Wilson turned to Da Silva, frowning in amazement. “And who the devil is this?”
“This?” Da Silva was considering the little man with almost clinical detachment. “This is a hungry, vicious, ungrateful little monster with large ambitions. Who might have gotten away with it if he hadn’t tried to be cuter than he is. And who caused the death of three men, one of whom worked for me and will be missed.…”
The small man opened his mouth as if to say something and then closed it, locking his jaw. The large swarthy man before him was frightening in his very lack of emotion. The fat face was pallid; beads of sweat began to form on his broad forehead. Wilson stared from the perspiring face to Da Silva’s narrowed eyes and stony expression.
“But, who—?”
“You want an introduction? Of course.” Da Silva turned to the small pale man and tipped his head slightly in a grotesque parody of politeness. “This is Senhor Wilson, of the American Embassy, and a very close friend of mine.” His head moved, contemplating Wilson.
“And this animal”—his voice remained the same—“is Senhor Alvinor Dorcas, brother of Juan Dorcas, but unfortunately for him and his plans, not at the moment his brother’s heir.…”
Ten
Wilson watched his friend Captain José Da Silva push his way through the crowded tables of the Santos Dumont restaurant; he leaned over and poured a glass of cognac to the brim, and then carefully placed it across the table in position for ready consumption. Da Silva, arriving, removed his jacket with a profound sigh of relief, draped it over the back of his chair, and dropped into his seat. He noticed the glass before him and reached for it gratefully. Wilson frowned.
“You might at least say hello first.”
Da Silva paused with the glass halfway to his lips. “Hello.” He finished the drink, wiped his lips, and shook his head reproachfully. “And never interrupt a man in the midst of a delicate operation. I might have spilled some of it.”
“Sorry.” Wilson shook his head forlornly. “You appreciate the injustice of it all? I set up a scene expecting thanks, and end up apologizing. It happens every time.”
“But I do thank you,” Da Silva insisted. “I needed that drink.”
Wilson studied his friend a moment and then reached for the bottle. “They’re all gone?”
Da Silva nodded happily. “Every last little one. And about time. The final bunch left from Galeão about half an hour ago. After the head of their delegation made a touching speech about the hospitality of our fair country, and the beauty of our wonderful city.” He shook his head envyingly. “It must be wonderful to be a policeman in some place where diplomats don’t look for an excuse to visit. Some place like Kamchatka, for example.”
“Or Pittsburgh,” Wilson added, and grinned. “So now you can go back to taking your jacket off at lunch again.”
“Right.” Da Silva winked at him. “And about time for that, too. I was beginning to walk lopsided, and my maid complained that my jackets kept sliding off the hangers. My tailor also threatened suicide; he claimed I was frightening off custom.” He leaned back, staring out of the large windows benevolently. “What a lovely day!”
“You sound relaxed,” Wilson commented.
“Completely.”
“Then, in that case,” Wilson said slowly, “you might finally get around to clueing me in on that Dorcas case. You never did, you know. After you picked up brother Alvinor, you shut up like a clam. And this is the first time I’ve had a chance to talk to you since.”
“That’s right,” Da Silva said slowly, and looked up thoughtfully. “I keep forgetting that you people didn’t hire Sebastian, after all. Well, where do you want me to start?”
“How about at the beginning?”
“A reasonable request,” Da Silva agreed equably, and then paused to put his thoughts in order. “Well, once upon a time there were two brothers named Juan Dorcas and Alvinor Dorcas, who bore an extraordinary resemblance to each other, but who otherwise had little in common. Alvinor was used to play and fun, while brother Juan—”
Wilson raised a hand in interruption. “Let’s not go back to their nursery days. Let’s take it from within the last decade. For example, just how did you get onto brother Alvinor?”
