“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.
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.”
“I can guess.”
“Fletch, you must tell me what you know.”
“You want a fact?”
“I want something.”
“Okay, Laura, here’s a fact: The person who murdered Janio Barreto forty-seven years ago truly believes I am Janio Barreto returned.”
“How do you know that?”
“Look at me.”
“I don’t think you should play with the, what’s-the-word? credibility of people.”
“I am taking advantage of the credulity of only one of these people.”
“Someone believes—”
“Someone either believes I am Janio Barreto returned. Or he has decided to act as if he believes I am Janio Barreto returned, just in case it is true.”
In the sunlight, Laura sighed.
Now there were even more people standing around outside Idalina Barreto’s house awaiting his answer.
The child Janio Barreto had appeared. Of all the people in the favela, he stood closest to Fletch.
“Please tell the old woman I am here to identify my murderer.”
Laura started to speak to Idalina, but then stopped.