A Talent For The Invisible (v1.1) by Ron Goulart Read Free Book Online

too.” After frowning a few seconds Canguru decided to seat himself on a see-through sofa filled with turquoise water and bright tropical fish. “She’s staying at the Intellectual Ritz Hotel, using the name Angelica Abril.”
    Conger wandered around on the grass-green rug. “How about Machado the guerrilla?”
    The little blond spy was sitting with his knees wide apart, watching the tiny flickering fish beneath him. “Machado is alive again.”
    “Where did Sandman do it this time?”
    “I haven’t been able to learn that as yet,” said Canguru. “The way they run bribery in this country, it costs a lot more than in Portugal. I’ve spent almost $500 already.”
    “Where is Machado?”
    “Submitting these vouchers in code is a nitwit procedure,” said Canguru. “I risk life and limb and then RFA only pays on the 1st and 15th. The good thing about NSO, they pay every Tuesday and Thursday.” He watched a zebra-striped fish disappear beneath his crotch. “Of Machado’s whereabouts at this moment I’m not certain. However, I learned where he will be tonight.”
    “Where?”
    “Here in Rio,” replied the little spy. “At the inaugural ball.”
    Conger stopped pacing. “Who’s being inaugurated?”
    “No one. President Barco de Pesca is throwing the dance. Actually he was inaugurated over a year ago and it simply hasn’t been safe to hold a big formal affair until now. With Machado dead they figured some of the urban terror would slow.”
    “Machado’s not showing up simply to waltz.”
    Canguru dropped off the see-through sofa to kneel beside it. “They shouldn’t put this kind of fish—those orange spotted ones—in with these nitwits here. They’re natural born enemies,” he said. “As I gather it, Machado intends to pass his return to life off as a religious miracle. He intends to make a flamboyant public appearance and grab control of the government away from Barco de Pesca.”
    “Okay, I’ll attend the ball, invisible, and get to Machado before he can try anything. He may be able to lead us to Sandman.” Conger slumped into a pseudoglass chair filled with shooter-size gold marbles. He took two kelp pills. “NSO suspected Sandman would resurrect Machado. Didn’t they have agents watching the damn body?”
    After poking a tiny forefinger at a double-tailed fish, Canguru rose to face the WTD agent. “I’m glad you reminded me, senhor,” he said. “I learned all the NSO men on the around the clock watch of the disreputable funeral parlor swear no one came near the body, except a few courageous leftwing mourners. All the agents, and the secret police to boot, further swear that at no time did Machado’s corpse leave the simple pine box in which it reposed. Yet when rumors of his resurrection reached them late last night and they pried off the simple pine lid Machado was gone.”
    “I know that part,” said Conger. “RFA got an agent on to it about the time everybody realized Machado had come back to life.”
    “To my way of thinking,” observed Canguru, “Sandman has come up with a new and improved way to cloud men’s minds and flummox them. Obviously NSO agents are immunized against the more obvious hypnotics and reason-depressants. This Sandman, whoever he is, is very gifted.”
    “He’s tricky anyway.”
    Canguru asked him, “You sure you don’t want to attend the dance as your visible self?”
    “Yeah, I’m going unseen.”
    “I was going to offer you a few tips on ballroom dancing,” said Canguru.
    “Free of charge.”

CHAPTER 8
    The presidential palace floated three hundred feet above the ground, held by columns of air. It was a circular building, an enormous silver donut, glistening up there in the dark.
    On the ground palace troops made an arm to arm circle around the area immediately beneath the floating palace. Guests were being scrutinized at three entry spots in the ring of troops. Butlers in crimson realsilk suits were requesting invitations, then inserting