Fifteen

“Toninho! What do we do?” Tito asked in a hushed voice.

Toninho shook his head as if to clear it.

“Still, Norival is dead,” he muttered thickly.

While Fletch and the Tap Dancers were out of the room, Dona Jurema, the young teenaged girl, and one other woman from the house had washed Norival, put a fresher sheet under him, and laid him out straight.

Now in the small, dark room, Norival lay on his back, clean, naked. His eyes were closed. In his hands folded over his stomach were a few flowers which had seen better hours. A candle flickered at the head of the bed; another candle at the foot of the bed.

Leaving a full bottle of whiskey in the room, Dona Jurema left the young men sitting around the bed in straight wooden chairs.

So they had sat for two or three hours. The thick candles had burned down only a few centimeters.

There was no measurement tape on that whiskey bottle. Their next drink from it would probably be their last. Fletch had had three or four good swallows from the bottle.

Even on the straight wooden chair across the bed, Orlando sat with his legs out straight before him, his chin on his chest, his thumbs hitched into the tops of his shorts.

“We must do something,” Tito said.

Toninho blinked.

“We cannot leave Norival here,” Tito said.

To Fletch, Toninho said, “Norival comes from a rich, important family. His uncle is an admiral!”

“To die in a whorehouse,” Tito said. “Full of booze…”

“And pills, I think,” Fletch said.

“His mother would be disappointed,” Tito concluded.

“But what a way to go!” Orlando muttered without opening his eyes or raising his chin from his chest.

“We must do something,” Tito said.

“We must move him.” Toninho drank from the bottle, saw that it was nearly the last of the whiskey, and handed the bottle to Tito.

“We must arrange some other death for Norival,” Tito said.

“Burn the record,” Fletch agreed. “I see the point.”

“For the sake of his mother,” Tito said.

“He must not have died here,” Toninho said carefully. “Not in the arms of Eva.”

“No,” said Tito. “It would make her too famous.”

“Still.” Toninho winked. “People will know.”

“Yes,” Tito said. He passed the bottle over Norival to Fletch. “People will know how Norival died.”

“What a way to go!” Orlando muttered.

“But not his mother,” said Toninho.

“Not his mother,” agreed Tito. “Not his sisters.”

For a moment, while Fletch held the bottle, they were silent.

The candles flickered and Norival did not breathe.

Through the open window came the sound of the rain on the tin roof.

“We must do something,” Tito said.

“The important thing is,” Toninho said, trying very hard to keep his tongue straight and to see things clearly, “is to prevent an autopsy.”

“Yes!” Tito said forcefully at this great wisdom.

“Because Norival was full of booze and pills.”

“Despite our having emptied him out once,” Tito put in.

“And that would disappoint his mother,” said Toninho, losing his tongue in his mouth.

“Worth it,” Orlando muttered from his chest. “A death in ten million. Good old Norival.”

“Wake up, Orlando,” Tito said. “We must think.”

“No.”

Toninho kicked Orlando’s legs and Orlando nearly fell off his chair.

Blinking, he looked at Norival laid out on the bed, holding the wilted flowers.

It was not yet dark, but the rain made the candles bright in the small room.

“Orlando, we must think of something.”

“Queima de arquivo,” Fletch said. “I am learning Portuguese.”

“Truly,” Orlando said. “We must do something. We must move him.”

“His boat,” Toninho said.

“Yes.” Orlando shook his head solemnly. “His boat. Who now will want his boat?”

“Exactly,” Toninho said.

“Exactly what?” Tito asked.

Fletch took his drink from the bottle and handed it back across Norival to Orlando.

“Clearly.” Toninho spoke slowly, carefully. “Norival died on his boat.”

“Clearly.” Tito looked at Norival as if for agreement. “Norival would have liked that.”

Orlando said, “I think Norival was satisfied enough with the way he died.”

“But we can say he died on his boat, Orlando,” Tito said.

“Off his boat,” Toninho corrected him. “He died off his boat. He drowned. That should prevent an autopsy.”

“Yes,” Tito said. “Poor Norival drowned. That should make his mother happy.”

“You’re all crazy,” Fletch said.

“But Toninho,” Tito asked, “how do we get Norival to his boat? It is way down in the harbor. There is a gate to the docks. Guards. There are always guards at the gate.”

Again there was silence, as they considered the gate and guards leading to the dock where Norival’s boat was.

Toninho took the bottle of whiskey from Orlando and finished it. “We walk him.”

He placed the empty whiskey bottle on the bed, within Norival’s reach.

Tito said something in Portuguese.

“We walk him right by the guards.”

Orlando said, “This is a night the dead walk.”

“Broomsticks.” Toninho’s eyes were now fully open. He was

speaking perfectly clearly. “Jurema must have brooms.”

Tito looked at the floor. “I sincerely doubt that, Toninho.”

“Everyone has brooms. Tito, you get rope and rig a harness around Norival’s chest. Under his arms. Orlando, you get brooms from Dona Jurema and saw them down to size. You know? So they will fit from the harness under his arms to his waist, so we can hold him up. We need some thick thread for his legs.” Orlando and Tito were studying Toninho carefully with their eyes, putting all this together. Toninho jumped up. “There is a book of tide tables in the glove compartment of the car. I shall figure out exactly where Norival must drown to come ashore and be found in the morning.”

“His wallet is in the car, too, Toninho,” Tito said. “In the glove compartment. Norival must wear his wallet when he drowns, so when they find him in the morning, they will know who he is.”

“Otherwise they will not report the body,” Orlando said.

“They will report the body fast enough, if it’s a Passarinho,” Tito said. “Norival Passarinho.”

“You help too, Fletch. You get Norival’s clothes, including his shirt.”

“You’re all crazy,” Fletch said. “What if we get caught with a corpse?”

Standing over Norival, Tito rubbed his own hands together. “Not a worry, Norival,” he said. “We’ll see that you died decently.”