very very soon . . .

But first, one other minor little detail.
One more bit of icing on the cake. She would have to make it clear
that Ms Williams was to know what hit her. Oh, yes! She had to
suffer. Exquisitely.

How appropriate that the pain will be hers,
but the ecstasy mine!

The old lady was nervous. Like an agitated
ghost, she rode her motorised wheelchair through the
quinta
,
whirring quietly through the hallways and large airy ground-floor
rooms, the shady loggias and sun-dappled patios.

I know what they are up to, Lili and the
Colonel. Even Ernesto does not know the half of it. Why did I, of
all people, have to ever hear this? I don't want to know these
things! I don't want to be a silent partner to their criminal
activities! Yet, I don't dare tell on them, either.

I'm damned if I do and damned if I
don't.

When the quinta walls proved too prisonlike,
Zaza rode outdoors, along the smooth walkways that criss-crossed
the island. But to no avail.

This entire island is one big prison. Oh,
how I hate this place.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The doctor came in, still in her bloodied
surgical greens. She pulled off her surgical cap, shook free a head
of gloriously thick chestnut hair, and shut the door. She looked
over at Eduardo.
'Senhor
de Veiga?' Her voice was a rich,
husky contralto which went well with her striking, classically
chiselled features.

'
Sim
.' Eduardo rose.

'
O meu nome e
Dr Amado,' she said,
taking his hand and shaking it briskly, almost like a man.

'Fala ingles, doutor?
' he asked.

She nodded. 'I did my internship in Miami,'
she replied in perfect, almost accentless English.

'This is Ms Williams,' he said, switching to
English himself. 'The reason I asked is because she does not speak
Portuguese. She is
Senhora
Bezerra's employer.'

Stephanie stepped forward, her eyes
searching the doctor's face. 'How is Astrid?' she asked anxiously.
'Or is it too early to tell?'

Dr Amado said sympathetically, 'I am sorry,
Ms Williams. We did everything we could, but it was too late.
Senhora
Bezerra passed away without regaining
consciousness.'

Stephanie stared at her and thought: No.
Astrid can't be dead. She was fine just this morning.

Eduardo put his arm around her, but she
shrank away from him and sank down on a chair, slack and
open-mouthed, like a marionette whose strings had been cut. 'W-what
. . . kind of accident w-was it?'

Dr Amado went behind her desk, pulled out
her chair, and sat down wearily. She lit a cigarette and inhaled
deeply, tilting her head back to aim the streamer of smoke at the
ceiling. 'Accident?' Her voice was soft, but there was no mistaking
the anger in it. 'What accident?
Senhora
Bezerra suffered
from multiple stab wounds. Stab wounds, Ms Williams! She was
mugged.'

Stab wounds. Stephanie reached out for
Eduardo's hand and clutched it like a lifeline. 'But w-why would
anyone have wanted to h-hurt her?'

'Why?' Dr Amado dragged deep on the
cigarette. 'Why does anyone hurt anyone else? Robbery. Hate. Drugs.
Poverty. Alcohol. Jealousy. Passion. Rage. The thrill of killing.'
She made a bitter gesture. 'There are many reasons people kill each
other, but no excuse.' She shook her head. 'More reasons than there
are stars in the sky.'

Stephanie drew a deep breath. 'Did . . . she
suffer much?'

Dr Amado caught Eduardo signalling with his
eyes. 'No,' she lied softly. 'It was mercifully quick.'

Stephanie nodded listlessly. She looked
small and fragile.

Eduardo said, 'I will have someone make the
necessary arrangements. Our personnel department can pull
Senhora
Bezerra's file to see who to notify as her
next-of-kin.'

The doctor nodded. 'That would be very
helpful.' She paused, then leaned across the desk. 'Ms
Williams?'

'Yes.' There was no inflection in
Stephanie's voice, only weariness.

'I know how difficult this must be for you.
But perhaps you will find a little comfort in the fact that the
senhora
did not die alone.'

