The desk clerk withered.
He got the desk key to Room 912 and led the way to the elevator.
“Do you see anything amiss?” Teo asked.
While the desk clerk stood at the door of Suite 912, jangling the key in his hand, Teo and Fletch had searched through the living room, bedroom, bathroom, terrace as well as they could.
“Not a damned thing,” Fletch answered. “Except that Joan Collins Stanwyk isn’t here.”
The rooms were freshly made up, the bathroom undisturbed, the bed not slept in. Going through the drawers, closets, even going through the medicine chest and suitcases, and other immediately conceivable hiding places, Fletch had found no money, no jewelry.
“One thing is significant, Teo,” Fletch said. “Yesterday morning, Joan was wearing a tan slacks suit and a silk shirt. I cannot find the slacks suit and the shirt here in the suite.”
“She could have sent them to the hotel cleaners. You don’t know what other clothes she had.”
“Not likely. She wanted to move out of this hotel as soon as I brought money.”
“Then it is likely she disappeared somewhere between The Hotel Yellow Parrot and here.”
“Yes.”
Standing back on his heels at the door, the desk clerk rattled the key against its chain.
“What do we do now?” Teo asked. “You’re the investigative reporter, newly retired.”
“Check the hospitals, I guess.”
Teo thought a short moment. “There is really only one hospital where they would have brought anyone sick or injured between The Yellow Parrot and here. We can check that one out.”
Fletch said, “Let’s do so.”
“What do we do now?” Teo asked again.
They stood in the hospital lobby.
Teo had explained to the hospital administrator the disappearance of a blonde North American woman, in good health, more than twenty-four hours before, who had already been robbed of her money and identification.
The administrator clucked about Carnival, was most understanding although not alarmed, and permitted Teo and Fletch to walk through the seven floors of the hospital, checking the beds of every reasonable unit.
The administrator had said there were many people without identification in the hospital during Carnival. She would be grateful to have any of them identified.
“I don’t know.” Fletch’s eyes wanted to close in sleep, in discouragement, perhaps to think.
“I don’t see what else we can do,” Teo said.
“Neither do I.”
“Once in a while you have to let time pass….” Teo said.
“I guess so.”
“Let things right themselves.”
“She could be anywhere,” Fletch said. “Anything could have happened to her. Should I check all the hospitals in Rio?”
“That would be impossible! Then check all the hotels and hospitals and jails in Brazil, one by one? You can’t live so old!”
“I guess not.”
“Let time pass, Fletch.”
“Thank you, Teo. Sorry to keep you up.”
“You have done your best, for now.”
“Yes …” Fletch said, uncertainly. “I guess so.”
Twenty-one
Before again pulling the drapes closed in his room at The Hotel Yellow Parrot, Fletch noticed that across the utility area the man was back painting the room. “If he doesn’t finish soon,” Fletch said to himself, “I’ll go across and help him.”
In bed again, hearing the samba drums from two or three combos in the street, Fletch tried his best to sleep. He breathed deeply, evenly, a long time, to convince his body he was asleep.
His body was not fooled. He was awake.
His mind was crowded with wriggling flesh, with people dressed as rabbits and rodents, harlequins and harlots, grandes dames and playschool children, villains and viscounts, convicts and crooks, pirates and priests. Clearly, you cannot sleep, Laura had said. Did you fall asleep? Teo had asked. I thought not With a fat Queen of Sheba eating cookies from a bag. With the sight of a man walking well with a long knife sticking out of his chest, reporting to police that he had lost his camera.
Idalina Barreto had been on the sidewalk in front of The Hotel Yellow Parrot when he returned. The wooden-legged great-grandson was with her. She had some sort of rag doll in her hand.
As he hurried into the hotel, she yelled and shook the rag doll at him.
Again he put the pillow over his head. Again he insisted he go to sleep. He thought how tired his legs were, from dancing with Jetta, from …
It was no good.
“Bum, bum, paticum bum.”
Heavily, he got out of bed. He opened the drapes again.
He looked up the number of Marilia Diniz in the telephone book.
“Prugurundum.”
He dialed her number. It rang five times.
“Marilia? Good morning. This is Fletcher.”
“Good morning, Fletcher. Are you enjoying Carnival?”
“Marilia, I know it is Sunday morning, during Carnival; it is wrong of me to call; but I need to talk to you. I have not slept since Thursday.”
“You must be enjoying Carnival.”
“It is not exactly that. Are you too busy? Can we meet somewhere?”
“Right now?”
“If I don’t get sleep soon… I don’t know what will happen.”
“Where’s Laura?”
“She went to Bahia with her father. She’ll be back later today.”
“You need to see me, before you can sleep?”
“I think so. I need to understand something, do something. I need advice.”
“You are disturbed?”
“I lack in understanding.”
“Come over. Do you know how to get to Leblon?”
“Yes. I have your address from the telephone book. Are you sure it’s all right if I come now?”
“I ignore Carnival. I am here.”
“Trouble between you and Laura?” Marilia asked.
In her little house in Leblon, behind a high wooden fence, Marilia Diniz led Fletch into a small study.
“I saw you in a car with the Tap Dancers yesterday.”
Fletch did not dare ask her what time of day, or night, she saw them; whether all the Tap Dancers were blinking. “I relieved them of some money, playing poker.”
At the side of the study, Marilia was adjusting a disk in a word processor. “The Brazilian male,” she said, “is known for his energy.”
“There’s magic, high energy in the food.”
“The Brazilian male is slow to give up his … what? … his immaturity.” She started the word processor and watched it operate a moment. “At seventy, eighty, the Brazilian male is still a boy.”
The word processor was whizzing away, typing manuscript. “Forgive me,” Marilia said. “This is my routine for Sunday mornings, making manuscript of my week’s work.” She sat in a comfortable chair near her desk and indicated Fletch should sit on a two-person sofa. “I used to have a typist, but now? Another job lost. Teodomiro arranged this word processor for me.”
Fletch sat.
“You look healthy enough,” pale Marilia said. “Glowing.”
“I have already been to the police station this morning. A woman I know, from California, showed up at my hotel yesterday morning, early. She had been robbed. I told her I would bring her money, immediately. Walking between my hotel and hers, she disappeared.”
“Ah, Carnival…”
“Really disappeared, Marilia. With Teo’s help, I checked her suite at The Jangada. Her clothes are still there. She has no money, no passport, no credit cards, identification.”
“You are right to be concerned,” Marilia said. “Anything can happen during Carnival. And does. Is there any way I can help you?”