Only the faintest heightening of her color indicated her resentment of his inspection. She smiled at him in a disdainful manner. “I only talk when I have something to say.”
Nacio studied her a moment more. “I’ll appreciate that in the hotel,” he said abruptly, and started for the stairs. Suddenly he paused, frowning, looking back over his shoulder at Sebastian.
“Just one last question. You talk about what each one of us is to do to earn this big money. Iracema will be at the Gloria, spotting the man for me. I’ll be at the Serrador doing the job. Just what will you be doing?”
The heavyset man smiled; for the first time it seemed to be a genuine smile. The fingers of one fleshy hand rubbed themselves together in a standard Brazilian gesture.
“Me?” he said. “I’ll be doing the most important part of the entire job. I’ll be arranging to get paid for it...”
Four
The storm, with brief interludes, racked the area for another three days and then — apparently deciding it had scrubbed Rio’s craggy face enough and that the spectacular city was now presentable for her auspicious Inter-American visitors — abruptly moved off to the north to attempt the same tactics with Belo Horizonte. Its place was immediately taken by a battery of street cleaners, who fought the debris of mud, broken orange crates, and discarded construction lumber that had washed down from the favelas above and lodged against the seawalls, covering the patterned mosaic sidewalks of most low-lying streets. True, the street cleaners concentrated their efforts entirely on that portion of the city which the O.A.S. delegates were most likely to visit, but only because this was the most logical thing to do. After all, why accustom the Carioca to clean boulevards and debris-free avenues when he would only litter them again in a short time? Besides, under that burning tropical sun the mud would soon be transposed to dust and presumably blown away; and the orange crates and lumber would be snatched back by the slum-dwellers long before the attendants of the cleaning trucks could arrive to commandeer those valuable items for themselves.
Mr. Wilson, driving home that Friday evening from the American Embassy after a particularly frustrating and unproductive day, came through the tunnel that led from Botofogo into Copacabana, swung from the Avenida Princesa Isabel into the Avenida Atlântica, and then hastily braked to avoid running into the bottleneck of traffic that stretched ahead of him as far as he could see. He shifted to neutral to preserve the worn transmission of his five-year-old car, and swayed in jerky rhythm with his asthmatic motor, trying to let the soft evening breeze and the always pleasant sight of the sea pulsing under the full tropical moon wash away the aggravations he had been forced to suffer that day.
To begin with, a stenotypist brought down early from Washington to ensure accurate and unbiased transcriptions of the forthcoming O.A.S. conferences, had occupied two hours of his afternoon by tearfully insisting that she had been pinched on the street by — of all things — a native! It had taken Wilson the greater portion of this wasted time trying to understand why anyone would want to so flatter the woman, and the balance to assure her with a straight face that it undoubtedly was part of a sinister campaign aimed at rattling the nerves of stateside stenotypists, and that she could best serve the interests of her country by pretending to overlook the incident. And she had been followed by a rotund businessman from Zenia, Ohio, who had maintained a bit angrily that when any hostelry of the advertised eminence of the Hotel Miracopa failed to provide water for a guest of his importance, it could only be because they wished to insult citizens of the United States, and just exactly what was the Security Officer going to do about it?
The line of traffic on the Avenida Atlântica edged forward a bit and then, startled by its own temerity, instantly subsided again. Wilson braked automatically, sighed, and from force of habit raised his eyes to the window of an apartment building on the further corner of the next block. To his surprise a light shone at the familiar upper-floor window, which suggested to him that either his rather explosive friend Captain Da Silva was unaccountably at home, or that the apartment was being ransacked by some exceptionally careless thieves. On the slim chance that the former situation obtained, he angled for the curb in search of a parking place. He had nothing planned for the evening and possibly he could have dinner with his old friend. Or even if Da Silva were busy, a drink would still ease some of the tensions of the day and pass time until traffic subsided.
He managed a location between a no-parking sign and a fire hydrant, locked the car, crossed the wide sidewalk and tramped up the five steps that led to the building lobby. The automatic elevator carried him jerkily to the proper floor; he walked down the tiled corridor and leaned on the bell. There was a long wait, sufficient to make him wonder if, perhaps, his second premise might not have been the correct one, and then at last the door swung back. Da Silva, draped in a towel and dripping freely, stared at him a moment and then stood aside, gesturing his welcome with a tilt of his head.
“Hi. Come on in.” He stepped back, dragging the towel about himself a bit more securely. “You caught me in the shower. Have a drink while I get dressed.” He moved toward an inner door. “I just came home for a breather. I have to get back downtown again.”
Wilson nodded, wandered over to the bar, brought forth a bottle and two glasses, and proceeded to fill them generously. He raised his voice to carry into the next room. “Too bad; I was hoping we could eat together.” His tone became curious. “Exactly how many hours are you working these days, Zé?”
Da Silva answered from the bedroom. “These days? Twenty-six. Or maybe twenty-eight and they go so fast they only seem like twenty-six. It could also be thirty — I never was very good at arithmetic.” He came back into the room in his shorts, carrying trousers and a shirt, and pulled them on. A wall mirror allowed him to comb his thick curly hair into a relative semblance of order. He padded to the bar, still barefooted, and accepted the glass Wilson had provided for him. He winked at the nondescript man in a congenial manner, raised the glass in a small gesture of appreciation, and then drank. He put down his glass, smiling gratefully.
“That’s better. I’ve been so busy the last few days I haven’t even had time for my normal drinking. Or even for my abnormal drinking. It’s a good thing you came along to handle the bar chores.”
“Any time,” Wilson said magnanimously. He carried his glass to the coffee table and dropped into a low chair while Da Silva returned to the bedroom for his shoes and socks. The barefooted man came back, retrieved his glass from the bar, and then sat down opposite Wilson to finish dressing. Wilson took a small sip of his drink and studied his friend with a faint smile.
“Why the long hours, Zé? It’s quite un-Brazilian, you realize. You might start a trend that could cause you to become the most hated man in the country, if it were ever traced to you, that is.” Another possibility seemed to strike him. “Or is it simply that you’ve become curious as to how we working folks live?”
Da Silva looked up, affronted. His heavy black eyebrows rose dramatically. “This from an officer of the American Embassy? Whose hours begin at noon and end at one P.M., during which time they are permitted to go out for lunch? And are given PX privileges as a reward for this extraordinary devotion to duty? Please!”
“I’m serious.” Wilson’s smile faded. “Why do you have to go back to work tonight? You look worn out.”
“Don’t let it fool you,” Da Silva said, and grinned. “It’s only a disguise. Behind this façade of weariness lies utter exhaustion.” His grin was interrupted by a sudden and deep yawn. He shook his head. “I guess I’m so tired I don’t even make good nonsense.”