“Yes,” I said, shakily, “he brought me in and . . . that’s it.”
“Have you ever met him before?”
“No, never, this is my first time in Rio.”
Officer Pinto, scrawled in his notebook, squinted at his partner—they both nodded in a perfectly synchronized gesture.
“Did he say anything that sounded strange. You better not lie to us?” said officer Pinto.
I had already assumed that before I stood a god forgive disgraced little man because their constant grinning denounced that they had me pre-condemned for whatever it was they thought I had done.
But I kept my class, raised my nose.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, my hands shaking.
“Did he say something that seemed . . . suspect to you?”
Yes, he did. Renato had run over all my companies policies, and had made some weird analogies between taking risks, drug money and his driving job.
I could have told it to both officers. Perhaps they might have found some satisfaction in the details. But I didn’t. Why would I let my personal impressions of Renato take over the objective facts? Renato had taken me from the airport to my hotel in perfect condition, and that’s what mattered.
“Well, he seemed to be a regular driver.”
Both officers’ lips thinned and their nostrils enlarged.
“Are you sure?” said officer Pinto.
“Mrs. Bennett, your Uber has arrived,” the clerk said.
“Yes, I am sure, and I am also late. If you officers don’t mind, I gotta go.”
They might as well had minded my leaving, but given that they held no warrant against me, I didn’t give a damn.
“Ok,” officer Pinto said, “I’ll leave my card at the reception desk, just in case you remember anything.”
I scurried across the lobby to get my Uber. At the revolving door I bumped my face against the cold glass, I shoved it open. On the sidewalk, I wedged the tip of my heels on a ditch running across the floor and when I finally got inside the car, I was panting and sweating and groaning like a miserable beast.
The Uber driver made an effort to ask me in poor English if I needed any help. Tears welled, I dropped my head into my hands and wept.
Chapter 7
There was no reasonable way to tell Joanne what happened since arriving in Rio. I wanted to talk to someone more than anything, but telling her—five thousand miles away—the dreary details of this ridiculous situation would only serve to make two people desperate instead of just one.
I didn’t consider calling my mom. I didn’t want her to worry or become emotional. “Look, Mom. Yesterday I met a driver who I thought would kidnap me, but later I figured he wasn’t that threatening. But this morning two police officers came to my hotel and asked me some damn snappy questions about that driver. And to make things worse, they acted as though I was a suspect.”
Not good for Mom’s health.
“Do you speak English?” I said to the Uber driver, while trying to contain the streams of ink from running down my cheeks.
The poor fellow looked at me with a worried expression that for a moment I thought he was the one who had just undergone the most miserable hours of his life.
In response, he only shook his head and said, “no English, sorry, no English.”
And no English it was.
Rio streets were piled up with cars and motorcycles by the time we left Praia Palace and headed to Rio Centro, where the Rio Firearms Expo took place.
On the hour-long commute, the social contrasts of Rio were everywhere. Shoeless and shirtless boys stood at every road sign, willing to sell their treats and water bottles to the people in the most expensive cars money can buy. Luxurious apartment complexes stood opposite of the slums of heaped houses and uncoated brick walls right across the street. That imagery could be captured after emerging from Zuzu Angel tunnel, a blackness combined to the bright spot at a distance might make daydreamers believe they were about to enter another dimension.
This depressed me further. Atlanta is no paradise, but living conditions are much better there than it seemed to be in Rio, particularly for the poor.
Did those boys attend school at all?
A kid knocked at the glass outside my window. He didn’t seem to be a menacing bandit, only a hungry child with curious eyes. Renato told me they’d only take my money if I gave it to them in exchange for their candies and water bottles.
Not a good time to think about Renato, especially after the visit those two officers paid me. My stomach churned and grunted. Was Renato a criminal? If so, how could I have been so stupid to regard him as a nice, naive man? And what did his “taking risks” mean after all? God, I better not even remember last night.
I closed my eyes in the back seat of the car. I had a feeling that I might see Renato’s face wherever I looked. Was it safe to assume that I’d never meet Renato again? The thought was like a tranquilizer that also produced a faint sense of sorrow.
Yes, a small part of me wanted to see Renato. A big part of me wanted to abandon my writing obligations and fly away from Rio as soon as possible. I’d risk losing my spot in Johnson & Brothers Co., but I’d rather be a jobless woman in Atlanta than involved in a criminal investigation in Rio. I had nothing to offer the police.
When we reached the passenger unloading location inside the Rio Firearms Expo, I retouched the tear smears on my
