The Street Angel

by Robert Gollagher

  “Cheese on the Coals. It’s great. You gotta try some.”

  Susan looked at the dancers and wished she could dance like them. Brazilians seemed to be born with rhythm. Even the children were good. “They certainly know how to have a good time, don’t they?”

  “You better believe it. This is Brazil. These people are the best in the world at having a good time. They really know how to party.”

  “But isn’t this supposed to be a religious festival?”

  “Sure. It’s the festival of St John. Have some cheese.”

  Susan took one of the sticks from Richards and sniffed cautiously at the white block of hot cheese on the end of it. “Well, it smells all right.”

  “Take a bite.”

  “Oh, it’s really good!”

  “I told you so.”

  “Why are all the men dressed like that?”

  “Oh, there’s a kinda tradition of dressing up like hillbillies. Straw hats and neckerchiefs. And the girls in pretty peasant dresses.”

  Susan smiled. “Perhaps we should have dressed up.”

  “No, nobody cares. It’s just about having fun.”

  Susan looked at the three or four couples who were dancing very close and fast to the latest song. It was very sexy. “What’s this dance called?”

  “It’s a lambada.”

  “Do you dance, Bob?”

  “Sure, a little. You want to try it?”

  “Oh, no. Heaven forbid. I’m not a dancer.”

  “Okay. Suit yourself. I’m kind of tired, anyway.”

  Susan watched the dancers, their legs interlaced, their bodies pressed against each other, as they smoothly flowed back and forward through the beat of the music. The dancers were graceful and sensual. The music was like nothing else she had heard before, it was earthy and joyous, the sound of a little three-piece band on a tropical night in Brazil. The rhythm of the music had an almost hypnotic effect on her. She felt happy and aroused.

  “They’re great, aren’t they?” said Richards, admiring the dancers.

  Susan smiled at him.

  They watched the dancers for a long time. By ten o’clock the party was in full swing, but Susan wanted to find some privacy with Richards. She said her goodbyes to her friends, fellow workers from the orphanage, especially to Fabriola, who had invited her, and then led Richards around to the front of the simple but very large farmhouse. They sat down alone on the front steps of the porch. The brown concrete was refreshingly cool to touch.

  “It is beautiful out here, isn’t it?” Susan said.

  Richards looked into the night. The nearest house was a quarter-mile away in the darkness, past fields filled with overgrown fruit trees. But there was no livestock. “Is this really a working farm?”

  “No, not really. Fabriola’s parents keep it as a kind of holiday home. They come up here to get away from the city and relax.”

  “It’s nice.”

  Susan didn’t know quite how to broach the next subject, so she just said the first thing she thought of. “We have our own room at the end of the house. It’s very private.” She had shown no affection towards him in public.

  “Our own room? Hey, I know the Brazilians are pretty relaxed, but Fabriola must know you’re married. To someone else, I mean.”

  “She was going to share a room with me herself, but I told her you were an old friend and that you often came to stay with me in England. There are separate beds. She didn’t think it was strange.”

  Richards looked at her. “You really had this all planned.”

  Susan felt a twinge of guilt, then pushed it out of her mind. “Hmmm.”

  “Is it that important to you? To be lovers, not just friends?”

  “Aren’t I as attractive as your other women?”

  “That’s not the point, Sue. And yes, you’re beautiful.”

  “I like talking with you,” Susan said, simply and unexpectedly.

  “You what?”

  “I like talking to you. Listening to you. Spending time with you. Just talking. All of the things I hate doing with Adrian.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t you think that’s what really counts, Bob? In a marriage, or any relationship? Isn’t it the talking the matters, and the just being together? Feeling like you’re on the same wavelength as the other person?”

  Richards sighed. He was beginning to like her more and more. “Yeah.”

  “I feel like I’m alive again when I’m with you, Bob. I feel like so many things from the past are healed over and gone. I feel like laughing.”

  Richards said nothing.

