With the decision made, he flipped back to the first page of the report, marked down the telephone number under the letterhead, and reached for the instrument.
There was the usual delay until his call was completed; at last a high feminine voice came on the line. “Alô? Commissão National de Energia Nuclear. Quem fala?”
“Hello,” Da Silva said, and hitched his chair closer to his desk. “This is Captain José Da Silva, of the police. I wonder if you could connect me with Dr. Nicoli?”
The high voice hesitated, as if wondering how to break the bad news. “I’m sorry, Captain, but Dr. Nicoli just returned from a conference in Washington, and he’s resting this week in Teresópolis. During the holiday week. He won’t be back until after New Year’s.” The voice attempted to be helpful. “Can anyone else help you?”
“Um...” Da Silva reached for the list again, studying the names of the commission. He would have preferred to speak with someone familiar, even though it wasn’t a man he particularly liked, but he certainly had no intention of waiting a week to do so. Well, lacking Dr. Nicoli, he might as well start with the top. He selected the name of the commission’s president. “I’ll speak with Dr. Jair, then.”
The voice was heartbroken. “I’m sorry. He’s also away for the week. In Santos...”
A dark suspicion began to form in Da Silva’s mind. “Are any of the commission members in the city this week?”
“I’m sorry, no.”
And, he thought savagely, to whom were you referring when you asked if anyone else could help? “Thank you very much,” he said icily, and almost slammed the receiver back on its hook.
Who else might help? Wait a minute... As he recalled, Wilson had mentioned once that the U.S. Embassy had a minerals attaché connected with it. Possibly that gentleman might have some ideas. At least it was a chance. He picked up the telephone once again, dialing the familiar number, and waited impatiently as his call was shuttled through the normal, irritating routine. Finally, Wilson’s voice came on the line.
“Yes?”
“Hello, Wilson? This is Zé. Something’s just come up, and maybe you can help me on it. Didn’t you once tell me that your embassy now has a minerals attaché assigned to it?”
“That’s right. We have had for years, as a matter of fact. His name is Jack Crandall. Why?”
“Is there any chance of setting up a meeting with him? Possibly even this afternoon? I’ve got some questions he might help me with.”
“I don’t know if he’s around. I know he was on home leave, attending a class reunion at Colorado Springs among other things, but I don’t know if he’s back yet. Hang on. I’ll try to find out.”
Da Silva reached out, picking up the cigarette and then fumbling a match from the pad, managing to light it one-handed while he waited. A moment later Wilson was back on the line.
“His office says he’s back, but he’s up at Petrópolis at his summer place there for this week. He still has time left on his leave.”
“Damn!” Da Silva said savagely. “Doesn’t anyone work anymore?”
“Just you and me,” Wilson said soothingly. “About Jack, though, I’m sure he’ll be back by the end of the week. He’s the one giving that New Year’s Eve party, so I imagine he’ll be here.”
Da Silva sighed. “Well, I suppose that’s better than nothing. Do you suppose he’d mind taking a few minutes off from the party to talk to me? You did say I was invited, didn’t you?”
“You’re invited, all right. But I wouldn’t bet on any serious discussion at one of Jack’s parties. They get pretty hectic. Liquor flows like liquor. Especially on New Year’s Eve.”
“Oh? Why should that preclude discussion? You mean he gets drunk?”
“Not him,” Wilson said severely. “You!”
Da Silva laughed. “I’ll try to control myself. Well, thanks just the same. If I don’t see you sooner, I’ll see you there.”
“I’ll stop by and pick you up,” Wilson said, and sighed deeply. “At least I’ll be able to pick somebody up. Anyway, you don’t know where he lives.”
“Sure I do,” Da Silva said and grinned. “Jill told me. He lives on Rua Something-or-other. But you can pick me up anyway. I’ll see you.”
He hung up the receiver, his smile fading. Damn! Christmas week was no time to try to find people at their desks. Who else could he check on? The universities were closed, and if João Martins had had any ideas, he would have voiced them. Well, it looked as if the best he could do was to wait for this party. Of course, there was also this brother of Jill Howard, this Don... Hadn’t Wilson said he was some sort of geologist? But he also wouldn’t be back in Rio for another week.
His smile returned as he recalled the meeting with the girl at the airport restaurant. Poor Wilson! He really picked himself a prize chatterbox, a real nut! Well, in another week her brother would come from that place with the long name and take her off everybody’s hands, probably including Wilson’s, and if he hadn’t found any answers from anybody else before then, it wouldn’t hurt to get his ideas as well. In the meantime, there was other work to do.
He reached for the buzzer to call Ruy and get him working on the Companhia Sapátolan, and then suddenly paused, his smile disappearing. If the universities in Brazil were closed for the week between Christmas and New Year’s, why wouldn’t the universities in the States also be closed? And if they were, who had been there to get Miss Howard’s cable with the name of her hotel in Rio, in order to forward it to her brother? Or, for that matter, in any case why hadn’t her brother’s cable been forwarded from the university instead of coming from some Brazilian town with a long name?
And even if her brother had known where she was, why hadn’t he telephoned rather than telegraphed? Almost every place in Brazil where telegraph lines had been strung now also sported telephones, usually with the lines dangling from the same stripped trees that served as poles.
He shrugged. There were many possible answers to this. Maybe the phone booth was too hot, or he didn’t have a token, or — most likely — he had tried to telephone and had given up after waiting three or four days for his connection to be completed. It took an extremely patient person to outwait a telephone operator in one of the interior towns.
Actually, there were probably an equal number of logical answers to the other questions as well, if he only had time to think about it, but at the moment he didn’t. He put the entire thought aside and pressed firmly on the buzzer for Ruy.
7
In his fourteen years as a professional hunter in the interior on the Mato Grosso, Anton Sverdlik had returned to his base at Santa Isabel de Água Branca with some fairly rare finds, but nothing quite as rare as the wounded man one of his caboclo carriers had stumbled upon sprawled beneath a clump of brush near the site of the destroyed bridge. Anton had responded to the sharp, surprised call; he had been examining the jagged pinnacles of the shattered piers, but he instantly plunged into the forest in response to that cry. One look and he had immediately slipped his pack from his broad shoulders, laid aside his rifle, and knelt to examine the man while his carriers stood back, staring down gravely.