The Fugitive

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  The mirror had long since ceased to disappoint; now it only informed. He saw the pale, pudgy face, the wispy remains of the blond hair, the stringy neck and taut potbelly. The eyes were startlingly blue, huge in the small face. For no reason he smiled at his image, suddenly feeling pleased to be in Brazil, to be finally started, to be active once again. Who you are I can’t imagine, he said to the face in the mirror happily, and furthermore, I couldn’t care less.

  When he emerged, having put on his shirt behind the locked door as always, the heat of the day was beginning to dissipate, the breeze from the ocean was strengthening, fluttering the curtains. He pulled on his pants, slipped his tie already knotted over his head and drew it up sharply, and was reaching for his shoes when the telephone rang stridently from the nightstand. The sudden shrill caused him to jump; the light mood disappeared.

  “Yes?” he said tersely, his hand gripping the receiver tightly.

  “Mr. Busch? Mr. Hans Busch?” The voice was quite impartial.

  “Yes. I’m Mr. Busch.”

  The voice paused imperceptibly. “This is the American Embassy, Mr. Busch. The assistant consul speaking. Your passport is in our possession.” The voice grew a bit chiding. “You are aware, I am sure, that the loss of a passport is supposed to be reported to the Embassy immediately? You are extremely fortunate that it was found as quickly as it was, and that it was turned in to the Embassy.”

  “My passport? You have it?”

  The voice became impatient. “ff you would please come down to the Embassy at once? Any taxi can bring you, everyone is familiar with the American Embassy, it is quite a prominent building.” There was a pause, as if the speaker was thinking. “It is now four o’clock; we remain open until six. Please be sure and make it today. We do not recommend that American citizens go about in a foreign land without their identification, you know. Just ask for Mr. Murray.”

  “I’ll be there.” A puzzle, this. But still, a relief.

  “Thank you.” The voice did not thank him at all; it was quite disdainful, superior in all respects to people who lost passports within minutes of arrival, and then were so lacking in responsibility as to fail to report the loss immediately to Mr. Murray. The click of disconnection precluded any reply. He pressed the bar down thoughtfully, staring at the instrument. In sudden resolve he lifted his finger and pressed the receiver to his ear.

  “Telefonista. Boa tarde.”

  “Pardon me,” he said slowly, enunciating with maximum clarity. “Do you speak English?”

  “But of certain.”

  “Then I wonder if you would be so kind as to connect me with the American Embassy?”

  “One moment only.”

  He listened to the distant ringing, feeling all of the old satisfaction of having made a positive decision, his mind busily attempting to rationalize the reappearance of his passport. A receiver was lifted, and a voice of such pure boredom answered him as could only emanate from an official office. He asked for Mr. Murray and, after a series of clicks, heard the same voice as before. It really was the Embassy. He thought: I’m afraid I will give Mr. Murray ulcers, but I had to be sure. He considered hanging up quietly, but some spurt of pride, reborn with his decision to check the odd call, would not allow this.

  “Mr. Murray? This is Mr. Busch again. I just wanted to be sure that I understood. You did say my passport had been recovered and that I could pick it up if I passed by?”

  To his surprise the disdainful outburst he had anticipated did not materialize; the voice sounded almost amused, understanding.

  “Yes, Mr. Busch,” it said. “I did say it. And I really meant it. Before six, Mr. Busch. Goodbye.”

  He was pulling on his jacket when he noticed the newspaper lying under the door where some hotel employee had slipped it during his nap. It was a tabloid-sized paper, printed in English, and a small printed form glued to one corner advised him that the management hoped he would enjoy reading the news in his own language. I hope so too, he thought and, tearing off the tab, dropped onto the bed to scan the headlines. There was nothing on the front page; he flipped the pages, a bit perturbed. Then it was staring out at him, a medium-sized article under the Stateside basketball scores. Folding the paper, he carried it to the brighter light at the window to read.

