Threads: A Thriller

by T. R. Ultra

  Being among people gave me a sense of security. I still might be spotted, but I made it a hell of a lot harder for those two officers.

  I had stopped at the corner of the block, waiting for the stoplight to turn red, when my phone rang. It was boss calling again. I picked it up.

  “What do you mean by going back today, Emily? What the fuck has happened?” Joanne said.

  “Look, a crapload of things ‘has happened’ since yesterday. I’m being chased. I’ll tell you everything but first I need to—”

  Before I could finish the sentence, someone slapped my ear and the next thing I noticed was that my phone disappeared from my hands.

  The stoplight turned green and the crowd started crossing to the other side. Someone jostled against my back. I was sent forward, stumbling to avoiding a fall. My handbag got pulled back, its straps straining on my shoulder, but then it snapped and was also gone.

  When I spun around, the crowd had already cleared, dragging my pink luggage among them.

  I stood in shock on the sidewalk, flabbergasted. I had been stripped of all my possessions without even getting a hint of who did it. I tasted the same poison I tried to deliver to officers Pinto and Rôla. The mugger, or muggers, disappeared among the crowd without ever giving me the chance of getting a glimpse of them.

  At that miserable moment, I envisioned how my life would end: locked up in a filthy prison cell, unidentified, deprived of personal belongings, and weeping to the last drop of tear..

  Dazed, my vision captured only the blurred figures of passers-by as the buildings seemed to spin around me in an endless spiral. I staggered across the sidewalk to reach the outside wall of Praia Palace, leaned my back against its gray bricks and slid down to sit on my haunches.

  When I closed my eyes, I felt a hand grab my shoulders.

  “Hurry up, Senhora Bennett. We don’t have much time.”

  I tilted my head upward and, against the bright sun high in the sky, I saw his beautiful face.

  Chapter 10

  Renato had parked his car a few steps down the street, but instead of a black sedan, he now had a compact vehicle much easier to fit into parking spots. It’s small size was a powerful asset in Rio’s congested streets. The windows were tinted in a dense black, like those in his other car. I thanked god for that. After getting inside, we spent another whole minute waiting for the light to turn green, while officers Paulo Pinto and Roberto Rôla went back and forth along the sidewalk searching for my face in the crowd, without ever noticing me inside the car.

  “I only found you because of your pink suitcase, Senhora Bennett. Lucky shot,” Renato said.

  “Someone stole it from me.” I sighed. “I wouldn’t call that a lucky break.”

  “If I didn’t find you in time, you’d be dealing with those two police officers. Having your suitcase stolen is nothing compared to that.”

  Renato was right. Like many things in life, we evaluate tragedies by comparison. Getting robbed was much less of a problem than being falsely accused of a crime and getting locked up in a Brazilian prison. But I had been robbed, and that created one of the most disgusting feelings in my life, almost as intense as being cheated on.

  When we started cruising along Copacabana inner streets, I leaned my head against the back seat and saw a movie of what had just happened flash through my mind.

  I lost my money, my credit cards, my clothes and my passport, in a country where I didn’t speak the language.

  I had beside me a man that by all means was gorgeous, but also controversial, and who seemed to be aware of every step I had taken in Rio.

  I was living in the moment—in the worst aspect of it—but at least inside that car, I had a small sense of security. Renato was less of a threat than the two police officers I had just escaped.

  I needed answers.

  “How did you know I had come back to the hotel?”

  He glanced at the side mirror.

  “I’ve been taking care of you.”

  Renato drove the car and paid attention to the mirrors, the people crossing the street outside of crosswalks, the cars cruising past, and the motorcycles winding among the most impossible gaps between vehicles.

  I felt emptied of all my strength. Renato acted as a predator on top of its stamina, awaiting an imminent aggression. He gave signs of being concerned about my situation—truly worried about me.

  But after Marlon, I’d grown smarter.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I said.

  Renato plunged the car into the blackness of a long tunnel that would take us to the neighborhood of Botafogo. Yellow spotlights shining from the ceiling brushed past his body, dropping shadows into his sockets, as the amplified sound of engines reached my ears.

  “Okay, your Sim card.”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s busted. I can hear, track and access everything that you do on your phone,” he said.

  Renato was a liar. He had a plan since before he picked me up at the airport.

  After going through so much, I wasn’t surprised.

  “Well, should I call the police, then? What do you want from me, Renato?”

  “Senhora Bennett, I—”

  “Stop addressing me as Se . . . Senora Bennett! I can’t even speak that shit properly.”

  “All right, Emily. I’m going to tell you everything, but you must promise you will trust me no matter what I say.”

  “You’re bold, aren’t you? Now I have to trust you?”

  He kept eyes riveted on the street ahead.

  “Just understand that no matter what I chance to say, I am here to protect you. As I’ve always been, since the beginning,” he said.

  He seemed embarrassed and I considered that a weakness. I had to use it in my favor.

  “Since you took Carlos’ job and offered me a busted Sim Card?” I replied.

  “Well, not exactly. I’ve been protecting you since we . . . merda, since I first saw you. And you better be glad it was I who delivered the Sim card to you, otherwise you might . . .”

