by A. D. Flint
They bundled him into a rusty old VW Kombi van. It had double doors. He hadn’t seen one like that before. He liked it. He wondered whether he ought to be thinking about more important things. The driver turned to look at him. He looked scared. Jake thought he should remember why.
“Drive,” Franjinha instructed the pressganged driver, gesturing forward with his handgun.
The Kombi van pulled away to the rough buzz of the air-cooled engine. Jake took a few punches as he lay on the floor pan between two rows of seats. They rolled him onto his front and grabbed his arms. There was a strong rubber smell in his nostrils from the floor mats.
It was only when someone pulled a plastic bag over his head that the fear kicked back in. The plastic was sucked into his mouth and nostrils each time he tried to drag in a frantic breath.
There was too much weight on his arms and legs for him to get free. And every time he tried, they stamped on him and punched him, draining his strength.
Jake had to get hold of the panic or he would suffocate under the feet of these little psychopaths. They probably wouldn’t even notice and they would care less.
He turned his head and dipped his chin, trying to work the bag upward with his lips and tongue. He breathed in, very gently, through his nose. A thin but steady stream of air. Long, shallow breaths. It was hard to control it, his body screaming for great lungfuls of oxygen.
It took a minute or so for Jake to get his breathing under control. To feel like he wasn’t dying.
He could hear the loud and aggressive banter amongst the gang now. Jokes and insults, jacked up on adrenaline, with quick-fire slang that he found difficult to follow. It felt like an hour, but it was probably closer to twenty minutes when the Kombi van pulled over. The inside of the bag was running with sweat, Jake’s hair soaked.
Franjinha and his boys were clearly of the opinion that he was capable of moving under his own steam now. They tipped him out of the van, kicking him to encourage him to find his feet.
The condensation inside the bag made it difficult to see. Jake staggered forward, guided by kicks and shoves. They were going uphill. They were in the favela. The effort and panic were breaking the rhythm of his breathing, the polythene stoppering his mouth and nostrils every couple of breaths with a nasty, rustling pop. It was an exhausting climb, his lungs bursting. He was nauseous and disoriented.
When they finally stopped and pulled the bag from his head, the relief only lasted a second. He saw where he was. The scrubby hilltop, the burned tree. It wasn’t set up with the paraffin torches but he knew that this was the Burning Hill.
He was a dead man. It wasn’t the dying that frightened him so much as what was going to happen before that.
Chapter 53
Jake
More boys arrived. Some were in their teens, some were youngsters. A boy of around eight came with a small gas lamp that he placed on the dirt. It burned its white light with a ferocious hiss.
“See the smart guy?” Franjinha said. “Nuno brought light.”
Franjinha took a pistol from one of the teenagers and gave it to Nuno. “There you go, now you can cover this gringo. You’re the official security detail tonight.”
The pistol was so heavy for the kid that he had to prop his elbows on his hips and hold it close to him.
“You keep that away from your body if you fire it,” Franjinha instructed, “otherwise the hammer will dig a hole in your chest.” He was trying to keep it light but all the other kids were tense, staring fearfully into the dark spaces around them. And then Jake understood. The last time most of them would have seen Vilson was here. They had executed Vilson and turned him into a ghost here.
Nothing happened for over an hour. Jake thought about running, but there were too many guns. One of them would hit him. The law of averages. There were a lot of murmured questions amongst the kids. Agitation. Franjinha was the only one who didn’t look bothered. They were waiting for something. It turned out they were waiting for someone.
Another teenager finally strutted in, flanked by a gaggle of his soldiers. He was slight, no older than Franjinha, but he was clearly the leader. A Beretta hung loosely in his hand.
With his skinny frame and the constant nervy twitch running through it, he didn’t cut a very imposing figure. He looked like a frightened kid trying his best to show he wasn’t. He was a head shorter than Jake but, when he came close, squaring up, Jake saw. There was pure sparkle-eyed psycho behind the fear.
