CHAPTER 4

When Joaquim Saldanha Valadares first started in his chosen profession at the tender age of twenty, he selected each girl personally, broke her in himself—naturally—and brought her along as quickly as he felt proper for her fullest development and greatest profit potential. But now that he had prospered to the extent of twenty-six houses in fourteen cities, all of the highest caliber, and all run from his headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, he found—unfortunately—that it was impossible to give the hiring of new talent that personal touch so often recommended by most business consultants. Instead, Valadares had on his payroll an assortment of people for that purpose; spotters in hospitals for unwed mothers, doctors who specialized in illegal abortions, as well as many bartenders, those psychologists of the people who could spot in an instant which nervous female drinker was potential fare for the vast organization Valadares ran, or which amateur hustler would happily trade the outdoors for the indoors.

Still, whenever Joaquim Valadares had an opportunity to do a personal job of recruiting, he was far from unwilling to do so. He only wished he had more time for that most necessary phase of the business.

A prime target for such consideration, to his way of thinking, was the girl working over some man’s hand at manicurist table number three, when he arrived for his usual weekly appointment at his regular barbershop. She was new, a black-haired beauty, with the full, rounded breasts and slender waist that Joaquim favored; with dimpled cheeks, cameo features, smooth dark skin, and even dimpled elbows, an attribute that Valadares—as well as many of his clients—felt added sexiness to a girl. Much better, he thought, than Velma, the woman she had replaced at table three; Velma had to be thirty if a day, and looked as if she were constantly worried—about her four children, possibly. Well, may she stay home with them indefinitely, he thought, and sat down in a chair, reaching for a magazine, although he knew he would be doing little reading with the girl to look at instead.

Armando, his barber, glanced over. “I’ll just be a moment, Senhor Valadares.”

“No rush,” Valadares said, and was pleased that the girl looked up at mention of his name. Could it be that he knew her from someplace? No way, he thought. Who would ever have forgotten that one?

The girl dropped her eyes again to her work, but there was a slight quirk to her lips, a restrained smile, that indicated clearly she knew he was staring at her and did not find it objectionable. And why should she, Valadares thought? After all, he was only thirty-eight—forty-two, if you insisted on the truth, but even that wasn’t very old—and he was in fine shape and not bad-looking, if he said so himself. And it had to be apparent to this girl, or any girl, that just from his appearance he was far from poverty-stricken. And since nobody in the shop knew any more about him or the source of his income than that he was a regular client and obviously not broke, there was no danger the girl might have heard something about him from the other girls—although she did not really look the type to mix with a bunch of hags like the others. A loner, and all the better.

He was about to follow up by taking the place of the man just rising from her table, when Armando tapped him on the arm and he felt himself being led to a chair. He seated himself, waited until the protective apron had been fastened neatly about his neck and Armando had taken scissors from the sterilizer, and then twisted his head to look at the barber.

“Who’s the new girl, Armando?”

Armando shrugged. “A replacement for just this week,” he said. “Sent from the agency. Velma has a bad cold, although she sounded all right when she called in.” He shook his head as he waited for his customer to put his head right for him to start work. “That agency should be ashamed! She’s terrible at her job, if you want the truth.”

Valadares looked over at the girl and was pleased to see that from this angle he was able to note a long extension of perfect leg, including a generous portion of thigh. He wet his lips and spoke to the barber without taking his eyes from the girl.

“What’s her name?”

Armando frowned. It was impossible to trim hair if the head refused to maintain the proper position, and if the mouth kept opening and closing. Still, Senhor Valadares was a good customer, so he tried hard to remember. At last it came to him. “Bettina,” he said.

“And her last name?”

Armando looked honestly surprised, as if it had never occurred to him that manicurists had last names at all. “I don’t know,” he said at last, half-apologetically, and then added, as if in expiation, “Velma’s been here four years, and I don’t know hers. And Maria at table two three years and I have no idea. Why?”

“I was just wondering,” Valadares said, and leaned back finally allowing Armando to get to work. “Do a good job. I have a reception at the Yacht Club tonight.”

The barber nodded, clipped for a moment, then he paused to lean closer, speaking into Joaquim’s ear. “Do you want her to give you a manicure? She’s free. Although,” he added, straightening up, “if you’ll take my advice, you’ll take one of the other girls. This Bettina is awful!”

“But beautiful,” Valadares said softly, and wet his lips as if in anticipation.

Armando shrugged and clipped a little more. “If you say so, senhor. Do you want her over here?”

“No,” Valadares said, and twisted to look at Armando over his shoulder, almost getting the scissors in his ear. “Do you mind if I ask her to go out to lunch?”

