Bossa Novas, Bikinis, and Bad Ends Page 13

  “Next time take us with you,” Tina said.

  “You’re usually so careful,” Mary Louise said. “What made you decide to do that?”

  “I thought I’d be carefree and spontaneous for once,” I said. “Thought that I was completely safe with Yasmin. You know she told me she grew up in that favela.” I told them the story of her mother and the American rotter who got her pregnant with Yasmin and then deserted her. About Yasmin going to São Paulo to learn to be an accountant and then coming back here to rescue her mother from the favelas.

  “Don’t go anywhere else with her alone,” Gini said. “You shouldn’t trust her.”

  “You think?” I said, finishing up my coffee. “I wouldn’t go to the shop next door with her.” I needed to change the subject. “So, Natalia, where are we going today?” I asked her.

  The sparkle popped back on that pretty face. Amazing how she could just turn it on and off. “I want to take you up the coast for lunch in a wonderful restaurant in Grumari, overlooking the beach.” she said. “It has a gorgeous view and the best shrimp in the city. Then, on the way back, you have to see this Casa do Pontal museum of Brazilian folk art. Hundreds and hundreds of little figures of people, working, eating, sleeping, making babies—wait till you see. It’s a trip.”

  It sounded like something I really needed to restore my sanity. “Let’s go!” I said.

  Our faithful Ramon was outside waiting for us. Natalia ushered us into the van, avoiding my eyes, bustling about, and then settling into the front seat.

  “Are you ladies comfortable back there?” Ramon asked, as he started the engine.

  “We’re fine, Ramon. Thank you,” Tina said.

  “Just let me know if you need anything,” he said, looking over his shoulder and smiling at us. I was grateful that he was our driver. He seemed to care about us.

  It seemed to take forever to get to Grumari. Ramon had said it was only about an hour and half away, but the roads were so crowded and narrow in places it actually took much longer. We didn’t talk much. Even Natalia was uncharacteristically quiet. We passed streamlined white office buildings, tall apartment buildings, cafés, shops, all crowded together in this busy city. After about an hour, we came to the small town of Grumari.

  “We’re almost there, guys,” Natalia said. “The restaurant is at the top of a mountain.”

  We left the streets of the town and followed a narrow, winding road up the mountain through a forest of thick trees and greenery until we arrived at Point de Grumari.

  “All the food is good here,” Natalia said. “Especially their seafood. But people come here for their giant shrimp. You can get it cooked in lots of different ways, but get the shrimp bobo. And you have to drink Chopp—that’s beer—with it.”

  “What if we don’t like beer?” Mary Louise said.

  “Drink it anyway,” Natalia said. “Come on, Mary Louise, it’s traditional. Anyway, it’s really good beer. Not like the kind you get at home.” Then she realized she had a nondrinker present spoiling all the fun.

  “And for you, Pat,” she said, “they have a spectacular lemon squash. Or papaya juice.”

  Just what I yearned for—lemon squash or papaya juice. Not.

  Natalia led us into the restaurant where she was greeted effusively by the owner and his wife. They kissed her on both cheeks and the owner said, “Indoors or out, Natalia?”

  “You know I’m an outdoor girl,” she said.

  She introduced us to Senhor and Senhora Santos, who took us through the sunlit dining room, with large uncurtained windows that made the whole restaurant shine with the beauty of an oceanside view. But that view paled beside the scene that awaited us in the outdoor patio, overlooking the Marambaia Sandbank. Stretching for twenty-six miles, the white sand made a long ribbon of white along the water’s edge.

  “That’s the Sepetiba Lagoon down there,” Natalia said. “The marshes around it are on the Marambaia Sandbank. Up to our right is the national park. There’s probably no more beautiful view anywhere. But even better than the view is their shrimp. Wait till you taste their shrimp!”

  “I know, Natalia,” Senhora Santos said. “You don’t have to tell me. Shrimp bobo and beer all around—yes?”