Anjo tilted his head to one side and then the other, and put the barrel of the Beretta to Jake’s forehead. Getting no reaction, he traced the barrel down the scars on Jake’s cheek. He sniffed and wrinkled his nose, flecks of white paste in his wet nostrils.
“So,” he said, stepping back and looking at the soldiers fanned out around him. “The gringo, huh? Where all this started.”
He looked back to Jake, dried spittle at the corners of his mouth. “Welcome to the hill, Senhor,” he said, making a bow. “I’m sure a bunch of uneducated favela soldiers like us could benefit from a little cultural exchange, but I’m afraid your stay can only be short. Although probably longer than you would like. And very painful. You see, your idiot cop friend wasn’t meant to win that fight tonight – he lost us a lot of money. Unfortunately for you, you’re the only one who turned up for our party tonight, so you’re going to have to tell me what the hell is going on.”
Jake let the fear show. He was playing the meek, grey man. Don’t antagonise or play the tough guy. Survive. Every minute he could add to his life was precious. “I hardly know that cop,” he said. “I really don’t know anything about what happened.”
“Yeah, they all say that to start with. You’ll amaze yourself with how much more you’ll remember before the end. You and me, we have a whole stinking pile that we need to get to the bottom of. The quicker you tell me, the quicker it will be over. Understand, gringo?”
When the time came, right at the end, Jake wasn’t going to be the grey man. He was willing to sacrifice a few minutes. He would tap into the anger, plunge the thermometer into the boiling water and let it explode. He wasn’t going to beg for mercy from this little shithead.
A frightened murmur rippled through the gang. Gasps, as they looked at Jake.
Jake saw the whites of Anjo’s eyes as they widened. His taut face slid to a waxy mask of terror. His knees gave way and he sank to the earth.
It wasn’t Jake they were looking at. They were looking past him. They started crossing themselves.
Someone was coming through the tall grass on the other side of the clearing. Walking slowly, purposefully. His skin was deathly grey, his matted shock of hair the same colour. Emerging from the grass, his skin started to glow almost white in the flare of the gaslight.
This wasn’t Vilson as Jake remembered him. There was no slope-shouldered gait, his eyes no longer darting about nervously. The soft parts of Vilson had been cut away.
Anjo opened and shut his slack mouth a couple of times before he found his voice. But it betrayed him, quavering and strangulated. “Help me, God.” He lifted the Beretta.
Vilson stopped around five metres short of him and shook his head slowly. “You cannot kill a dead man.” His voice was slow and clear. It went through the gang like a shockwave.
The Beretta wavered in Anjo’s hand and then fell back to his side. He was unable to get it to do his bidding.
Vilson pulled the old revolver from the back of his shorts. He lifted it and swept it around in a slow arc. And then he came back the other way, dipping the barrel momentarily.
Everyone understood the signal and those holding a gun dropped it on the ground in front of them.
Chapter 54
Vilson and Jake
Vilson pushed the cylinder out from the revolver, pulled three empty shell cases from it and dropped them into the turf. He pulled the two remaining live bullets out, holding them up between his thumb and forefinger as he looked at Jake. “Hey gringo, two bullets left. One for you a
nd one for me.” His voice was cold, detached. All those lies and broken dreams and distrust, all the misery of his life, slowly crushed into a ball of hatred from that moment they had walked into one another on Copacabana.
Vilson put one of the bullets back in the cylinder, spun it and then put the other in without looking. He closed the cylinder back into the barrel and spun it again. “Or maybe one for him and one for him,” he said, pointing the revolver first at Franjinha and then Anjo.
Still on his knees, Anjo clasped his hands together, begging. He whimpered some inaudible prayer.
Vilson fired.
The bullet hit Anjo just beneath his collarbone, rocking him back. He screamed, putting a hand to the wound and slumping to the ground. Conscious, not fatally wounded.
