by Paul Kenyon
"Allow me to present the Baroness Penelope St. John-Orsini.
Penelope could feel hundreds of eyes upon her as the General took her hand. "Muito prater, Senhora," he said. "Are you here for Carnival?"
On the fringes of the crowd, Penelope caught sight of Silvio. His face was livid with fury, the blue mask crumpled in his hand. This was the high point of the ball, the one that would be mentioned tomorrow in O Globo and A Notícia. And Heidrig had introduced her to the President of Brazil as if she were his woman.
They chatted for a few minutes, then the general moved into the crowd, shaking a hand here, clapping a shoulder there. Hard-eyed security men followed his moves, scanned the costumed guests. The general had a ritual glass of champagne, then left with his entourage. He was barely out of the room when the orchestra struck up a lively rhumba. People started chattering. The dance floor came alive.
Heidrig was looking at her speculatively. He seemed to make up his mind. "Penelope," he said. "My dear Baroness. I shall be returning to my fazenda early next week. I would be delighted if you would accompany me for a visit."
Penelope tried to keep the elation out of her face. She put on a show of reluctance. "Herr Heidrig…"
"Wilhelm."
"Wilhelm. I have so much to do in Rio. Fashion interviews. Location scouting. A shooting session on Sugar Loaf…"
He took her hand. "But you cannot spend all your time in Rio. You must see the real Brazil. The interior. The jungle. My fazenda — it was built during Portuguese colonial days. A few days only! If you are in search of inspiration for your magazine, you must come!"
Penelope leaped into the opening. "A Portuguese colonial-style fazenda." She pretended to meditate. "It would make a marvelous backdrop for pictures. May I bring my crew?"
Heidrig hesitated. He had gone too far. Penelope had seen him start at the word "pictures." He said, with a weak smile, "Ah, unfortunately my facilities are limited. And there is not enough space in my airplane for so many extra passengers…"
Penelope didn't want to scare him off. She said in a wheedling tone, "But Wilhelm, I can't travel without my hairdresser. And I absolutely can't be away from my fashion consultant for all that time. If I can't take pictures, I at least have to plan the assignments with him."
"A hairdresser… ja. And your fashion consultant." He became expansive. "I can refuse you nothing, my dear."
Penelope relaxed. At least that would get Sumo inside the walls. And the «hairdresser» — who should it be? She decided on Inga. Inga wouldn't like being separated from Eric, but she was physically the strongest of the three girls, and she had a couple of special skills that might come in handy in a pinch.
Heidrig was looking uneasy. She decided to give him something else to think about.
"And my dogs," she said. "I can't leave my poor little puppies behind! They'd pine away!"
Heidrig inhaled sharply and opened his mouth. Then a forced smile appeared on his lips and he said, "Ja, of course, my dear. You may bring your dogs." Penelope smiled her gratitude. Heidrig was in for a surprise. He was probably expecting a pair of Pekinese or mop-sized Yorkshire Terriers.
Heidrig had both her hands in his now. They smiled at one another. Neither of them saw Silvio approach.
"I think it's time to leave, Baroness," Silvio's voice said in her ear. His grip was ircn hard on her elbow. He turned and faced Heidrig deliberately as he said, "This party is rather dull, don't you think?"
Heidrig's nostrils beneath the mask grew pinched and white with fury. He said, "Perhaps the lady prefers to remain."
"The lady is with me," Silvio said coldly. "I have decided to take her home."
Heidrig faced Silvio, one hand beneath the floppy lace cuff clenching and unclenching into a fist. Two burly men in periwigs and blue knee breeches, Heidrig's bodyguards, edged unobtrusively forward.
Penelope fluttered her eyelids and tried to look helpless. "Wilhelm," she said, "please forgive Silvio for his rudeness."
Silvio's face grew a shade darker. A vein bulged at his forehead. "Are you coming or aren't you?"
The two bodyguards took another step forward. One of them had a hand in the pocket of his breeches, moving as though he were slipping on a pair of brass knuckles. Silvio hadn't noticed them yet.
