Carioca Fletch

street together. The harness kept Norival’s head high.

Norival did trip going up the curb.

Down the road, Tito was driving the car away.

The three guards watched the four young men approach.

“Boa noite,” Fletch said to them.

“Boa noite,” they answered lowly, suspiciously.

Fletch stood aside.

“Ah, Doctor Passarinho!” One guard threw away his cigarette.

Again the conversation was in Portuguese.

Fletch kept looking up at the heavy, scudding clouds, hoping the moon would not take that moment to appear.

Guard: “You are not going out on your boat tonight, are you?”

Toninho answered in his normal voice, not even trying to conceal the movement of his lips. “Yes. Rio is so crowded. From Carnival. I need some peace and quiet.”

Orlando took a few steps in his circle so that the faces of Norival and Toninho were turned a bit away from the guards.

Guard: “But there has been a heavy rain! It might rain again!”

Toninho/Norival: “That will help keep the sea calm.”

Guard: “They say the wind will come up.”

Toninho/Norival: “Yes, well, I feel like a vigorous sail.”

Second guard: “You look uncommonly happy, Doctor Passarinho.”

Toninho/Norival: “I think I have met the love of my life.”

Guard: “That will do it.”

Toninho/Norival: “Yes. I doubt I will ever love anyone else.”

Third guard (inside gate): “Ah, to be in love! To be young and in love! You look so happy, Doctor Passarinho!”

Guard: “But if you go sailing now, you will be missing the parties! The grand balls! How can there be Carnival parties without the Tap Dancers?”

Orlando: “No. Only Norival is going sailing. Because he is so stuck in love, you see. We came just to see him off. We will swim ashore. Off Copacabana.”

Second guard: “I understand everything perfectly. He is in love…. From the stiff way he walks, I should say he should not be with the young lady just now….”

Guard: “Is that it? Ah! I see! So Doctor Passarinho, even though it is the middle of the night during Carnival, goes sailing!”

Third guard: “What a man!”

Guard: “What a gentleman!”

Toninho/Norival: “Something like that.”

Guard: “Norival Passarinho must do what is best, for himself and his young lady!” He signaled the guard inside to open the gate. “What consideration!”

Orlando and Toninho marched Norival through the gate. True, Norival did walk as if he suffered one of the more virulent social diseases.

Fletch fell in behind them.

Toninho/Norival: “Obrigado! Boa noite!”

Aboard, Orlando removed the sail covers and had the mainsail up in almost no time at all.

Toninho released the bow line and gathered it in.

As soon as the mainsail caught wind, Fletch, at the tiller, released the stern line and, letting it trail in the water, took in the main sheet.

Facing aft in the cockpit, Norival beamed delightedly at his friends taking him sailing.

While Orlando was running up the jib, Toninho came aft and took the tiller. “I know the harbor,” he said. “We do not want to run into someone’s boat in the dark while one of us is dead.”

Fletch gathered in the stern line. “Not in the S.S. Coitus Interruptus.”

The moon came out.

In the moonlight, Norival’s whole face beamed. But when the boat heeled, he fell over sideways.

“Can’t have him rolling around,” Toninho said. “He might go overboard before we mean him to.”

Fletch relieved Norival of his rope harness and the broomsticks and sat him up in the leeward corner of the cockpit. He tied a light line around his shoulders to a stanchion behind him.

“The things we do for our friends,” Toninho muttered, coming about.

Now Norival was sitting to windward, leaning unnaturally forward as if being seasick. But he was still beaming.

Orlando joined them in the cockpit.

Laughing, then, they translated the conversation with the guards for Fletch. “What a gentleman!” Orlando kept repeating.

Then Orlando said, “Norival loved this little boat.”

At the tiller, Toninho said, “Who’d think Norival would be one to go down with his ship?”

Orlando laughed. “What a gentleman!”

“We’re just about there,” Toninho said.

Ashore, as they came around a point, a car’s headlights went on and off three times.

“Yes!” Toninho said. “There’s Tito. He must see us.”

At first, sailing south in Baia de Guanabara, Fletch had tried to sleep. He lay on the deck, a cushion under his head. He regretted leaving the rest of his mineral water in the car. Despite the drinks he had had, sleep was impossible.

The sky was clear now. The breeze was from the northeast and steady. The little sloop moved nicely through the water.

To starboard, Cidade Maravilhosa, Rio de Janeiro, passed slowly, laid out under the moonlight. There were a few fires on the beach. The street lights, the lights in the tall apartment buildings and hotels along the shore dimmed the stars above. From offshore, the samba drums were heard from all parts of the city in a soft jumble. Like no other city Fletch had seen from such a perspective, Rio has peculiar black holes in its middle, the sides of its cliffs, Morros da Babilonia, de Sao Joao, des Cabritos, Pedra dos dois Irmaos, its surprising, irrepressible jungle growth within the city. Above all in the moonlight, arms out in forgiveness, stood the statue of Christ the Redeemer.

At some point, sitting in the cockpit opposite Norival, Orlando had said, “We will have to go to Canecao Ball.”

“Yes,” Toninho said. “However late.”

“We will have to find the Passarinhos,” Orlando said, “and say that Norival went sailing.”

“Janio, you must stay with us so we will be believed.”

“I should return to The Yellow Parrot.”

“No, no. There will not be time. You come to my apartment. You can wear my costume from last year. We are the same size.”

“I seem to be the same size as everybody,” Fletch said. “Alan Stanwyk, Janio Barreto, Toninho Braga…”

“Tito will drive fast and we will dress and go in a hurry.”

“The tickets Teo gave me for the ball are at The Yellow Parrot.”

“You can use Norival’s. He won’t be needing it.”

They sailed another few kilometers. Ashore, again Tito flashed his headlights three times.

“All right.” Toninho punched Fletch’s leg. “Take the tiller, Senhor Barreto. It is no surprise to us you know how to run a boat. Orlando, assist Norival. Make sure he has his wallet in his pocket.”

“He has his wallet.”

“His death would never be reported, unless they know who he is. Whoever finds a Passarinho body will expect money for reporting it.”

Fletch sat, tiller in hand, keeping the course along the shore.