“Then you’re in. It’s Dona Ilesia from the Stranger’s Hospital. Crisis number one for the day has just struck. She wonders if you might be free to discuss it with her.”
“Free,” Wilson said wholeheartedly, “and deeply grateful. Put her on.”
He cupped the receiver and smiled in a pained fashion at his guest. “I’m sorry, but this shouldn’t take too long.”
The businessman subsided grumpily, resisting with effort the temptation of speaking his mind. Cavalier treatment, it seemed, was not limited to the local hotels. After all, if an American citizen couldn’t receive priority at his own embassy, it clearly seemed to be a situation about which something should be done.
There was a loud click as the call was transferred through the switchboard; the hospital supervisor’s voice came on the line. She sounded a bit nervous. “Senhor Wilson?”
“Falando. Que posso fazer p’ra Senhora?”
His visitor’s eyebrows shot up in evident alarm; he seemed to find it highly irregular — if not actually subversive — to have an American official speak in a foreign language, especially in the haloed precincts of the Embassy itself. Somebody, his glare said, was certainly going to hear about this! Wilson, reading the other’s mind, felt a twinge of pity for the Ambassador, and bit back a smile.
At the other end of the line, Dona Ilesia hesitated uncertainly; when she finally spoke, her voice was troubled. “I dislike bothering you, Senhor Wilson, but I honestly don’t know what to do. The Air Force has been through to me twice this morning, once when I first came in and again just a few minutes ago. About this sailor—”
Wilson frowned at the telephone, his good spirits waning. Had he been interrupted in the middle of one idiotic conversation only to fall into another? It would be quite unusual, since Dona Ilesia was normally the most level-headed of women, but on a day like today, anything was possible.
“The Air Force? About a sailor?” He stared at the instrument in his hand with a puzzled expression. “What does the Air Force have to do with sailors?” His tone implied that he would also like to know what the whole thing, or even any part of it, had to do with him.
“You don’t understand, Senhor Wilson.” Dona Ilesia took a deep breath and tried again. “The captain of this ship, this freighter Santa Eugenia, has cabled them from Montevideo asking how his steward is getting along. And naturally they called me. Twice. And I don’t know what to tell them.”
Wilson shook his head as if to clear it of fog, or the effects of too much liquor. “And you’re quite right, Dona Ilesia—”
“Quite right? About what, Senhor Wilson?”
“About my not understanding.” He clenched the receiver tightly, trying to make some sense of her words. “Since the hospital is involved somehow, the only thing I can imagine is that this sailor you’re talking about was, or is, a patient. I still don’t see where the Air Force comes into it, or why the captain of this freighter didn’t cable the hospital directly to find out about his man—”
“Because he wouldn’t know which hospital had him. I mean, which hospital the Sea Rescue Squad would send the man to, once they got him to land. After all, there are over twenty hospitals in Rio. They might have sent him to—”
“Ah!” Wilson drew a deep breath and smiled as the pieces of the mystery began to fall into place. He felt justifiably proud of having managed to make sense from the garbled clues he had been furnished. “Now I think I see what happened. You’re saying the Sea Rescue Squad took a sick sailor from this ship and then sent him to us; or rather, to you. And now his captain has arrived at his next port, and being the humanitarian he is, wants to know how he’s getting along. Actually,” he added, thinking about it, “not an unreasonable request. So what’s the problem?”
“But—”
“Ah!” Wilson said, going further in his analysis. “You’re worried about security, and whether it’s involved. What nationality was this ship?”
“Portuguese, but—”
“Portuguese, eh? Not Russian, eh? Well, in that case tell them what they want to know.”
“But I can’t tell them!” Dona Ilesia was almost wailing. “You still don’t understand, Senhor Wilson! He never got to the hospital. He’s the one that disappeared from our ambulance.” Her voice changed subtly, becoming slightly accusing, as if in this manner to somehow share the blame. “You should remember, Senhor Wilson. You were there when I came into the Trustees’ meeting and told you all about it.”
“Oh? Ah! So that’s the one, eh? I see...” At long last the thing made sense. Why hadn’t the woman given him all the facts in the first place? He thought about the problem a moment and then nodded. “Well, I can see your problem. It’s a bit embarrassing, of course, but I suppose we can’t exactly keep it a secret. At any rate, no longer. Well, we’ll simply have to tell them the man never got to the hospital. I don’t see how they can hold us accountable in any way; he obviously got out of the ambulance of his own volition. So tell them...” He paused, frowning at his desk, trying to frame a possible answer in properly diplomatic language.
“Tell them what, Senhor Wilson?”
“I’m thinking. Let me see... Tell them that this sailor—”
The expression on his face suddenly froze as the full import of the supervisor’s words came to him. His eyes came up to stare at the wall opposite, without seeing either its poor paint job or the modernistic daub selected by the Ambassador’s wife. A sailor? Taken from a ship at sea by the Sea Rescue Squad? Brought to land and placed in an ambulance without the blessings of either the police or Immigration? And then conveniently disappearing from the vehicle?
“Senhor Wilson? Are you there? You were saying?”
He came to life, his mind still racing. One hand tightened convulsively on the telephone receiver while the other reached swiftly for a pencil and then dragged a lined pad into place before him. “Don’t tell them a thing!” He realized his voice had risen and forced it lower. “Don’t tell them anything. I’ll handle the entire matter.” He lifted the pencil and lowered his voice even further, trying to sound noncommittal. “Now, who called you from the Air Force?”
“A certain — One moment, please. I have it written down.” There was a brief pause. “Here it is. A Major Barbosa, from the Sea Rescue Squad. Their offices are at the military base, across from Galeão Airport. Would you like their telephone number?”
“Please.” Wilson scrawled it down and then underlined it sharply. He thought a moment, shook his head, then nodded, and finally returned his attention to the telephone. “And the sailor’s name?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have it. This Major Barbosa didn’t—”
“All right. Don’t worry about it; it’s not important. What was the name of the ship’s captain; the one that called — or cabled, rather? And the name of the ship again?”
Dona Ilesia sounded even more apologetic, particularly in view of Mr. Wilson’s readiness to assist. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have the captain’s name either. But” — her voice brightened — “I remember the ship was called the Santa Eugenia. They couldn’t stop at Rio because of the storm, but now that they’ve docked at Montevideo, the captain — I wish I could remember his name! — naturally wanted to know—”
“Naturally,” Wilson said, cutting smoothly into the flow of words. He stared at his pad, wondering what other information he might elicit, and then decided he had gotten all he could get from the hospital supervisor. “I think that’s all I’ll need, then. I’ll take care of everything. And thank you.”
“I owe you the thanks, Senhor Wilson. I really appreciate this.” Dona Ilesia’s relief was clear in her voice. “I honestly didn’t know what to tell this major. As you know, this is the first time in the history of Stranger’s Hospital that anything like—”