Then it returned.
His eye fell on an article stating that someone had found the body of the big man who had served Tio Amato, left in a pool of blood. Could the witness have been the other man who had been going to the men’s restroom, the man who had hailed him?
River leafed through the paper, searching for the rest of the article. At last he found what he was searching for.
“‘Victim of assault hospitalized; comatose, he can give police no leads to his attacker.’”
River quickly scanned the article. The police were not giving out information regarding the victim pending notification of his next of kin. While he remained unconscious, his vital signs were good and doctors were hoping for a recovery.
Relief flooded through him.
I didn’t kill him. I didn’t kill him. River reread the article, searching for anything that would indicate the police were looking for him. There was nothing.
Just as he was beginning to feel a bit at ease, a hand fell on his shoulder.
He instantly froze.
Instinct kicked in; the instinct to jump to his feet, grab his knife—which was no longer there!—and swing around to fight.
Somehow, logic intervened. He was in a busy coffee shop on a busy street. A fight would get him nowhere—and innocent people could be hurt.
“So, here you are!”
Only seconds had passed while he’d considered his options. And now, he was glad he hadn’t moved.
It was Theo. Theo, who took the chair opposite him, grinned, and helped himself to River’s double espresso.
“I’ve missed you, my friend!” Theo said. “Where have you been? Not at the track. And let me tell you—the track is not good without you. But I tell you—today is my day, now that I have found you. I have a lottery ticket. You must touch it—blow on it for me. Give it some River magic!”
River let out a breath. “Okay, hand over the ticket.”
Theo did so. River put it between his hands. “This ticket—I give my luck to this ticket. Well, I give my gambling luck to this ticket—not the rest of my luck.”
He held the ticket up then and softly puffed out a breath, then handed it back to Theo. “There you go—lucky ticket.”
“You didn’t need to give me all your gambling luck,” Theo told him. “I wanted you to come to the track with me.”
“Not today, my friend.”
“Why? You suddenly decided to get a job in the city? What—are you going to become a member of the nine-to-five establishment?”
River shook his head. “No. And I’m not sure there is such a thing anymore. But, I’m just not in a gambling mood. I am in a rambling mood. You go to the track. You have luck now. You’ll do well.”
“I’ll do well to keep my head down. What if that big gorilla is there—Tio Amato’s henchman? What will I do without you?” Theo asked.
River felt the tension sweep into his muscles. He willed it away.
“It’s your lucky day. I’ve decreed it. If it’s a lucky day, you won’t see him. How’s that?”
Theo sighed. “All right, but I will miss you. Ah-ha!” he said suddenly. He laughed, got up, and ran to the street. He stooped down where a group of people had just passed. He came up with a cigarette that had barely been lit. He grinned and walked back to River’s table. “Smokers—and supposed smokers who have quit smoking—they light up and then see someone they know. Then they toss the cigarette down as if they were never holding it—as if no one can smell the smoke.” He inhaled deeply. “Ah, this is good, very good. American and very long.”
River folded the paper. “Enjoy. And enjoy the rest of the espresso.”
“Obrigado.”
River grinned and looked around. He’d been sitting in one place too long. And he’d made a decision. Maybe he wasn’t being pursued.
But maybe he shouldn’t take chances. He was going to get a train ticket and move on for a few days.
As his eyes roamed the crowd, he suddenly did a double take.
Maybe he was being pursued!
There, at the service window, was a man. A man wearing a blue suit and a blue hat.
The same man who had been heading toward the men’s restroom last night.
The same man who had called out to him.
The same man who had seen him.
He got to his feet abruptly.
“River, you okay?” Theo asked.
“Yeah, sorry, didn’t mean to jiggle the table. I gotta go.”
“You got a train to catch or something?”
“I just gotta move. You know that feeling.”
Theo shrugged. “No, not really, but—”
“Bye, Theo,” River said, starting to weave his way through the tables.
“Ciao, my friend!” Theo called.
River waved. He headed quickly down to the street and along it.
Turning back, he searched the crowd again.
There was no sign of the man in the blue suit.
Maybe he was just having coffee.
He had seen River the night before. Had he gotten a good look? River didn’t know—it didn’t matter. He had to keep moving.
He saw more police on the street and noticed every officer he might not have paid the least heed to in days gone by. One officer directed traffic at a broken light. Two more walked the street. He saw a patrol car pass by.
He walked directly in front of a police car when he crossed the street to the train station.
No one paid him the least heed.
River zigzagged through the streets until he arrived in front of a kiosk offering train tickets. He stared at it a moment, then walked to the counter and in his faltering Portuguese asked, “Fala ingl?s?”
He noted the girl behind the counter. She was young, perhaps in her early twenties. She had a beautiful face with elegant cheekbones, long sweeping auburn hair, and friendly hazel eyes.
The girl looked him up and down and cracked a smile. “Oh, yes. I speak English. In fact,” she said, lowering her voice, “it’s the only language I speak halfway well. I should speak Portuguese better—I’m a grad student here. But I’m not that great. Still, I’m okay with advice about Brazil and I can crank out a train ticket easily enough.”
It was nice to hear her voice and see her smile. She seemed the best of those to be found in his homeland. “Where are you doing your grad work?” he asked.
“Observatório Nacional,” she told him. “Actually, one day, I want to work at NASA. And I will have a chance to go back and work at the Goddard Space Flight Center. But, I mean, I want to study the universe, so studying what’s learned in other countries seems important too. Anyway, where would you like to go? S?o Paulo?”
S?o Paulo was a huge city—a great place to get lost. But it was also a place with a large police force, and perhaps too obvious a choice. Many people went south to S?o Paulo. “No, I think I’ll go north.”
“Ah, toward Natal—Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil!”
His breath hitched in his throat. “Pardon?”