Jake caught the movement before Vilson did, Franjinha reaching for the pistol tucked in the back of his waistband. Jake launched at him. He put a shoulder into Franjinha’s chest, hard, to flatten him, but he was concentrating on the pistol. Grabbing the barrel with both hands, wrenching and twisting it out of Franjinha’s grip. They both went sprawling, but it was Jake who came up with the pistol.
None of the other kids moved. They could barely look away from Vilson. Jake stepped back from Franjinha, training the pistol on him. It took him a second to realise that Vilson was aiming his revolver not at Franjinha, but at him.
“So, one bullet was destined for him,” Vilson said, gesturing at Anjo, now moaning with the pain of his wounded shoulder. “Just one left.” Vilson lifted his aim from Jake and put the revolver to his own temple, never taking his eyes off Jake. He started squeezing the trigger, slowly. The hammer drawing back.
“Don’t do it,” Jake pleaded with him.
Click .
There was no change in Vilson’s expression, no look of relief. “See? You can’t kill a dead man.” He took the revolver away from his temple and pointed it back at Jake. He nodded to the gun that Jake was still pointing at Franjinha. The invitation for him to go for it. Take his chance.
Jake let the gun drop to his side and shook his head.
Vilson drew back the hammer on the revolver with his thumb. “Go on, gringo.”
Jake didn’t move. He wasn’t going to.
Vilson kept the revolver levelled at Jake’s chest. There was no tremor in his hand. He moved it a fraction away from Jake’s chest. Squeezed the trigger. Click.
“Huh. Death didn’t want you after all,” he said. He looked at Jake for a long moment before he spoke again. “We’re okay, gringo, you and me, yes?”
Jake nodded.
Vilson turned the revolver on Franjinha. “The last bullet is for you, then.” Franjinha shifted, but his face was empty of expression.
Blam. Blam. Blam.Blam. The shots rang out.
Little Nuno was holding the heavy pistol Franjinha had given him away from his chest, his head pulled back to keep it as far from the danger of recoil as possible. No one had seen him pick it up.
For a few moments, nothing happened. It seemed like the bullets had had no effect. You cannot kill a dead man. The soldiers stared, transfixed, the words echoing in their head.
Then Vilson’s revolver dropped to the ground. He touched his chest and looked at the blood on his fingertips. Two of Nuno’s bullets had found their mark.
Sinking to his knees, Vilson crossed himself, leaving a dab of blood on his pale forehead. He rolled gently onto his side, head turned to stare up at the sky. Just for a moment, something came back into his eyes. The life. “Hey Gabriel, hey Babão. Eu tou chegando ai, irmãos,” – I’m coming, brothers – he said, and then his last breath slipped away and his eyes went blank again.
Slowly, the realisation began to dawn on the members of the Red Ants that he wasn’t a ghost. He was just another kid who could be shot.
“Put it down,” Jake commanded Nuno. He had Franjinha’s pistol trained on the kid. The kid was still aiming at Vilson. Nuno looked to Franjinha and got the nod. He dropped the pistol.
Jake swept around the others to discourage them from going for their weapons lying on the ground. He glanced at Vilson’s body one last time, and then started backing away.
“You go, gringo,” Franjinha called out. “Run back to the city. I can get you there. I have my people down there.”
Jake kept on backing away to the cover of the first buildings. Getting to the first house, he ducked behind its corner and held his ground for a moment, to see if they were going to give chase.
Franjinha was no longer interested in him, turning instead to Anjo. His boss seemed to be slowly recovering from the terror that had paralysed him. A couple of his soldiers went to him, gently helping him up. “I knew there was no ghost,” he winced.
Franjinha came over and picked up the Beretta. Anjo held out his good hand to take it.
“You knelt in the dirt, snivelling like a baby,” Franjinha said to him, “while a little kid had the balls to step up and kill it.”
Jake felt the collective intake of breath, the tension in the gang. He could see the edge return to Anjo, the sparkle-eyed psycho. Anjo gestured with his outstretched hand. “Give.”
Franjinha shook his head. “You’re done, brother.” The bullet hit Anjo just below the eye, snapping his head back and throwing him into the dirt.
