I took another sip and another drag.
I had been to Rio once, but I had never been to São Paulo. I knew nothing of the town and I knew no one in it. I would have to get some guidebooks and maps as soon as we landed.
"Have you ever been to São Paulo before?" I asked Maria.
"Yes," she said. "Years ago. With Carl."
"Oh?"
"Business," she said, with a slight smile. "This was after you had returned to the States."
"They can’t miss our foreign accents," I said. "Do you recall whether they ask for your passport when you register at a hotel?"
She laughed.
"I do not know about the big hotels there," she said. "We did not stay at any of them. We stayed at a small place in Santos, about an hour’s drive from São Paulo city. It was not such a good hotel, but there are hotels and boarding houses on every street. Santos is a weekend resort place on the ocean. I liked it. No one asked us for papers when we stayed there." She shrugged. "The ones we had were forged, anyway."
It sounded like a good idea. Carl’s usually were. Except for his last one, of course.
"Do not worry about our accents," she added. "São Paulo is full of people with foreign accents."
"Then Santos it is," I said, and she nodded.
I returned my attention to wingtip, water and cloud.
*
I was revived and somewhat elated when we passed through the baggage pickup and customs without any difficulty. We purchased a stack of maps and tourist materials, consulted them quickly and sought a cab. I had found that the American Express office was on the Rua 7 Abril, located it on the map and told the driver to take us there. When we arrived, he wanted to wait for us, but we dismissed him, went inside and cashed a whole book of travelers cheques. I gave about a third of the money to Maria, then hefted the luggage and started walking.
We turned at the corner, walked a block, hit the Rua São Luiz and headed down it till we came to the Municipal Library. There we found a busy bus stop and waited for a bus that was only partly filled to come along. We boarded the first one that did and spent the next hour and a half changing busses.
I remembered Rio as a vast melange, combining all the races, containing vast riches and miserable poverty, featuring ultra-modern hotels and office buildings, colorful provincial enclaves and hillsides full of favelas—the most squalid slums I have ever seen; all of this bounded by mountains and ocean beaches, strewn with flowers, coursed by maniac drivers, spitted by the Tropic of Capricorn, cycling between lethargy and frenzy, infused with voodoo and sprinkled exotic appetites, concrete Christ on the Corcovado dashboard above.
São Paulo, on the other hand, reminded me of Chicago. From the air, it had seemed a great, prickly mass. Now that I moved among its high, serrated ranks, my first impression was that I was surrounded by an army of massive, glass-eyed robots, enormous energies churning their innards. I did not find this disenchanting, nor did I doubt there was more to it than a monarchy of masonry and metal. It aroused my curiosity as to the real city that lay behind this façade. In the case of Chicago, the removal of its mask proves a disappointment; with New York there is more, much more, to excite one’s wonder, to hold it for a span of time. I lamented the brevity of life and the possibility that my own was about to become a special example of this rule.
We had not intended to ride the busses for as long as we did, but getting back downtown proved more complicated than we had anticipated. At the train station, Maria picked up a pair of tickets for Santos while I waited. The blonde wig made a difference in her appearance that was not unpleasant, though I liked her better the other way.
Fortunately, we did not have a long wait for a Santosbound train. We boarded, found seats and cultivated patience. If the station was too busy for me to tell whether we were being observed, I consoled myself that it probably made us a bit more difficult to spot, also. We had moved and stood with groups of people most of the time, and we seemed to look like many of the Paulistas we saw, off for a holiday by the sea.
Before very long, we moved, rattling and swaying, into evening and the southeast. I studied the maps and booklets for a while, pretended to study them for a while longer as I scanned the other inhabitants of the car.
A family group of six, a very old couple, a rather attractive girl reading a magazine, three chattering women and a middle-aged man working a crossword puzzle were all that I could see without turning my head and staring. There were others toward the rear, and several empty seats.
I relaxed, sighed and lit a cigarette.
"How long?" I asked.
"The man said about an hour. Perhaps less."
I nodded.
"Good. I’m getting hungry."
We watched the town, then countryside, speed by. After a time, the moon rose. I was beginning to feel safer.
*
The following morning, I bought all new clothing and disposed of what I had been wearing in a convenient trash receptacle. Then I succeeded in renting a car and returned to the concrete block and stucco hostelry called The Plaza, where Maria and I had registered as Paul and Madeleine Timura, of Piracicaba, after some taxi-switching and walking, the previous evening. We had taken a room with double beds, the only one available, and walked to a small restaurant we had passed three blocks up the road. From there, I tried to telephone Emil Bretagne, but no one answered. I obtained his address from the operator then, learning that it was a "Mr. & Mrs." listing. I managed to get the number for Bassenrut Development next—the suspect organization which listed him as an officer. No answer there either, though again I obtained the address. After a large meal and a long, hot soak, I fell into bed and knew nothing till morning.
I tried Bassenrut again then. This time I got through, but was told that Emil was out of town and, no, they were not certain when he would be back—perhaps another week—and they did not know the details of his itinerary.
