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“Janio, you must stay with us so we will be believed.”

“I should return to The Yellow Parrot.”

“No, no. There will not be time. You come to my apartment. You can wear my costume from last year. We are the same size.”

“I seem to be the same size as everybody,” Fletch said. “Alan Stanwyk, Janio Barreto, Toninho Braga…”

“Tito will drive fast and we will dress and go in a hurry.”

“The tickets Teo gave me for the ball are at The Yellow Parrot.”

“You can use Norival’s. He won’t be needing it.”

They sailed another few kilometers. Ashore, again Tito flashed his headlights three times.

“All right.” Toninho punched Fletch’s leg. “Take the tiller, Senhor Barreto. It is no surprise to us you know how to run a boat. Orlando, assist Norival. Make sure he has his wallet in his pocket.”

“He has his wallet.”

“His death would never be reported, unless they know who he is. Whoever finds a Passarinho body will expect money for reporting it.”

Fletch sat, tiller in hand, keeping the course along the shore.

Toninho went below.

Soon from the small cabin came a heavy pounding. Then a splintering sound. Then gurgling.

The boat veered to port. Instantly, it became unmanageable. The sails luffed.

Fletch released the tiller.

Toninho came up the companionway and tossed a hammer overboard.

“We are near enough the rock for people to believe he hit it,” Toninho said. “And now for Norival.”

Together, Toninho and Orlando lifted Norival, his eyes still beaming happily in the moonlight, brought him to the gunwale. Gently, they dropped him overboard.

For a moment, the two young men stood on the deck, staring down into the water. Toninho’s lips moved. Orlando crossed himself.

“He’ll be on the beach by dawn,” Toninho said.

The little boat first had come about, put its nose up into the wind, both sails luffing. Then the bow began to sink. As it did so, it fell off the wind, the sails filled again, and, twisting, it began to capsize.

“Come, Janio!” Toninho shouted. “You don’t want to keep dying at your age!”

Orlando dove overboard.

Only after Fletch dove did Toninho scramble off the sinking boat.

The water was exactly body temperature, as was the air. In irrepressible, sensuous delight, Fletch stroked through the buoyant water toward Cidade Maravilhosa.

The wads of money in the pockets of his shorts came to feel like stones in the water.

After a hundred meters, he stopped swimming. He looked around to see if anything of the boat was still visible. He could not be sure. There was something white on the water, possibly the side of the hull, possibly the sails.

Then, from near the boat came a loud yell. “Aaaaaaaaarrrrrgh!” Water was thrashed.

Toninho!” Fletch called. “What’s the matter?”

Silence.

“Toninho! What happened?”

Fletch was just starting to swim back when Toninho’s steady voice came calmly across the water surface: “I swam into Norival….”

Seventeen

“We must be very casual,” said Tito, now a movie Indian.

They were entering the Canecão Night Club.

“What is the number of the Passarinho box?” Orlando asked.

“They’re always in box three,” Toninho answered.

“Da Costa is in box nine,” Fletch answered.

Relieved of the corpse, Tito drove the black four-door Galaxie back to Copacabana fast enough to satisfy any police.

In the car, Fletch gulped down the rest of his liter of water.

At Toninho’s apartment on rua Figueiredo Magalhaes, Toninho, Tito, Orlando, and Fletch shaved and showered in assembly-line fashion.

The Tap Dancers were to dress as movie Indians in breech-clouts, soft thigh-high boots, and war paint. Norival’s breech-clout did not fit Fletch, unless he wanted to spend the rest of the night holding it up with his hand.

Toninho dug his last year’s costume out of a closet and tossed it to Fletch: a one-piece shiny satin movie cowboy suit, complete with mask, frayed leggings, and spangles. Fletch wriggled into it.

“Toninho. This is a scuba suit?”

“It fits you perfectly. Here are the boots, the hat, the mask.”

“It fits like a scuba suit.”

Toninho, Tito, and Orlando then sat in a circle decorating each other’s faces, chests, backs with movie war paint, with great speed. Finished, they looked as if they had already sweated through a war.

While they were doing that, Fletch decorated Toninho’s apartment by draping wet cruzeiros every conceivable place, to dry.

“Remember,” Tito said. “Very casual.”

At Canecão Night Club, Orlando opened the door to the Passarinho box.

“Orlando!” people exclaimed. “Tito! Toninho!”

The people in the box just stared at the masked movie cowboy.

Below them, the huge floor of the Canecão Night Club was jammed with people in bright costumes at little tables, on the dance floor, wandering around. Across the hall on the large stage was an enormous band, mostly of samba drums, but of horns and electric guitars as well.

Everyone in the Passarinho box made much of the Tap Dancers’ costumes. As there wasn’t much to the costumes, in fact they were making much of the Tap Dancers.

In turn, Toninho, Orlando, Tito exercised the courtesy of not knowing who people were and expressing great surprise when, for example, Harlequin revealed himself to be Admiral Passarinho.

“You’re very late!”

“Oh,” Toninho equivocated. “We just found the box.”

“Who’s this?” a woman asked.

“Janio Barreto,” Toninho muttered.

“I. M. Fletcher.”

Senhor Passarinho was dressed as Papai Noel. “Where’s Norival?”

“He went sailing,” Tito said.

“Sailing? It is storming out!”

“The storm is over,” Orlando said.

“Sailing? On the night of the Canecão Ball?”

“We saw him off,” Toninho said. “Fletch did too.”

“Sailing? Why would he go sailing the night of the Canecão Ball?”

With apparent concern, Toninho said, “Norival has been acting very serious lately.”

“He has been talking of taking up a career,” Orlando said.

“That would be nice,” said Papai Noel.

“It is a question of what he does best,” Tito said.

“Norival has his talents,” Orlando said.

Toninho said, “Perhaps he wanted to think.”

“Norival becoming serious?” asked Harlequin. “Then it is time for me to retire!”

“No, no,” Toninho said. “You don’t know Norival as we do. When Norival sets his mind to something, he is apt to die trying.”

“Norival can be very sincere,” Orlando said. “About some things.”

“Yes.” Accented by war paint, Toninho’s eyes crossed. “Norival is one to die trying.”

“Norival is not coming to the ball at all?” Harlequin asked.

“He went sailing,” Toninho said lamely. “To come to some conclusion…”

“Ah, what a son!” Papai Noel said. “Probably drunk somewhere! These tickets cost three hundred North American dollars each! Norival, Adroaldo … Why does a man have sons? As soon as they grow as big as he is, they ignore him! They take, but do not give!”

Fletch was introduced to Senhora Passarinho, who sat aside, watching the dancers on the floor. A lady with mild, vague eyes, she was dressed as a circus clown.

“Ah!” she said. “Norival went sailing! Of course, he never was one for parties! A quiet, sensitive boy, always. He wrote poetry, you know, when he was younger. I remember one poem of his, where the cockatoo bird was meant to represent his school principal…”