  “Do you know what I mean, Bob? Do you feel that way too?”

  “Do you really want me to answer that?”

  “Are you afraid to answer it?”

  “Where’s this going, Sue? You want me to say I feel alive again when I’m with you? That I feel things I haven’t felt for years, things I told myself I’d probably never feel again? Where would it leave us if I said that?”

  “Say it if you want to.”

  “What if I said I felt different about you? What if I said you weren’t like all the other women? What if I ... uh, didn’t want to wreck our friendship?”

  “I’d believe you. I can tell you’re an honest man.”

  “Are you an honest woman?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I like you, Susan. Goddamn it, I didn’t want this kind of complication in my life, but I like you. And you’re married. You’re from England. You’ll be going back there in a few months, back to your husband. Isn’t that it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No,” Susan said softly. “I’m not sure about anything any more.”

  Richards sighed. “That’s Brazil. It does that to you.”

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen, Bob. That’s the truth.”

  “Look, Sue, I should go home. Fabriola can drive you back in the morning. You’re great, too great, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  Susan put a hand on his knee. “Bob, I’m asking you not to go. Stay with me, just stay with me. I don’t want to talk about it, analyse it to death until there’s nothing left of it. I just want to be ... with you.”

  “You know we’re going to get hurt if you go back to him?”

  “I know. Just stay.” Susan kissed him.

  After a moment’s silence, Richards said quietly, “Okay.” He wondered how the word had come out of him, but he had said it now and there was no turning back. It was different to Carina, to Patricia, to Maria. Somehow Susan was different. It was complicated. Risky. He cared about her.

  When Susan kissed Richards, on the single bed in the dark room, she could see his face only in the faint light of a tiny candle. She had carefully moved a table behind the door, and this was where the candle burned.

  It was adultery, she knew, but it was so unlike anything anyone had ever told her about being unfaithful. It was something beautiful.

  Time seemed to lose its meaning. All her memories of that night blended into a seamless collage in her mind, a tapestry of new experiences, of touch, of closeness, of affection, of beauty, and of sin. Could this be a sin, to be alive again after all these years? Surely not. The sin was in the empty sex that Adrian subjected her to, as if she were some kind of servant. And what was she feeling now, as she and Bob Richards made love, each very much surprised by the other, with the strange rhythms of loud samba music still coming from behind the house, drowning out their noises, giving them privacy? It was honesty. That was what she felt. It was terrible, wonderful honesty, all at once, overwhelming. It was honesty.

  Later, in the quiet of the night, once the party had died down, the rightness of her decision was undeniable to her. She knew she had done the right thing. She knew it. “I’m glad you stayed, Bob. I’m so glad you did.”

  They fell asleep, happy together, in the tiny single bed.

  Fifty miles away, in Recife, a man
was murdered.

  Chapter 8

  It was the night of the festival of St John. If Pierre Fontaine had bothered to look out of the window of the Varig 737 as it made its approach to Recife, he might have seen hundreds of tiny bonfires burning in dirt roads throughout the poorer suburbs of the city. In the slums, people had made fires around which to dance and celebrate. In the wealthier suburbs, the pubs were packed with revellers. Music was playing everywhere. The noise of children setting off fireworks on street corners all over town sounded almost like the gunshots of a civil war. But there were no parades, no thousands of people marching down the main streets. It was not Carnival.

  Fontaine did not look out the window. He fastened his seat belt and felt the gentle shudder of the aircraft landing. The only thing which concerned him, as he walked down the boarding stairs onto the asphalt taxiway, was getting some sleep. It was late.

  The air was hot and thick. Fontaine was still not used to the strange aromas that one took in with every breath in Recife. There was the ocean, you could smell the salt of it. There was the stench of human excrement from the open sewer that flowed through the city. There was jet fuel and gasoline. There was the sweet smell of tropical vegetation, and then the sour aftertaste of rotting fruit. There was the perfume of the women walking next to him to the airport terminal. It was everything at once.