Rather than ringing his home again, I decided to visit it. We located his street on the map and marked the route. Then we set out driving, through what promised to be a beautiful day. The most recent day to have made such a promise having proved a liar, however, I remained skeptical.
The way was somewhat hilly, splashed with green and possessed of amazingly red soil. The air, through the open window, came clean and cool, and for a long while I could smell the morning and the sea we were leaving behind us. Wave-like, we mounted a continually rising plateau as we headed toward the city, and glancing back, I could see for a great distance.
When we neared the city’s outskirts, we bore to the left, following the map, and we eventually entered a suburban residential area. About ten minutes later, we came to a small shopping complex and stopped there for lunch. I visited a hardware store afterwards and purchased some tools I thought might come in handy. I was not going to let something like absence of the owner keep me out of Emil Bretagne’s place.
We continued on then, in a generally southern direction, and the residences began to grow larger and the distances between them greater. This progression continued as we drove on, and although the day grew warmer, increasing numbers of massive, roadside trees cast sufficient shade to compensate for it. Traffic eventually thinned to the point where we encountered other vehicles only occasionally.
Soon it became difficult to tell whether we were passing residences or sections cleverly landscaped to hide them. We continued to trust the map and wound our way through the rolling, colorful landscape until we came to a marker that proclaimed Emil’s street. Turning there, we passed through more of the same and decided after a while that we had missed the place.
I was beginning to think of turning back to try it again when Maria spotted the upper portions of a house, high and far off the road to our left.
I slowed, seeking a driveway, and through a sudden gap in the trees saw that the house was a large, two-story place set on the crest of a small hill. The road curved, kept curving, almost seemed to be making a physical effort to hurry u
s on past a narrow driveway that suddenly appeared to the left. I hit the brakes then and regarded a post that stood beside it, bearing a small sign that contained a single word: Bretagne.
Turning, I proceeded down a mixture of white gravel and red soil that quickly bore us out of sight of the road. After a few moments, I heard running water and came to be driving beside a small stream. Further along, we came to a sturdy wooden bridge, gate bar upraised, and crossed over. Then it was upward, with several switchbacks, and into an oval—a flagpole and flower beds on its island—before the house itself. Two cars were parked there.
We parked near them, and having rehearsed our stories earlier, we headed up the walk prepared to tell them.
The door was opened partway by a small, dark, fat girl who seemed out of breath and partly crouched. When I took a step forward, she drew back, eyes widening, and the door moved several inches in our direction.
"My name is Paul Timura," I said, "and this is my wife, Madeleine. Is Mister Bretagne in?"
"No," she said. "He is away."
"Oh my," I said. "That is too bad. I hope his wife is in?"
She paused a moment, then opened the door and admitted us into a dark, cool entrance hall with a stained glass skylight.
"Please wait," She said, and vanished through the nearest of several low archways. There followed a murmur of voices, though I could not distinguish what was being said.
"I am frightened," Maria whispered.
"Why?"
"There is money here. Power too, perhaps. I did not know that Claude’s brother was wealthy. If he wanted to, he could cause us more trouble."
I squeezed her hand, releasing it when I heard footsteps approach.
The girl appeared in the archway and said, "Come this way, please."
We followed her into a sitting room done up in French Provincial, which always makes me uneasy. Three men and a woman stood and faced us as we entered. The woman was small-boned, pale and around fifty. Her platinum hair looked as if it had just been set and she wore her makeup well. I found myself wondering how she had looked twenty years ago. She was still quite attractive.
"Mister Timura…?" she said, an uncertain smile on her lips, quick lines of puzzlement traced about her eyes.
"Yes," I said. "Paul Timura. This is my wife, Madeleine. I met Emil some time ago, on business, and we hit it off pretty well. We exchanged addresses, but we never did get together again. I just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by and say hello."
"I am afraid that he is out of town," she said.
"I knew I was taking a chance, but it was a nice morning for a drive in the country."
She continued to smile and indicated a short, pudgy man whose tinted glasses did not conceal the puffiness about his eyes, nor their thick frames the fact that he lacked eyebrows. He had thin hair, wore a comfortable looking lightweight suit and his handshake was firm.
"This is Inspector Morales," she said, "and—his assistants."
"Victor and Dominic," he supplied. "I am pleased to meet you, Mister Timura." He nodded at Maria. "…and your lovely wife," he finished.
I shook hands with the other two—darker, larger, younger, more heavily muscled—and we mumbled the usual pleasantries.
Turning again to Mrs. Bretagne, "I am sorry to have interrupted you," I said. "I really should have telephoned —but it was one of those spur-of-the-moment things. If you will just give your husband my best wishes when he returns, we won’t keep you from your company…"
I edged back a pace. I wanted to get the hell out of there.
"Oh no," she said. "Their call was professional, not social, and we’ve just about finished. Please be seated. Rose will bring you drinks. What would you care for?"
"Well—" I glanced around the room. No glasses were in sight. "Anything," I said. "Perhaps a beer."
Maria nodded.
"A beer, also," she said.
