'Exactly. Thank you for remembering.'
He asked her name, and she told him, although she had little doubt he already knew. Had he seen Dora writing? The desk was five feet behind where they were standing. She somehow had to move him in the other direction.
'Senhorita Natalie,' he said charmingly, 'pardon me for saying so, but Santa Teresa Hospital isn't on the usual tourist itinerary.'
Natalie's mind was swirling. What was he doing here? If he had been following her since Pasmado, he knew that she had lied about staying at the Inter-Continental. If he had been following her since her landing at the Jobim airport, something very terrible was going on.
Natalie had never had much patience for flirts — men or women — and had proudly never considered herself very proficient at it. But now seemed like a good time to try.
'The last time I was here in your city,' she said, 'I had the misfortune to run into an unscrupulous cab driver.'
'Unfortunately, we still have a number of those,' Vargas replied, 'although we at the Military Police are trying to stamp them out.'
'Well, this man took me to this alley and…I–I just can't talk about it very easily. I came here to the hospital to straighten out some insurance matters and to thank the staff for taking such good care of me when I was a patient here.'
'I see.'
Natalie took a small step forward and looked up at him, trying for an expression that was soft and vulnerable.
'Officer Vargas, if I was away from here, I think I could talk to you about what happened.'
'Oh?'
'Do you have a few minutes, perhaps for a cup of coffee?'
'For you, I would gladly make time.'
'Thank you.' She touched his arm and sighed. 'Something horrible has happened to me, and I would do anything to get to the bottom of it. Anything. Perhaps it is a blessing that you have dropped into my life not once, but twice.'
'Perhaps,' the policeman said as she led him out the doors and toward the cafe. 'Or perhaps I am the one who is blessed.'
Dom Angelo, State of Rio de Janeiro, population 213.
The Botafogo branch library had that much information on the village, but little more. On some maps, it was located seventy-five miles north and west of the city, in what the reference librarian told her was the eastern part of the Rio de Janeiro rain forest. On other maps it wasn't listed at all. After an hour and a half of searching, Natalie had drawn a map that it seemed would guide her there — or at least close to there. Hopefully, at eight this evening, Dora Cabral would have more information on the place and what sort of answers Natalie could hope to find there.
It took most of an hour for her to disconnect from Rodrigo Vargas, a decorated veteran, he said, of fifteen years in the Military Police, long separated from his wife, but active in the lives of his two children. He knew Detective Perreira well, and described him as a man who spent far too much time sitting down. Throughout their conversation, during which Natalie said nothing of Dora Cabral or Dom Angelo, the policeman gave no indication that his appearance in the SIOU while she just happened to be there was anything other than coincidence.
In the end, he said that given her unpleasant experience in Rio, he understood why she might have been reluctant to give the name of her hotel out just because a man was wearing a uniform and claimed to be a policeman. He then promised to go over some of the ground covered by Perreira, and gave her the name of a bistro where the two of them could meet tomorrow for lunch to update each other.
'I hope this is the beginning of a special friendship, Senhorita Natalie,' he said earnestly as they stood to go.
'So do I, Rodrigo,' she said, trying for a come-hither smile, and holding on for an extra beat when they shook hands. 'So do I.'
They parted inside the hospital, and Natalie got directions to the library from the information desk. She left, praying that Dora had taken advantage of the chance to destroy what she had written. Once on the street, she began moving through the city with absolute attention to whether she was being followed, employing every maneuver she had ever seen on TV or in the movies, plus a few she made up on the spot. She had four hours before she was expected at Dora's — four hours and a lengthy list of things she needed to get if she was going to drive into the rain forest.
By six thirty she had been to the library, hardware and outdoor gear stores, and several clothing outlets, taking some purchases with her, and promising to return for the rest once she had her car. If there was someone watching the Jeep, there would be no way she could retrieve it without being seen and probably followed, but she had no choice. A bigger fear was that the car would be gone, or in some way disabled, but it was right where she had left it, in a small garage two blocks from her hotel.
16 R.D. FELIX #13
With help from the reference librarian, she located Rua de Felix in the Gavea section of the city, three miles west of Botafogo. She loaded up the Jeep, covering everything with a canvas. Then, wishing it were darker, she began a serpentine drive from the shore to the hills and back again, racing through red lights, driving up alleys and through parking lots, and making any number of Upturns, always with an eye on the rearview mirror.
When she was reasonably certain she wasn't being followed, she locked up the Jeep in a well-lit spot, and with an unpleasant tension in her chest, flagged down a yellow cab. Gratefully, the driver was a weathered, gum- chewing woman, who reminded her not at all of the cabbie from the airport. Using a map, and ad-libbing when it seemed right to do so, she directed the woman up streets and back down, around blocks and through alleys. Finally, she asked to be dropped off a block from Rua de Felix. It was an indescribable relief when the driver simply complied.
The neighborhood was more run-down than Natalie had expected given Dora Cabral's occupation. Tenements, most three stories high, and few of them well maintained, were packed along dimly lit, narrow hillside streets, along with scattered, larger apartment buildings. Dusk was giving way rapidly to night, but there were a fair number of people on the streets, so Natalie did not feel particularly anxious about being alone.
It was exactly eight when she arrived at a featureless, four-story apartment building flanked by two alleyways, each about ten feet wide and modestly littered with newspapers, cardboard, and cans. The number 16 was painted in white on the redbrick facing.
There were two panels of fairly new mailboxes in the enclosed foyer, and a vertical row of doorbells. D. Cabral was near the top. Natalie pushed the button once, then again. She peered through the glass of the inside door. There was a short staircase going up to the first floor. She rang the bell a third time. Then, sensing the first nugget of apprehension, she tried the door, which swung open without resistance. So much for security. Number 13, identified by gold numerals nailed to the center of the dark wood door, was on the right, at the far end of the hall. Natalie listened intently, then knocked — at first softly, then sharply. Silence.
8 p.m. 16 R.D. FELIX #13
There was no doubt in her mind that she had interpreted the written message correctly. It was now ten after. The nugget was growing with each second. Dora's plea on the street that Natalie not look back, and her reaction in the SIC-U to the arrival of the Military Police officer, underscored the woman's fear, but sharing the name Dom Angelo and the scribbled note suggested that she wanted to help.
'Come on…come on…'
Natalie knocked again, then returned to the front hallway and tried the bell one last time. Her mind was racing through possible responses to this latest turn. One thing was certain — she wasn't leaving until she had done everything possible to ensure that Dora Cabral was all right.
Eight fifteen.
Natalie debated knocking on a neighbor's door to see if any of them might have a key to apartment 13. Instead, she went outside and, suddenly wary, walked to the end of the block and turned the corner before swinging around abruptly and heading back. Nothing looked suspicious, so she went to the edge of the alley and ducked in. Assuming the apartments were approximately the same size, the fifth and sixth windows on her left