  It was headed quite simply, EMBEZZLEMENT SUSPECT IN RIO and read:

  New York, Feb. 12 (UPI): Hans Busch, well known in the United States for his frequent anti-Semitic articles and pamphlets, and wanted at present by the New York District Attorney’s office for questioning in connection with the recent failure of several importing companies with which he was alleged to be connected, is reported to have left International Airport at Idlewild last night by Pan-American Airways with destination listed on the passenger list as Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

  Busch, a naturalized American citizen, is suspected of absconding with funds of the Germanic-Atlantic Trading Co. and the Hamburg-Atlantic Import Co., both of New York. While the exact nature of the embezzlement charge has not as yet been revealed, it is rumored that Busch fled with nearly two million dollars in cash.

  A high official of the New York Police Department stated last night that Busch is also wanted by Federal authorities for questioning in regard to the recent wave of swastika-painting and synagogue-burning that has swept the eastern part of the United States, as well as cities of both Europe and South America.

  It is not known as yet what action can be taken by American authorities should Busch decide, as other American fugitives have recently done, to adopt Brazil as his new home, since as yet there is no extradition treaty between the two countries.

  He read the article through twice, carefully. It was more or less what they had decided on, but he still wondered at the precipitous release. Ah, well, he thought, maybe it wasn’t too bad after all. If he could get his passport from the American Embassy, it simply meant that he could get started sooner. Started, that is, if anyone took the bait. He left the paper face up on the dresser and left the room.

  In the lobby he changed some dollars for cruzeiros and asked the doorman to call a taxi and give the driver directions. As he waited he looked about him, wondering a bit at the lack of attention; he had expected somehow crowds, reporters, the curious, possibly even the police, but other than a ragged shoeshine boy who studied his shoes judiciously and then straggled on, the scene was peaceful. Too early, he thought, and much better this way. With my passport in my pocket, I’ll be able to face them. The doorman finished giving explicit directions to the driver who had sat stolidly through the lecture, his boredom complete at this unrequested and unneeded help. As always in a land whose language was foreign to him, the little man resented the need for outside help, but Portuguese was not among his repertoire of European tongues. English, be thought; they say you can get by anywhere in the world if you speak English. That is, of course, if you never leave your hotel. Or if you stop eating.

  The taxi shot through the traffic of Copacabana with practiced ease, barely avoiding the home-going bathers who dashed between the moving cars with loudly voiced but cheerful animosity for all vehicles, moving or parked. Seen from street level the ocean breakers were huge, towering over the beach to crash and roll almost to the patterned sidewalk. In the distance, rounded rocky islands poked their heads above the incredibly blue sea; a white sliver of a steamship ran jauntily for the harbor. Lovely, he thought, oh, lovely!

  They cut through a series of tunnels to the open Guanabara Bay, and the full impact of the city was revealed in a breath-taking panorama. From the sky that morning, while circling to land, the tangled pattern of hills and sparkling water had held the latent promise of fulfillment of tourist-agency-poster beauty, but he had been too tired and despondent coming in from the airport to pay proper heed to his surroundings. He faintly recalled the tattered upholstery of the cab, and the fact that the rear seat ash tray was overflowing; other than that the trip from Galeao to the Mirabelle was one blank, a persistent jostling through which
his drugged mind had attempted to encompass the tragedy of the lost passport. Now, a few moments away, his passport waited; he refused to consider the strange circumstances of the Embassy call, but gave himself over completely to the view.

  To the left and above all, mastering and dominating the sweeping hills that fell in mottled green folds away from it, rose the majestic, sheer face of Corcovado, crowned with the hovering white figure of the Cristo Redemptor guarding in perpetual benevolence the lush vitality of the city below, watching in impersonal piety over the near saints and closer sinners that struggled through life in the sea-fringed valley at his feet. In the clear light of the lowering sun, each gaunt striation of the rocky tower could be distinguished; the mountain seemed to have been thrust out of the sea in some ancient age just for the purpose of eventually holding this calm statue.

