parade.
Fletch limped into a big room to the left of the foyer. Heavy, waisted velvet drapes on the windows cut down the light in the room.
Several open coffins were on display in the room. Each was on its own fancy trestle. He looked in one. It was empty. A coffin sales room. He moved from coffin to coffin, looking in each. The coffins ranged from polished pine to brass-studded mahogany.
He heard a sound behind him.
A seemingly tired, lazy voice said, “Hello?”
Fletch turned around.
In the door to the room, white as sea foam, the brighter light from the foyer behind him softening his outline, clearly stood Norival.
Norival Passarinho.
Dressed in white shoes, white slacks, white shirt. His belly hung over his belt. Damp hair fell onto his forehead. His face was puffy.
Norival Passarinho!
Fletch blinked.
Norival blinked.
Fletch sucked in cool air from the coffin display room.
“Ah, Janio Barreto.” Norival shambled toward Fletch. Norival even put out his arm to take Fletch’s hand. “At last I get to meet you properly!”
The room rose.
Fletch fell.
Fletch knew he was in a small, dark place.
Becoming conscious, he could hear no natural sounds except the sound of his own breathing. The air was stale.
He was lying on his back. His head was on some kind of pillow.
Only when he moved his right hand and immediately came to the edge of the space, a soft wall, did he realize how small the space was. The same was true when he moved his left hand.
The space he was in clearly was no wider than a long, narrow bed. He ran his hands up the satiny walls. The ceiling of the space was immediately on top of him, only a few centimeters above his chest, his chin, his nose.
A very small space indeed.
His fingers brushed against something else. Paper, fairly stiff paper. Both hands felt over the object lying beside him in the small space. His fingers told him it was a paper bag, with papers in it.
Fletch tried to think where he had last been, what had happened to him, at what he had been looking when … Coffins!
“Aaaaaaaaarrrgh!” Fletch’s roar surprised and deafened himself. “I’m not dead?”
In that terrible enclosure, he tried to get his hands up, to press up, raise the lid of the coffin. His heart was pounding in a lively manner. His face poured sweat.
“Hey, out there!”
Horrified, he realized he might be trying to yell through six feet of sod.
“Hey, up there! I’m not dead yet! I swear to it!”
He could not get his arms, hands at the right angle to lift. The coffin lid was heavy. His beaten muscles quivered and ached but accomplished little.
“Aaaaaaaaarrrgh! Somebody! Anybody! Listen! I’m not dead yet!” The air in the coffin had become exceedingly warm. “
By itself, it seemed, the coffin lid rose.
Instantly, the air became fresh and sweet.
He blinked stupidly at the light of day.
Laura’s head was over the coffin, looking in. “Ah, there you are,” she said.
Lying flat, sucking in the good air, Fletch said nothing.
“What are you doing in a coffin?”
Fletch panted.
“You do look like you belong in a coffin.”
“I saw Norival,” he said. “Norival Passarinho.”
“Norival’s dead,” she said.
“I know!”
“Apparently he went sailing alone at night. His boat hit a rock or something. He drowned.”
“I know!”
“His body washed up this morning. Very sad. Poor Norival.”
“I know all that, Laura. But, listen! I came here to the funeral home. Toninho asked me to. I was alone, in this room.” Fletch peered over the edge of his coffin and established that he was still in the coffin display room. “And I turned around, and there, in the door, stood Norival! Norival Passarinho! Blinking!”
“Norival?”
“He spoke to me! He said, ‘Janio Barreto.’ He came forward. He walked across the room at me. He tried to shake my hand!”
Laura wrinkled up her nose. “Norival Passarinho?”
“Yes! Definitely!”
“After he was dead?”
“Yes! I know he was dead!”
“It couldn’t have been Norival Passarinho.”
“It was Norival Passarinho. Dressed in white. All in white.”
“You saw Norival Passarinho walking around after he was dead?”
“He said, Norival said, ‘Ah, Janio Barreto.’” Fletch lowered his voice to the sepulchral. “‘At last I get to meet you properly.’”
“You saw Adroaldo Passarinho.”
“What? Who?”
“Adroaldo. Norival’s brother. They’re just alike.”
Fletch thought a moment. “Adroaldo?”
“Yes. Adroaldo was very surprised when he put out his arm to shake hands with you, and you fainted.”
“I fainted?”
“Well, you fell on the floor without apparent what-do-you-call-it? premeditation.”
“Adroaldo Passarinho?”
“You didn’t know Norival had a brother?”
“Yes. Of course. But he was so white!”
“He’s been in school in Switzerland all winter.”
“Laura…”
“Fletch, I think you’re not surviving Carnival. It’s beginning to affect your mind.”
“What am I doing in a coffin?”
Laura shrugged. “I suspect the Tap Dancers put you in there. After you fainted.”
“Why?”
“One of their little tricks.” She giggled.
“Very funny!” Stiffly, he began to pull himself up, to sit up in his coffin. “God! I thought…”
“It is funny.”
He picked up the paper bag and looked into it.
“What’s that?” she asked. “Your lunch? Enough to tide you over to the other world?”
“My poker winnings.”