“Mind? Why should I mind? You can take her out to lunch and keep her out from now on,” Armando said sourly. “I was going to fire her today, anyway, before she drove all my customers away. She uses more iodine than nail polish!”

“Good!” Valadares said with satisfaction and leaned back, this time closing his eyes and allowing Armando to get on with the job. Against the screen of his eyelids he could picture the girl looking at him, admiring him; his fantasy took him past lunch, to dinner—in his apartment—and beyond the intimate dinner, by candle light, of course, with her decollete revealing mouth-watering delights, to the comfort of his circular bed and the mirrored walls and ceilings … It was a breath-taking vision, and he hoped it all came true. A girl like this, he added to himself, in an attempt to be practical, would easily fit into the best house in Sao Paulo, if not in Rio, itself.

Behind him Armando clipped and trimmed, coming at last to the end of his chore. He shaved the neck and cheeks, patted lotion onto the glowing pink skin, and whisked off the apron with a flourish. He accepted his tip graciously—the haircut itself went onto a monthly bill—and watched Valadares walk to the manicurist’s table and bend down to speak to the girl. She smiled, then looked at Armando questioningly. He nodded abruptly and watched as the girl came to her feet with a wide smile it was evident left Valadares with a dry mouth.

“I’ll be right with you,” the girl said in a low voice, and her husky tone contained the hint of a promise that sent blood coursing to Joaquim’s groin. She was back in moments, and Valadares was pleased to see her taste in clothes was far better than he had hoped for. He changed his mind as to the restaurant they would frequent; this one would look good anywhere. It would be at the pool of the Miracopa Palace, just beneath his apartment. And maybe he wouldn’t have to wait for dinner; there was nothing in his schedule for that afternoon that couldn’t wait …

He took the girl’s arm proprietorially and escorted her out, well aware of the jealous looks from the other customers directed at him, the envious looks directed at the girl from the other manicurists, and the slightly lascivious looks cast by all the barbers except Armando. That one looked after them with no expression on his face at all; forty years of marriage and seven children with large appetites and loud voices had dulled him to the finer points of romance. He sighed and started to call his next customer when the sudden jangle of the telephone diverted his attention. He picked it up.

“Armando’s Barber Shop,” he said, his tone capitalizing the words. He listened a moment and then nodded. “Yes, Senhor Dorn, this is him speaking.” He listened a moment more and then nodded again. “Yes, sir. He was here but he just left. What? Yes, sir, he did. Where did they go?” He shrugged. “I don’t know, Senhor Dorn. What? Yes, sir, senhor.”

He listened a moment more and then hung up, making a face toward the barber on the next chair.

“Now we’re a dating bureau,” he said sourly, enigmatically, and motioned the next customer to seat himself.

Lunch was everything Joaquim Saldanha Valadares had hoped it would be. The girl Bettina had poise, extraordinary beauty, brains—everything. It came to Valadares that he hadn’t felt this way about a girl in a long, long time, if ever. Maybe this one wouldn’t work in a house; this might well be the girl he had been waiting for all these years, a girl to keep for himself and not a girl to share as he had all the others.

His line, as he spoke, was automatic, smooth; the years of practice had taken away any rough edges, had taught him exactly what words, what facial expression, what tone of voice, best brought out the mother instinct in a woman—always the first step in any successful seduction—without detracting from a strong, masculine image so essential for ultimate surrender. It was a combination that seldom failed, and he felt sure this one would be no exception. Beneath the table the even pressure of her warm thigh against his seemed to burn right through his trousers, confirming the accuracy of his prediction; her hand in his beneath the table gave a quick squeeze whenever she laughed her delightfully husky laugh at one of his remarks, which was often. Maybe, he suddenly thought, we shouldn’t rush this one. Maybe I should just ask her to dinner and let it go at that. Tomorrow is another day, and waiting for this girl would make it all the more delectable when she finally came to his arms. And to take the slightest chance of losing her at this stage of the game would be stupid.

Unless, of course, she took the initiative, which she seemed to be taking.…

The soft cries of the bathers splashing in the pool made a pleasant counterpart to their conversation. Joaquim found himself staring into her eyes, feeling himself drowning in their dark loveliness. He forced himself to tear his gaze away, staring instead at the small empty cafezinho cup his left hand was idly pushing about, while his right hand continued to seek solace in her warm grip.

“All we’ve done is talk about me,” he said, although anyone who knew him well would have been astounded at the variance from fact that talk had portrayed. He brought his eyes back to hers. “What about you?”

