Carioca Fletch

“Poverty is easier to slip into,” Fletch said, “than to climb out of.”

She reached across the table and took his hand. “How do you know so much?”

“Just the wisdom of the masses. Also,” he said, “you must still have the key to your suite at The Hotel Jangada.”

“I must have. It must be in a pocket of that pants suit I was wearing.”

“Get it for me. I’ll check you out of the hotel. I’ll leave your luggage with the concierge, for when you want it.”

“I will want it,” she said. “I’m sure I will.”

While Fletch paid the waiter, Joan told him about bathing in the warm ocean, how hot the sun was at midday, how much she liked the smell of fish, it was so real, the sounds of something she thought might be tree- frogs at night.

“You sound like you’re at summer camp,” he said.

“No. At summer camp someone else washed the dishes. And,” she smiled, “there were only girls.”

Fletch waited by his car while she got the key to her suite at The Hotel Jangada. It was still daylight. Customers were beginning to arrive for dinner.

As Joan crossed the small parking lot to him, some of the customers stared after her, perplexed.

“Do me one other favor, will you?” she asked.

“Sure.” Fletch had known there would be a second part to the bargain. There are always two parts to a bargain.

“When you go back to the States, to California, back to your own reality, don’t ever tell anyone that this crazy thing happened to me, that I did this crazy thing. That you found me washing dishes in a fish joint in some nameless little town in Southern Brazil.”

“The town has a name.”

She laughed. “You know, I don’t know what it is?”

“Botelho.”

“Will you promise me that?”

“Sure.”

“I mean, everyone needs a vacation from life. Don’t you agree?”

“A vacation from reality.”

She handed him the key. “I’m paying for a suite at The Hotel Jangada, and sleeping more or less on the beach in Botelho.”

Fletch said: “Topsy-turvy.”

Thirty-seven

“Did you enjoy your dinner in Botelho?” Teodomiro da Costa asked.

“It was excellent,” Fletch answered.

“Yes, that’s a good restaurant. I’m not sure it’s worth the ride….”

It was late when Fletch got back to Rio, by the time he arrived at Teo da Costa’s home on Avenida Epitacio Passoa.

When the houseman had shown Fletch into the downstairs family sitting room, Teo was looking sleepy in a dressing gown in a comfortable chair. He was reading the book 1887—The Year Slavery in Brazil Ended. From under the reading light, Teo’s eyes traveled over Fletch’s various visible wounds, but he did not comment on them.

“Want a nightcap?”

“No, thanks. I won’t be here that long.”

Stiff from Carnival, from his wounds, from the long ride, Fletch sank comfortably into the two-seater divan.

In the little sitting room was a handsome big new painting by Misabel Pedrosa.

“And did Laura enjoy Botelho?”

“Laura has gone back to Bahia. Yesterday, I finally fell asleep. She couldn’t wake me up. She had to go back to begin preparing for her concert tour.”

“Yes,” Teo said slowly, “I gathered you might have cleaned up that mystery of who murdered Janio Barreto forty-seven years ago. There was a most peculiar report in O Globo this morning. A small item, saying Gabriel Campos, past capoeira master of Escola Santos Lima, was found on the beach, his throat slit. A woman from the favela, Idalina Barreto, is helping the police in its inquiries.”

“I pity the police.”

“Apparently she was found on the beach lighting matches, trying to set fire to the corpse of Gabriel Campos.”

“Did she succeed?”

“That’s what’s peculiar about O Globo’s report. It says that legend has it that no one has ever succeeded in lighting a fire in that exact spot on the beach in almost fifty years.”

“Teo, I’d like some of the money you’ve invested for me to be available for the education of the current young generation of the descendants of Janio Barreto.”

“Easily done.”

“Especially young Janio. He has a wooden leg. It will be harder for him to make a living without an education.”

“Yes.”

Fletch fingered the scar on his throat. “I believe he saved my life.” Then he chuckled. “He might even think of becoming a bookkeeper.”

Teo placed his history book on the table beside his chair. “And did you find your lady friend from California? What’s her name, Stanwyk?”

“Yes. She’s all right.”

“What happened to her?”

“She fell out of her cradle. She’s enjoying a few moments crawling around the floor.”

Obviously tired, Teo cast his hooded eye across the darkened room at Fletch.

“Brazil is the future,” Fletch said. “Who can see the future?”

“And you,” Teo asked, shifting comfortably in his chair. “Did you enjoy Carnival?”

“I learned some things.”

“I’d love to know what.”

“Oh, that the past asserts itself. That the dead can walk.” Fletch thought of the small carved stone frog that had been under his bed. “That the absence of symbols can mean as much as their presence.”

As if digesting all this, Teo blinked his hooded eye. He did not ask questions.

“Teo, driving so far today by myself, through the incredible Brazilian countryside, I think I settled on a plan.”

“No need to tell me what it is,” Teo said. “Any more than there is to tell your father what it is. As long as you have a plan.”

“I’ve decided to try writing a biography of the North American western artist Edgar Arthur Tharp, Junior. It seems an opportunity to get some things said about the North American’s view of the artist, the intellectual, of the North American spirit.”

Teo repeated, “As long as you have a plan.”

“It is the spirit of things which is important, isn’t it?”

Teo said, “Norival Passarinho’s funeral is tomorrow. Will you attend?”

Fletch hesitated. “Yes.” He stood up. “Why not?”

Teo stood up as well. “And will you visit Bahia before you leave?”

At the door, Fletch said: “To say good-bye.”

For a moment, Fletch sat quietly in the dark in the small yellow convertible outside Teodomiro da Costa’s home.