SILVA COULD HEAR THE telephone ringing while he was still in the corridor. It stopped before he could get his key into the lock, then started again when he was closing the door to the suite.
“Finally,” his caller said. “I must have called ten times.”
Vicenza Pelosi.
“I should have asked you for the number of your cell phone,” she said. “Hang on. Let me make a note of it right now.”
And why shouldn’t I give it to her?
Silva thought, thinking of the director’s admonition to keep the number confidential.
Everybody else seems to have it.
“Okay, go ahead,” she said.
He rattled off the digits, could hear her fumbling as she wrote them down. She was outside somewhere. There were traffic noises in the background.
“Good news,” she said when the fumbling stopped. “The kid called.”
Silva’s hand tightened on the phone. “Edson Souza?”
“He wants to meet.”
“Thanks, Vicenza. I’ll take it from here. Where and when?”
“I’m not going to tell you
.
”
“
What
?”
Vicenza started talking fast. “I know we’ve got a deal, and I know you gave me his name, but he doesn’t want anyone else. Just me. Says he’s scared but he’s willing to talk.”
“Vicenza, for God’s sake, it’s dangerous to be anywhere near that kid.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”
“Vicenza—”
“No time to talk now, Chief Inspector. I’m almost there. I’ll drop by your suite when I get back to the hotel.”
“Vicenza, please listen—”
But she didn’t. She hung up.
MAJOR OSMANI Palmas told the technician to rewind the tape and play it back. Then he told him to rewind it again, and picked up the telephone.
Ferraz answered on the first ring.
“The monitoring of the phone in Silva’s suite paid off, Colonel,” Palmas said without preamble. “Listen to this.”
He put the handset next to the speaker and nodded to the technician.
When the playback ended, Palmas put the telephone back to his ear. “How about that?” he said.
“Where’s she meeting the kid?”
“We don’t know.”
“Where is she now?”
“We don’t know that either. Not at the hotel, that’s for sure. You heard those traffic noises? She’s on the street somewhere.”
“She’s staying at the same place Silva is, right?”
“Uh-huh. The Excelsior.”
“Throw a cordon around it. Snatch her when she comes back. Don’t let her get anywhere near those federal cops.”
“And then?”
“And then bring her to the tobacco shed.”
EDSON HAD told Vicenza to be on the northeast corner of Republic Square at four o’clock. Someone would come, pick her up, and take her to him.
In her blonde wig, dark glasses, and floppy hat she felt like a character out of a spy movie. Even disguised beyond recognition, she was still getting admiring glances from males.
Five minutes after the appointed hour, a battered Volkswagen taxi stopped directly in front of her. She waved him off, but the driver wouldn’t take no for an answer. Ignoring the horns and catcalls from the traffic behind him, he climbed out and opened the door on the passenger side.
“I don’t want a taxi,” she said.
“You’ll want this one, Senhorita Pelosi.”
The driver was well above average height, with hair that had once been blond and intelligent brown eyes.
“I’m here to take you to Edson.”
He didn’t sound like any taxi driver she’d ever met. His elegant Portuguese bore a trace of a foreign accent.
“So who are you?” she asked, as they pulled away from the curb.
“I’ll have to ask you to turn off your cell phone,” he said. “It’s been said they can be used to trace one’s location.”
No. Definitely not a taxi driver.
She took her phone out of her purse, switched it off, and leaned over to show him the blank screen. He reminded her of someone she’d seen somewhere before but she couldn’t recall where or when.
And then she remembered. “Weren’t you at the league encampment on the Muniz fazenda
?
Weren’t you feeding a little girl with rickets?”
He glanced at her in the rearview mirror.
“I think you have me confused with someone else,” he said. “We’re going to follow a roundabout route. It will take some time to get where we’re going. In the meantime, we’re not supposed to talk.”
“Who says so? Who says we’re not supposed to talk?”
He didn’t respond.
They drove into the countryside. He stopped at the top of a hill where there was a view for kilometers in every direction. He must have been pleased with what he saw, or didn’t see, because he gave a grunt of satisfaction, made a U-turn, and started back toward the city. Less than two kilometers later he came to a sudden stop and put the car into reverse. He’d missed the turnoff. It was a dirt road—not much more than a track, really—and almost obscured by vegetation. There was a sign, barely legible white paint on a wooden board: SEM SAIDA
,
it said. Dead end.
They drove through a little forest with tree trunks no thicker than her arm, and emerged into tobacco fields where leaves from the plants brushed both sides of the car as they passed. The track ended at a cylindrical structure, a standpipe or silo, with riveted metal walls and a domed roof. The driver stopped, got out, and opened her door.
“Edson will be along directly,” he said, speaking for the first time in many minutes.
None of the tobacco plants in the neighboring fields were taller than knee-high. There was no trace of another human being.
“You’ll be taking me back?” she asked, nervous now at the isolation.
He nodded. “But I can’t stay here. This yellow car is too visible.” He returned to the taxi and drove back the way he’d come, the wheels throwing up red dust. She watched the retreating vehicle until it vanished into the trees.