“I’m boss, now,” said Franjinha. “Anyone got a problem with that?”
None of the gang did.
Jake turned and ran. Once he had gone a hundred metres down through the alleyways he made his way to the edge of the favela, out into the long grass. He started creeping slowly back up the hill. It didn’t matter how long he had to wait it out amongst the rotting corpses in the undergrowth before Franjinha’s gang dispersed, he wasn’t leaving Vilson’s body up there.
Chapter 55
Jake
Stepping out of the shower, he towelled off and looked in the mirror. His skin was a camouflage pattern of bruises and wheals. He was stiff and sore all over. He turned away from the mirror and looked over his shoulder. His back was worse.
Going through to the bedroom, the floor fan swept across the room and chilled the still-wet skin on his back. He had returned to the same cruddy motel outside Cruzeiro that he had stayed in when he was first searching for Vilson’s mother.
He had slept the sleep of the dead on the marshmallow bed and thin, lumpy pillows. He was feeling halfway to human again.
There was a light knock on the door. He wrapped the thin, scratchy towel around his waist.
It was Eliane. She was barefoot, wearing a cropped vest and jogging bottoms. He was trying not to notice the shape of her through the thin cotton of her vest or the smooth skin of her belly. She was scrubbed of make-up, her hair loose. He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was. It probably wasn’t a great idea.
He sat on the edge of the bed and gestured for her to sit on the cheap chair in the corner.
“Seen the news?” she asked.
“Try to avoid it if I can.”
The release of Eliane’s father had not made the news – she hadn’t reported him missing. Her father told her that when his captors were unable to contact their boss they had panicked and then fretted over whether or not to kill him before letting him go. They hadn’t even known who he was or why they were holding him. Chaotic video footage from the mass brawl at the end of the fight had made the news, as had shots of Nogueira’s wrecked car in the underground garage. The media had latched onto the narrative of the hero police captain murdered while trying to take down a drug gang. A couple of outlets, including Globo, had hinted at a story that lay behind that, but there was no enthusiasm for it. Eliane’s reporter contact had told her that she just couldn’t get it to catch. The moment had gone.
“Is there anyone else you can try?” Jake asked.
She thought for a moment before shaking her head. “I don’t think I want to. Going by the book goes out the window when it’s your family – I would have gone to any length to get my dad back. Maybe we lost the war, but we won a b
attle. It’s the wrong way round but it’s all we’ve got. Is that good enough?”
“It is if you’re doing what you’re doing now.”
She nodded. “And maybe I need to pick the right kind of battles. I found a lawyer in town who’s willing to help me with Vilson’s mother and Toninho.”
Both Jake and Eliane had gone to the farm to bury Vilson. His mother decided on a shady spot on the edge of some woodland, close to a stream. She had wept silently at the graveside as Toninho hugged her. She said without self-pity she had been a bad mother to Vilson.
Eliane had also come back to follow up with the ILO on behalf of the farm workers. A few of them wanted to stay on; they had nowhere else to go. Goretti had offered to give them a wage and that would count in her favour in the fight with Torquato’s son over the division of the farm. He was already making moves to get Goretti and Toninho evicted.
“I need to stick around here for a few days,” Eliane said.
“I’m going to get a bus back to Rio – there’s one leaving before midday – Marinho wants me to take him to see Yara.”
“I thought he didn’t go for all that stuff.”
Jake shrugged. “He won’t say exactly what, but something happened in that fight just after his sight went. It changed his mind.”
“And after that, what then for you?”
“Try harder not to be my own worst enemy. But I’ve also realised I can’t do a regular life, the quiet life. It’s not for me. Like you said, the war is maybe too difficult for the likes of you and me to win, but there’s a battle back home that I never finished.”
“Back in England?”
He nodded.
She looked down for a moment. When she looked up again, there was the faintest flush running from her neck to her cheeks. The floor fan swept around and blew a wisp of hair across her face. She tucked it behind her ear. “You want to get some breakfast in town before you go?”