“What about me?” The girl called Bettina smiled. “There’s really not much to talk about. I’m afraid there’s nothing unusual about me. I haven’t done anything in my life and I probably never will.” She shrugged, trying to make it light, but her fading smile betrayed her disappointment in herself. “I’m not even a very good manicurist, as I’m sure Armando warned you. I’m not very good at anything, I suppose.…”

“Oh, now!” Even for a man who was an expert at self-denigration—it was quite frequently necessary in the course of a proper seduction—this sounded hard to believe.

“I mean it,” she said, and her husky voice was serious. She tried to brush off her lack of ability, but there was a slight sag to her shoulders as she spoke. Joaquim Valadares never felt so protectively male in his life than at that moment. Bettina looked at him. “I suppose the best thing for me would be to get married to a nice boy with a steady job and stay home and raise children. My parents would be pleased, and I’m sure I’d be good at something like that.”

Joaquim was surprised at the unsteadiness of his voice.

“Do you have the nice boy picked out yet?”

“No,” she said slowly, and looked at him a long moment. Then she sighed and glanced at her wrist watch. She looked up in alarm, loosening her hand from his. “Heavens! I’ll be late!”

“Armando said you didn’t have to get back—”

Bettina shook her head, her full hair swirling around her shoulders, sending an intimate touch of perfume to entice him. “Go back there? I had no intention of ever going back. Armando knows I won’t be back, and I’m sure he’s just as happy.”

“But, then—” Joaquim found himself floundering for words, a rare state indeed, for him. He caught at the first ones that came to his mind. “But, your pay—?”

“All I worked for were my tips, like the other girls,” she said somberly. “And after a man came to me once, he never came back. And the uniform belongs to the shop. I have nothing to go back for.”

And any man who didn’t go back to you, Joaquim thought, just because of a split cuticle or a nipped finger, deserved everything that had happened to him. But that didn’t answer the major question. He frowned.

“Then where are you going?”

“Home,” she said simply,

“But must you? I mean, right away?”

She looked deep into his eyes and then looked away. “I’m afraid I must.”

Joaquim made up his mind in the instant. He picked up the waiting bill, turned it, scrawled his name on the face, and came to his feet. “If you must, you must. But I’ll take you. And I’ll pick you up for dinner tonight. Will seven be all right?”

Bettina looked up at him and laughed. “I’m afraid you can’t take me home. I don’t live in Rio. I’m just a little country girl who tried to make it in the big city and failed.” She shrugged. “I’m going home to—to Paraíso. That’s my home.”

Joaquim sat down again, slowly. “Paraíso? In Piauí?”

She looked surprised. “That’s right. Do you know it?”

“Yes. I have a—an office there,” Joaquim said.

“Oh? It’s really growing, isn’t it? When I was born it was just a small village, and all I ever thought about was how to get away from there.” Her voice saddened. “Well, I had my chance, but it didn’t work out. Now I have no choice. Back I go.”

“Look,” Valadares said earnestly. “You don’t have to go. Stay here. I’ll—I’ll help you get another job. A good job,” he said, amazed at himself for not making the suggestion he definitely would have made in the case of any other girl, and even more astounded that the thought was even a bit repulsive to him. “An honest job,” he added a bit inanely.

“No.” Bettina shook her head. It was a bit despondent, but definite. “I’ve written to my folks I’d be on the afternoon plane today. I can’t disappoint them; they’re expecting me.”

“Call them!” Valadares was suprised by his own vehemence.

She smiled again, pityingly this time, for his lack of understanding. “They have no telephone.”

“Tell me where they live,” Joaquim said, suddenly determined not to let this girl out of his life. “I’ll call my—my office and have one of the girls—one of the secretaries, that is—get in touch with your people and tell them—”

“No.” Bettina shook her head. “You don’t know my mother. No.” She came to her feet, obviously reluctantly, and looked around at the luxury of the pool and its surroundings as if savoring it for future enjoyable memories. She turned to him and held out her hand. “It’s been a real pleasure, Joaquim; you’ll never know. And thank you for a lovely lunch.”

For a moment Valadares was speechless. Then he came to his feet quickly, taking her hand and squeezing it. “I’ll go with you,” he said, quite surprised to hear the words come from his lips. And yet it was so obviously the thing to do he wondered at his surprise.

“To the airport?”

“To Paraíso.” The devil with the reception that evening! He’d apologize tomorrow and say he’d had a cold.

Bettina was staring at him. “To Paraíso?”

“That’s right.”

“But—but that’s ridiculous.”

“Not to me it isn’t,” Joaquim said, and felt more alive than he had for years. “Having an office here and there always gives a man an excuse for traveling.” He took her arm possessively. “Where are your bags?”

“They’ll be—they’ll be sent on by the girl I room with. She—she knows I’m going.”