Behind her, someone cleared his throat.
Her heart skipped a beat. She put her hand to her breast and spun around.
“Don’t be afraid,” the young man said. He must have been hiding behind the tall metal cylinder.
“THEY RAN THE ID from that guy who lives with the priest,” Arnaldo said, handing Silva the printout of an email he’d picked up at the hotel’s reception desk.
“Euclides Garcia?” Silva asked, reaching for it.
“Yeah, him.”
They were in Silva’s suite, waiting for news from Vicenza. “And?” Hector asked while Silva read.
“One minor charge for assault,” Arnaldo said. “It happened during his army days.”
“Compulsory military service?”
“Nope. Volunteer. Before that, he was a street kid. He used the military to get himself off the street, but once he was in he didn’t like it. He took a swing at a superior officer. They gave him six months in the stockade and chucked him out. Other than that, nothing.”
“Any news from your sister?”
“Yup. Marly and the kids are safe and sound in Riberão, and I was wrong. She really has no idea where Edson is. I talked to her by telephone.”
“Too bad we haven’t got a way to let the kid know his mother’s safe,” Silva said. “He knows that, he might come in.”
“I’ve got the number of Vicenza’s cell phone,” Hector blurted out.
The two men turned to look at him.
“Really?” Silva said, raising an eyebrow. “Do you now?”
“I . . . I asked her for it. Just in case,” Hector said, flushing.
“So call her.”
Hector tried. But there was no response.
* * *
VICENZA PELOSI sensed that Edson was holding something back, but it didn’t bother her overmuch. She had enough for a great story. All she had to do now was to figure out how to present it without getting the network sued for libel. She believed everything the kid had told her but he hadn’t a shred of evidence to back him up. And then, to make it worse, he pricked her balloon.
“I’ll say goodbye now,” he said and pointed. “He’ll take you back.”
She heard the sound of an engine, turned, and saw the taxi appearing from among the trees.
“No, no, no,” she said. “I need to get your story on tape. You have to come with me.”
“With Ferraz out there?” The kid looked at her as if she had some kind of mental deficiency. “No way! I’ll come in when he’s locked up. Not before.”
“A chief inspector from the Federal Police is in town. I’ll get him to protect you.”
The kid shook his head stubbornly. “It’s not safe,” he said.
“What if Ferraz finds you?”
“He won’t. I’ve got friends.”
“But . . . but without you there’s no proof.”
The kid met her eyes. “And
with
me, there’s no proof. Just my word against his.”
“No, it’s not like that. It’s—”
“It’s
exactly
like that, Senhorita Pelosi. But now that I’ve clued you in on what’s happening, all you need to do is to prove it.”
He made it sound easy.
“Edson, listen to me. I’m a reporter, not a cop. It’s the cops who have to get the proof, and you have to help.”
“I already helped. I called
you
didn’t I? You’d better leave now. Your car’s here.”
“But—”
“No, Senhorita Pelosi, I’m sorry, but if Ferraz gets his hands on me, he’s gonna kill me.”
The kid turned his back on her and started walking away.
“How will I get in touch with you?”
He stopped and turned around. “Like you did before. On television. From here on in, I’m going to watch all your broadcasts.”
Behind her, she heard the sound of the taxi’s door being opened.
ON THE drive back to town she applied all her skills to extract something from the driver. She got no response. Not a shake of the head. Not a smile. Nothing.
As they turned into Republic Square, she gave it one more try. “You must be one of those friends Edson was telling me about.”
“There’s a taxi stand over there on the Rua Garibaldi,” he said, giving the first sign that he hadn’t suddenly become a deaf mute.
“Why don’t you just bring me to my hotel?” she said, trying to get more time to work on him.
He shook his head and pulled over to the curb.
The registration number,
she thought as he pulled away.
I’ll
make a note of it. Silva can trace it.
But he’d thought of that, too.
The rear end of the taxi had been liberally smeared with mud. The license plate was completely illegible.
COLONEL FERRAZ’S PRIVATE LINE rang a little before six.
“That you, Palmas?”
“Yes, Colonel. Mission accomplished.”
Ferraz grinned.
“I’m on my way.”
The colonel hung up, took his holster from the hook on the wall and went out to his car. His driver opened the rear door, but Ferraz shook his head.
“I’ll drive myself. Get a patrol car to take you home.”
“
As ordens, Coronel.
”
Corporal Sanches showed no sign of surprise. It was a badly kept secret that the boss had frequent romantic engagements with a certain married lady of the town. On those nights, he drove himself.
FERRAZ’S TOBACCO shed was more than a kilometer from the main road, well removed from the other buildings on his fazenda.
The colonel no longer grew tobacco; he’d switched over to sugarcane. So the building was seldom visited. It was an oblong, wooden structure with a peaked roof and a fading coat of white paint.
Darkness had fallen by the time Ferraz arrived. His headlights illuminated the figure of his deputy, a dark silhouette against the white wall. Palmas stood with his hands on his hips and stared into the glare.
Ferraz didn’t waste any time with pleasantries. “How did you nail her?”