  Natalia checked with us. We all agreed. We’d come for the shrimp. And I, of course, came for the shrimp and lemon squash. What can I tell you? You can get used to anything!

  I breathed in the fresh sea air, leaned back in my chair, and enjoyed this respite from murder and baile funks. I didn’t want to think about anything except this lovely place and being with my best friends in the world.

  “How did you gorgeous girls end up dancing in a hotel in Rio de Janeiro?” Natalia asked. Oh, good. A nice safe subject.

  “Somebody saw us dance on a train in northern Spain and told Senhor Ortega about us,” Tina said. “He saw our YouTube video and hired us.”

  “Do you actually earn a living dancing?” she asked.

  “Not really,” Tina said. “We all have other jobs—except Mary Louise. She works at home. But it’s more fun than anything else we’ve ever done. We’re hooked.”

  “What do you do besides dancing with strange men at the Copacabana?” Natalia asked.

  Tina laughed. “Well, I’m the travel editor at a bridal magazine, Gini is a documentary filmmaker, Janice is an actress and director on Broadway, Pat is a family therapist, and Mary Louise is a housewife.”

  “Sounds thoroughly respectable,” Natalia said. “Did you just decide to run away and dance one day?”

  “We went to a dance class because it was good exercise,” Mary Louise said. “And we fell in love with dancing. We worked out a whole routine.”

  “Then we did this YouTube video for the fun of it,” Gini said. “Some guy in Russia saw it and hired us to dance on a cruise ship. Then we just kept getting hired—on a train in northern Spain, on a bateau mouche in Paris, and now in Rio. I don’t know how it happened, but I hope it never stops.”

  “Were you always a singer, Natalia?” Janice asked.

  Natalia looked out at the lagoon for a moment, a serious look on her face.

  “Actually, I started out as a dancer too,” she said. “I love dancing. But I kept getting hired as a singer, so that’s what I am.”

  “How did you learn to speak English so well?” Tina asked.

  “My mother was an American who married a Brazilian here in Rio,” she said. “She taught me English before she deserted me and my two little sisters and went back to California when I was eight years old. We never saw her again.”

  There was silence around the table. Americans weren’t coming off so well in this Rio experience. First Yasmin, whose American father was a rat, and now Natalia’s mother, who wasn’t all that great either. Tina broke the silence.

  “I have a great idea,” Tina said. “On our last night here, why don’t you dance with us?”

  “I’d love that!” Natalia said. “I need to rehearse with you though. Will we have time for that?”

  “We can do that when we get back this afternoon,” Tina said.

  “If nobody else gets killed,” Gini said.

  “Bite your tongue, Gini,” I said. “We’ve had enough murders. And nobody seems to have the slightest idea who is doing it. Or, I guess I should say, there seems to be too many people who might have a reason for doing it. But none of it makes any sense.”

  Natalia started to say something and then stopped.

  “Natalia?” Gini said. “Still think it’s Lucas murdering people right and left?”

  “Who else is there?” she said. “Miguel hasn’t got the guts. Yasmin had no reason to kill any of them. It has to be Lucas.”

  “What about you?” I asked before I could stop myself. Why did I say that? My friends looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

  “Pat,” Tina said, “that’s a strange . . .”

  “Oh, forgive me, Natalia,” I said. “I don’t know what made me say that. Of course I don’t think you could k
ill anybody. I’m sorry.”

  Natalia patted my arm. “It’s OK, Pat,” she said. “I know you didn’t mean it. You’re still upset after last night. I don’t blame you.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I am still upset. Makes me say things I don’t mean.”

  “I understand,” Natalia said.

  Senhor Santos appeared with our shrimp bobo, five icy cold mugs of beer, and one lemon squash. By the time he finished serving us the shrimp, rice, and a salad, my rude question was forgotten in the enjoyment of our fantastic lunch.

  It was divine. These huge shrimp basking in some kind of fantastic stewlike sauce tasted like no other shrimp I’d ever had.

  “Natalia, could you please get the recipe for this,” Mary Louise said. “I have to make this for George. He loves shrimp.”

