“Believe me, I don’t have a choice.”
“Like me with the boys?”
“Sort of.”
Hope’s eyes swept through the shanty again and came to focus on the stinking sewer stream running down the channel in its side. “Ain’t much, but the boys think they’re livin’ like kings. Compared to most around here, they are, too. Given a choice not a one of ’em would leave, neither. This is all they know, and none sees a reason to know any more.”
Just then, the sound of feet pounding quickly up the steps leading to the shanty made both Blaine and Reverend Jim turn toward the doorway. Hope met the trio just inside, and the lead boy whispered something in his ear.
“They found the woman, governor,” he reported, turning back toward Blaine.
Blaine rose rigidly to his feet. “Where?”
More whispering. “It ain’t good, governor.”
“Where!”
“She’s holed up at a circus in Barra da Tijuca, and Da Sa’s men are gonna move on her come the opening tonight.”
Blaine came forward. “Da Sa’s men? Why?”
“I reckon whoever turned them against you, turned them against her, too.”
“Just tell me where, and if one of your boys can get me a gun…”
The much smaller Reverend Jim stopped him with a hand pressed flat against his chest. “Need yourself an atom bomb to go against these odds, and one of those ain’t easy to pick out of a pocket.”
“You got a better idea?”
Hope’s wide smile revealed the brownish edges of his teeth. He spoke as the complement of boys present in the shanty came forward to enclose him.
“When going up against an army, governor, it’s best to bring one of your own.”
Chapter 24
“Hiding would seem a safer bet,” Patty suggested as she walked alongside John Lynnford toward the Ferris wheel, her post for the evening.
“Meaning a concealed place where you have limited range of motion. They find you and it’s over.”
“True.”
“And if they aren’t supposed to see you, neither can we. We wouldn’t be able to help you…. Patty, have some faith in Teresa’s work. All these people have to go on is a description you don’t fit anymore. Now do you want to hear the rest of the plan or not?” John asked her.
“I’m in your hands, right?”
“You’ll be taking tickets right in front of the platform. Someone else will run the ride, so you won’t have to worry about pushing any buttons or controls. You’ll be on ground level and not in plain view.”
“Why the Ferris wheel?”
“Central location on the midway in a relatively dark spot.” John pointed with his cane to the shopping mall parking lot on the circus’s right. “We’ll plant a car there this evening. When we close tonight at twelve o’clock, I’ll have one of our roadies escort you to it — just a couple melting into the crowd — and drive you to the airport. The professor’s working out the airline schedules.”
“What about tickets?”
“I’ll give you some cash to buy them out of tonight’s receipts.”
“That’s the problem,” Patty said, with a sigh.
“What is?”
“Where exactly do I go? I came down here to find the only man I could trust. I’ve got to get that message to him. If I don’t, he’s dead, and so am I. Eventually. Soon.”
“You want to stay with us, that’s fine, too.”
“Thanks for the offer, but no can do. What I know now goes way beyond me.”
“This a vendetta?”
“It used to be. Now I don’t know what it is.”
The yellow truck rumbled toward Barra da Tijuca, the boys filling its open back clutching the rails for handholds.
“Makes me feel like Bill Sykes,” Blaine said to Reverend Jim, who was squeezed next to him in the front seat.
“Bill who, governor?”
“Nevermind.”
Originally the plan was to take buses to the site of the circus, but seeing the yellow truck hauling fresh gas cannisters for the stoves of the favela gave Hope another idea. He knew the driver, and a quick exchange of words convinced him it would be in his best interest to drive the group to Barra da Tijuca. Blaine, dressed in native garb, could pass well enough for a local. The biggest problem was his muscular chest and arms, which made him stand out. The Brazilians were built lean and sinewy and the people of the slum seemed most impressed with such a well-developed stranger.
The favela’s construction boasted no overall plan. Layers piled atop layers, shanties tucked in wherever space permitted, created the serpentine structure of the steep, narrow walkways squeezed between them. Privacy was nonexistent, and ownership often changed as quickly as it took a pair of fast hands to pull clothes from a makeshift line.
Which was how McCracken’s tattered outfit had been obtained.
The sun was down by the time the truck dropped them off in the field adjacent to the Orlando Orfei Traveling Circus. Before entering the grounds, Reverend Jim gathered the boys around him, then gave each of them money for enjoying the attractions. Hope had also brought a pocketful of firecrackers with him; setting them off would be the signal that there was trouble. Beyond this, they had no plan. All Blaine could be sure of was that, according to Da Sa’s people, Patty was here, and that they were going to move on her tonight.
“Wait a minute,” Blaine said to Hope before the boys were dismissed to run amok. “Can they spot Da Sa’s men? I mean, can they tell them apart from the rest of the patrons?”
The boys’ collective smirk provided their answer as Reverend Jim nodded proudly.
“Interesting.”
“Got yourself an idea, governor?”
Blaine nodded. “Gather round, boys,” he said, “and pay attention….”
The crowds had begun arriving an hour before sunset, somewhat before the scheduled opening. The midway was already fully functional, although there were still some finishing touches to be added to the big top. The first show was scheduled for eight o’clock; succeeding shows would continue every hour on the hour throughout the evening. It was not an elaborate or lavish setup so far as such things went, but especially for the economically depressed people of the region, the circus was a not-to-be-missed highlight.
Patty quickly fell into the flow of taking tickets from the people forming an eager line in front of the Ferris wheel. The creaky apparatus whined into motion at the start of each ride, a speaker pounding out the same tune in rhythm with every turn.
She surveyed the strollers and ticket holders alike as inconspicuously as she could. She felt safe even in the spill of the thin light, even though she knew that, in all likelihood, the people who were after her had to be somewhere in the crowd. But they would be looking for the woman they got a glimpse of at the hotel, not the person Teresa had created. That, more than anything, gave her reason for hope and security.
Still, she had never felt more alone, and thinking of that made her think of Blaine McCracken. He lived in a world apart, alienated from the rest of a civilization that needed him to maintain its balance. He once told her how much he envied Johnny Wareagle’s reclusive existence in the forest, not realizing how much his own life had come to resemble it. You don’t have to pull out to pull away. McCracken had helped teach her that much back in the Pacific.
The Ferris wheel spun into the start of another ride, and Patty stuffed the tickets through the slit in the box in front of her. By sunset the ride was running at full capacity, seeming to strain under the weight. The entire midway was jammed now, no game or ride spared the inevitable line. Even the professor’s booth boasted a few skeptical patrons eager to test his knowledge.