  And there, across a narrow spit of bay to the right, hovering over the yawning yachts moored in its lengthening shadows, loomed the famous Pao de Acucar—Sugar Loaf—a huge Gulliver tethered to the land by the puny cables that led to its peak. Even as he watched, a small buglike car detached itself from the summit and slowly inched its way downward. Flocks of birds, tiny check marks silhouetted against the fading sky, dipped and swirled over the harbor. In the extreme distance across the wide water, tiny white blocks of apartment buildings marked Niteroi on the far shore, the heavy blue hills rising behind them, dwarfing them. My God! he thought. Who would have ever imagined that I would eventually actually see Rio de Janeiro! What fantastic beauty! Someday I shall have to return here as a simple tourist, go through customs with a clear conscience, and step out on the street with no problems, no worries. And one thing is definite—not as Hans Busch. Let us hope that these next few weeks will see the end of Mr. Hans Busch!

  The drive led along the water’s edge. Across the tree-lined avenue luxury apartments marched in solid phalanx to the city’s downtown skyline, blocked against the afternoon sky in the distance in sweeping rectangles and squares. Royal palms towered above the checkered sidewalk, the warm breeze ruffling their broad leaves. A traffic light halted their progress; across the road from them as they waited he idly watched a gang of barebacked workers unloading sand from a battered truck parked beneath the planked façade of a construction job. Their muscled black backs shone as they rhythmically dipped and swayed with each shovelful thrown to the ground. And all of you there, he thought suddenly; what are you doing? Why aren’t you out on the beach sleeping or kicking a ball about, or else off in the shadows of these wonderfully wooded mountains, making soft love? Why do you sweat in the hot sun, building the archaeological discoveries of some future age, the ruins of a hundred or a thousand years hence? What is this vast urgency to construct tomorrow’s rubble today? The time capsule is endless, he thought sadly; it is we who are so terribly finite.

  Maybe, he thought, as the taxi pulled away from the traffic light, maybe they do what they do for the same reason I do what I do. We have all been conditioned to believe that what we do is important. Is what I’m doing important? He frowned and leaned back in the swaying cab. Beauty is intoxicating, he thought. I’d better be very careful in Rio.

  Chapter 4

  The taxi drew up before an imposing white building with solid glass doors set beneath modern aluminum block lettering. A neat fern-filled garden at one corner broke the stern austerity of its simple lines. Even against the clean beauty of the other Brazilian architecture about it, the edifice announced dignity and a lofty disregard for cost. It was the American Embassy, and he paid the taxi and went inside. The cool dusk of the high-vaulted entrance calmed the strange restlessness that had overcome him in the taxi, and he approached the desk with a return to normality.

  The mention of Mr. Murray’s name brought neither accusing glances nor shocked surprise; he was directed quite routinely to a room on the eighth floor. Let it go quickly, he prayed; let him give me my passport and show me the door. Let him be too disgusted with my stupidity even to repeat his form lecture. He paused. Let him even give me the lecture, be thought, just so long as he also gives me my passport.

  The elevator swallowed him soundlessly and deposited him with no sensation of motion in a corridor lined with black and white marble. At the far end he saw the number he wanted, but the anteroom was empty and he sat down to wait for someone to appear, too impressed by the massive inner door and heavy silence to think of knocking. Magazines were neatly stacked on a small table beside his chair, and he was considering whether or not to disturb their precise geometry when the door swung open, and he looked up to find a medium-sized, nondescript man studying him in calm appraisal.

  “Mr. Busch?”

  “Yes.” He pried himself out of the deep chair, his prayers repeating themselves in his mind. “Are you Mr. Murray?”

  The nondescript man shook his head slowly, a faint touch of wonderment in his manner. “You had better come in, I think. My name is Wilson, and it appears that it is time we all had a talk. Please come in.”

  He passed ahead of Wilson, sinking deep into the lush carpet, confused by the luxury of the room, but also made a bit alert. The large office desk set beneath the draped windows was dwarfed by the size of the office, but the profusion of chairs and couches scattered about in studied deference to hominess somehow balanced the room. He was vaguely aware of an array of pictures on the richly paneled walls, but he did not bring himself to look at them. The quiet hum of an air conditioner was the only sound, and he was suddenly conscious of the coolness. He flattered himself that he was actually not very surprised to see Captain Da Silva sitting in one corner, negligently swinging one leg over the other, and smiling gently.

  “I suppose,” he said carefully, almost cautiously, standing very still, feeling the cold touch of panic returning, “that you couldn’t be Mr. Murray?”

