Da Silva puffed on his cigarette and then crushed it out in the ashtray. His gesture was somewhat like that of a man who has just refused a bandage for his eyes, preferring to face the firing squad fearlessly. He shrugged.
“When? Too soon. Tonight, to be exact.”
“And the big one: why? Vacation?”
“You know better than that,” Da Silva said with pretended sternness. “Did you ever see a bright, healthy man like me take an airplane to go anywhere for pleasure?” He shook his head suspiciously. “You’re merely trying to worm information out of a police officer in the pursuit of his duty.”
“Now you’re getting the idea,” Wilson said approvingly. “And having an awful time doing it, too.”
“I wouldn’t want to bore you.”
“I don’t bore easily. Anyway, I never knew that to stop you in the past,” Wilson said, and grinned. His grin faded. “Unless, of course, the matter is classified.”
“It isn’t classified.”
Da Silva paused, suddenly serious. He stared across the runways to the dark waters of the bay, with the tiny white blocks of apartments in Niterói on the far side standing out starkly against the mountains topped by threatening black storm clouds. Always when I have to fly! he thought morosely and sighed, bringing his attention back to the restaurant and his companion.
“Well,” he said slowly, “it all started a long time ago — fifteen years ago, to be exact. I was all of twenty-four years old, two years out of the University with a degree in criminology — whatever that was worth — a shock to my family, I might mention. The rest of the clan always went in for either law or medicine, the lawyers in order to enter politics, and the doctors in order to raise cattle or grow coffee. Don’t ask me the connection — I’ve never known it. Maybe to sit up with a sick calf...”
He lit another cigarette from Wilson’s pack and tossed the match aside.
“At any rate,” he went on, “there I was, as proud as a grandee to be a great big real live first-grade detective, collaring kids for stealing hubcaps, and occasionally making a big splash by dragging in some character, who — by fabulous deduction — we calculated to be a brute because we caught him beating up his girlfriend—”
Wilson nodded sagely. “I know what you mean.”
“Good. Anyway this case came along and they instantly chose me for the assignment because I was bright, intelligent, hard-working, handsome, clever, analytical, logical, and — did I forget anything? Oh, yes, of course: modest.” He stared calmly across the table, challenging Wilson to find fault with any of his qualifications.
“And you were also the only one in the entire detective bureau at the time with a complete command of the English language,” Wilson suggested shrewdly.
“Well, yes — there was that minor factor,” Da Silva admitted, “but let’s not dwell on unimportant matters. The salient point is that they wisely picked me out and sent me on my way. I might mention that in those days the biggest plane they had flying was a DC-6, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. And that only got you as far as Port-of-Spain in Trinidad, by way of every potholed, bumpy runway between here and there. Something like six or seven stops, as I recall, but it could have been sixteen or seventeen just as well. And then from Port-of-Spain you made it to Bridgetown in Barbados in a tico-tico — a single-engine affair with floats, that came down for gas roughly every five minutes. I’m convinced it was that trip that put me off flying and airplanes for life. I personally can’t even see what birds see in it. If I was a bird, I’d walk. Or crawl. It seems a shame the Wright brothers couldn’t have stuck with bicycles—”
“I hate to interrupt, but you were saying?”
“I was saying that when I finally got to Bridgetown, I climbed down from that monster, stinking of castor oil — which doesn’t help the appetite — and I kissed the very ground—”
“You climbed down from a seaplane and kissed the ground?” Wilson stared at him. “How far down did you have to swim to do it?”
“You know what I mean.” Da Silva pointed to the bottle. “Have a drink. Apparently it’s the only way to occupy your mouth other than talking. And then push it over.”
“Sorry.”
“Apologies, apologies! Where was I? Yes — Bridgetown, Barbados. Well, it seems that a ship — a Brazilian cruise ship named the SS Porto Alegre — was in Bridgetown at the time of Carnival, anchored out in the roadstead. In those days they hadn’t built the deepwater harbor they have there now, nor the docks that run into shore; ships had to anchor out, and lighters ferried passengers and even cargo back and forth. At any rate, this particular night nearly all the passengers and crew were ashore raising general hell, and along came a rowboat with four men in it, and held up the ship.”
Wilson stared at him, his amazement this time genuine. “Held up a ship? A big oceanliner? Four men?”
“You’ve been paying attention,” Da Silva said approvingly, and put out his cigarette, immediately reaching over to borrow another.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m not kidding. Boy Scout honor. Four men in a rowboat held up the ship and took roughly half a million dollars in gems in the haul. It’s the truth. Most of the passengers hadn’t wanted to wear their jewels ashore, and they didn’t want to leave them lying around their cabins — for which I certainly don’t blame them — so they left them in the ship’s safe. A logical move, on the surface, but in this particular case a rather bad mistake as it turned out.”
“But, how—”
“You will keep interrupting, won’t you? As I said, it was Carnival, and everybody and his grandmother — possibly that’s the wrong word, say companion, instead — was ashore. And these four came up in a rowboat with steel drums and managed to talk the deck officer into letting them come aboard to entertain the few people who were still on the ship. To pick up some loose change in tips, he thought; at the inquiry he was a bit vague about how they managed to convince him, because it was a breach of the rules, of course. But they did and he let them come aboard, and they played their way all over the place — playing very well, everyone said — but they ended up in the purser’s square. Three of them kept up the music, but the fourth — who was the boss, it seems — put a gun on the assistant purser who was on duty. The purser was a youngster, and he tried to tell this fellow the safe was in the captain’s quarters, but he didn’t get very far with that bit of nonsense. The boss man worked him over with a rough gunsight until he opened the safe. The boss man then cleaned out the safe, knocked our boy out, but only after he’s worked him over a bit more — maybe for luck—”
“A nice lad.”
“One of nature’s finest. Anyway, the four of them played their drums back to the promenade deck, said good night to the deck officer and an engineer who was there with him, all as polite as you could wish, climbed into their chariot — pardon me, rowboat — and” — he made a horizontal cutting motion with one hand — “zoop! Off into the wild blue yonder.”
“Any description?”
“None.”
“You mean nobody could give a decent description? It doesn’t make sense.” Wilson frowned and then nodded as one possible solution came to him. “You said it was Carnival. Were they wearing masks?”
“They were indeed. I hate to say this,” Da Silva said slowly, seriously, “especially about Brazilians — because both the deck officer and the youngster from the purser’s staff who got worked over were Brazilians — but according to the testimony we got at the inquiry from those two, not to mention at least twelve passengers, six Americans, three Brazilians, and an assorted bag for the other three, plus this engineer who was with the deck officer, those four were wearing the most impenetrable masks in the world. Impossible for a blind man to see through. They were wearing their own faces.” He raised a hand almost wearily, as if to ward off words. “Oh, everyone put it in different language at the inquiry, but what it amounted to when you sorted it out was that all ‘natives’ look alike, whatever they meant by ‘native.’”