“Yes, that’s right. After dinner, she said nothing. Instead of paying she went straight into the kitchen and began washing dishes.”
Laura pushed Fletch onto his back and began taking off his shorts.
“That’s not Joan Collins Stanwyk.”
“She’s been there ever since. Two days. Washing dishes. Eating. The man who owns the restaurant has given her a little bed to use.”
“Joan Collins Stanwyk never washed a dish in her life. She wouldn’t know how.”
“She is a blonde North American or English lady. She speaks no Portuguese.”
“How old is she?”
Kneeling over him on the bed, Laura was taking off his shirt. The telephone wire went through the sleeve.
“Quite young, the mayor says. Slim. In her twenties. Maybe her mid-twenties.”
“Sounds to me like some female derelict from the Florida Keys washed up on a Brazilian beach.”
“Botelho. The beach is very nice there.”
“I’m sure.” Laura was sliding Fletch’s legs under the sheet. “Why did the mayor of Botelho call the Rio police about this lady?”
“Saturdays a tour bus from Copacabana hotels stops in Botelho. The mayor thought she might have gotten off the bus. So he called this police station. He asked if we were looking for a murderess of her description.”
“A murderess?”
“Truth, he doesn’t know where she came from. Or why. Botelho is a small town. He is a small mayor.”
Finally in his bed, to sleep, Fletch thought a moment. Then he said, “I don’t think so, Sergeant. Joan Collins Stanwyk didn’t have any cash on her, but she is a wealthy, responsible lady, a lady of great dignity. She has many options open to her. All the options in the world. I can’t see her ever going to a resort and getting a job washing dishes in a fish-and-chips joint.”
“Fish-and-chips? Ah, you are speaking London English.”
“Anyway, Joan Collins Stanwyk is in her thirties.”
“I didn’t think this would be the lady.”
“I’m sure it’s not.”
“Topsy-turvy. Do you remember what I said about topsyturvy?”
“In fact, I do.”
“This is a very topsy-turvy world. Twenty-seven years I have served with the Rio police. Believe me, I have seen topsyturvy.”
“I’m sure you have. Thanks for being in touch with me, Sergeant.”
Laura was in the bed beside Fletch.
“So,” she said, “they have not found the woman you are looking for.”
“No. Just some English-speaking woman has showed up washing dishes in some fish restaurant down the coast.”
Into the dark, Laura said, “The police just want you to think they are doing something about the disappeared lady.”
“Probably.” He turned on the bedside light.
“What are you doing?”
“Just calling The Hotel Jangada,” Fletch said. “See if she has returned.”
“Want me to help you?”
“This one I can do myself,” he said. “I’ve been practicing.”
At The Hotel Jangada, Room 912 did not answer.
The desk clerk said Mrs Joan Collins Stanwyk had not checked out.
Nor had she picked up the note Fletch had left for her.
Fletch—
I could not wake you up.
I tried and tried. A few times I thought you were awake, because you were talking. What you said made no sense. Did you know you talk in your sleep?
You said you were on a big white riverboat, and the sky was full of buttocks.
You said you had your goat, or someone was trying to get your goat. You seemed afraid of a kicking goat. Then, remarkably, you babbled on about an ancient Brazilian mythical figure, the dancing nanny goat.
How do you know about such things? Sometimes, when you were talking in your sleep, your eyes were open, which is why I thought I was succeeding in waking you. You said something about a man with his feet turned backward, another mythical figure, and when I asked, “Fletch, do you mean the
Amazing thing is, you didn’t know the names of any of these Brazilian scary figures. You seemed to be seeing them in some sort of a nightmare. You were sweating profusely. Do you think you had a fever? I am amazed you have such bad dreams of such hobgoblins, like a Brazilian child, when you have never heard of them or read of them, as far as I know.
Later, when I tried again to wake you, you said, “Leave the dead alone!”
Maybe you frightened me. A little.
I canceled our reservation for dinner at Le Saint Honore. I gave our tickets to the ball at Regine’s to Marilia, who gave them to some people she knows from Porto Alegre.
Your body is a real mess.
I decided what you need is rest.
I have gone back to Bahia. Carnival is almost over, for this year. I must start organizing my music for the concert tour.
Perhaps you would come to Bahia and advise me of what music you think should be included in the programme.
Now maybe my father will be interested in talking to you—now that he knows you have studied up on such things as the
Laura
Fletch had awakened into bright sunlight. He was very hungry. He was very stiff. His body was sticky with sweat.
For a long moment, he thought it was still Monday afternoon and the sun had not yet set.
“Laura?” The hotel room was totally quiet. There was no noise from the bathroom. “Laura?”
From the bed, he noticed that her cosmetics, all those bottles which issued smells if not beauty, were gone from the bureau. None of her clothes were around the room. Her suitcase was gone from the rack.
His watch was on the bedside table. It read five minutes past eleven. Even in a topsy-turvy world, the sun did not shine brightly at five minutes past eleven on Monday nights.
Slowly it dawned on him it must be five minutes past eleven Tuesday morning.
He had slept seventeen hours.
Having to ask individually each part of his body to move, he got up from his bed and walked across the room.
Instead of Laura’s cosmetics on the bureau was Laura’s letter.
He read it twice.
Had he really talked so much in his sleep, said all those things to Laura? What’s a
