"I'm fine, Father. Thanks."
"Smoke?"
Silva shook his head. "I gave it up."
"Very wise of you. Sorry about the ashtray. Anton doesn't smoke either. This is his week to do the household chores, but he refuses to clean it. And if I leave my cigarettes lying around, they have a mysterious way of disappearing. It's a little game we play. Now, tell me, what sparks your interest in liberation theology?"
"I'm investigating two crimes: the shooting of Bishop Antunes and the abduction, perhaps murder, of a landowner by the name of Orlando Muniz Junior."
"Ah, yes. Muniz."
"You know him?"
The priest took his time in answering, first studying the ash on his cigarette, then tapping some of it off into an overflowing ashtray. Most of the ash fell onto the surface of the table. He didn't attempt to clean it up.
"Oh, yes," he said at last. "Everyone around here is familiar with young Muniz. Slavery was abolished in this country in 1889, but that fact seems lost on people like him."
Silva said nothing, suspecting that Father Angelo would have more to say, which he soon did.
"Muniz is a bloodsucker, a modern day slaveholder. You must know how it works."
"Why don't you tell me?"
"It's the old story: His agents recruit people, promising to pay them a fair wage. When they arrive they find they're in debt for the cost of their transport and the food they ate along the way. Then he forces them to buy everything they need from his own store."
"So they never get out of debt?"
"Never."
Silva was all-too-familiar with the practice. The Brazilian government had been trying to stamp it out for more than a century, but it persisted.
"And if they run," the priest went on, "Muniz's capangas go after them, beat them into submission, and bring them back. In your work you must have met others like him."
"Never in the state of Sao Paulo. The practice is more prevalent up north, in places like Acre."
"It happens here, too. And it's not just Muniz."
"We can stop him, you know. All we need are-"
"Witnesses brave enough to come forward?"
"Yes."
The priest shook his head sadly. He lit another cigarette with the glowing butt of the one he'd been smoking and then stubbed out the butt, causing more detritus from the ashtray to fall onto the table.
"You won't find them. Not after what happened to a man named Aurelio Azevedo."
Silva nodded. "I've heard about him."
"God forgive me. I try to love my fellow man, but I can't help myself from despising some of them. Cascatas is going to be a better place without Orlando Muniz Junior." The priest seemed to realize what he'd just said and added hastily, "If he's really dead, that is."
They stared at each other for a moment. Then Silva said, "It's been suggested to me that he might have been kidnapped and murdered by people from the league."
A wary expression came into Father Angelo's eyes, but the only thing he said was, "Really? The league, eh?"
After a moment of silence, Silva went on, "I'm told that your colleague, Father Brouwer, actively supports the league."
"Told by whom?"
"Sorry. That's confidential."
"Hmm. Well, as to the league, it's probably best if you put that question to Anton himself, but if you think he might have had anything to do with Muniz's death you'd be wrong. He didn't."
"You think so?"
"I don't think. I know. We go back a long way, Father Brouwer and I."
Father Angelo settled back in his chair, rested his elbows on the arms and took another puff.
"Where were you on the thirteenth of May, 1976?" he asked.
It seemed like an abrupt departure from the subject, but Silva played along. "I have no idea. Should I have reason to remember?"
"Probably not. But I do. I can remember exactly where I was on the thirteenth of May, 1976. I was with Anton Brouwer. He would have been
…"-he took another puff and made the calculation in his head-"twenty-four at the time. The two of us were suspended by our wrists, facing each other, in the cellar of the State Police headquarters in Cascatas. They hung us up on the evening of the twelfth. They took us down on the morning of the fourteenth. They had us hanging there for thirty-four hours." ? "Why?"
The priest went on as if he hadn't heard the question. "I've always kept a diary. My memoirs. I hope to have them published someday. But I never wrote about that. The whole period of our most recent military dictatorship isn't covered in any degree of detail anywhere in my writings. It was too dangerous to write about then, and I can't bring myself to write about it now. But I talk about it, every now and then. I talk about it to someone like you, someone I don't know too well, or to someone I think should hear the story, and remember. Am I boring you?"
"Not at all."
Father Angelo lit another cigarette from the glowing stub of his last and extinguished the stub in the overflowing ashtray. He dangled the cigarette in his mouth while he rubbed the ash off his fingers. Then he took another puff and went on.
"When the military took power in 1964, they told us they were doing it to reestablish law and order. We soon discovered that law was for the few and order only an excuse for oppression. In reality fear, not law, was the source of their power. Torture was one of their instruments for instilling that fear."
"Why did they pick on you and Father Brouwer?"
"We'd set up a producer's and consumer's cooperative for the small farmers. They said it smacked of communism."
"And they tortured you just for that?"
"Oh, no. In those days, even people who practiced mild socialism got in trouble with the government, but we did much more. We organized adult literacy groups. That interfered with their concept of education. They didn't want the underprivileged to be educated. Education could have led to resistance. That's what they said, anyway. We also established a small newspaper and made the mistake of calling it The Liberator. All the major newspapers were censored then. The smaller ones… well… they just raided the offices, beat the people, and destroyed the facilities. Three days after they'd done that to The Liberator they came for us."