Stephanie looked at her questioningly.

'There was a good Samaritan,' Dr Amado
explained. 'A passer-by the ambulance brought in with her. An
American who intervened and tried to help, and who this very minute
is being treated for stab wounds incurred in helping fight off the
assailant.'

Stephanie said, 'I would like to go and
thank him.' She looked up at Eduardo. it's the least we can
do.'

'The very least,' he agreed, nodding. He
looked at Dr Amado. if it is all right with you, Doctor?'

'Of course.' Dr Amado permitted herself a
small smile. 'But don't be surprised when you discover that it is
not a man, but a brave woman. I will take you to see her now.'

She stubbed the cigarette out in a glass
ashtray, pushed back her chair, and got to her feet, leading the
way past all the gurneys to a room three doors down. They went
inside, where she signalled for Stephanie and Eduardo to wait by
the door while she stuck her head between a drawn partition
curtain. They heard her speaking to someone in Portuguese before
switching to English, asking, 'And how are you doing?'

'Feeling like a human pincushion, if you
really wanna know the truth,' a good-natured voice replied. 'Tell
me something, Doc. The way your colleague Dr Frankenstein here is
stitching me up, am I gonna end up looking like a monster?'

'I really don't think you have anything to
worry about. Dr Pinto is an excellent surgeon.' Dr Amado waited a
moment before asking, 'Are you up to having visitors?'

There was a groan. 'Oh, maaaaanl Not the
police again! How many times do I have to talk to them? I already
told them everything I saw!'

'These are not the police; they are friends
of the woman you tried to save.' She twitched the privacy curtain
open. 'This is Ms Williams and Senhor de Veiga.'

The doctor's stepping aside gave Stephanie
her first glimpse of the hero.

She certainly didn't look like the type who
could defend herself, let alone indulge in heroics. She was in her
twenties. A lithe, petite black woman with a style all her own. She
had skin the colour of pale mahogany and black hair sprouting like
feathers up out of an embroidered silk headband. Sitting up on the
examining table, she wore a loose tunic dress made of a greyish
Fortuny-type crinkle-pleat and tensed her legs as Dr Pinto pushed
the big needle through the ugly red gash on her upper left arm. A
shoulder bag was on a chair beside the table, along with a pair of
designer sunglasses with a cracked lens. Her moderately heeled
shoes were grey and had a broken heel.

Stephanie stepped forward. 'Hi!' she said
brightly. 'I hear you're quite the hero.'

The black woman's face lit up. 'Hey! You
speak English - like a real American yet!'

'That's because I am one.'

'Hot diggety dog!' The woman's eyes shone
brightly. 'Nice to meet a fellow countryman.' She held out her good
right hand. 'My name's Barbaralynn Harris, but my friends all call
me Barbie. Just like the doll.' Her laughter was rich and
infectious and bubbled up from deep in her throat. 'I figure, now
all I gotta do is find me a stud by the name of Ken and I'm all
set!'

Stephanie took an immediate liking to her.
There was something genuine and earthy about her. She said, 'The
reason Eduardo and I dropped by, Barbie, was to thank you for what
you did.'

Barbie started to say something, then
clicked her teeth together and tensed her legs. Stephanie cringed
and averted her face as the needle went through the knife wound
again. Barbie must have had twenty stitches on that arm already,
and it looked as if she had another twenty or so coming. It was an
ugly, ugly slash.

Now that the needle was through, Barbie
relaxed. 'You and the lady that was mugged,' she asked, 'you
related?'

Stephanie shook her head. 'She worked for
us. She was a very nice lady.' Barbie's lips suddenly began to
quiver. 'I'm sorry I wasn't more help.' Tears welled up in her eyes
and she quickly turned her head away.

'Hey . . .' Stephanie said softly. She laid
a hand gently on Barbie's good arm. 'You got involved and tried to
do something, and that's more than most people would have done!
From what Dr Amado tells us, you were incredibly brave.'