Penelope gave Heidrig a sunny smile. "I'm having such a good time," she said in her Worthington accent, "I think I'll stay a while."
Without a word, Silvio turned on his heel and stalked angrily out of the ballroom. The two guards made as if to follow him, but Heidrig, with a small gesture of his hand, stopped them. He turned to Penelope.
"I regret this little scene," he said. "You see the perils of associating with fools. Do you intend to see him again?"
Penelope gave him an inviting smile. She pushed the voluptuous shapes of her breasts in his direction. "No," she said, "I don't think so."
Chapter 9
Silvio called early next morning. The bedside phone jangled her out of sleep, and she had barely managed a yawn and an "Alo?" when she heard Silvio's cheerful voice in her ear.
"Ah, Penelope, I'm glad you're up. What time shall I collect you for lunch?"
"Lunch?" She sat upright, the sheet falling away from her breasts. "Where did you get the idea that we were having lunch together?"
He rushed blandly on, as if the scene she'd stageman-aged the night before hadn't happened. "It's the last day of Carnival. We have a lot to do. We'd better start early. I'll pick you up at twelve sharp. Meio-dia."
She couldn't help laughing. "Silvio, you're irrepressible!"
"Of course," he agreed. "Wear something pretty for me."
She thought it over. She couldn't risk spoiling the contact with Heidrig. She really ought to cut Silvio off with cold finality — right now, before things developed any further. But she wasn't due to leave with Heidrig for his estate for a few more days. And Silvio was such fun to be with. She could manage a last fling without Heidrig finding out.
"After last night, I ought to say no," she said.
"But you won't," he said confidently. "Twelve o'clock. I have something important to tell you."
"About what?"
"About Heidrig. And myself."
Penelope felt her skin tingle. If there was a serious breach between Silvio and Heidrig, she owed it to her team and the mission to encourage a few confidences.
"Twelve o'clock," she told him.
He took her to lunch at a German-style restaurant called the Bierklause. It was all dark paneling and zither music and stagshorns on the walls. "One of my favorite places," he said. "I thought I'd show you my German side for a change."
"You mean you've been misleading me? All the time I've been thinking of you is a true Carioca."
"Just in bed," he laughed. "My stomach remains German. Most of the German colony here in Rio come to the Bierklause."
Penelope pushed her sauerbraten around her plate. "You said you had something to tell me."
"That's right. I have been misleading you."
"Oh?"
"I'm not exactly what I seem to be."
"You're trying to tell me that you work for Wilhelm Heidrig, is that it?"
He looked startled. "Good God, no! I despise Heidrig, and everything he stands for!"
"You seemed fairly chummy when you introduced me to him."
He took a sip of his Brahma beer, wiped the foam from his lips. "That's part of the social life in the German colony here. You can't get away from it. But we're not all like Heidrig. Heidrig is a swine. Do you know that one of his jobs as second-in-command under Himmler was to 'inspect' the concentration camps, make sure they were up to SS standard. Make sure they were killing off enough inmates. He used to organize rabbit hunts. Order a prisoner to start running, then set the dogs on him. Stand around laughing while the dogs tore him to pieces."
Silvio's voice was rising. He had attracted the attention of a man sitting a few tables away — a stocky, muscular, sixtyish man with a bald, bullet-shaped head a
nd a jagged scar down one cheek. He turned away quickly when he saw Penelope looking at him.
"Who's that, darling?" Penelope said.
Silvio glanced across. "That's Willi." He waved. "Hello, Willi, getting an earful?"
The bald man shot Silvio a poisonous look, then bent over his food again.
"He works for Heidrig," Silvio said. "I suppose he'll report that he saw us having lunch together."
"You've put me in a very embarrassing position, Silvio darling."
"Good! I'm glad! I don't understand why you're so interested in a swine like Heidrig anyway."
Willi, shoveling a forkful of red cabbage into his mouth, visibly stiffened.
Silvio looked amused. "Go ahead, Willi. What are you waiting for? Go report to Herr Heidrig."
