The elevator door slid open and he stepped within. The little operator smiled happily and snapped his cap quickly up and down. He grinned under his domino and leaned comfortably back against the car wall. Tonight was going to be fun; tonight was a vacation, a welcome respite from the terrible necessity of his assignment. Tonight was Carnival! Carnival in Brazil! He clenched his hands in tense enjoyment, eager to be out of the moving car, eager to get to the party.
They came to a slithering halt somewhere below the first floor; the operator inexpertly jockeyed his car into an approximation of the level and shoved down on the lever that opened the door. Ari started to hurry across the crowded and colorful lobby toward the taxi rank, when he found his way barred by three outlandish figures of varying size.
They were dressed as Keystone cops; under their high bucket helmets, tight rubber masks grimaced in distorted expressions. The smallest had an idiot look, with rubber tongue lolling insanely from one corner of the mouth, the bulging eyes hanging out of their pouched sockets at odd angles; the middle-sized one had a mask that frowned in deep perpetual anger, with thick curving eyebrows that framed the glaring eyes; the tallest looked brightly alert, with a happy smile, rosy cheeks, and full lips. Their dark blue uniforms were all much too large, hanging on them like tents; the badges that announced their authority were located somewhere in the vicinity of their stomachs and were the size of soup plates. On their feet they wore huge shoes in a particularly clashing shade of grayish green, and their hands were covered with oversized white work gloves that splayed out spastically.
At the sight of the prisoner-striped figure hurrying across the lobby, they drew themselves up in a burlesque attitude of cops-and-robbers. Every move they made, each motion they undertook, was in outrageous pantomime, but the interpretation of their antics was obvious to all of the people who had suddenly paused in the lobby to watch this comedy.
What have we here? the smallest could be seen to cry in shocked surprise, his idiot face drooling at the lobby crowd, his rubber tongue bobbing elastically.
The rubber face of the middle-sized policeman was fixed in an expression of righteous anger, but the attitude of the expressive body was one of mock horror. An escaped prisoner! But this will never do! He threw his gloved hands over his ears and doubled over in pretended shock. He peeked at Ari from beneath his legs. Everyone in the lobby had stopped to watch; they were all laughing delightedly.
And then the hand of the largest flew up, resolving the problem. I will handle it! was clear in his attitude. He stepped forward in a strutting imitation of police authority the world over. His head turned drolly, the rubber mask grimacing happily at the crowd that had formed to watch the horseplay. The people in the lobby roared; Ari tried to push past, irritated at the thought of being late for the party.
A long arm detained him while a gloved band suddenly curved and descended in an indescribably comical gesture to scratch in bewilderment on a solid helmet. But do we have a warrant? could be clearly understood from the puzzled hesitation of the blue-uniformed figure. He paused anxiously, rolling his eyes as his strong hand continued to grip Ari, halting him.
The others flung their hands in the air in gestures of dismay, their gloves flaying the bright atmosphere of the lobby with motions of tragic failure. No warrant? There was an ineffable sadness in their manner, but then the tallest brightened. His figure even seemed to enlarge with a happy solution he had discovered. He dragged a pair of handcuffs from his voluminous pocket and swung Ari toward him, appearing to advance on him with little dancing steps. He rolled his eyes; it was plain that he had discovered something even better than a warrant. His companions clasped their gloved hands to their hearts in the profoundest admiration; their masked faces bobbed madly. The sobbing laughter of one spectator overcome by the performance haw-hawed loudly through the giggles, causing even more laughter from the people watching this playful insanity.
The handcuffs were firmly snapped. The tallest of the policemen rose to full height, coming up onto the tips of his slapstick shoes, and flung his white-gloved hand dramatically toward the door. His fellow Keystone cops obeyed him instantly, slinking in a bent-kneed walk to the door and holding it open. The largest of the policemen turned at the door, his happy face rubberly pleased with their reception, his gloved hand still tightly gripping his striped prisoner. He paused and bowed deeply to the watching crowd in the lobby.
The people inside doubled over with hilarity; a few beat their hands together in frantic applause. A pistoled and bearded pirate, accompanied by a rather husky harem girl, pushed past the three comic police as they stood with their captive taking bows in the doorway; the three all stood alertly to one side and then, as a team, gave deep clown-type curtsies to the exiting couple, dragging their unwilling prisoner through the routine. Then, with a final bow to the applauding audience in the hotel lobby, they pulled their comic prisoner to the street.
Once outside, they led him quickly but firmly to a waiting roadster with the top down, and thrust him into the back seat. “No tricks, Mr. Busch,” said the tall policeman into his ear in a deep voice that carried no tone of burlesque. “You can scream or yell all you want, but nobody will pay the slightest attention.” He unlocked the handcuffs and slid into the back seat of the car beside Ari while the two lessersized Keystone cops got into the front, the idiotically-masked junior member driving. With a final wave to the remnants of their audience who had come out under the hotel marquee to bid them adieu, they pulled away from the hotel and out into the slow-moving traffic.
Behind them another open car pulled away from the curb, a fiercely frowning pirate at the wheel. At his side a rather bulky harem girl slid a hand into a well-concealed pocket of her voluminous trousers, managed, with much maneuvering, to extract a package of cigarettes, and lit one with an air of relief. The pirate drove casually, seemingly watching with interest the shuffling crowd that marched on the sidewalk or chanted in the middle of the streetcar tracks alongside of their car.
“Cute?” Da Silva asked out of the side of his bearded mouth.
The harem girl at his side lifted aside his veil and neatly spat a shred of tobacco between two groups of dancing Carnival celebrants, and then eyed the frayed end of the cigarette critically. He dropped the veil back in place and turned to the pirate. “Extremely neat,” he said equably. “A masterful piece of artistry. The gangsters in your country are endowed with many talents.”
“Gangsters?” Da Silva laughed abruptly. Traffic had slowed in their front, and his bumper was almost touching the back of the car ahead. He could even see Ari turning his head frantically, and the firm grip on the little man’s arm still maintained by the tall Keystone cop with the happy face. “That, my dear Wilson, is none other than the famous Andreas Moraes and Company. I’ve seen their pantomime before.”
“Andreas Moraes?”
Da Silva scratched at his heavy beard in irritation before answering. “Andreas Moraes. He could have been a top star of the Companhia Nacional de Comedia if he didn’t always have such a lot of larceny in his soul.”