The Darkest Heart

by Dan Smith

  ‘You’re planning it already,’ Costa said. ‘I can see your mind working. I knew I could rely on you.’

  We were coming to the river, walking alongside the pastoral centre where the bishop lived, and it was clear that the Branquinos weren’t the only people in this area who had money.

  These were the largest buildings in Piratinga, two of them, whitewashed like almost everything else, but clean and new. I could smell the fresh paint and wood shavings as we passed. Between them, the church stood tall and proud, the bell tower rising from the red-tiled roof. There was a wall around the area, with welcoming gates at the front, facing the river; gates that were open for anyone who cared to go inside and accept the church’s charity. In the constant battle for souls, the church was pushing deeper into the country, opening its arms to Indians and sinners. And though the church was not so involved in the fight for land, there were still those who worked hard to redress the balance of distribution.

  Sister Beckett was one of those people, and I suspected that the price on her head was connected to that in some way.

  ‘So why do they want her gone? What’s she done?’ Perhaps if I had a reason to think she deserved it, my blade would not pause at her throat.

  ‘She causes trouble wherever she goes.’

  ‘For who?’

  ‘For the people who’re going to put money in your pocket and a roof over your head.’

  We stopped and Costa waved his hand out at the river. Mocha water, white sand protruding here and there, then trees on the other side. Nothing but trees and water and sand. It was as if we were standing at the edge of the world.

  ‘Make her go away, Zico. Somewhere out there, make her go away. But no one can know.’ He took a piece of folded newspaper from his top pocket and handed it to me.

  ‘What’s this?’ I unfolded the clipping, slightly damp with his sweat.

  The words on the paper were of no use to me at all, but they surrounded a grainy picture that Costa tapped with his finger. The gold from his ring glinted in the sunlight. ‘That’s her.’

  I looked at the picture and then at Costa. ‘Tell me something,’ I said. ‘Why are you here in Piratinga? Anyone can see you’re not suited to it.’

  ‘We’ve all made our mistakes, Zico. Mine landed me here so I end up working with idiots like those,’ he glanced back at Luis and Wilson, ‘and manipulating good people like you. It should be the other way around.’

  ‘The Branquinos put you here as some kind of punishment?’

  ‘Something like that.’ He started to walk away, leaving me standing there, the newspaper cutting in my hands.

  ‘What did you do?’ I asked.

  ‘Just make sure you get the right person,’ he said without turning round.

  ‘I will,’ I told him. ‘I always get the right person.’

  When Costa was gone, I stared at the clipping for a while. Sister Dolores Beckett’s face was just a collection of grey and black dots, and I didn’t know much about her other than her name and reputation, but already I could feel her presence. She wasn’t just some violent rival of the Branquinos, she was something different and, once again, I found myself thinking about the priest from the small church in our part of the favela.

  When our father was still alive, he would take Sofia and me to church at least once a week. We washed and put on our best clothes – me in a shirt and faded trousers passed down from another family, Sofia in her green dress that made her look so pretty. I could picture her now, checking herself in the mirror, turning this way and that to see from every angle. She had the deepest brown hair, dark and long so it fell past her shoulders, and she would hum some tune or another as she brushed it. At the church, the women would all smile and tell her how pretty she looked and then we would say our prayers and make our confession.

  When Pai started to drink, though, everything changed. Sofia was a cleaner by then, working for some rich people who lived in a different world. She came and went in their house like a ghost, all of them pretending she wasn’t there. If the senhora was in the room when Sofia walked through, neither of them even acknowledged each other. She made their beds for them, washed their clothes and cleaned their toilets, but the only time they couldn’t pretend she didn’t exist was when they had to pay her.

  We used to talk about a better life, leaving the favela, but she knew we’d never have enough money to go anywhere if we tried to do it on her wage. I brought in more money than her just standing on a street corner watching for cops or rival soldiers from another favela coming in to steal our drugs. That’s what I had turned to for money, because there was nothing else for a boy like me to do.