“Fine!” Joaquim said, and squeezed her arm affectionately, feeling the familiar stirring in his loins as he did so. What a woman! “Then there’s nothing to stop us leaving right now.…”

“Just a phone call I have to make.” She gave him a smile that melted him. “I’ll have my roommate call some friends of mine in Paraíso. They’ll get word to my mother I’ll be home on time, and that they don’t have to plan on meeting me.…”

It was dusk when the twin-engined prop plane settled itself on the main runway of the Paraíso airport, and quite dark by the time Valadares had completed the renting of a car. He was careful to avoid the acceptance of a Volkswagen, although his plans at the moment were extremely hazy. He was familiar with the Airport Hotel, adjoining the terminal building, but Bettina had made it clear that she was known there—as well as in any other hotel in town—and that her reputation was important. As it was to Joaquim, too, he suddenly realized.

He felt like a boy on an adventure; he could not recall ever having felt this feeling of lightheadedness, although somewhere in his youth, he felt, he must have. He got behind the wheel of the rented car and drove around the corner to where Bettina had insisted upon waiting for him. She seemed a bit pale and looked about before entering the car, clutching her handbag nervously, but they were quite alone. The rest of the passengers on the last flight from Rio had long since disappeared. Joaquim smiled to himself. Was it possible she was a virgin? Very doubtful, but this certainly did not make her any less desirable. He looked at her, sure of the answer before he even asked the question.

“Do you have to go right home?”

Bettina wet her lips and hesitated. Then she drew a deep breath. “No,” she said. “Not right away.”

“Good,” Joaquim said, and leaned across her to reach her door and close it. His arm with intent pressed against her full breasts; she gasped involuntarily. Joaquim closed the door and sat back, looking at her intently. Her head was bowed, staring at her hands clasped in her lap. She seemed to be thinking.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to a hotel?”

“I’m sure,” Bettina said in a low voice.

“All right,” Joaquim said. He put the car into gear and pulled from the terminal building. He drove the length of the driveway at slow speed; Bettina moved closer and placed her hand on his thigh. “I’m sorry. It’s just as I told you, though. I’m too well known in this town. There would be a lot of talk.”

Valadares nodded; it was an argument he could understand. He brought the car to a full stop at the intersection with the main road, braked to keep the car motionless, and looked at Bettina. She tightened the grip on her handbag.

“To the left,” she said in a muffled voice. “I know a deserted road down by the lake.…”

Joaquim swung the wheel, feeling a sense of fulfillment almost unique in his vast experience. Just that morning he had been in Rio de Janeiro with no thought of being elsewhere, with plans for the day and the evening, and here he was in a car in a town a thousand miles away with a girl he hadn’t known before but who he expected to know very well in the future. Who would have dreamed it? It was the sort of fantasy he used to indulge in as a boy when the thought of having a woman was the biggest thing he could think of. But that was a long time ago. It was also a long time since he had made love in a car, but with this girl any time and anyplace would be fine. And if she was anywhere near as good as he knew she’d be, he’d clear up this nonsense of her family in short order and take her back to Rio with him. He put his free arm about her, steering with one hand, allowing his other hand to creep up from her waist to her bodice, first gently touching and then fondling the full breast, wondrously soft and yet firm. He felt her shiver and press against him, knowing she was as anxious for the union as he was. Suddenly she pointed.

“There.”

Valadares nodded and turned the wheel. The road exhibited in the steady beam of the headlights was unpaved but seemed to have been recently scraped. A series of towers ran beside the road, steel skeletons carrying high-tension wires aloft. To the left of the road, across from the towers and their invisible burden, water shimmered. The lake, Joaquim thought, and felt a surge of passion. Soon, soon … He turned to look at Bettina for further instructions and found to his amusement that she seemed to be counting the towers.

“Here,” she said suddenly, and pointed.

Joaquim smiled and pulled from the road. He drew to one side, behind the tower and out of sight of anyone driving along the deserted road. He cut the ignition and turned off the lights. In the darkness he turned to her, putting his arms around her, drawing her close for that first, most important kiss. Their lips had barely brushed when Bettina drew back.

“Wait,” she said in a whisper, squeezing his hand. “I’ll be right back.…”

“Of course,” Valadares said in understanding, and released her. She pressed his hand again in silent promise and slid from the car, clutching her purse. She closed the door softly behind her, causing the dashboard light to go out, and disappeared into the darkness. Joaquim Saldanha Valadares took a deep breath of anticipation and loosened his necktie. Several minutes ticked by; to Joaquim they seemed an eternity. And then there was a fumbling at the car door and he turned with a broad smile on his face. The door swung open and the dashboard light came on. Joaquim froze.

Two men faced him; both with guns. One was looking down at his wrist.

“You have one minute to say your prayers,” the man said.