  “Why, no,” Da Silva said pleasantly. “I am Captain José Da Silva. At your service. I thought we had gotten that all clear this morning.”

  “But I had a telephone call… at the information desk they said…”

  “Exactly what they were told to say,” Mr. Wilson finished smoothly.

  He suddenly felt weary again, conscious of the ridiculous figure he made, standing rigid and short and fat in the center of the room, apparently to be the continuing butt of Captain Da Silva’s sardonic humor. He hated to satisfy the requirements for his baiting; he knew he should march out of the room coldly angry, but the words were out before he could stop them, forced from the depths of his disappointment. “Then there is no Mr. Murray? And I do not get my passport?”

  Da Silva laughed. “Sit down, Mr.… ah, Mr. Busch. Of course you get your passport. And of course there is a Mr. Murray, and of course he is the assistant consul here.” He considered the swinging toe of his polished boot, as if suddenly pleased to be its owner. When he looked up his smile was a bit rueful, as if he had been unfairly accused of a breach of manners. “My dear fellow, we would certainly not slip up on a thing like that, particularly in a telephone conversation with the Mirabelle Hotel. After all, we could scarcely use Mr. Wilson’s name, because very few people know that he is attached to this eminent office. And Mr. Wilson, I gather, prefers it just that way. And of course we couldn’t use my name, since I am a visitor here like yourself.” He shrugged as if to say. What could we do? “It may be true that Mr. Murray has had his name taken in vain, at least in the sense that he has no idea your passport was taken away, nor that it is being returned. But then, this is probably the only service to which Mr. Murray has been put in his two years in Brazi!.” He rolled his eyes drolly toward a shelf that contained an even row of chromed cups. “Other, possibly, than earning the Embassy several cups in bridge, and advancing the interests of your government in the field of golf.”

  Mr. Wilson smiled faintly. “After all, Zé,” he said, “you are in the American Embassy. A bit of respect for the residents might be in order.”

  “It is enough to respect an idea or an ideal,” Da Silva returned, still smiling
idly, although a certain tone of seriousness had entered his voice. “Sometimes it is not good to study the manifestations too closely, for all too often they have a tendency to assume the form of your Mr. Murray.” He looked up in friendly fashion at the short figure still standing tense in the middle of the room, listening in suspicious bewilderment to this exchange. “You do not know Mr. Murray, I assume, Mr. Busch. He was not told because it was felt that he would not understand. Mr. Murray, my friend, is the type who, even if he understood, would not understand. However, let us forget Mr. Murray. Let us concentrate on you, Mr. Busch. Tell me, 2657782—how did you ever get involved in a complicated business like this?”

  The shock was terrible. He had listened to the soporific voice, waiting for a blow, but not this! He felt his heart swell and then fade to nothing, leaving only the sharp stabbing pain. The rush of blood from his head canted it to one side, giving him an idiot look; the muscles of his legs cramped, pulling him to the floor, jerking them up against his stomach in an almost fetal position. No! No, no! Not after the years of planning, not after the suffering, the antagonisms, the friendlessness! Not after the sun on the bay, and the promise of the mountains; not after the warm headiness of the breeze! No! He felt hands lifting him, the dribble of water against his stiffened tongue, a pillow being pushed against his neck.

  “My God, Zé! What in hell did you say?”

  But Da Silva was too busy with the man on the couch to answer. For the first time in their long acquaintance, Wilson saw the tall man shocked out of his usual air of detachment; he was desperately attempting to resuscitate the tortured figure twisting on the couch.

  “Look! Please! My God, I’m with you, I’m on your side, don’t you understand? I was only talking, it’s my way, do you understand? Can you hear me? I’m here to help you, can’t you see that? Try to understand what I’m saying; I’m here to help you. Wilson, call a doctor—no, we can’t! Listen to me, you are in the American Embassy in Rio de Janeiro, you are perfectly safe, you are with friends. Friends, do you hear? Don’t you understand? Wilson, do something! Why the devil did they have to pick a two-hundred-year-old with a bad heart! Meu Deus, me salve de minha bôca! Take it easy, relax, calm down; you’re all right. We are friends!”