  Sofia moved away from the Church and found happiness in Candomblé. It made more sense to her and she liked the ritual. I thought God had abandoned me, so I abandoned him. It had never made much sense to me anyway. My life was hard and I never believed there was someone watching over me.

  Sofia died when I was seventeen. She was nineteen. I spoke with Father Tomás that day, not long before finding her, and he asked me why I never came to church any more. I joked with him, telling him God had given up on me and that I was beyond saving.

  He told me everybody could be saved.

  Just a few minutes later, I had found Sofia lying in her own blood.

  Now I looked at the picture of Sister Dolores Beckett one more time, then folded the newspaper cutting and put it into my shirt pocket. I wandered along the water’s edge towards the old man’s house, passing Ernesto’s, and coming to the spot close to his home where he moored his boat just offshore. Putting my bag on the ground, I squatted down in the dry grass to wait.

  I took the clipping from my pocket once again and looked at the picture of Sister Dolores Beckett, wondering whether or not I would be able to do what Costa had asked. When he had mentioned her name, my immediate instinct was that this was wrong and I was forced to consider why. Until now, I had always been able to carry out my job and collect the money that was offered, because there had always been a secondary element; the belief that the person somehow deserved what I was going to do to them. But this was different. The nun was not a common pistoleiro. She was not a cruel landowner or a brutal enforcer, and when I looked back at all the people I’d killed for money, they all led to one man. The one who deserved it more than any other.

  And it always came back to my sister. Sofia.

  12

  ‘There’s my baby,’ said Raul, coming beside me and looking across at the Deus e o Diabo, lazing where the water was more than deep enough to take her draught.

  To me, the old man’s boat was a floating scrap heap, assembled from bits of junk. The paintwork, cream above the water and burgundy below, was faded and split. In some places the bare wood of the keel showed through, threatening to rot and let in the river. The lettering which gave the boat its name, painted on both sides of the bows, was barely legible in some places.

  At just over twelve metres, the Deus wasn’t small, but she wasn’t as big as some of the other vessels that came past this way. The three or four metres at the stern was taken up by what might have been called a hut if it were on dry land. This enclosed section, which provided an area for storage away from the elements and gave access to the engine, was bolted on with rusted rivets. In some places the brown-red corrosion had eaten through the metal skirting. I wondered how old the boat was for it to have rusted like that, in a place where the water was taken by the sun almost as soon as it touched any surface, and even the torrential rains of the wet season dried quickly.

  I’d asked Raul many times how old she was, but he had no idea. He’d bought the boat from a man just like him, nearly fifteen years ago, and even then, the Deus was ancient. No one knew who had built it, who had first owned it, nor when its name was given to it.

  Deus e o Diabo. God and the Devil.

  Further forward, beyond the centre of the boat, there was a small wheelhouse that was open on all sides but above. The entire vessel was roofed by a serie
s of blue and green tarpaulins rigged across a frame running from the rear housing right up to the wheelhouse. The covering gave some shelter from the sun, and tinged everything with a green hue, but provided little protection from the violent rains that arose almost without warning and sheered in from all sides.

  Her bow was turned up, higher than the stern, giving the impression that she was sitting back in the water, tired and in need of a rest.

  ‘Keep meaning to clean her up,’ Raul said, ‘but ... well, you know how it is.’

  Rocky trotted past me and splashed in the water at the edge of the river.

  ‘You always say that, old man.’ I stood up, shouldering my backpack and turning to greet him. ‘Tell you what, when I have enough, I’ll clean her up for you. Maybe even buy you a new one.’ I raised a hand to Carolina who was at the back of the house, fifty metres away, carrying a plastic basket of washing.

  Raul laughed. ‘And you always say that.’ He slapped one hand on my back and coughed, bending almost double. He was still pale, his watery eyes ringed red.

  ‘Old man, you look like shit. You feeling worse?’

  I’m fine.’ Raul waved a hand to tell me not to worry about it, but he stooped as if he were drawing himself in. His bullish shoulders were tight, his head lowered, his body constricted.

