Just then the circus strongman, Zandor, rushed up to John Lynnford’s side. His rippling muscles glistened with sweat that seemed to pour like a fountain from his bald dome. He gestured with a pair of massive arms toward the shopping mall and parking lot on the left as he whispered his report.
“You’re sure?” Lynnford asked him.
“Yes.” Zandor nodded.
With the strongman still standing rigid at his side, Lynnford turned back to Patty.
“I’m afraid we’ve got company.”
“More of the Japanese.”
Lynnford shook his head. “Locals, by the sound of it, and not the most honorable sorts, either. Maybe sent by the Japanese.”
“Then you’ve got to get me out of here. You’ve got—”
“No way,” Lynnford interrupted. “We don’t know if they’re still around the area or not, so this remains the safest place for you. This may even work to our benefit. We can make it work.”
“How?”
“We know they’ll be coming, and we know when.” John Lynnford paused. “Tonight, at the Orlando Orfei’s opening.”
McCracken’s immediate goal was to get some strength back into his weary, battered body. The effects both from his desperate fight with the disciple and his ill-fated fall from the roof of the Bali Bar had taken their toll. A half hour of painstaking exercise brought him a good portion of the way back, though not all. He knew the rest would be there when he needed it, and he might need it soon, because the news Reverend Jim Hope’s boys brought back from the streets wasn’t good. Not surprisingly, the murder of Fernando Da Sa had been pinned on him by the true perpetrators, and the crime lord’s soldiers were scouring the streets for him.
“And there’s more,” Reverend Jim reported.
“Can’t wait to hear it.”
“The same men are looking for a woman who showed up at your hotel.” Blaine looked up from the plate of brown rice and fish the boys had cooked for him. “A woman?”
“As luck would have it, one of my boys was in the area at the time.” Hope winked.
“I’m sure. Just go on.”
“Something spooked her and she ran off, but then word got passed that she was working with you, and Da Sa’s people got interested.”
“Describe her!”
“Cute, athletic, blond hair.”
“Patty!”
“You know her, then.”
“What I don’t know is what the hell she’s doing down here!”
Thoughts raced through Blaine’s head. Patty Hunsecker must have come to Rio to find him, alerted to the procedure by Sal Belamo. This could only mean something had gone dreadfully wrong back in the States. Sal would never have risked sending Patty down here if her life wasn’t equally endangered back home.
McCracken placed his plate down on the stool in front of him. “Do you know where she is?” he demanded.
“We might be able to find out.”
“How?”
“Da Sa’s men. If they latch onto her, it won’t stay secret from my boys.”
“It’s good to hear they steal more than money.”
“Lots of times information’s more valuable. Plenty of my lot used to run with the younger ones in Da Sa’s bunch; when they grow up they’ll probably join them.” A frown crossed Jim Hope’s face. “Course the problem we got now is plenty of Da Sa’s soldiers come from the favelas. So once they learn you’re here, we can’t rely on protection from within, governor. Quite the opposite, if you know what I mean.”
“I do. Just find the woman.”
“What happens when we do?”
“I go in and get her.”
Hope smiled. “Had a feeling you were gonna say that, governor. Course you know that’ll probably put you up against Da Sa’s boys…who are out to get you anyway.”
“I’ll let them bring in plenty of reinforcements to even out the odds.”
The boys drifted in and out of the shanty they called home throughout the afternoon. One pair arrived brimming with pride. Reverend Jim Hope let them accompany him over to Blaine.
“These got a present for ya, governor.”
Blaine took a thick travel wallet from the reverend’s extended hand. Inside was a passport belonging to a man of his approximate size and likeness: thick hair, dark features, and a beard. No scar through the left eyebrow, but it was doubtful any customs official would notice the oversight.
“We figured the papers you got with you might not get you outta the country.”
“You figured right.”
“Somebody you work for turn the tables, governor?”
“I’m not sure yet, Reverend.”
“This woman might be able to tell ya, though.”
“That’s what I m hoping.”
To pass the time while he waited for some word on Patty to be brought back, Blaine listened to the story of what had brought Reverend Jim Hope to Rio — and what had kept him here for over a decade now. A bank job had gone bad outside of London, a guard shot by one of his cohorts. Jim was only the driver, but he’d still have to pay the same price as the shooter, so he took off. Rio wasn’t chosen for logic; it was the first international flight he could book passage on. A single stop in his apartment to pick up a tote bag and off he went to Heathrow.
He met the first of his boys, ironically, when a pair of them tried to pick his pocket his first night in. Jim was drunk, and instead of giving them a licking, he gave them a wink.
“Now, you wanna see how to do it right, chaps?”
The boys couldn’t speak English, but they seemed to get the point. Teaching them English was the second order of business. After all, a great percentage of their targets would be Americans, so speaking the language would help. He took the name Reverend Jim Hope and took in as many boys as he could handle without losing control. When they got old enough they left. There were always new ones waiting to replace them.
“Thing is,” Jim Hope said, “this city’s a mess, governor. Sure, tourists come down here for the beaches and the sun, but they don’t see the poverty ’cept when they look up the mountain and see the favelas rising up the side. And the poverty feeds off itself. You know why there are so many babies born in Brazil? ’Cause the government pays all the costs. Don’t pay for no abortion or birth control, though. So more kids keep gettin’ added to the picture. Them that has ’em don’t want ’em, so they end up in the streets.”
“Adding to the surplus population.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Jim Hope gazed about him proudly. “Anyway, these boys’d have nothing without me. I keeps them safe, clean, and alive.”
“You don’t owe me any explanations.”
“Done some bad turns in your time, governor?”
“A few.”
“I met men like you in prison. Didn’t talk much about what they did that got them there. People pretty much left them alone. Never did anything to prove themselves, but I suppose some don’t have to.”
“And some do.”
“And what is it that you do, governor? What is it that got you down here? I ain’t asked that yet.”
“Let’s keep it that way.”
Reverend Jim Hope wasn’t about to. “Something busted you up pretty bad. Doc patched you up, but the way I see it, there’s smarter things to do than going out to ask for more.”