He took another puff. There was no breeze. The cloud of smoke hung about him, dispersing slowly in the air. The old dog lying near his feet whined in its sleep. He glanced at the animal, smiled, and continued.
"There was a police captain named Soares. I haven't seen him since the fourteenth of May, 1976, but when I close my eyes I can see his face as clearly as I can see yours now. At about nine-thirty on the evening of the twelfth they brought us into a room in the cellar of the police station. There were no windows. The walls were painted green. There was a drain in the floor, and there were hooks hanging from the ceiling. Captain Soares had several assistants in the room and while they hung us up from the hooks, he told us that there'd been assaults throughout the state. Money had been stolen from banks and some weapons had been stolen from one of the military installations. He said he was sure we could provide information about the people involved. When we told him we knew nothing, he ordered his assistants to strip us. One of those assistants, the only one I ever saw thereafter, is now a colonel in the State Police."
"Ferran?"
"Ferraz. You know him?"
"Not personally. Not yet," Silva said and then, before the priest could break the thread of his story, "What happened next?"
Father Angelo stubbed out another cigarette and took the pack from his cassock. This time he didn't light another one right away. He held the orange-colored pack in his hands, turning it around from one side to the other, looking at it as if he'd never seen it before. His eyes were far away.
"I told you, didn't I, that they hung us facing each other? They worked on us, one at a time. It was ingenious in its perverted, disgusting way. I could see everything that was happening to Anton, and he could see everything that was happening to me. That made it worse: You not only saw a clos
e friend being injured and broken, you could also anticipate that they'd soon be back to you, doing the same thing."
The priest dug a disposable plastic lighter out of his cassock. It was pink. The color didn't suit him at all. Silva wondered if a woman had given it to him.
Somewhere in the near distance there was the sound of children's voices: "Give it to me," one of them said. "Get your own," another one said. Then there was a slap and a squeal. Father Angelo didn't react to any of it. He went on with his story.
"Captain Soares told Anton to open his mouth to receive the Eucharist. When he did, the Captain put an electric wire into it. A spark lit up the inside of Anton's mouth. I could smell his burned flesh. When he fainted, they threw buckets of cold water on him and turned to me. They only worked on us for about fifteen minutes at a time. Then they'd go away and leave us hanging. Sometimes they'd be back within minutes, sometimes it took several hours. They beat us with little boards, kicked us in the stomach and genitals, put out their cigarettes on our bodies. I still have the scars."
He took a cigarette out of the pack, looked at the end of it, and rotated it between his fingers, remembering. "The more we denied complicity in the robberies, the more they were convinced we had something to hide and the more determined they became to force us to divulge it. Up to a point, of course. After thirty hours or so they began to think differently. They gave us no food. They did give us water through a hose-sometimes not enough, other times, far too much. And yet we fared better than the others."
"There were others?"
Father Angelo lit the cigarette with the little pink lighter and took a puff. Then he waved a hand back and forth in front of his face, dispersing the smoke, dispersing the memories.
"Oh, yes. Yes, there were others. Four other priests. Tito de Alencar, they released, but he hanged himself soon thereafter. He wasn't sure he was strong enough to resist if they arrested him again. He… knew things, you see."
"What sort of things?"
"It's not important now. It wasn't even that important then, except-"
"Except, if he'd spoken, other people would have been hurt?"
"Yes. I can see you understand. Let it go at that."
"And the other three?"
"Burnier, a Frenchmen, and two Belgians: Lukembein and Pierobom. These days, most priests are Brazilian-born, like me. It was different then."
He drew again on his cigarette.
"What happened to them?"
"Murdered. All three. No one was ever officially charged, much less tried. Ever since then I've had more fear of the police than of being assaulted by a criminal."
Silva shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Was Ferraz ever prosecuted?"
"No. He really didn't do anything, did he? He just stripped off our clothing and stood there, watching."
Father Angelo paused. Silva had heard other stories, read many reports. The priest's tale was, for him, a variation on a theme already old but no less horrible because of that. They sat there for a while, in silence.
When Father Angelo spoke again his voice continued to rasp, but his tone was lighter as if he'd shaken off a burden by talking about it. "In the end, this country went through twenty years of dictatorship. Twenty years. And there were many like them, like Soares, like Ferraz. You can't prosecute the whole country."
"No," Silva said.
"I've told you all of this to make a point. Bear with me a little longer. I'm almost done."
Silva inclined his head.
"Through most of the long hours that Anton was suspended in front of me he was in pain, excruciating pain, as I was. His body reminded me then, and when I look back on it, it reminds me now, of a painting depicting St. Sebastian. You must have seen such images? The saint perforated by Roman arrows? His body streaming blood from a multiplicity of wounds?"
"Yes, I've seen them."
"Anton cried out in agony, he begged them to stop, but never-not once-did he curse the men who were torturing him. And at no time-no time-did he make a false confession. He had only to give them some names, and they would have stopped, but he refused to do so. That is the kind of a man Anton Brouwer is. He's incapable of spilling innocent blood, no matter what the provocation."