  ‘You sure you’re up to this? I can go alone, I don’t need you.’ I liked being with the old man, but things could work out better this way. If he wasn’t with me, navigating the river would be harder because I didn’t know it like he did, but I wouldn’t have to keep anything from him. I wouldn’t have to lie, and moving about in Mina dos Santos would be easier if I were alone. ‘Go home to your wife and let me deal with this.’

  ‘Not today, Zico. You’re not going to take over my boat just yet.’

  I sighed and looked over Raul’s shoulder at a man coming across the grass and onto the sand. Young, thin and clean-shaven, he waved and called out Raul’s name.

  When the man smiled, I saw a pleasant face the girls would like. His skin was the colour of the river, his eyes like tarnished emeralds. He wore a long-sleeved checked shirt unfastened to below his chest, and faded brown trousers rolled up at the cuffs. His cap was tipped back and twisted to one side in a subtle display of arrogance. Hanging on a silver chain around his neck was a carved figa pendant – a good luck charm in the shape of a small hand with the thumb tucked between the first two fingers. There was a cigarette behind his ear, a backpack similar to mine slung over one shoulder and something under his shirt, a knife or maybe a pistol.

  ‘You know him?’ I asked Raul.

  ‘This is Leonardo,’ he said, as the man came to join us. ‘Leonardo, Zico.’

  I nodded, waiting for more information.

  ‘He’s the one paying for this trip.’ Raul winked at me. ‘Remember I told you about him?’

  Leonardo reached up to tip his cap even further back on his head, sniffing as he did it, and I immediately knew who he was.

  As if to confirm it for me, Rocky barked once and tore up from the water’s edge, coming to a sudden halt at the old man’s side. She splayed her front legs and lowered her head, baring her front teeth and growling.

  Leonardo took a step back and put his hand to the front of his shirt.

  ‘What’s the matter, girl?’ Raul crouched and put his arms around her. ‘It’s all right.’ He looked up at Leonardo. ‘She’s pretty friendly really. Just takes a while to warm to new people.’

  ‘Keep it away from me,’ Leonardo said.

  Raul let his gaze linger on Leonardo for a moment, then he nodded. ‘Go on,’ he told Rocky. ‘Go.’ The old man pushed her away, encouraging her back to the water’s edge, but she wasn’t keen to leave him. Instead, she moved just a few paces to one side and sat on the sand, keeping her eyes on Leonardo.

  ‘You were watching us last night,’ I said to him.

  ‘I wasn’t watching, I was passing. I saw you outside, wondered who you were, that’s all. Protecting my interests.’

  ‘Protecting them from what?’ I looked at Raul for a second before turning my attention back to Leonardo. ‘And why didn’t you stop when I called out?’

  ‘It was late.’ Leonardo slouched, tried to look indifferent. ‘You’d been drinking. I didn’t want it to turn into trouble.’

  ‘Why would it? You were the one who was armed.’

  ‘I thought the dog was going to attack me.’ He took the cigarette from behind his ear and rolled it between forefinger and thumb. ‘And I don’t know you. You might be trouble.’

  I stepped back from Raul, freeing up the space between Leonardo and me. ‘So you’ve come to wave us off?’ I asked.

  Leonardo’s pleasant face darkened, just a flash, but long enough for me to spot it. He held out both hands and glanced at Raul. It was a questioning look that required some kind of confirmation.

  ‘He’s coming with us,’ Raul said.

  ‘Coming with us? It’s a simple collection and delivery. Why does he need to come? Does he not trust us?’

  Raul looked surprised. He lowered his voice and came closer to me. ‘Is there a problem with this, Zico?’

  ‘You two want to take a moment?’ Leonardo asked, tucking the cigarette back behind his ear.

  I looked the man over one more time, then pulled Raul to one side. ‘You didn’t say we were taking passengers.’

  ‘What’s the problem? It’s not the first time we’ve carried passengers.’

  ‘You know anything about this man? Anything at all?’