“Through you, of course. You got onto him for me, and I thank you.” Da Silva dipped his head in an exaggerated salute of appreciation. “When you were lucky enough—” He studied the expression that had sprung to Wilson’s brow and modified his statement accordingly. “I beg your pardon. I mean, when you were astute enough to locate that ship with its first mate who was a camera-bug, I happened to notice among that first batch of terrible pictures one photograph that oddly enough reminded me of Juan Dorcas. I’ll admit it was just a faceless figure leaning over the rail, but I’ll also admit that at the time I guess I had Juan Dorcas on the brain—”
“You didn’t just have Juan Dorcas on the brain,” Wilson commented sourly. “You also had the C.I.A. on the brain. Or off the brain, rather.”
Da Silva nodded brightly. “True.” His heavy eyebrows cocked quizzically. “Do you want to hear how I brilliantly solved this case, or do you want to waste your time—plus our entire lunch hour—angling for apologies?”
“Both,” Wilson said firmly.
“Well, in that case we’ll take my brilliance first. As I was saying, I thought it rather strange that Dorcas would travel on the same boat as a known killer—in fact, I thought it strange he’d travel on a freighter at all. And I thought it even more strange that I should get an anonymous letter from Salvador de Bahia—where this ship docked about the time the letter was posted—advising us that Dorcas would be killed.”
“Letter? What letter?” Wilson was frowning across the table. “You never told me anything about a letter.”
Da Silva shrugged delicately. “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. The letter sort of hinted that your Government would be the ones most interested in the—ah, the removal—of Juan Dorcas, and knowing how inordinately touchy you had become on the subject …” He smiled and lifted his shoulders. “In any event, it suddenly occurred to me that possibly you might be telling the truth.”
“Possibly!”
“Probably, then,” Da Silva conceded. “When I was learning English, I was taught never to argue about an adverb. Anyway, I sent the letter and the photograph down to an old friend of mine in Montevideo and asked him to do some checking of handwriting in Buenos Aires, and he confirmed what had only been a wild hunch—”
“A hunch you had to fall back on because you hadn’t been able to think of anything else.”
“Exactly!” Da Silva made it sound as if he had just been complimented and appreciated it. “And I was right. The handwriting was that of brother Alvinor Dorcas. The picture, of course, was also of him, although I will freely admit it could have been of any short, faceless man. Even you.” His hand went out for the bottle of cognac.
Wilson reached it first, poured himself a drink, and then proceeded to fill his companion’s glass. “And Sebastian?”
“You brought us that,” Da Silva said. “Among other things, his traveling to both Argentina and Portugal and then returning to Rio made it sound very much as if he was our boy. And also,” he added honestly, “we didn’t have the time to follow through on any other suspects. Not that we had any others.…”
Wilson frowned at his glass of cognac thoughtfully. “This Alvinor went to a lot of trouble, though. Hiring Sebastian so many months early, and taking the same boat just to see that Mendes actually got off in Rio.…”
“We don’t know that that was his only reason. He preferred to be out of sight somewhere, and the boat was as good a place as any. And it also gave him a chance to post that letter in Salvador.” He shrugged. “As to the trouble, it would have been worth it to him—or to anyone else in that position. After all, an assassination at the O.A.S. meeting would have been a perfect cover for a private killing, especially of a man as controversial as Juan Dorcas. So naturally
he was forced to wait for the meeting to be held. And you want to remember he was playing for extremely high stakes. If it had worked, he would have been a very wealthy man.”
Wilson nodded. “If he hadn’t written that letter—”
“He wrote the letter as a clincher; as insurance. He didn’t want me—or us, rather—led astray by anything as ridiculous as the truth.” Da Silva shrugged. “I think even without it we’d have come up with the right answer in time. Especially the way you kept nagging me.”
“Maybe,” Wilson said. “And maybe not. If I hadn’t been lucky enough—” He suddenly grinned. “Or, rather, astute enough—to be a trustee of Stranger’s Hospital; or if Les Weldon hadn’t been playing golf that morning and Dona Ilesia had gotten hold of him first with her story of the missing patient, then brother Alvinor might well have gotten away with it, because we’d never have gotten onto Mendes.”
