Carioca Fletch

by Gregory Mcdonald

  His head was clearing. He had not been unconscious for a long time now.

  It was nearly noon when he could resist no longer.

  Slowly he rolled himself to the edge of the bed. Heavily he lifted himself up. The semi-dark room went out of focus for a minute. He took a step forward. There was no part of his body which did not hurt.

  After using the toilet, he turned on the bathroom light and looked at himself in the mirror. To his regret, his head was on frontwards and stared back at him. Swollen eyes, bruised cheekbones, jaws. One ear was inflamed. There was still blood in his hair. A shower would cause his bandages to fall off. Backing up, he saw the blue bruises on his upper arms, his chest. The top of his stomach was purple.

  Brushing his teeth gingerly, he spat blood into the basin.

  Then he returned to bed and waited.

  Laura would come and they would have food. He would tell her what had happened to him. Would she listen? What had happened to him? Would she be interested, or would this be a level of reality which didn’t interest her much? While he talked, would she be hearing something else? As he was leaving the box to join the Tap Dancers, her face had been inscrutable. What did the fact of the wooden-legged boy following them through the subway mean to her it did not mean to him?

  Laura had not returned by the time Toninho called.

  “You must be better,” Toninho said. “You’ve had almost twelve hours to meditate.”

  “I need twelve years.”

  “Who tried to kill you?”

  “I’m thinking about that.”

  “Ah, Carnival,” Toninho said.

  “He was wearing a goat mask,” Fletch said. “A man in his sixties, I’d say. He tried to kick me to death.”

  “He must have slipped into the personality of the goat. Carnival does that.”

  “No goat has such training in capoeira.” Fletch wanted to switch the phone to his other ear. Then he remembered his other ear had slipped into the personality of a tomato.

  “The news is that Norival has showed up.”

  “Great! In one piece?”

  “Yes. He came ashore way down the coast, a hundred kilometers south of where we thought.”

  “I always thought that boy would go a long way.”

  “Apparently he got caught in a current, which took him south, then ashore. He was on the beach this morning. A jogger found him. They are bringing his body up now.”

  “Good. Great. All your worries are over.”

  “The report so far is that he drowned. His boat broke up and he drowned.”

  “That’s good. So Norival did die at sea. His mother will be so glad. Admiral Passarinho will be ecstatic.”

  “So we’ll see you at the funeral home in about a half an hour.”

  “What? No way. Toninho, I can’t move.”

  “Of course you can move.”

  “Why should I go to the funeral home?”

  “To help us distract the officials.” Toninho’s voice fell to the conspiratorial. “To distract them from any idea of an autopsy. We need to stand around in a circle and say, yes, he drowned. We saw him go sailing and indeed he certainly did drown. They’re more apt to believe you, you see. They don’t know you as well as they know us.”

  “I don’t think I can move.”

  “You must move. If you don’t make yourself move now, you’ll stiffen up, like Norival, and not be able to move for days.”

  Fletch hesitated. He remembered past injuries. “You’re probably right.”

  Still, he had had no real sleep.

  “Of course I’m right. The funeral home of Job Pereira. On rua Jardim Botanico. The business part of the road.”

  “I’ll find it.”

  “I’ll bring all your gambling winnings to you.”

  “You needn’t bribe me.” Fletch tried sitting up in bed. “On the other hand, maybe you do.”

  Thirty-one

  At the funeral home of Job Pereira, Fletch tried to find a doorbell to ring, a door on which to knock. There was neither.

  It was a large stucco and stone house sitting in the deep shade of its own trees.

  “Hello?” he called. “Anyone?”

  The quiet from inside the building was tomb-like.

  He stepped into the coolness of the foyer. There was no reception desk, still no bell to ring. There were short, dark potted palms in each corner.

  “Hello?” Fletch called.

  The only response was a faint echo of his own voice.

  It had taken him longer than the promised half hour to get from The Hotel Yellow Parrot to the funeral home of Job Pereira.

  Sitting on the edge of his bed, he had ordered food from Room Service.

  While still at the telephone, he called The Hotel Jangada and asked for Room 912.

  No answer.

  No, Mrs Joan Collins Stanwyk had not yet picked up the envelope Mr Fletcher had left in her box.

  Every step, every movement, however small, caused him pain. He opened the drapes to the balcony. Across the utility area, the man was painting the room. Perhaps the man’s permanent job in life was to paint that room. Fletch opened the door to the balcony. The air was warm and dry and felt good. The televisions were still blaring the news of Carnival Parade.

  Life goes on.

  Shaving was like walking barefoot through a field of glass. Finished, he had to affix one more bandage to his face.

  Alone, with stinging lips and sore jaws, he ate breakfast.

  Every minute, he thought Laura might return.

  Finally dressed in a pair of clean shorts and a T-shirt, sneakers and socks, he went down in the elevator. The desk clerk and the few other people in the lobby glanced at him and immediately looked away. Despite the glue stuck to various parts of his face and body, he gathered he no longer looked like a Christmas package.

  The avenida in front of the hotel was emptier than he had ever seen it. Citizens either were still watching Carnival Parade or were worn out by it and sleeping.

