“You might at least have let me take along a clean shirt,” he said resentfully.
“They sell shirts in São Paulo,” Da Silva said dryly. Then he smiled. “Or you might stop by and visit the Deputado Strauss. He ought to have quite a collection of shirts. All colors.”
He leaned back and accelerated the car. They roared on toward São Paulo.
Chapter 2
The sleek Convair leaned gently into the cross winds rising from the Santos range, slipping easily into the landing pattern for the São Paulo airport. Huge factories on neatly landscaped grounds swept beneath the descending wings; the geometrically blocked skyline of the city, reflecting the eastern rays of the morning sun, suddenly tilted sharply, and then straightened. Now a residential area flowed beneath the lowered wheels, small square houses on brown dirt lots with tiny people discernible. The nasal whining of a motor within the plane startled Ari; he glanced out to see the flaps scooping downwards, felt the checked rush in the air. Stained concrete swirled madly beneath, fleeing wildly; he felt a soft lurch as the plane touched down. They were at Congonhas Airport, in São Paulo.
He assumed his place in the taxi queue, remembering clearly the line-up for Immigration when he had arrived in Rio. Just one week ago, he thought; one short week. Is it possible? The hollow voice echoing its litany of arrivals and departures in the main hall behind him served as background to his feeling of belonging. I’m growing up, he thought, that’s what it is. And quite a thing, too, at my age. I am becoming what I might have been, had I not lost thirty years. His bag suddenly appeared in the hands of a porter who scarcely seemed physically capable of handling it. A tip changed hands, a cab door opened in his face, his bag was taken from him and deposited within, a hand on his arm, a car door slammed. They were rolling toward the city. He leaned back, relaxing, certain now of his capacity to handle whatever came up.
Herr Mathais had arranged rooms for him at the Hotel Clemente, a modern residential hotel on the Avenida Angelica. There he was greeted with pleasant but cold efficiency by a desk clerk who obviously was not familiar with either his name or reputation. His fear of encountering the same effusive attention he had suffered at the Mirabelle proved to be unfounded; Herr Mathais, despite his dramatic appearance, was no fool.
Once his bag had been placed in his room, and the bellboy had quietly withdrawn, Ari took up the telephone and put through a call to the number neatly printed on the back of the envelope Mathais had given him. As he waited for the call to be completed, he reached down and slipped off his shoes. It was extremely warm and he wriggled his toes appreciatively.
“Sim?” It was a woman’s voice, obviously a secretary.
He leaned forward, speaking quickly in German. “This is Herr Busch calling. I have a letter for Deputado Strauss, to be delivered in person. From a mutual friend in Rio. I wonder if it might be possible to speak with the Deputado himself?”
The voice answered smoothly in German. “Herr Busch? One moment while I see if the Deputado is in. Please hold the line.” There was a moment’s silence; Ari took advantage of the pause to wriggle his toes some more. He was feeling very good. A deep voice suddenly boomed in his ear.
“Herr Busch! This is a very great pleasure!”
“Herr Strauss? Likewise. Herr Mathais was kind enough to give me a letter of introduction—”
The voice waved this aside with grandiose disdain. “There was no need for a letter, really. While I have not had the pleasure of meeting the Herr Busch in person, I am more than familiar with the Herr in the ways that count! You must have lunch with me. Today, yes?” There was a pause. “I shall come by your hotel in thirty minutes, yes? It is all right?”
“You are most kind, but really, I could meet you—”
“Nonsense! It is my pleasure to pass your hotel.”
“If you wish it, then it is my pleasure, too.”
“I do wish it. Thirty minutes, then, yes? Auf wiedersehen.”
“Auf wiedersehen.”
It occurred to Ari as he hung up and started for the bathroom that he had forgotten to mention the name of his hotel to the Deputado, and for an instant he started back toward the telephone. Then he stopped, smiling grimly. The Deputado, he was suddenly sure, not only knew his hotel and room number, but probably the size of his hat. He turned back to the bathroom.
Thirty minutes later he was standing at the large glass window of the lobby when a long Cadillac drew up at the entrance. He walked to the front of the marquee as a chauffeur sprang down to open the rear door. A heavy-set blond giant, of indeterminate age, leaned forward from the back seat, waving him in. “Herr Busch?”
He smiled and entered the car. They shook hands as the driver put the Cadillac into gear and smoothly entered traffic. Ari reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, producing his letter of presentation, handing it to his companion. Strauss stuffed the envelope into his pocket negligently, smiling.
“Well, well,” he said happily. “This is your first trip to Brazil?”
Ari assured him it was.
“And you like it?”
“Very much,” Ari said. He glanced about him, noting the luxurious appointments of the Cadillac.
“This is a very beautiful car.”
“For my use as a Deputado,” Strauss said immediately. “Government.” He smiled deprecatingly. “Unfortunately, not my own.” He looked at his wrist watch. “You are anxious to eat at once?”
“Not particularly,” Ari said. “Why?”
“A stop I must make first, if you honestly do not mind.”
“It is perfectly all right.”
“You are most kind.” Strauss leaned forward, speaking to the driver in Portuguese, and then leaned back again. Despite his bulk, there was a certain grace about him, the grace of controlled power. There is nothing effusive about this one, Ari thought; and very little that is subtle. He can be brusque, and also very tough. But somehow he lacks something that I would sense, or that I would recognize, if he were the leader of the group. I wonder what it is?
They drew up before a small factory building in a rundown neighborhood. The buildings here were low and ramshackle, running almost to the rutted roadway; bare patches of brick under the broken and dirty cement facing showed great age and poor care. At one side of the building in front of which they had stopped, an oily driveway led through tottering wooden gates to an unloading platform piled with debris. A faint clacking noise came from within, monotonous and depressing. Strauss descended and held the door back for Ari.
“Please,” he said. “I should like you to come too, if you do not mind.” Ari got down, wondering, and followed the large man into the building.
In the gloom of the interior he could see several flatbed presses, two hand-operated card presses, and the usual clutter of the small job-printing shop. Seen from the inside the building seemed even smaller; the ancient and battered machinery filled it. Rickety cabinets holding type leaned drunkenly against one wall; tables for pulling proofs and pounding forms were placed haphazardly about. The shop looked as if it had not been swept for weeks; rubbish lay under the tables and around the machines.
A young boy in a filthy apron stood feeding a hand press under the single bulb that gleamed faintly in the room. His eyes were half closed against the fumes of a cigarette pasted in one corner of his mouth, and his arms swayed in automatic rhythm to the slapping of the platen. He paid no attention to his visitors. They stood in silence watching this operation for a moment, then Strauss touched Ari on the arm and they turned aside into a small office set under a stairway.