“He might still have had his troubles,” Da Silva pointed out. “Because I would have still insisted on Juan Dorcas wearing that bullet-proof vest. Though I will admit having proof that a known assassin was gunning for him helped me to insist.” He shook his head. “You’d think that after three previous attempts on his life he’d listen to reason, but I had to practically threaten him to get him to wear it.” He suddenly grinned impishly. “I have a feeling he feels the way I do about clothes. A bullet-proof vest under a morning coat is bound to bunch up and wrinkle. And it must have been uncomfortable in the heat.”
“Except that it saved his life.”
“But only at the expense of a ruined shirtfront.” Da Silva’s smile disappeared; his eyes came up thoughtfully. “You know, when he was told it was his brother who tried to have him assassinated, he insisted on his government instituting extradition proceedings immediately, to transfer dear Alvinor out of our hands.”
Wilson stared at him. “And you’re going to let them have him? You’re going to let him get away?”
Da Silva nodded slowly. “I think so. Of course it isn’t in my department to say yes or no, but I’m definitely in favor.”
“But why?”
“You see,” Da Silva said slowly, “neither Brazil nor Argentina has a penalty for his crime that is either excessive or even equitable. The maximum here is thirty-three years, no matter how grave the crime, and nobody I know of has ever served more than half of this. But”—his dark eyes came up, expressionless—“I have a feeling that once Alvinor is in his big brother’s backyard …”
Wilson nodded in sudden understanding. “Then you think his punishment may be more severe, is that it?”
“More certain, anyway,” Da Silva said, and turned in his chair, searching for a waiter. He frowned. “Where the devil is everybody today?” He turned back. “Wilson, why don’t you be a good fellow and go over to the maître d’ and get us a waiter?”
Wilson stared at him. “You’re marvelous! You manage to avoid an apology you still owe me, you completely overlook the fact that everything you had to help you in this case came from me and my efforts, you forget that once I was an associate, and then I was reduced to a suspect—and now I’ve come all the way down to being a servant.” He shook his head. “What is this?”
Da Silva grinned at him. “Do you remember not so very long ago I asked you why the United States didn’t send us more Wilsons, and you accused me of not knowing what to do with the Wilsons we had?”
“I do.”
“Well, then,” Da Silva said, spreading his hands in explanation, “I’m merely trying to find a use for the Wilsons we have.…”
The smaller man from the American Embassy stared across the table a moment, and then his face broke into a wide smile. “I knew if I waited long enough I’d get that apology,” he said, and rose to his feet to get a waiter.…
Turn the page to continue reading from the Captain José da Silva Mysteries
1
The Full Moon, Impersonal and Serene, Shepherded its scattered flock of lamb’s-wool clouds as they slowly munched their way eastward; beneath its cool eye the jungle fretted through its usual uneasy rest, still steaming from the torrential rains that had swept through at midnight. From the raised plateau where the twin-engined plane huddled on the now-abandoned airstrip, the roof of the jungle stretched beyond sight, a sea of shadowed green with taller stands of striated palm and giant white cetigo rising like eerie islands, standing guard above the ruffled surface.
A deeper band of black curved through the darkness at the western edge of the cleared space, marking the sheer chasm where the river ran far below, twisting its way over jagged rocks; the high canyon walls held its sound to a murmur, scarcely heard over the usual night noises of the restless selva. In the moonlight the pale reflection of the bridge glimmered faintly, as if aware, somehow, of its strangeness in this primeval wilderness, and even more aware that its majestic architecture deserved something more impressive than the rough dirt trails that twisted their way from its approaches to disappear into the brush. It spanned the depths below gracefully, a monolithic monument to modernity in a jungle as ancient as time; the jungle had withdrawn from its roadway as if to calculate some means of absorbing it, as it had all other attempts at intrusion into its domain.
