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the sand.
    Coming back across Avenida Atlantica, the roadway was almost unbearably hot on his bare feet, and it was not yet seven o’clock in the morning.
    The bar, which was the middle door at the front of The Hotel Yellow Parrot, of course was closed. Fletch pressed the service bell beside the door.
    “Let’s see if that brings someone.” He sat across from Joan at the little table.
    He folded his slippery arms across his slippery chest.
    The forecourt, with thick green bushes headhigh on three sides, had brilliant streaks of morning sunlight in it.
    This morning Joan Collins Stanwyk looked less the California empress. She was dressed in a light, tan slacks suit, white silk shirt, and sandals. Her hair was not in its usual impeccable order. Her face looked haggard; her eyes sleepless. She might still have been suffering jet lag; she might also have been suffering from her martinis and her cigarettes and, of course, from her recent widowhood.
    “How are you?” he asked.
    “I’ve been better.”
    “Did you come here to find me? I mean, to Rio?”
    “Of course.”
    “How did you work it out? Where I went?”
    “Did you forget Collins Aviation has its own security personnel? Mostly retired detectives who are very good at finding out things? Although, I admit, sometimes not fast enough.” There was no humor in the irony of her statement. “And did you forget that I was born, bred, and educated to do a job? And that I’m rather good at it?”
    She was the daughter of John Collins, who had built a mammoth airplane company out of his own garage in California. Wife, now widow, of Alan Stanwyk, the late chief executive officer of that company. A famous socialite, executive hostess for both her father and her husband, famous blonde, long-legged, tennis-playing Californian beauty who had known her function in that world of fast cars and slow parties and had once, shortly before, surprised Fletch at how well she had performed, or tried to perform.
    “I haven’t forgotten.”
    A waiter appeared.
    Fletch ordered coffee for Joan and
guaraná
for himself.
    She said, “You’re absolutely gorgeous, wet with sweat. You have the same build as Alan had, but there is so much more light in your skin.”
    He tried to shave the sweat off his chest and stomach with the side of his index finger. “I don’t have a towel. I’ve been running. I—”
    A slight jerk of her head stopped him. There was something smoky about her eyes. He was looking at a woman whose life, whose whole world, had been deeply violated by circumstances, probably for the first time in her life.
    “If you came here for a full explanation—”
    She stopped him. “I need your help.” Her hand shook before she put her fingers against her cheek and stroked the area in front of her ear. “Let’s forget for now why I came here. Ironically enough, You’re the only person I know in Rio, and I have to ask you to help me.” Her voice was very soft.
    She collected herself while the waiter set coffee in front of her, the can of
guaraná
and a glass in front of Fletch.
    “I knew you were here,” Fletch said. “I saw you yesterday onthe
avenida
. You were wearing a green silk dress. And carrying a handbag.”
    “Oh, yes,” she said bitterly.
    “I hid from you.” He poured his
guaraná
. “I was just so surprised to see you. How did you find out where I was staying?”
    “I just called all the best hotels, and asked for Mister Irwin Maurice Fletcher. I knew, of course, you could afford the very best accommodations.” Again, naturally, there was no humor in her irony. “Just went down the list of first-class hotels. When I asked for you here, at The Yellow Parrot, they rang your room. No answer. So I knew where you were staying.”
    “Why are you sitting in the forecourt waiting for me at six-thirty in the morning?”
    “I had no choice. It was the next thing to do, the only thing do to. After the most horrible night… I walked down from the hotel. While