'Very, very brave,' Dr Amado agreed.

'Or stupid, right?' Barbie, turned back to
Stephanie and smiled wryly.

'Or stupid,' Stephanie agreed with an
answering smile, 'though personally I think courage had far more to
do with it than stupidity.'

Seeing how well Stephanie and Barbie were
getting along, Dr Amado said, 'I will leave you to get acquainted.
If you need me, I'll be in my office.'

After the doctor was gone, Stephanie asked,
'I take it you're in Rio on vacation?'

Now that she had some distraction, Barbie
was tensing less and less as Dr Pinto stitched. 'What I'm really
doing is testing the waters,' she explained. 'Trying to see if I'd
like living down here.'

'Do you think you will?'

'It's still too early to tell. What
happened, I was part of a nightclub act on a cruise ship, and when
we put into Rio, I went ashore and it was like ... I had this
revelation! Barbie's eyes shone with a fervent kind of intensity.
'I saw so many black people here! And so many others of mixed
races! After encountering the prejudice I had in the States, I
thought: maybe I'd fit in better down here. So the ship sailed on
without me, and here I am!'

'Did you find work yet?'

Barbie smiled. 'I tried out for the mulatas
shows at Oba-Oba and Pataforma I, but showgirls and dancers are a
dime a dozen down here. I swear the competition's fiercer than in
Las Vegas or Atlantic City! And it's even tougher when you don't
speak the language. I did get an appointment to audition at
Scala-Rio, the biggest club in town.'

'How'd it go?'

'It didn't, because I never got to it,'
Barbie said grimly. 'I was on my way there, and was just a few
blocks away when I heard your friend's screams and . . .' Her voice
toughened. 'Well, that's spilt milk, and like my Mamma used to say,
ain't no use crying over it!'

Stephanie watched as Dr Pinto expertly tied
the last suture. 'For dancing,' she told Barbie thoughtfully, 'you
need to move your arms as well as your legs.'

'Not to mention showing them all off to
advantage. I know,' Barbie gloomed, 'believe me I know.'

She twisted her head in the opposite
direction, looked down at her arm, and winced. Then she turned back
to Stephanie and her tone brightened.

'But the Doc said it'll heal fast. All I
gotta do is make ends meet for another few weeks, watch I don't put
on weight, and I'll be fine. By then, I'll have to find a job fast.
Inflation the way it is down here, the price of everything just
seems to keep doubling overnight.'

'But without an income,' mused Stephanie,
'will you be able to hold out that long?'

'I'll manage!' A strange kind of pride came
into Barbie's voice.

Barbie's fierce dignity tugged at Stephanie.
She turned to Eduardo. 'Can we, ah, talk for a moment?' she asked
him quietly.

'I'm listening,' he said. 'What is it?'

She turned him around and gave him a little
push towards the door. 'We'll powwow in private.'

Outside in the hall, where the moans of
agony and grunts of pain sounded like the language of some
primitive pagan tribe, Stephanie shut the door to the room.
'Eduardo,' she said without preamble, 'we have to do
something.'

'Such as?' he asked.

She put both hands on her hips. 'Such as
we've got to help her! If Barbie hadn't tried to save Astrid, she
might have got that job. For certain, she'd be able to dance today.
Now it'll be some weeks before she can. You saw that ugly slash in
her arm.'

'Yes, but she won't accept charity. You can
tell she is too proud for that.'

Stephanie's voice was soft. 'I wasn't
thinking along the lines of charity.'

'What, then? A reward?'

'No.' Stephanie shook her head. 'She would
only construe that as charity. I'm thinking about giving her
something more practical, such as a job.'

He smiled. 'Since when do you need the
services of a dancer?'

She wasn't amused. 'I'm thinking that for
the time being, she could take over Astrid's position as my
housekeeper. Just until she can find work dancing.'

He stared at her. 'You are joking, of
course.'

Determination gave her face a kind of
blazing Amazonian strength. 'I've never been more serious.'