The bald man got to his feet, angrily threw some money on the table and left.
"Willi was one of Heidrig's Unterscharführers," Silvio said. "His specialty was cutting off prisoners' fingers to get the gold rings."
"I owe you an apology, darling, thinking you worked for Wilhelm."
"If you realize that, then how can you accept an invitation from the bastard?"
"That's my business. And I think we should drop the subject."
"Not quite yet." He leaned forward, his face set in grim lines. "Heidrig hasn't changed, you know. He's not the charming country gentleman he makes himself out to be. He works hand in glove with the worst right-wing elements in this unhappy country. You can be sure that he approves heartily of the censorship of the press and the dismissal of the senate and the military jails where they torture political prisoners."
"And you don't approve?"
"Damn right I don't! You may think I'm just a playboy. Most people do. But I'm doing everything I can to work against the terrible injustice that the military dictatorship has brought to this country."
"Is that the 'something important' you had to tell me?"
"Yes. I'm not a terrorist. I don't approve of the Movimento Revolucionario and their kidnappings and bombings and assassinations. But I am studying medicine and public health — yes, at my age! — and in the meantime I am working with the poor in the favelas."
So that was it! Penelope concentrated, trying to remember the details of Skytop's violent encounter in the favela the day of their arrival. The three men hadn't been assassins for hire. They'd merely been thugs bent on robbing an American tourist. Silvio probably had been lucky not to have been attacked himself. The favelas were dangerous places. The three malandros must have missed Silvio by bare seconds. It was unhappy coincidence that brought Skytop into the alley moments later.
"But Silvio, I thought you told me that you had never been within a mile of a favela!"
He laughed, all good spirits again. "I don't exactly broadcast my activities, Penelope. I can't take any chances. The government is suspicious of people like me. I know my mail is read before I get it. And I haven't been able to get my passport renewed."
A thought struck her. "Silvio, what were you doing in the airport the day we met?"
"I was seeing some friends off. They were on their way to England. I used to go every year at this time but" — he shrugged humorously — "not since I became a suspicious character."
She put her face close to his, and spoke softly, as if she were whispering an endearment. "For a suspicious character who says that he can't take any chances, you're being awfully indiscreet, darling."
"That's because you tempt a man to indiscretion." He leaned across the table toward her. A wave of explicit male sexuality came from him, as tangible as a touch. Penelope felt herself responding.
"Let's get out of here," she whispered.
He paid and took her arm, leading her to the door.
They emerged into bright sunlight. The street was bustling with people, their faces smiling and carefree in anticipation of the final night of Carnival. A well-dressed man and a pretty girl hurried by, holding hands, on their way to the beach by the look of the straw bag and towel the girl was carrying. A little black boy in patched denims and straw hat danced by, doing a samba and holding out a jingling tambourine for a cruziero or two. It looked like a happier, brighter world than the one Silvio had described in the dim restaurant.
"Don't be deceived," he said, as if reading her thoughts. "Would you like to go to the beach?"
"I'd love to," she said. Impulsively she tilted her face up and kissed Silvio on the lips. He looked startled, then pleased.
The afternoon on the beach was an afternoon out of time, a dreamy haze of golden sun, white sand, shouting bathers. Penelope wore her briefest bikini. Silvio looked well muscled and tan in blue trunks and dark glasses. He bought her ice cream, a soft drink called Guarana, fresh slices of pineapple from the wandering vendors who drifted by blowing whistles or twirling metal noisemakers. He chased off eight musclemen who set up a volleyball game too close to their blanket. Penelope forgot Heidrig and the NSA. She and Silvio played in the water like children, and later, when they lay side by side on the towel and exchanged kisses, they looked no different from the hundreds of other couples who were doing the same thing.
"Penelope," Silvio groaned, "I don't dare stand up; I'll be arrested. You're the cause of my condition. It is your responsibility to correct it."