  Fontaine wished his jacket were cooler. He was sweating in a white linen suit and tie, weighed down by a large collection of jewels stuffed into various money belts and inside-pockets. It was his own decision to travel without bodyguards. He had good insurance, so if anything were stolen it would not be the end of the world. He only had to make it to the hotel. Then he could get some sleep. The hotel guards would take care of security.

  A teenage boy was handing out pamphlets to every passenger as they passed him on the way to the terminal building. The stars shone overhead.

  “Senhor. Welcome to Recife,” the boy said in Portuguese.

  “Thanks,” Fontaine replied. The pamphlet was a health warning against the current cholera epidemic. There was a skull and crossbones, just to drive home the point to anyone who didn’t read Portuguese, and a warning to drink only bottled water. Fontaine spoke Portuguese fluently.

  Ten minutes later he was standing in a small queue outside the little airport, waiting for a taxi. When his turn came, he threw his hand luggage onto the back seat of a tiny taxi and squeezed into the front. It was not easy. Fontaine was a lanky six feet, four inches tall.

  The taxi driver also seemed out of place in the little car. He was a fat man with a greasy moustache and thinning black hair. His belly seemed almost wedged under the little steering wheel. “Good evening, Senhor.”

  “Good evening.”

  “To where am I taking you?”

  “The Golden Beach Hotel, Boa Viagem.”

  “Of course.”

  The engine of the little taxi whined in protest as the driver raced through the streets of Recife at sixty miles an hour.

  “You have an accent, Senhor, if you don’t mind me saying.”

  “Yes. I’m French.”

  “Ah. You speak Portuguese very well. Have you been in Brazil long?”

  “A year. I’ve been staying in Rio.”

  “What brings you to Recife? Business or pleasure?”

  “Pleasure,” Fontaine lied. “I’m visiting a cousin.”

  “Ah. Well, you should have come a day earlier. You have missed the festival of St John. All the parties are closing down for the night.”

  Fontaine grunted in reply. He wished the driver would shut up.

  At the hotel, the driver took a long, careful look at Fontaine’s face as he handed Fontaine the change. “Have a pleasant stay in Recife, Senhor.”

  Fontaine checked into the hotel with the intention of going directly to his room. It was nearly midnight. Unfortunately the manager happened to be in the lobby and he recognised Fontaine immediately.

  “Pierre!” The manager walked over and held out his hand.

  Fontaine shook it. “Rafael, how are you?”

  “I am well, I am well. And your trip was good, I hope?”

  “The plane was delayed. I’m a little tired.”

  “Well, we must get you to your room. Now, you have merchandise with you, as usual, I suppose. Do you want me to put it in the hotel safe?”

  Fontaine looked around the immaculate lobby of the hotel. Two armed security men stood guard on the marble floor. “No, that’s okay.”

  The manager summoned a porter. “Take Senhor Fontaine’s bags to 902. Well, Pierre, it is good to see you again. Until the morning.”

  “Until the morning.”

  When Fontaine got to his small but luxurious room, he put his jewels, including the antique necklace he had brought for General del Campo, in the small combination safe in the wardrobe. His meeting with the general was scheduled for ten o’clock in the morning. Fontaine stripped down to his boxer shorts, got into the king-sized bed and turned out the light. He knew that sleep would come to him in only a few minutes. It was a relief.

  Five hundred metres down the beach road, the taxi driver had pulled up by a public telephone. He dialled the number he had been given.

  The voice that answered the call said only one word. “Yes?”

  “I think I have seen the man you are waiting for,” said the driver.

  “Who is this?” The voice was deep. It was male.

  “Miguel Dereito, taxi driver.”

  “Yes, Miguel, who have you seen?”

  “The jewel dealer, Senhor Pierre Fontaine. I have just taken him to the Golden Beach Hotel. I am certain it is him. I recognise his face.”