  ‘I know he gave me half the money yesterday,’ Raul replied. ‘I know that the other half comes straight on delivery from someone at the other end. And I know that what he gave me feels good in my pocket.’

  ‘You still have it on you?’

  ‘No, of course not, you think I’m stupid? Come on, Zico, I know you look out for me but I’ve been doing this for—’

  ‘I know how long you’ve been doing this, old man, but how many times have I saved you from landing in the shit? I mean, what’s to say this guy isn’t going to try to rip you off? Get us out there, make his delivery, pull that pistola he’s got tucked away and make a few holes?’

  ‘Pistola?’ Raul looked back at Leonardo. ‘He’s armed? See. I knew there’s a good reason I take you along.’

  I softened a little and forced a smile.

  ‘Is something making you edgy?’ Raul asked. ‘Is something the matter?’

  ‘Maybe you forgot about your vulture yesterday,’ I said.

  ‘It would be easier if you didn’t keep reminding me.’

  Leonardo had moved closer to the water but was keeping some distance from Rocky. Hands on his hips, he was looking out at the Deus e o Diabo, a slight shake in his head like he was thinking the boat would never get us to where he wanted to go.

  ‘This got something to do with the Costa job?’ the old man persisted. ‘You want to tell me about it?’

  ‘I didn’t take it.’

  ‘Really? They let you say no?’

  ‘Forget about it. Come on, we need to get going if we’re gonna make this collection.’

  ‘You don’t say no to people like Costa. Is there something on your mind?’

  ‘I turned him down. That’s it. Stop talking about it.’

  Raul watched me, his eyes scouring my face. He was only a touch shorter than me, an inch maybe, so we were more or less eye to eye. ‘You sure there’s nothing you want to tell me about, Zico?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ I said, hefting my pack on my shoulder. ‘Come on.’

  ‘So what about him?’

  ‘He has to come?’

  ‘Part of the deal.’

  ‘OK. Leave him to me.’ I left Raul standing where he was and went over to Leonardo, watching him turn around as I approached.

  I offered him my right hand and he glanced at it before taking it, both of us shaking with a firm grip.

  ‘You all done?’ he said.

  ‘Just like to know who everyo
ne is,’ I told him.

  Leonardo nodded.

  ‘And you’re going to have to give me whatever you got under there,’ I reached out with my left hand and touched the handle of the revolver hidden under his shirt. I pressed it hard against his waist, so he couldn’t reach for it, and I kept his right hand occupied within my firm handshake.

  Leonardo’s free hand hovered for a moment as he decided how he was going to react, then he relaxed, and nodded, fixing me with those green eyes.

  ‘Good choice,’ I said, taking a second to glance around before I slipped my hand under his shirt and removed the pistola. I kept my movements hidden, seeing that Carolina was still behind the house, hanging washing on the line. She had her back to us, pinning one of Raul’s shirts.

  ‘You always this nervous?’ Leonardo spoke close to my ear. ‘Mind you, looking at that boat we’re going on, I’m starting to get a bit nervous myself. Will it even get there?’

  ‘You got anything else I should know about?’ I asked, tucking the weapon into my waistband.

  Leonardo shook his head but I wasn’t going to take his word for it, so I kept hold of his right hand while my left felt for all the usual and unusual places a man might hide a weapon.

  ‘You country people really know how to make a man feel welcome,’ Leonardo said.

  Satisfied he was no longer armed, I released his hand and stepped back. ‘The only people allowed to carry weapons on this boat are me and him,’ I said.

  ‘OK by me,’ he replied with a shrug.

  ‘Good. Then I think we’ll get along just fine.’

  ‘So.’ Leonardo cocked his head and stared at me. ‘Are we going to stand around all day touching each other or should we get going? If we’re not there when that plane arrives, then it’s bye-bye money. For all of us. And there are people who will be very upset about that.’

  13

  We loaded everything onto the aluminium boat which Raul kept tied to a dry mooring on the shore, and pushed it into the water.