  He swallowed hard before finishing his sentence, and scratched the nape of his neck in anxiety.

  He got me unprepared.

  “Otherwise I might, what?” I said.

  “Otherwise, I don’t know what could’ve happened to you. But it certainly wouldn’t be as nice as it has been.”

  I said, “Should I also be glad for not having my passport anymore, for getting stuck in this country?”

  “What?” he said, startled. “Of course not.”

  “Well, I just wondered if you might have something to say about that.”

  He frowned his eyebrows.

  “Hell no. I want you well, Emily. You’ve been robbed by roaming pickpockets. I saw when they approached you, but I thought it’d be better to help you escape the police, instead of running after them.”

  I let everything sink in. How come could the police be more hazardous than roaming pickpockets in a place like Rio? If such, I had no one to trust here, except for the only man that seemed to care for my safety: the one on the wheel.

  All of a sudden, I felt as though his words, hovering in a cloud of letters over my head, had collapsed upon me. I gasped for air, sobbed, and tears flooded my eyes.

  “We’ll fix it,” Renato said. “Everything will be alright. There’s a US Embassy in Rio. I’ll take you there when the time is right. We still need to take care of a few things.”

  “Take me now, Renato, please.” My hands scrubbed my face washed with tears.

  “I know these people, Emily. More than I’d like. They have many eyes all over the city, men, women, boys and girls, on every corner. They look non-stop for those they want to capture. They’re not a high-tech mob, but their tendency to follow people into narrow spaces compensates for whatever gadgets they don’t have.”

  When Renato finished talking, I struggled to keep control over my body. There was a real risk of losing it all to insanity.

  I gather
ed my strength. “And why the hell do they want to capture me?”

  “I’m going to tell you everything, just as I’ve been doing. But I need you to stay calm. Get out of the car and follow me. Don’t ask any more questions. Our lives are at stake. Do you understand?”

  I’d lost track of our surroundings. When I looked around, Renato had parked his car at a gas station on a populated street.

  I expected he would drive me out of Rio as fast as he could. But not even stopping at the gas station only a few minutes away from Copacabana Palace worried me.

  We were at the Gloria Santa slum—where drug dealers and violence were common—in the heart of Botafogo neighborhood. Slum houses stretched along the hillside, its streets slithering amid buildings that not even a master engineer could explain why they didn’t collapse. Only a miracle would keep these houses from falling apart.

  The word Santa in the name—saint in Portuguese—seemed appropriate.

  And I was about to enter it.

  Chapter 11

  I got out of the car and followed Renato to the crosswalk, on the same corner as the gas station. After crossing the street, we stepped onto a small park, right at the entrance of Gloria Santa slum. Kids were playing soccer on a cement field and a man was setting up his popcorn cart.

  The ground on the park had cracks that sprawled all over. Mostly made of cement, a green coat painted over the soccer field was long gone. Only a few scarce chunks of old ink still clung to it.

  That park had been built to last, so had all of its dullness.

  I looked at my wrist, my watch had been spared by the Copacabana pickpockets. But instead of making me feel better, it sparked anger inside.

  The clock was about to hit 3:00 p.m.

  After all I’d been through, I could still think clearly. A question kept bouncing inside my mind: Why am I still following Renato?

  I trailed his steps entering the slums of Gloria Santa, the houses clambered uphill. At that moment I might have swerved off the path to the left or right, and gone into a dead sprint along the street as any healthy, self-protective and desperate person would. I might have screamed at the top of my lungs, until someone finally took me on their arms and called the police—some real 911 kind of police—ending this nightmare.

  But I didn’t swerve. I had no idea what kind of corruption officers Pinto and Rôla had woven in Rio, and the only person that could help walked ahead of me.

  I did as Renato said. No questions asked. While we trudged up the path, Renato sent quick, anxious glances when the kids stopped playing their ball to stare at me. He did the same when the popcorn seller froze to glare, and when a woman, trailing down a slope, darted her bewildered eyes at me, followed by a scowling expression to Renato.

  It was when we’d walked past the park on a street that winded uphill, that we stopped on the corner of a square.

  “They know you’re not from here, Emily. But they’re good people, no need to worry,” he said.

  “I don’t want to be here. Take me to the US Embassy, please,” I said, lips trembling. “I can see I shouldn’t be here by the way they look at me.”

  “Stay calm, Emily. They are a simple people that had to bring mistrust into their lives for a matter of survival. Sometimes, they can’t even trust in the police. If you ever get to know them, you see they’re nice.”[GS1]

  In two day’s time, I’d learned to not trust the Rio police. I didn’t like their attitudes, period. Being able to relate to this sense of distrust didn’t reduce the impact those unfriendly glares inside the slum had caused on my mood. I felt like bait waiting to be gnawed.

  We climbed the slopes and stairs that led to the upper parts of Gloria Santa. I sensed the world shrinking, collapsing around me. I stopped walking, leaned against a street pole.

  “It’s not the best time to stop, Emily. Those officers have eyes on the streets. We must take shelter for a couple of days. Then I’ll take you to the US Embassy. And, please, no talking anymore.”

