“It’s too early,” Wilson objected. “Jill won’t be there for hours. Nobody’ll be there for hours. Jack’s probably down at the beach himself, watching them get ready for the ceremony.” He took one look at Da Silva’s face and sighed. “All right, I’m coming. But I tell you it’s early.” He moved from the window. “Who’s Iemanjà?”
“The goddess we were talking about.” Da Silva locked the apartment door and led the way to the elevator. “She’s the equivalent in the macumba religion to Our Lady of the Conception. It’s interesting how they also have a trinity — Zambi, Oxalà, and Orixalà. Very similar to our own.” He opened the elevator door, waited until Wilson had entered, and then pressed the ground-floor button. “Iemanjà is the goddess of the sea and also the protector of families, so at midnight, when the New Year comes in, they offer her flowers. To propitiate her, I imagine.”
The elevator settled with its customary jerk an inch below the floor level. Da Silva tugged the door back, and the two men walked across the tiled lobby and down the steps to the street. They crossed between the slowly moving cars and began strolling along the beach side of the Avenida, seeing at closer range the swaying, chanting groups about the candlelit circles. Da Silva reached up a tentative hand to see if his necktie was still intact and then grinned.
“What they really need is a goddess of haberdashery — to keep neckties straight.”
Wilson was properly amazed. “You mean they don’t have a goddess of haberdashery?”
“It’s about the only one they don’t have,” Da Silva remarked, thinking about it. “They copied their gods from our saints, probably on the theory that it would lend their religion respectability in our eyes. And since we never had a saint for haberdashery, they didn’t have one to copy.” He moved aside to let a strolling group through and then returned to Wilson’s side, picking up the conversation. “Actually, it wouldn’t have helped. In the macumba religion they have what they call éxùs — copied from the demons mentioned in the Bible. And one of the éxùs, I imagine, has the full-time job of keeping neckties crooked.”
Wilson grinned at the explanation, but still glanced at the man beside him curiously. “You seem to know a lot about it.”
“Well,” Da Silva said, “macumba here in Brazil is a lot bigger than most people think. And if you’re going to be a policeman and deal with people, it’s good to know what motivates them. Which means you have to know a lot of things that embassy security officers don’t need to bother with.”
Wilson refused to be baited. “How is macumba fixed for a goddess of taxis? Or does one only walk in this religion?”
Da Silva paused to consult his wristwatch. “If it’s as early as you say, let’s walk. It’s only at Arpoador, and it’s remarkably pleasant tonight.” He tipped his head toward the beach. “Anyway, most of the cabdrivers in town are probably out there tonight.”
The two men walked along quietly, savoring the beauty of the evening. In the distance before them the activity lessened as the beach approached the Clube de Marimbés that dominated the end of Copacabana. On the point beyond the grim walls of the Forte de Copacabana rose, silent and dark, guarding the sea entrance to the city.
At the end of Atlântica they turned into the Rua Francisco Otaviano; here the street was bare of pedestrians, although from the lighted windows above came the sounds of music and the noise of people well started on celebration. They marched along steadily, approaching the juncture with the beach road at Arpoador. In the far distance were the beaches of Ipanema and Leblon; far down the sand they could see again the flickering of candles as other groups gathered for the ceremony in that section of the city.
They paused at the corner and then turned down Francisco Bhering, the small street on which Crandall lived. The street ran from the main road down to a small cove hidden between sharp rock outcroppings on one side and the huge concrete buttresses that supported the south side of the fort. Wilson paused, glancing up at the darkened apartment building and then down at his wrist-watch.
“I told you we were too early. It’s not even eleven. The whole gang is probably watching the ceremony somewhere back in Copacabana or up ahead in Leblon.” He looked up. “Let’s walk down to the cove and kill some time.”
Da Silva nodded in agreement. The utter desolation of this one small inlet huddled in the midst of the bustling activity of the city had always intrigued him.
“I used to come here as a boy,” he said idly. “We used to lie on the rocks and spear — or, rather, try to spear — badego, or anything else that moved. I don’t remember actually ever getting anything.” He smiled. “We were positive that pirates had hidden treasures in the crevices of the rocks. All we ever found, of course, were empty Coca-Cola bottles.”
They were approaching the cove. Suddenly Wilson paused, staring ahead curiously through the darkness.
“That bunch down there will get tossed out of the macumba union. They don’t have any candles. Or women. And if they’re supposed to wait for midnight, they’re jumping the gun.”
Da Silva looked up from his reverie. Near the water’s edge in the tiny curve of deserted beach three men were bent, straining to move a small raft; even at that distance what appeared to be sprays of flowers could be seen scattered over a rough collection of boughs. There was nothing in the appearance of the raft to account for the extreme difficulty the men seemed to be having dragging it the last few feet to the water. Da Silva was suddenly alert, warned by some inner sense of trouble.
“People don’t float rafts from this cove; it’s too deserted, and the water’s too dangerous. There’s something wrong here. Let’s get down there and see what they’re up to.” He started across the sand with Wilson at his heels. “Here! You men!”
The three men swung around at the interruption, staring back through the night, startled. Two of them hesitated momentarily and then abandoned their labor; they backed away from the approaching pair a step or two and then turned, dashing frantically for the open water and the protection of the jagged rocks. The third had more respect for his assignment; he sprang around with a snarl, a knife suddenly flashing from his belt to his hand. Da Silva’s jaw tightened; he checked his stride, twisting sharply to one side. The long blade glinted as it swept by; the man crouched, his arm dropping, returning to the attack again. There was the barest hesitation, just long enough to allow his opponent to make a miscalculation, and then the man’s teeth gleamed as he suddenly plunged his arm forward and upward. With a muttered curse, Da Silva clamped an outraged hand on the wrist as it slid by, twisting viciously. There was a sharp, surprised cry of pain; the knife spun uselessly to the sand. Da Silva drew back a large, hard hand to teach this miserável what it was to draw a knife on a policeman, but a sudden evasive jerk of the sweating arm, and the man had torn loose and was running wildly for the shore. Da Silva slipped as he started in pursuit; the escaping man had joined his companions and the three were disappearing around the outcropping of rock, running half in and half out of the water. The tall detective pulled himself to his feet, panting, glaring at the fading forms.
“Damn new shoes!” He brushed sand from his jacket. “We’ll never catch them now!”
Wilson had abandoned his fruitless attempt to intercept one of the running men; he dropped to his knees beside the raft to see what had occasioned their desperation. He looked up at Da Silva with widened eyes, whistling in surprise.