“Stroke of luck, really,” Palmas said, somehow managing to convey that it wasn’t luck at all. “One of the guys I posted saw her get out of a taxi on Republic Square. He called me, and then followed her over to the Rua Garibaldi. I got there in three minutes flat, just in time to see her get into another taxi. I flashed my badge, waved the driver down, and told him to come here.”
“Where’s the cab?”
Palmas shot a thumb over his shoulder. The double doors behind him were wide enough to admit a truck.
“Inside.”
“The driver?”
“Taken care of. Watching me do it scared the shit out of her. You’ll find her less bossy than usual.”
“You question her?”
“Not yet. Waiting for you.”
“Good. Let’s see what the bitch has to say.”
REDE MUNDO led the eight o’clock news with the story of Vicenza’s disappearance. Silva’s cell phone rang at seven minutes past 8:00, while the program was still underway.
“Hello. Who’s this?”
“Who the hell do you think it is?” the director said. “Is this our private hotline, or not?”
“It’s supposed to be, but—”
“Mario, if anything has happened to that woman, so help me God—”
“I assume, Director, that you’re referring to Vicenza Pelosi.”
“You’re goddamned right I am! Did you hear what they said?” The director didn’t wait for an answer. “They said she was involved in ‘research that could have led to a solution of at least one of the murders.’ She goes off to a so-called ‘secret meeting’ and poof, she’s gone.”
Poof?
Silva thought, but he didn’t interrupt.
“How come
you
didn’t get the information she got? How come
you
weren’t off to a ‘secret meeting’? Do you have any idea, any idea at all, how this is going to look? First it was the bishop, then the son of one of this country’s most prominent citizens, then the daughter of a press mogul, and now it’s the country’s leading telejournalist. For Christ’s sake, Mario, when is it going to stop?”
“She was acting, Director, on information that I—”
“I don’t want to hear it. You’re always trying to bog me down in details. That’s not my job. My job’s the larger picture. What am I supposed to do now?”
Silva was tempted to suggest that Sampaio perform an anatomical impossibility.
But he didn’t.
THE INSIDE of Ferraz’s shed smelled of old tobacco leaves and fresh blood. The leaves themselves were long gone, but the blood was very much in evidence. It streaked Vicenza’s naked body, stained the upright wooden chair they’d bound her to, and pooled on the dirt floor around her feet. There were drops of it on Palmas’s uniform and traces of it on Ferraz’s still naked torso.
The last few hours had started out with some fun for the two cops, but had, by now, degenerated into something else. The rape was fun. What they’d done with the pliers and the icepick had been fun, but she’d pretty much given up after that. It wasn’t fun at all when she didn’t resist, wasn’t fun at all when the fear in her eyes turned to resolution and acceptance. And now it had become work. She was repeatedly passing out, and they had to keep throwing buckets of water in her face to make her come around.
I could use some of that water myself,
Ferraz thought. It was hot in the shed. Perspiration had soaked his hair and was rolling down his face.
Palmas was feeling it, too. He had sweat stains on his chest and under his arms, darker gray against the gray of his uniform.
“I think that’s it, Colonel. She’s done.”
His deputy lifted Vicenza’s chin and looked at her face. Her eyes were closed. He pried one lid open, snorted, and went to fill the bucket.
Ferraz thought about it while he was gone. Palmas was right. She was done. There was nothing left to get out of her.
Palmas came back with the bucket and threw the contents into her face. The water wasn’t cold. It was lukewarm, but it did the job. Ferraz waited until she blinked, then he said, “Finish her.”
Palmas pulled his knife out of its scabbard and showed it to her. Her eyes were dull and listless.
“She doesn’t even give a shit anymore,” Palmas said, and casually cut her throat from ear to ear. He didn’t seem to enjoy the act as much as he usually did. He was obviously tired from lugging all that water.
She started to bleed out. Even then she didn’t react, just kicked out with one of her feet. It was more of a spasm than a conscious movement. Air bubbles appeared around the wound in her throat and frothed down her neck. For a while, the two of them watched her dispassionately. Then Palmas went over and picked up Vicenza’s discarded panties. He’d laughed when he’d seen them for the first time. They were of white cotton, stamped with little brown teddy bears. He started using them to clean his knife.
“What do you think we should do about the kid?” Ferraz asked.
Palmas looked mildly surprised. The colonel seldom asked for advice.
“I don’t think we have to do anything,” he said. “One of his little friends will turn him in sooner or later.”
Ferraz shook his head. “I don’t like loose ends,” he said.
“How about I have another chat with his mother? Maybe put a couple of guys to watch her house?”
“Good idea. Do it.”
“How about her?” Palmas pointed at Vicenza’s body. “You want me to bury her?”
“Not good enough. She’s too well known.”
“So?”
“So we’ve got to take the heat off and to do that we’ve got to blame somebody else. Finish cleaning the handle of that knife, stick the blade into her a couple of times to pick up some more of her blood, and we’ll go harvest some fingerprints.”
“Where?”
“Where do you think?”
“You want to use the team?”
“Yeah. And tell them to bring their hoods.”