  “Of course, my little chef,” Natalia said. “I will see that you get it.”

  We finished our shrimp without the subject of murder coming up again and were sipping our coffee contentedly.

  “Finish up, ladies,” Natalia said. “I want to take you to the folk museum next, and then we have to get back to the hotel so I can practice with you. I’m so looking forward to this.”

  Reluctantly we drank up our lovely strong coffee and got up to leave. We thanked Senhor Santos and his wife, who gave Natalia the recipe for the shrimp bobo, and took off with Ramon for the museum of Brazilian folk art.

  Shrimp Bobo

  3 lbs. very large shrimp, peeled and deveined

  3 lbs. cassava

  2 cups chopped onions

  3 cloves garlic, chopped

  ½ cup olive oil

  1 35 oz. can whole tomatoes

  ¼ cup chopped cilantro

  2 cups coconut milk

  ¼ cup palm oil

  Salt and pepper to taste

  1. Cook the peeled cassava until it’s tender. About fifteen minutes.

  2. Drain the cassava and save the water it cooked in.

  3. Mash the cassava with a fork. Set aside.

  4. Sauté the onion and garlic in olive oil.

  5. Stir half of the cilantro and tomatoes into the cooked onion and garlic.

  6. Add the shrimp to the mixture and cook about fifteen minutes.

  7. Stir in the mashed cassava.

  8. Add some of the water the cassava cooked in if the mixture is too dry.

  9. Add coconut milk, the rest of the cilantro, and the palm oil.

  10. Season with salt and pepper.

  11. Serve with cold beer.

  Pat’s Tip for Traveling with Friends: If she’s

  a morning person and you’re a night owl,

  take that into account when you’re

  planning your days.

  Chapter Fourteen

  What Are Those People Doing?

  “I think you’ll really like this museum,” Natalia said. “It’s not like any other I’ve ever seen.”

  “What’s so different about it?” Gini asked.

  “Well, it has every kind of art mixed together,” Natalia said. “Some paintings and sculpture, but mostly little figures representing every aspect of life. And there’s one room I won’t tell you about. I want you to discover it on your own.” She giggled. “You’ll find it very interesting.”

  Ramon pulled up in front of the museum. It looked small on the outside. It was a two-story building with one bright red wall on a white structure with lots of windows. When we went inside, I understood what Natalia was trying to tell us. There were thousands of small clay figures in glass cases, other animated figurines spread out on separate tables, a life-size figure winding a music box, and all sorts of other exhibits I couldn’t wait to see. Natalia was right. I had never been in a museum like this before.

  We each wandered off on our own, as we usually do. I found a display of little plastic figures in a miniature circus. They were all moving. A cute little woman slid down a rope. A man rode a bicycle on a rod suspended in air. A trapeze artist swung from a bar. An audience seated on the side applauded. Each tiny person was different from all the others.

  Jan beckoned to me from a separate, closed-off room. “Pat, come look at this. You won’t believe it.”

  I followed her into the room. At first I thought it was just more tiny Brazilians working, playing, going to the dentist, lying on a stretcher in the hospital, going about their ordinary lives in ordinary ways. Then I took a closer look and couldn’t believe my eyes. These small perverts were performing every kind of sex act you could imagine and some I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams. Jan was laughing as she watched me react to this pornographic display.

  “Whose idea was this?” I asked. “I’ve never seen anything like this before in a museum—or anywhere else, for that matter.”

  “Somebody with a very active sex life, I guess,” Jan said, not able to stop laughing. “Let’s find Mary Louise.”

  We both thought it was a hilarious idea to show this naughty exhibit to our innocent Hoofer. We peeked out the door and saw Mary Louise checking out the guitar-playing manikin nearby. She hadn’t noticed our wicked room yet.

  “Psst, Weezie,” Jan said. “Come see this. It’s not like anything else in the museum.”

  She walked over to us. “This is the weirdest museum I’ve ever been in,” she said. “What have you found?”

  “Come in here and see for yourself,” Janice said.

