Patty’s eyes swept the area around her and saw four of the Japanese men mixed among the crowd. They seemed unsure as to what their next move should be. Clearly she had complicated their task, hopefully buying the time she needed to get safely out of the hotel.
She backed her way out of the open hotel doors, colliding with a group of arriving guests. At least four of the Japanese were coming her way. There was a long line of guests waiting for taxis. She would have to get away on foot.
But the Sheraton’s isolated location left her with little maneuverability. There was just the Vidigal slum rising up the nearby mountain, and that was no answer.
She turned toward the lobby again to search out the Japanese and ended up colliding with an arriving guest. They knocked into each other with such force she almost fell.
“Easy does it, ma’am,” he said in English. He was big! And he was American!
“It’s about time,” Patty snapped, reaching down to pick up the cane the man had dropped when they’d collided.
“Time?” he echoed, stupified.
“Where the Christ have you been?” she demanded.
Patty grasped his arm on the pretext of regaining her balance, which allowed her to draw close enough to him to speak softly.
“Help me,” she whispered, and for just an instant their eyes met — the same instant the Japanese men came out of the hotel doors.
“I’m sick and tired of all this,” she continued, her loud ranting beginning to draw the crowd she sought.
“I’m…sorry,” the man forced himself to say.
“Let’s just get out of here. Now!” she demanded.
He seemed to notice the Japanese men. “Listen, it couldn’t be helped. It—”
“Now!”
“Fine. All right.”
He took her arm with his free hand and aimed her toward a jeep an attendant had been about to park. She climbed in ahead of him, and he pulled himself inside, grimacing with the effort it took. He pulled his cane in after him and closed the door.
“Thank you,” Patty said, with a sigh.
It was then she saw the pistol the man held low by his hip.
“Give me one reason not to shoot you,” he said.
Chapter 22
“You’d be doing their job for them.”
“Whose job?”
Patty turned to look back toward the entrance. The Japanese were gone. The rest of the crowd had dissipated.
“Just drive. Please.”
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
The man stowed the gun beneath the seat and extended his hand. “Name’s John Lynnford.”
Patty accepted it gratefully. “Patty Hunsecker.”
He gunned the engine and looked back in the same direction her eyes had taken. “What’s this all about?”
“You’re rescuing a damsel in distress.”
John Lynnford’s stiff leg worked the accelerator as he pulled the jeep into traffic. “Distress from what?”
“Not what — whom. Did you see those Japanese back there?”
“Can’t say that I did.”
“They were after me.”
“What’d you do, buy an American car back home?”
“No, I’m Emperor Hirohito’s illegitimate daughter.”
Lynnford regarded her briefly. He was a heavyset, thick-boned man with unevenly styled blond hair, and blue eyes that made him look younger than he probably was. She instinctively trusted him, even though she had no good reason for doing so.
“The Japanese were waiting in the lobby,” she explained.
“For you?”
“For anyone who approached the front desk and asked the right question.”
“Which was?”
“Has to do with a friend of mine that I’ve got to find.”
The jeep glided to a halt at a red light, and John Lynnford looked at her again. “You want to get out?”
“Not really. You want me to?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Your willingness to work my show.”
“Your what?”
“Show. You’re looking at the sole owner of the Orlando Orfei Traveling Circus and Carnival. We’re setting up for a run in Barra da Tijuca.”
“Always wanted to join the circus,” said Patty.
The Orlando Orfei Circus was setting up shop in a muddy field in Rio’s most modern shopping district. Located amid the Casa shopping complex and Carrefour Mall in Barra da Tijuca, the location could not have been better when it came to drawing crowds.
John Lynnford took the roads like he knew them, and they exchanged few words during the ride. As they approached the area, Patty heard the eerie whine of a calliope, along with the constant thud of stakes and studs being pounded into the ground. A number of men seemed to be issuing orders. To her right was the shell of a soon-to-be Ferris wheel. Just beyond it was a merry-go-round, and beyond that the midway was taking shape.
John Lynnford climbed out of the jeep ahead of her, easing his boots gingerly to the muddy ground, then retrieving his cane from the cab. Patty joined him.
“This way,” he said, and started off. “You can wait in my trailer while I send someone back into the city to apologize for my missing the meeting I had scheduled at the hotel.”
“Sorry.”
“If we end up opening a day late, you’ll have to do better than that.”
“I’ll make it up to you.”
“How?”
“Tell me how much you’ll lose, and I’ll make sure you’re reimbursed.”
John Lynnford leaned on his cane and regarded her sardonically. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious.”
“You were serious about a bunch of Japanese trying to kidnap you, too.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Look, ma’am—”
“Patty. Please call me Patty.”
“Look, Patty. I’ve heard these kinds of stories before, but you really don’t fit the type.”
“What type?”
“Someone on the run, looking to hide. Look around you. That’s how plenty of these people got started. That’s how plenty of them will finish.”
“And you?”
“Uh-uh. You first.”
“Then let’s go to your trailer,” Patty said, taking him up on his suggestion. “This is gonna take a while. You’ll be more comfortable sitting down.”
John Lynnford didn’t question her during the tale, not even once. The only break in Patty’s monologue came when, without the use of the cane, he limped to a small refrigerator and took out a bottle of beer. He drained it in a single gulp and started on another without offering any to Patty.
“Wow,” was all John Lynnford could say before he swallowed the rest of his second beer. She had just finished her story.” Jeeze, forgive my manners,” he said, eyeing the bottle and beginning to pull himself up from the chair.
“Nothing to forgive. I’m not thirsty.”
“Go on, then.”
“There’s nothing more to tell.”
“Where’s this McCracken fellow?”
“I don’t know, and I haven’t got the slightest idea how to find out.”
“They could have gotten to him, you know. You mighta come all this way for nothing.”
“No,” Patty said. “You don’t know McCracken.”
“You’re right about that, and I’m thankful for it.”
“You’d like him, John.”
Lynnford rolled his eyes. “That’s what they told me about the last city controller who jacked up my show’s tariff.”
“You and McCracken would get along just fine.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Mavericks always get along.”
“Interesting analysis.”
“You denying it?”