"Very good. And bring me a scotch and ginger ale," she told the girl. "Are you sure you gentlemen won’t have anything?" she asked the three.
"Quite sure," said Morales, retreating toward the chair he had vacated. "We are still on duty. It is a rule."
We seated ourselves. Morales was studying me quite closely.
"Where are you from, Mister Timura?" he inquired.
"Piracicaba," I replied, making it sound more conversational than his question. "I hope that nothing serious has happened here."
"I am afraid that something did," he said. "There was a robbery."
"Oh? How unfortunate."
I turned toward Mrs. Bretagne.
"I’m very sorry," I said. "What was stolen?"
"I don’t know," she replied. "I wish that I did."
Morales tamped a cigarette on the edge of his fist. Dominic struck a light for him as he raised it to his lips.
"What happened," he explained, "is that someone broke in last night and forced Mister Bretagne’s safe. Mrs. Bretagne has no idea what he kept in it, and he is unavailable at this time."
"Terrible!" I said, mentally adding a curse for whoever had beaten me to it. "The man must have been awfully quiet."
"Ah!" he said, expelling smoke and narrowing his eyes. "This is the interesting part. The night before last, Mrs. Bretagne received a telephone call from a man who identified himself as her husband. It seemed a long distance call, for the connection was poor. Also, the conversation was quite brief. Also, the caller said that he had contracted a cold. Enough! She believed it to be her husband and she did as he said."
"Yes," she interrupted. "I had not seen him for a time and the trip sounded like a good idea. It has been a long while since we had anything like a vacation together."
I lit a cigarette of my own as Morales went on:
"He asked her to meet him at a hotel in Brasilia the following day—yesterday. He said that they had just been invited to a wonderful party—government officials, officers, celebrities—and that he wanted her there with him. He said they might stay for several days afterwards."
"So I gave Rose time off and flew to Brasilia," she said.
"Only we had no reservations at that hotel and there were no messages for me. I took a room and waited. I must have phoned every other hotel in the city, to make certain I had not misunderstood. But there were no reservations, no messages at any of them…"
She paused a moment, looking as if she were about to cry.
"Then I phoned some friends we have in Brasilia," she continued, "and they helped me inquire around town. There was no such party planned! The whole thing was a lie! I was sick and humiliated. I would not even stay overnight in that town! I took an evening flight back and got home quite late. Then I learned that it was more than just an evil joke. While I was away, the house had been burglarized!"
She drew a handkerchief from her sleeve and turned away while she did things to her eyes and nose with it.
"I’m terribly sorry," I said. "We chose a wretched time to drop by, and I hope you’ll forgive us. We had no way of knowing…"
Rose arrived at that moment and I seized my beer and took a swallow, grateful for the diversion.
The fact that Emil’s whereabouts were not even known to his wife was interesting. The fact that someone had taken advantage of the situation as he did was even more interesting. The nature of the object or objects stolen or sought was positively intriguing.
"Any fingerprints?" I asked Morales.
"None that we were able to locate," he said.
"Sounds professional," I observed.
"I think not," he said, shaking his head. "It was cleverly set up, yes. But the safe itself was opened quite crudely. It was an older model, and it should not have proved too difficult for an experienced safe man. Whoever did it, though, literally tore the thing apart. He employed a variety of power tools, and he made a number of false starts.
"By the way," he said, uncrossing and recrossing his legs, "where did you say you had met Emil?"
"Rio," I replied.
<
br /> "I see. What was the subject of your mutual interest?" he asked, his tone becoming less conversational.
"I was trying to sell him an insurance policy," I said. "He was interested, but not enough to buy. So we dropped the subject and just sat around talking. We had dinner together, had a very enjoyable evening."
"What company are you with?"
"I was with an agency," I said. "Bundsky and Company. They are no longer in business."
"Oh. Who are you with now?"
I ransacked my mind for something unverifiable. The last thing I needed now was a smart cop, even if he was curious for all the wrong reasons.
"I am writing a book," I said.
"For whom?"
"For any publisher who is willing to pay for it."
"Oh."
"Did you find any clues at all?" I asked, in a quick effort to direct the conversation away from myself.
"I am afraid not," he said. "He cleaned up after himself quite thoroughly, and there do not appear to have been any witnesses to anything unusual hereabouts."
"How unfortunate," I said, forcing the faintest of smiles. "I hope that he had adequate insurance coverage."
He seemed to lose a momentary struggle against it, and then smiled himself.
"I do not know," he said, shrugging. "A recovery, an arrest, a conviction—these are my aims. I am still at the information-gathering stage. For instance, I’m asking everybody—even people of somewhat remote connection with the family—such questions as, ‘Where were you last night? What were you doing? Who were you with?’ "
"Very thorough," I said, nodding. "Very thorough."
All eyes focused upon me for a moment then: Maria’s, betraying nothing, but looking to me for some sign; Mrs. Bretagne’s, with sudden speculation and nascent fear; Dominic’s and Victor’s, like those of hunting hounds who know their prey will soon break cover; Morales’, dark and placid, patiently expectant, like those of an ikon.
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