Carioca Fletch f-7

by Gregory Mcdonald

“Ah, to be young, handsome, healthy in Rio during Carnival! Can you come closer to heaven? I remember.” Then he brushed cigarette ashes off his shirt which were truly there. “And rich, too, I suppose.”

  In a corner of the room behind the desk was a gray steel filing cabinet, with three drawers.

  “It must be a busy time for the police.”

  “It is,” the sergeant agreed. “We get to enjoy Carnival very little. Everything goes topsy-turvy, you see.” He smiled at Fletch, slyly proud of this idiom. “Topsy-turvy. Men become women; women become men; grown-ups become children; children become grown-ups; rich people pretend they’re poor; poor people, rich; sober people become drunkards; thieves become generous. Very topsy-turvy.”

  Fletch’s eyes examined the typewriter on the desk. It was a Remington, perhaps seventy-five years old.

  “You were robbed….” the sergeant guessed.

  “No,” Fletch said.

  “You were not robbed?”

  “Of course I was robbed,” Fletch said. “When I first came here.” The sergeant seemed to be relieved. “But I am not bothering you with such a small, personal matter.”

  The man smiled happily, in increased respect for Fletch. He turned and faced Fletch, now ready to listen.

  Again, slowly, carefully, Fletch told Sergeant Paulo Barbosa the facts of his meeting Joan Collins Stanwyk at The Hotel Yellow Parrot, arranging to bring money to The Hotel Jangada, as of course she had been robbed, to have breakfast with her … her not being at the hotel yesterday or today … not picking up the note he had left for her…

  Another cigarette was dropping ashes on the sergeant’s shirt. He was quick to brush them away.

  “Ah,” he said, “Carnival! It explains everything.”

  “This is not a crazy lady,” Fletch said. “She is a woman of many responsibilities. She is a healthy, attractive blonde woman in her early thirties, expensively dressed—”

  “Topsy-turvy,” the sergeant said. “If you say she is not a crazy lady, then during Carnival, she becomes a crazy lady! I know! I have been on this police force twenty-seven years. Twenty-seven Carnivals!”

  “She has been missing for over twenty-four hours.”

  “Some people go missing all their lives! They come to Brazil because they go missing from some place else. Don’t you know that?”

  “Not this lady. She has a magnificent home in California, a daughter. She is a wealthy woman.”

  “Ah, people during Carnival!” The sergeant puffed on his cigarette philosophically. “They are apt to do anything!”

  “She could be kidnapped, mugged, hurt, run over by a taxi.”

  “That is true,” the sergeant said. “She could be.”

  “It is very important that we find her.”

  “Find her?” The sergeant seemed truly surprised at the suggestion. “Find her? This is a huge country! A city of nine million people! Tall buildings, short buildings, mountains, tunnels, parks, jungles! Are we supposed to look on top of every tall building and under every short building?” He sat forward in his chair. “At this time of year, everyone becomes someone else. Everyone wears a mask! There are people dressed as goats out there! As porpoises! Tell me, are we to look for a goat, or a porpoise?”

  “For a blonde, trim North American woman in her early thirties….”

  “Topsy-turvy!” the sergeant exclaimed. “Be reasonable! What can we do?”

  “I am reporting the disappearance of a female North American visitor to Brazil—”

  “You’ve reported it! If she walks into the police station, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her!”

  “I don’t see you taking notes,” Fletch said firmly. “I don’t see you making up a report.”

  The sergeant’s eyes grew round in amazement. “You want me to type up a report?”

  “I would expect that, yes.”

  “I should type up a report because some North American woman changed her plans?”

  “A report should be filed,” Fletch insisted. “Any police force in the world—”

  “All right!” The sergeant opened his desk drawer.” I’ll type up a report! Just as you say!” He took a key from his desk. “You want me to type up a report, I’ll type up a report!” Standing, he went to the filing cabinet and inserted the key into its lock. First he looked in the top drawer, then the middle drawer. “Anything to keep the tourists happy!”

  From the bottom drawer, he took out a typewriter ribbon. It appeared to be just about as old as the typewriter.

