Carioca Fletch

be found in the morning.”

“His wallet is in the car, too, Toninho,” Tito said. “In the glove compartment. Norival must wear his wallet when he drowns, so when they find him in the morning, they will know who he is.”

“Otherwise they will not report the body,” Orlando said.

“They will report the body fast enough, if it’s a Passarinho,” Tito said. “Norival Passarinho.”

“You help too, Fletch. You get Norival’s clothes, including his shirt.”

“You’re all crazy,” Fletch said. “What if we get caught with a corpse?”

Standing over Norival, Tito rubbed his own hands together. “Not a worry, Norival,” he said. “We’ll see that you died decently.”

Sixteen

“Drive carefully, Toninho,” Tito said. “We don’t want an accident.”

Although he was not going fast, Toninho was not being all that successful at keeping the black four-door Galaxie to the right. They were swerving down the wet, twisting mountainside road. It was now fully dark. A Volkswagen, climbing the road, had just blared its horn at them.

“We don’t want to be stopped by the police,” Orlando said.

“Drive as if you are driving a hearse,” Tito advised.

“I am driving a hearse,” Toninho said, swinging the wheel too much.

At Dona Jurema’s, Orlando had sawed two broomsticks down to size. Tito bound Norival’s chest with a rope harness. Toninho studied the tide tables and decided exactly where Norival was to drown in the South Atlantic Ocean. Together they fit the broomsticks into the harness and then dressed Norival.

While watching them carry Norival out of the old plantation house, Dona Jurema said to Fletch, “Come Tuesday. I’ll have a corpse for you.”

“Cancel the order,” Fletch said. “We have a corpse.”

Toninho sniffed. “Norival is not that sort of corpse.”

As they swerved down the mountainside, Norival sat propped up in the backseat between Tito and Orlando. The broomsticks were not visible beneath his shirt.

When they came to the first flat, wide road on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Tito reminded Toninho again to drive slowly, to stay to the right. Toninho drove very slowly. Even two children on roller skates passed them.

Toninho looked through the rearview mirror. “Norival never looked better. He holds his head up nicely.”

The car swerved a little.

“Careful, Toninho,” Tito clucked.

“The way he died, he should,” Orlando said. “Not everybody—”

From behind them came the sound of a police siren.

“Oh, oh,” Toninho said.

“Go fast, Toninho!” Tito said. “We have a corpse in the car!”

“No, no,” Orlando said. “Stop.”

The result of following these conflicting orders was that the car shot forward a few meters and then bucked to a stop.

On the backseat, Norival rolled forward. His head struck against the back of the front seat.

“Oh, Norival!” Tito said in exasperation.

“It’s all right,” Orlando said, pulling Norival back into a sitting position. “He won’t bleed.”

“Quick!” Toninho said. “Open his eyes! He looks more real that way!”

Orlando reached over with his fingers and opened Norival’s eyes.

The police car drew alongside.

Apparently staring straight ahead through the windshield, Norival’s eyes gleamed with a wicked joy.

“What did I do wrong?” Toninho asked. “These people have no respect for the dead!”

The conversation with the policeman of course was in Portuguese.

While it was going on, Fletch sat perfectly still in the front seat, trying not to look interested or concerned.

After they drove away from the policeman, Toninho, Orlando and Tito, choking with laughter, repeated the conversation in English for Fletch.

Policeman: Why are you driving so slowly?

Toninho: It’s Carnival, sir. I don’t want to hit any revelers.

Policeman: No one else is driving so slowly.

Toninho: Perhaps no one else is as good a citizen as I, sir.

Policeman: Back there, you swerved. You almost hit a parked car.

Toninho: I sneezed.

Policeman: God bless you, my son.

Toninho: Thank you, sir.

Policeman, shining his flashlight around the inside of the car, finally leaving it for a moment on Norival’s joyfully beaming, unblinking face: Why does that guy look so happy?

Toninho: He always looks that way during Carnival, sir.

Policeman: Is he stoned?

Toninho, whispering: He’s not all there, sir.

Policeman: Oh. Well, drive faster.

Toninho: Yes, sir.

“Tito, you stay with the car. Drive to where I showed you on the map. The beach. We’ll be there in a few hours.”

Correct. They had driven by the gates to the dock where Norival’s boat was. The gates were closed and locked. Not one but three guards stood at the gate chatting, two outside and one inside.

They drove up the street and parked the car against the curb.

It had stopped raining. The moon was threatening to come out.

They lifted Norival out of the backseat and stood him in the road between Toninho and Orlando.

“Here, Fletch.” Toninho handed Fletch a ball of heavy thread he had taken from Dona Jurema. “Tie Norival’s left ankle to Orlando’s right, his right ankle to my left. See? It will work out. That way, Norival will appear to walk.”

Fletch tied Norival’s left ankle to Orlando’s right.

They lifted Norival a little off the ground on his broomsticks and Orlando walked in a circle around Toninho. Norival’s movement was too slow.

“No, Fletch,” Toninho said, “the line must be tighter. Norival must appear to be taking the same size steps as Orlando.”

Kneeling on the wet road, Fletch retied the thread tighter, and then tied Norival’s right ankle to Toninho’s left.

Somewhere in the harbor, a ship’s whistle blew.

Toninho and Orlando walked Norival up the road a little way. “How do we look, Tito?”

“Lift your side higher, Toninho,” Tito said. “His foot is dragging a little, your side.”

Toninho hitched Norival higher. “That better?”

“Perfect,” Tito said. “You’d never know he’s dead.”

“Fine. Then we should go. See you at the beach in a few hours, Tito. Here, Fletch, you walk a little in front of us, in case things do not look exactly right.”

Slowly, in bare feet, Fletch walked down the rain-slicked road and up onto the sidewalk toward the gate to the boat dock. Each pocket of his shorts was bulging with a wad of cruzeiros he had won at poker.

He could not help looking around.

Eyes beaming in complete joy, arms stiff at his sides, although his shoulders propped up by broomsticks did look a little high, Norival walked almost in step between Toninho and Orlando. Three close friends going down the