There was something in what Father Angelo had just said that triggered a reaction in Silva. A thought, like the flash of a distant lighthouse on a dark night, coursed through his brain and was as suddenly gone. As he attempted to call it back, a battered old truck loaded with farm produce pulled into the alley of banana trees and screeched to a stop. A man got out and waved to the driver. The driver waved back, reversed his vehicle, and drove back the way he came. His passenger turned and started to walk toward the house.
Father Brouwer had come home.
Chapter Seventeen
Diana opened the door to her apartment and frowned. She took a step inside. There was tobacco smoke in the air, something strong, like-she sniffed again-yes, like a cheap cigar.
Lori didn't smoke. Neither did Diana, and they invited few people who did. They didn't even own an ashtray. The occasional visiting smoker was handed a water glass to use as a substitute and asked to go outside, onto the terrace, before lighting up.
Diana started to back out of the door, but someone gave her a push between the shoulder blades and sent her sprawling. She struck her head against the edge of the coffee table on the way down. Behind her she heard the sound of the door hitting the jamb like a trap slamming shut. She saw a tiny drop of blood fall onto the white carpet. She lifted her hand and touched her forehead. Wet.
A man with a scar on his left cheekbone, wearing the uniform of a major in the State Police, pulled her to her feet and hustled her into her home office. There was something strange about his grip. She glanced at the hand he'd wrapped around her arm. Gloves. The man was wearing latex gloves.
Colonel Emerson Ferraz, also wearing latex gloves, was tapping at the keyboard of her computer. He was wearing something else, too: a white apron, disposable and plastic, like the ones Diana had seen on medical examiners.
Lori was there, tied to a chair, gagged with what looked like a fragment of her own pantyhose. She'd been crying, and her mascara had run, staining her cheeks. Her legs were spread, and her skirt was bundled up around her waist, exposing strands of pubic hair.
"Oh, no," Diana said.
"Oh, yes," Ferraz said. His cigar was resting on a dinner plate. He picked it up and put it into his mouth. The tip glowed.
Diana was frightened, but she was also angry. "You didn't have to do that," she said, pointing at Lori. "I'm the one you came for."
"You've got to be joking," he said, expelling a cloud of smoke. "I wouldn't fuck you with my worst enemy's dick. Besides, Blondie here was just to pass the time until you got home. And she wasn't bad, for a dyke."
"You're an animal. Disgusting. A pig."
Her words seemed to make no impression on him at all. When he spoke again his voice was exactly the same as before: calm, detached, and very cold. "Did you really think you were going to get away with it, really think no one was going to tip me off?"
"Who was it?"
"You think I keep track of their names? I didn't even bother to negotiate. I gave the little bastard what he asked for: five hundred reais. He's a crackhead. I'll get it all back within a week. Okay, enough small talk. I haven't got all day."
He pointed at the computer. "Where are the backups?"
"Backups?"
"Copies, printouts, any duplication of this material in any form."
"There aren't any."
"Really?"
He put his cigar back onto the dinner plate. Next to the makeshift ashtray there were two other items he'd taken from their kitchen: a wooden cutting board and a small meat cleaver. Lori used the cleaver to make Chinese food. She kept it as sharp as a razor. Ferraz picked up the cleaver with one hand and gripped the board in the other. Then he got up from his chair, balanced the cutting board across Lori's thighs and splayed out the fingers o
f her right hand on the marbled surface. Lori's eyes rounded and seemed to enlarge. She looked at her hand, then at Diana, making a silent appeal.
Ferraz raised the cleaver and held it poised in the air. "No, don't-"
Diana stopped short as Ferraz slammed the cleaver into the board, severing Lori's index finger. Blood gushed from the open wound and would have spattered his clothing if he hadn't been wearing the apron. Lori gurgled through the gag and then, mercifully, she fainted.
Ferraz looked down and frowned when he didn't see the finger. Not relinquishing his hold on the cleaver, he dropped to his hands and knees and finally found what he was looking for behind one of the legs of the desk. He picked it up and held the bloody end in front of Diana's nose.
Diana felt a wave of nausea. The other cop was still holding her right arm. She lifted her left hand and covered her mouth.
"You vomit on me," Ferraz said, "and I'll beat the shit out of you."
She turned her head and let it go. Ferraz took a quick step backward to protect his shoes. When Diana's spasms had passed he said, "Every time I don't get an answer, I'm going to cut off another finger. If I run out of fingers, I'll move to her toes. If I think you're lying, I'll take off a hand. If I still think you're lying, I'll take off another hand. Do we understand each other?"
He threw Lori's finger aside as if he was tossing away the stub of his cigar.
Diana nodded. Her nostrils were filled with the sour smell of her own vomit and the steely odor of Lori's blood.
"Now, who else has seen, or heard, that interview?" He pointed to the screen of the computer.
"Which? Which interview?"
"The one with Pipoca."
"No one."
He looked upward and sighed, as if asking for the blessing of patience. Then he turned around and stretched out Lori's middle finger.
"Sto " P.
But he didn't. This time, he held on to the newly severed finger and dangled it in front of her nose.
"No one," Diana said desperately. "No one else. Honest to God, no one but me. I didn't even tell Lori."
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