  The sergeant blew dust off the typewriter ribbon.

  “Never mind.” Fletch stood up.” I get the point.”

  From a telephone kiosk on the sidewalk outside the police station, Fletch called Teodomiro da Costa.

  Teo answered the phone himself.

  “Teo? Fletch. I knew if you were asleep, your houseman would tell me.”

  “I have to wait for some Telexes from Japan. I am preparing to sell some yen.”

  “Teo, that woman I mentioned to you yesterday morning, the North American, is still missing. The note I left for her at The Hotel Jangada has not been picked up. She has no money, no identification. I have been to the police. They tell me there is nothing they can do. The people at The Hotel Jangada will not let me into her room. She may be very sick, Teo, or—”

  “Of course. I understand. I think the first thing is to inspect her room. She was a healthy woman, you say?”

  “Very healthy. Very sensible.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Outside the police station.”

  “I’ll meet you at The Hotel Jangada.”

  “Teo, you’ve been awake all night.”

  “That’s all right. This could be a very serious matter, Fletch. Just let these Telexes arrive, and I will be right there.”

  “Thanks, Teo. I’ll wait in the bar.”

  Twenty

  “What is the woman’s name?”

  “Joan Collins Stanwyk,” Fletch answered. ‘Room nine-twelve.”

  Fletch was on his second guaraná when Teo appeared in the door of the bar of The Hotel Jangada. Even in shorts and a tennis shirt, the dignity of Teodomiro da Costa was absolute.

  At the reception counter, Teo spoke with the same clerk with whom Fletch had spoken.

  Fletch stood aside and listened.

  Clearly, in Portuguese, Teodomiro da Costa introduced himself, explained the situation as he knew it and stated his request: that they be permitted to inspect Room 912.

  Again, with all apparent courtesy, the desk clerk refused.

  The conversation became more rapid. Teo said something; the desk clerk said something; Teo said something, smiling politely; the desk clerk said something.

  Finally, drawing himself up, giving the desk clerk his hooded eye, Teodomiro da Costa asked the rhetorical question which is magic in Brazil, which opens all doors, closes all doors, causes things to happen—or not happen, according to the speaker’s wish—which puts people in their places: “Sabe com quem está falando?: Do you realize to whom you are speaking?”

  The desk clerk withered.

  He got the desk key to Room 912 and led the way to the elevator.

  “Do you see anything amiss?” Teo asked.

  While the desk clerk stood at the door of Suite 912, jangling the key in his hand, Teo and Fletch had searched through the living room, bedroom, bathroom, terrace as well as they could.

  “Not a damned thing,” Fletch answered. “Except that Joan Collins Stanwyk isn’t here.”

  The rooms were freshly made up, the bathroom undisturbed, the bed not slept in. Going through the drawers, closets, even going through the medicine chest and suitcases, and other immediately conceivable hiding places, Fletch had found no money, no jewelry.

  “One thing is significant, Teo,” Fletch said. “Yesterday morning, Joan was wearing a tan slacks suit and a silk shirt. I cannot find the slacks suit and the shirt here in the suite.”

  “She could have sent them to
the hotel cleaners. You don’t know what other clothes she had.”

  “Not likely. She wanted to move out of this hotel as soon as I brought money.”

  “Then it is likely she disappeared somewhere between The Hotel Yellow Parrot and here.”

  “Yes.”

  Standing back on his heels at the door, the desk clerk rattled the key against its chain.

  “What do we do now?” Teo asked. “You’re the investigative reporter, newly retired.”

  “Check the hospitals, I guess.”

  Teo thought a short moment. “There is really only one hospital where they would have brought anyone sick or injured between The Yellow Parrot and here. We can check that one out.”

  Fletch said, “Let’s do so.”

  “What do we do now?” Teo asked again.

  They stood in the hospital lobby.

  Teo had explained to the hospital administrator the disappearance of a blonde North American woman, in good health, more than twenty-four hours before, who had already been robbed of her money and identification.