  I swallowed my panic, vision unsteady, and followed him.

  The more we climbed, the more the streets narrowed. The buildings, two to three stories high at most, squeezed everyone who had the guts to walk between them.

  Droplets of sweat clung to my skin, my thighs ached under the struggle of carrying my body, my heavy breathing out of control. Walking up the streets on the Gloria Santa slum felt like an uphill marathon. I was not used to such a challenge. After a couple of blocks I understood why Renato parked his car at the gas station: cars couldn’t go past the streets that started on the outskirts of the slum. Only motorbikes and pedestrians could trod inside its inner veins.

  I might have asked why we had to go into this place, why we had to penetrate its inner walls and head towards ghettos that not even sun rays were able to reach. But I didn’t, mainly because my dependency on Renato dreadfully increased for each step deeper into Gloria Santa. We took streets and alleyways that formed a web I could never walk myself.

  Unfriendly gazes walked alongside us. I saw them again in the face of a red-shirted, curly-haired man standing in front of a store that appeared to be the mix of a bakery and a liquor shop. A bicycle mechanic covered by grease inside a bike repair store. An old woman on a stool. I had a faint illusion that the same set of eyes were changing bodies along the way, for the people who carried them in their sockets were different, but the glazed eyeballs darting upon us were not.

  I decided to look at the ground while I followed Renato.

  He stopped in front of a building halfway across a long and tight staircase. Its walls had been sprinkled with cement, creating a coarse coat of grey. Beside its iron doors, the number seventeen had been written in white ink, and windows could only be seen starting on the second floor. It was like a heavy block of brick and cement with a couple of holes where people could enter or peer outside. It lacked any trace of comfort.

  He knocked three times at the iron door, the sound produced by the rattling of the hinges higher than the one that escaped from his knuckles rapping on the iron.

  After a couple of seconds, an old woman craned her neck outside the window on the second floor.

  “This is a simple house, Emily, and my grandma is a simple, good-hearted woman. You will be safe inside this place.”

  A whole minute past before the handle tilted down and the door opened. A hunchback elderly woman with a broad smile and white hair stood in front of us. She gave Renato a hug with only one of her arms, the other holding firmly to a crutch.

  “Welcome,” she said, in a weak, sweet voice.

  “Oh, thank you,” I said. The fragility of that woman assured me that no evil could come from this home. “Do you speak English?”

  “Welcome, welcome,” she replied, gesturing me to go inside.

  Renato laughed. “Grandma doesn’t get what you say. I’ve been trying to teach her English but, you know, she’s somewhat stuck to saying ‘welcome.’ Her name is Norma.”

  “She’s a warm hostess,” I said, and stepped into the building.

  The first floor was a sort of a garage, full of tools. Two rusty bicycles, a surfboard, old shoes, a heap of boxes, and a wooden table with many tools strewn on it. The whole extension of the floor was smaller than a regular living room in the US. We walked past it over to a new set of steps that would take us to the second floor.

  It was then that I heard the din coming from outside. Pang, pang.

  “What’s that sound?” I asked Renato.

  “Gunshots,” he said. “We better keep away from the windows.”

  Chapter 12

  On the second floor of Norma’s sprinkled cement house was a living room attached to a small kitchen. A sofa, a television hack, and a dinner table brawled for supremacy in the same tight space. A rickety fan rotated its blades to even out the heat, squeaking on every bounce, and the staircase, compressed between the wall and the sofa, led to Norma’s bedroom on the third floor.

  How strong did her elderly knees have to be t
o constantly endure so many steps? Renato helped his grandma climb up from the ground floor. She shoved her grandson away, and changing her mind, cursed in Portuguese, as only a lucid and independent elderly woman would.

  I watched the scene unfold, terrified. That fragile hunchback juggled herself between stairs and a crutch, on the edge of collapsing.

  Renato chuckled and winked at me. He paid so much respect for his grandma that not even a volley of curses would upset him. Based entirely on her voice intonation, I would bet she had just cussed lovely grandma curses, which are somewhat universal, regardless of the language. My grandma did that a lot in her latest years: “you better mind your own business, otherwise, bless your little heart,” and “stop acting like you are my doctor. He is a fine son of a biscuit, while you, my dear, are not,” or even “this damn syrup tastes like horse piss. Pour some liquor over it to make it bearable, cutie.”

  Norma slouched on her sofa to watch TV, her stick propped up on her varicose legs, and I suddenly figured out that anywhere inside that room was just too close to the window. In front of Norma’s square building, across the narrow stair-street, stood a half finished home crowded with a big family that shielded us from any gunshot coming from behind it. But a bullet could still find us inside. It only had to be shot from a diagonal angle, either left or right. Had that been the case, the shot would lodge in the stairs on the third floor or, opposite to it across the room, in the kitchen sink.

  I avoided walking around, but after a while no more gunshots were heard. They stopped after the seventh.

  Once my breathing went back to normal, my mind raced: what was I doing inside this house? I had been carried around by a stranger due to some kind of body-numbness that made me unable to react. And that feeling was enlarged by the absense of colors that pervaded the house’s faulty walls.