  “And he is staying at the hotel tonight?”

  “Yes, Senhor. I swear it.”

  “Then my information was correct. There must be a sale going down.”

  “I am sure there must be, Senhor. He looked nervous.”

  “Then we are in luck, Miguel. This is good information. You will be rewarded. Do not go back to the hotel, do you understand? Stay away.”

  “Whatever you say, Senhor.”

  The line went dead.

  It was two in the morning when three men walked slowly up to the entrance of the Golden Beach Hotel. They seemed relaxed, as if they were returning from a night out at one of the beach pubs. The last of the men carried a green and blue beach towel, rolled up and covered in sand. It was dyed in the colours of the Brazilian flag. The security guard at the door greeted them as they pushed open the heavy glass doors at the lobby entrance.

  “Good evening, Senhors.”

  “Good evening,” said the first of the men.

  Inside the lobby, there was only one other guard. He was having a smoke at the reception desk with the night clerk. His revolver, like that of the guard at the door, was carelessly holstered at his hip.

  The first of the men went to the reception desk, while the others stood in the centre of the lobby. At the desk, the first man spoke to the clerk. “Good evening. I’d like our keys, please.”

  “Oh, Senhor? Which numbers are you staying in?”

  “Ah, do you know what, I can’t remember which floor it was.”

  The clerk looked at his guest list. “What is the name?”

  In an instant, the man withdrew a nine-millimetre automatic pistol from his pocket and pointed it at the head of the surprised security guard, who let his cigarette fall from his lips. “I forget the name.”

  At the same moment his two accomplices brought out their own guns. The one with the towel revealed a small sub-machine gun, the other had a nine-millimetre of his own. They whistled at the guard by the door, who looked across the room to see their barrels pointed right at him.

  The leader spoke loudly. “Now, Senhor Security Guard, Senhor Desk Clerk, I am going to bet that this man here, this guard at whose head I have pointed my pretty little pistol, is your friend. I am going to bet that you would rather not see him killed immediately. Perhaps you would all
like to keep living and not have any trouble. Would that be correct?”

  No one said anything. The two accomplices moved apart. It would be impossible for the guard at the door to draw his holstered revolver fast enough to hit more than one of them.

  The leader spoke to him. “Lie down on the floor, Senhor Guard, with your hands behind your back, and your friend here gets to live. Let’s not be stupid. Do you both want to die for the pittance they pay you here?”

  The security guard at the door decided he did not want to die. He lay down. One of the accomplices walked over and handcuffed his wrists.

  “And now you,” the leader said to the guard he held at gunpoint, who wisely decided to follow suit.

  The leader spoke to the clerk. “You will give me the key to the luggage room, please. Very slowly, that’s right.”

  The clerk gingerly drew out his hotel master-keys from his pocket and put them on the reception desk, then replaced his hands on the desk.

  “Thank you.” The leader threw the keys to an accomplice.

  “Lock the doors. Lock these guards in the luggage room. And tape their mouths. Then secure the area. Okay?”

  The first accomplice locked the glass lobby doors, then joined his partner in herding the two guards into the luggage room near reception.

  Once the guards had gone, the leader led the night clerk into the deserted office behind the reception desk. The clerk was a frail man in his fifties, and he hadn’t survived so long without gaining some common sense. “Don’t kill me, Senhor. I will help you. What do you want?”

  “Ah, a smart man! Well, that is refreshing. I am in a hurry, if you don’t mind. I would advise you to tell me the truth, or I will kill you at once.”

  “Yes, Senhor. Don’t kill me. I have a family. I will help you.”

  “First, are there any more guards upstairs?”

  “No, Senhor, I swear by my children there are not.”

  “Very well. Second, in what room is Senhor Pierre Fontaine?”

  “Room 902, Senhor. He came in tonight.”

  “And did he put anything in the hotel safe?”

  “No, Senhor. I swear it. I swear it, there is very little in the safe tonight.”