  The administrator clucked about Carnival, was most understanding although not alarmed, and permitted Teo and Fletch to walk through the seven floors of the hospital, checking the beds of every reasonable unit.

  The administrator had said there were many people without identification in the hospital during Carnival. She would be grateful to have any of them identified.

  “I don’t know.” Fletch’s eyes wanted to close in sleep, in discouragement, perhaps to think.

  “I don’t see what else we can do,” Teo said.

  “Neither do I.”

  “Once in a while you have to let time pass….” Teo said.

  “I guess so.”

  “Let things right themselves.”

  “She could be anywhere,” Fletch said. “Anything could have happened to her. Should I check all the hospitals in Rio?”

  “That would be impossible! Then check all the hotels and hospitals and jails in Brazil, one by one? You can’t live so old!”

  “I guess not.”

  “Let time pass, Fletch.”

  “Thank you, Teo. Sorry to keep you up.”

  “You have done your best, for now.”

  “Yes …” Fletch said, uncertainly. “I guess so.”

  Twenty-one

  Before again pulling the drapes closed in his room at The Hotel Yellow Parrot, Fletch noticed that across the utility area the man was back painting the room. “If he doesn’t finish soon,” Fletch said to himself, “I’ll go across and help him.”

  In bed again, hearing the samba drums from two or three combos in the street, Fletch tried his best to sleep. He breathed deeply, evenly, a long time, to convince his body he was asleep.

  His body was not fooled. He was awake.

  His mind was crowded with wriggling flesh, with people dressed as rabbits and rodents, harlequins and harlots, grandes dames and playschool children, villains and viscounts, convicts and crooks, pirates and priests. Clearly, you cannot sleep, Laura had said. Did you fall asleep? Teo had asked. I thought not With a fat Queen of Sheba eating cookies from a bag. With the sight of a man walking well with a long knife sticking out of his chest, reporting to police that he had lost his camera.

  Idalina Barreto had been on the sidewalk in front of The Hotel Yellow Parrot when he returned. The wooden-legged great-grandson was with her. She had some sort of rag doll in her hand.

  As he hurried into the hotel, she yelled and shook the rag doll at him.

  Again he put the pillow over his head. Again he insisted he go to sleep. He thought how tired his legs were, from dancing with Jetta, from …

  It was no good.

  “Bum, bum, paticum bum.”

  Heavily, he got out of bed. He opened the drapes again.

  He looked up the number of Marilia Diniz in the telephone book.

  “Prugurundum.”

  He dialed her number. It rang five times.

  “Marilia? Good morning. This is Fletcher.”

  “Good morning, Fletcher. Are you enjoying Carnival?”

  “Marilia, I know it is Sunday morning, during Carnival; it is wrong of me to call; but I need to talk to you. I have not slept since Thursday.”

  “You must be enjoying Carnival.”

  “It is not exactly that. Are you too busy? Can we meet somewhere?”

  “Right now?”

  “If I don’t get sleep soon… I don’t know what will happen.”

  “Where’s Laura?”

  “She went to Bahia with her father. She’ll be back later today.”

  “You need to see me, before you can sleep?”

  “I think so. I need to understand something, do something. I need advice.”

  “You are disturbed?”

  “I lack in understanding.”

  “Come over. Do you know how to get to Leblon?”

  “Yes. I have your address from the telephone book. Are you sure it’s all right if I come now?”

  “I ignore Carnival. I am here.”

  “Trouble between you and Laura?” Marilia asked.

  In her little house in Leblon, behind a high wooden fence, Marilia Diniz led Fletch into a small study.

  “I saw you in a car with the Tap Dancers yesterday.”

  Fletch did not dare ask her what time of day, or night, she saw them; whether all the Tap Dancers were blinking. “I relieved them of some money, playing poker.”

  At the side of the study, Marilia was adjusting a disk in a word processor. “The Brazilian male,” she said, “is known for his energy.”

  “There’s magic, high energy in the food.”

  “The Brazilian male is slow to give up his … what? … his immaturity.” She started the word processor and watched it operate a moment. “At seventy, eighty, the Brazilian male is still a boy.”

