The story he used to get free of Stepanski was a stretch, even more so when Alice Gustafson didn't answer her office phone. His alternative plan required a call to his cell phone from Althea Satterfield.
'Whatever I say, Mrs. Satterfield, you just listen,' he told her slowly, having gone to the Rover on the pretext of getting a map. 'Don't say a word. Not a word.'
'I listen,' she repeated. 'I'm a very good listener, dear.'
'I know you are. Okay, five minutes and you call me on the cell phone number.'
'The number I have right here.'
'Exactly. How's Pincus''
'Oh, he's just fine, dear. Why just a few hours ago he — '
'Okay, Mrs. Satterfield, call me in exactly five minutes from…now.' His performance, while Althea listened in Chicago and Stepanski listened across the booth, was worthy of an Oscar. In the end, the flight attendant believed that Ben's boss had contacted their Whitestone Laboratory client and arranged a business meeting for the two of them at the woman's home in Pullman Hills, ten miles to the east of Fadiman. The trick from then until Ben was ready would be to keep from being spotted by Stepanski driving around town.
'I'll register at the Quality Inn when I get back,' Ben said as they split up on the street outside of Charlie's. 'Save your appetite and we'll have dinner together if you'd like.'
It was nearly eight when Ben stopped by the motel and picked up his new friend. Everything was in place but Ben's resolve, which seemed to be wavering from minute to minute. At a quarter of ten, with the town drifting off to sleep, they finished their Texas-sized steaks at a place called the Rodeo Grille, and headed back to the Rover through a largely empty parking lot.
'Before we call it a night,' Ben said, having pumped the man for as much personal information as possible, 'I have something I want to show you.
They drove north for almost twenty minutes. There was some evidence along the way that Fadiman was expanding in that direction, but it would be years, maybe decades before civilization filled in the spaces. If Stepanski was curious about their destination, five beers and a huge meal kept him from voicing it.
Finally, Ben pulled into the driveway of Budget Self-Storage, the first of such businesses he had passed on his way in from Oklahoma. The neon sign was off, the small office dark.
'What's out here?' Stepanski asked, clearly unconcerned about the man with whom he had spent much of the day.
They passed the row of corrugated steel units in the front, and went to the far end of the second row. That was where Ben pulled over.
'So, Seth,' he said, 'we need to talk.'
'What in the hell is — '
The flight attendant stopped short when he realized that Ben was almost casually pointing a pistol at a spot between his eyes.
CHAPTER 23
But then, if lam right, certain professors of education must be wrong when they say that they can put knowledge into the soul which was not there before, like sight into blind eyes.
Despite her seat in first class, Natalie's flight back to Rio was not pleasant. Three times, maybe four, the powerful images of the cab ride from the airport to the slums — favelas, her mother said they were called — and the assault against her intruded into her thoughts. It didn't seem to matter whether she was awake or asleep. The reenactment, 're-experience' would be a more appropriate word, continued to be jagged — totally vivid and absorbing one moment, vague and ill-defined the next, more like a bad trip than a bad memory.
Once she woke up gasping and hyperventilating, with a sheen of perspiration across her forehead and lip.
'Are you all right?' the elderly Brazilian man next to her asked.
He was a jovial widower returning home after visiting his children and grandchildren in the States, and as a retired teacher, spoke English quite well.
'I'm fine, fine,' she replied. 'Just getting over a virus is all.'
'Here,' said the man, handing her a sheet that was clearly an email printout. 'My son in Worcester gave this to me. You may know that we who are from Rio de Janeiro are called Cariocas. Well, this humorous piece, 'Places to Visit in Rio,' was written by a Carioca reporter for this wonderful publication: A Gringo's Guide to Brazil.'
The tongue-in-cheek list, though it would have been quite funny if read in the right circumstances, was hardly the cure for Natalie's 'virus.' There were fourteen items altogether, including,
Downtown the street vendor riots are spectacular, comparable, perhaps, to the salmon runs in the Yukon.
Mangueria Hill by night is for those brave souls who love fireworks displays. Not the kind from Roman candles, but the kind from.38 Specials.
Like to watch violent and shocking movies? None of them can compare to any police station in Rio. As the cops like to say, 'This is where a child cries and not even his mother hears.'
Sick of your hometown bums and jerks? Try ours. They can be found legislating in the halls of our State Assembly.
The Central Station rest rooms. After 10 p.m. they are no-man's-land — the world's biggest bordello. Just pick a sex.
Natalie smiled palely and passed the sheet back.
'I feel better already,' she said.
Before leaving her apartment for Boston's Logan, Natalie had considered and quickly rejected the notion of taking a cab or a bus from the airport in Rio to her hotel. Instead, she went online and reserved a hard-top Jeep. Now, as she pulled out of the Jobim airport and cruised south on the expressway into the city, she tried to keep her breathing even and her pulse in check. Thanks largely to the unremitting flashbacks to her shooting, the two months that had passed since her ill-fated ride into the city might as easily have been six hours.
The customers at the House of Love will adore you. You will be very happy there…
It was mid-morning — cloudless and already warm. From time to time, as she drove, Natalie glanced off to her right, the direction she was fairly certain the cab had taken that night. There were shantytowns packed at the bottom of barren hillsides. Much farther up above them were lawns and palms and, with what must have been spectacular views toward the ocean, mansions. Somewhere, in one of those squalid, overcrowded favelas, she had been pulled from her cab and soon after, shot.
The hotel she had chosen, the Rui Mirador, was given two stars by one of the online travel services, but was presented as quaint, clean, and safe — all words that resonated for her. It was in the Botafogo section of the city, described by the same service as both traditional and exciting. What Na- talkie cared about was that Botafogo was also where Santa Teresa Hospital was located.
Traffic on the expressway was heavy, and the drivers somewhat less than courteous, but it didn't take long for her to appreciate that thanks to years of driving in Boston, she was well prepared. In spite of her persistent edginess, Natalie felt herself drawn to the steep hills, lush vegetation, and spectacular architecture of the area. Botafogo was a fairly narrow corridor between Centro — the downtown — and the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema. With the help of an excellent map, she found her way through the sometimes narrow streets to the Pasmado Overlook — the one tourist attraction she had promised herself, in addition, possibly, to the magnify cent white-sand beaches. After the stop at Pasmado, it would be strictly business. She had no desire to linger in Rio, and planned to fly home as soon as the mystery of exactly who had cared for her and where was settled. The rest of the city, however spectacular and exciting, would forever remain unknown to her.
Suddenly weary from the long flight, Natalie sank onto a bench at the overlook and gazed out across
