Read Online Carioca Fletch by Gregory McDonald - Free Book Online Page A

especially with women. The women here do not expect anything so profound as interaction.”
    Dona Jurema came through the back door and let herself down the steps like a big bag of glass.
    “So good of you to come, Toninho,” she said. “Not many of the girls are up. Ah, it’s a hot day. We had a busy night. We will have lunch for you in a while.”
    “This man.” Toninho put his hands on Fletch’s forearm. “This man has special needs.”
    Jurema beamed at Fletch. “It would be a sin if he is having difficulties.”
    “He is not having difficulties, I think,” Toninho said. “Are you, Fletch?”
    “Only with the
cachaça
.” He put his glass down on the burned-out grass.
    “A special need I’m sure you can satisfy, Jurema.”
    Arms akimbo, the woman shrugged her shoulders. It was a seismic upheaval. “We can satisfy any need. Why, an Air Force General we had here—”
    “Toninho,” Fletch said. “I have no special needs.”
    “But you do,” Toninho said. “A very special need. I am your friend. It is important to me that your special need be fulfilled.”
    “I need sleep,” Fletch said, leaning back in his chair, closing his eyes.
    “I know what you need.” Solemnly, Toninho said, “My friend needs a corpse.”
    Fletch’s eyes popped open. His head snapped up. “What?”
    “I said you need a corpse. For the purpose of copulation.” To Jurema, he said, “My friend has the great need to make love to a corpse.”
    Jurema was not laughing. She was answering Toninho in rapid Portuguese. Her eyes, her face, her voice bespoke someone doing business.
    “Because,” Toninho said, “my friend is a corpse. Partly a corpse. Part of him has not had a woman in forty-seven years. Clearly, if we are to get the truth from him, his peri-spirit must be awakened.”
    “Toninho!” Fletch said.
    “It is true,” Toninho said to Jurema.
    Behind Fletch’s long chair. Jurema bent over. She put her hands on his breasts and put at least part of her weight on them. Pressing hard, she ran her hands all the way down his stomach, under his towel to his pelvis, then raised her hands.
    She erupted in laughter. “He seems alive. If the other part of him is as healthy …”
    A cool breeze blew over Fletch. He resettled his towel.
    “You see the problem,” Toninho said with dignity. “Now. How can you help my friend?”
    “Toninho. Stop it. You’re gross.”
    “A corpse for my friend? Someone young, dead, and pretty.”
    “Toninho, this isn’t funny.”
    “Probably by Tuesday,” Jurema said. “There are always such corpses available during Carnival.”
    “Find a good one,” Toninho said.
    Jurema waddled a short distance. Speaking to Toninho in Portuguese, incredibly enough she stooped over and picked a weed out of the burned grass. Her face flushed. She then lifted herself up the back stairs and into the house.
    “Tuesday,” Toninho said. “She’ll have one for you Tuesday.”
    “Toninho, I hope this is another of your jokes.”
    Abruptly, in the same tone of voice, Toninho said, “Your friend, Teodomiro da Costa, is to be respected.”
    “I met with him this morning.” Fletch watched the sunlight flashing on Tito’s shoulders as he swam. “He had advice for me, which I respect. Especially at the moment.”
    “In this country, seventy percent of the business is run bythe government, you see. To do well on your own, as Teo has, is to do very well indeed. Now tell me. In North America, there is a car which has what is called a slant-six engine. Can you describe it to me, please?”
    Fletch told Toninho what he understood of the slant-six engine, and that it had an especially long life. Sitting on Saturday morning in the mountains above Rio de Janeiro looking out into the sunlight, he felt his eyes crossing. He had not had that much of the
cachaça
. One moment Toninho was talking seriously of necrophilia and the next just as seriously about a slant-six car engine.
    The young girl brought Norival