  The word processor was whizzing away, typing manuscript. “Forgive me,” Marilia said. “This is my routine for Sunday mornings, making manuscript of my week’s work.” She sat in a comfortable chair near her desk and indicated Fletch should sit on a two-person sofa. “I used to have a typist, but now? Another job lost. Teodomiro arranged this word processor for me.”

  Fletch sat.

  “You look healthy enough,” pale Marilia said. “Glowing.”

  “I have already been to the police station this morning. A woman I know, from California, showed up at my hotel yesterday morning, early. She had been robbed. I told her I would bring her money, immediately. Walking between my hotel and hers, she disappeared.”

  “Ah, Carnival…”

  “Really disappeared, Marilia. With Teo’s help, I checked her suite at The Jangada. Her clothes are still there. She has no money, no passport, no credit cards, identification.”

  “You are right to be concerned,” Marilia said. “Anything can happen during Carnival. And does. Is there any way I can help you?”

  “I don’t think so. We went through the hospital for that district. Teo says I just must wait.”

  “Waiting is hard.”

  “That’s not why I came to see you. As I said on the phone, I have not slept since Thursday.”

  “No one sleeps during Carnival.” Then Marilia said, “So I guess you don’t want any coffee.”

  “No, thanks. Do you know about this old woman who says I am her murdered husband come-back-to-life?”

  “Someone mentioned something about it, the other night at Teo’s.” Marilia glanced at her word processor. “You tell me about it.”

  “Okay.” On the divan, Fletch put his hands under his thighs. “When you, Laura, and I were having that drink at the café on Avenida Atlantica, Friday afternoon, an old woman in a long white dress came along the sidewalk and apparently saw me. She stopped near the curb. She stared at me until we left. Did you happen to notice her?”

  “I’m ashamed to say I didn’t.”

  “She was behind you.”

  “Is the old woman the reason you disappeared under the table?�
��

  “No. That was because of this other woman, from California, who walked down the street just then. I was surprised to see her.”

  “The woman who has since disappeared?”

  “Yes.”

  Marilia got up and checked her word processor, scanned the processed manuscript.

  “When Laura and I entered the forecourt of The Yellow Parrot, this old hag jumped out of the bushes at us. She was screaming and pointing her finger at me. Laura talked to her calmly.” Marilia sat down again and listened to Fletch expressionlessly. “The old woman said that she recognized me. In an earlier life, I had been her husband, Janio Barreto. That forty-seven years ago, at about my present age, I had been murdered. And now I must tell her who it was who had murdered me.”

  Marilia said nothing.

  Fletch said, “Laura said, ‘Clearly you will not rest until you do.’”

  “And you have not rested.”

  “I have not slept.”

  “You think the old woman has put a curse on you?”

  “Marilia, she hangs around outside my hotel, accosts me every time I go in or go out. She brought her great-grandchildren to the hotel to meet me. This morning she was there on the sidewalk, yelling at me and shaking some kind of a voodoo doll at me.”

  “A calunga doll.”

  “Whatever.”

  The word processor finished its work and turned itself off.

  Marilia said, “An interesting story.”

  “No one will help me to understand,” Fletch said. “Otavio Cavalcanti will answer none of my questions, about anything. He just nods and says Yes. Teo says he doesn’t understand, doesn’t know what to do. I can’t understand whether Toninho Braga is making a joke out of it or whether there is some part of him that is serious. Worst of all, I can’t understand Laura at all. She’s an intelligent woman, a concert pianist. She seems to have no curiosity about my background, but she seems to give this Janio Barreto matter some credence.”

  Marilia sighed. “Ah, Brazil.”

  “I can’t tell if everyone here is playing some kind of an elaborate joke, a trick on me.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. Laura says I won’t rest until I reveal this murderer, and I haven’t. Teo seems to say he is not surprised I am not sleeping. The Tap Dancers just don’t expect me to sleep. How can I figure out what happened in Rio de Janeiro a generation before I was born? Am I to die of sleeplessness?”