The younger of the two men squatting beneath the wing of the plane completed packing his attaché case; he snapped it shut and came to his feet, ducking his head around the leading edge of the wing. Beside the nosewheel of the plane a Coleman lantern hissed steadily, furnishing a cone of light that attracted thousands of insects; the young man slapped half-heartedly at one, as if aware that the gesture was useless in that flood of stinging life, and grinned down at his companion. It was a pleasant grin, friendly and unenvious, which made his freckled face seem even younger.
“Well,” he said with open admiration, “I don’t think there’s any doubt. Your hunch was right.”
“You’re quite sure?”
“As sure as I can be with what I brought. Of course, once we’re back in civilization, I’ll verify it.” He shook his head. “It’s really remarkable. I’ve never seen anything like it. You know, you’re a lucky man.”
The second man stared at him thoughtfully. “Lucky?” He seemed to consider the statement a moment and then nodded slowly. “I suppose you’re right.” He pulled himself heavily to his feet, tugging his gun belt to a more comfortable position, sighed, and then shook his head almost sadly.
The younger man smiled at him quizzically. “What’s the matter? You should be happy as a lark. Why the long face?”
The older man sighed once again. “Because not everyone is as lucky as I am.” He shrugged. “You, for example.”
“Me?” The younger man had turned to place his attaché case on the wing, ready for loading into the plane. He swung about to seek an explanation for this cryptic statement and stopped short, his eyes widening. His companion was holding a revolver in one hand; his attitude was negligent, his expression almost apologetic, but the hand holding the revolver was as steady as rock. The light from the lantern winked along the barrel, emphasizing the black cavity of the muzzle. The eyebrows of the armed man were slightly raised, the eyes sardonic. The younger man’s jaw tightened dangerously.
“What is this—a joke? What’s that for?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you. You’re just not lucky,” the older man said quietly, and fired.
The black wall of trees surrounding the field returned the echo of the shot as if rejecting any responsibility for the deed; there was the crashing of brush, and a third man came running across the field. He pulled up, panting, staring incredulously at the body on the ground; the man with the gun straightened up a bit reluctantly. His arm had been extended rigidly, preparatory to administering a coup de grâce; instead he tucked the revolver back into his holster. The newcomer stared at him with wide, black eyes, tipped his stained chapeu back with one thumb and then used it automatically to wipe sweat from his swarthy forehead.
“Deus me livre! Quê que há?”
&
nbsp; “An accident,” the older man said sadly, and shrugged. “An unfortunate accident.”
The small swarthy man frowned at him unbelievingly and then moved forward, bending over the body, but the other’s hand shot out, gripping him roughly by the arm, dragging him back. The deep voice became hard, threatening; the heavy fingers bit into his arm.
“I said it was an accident! And in any event, you weren’t hired on this trip as a male nurse.” He shook the smaller man slightly, as if to both demonstrate his greater strength and also to get his attention. “Now—what about the bridge?”
The swarthy man pulled free, looking sullen. “You didn’t say anything about murder.”
“Nobody ever says anything about murder.” The tone indicated that this was so obvious as scarcely to require explanation. “And what could I say about accidents, since by definition they always are unpredictable?” The heavyset man studied the shocked expression on the face before him thoughtfully for several moments and then continued, calmly, logically. “Besides, we didn’t want a lot of witnesses, did we?”
“No …” The furrowed brow cleared slightly. “That’s true. But even so—”
“And don’t forget that he weighs—weighed—over eighty kilos.” This statement was made flatly, finishing the discussion. “Now—what about the bridge?”
“The bridge?” The shorter man shook his head as if to clear it and then took a deep breath. Everything the patrão had said was true; they obviously did not want witnesses, and the fact was that the plane now had eighty kilos more capacity. And of course, there was nothing to be done about the other’s death now and nothing to be gained by even thinking about it. He brought his mind back to business. “There’s no problem with the bridge.”
Always Kill a Stranger Page 16