  Finally a taxi picked him up. All the streets were empty. All the way to the funeral home, the taxi radio kept up an excited description of the last escola to parade.

  “Hello? Anyone here?”

  The funeral home was lifeless. There was not even the sound of a radio or television reporting the 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.

  Thirty-two

  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. “Socorro! damnit!”

  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.”

  “Ah, they buried you with all your worldly wealth. All your ill-gotten gains. So you can tip Charon after he rows you across the River Styx.”

  His time in the coffin had stiffened his muscles again. “How come you’re here?”

  “Toninho called me at the hotel. Said you had fainted. I should come in the car and pick you up. Adroaldo and the others had to go with Norival in his coffin to the Passarinho home.”

  Fletch’s heart had slowed, but he was still sweating. “What if you hadn’t come? I could have run out of air—”

  “Why wouldn’t I have come?”

  “Supposing the car had broken down, or—”

  “You could have gotten yourself out of there.”

  “I could have died of cardiac arrest.”

  “Were you that frightened?”

  “Waking up in a closed coffin is not something one expects to do—under any circumstances.”

  She was studying his face. “You’re a mess.”

  “I got nearly kicked to death.”

  “They told me. Your whole body like that?”

  “At the moment, I am not very sleek.”

  “Was there any reason for it you know of? I mean, getting attacked?”

  “I think so, yes. Help me out of this damned coffin, if you don’t mind.”

  “Also, there was another message for you at the hotel.” She balanced him by holding onto his hand. “A Sergeant Paulo Barbosa of Rio de Janeiro police would like you to call him.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Just left a message. How much trouble are you in?”

  “Oh, my God.” A body wounded in every part is painful to lift out of a raised coffin and set on two feet on the floor.

  “You really are a mess,” Laura said. “The car is just outside.”

  “You’d better drive.”

  “Seeing the last vehicle you tried to drive is a coffin …”

  “Not by choice, thank you.”

  “We’ll go back to the hotel. The Parade is over. It was really wonderful. You missed most of it.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Fletch, you always seem to be someplace you’re not supposed to be, doing something you’re not supposed to be doing.”

  “Got any other news for me?”

  “Yes.” They were crossing the wide, cool foyer of the funeral home of Job Pereira, heading for the dazzling sunlight beyond the front door. “Paul Bocuse is the chef at Le Saint Honoré. I’ve made reservations for tonight, in your name. Have you forgotten the ball at Regine’s? That’s tonight. Tomorrow, I thought we’d drive up and have a quiet lunch at Floresta.”

  “You mean Carnival still isn’t over?”

  “Tomorrow night it’s over. I’m not at all sure you’ll make it. I’ll have to start preparing for my concert tour soon enough. Not a worry. We’ll go back to the hotel and rest now.”

  “No.”

  “No? You want to go play soccer now?”

  “I want to go to favela Santos Lima now.” Over the top of the small yellow convertible, she gave him a long look. “I’ll never rest until I do. You said so yourself.”

  “I don’t think I know the way.”

  “I do.” He lowered himself gently onto the hot passenger seat. “Just follow my directions.”

  Thirty-three

  Sore with wounds, dazed with sleeplessness, Fletch walked into favela Santos Lima like a Figura de Destaque. The sun was searingly, blindingly hot.

  Laura traipsed along a few steps behind him.
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br />   The children of the favela followed him too, of course, but they walked at a distance from him, quietly. As they climbed the hill, adults from the little houses and the little shops followed them.

  By the time they were in front of Idalina Barreto’s house, they were a large crowd.

  The tall old woman recognized Laura immediately. Hands on her hips in the doorway of her little house, she began talking to Laura even before Laura got to the front of the house. The old woman asked, repeated some question of Laura.

  The crowd outside the house was quiet. They wanted to hear Fletch’s answer.

  Laura said, “She wants to know if you’ve come to identify your murderer.”

  Fletch said, “I think so. Tell her I think so.”

  Laura frowned. “Are you serious?”

  “Is anything serious?”

  “How do you mean to do that?”

  “I mean to walk slowly through the favela, look into everyone’s eyes. I shall identify my murderer.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  “I don’t believe …” She looked around at all the people quietly awaiting Fletch’s response.

  “What don’t you believe?” he asked. “What do you believe?”

  Fletch waited a long time for her to answer. He asked, “Would you like to believe I’m about to perform magic? That I’m about to do a trick?”

  Still Laura did not answer.

  “Would you like to believe, as some of these people do, that I am Janio Barreto returned from the dead after forty-seven years to point out my murderer?”

  “I believe …” In the heat of the sunlight, Laura took a deep breath. “I don’t believe you should play with these people.”

  “Am I playing?”

  “At least some of these people believe this story. Because the old lady wants them to believe. The others are just curious. They love any story.”

  “Anybody can make up a story and say it is the past. Right?”

  “Identifying someone as your murderer, as the murderer of Janio Barreto, would be a very serious thing for these people.”

  “I hope so.”

  “You have no idea what they might do to such a person.”