  “OK,” she said. “Why do you have that funny look on your face, Jan?” She started to go in the room but stopped.

  “Why does it say NO CHILDREN ALLOWED on the door?” she asked. “What’s in there, you guys?”

  “You’ll see,” I said, grabbing her arm and pulling her inside.

  Jan and I watched her as she looked at the glass shelves full of sex-crazed human beings.

  “Who did this?” she said, shocked and angry at first until she saw us laughing in the corner. “You two are disgusting.”

  “We didn’t do it,” Jan said. “But we knew you’d love it. Some of the people look just like you and George.”

  “I’m never speaking to either one of you again!” Mary Louise said, laughing in spite of herself. “I’m leaving to look at some more wholesome Brazilians.”

  She walked out of the porn room and bumped into Natalia.

  “Ah, I see you’ve found the most educational of all the exhibits here,” Natalia said when we came out of the room. “How’d you like it?”

  “Wild,” Janice said. “Nothing like that in the Met at home.”

  “Some things you have to come to Brazil for,” Natalia said. “We’d better round up the others and head back to the hotel. It’s getting late, and it will take us at least an hour to get back to the Copacabana.”

  “We can’t leave before Gini and Tina see this room,” Janice said. She found our friends around the corner enjoying the circus exhibit and whisked them into the naughty room before they knew what was happening to them.

  One whoop of joy from Gini and I knew we were right in not leaving before she saw the many bodily entanglements presented there. Tina came out trying to look at least a little disapproving, but she didn’t succeed.

  “If you Hoofers have had your fun for the day,” Natalia said, enjoying Gini’s reaction, “we’d better get back to more mundane things like our rehearsal for tonight back at the hotel.”

  Not at all chastened, Gini followed us into the van. “Wish I could have photographed those little devils,” she said.

  We chattered all the way home about our scrumptious lunch in Grumari, about the folksy art in the museum, and about our exciting four days in Rio. We only had one more day in the city, and we couldn’t decide whether we were happy or sad to be leaving.

  “I feel like we’re leaving before the movie is over,” Gini said. “Three people are dead and we’re going home before we found out who killed them. It doesn’t seem right.”

  “I’d just as soon leave before anyone else is killed—like one of us,” I said.

  �
�That chief of police seems very intelligent,” Tina said. “Maybe he’ll find the killer before we leave.”

  “Then he should ask Yasmin some more questions,” I said. “She’s hiding something. I know she is. I think she knows who the killer is. She might even be the killer herself.”

  Natalia turned away from us and looked out the front of the van.

  “Why do you say that, Pat?” Mary Louise said. “What makes you think she’s guilty?”

  “She had some reason to leave me in a really dangerous situation the other night at that street party,” I said. “She thinks I know more than I do, and she wanted something bad to happen to me.”

  “You don’t know that, Pat,” Tina said. “She probably didn’t mean to leave you there. It was a big crowd and it was dark.”

  “She meant it, Tina,” I said. “If you’d been there with someone trying to tear your clothes off, you’d know she wasn’t watching over you.”

  “Pat’s right,” Gini said. Good old Gini. “Yasmin thinks Pat knows more than she really does.”

  Natalia turned around to face us again. Her face was deadly serious. I had only seen her look like that a couple of times since she started guiding us around. And come to think of it, it was usually when someone mentioned Yasmin. What was that all about?

  “I’m sure you’re wrong, Gini,” she said. “Yasmin would never do anything like that. If you want to know the ending to your movie, you should concentrate on Lucas. He’s the guilty one.”

  Gini pinched my arm. I got her message. Don’t say any more about this now. I knew she was right and changed the subject.

  “Where are you taking us tomorrow on our last day, Natalia?”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” she said. “Let me think about it.”

  Ramon pulled up in front of the hotel, and we jumped out.

  “Meet you in the Piano Bar in half an hour,” Natalia said. “We’ll dance.”

  Pat’s Tip for Traveling with Friends: Travel

  with someone who loves to take care of all the