"It's the last night of Carnival," she said, gently mocking. "Didn't you invite me to a ball?" Around them the long shadows of late afternoon were melting into a rosy dusk. People were looking at their watches and packing up their beach gear. The bathers were beginning to give way to fishermen casting their lines. A few prostitutes, anticipating the approach of evening, had begun to stroll about displaying themselves.
"So I did," Silvio said. "The Monte Libano ball. But Penelope, I can't go about all evening like this. Come back to my apartment with me first. We can send out to your hotel for your costume."
The sun and the drinks and the lazy necking had done their work. "All right, Silvio," she whispered. "But not your apartment. The Leme Palace is closer."
They didn't bother to get dressed. They stumbled across the sand, their blanket and clothing over their arms, through the early evening revelers on the beach boulevard. They made their way through the lobby, tracking sand to the disapproving stare of the bell captain, and into an elevator. An elderly gentleman studied Penelope's bikini appreciatively and was reaching out a furtive hand to pinch her when Silvio's stern glance stopped him.
Nobody had been in the suite while she was away. The almost invisible blond hair — one of Inga's — that she had balanced on the inner knob drifted to the floor as they entered. The small personal articles that were scattered around the room were still in their precise positions, undisturbed by a search. The door to her bedroom was ajar at the exact angle she'd left it. The trained part of Penelope's mind took it all in automatically, in fractions of a second, while her body registered awareness of Silvio, crowding into the suite just behind her.
Silvio scooped her up in his arms and carried her one hundred twenty pounds to the bedroom with no apparent effort. He kicked the door open with one bare heel. Inside, he tripped over a slipper, and they fell to the bed together. He was squirming out of the blue trunks while she unhooked the top of the bikini. Their mouths met and clung while he helped her out of the triangular briefs and then, with no preliminaries, he was plastered against the whole length of her. She helped him into her, and they worked together hurriedly, greedily, with little breathless gasps. The burst of pleasure caught her by surprise, before she thought she was anywhere near it, and a warm flood dissolved her senses. When it receded, she was aware of Silvio, triggered by the sounds she had made, pushed into her as far as he could get, trembling on the edge of release. His whole body heaved, and he gave a hoarse bellow. They clung to one another, shivering, for a moment or two, then Silvio rolled off her body. He kissed each breast and her throat, making little contented sounds, then put his cheek against hers.
They smoked a cigarette together in the dimness of the bedroom, l
istening to the sounds of music, drums, voices outside. Silvio consulted his watch.
"Still too early for Monte Libano. We.could go downstairs for a drink."
"Let's have a drink here. There's plenty of time." Penelope padded naked through the suite, not turning on any lights. Silvio followed her. They found some ice and Scotch and perched side by side on the tall bar stools in the kitchenette.
"Penelope, you're not really going to visit Heidrig at his fazenda?"
"I must."
"But…"
She put a gentle hand on his lips. "I won't discuss it, Silvio."
"I don't understand," he grumbled. He ground out his cigarette angrily and drained his Scotch. "Just remember, when you're up there, you belong to me!"
He took her roughly by the shoulders, and planted a savage kiss on her mouth. The kiss lasted, turned softer. Penelope could feel Silvio's tongue, hot and slick, running along her lips. She opened her mouth, and the tongue, like a sly little animal, darted in. Her own tongue lifted to meet it, and they pushed against one another, contending. Then Silvio's tongue was searching the length of hers, exploring its textures, finding its roots. His hot breath bathed the floor of her mouth. She found herself breathing harder, too. She felt her body tentatively begin to stir. She returned the caresses of the hot little creature that had invaded her, her own tongue running down the clefted center of Silvio's. She flicked it downward to the slippery underside and found it muscularly imprisoned. In the tight space he had created beneath his tongue, she moved her tongue back and forth, in and out, in an analogue of that ancient rutting rhythm. Silvio groaned, a muffled glottal sound.
His hand found the underside of one naked breast, and he lifted it outward away from her body, feeling its weight. He squeezed gently with his fingers, and Penelope felt an electric shock travel downward through the center of her body to where she was plastered wetly to the padded barstool.
"Let's get off these damn stools," she said.
