Silva, Hector, and Father Brouwer left Arnaldo to wait for the locksmith and adjourned to a padaria on the other side of the street. They sat on the terrace where the smell of freshly baked bread battled exhaust fumes from the passing traffic.
Silva and Hector ordered coffee. The priest asked for a mineral water. "I don't expect there'll be anything left in that box," he said.
"No. I don't expect there will be," Silva said. "Now, let me hazard a guess. The man she was referring to in the note was Ferraz, right?"
The priest looked around before he inclined his head. "That bastard," he said, softly. It sounded strong, coming from a priest.
"I think we agree with you there, Father," Hector said. "What's going on? And what's your involvement in all of this?"
A young girl, probably no more than thirteen, came up from behind Father Brouwer and touched him on the arm. He turned in his chair and studied her pinched face, thin arms, and short, dirty hair. She was wearing a tattered smock, once white, and carrying a baby. Father Brouwer looked from one child to the other, sighed, and reached into the pocket of his jeans. "Buy some milk," he said.
The girl nodded, closed her hand around the coin he gave her, and moved off without a word.
"Dear God," the priest said, "let that be her little sister and not her daughter."
Hector gave him a curious look. "How did you know-"
"That the baby was a girl?"
Hector nodded.
"Her ears were pierced," Brouwer said. "You asked me what's going on? Where do I start?"
"Start with yourself," Silva said. "How did you get involved in what Diana was doing?"
"I work with the poor. Not just the league, but anyone who's poor, anyone who needs help: widows, orphans, the disabled, the indigent, street kids. One of the street kids came to me with a story."
"About?"
"The murders."
"The death squad?"
"It isn't a death squad."
"No? Then why do they make hams out of their victims?"
"To make people think it is." ? "Why?"
"This is a law-and-order town, Chief Inspector, run by rich people and crooked politicians who want clean streets. No matter what they say in public, privately they tend to agree that those kids are a plague that has to be rooted out. Except that rooting them out by giving them homes, work, and food is too much trouble and too expensive. They'd rather see some of them killed and hope the others will take fright and move away."
"So there's a tacit approval of the murder of those children, is that what you're telling me?"
"Yes."
Father Brouwer picked up his glass and drained it. His hands were trembling slightly, and the glass made a little clinking sound when he put it back on the metal table.
"So why are they being killed?"
"Pipoca said-"
"Pipoca?"
"The boy who came to talk to me. All of the children have street names. That's his. Pipoca. He told me the children were murdered because they didn't pay their debts, not because there was a movement underway to clean up the streets."
"Debts?"
"Drug debts. He said that all of them had to work hard to support their habits and when someone defaulted… an example was made."
"So instead of cleaning up the town, it's the other way around. The people doing the killing are forcing the kids to work harder?"
"Yes."
"And that work is prostitution, petty theft, burglaries, assaults…"
"Yes. All of that."
Silva glanced at Hector before he asked the next question. "This Pipoca, does he know who's behind it? The drugs? The killings?"
"Emerson Ferraz."
"Why didn't you come to us?"
"You weren't here. I didn't know whom to trust. I have issues with policemen, as you may know. And it isn't just the policemen in this town who are corrupt. It's the politicians as well. And that judge, Wilson Cunha. He may not be involved in Ferraz's business, but he's certainly in the pocket of the movers and the shakers."
"So you discussed it with Diana?"
"Yes. She's from a wealthy family, people who own a great deal of land, but she's always been sympathetic to the needs of the poor. And not just Diana, but her mother and father too. They've been regular contributors to our work."
Silva's voice took on a harder tone. "And instead of advising you to come to us, as she should have done, she asked you to keep quiet about it so she could write a goddamned newspaper story?"
"You have to understand," the priest said, defensively, "that up to then it was all hearsay. The person doing the talking was a street kid. The man he was accusing was a colonel in the State Police. We needed more proof. Diana set out to get it. She interviewed other street kids. She took photographs."
"Interviews? Photographs? My God, Padre, street kids will sell their own mothers for a vial of crack. Didn't it ever occur to you that it was all going to get right back to him?"
"Of course it did," the priest said, bristling. "No one knows those poor children better than I do. They've been taught to value money above all else, above ethics, morals, friendship, even God. I knew it would get back to Ferraz eventually, but I never thought it would be so soon. I thought we'd have more time and I also thought
…"
"Thought what?"
The priest rested an elbow on the table and covered his eyes with his hand. "Thought… no, hoped, they'd recognize what would happen to anyone they informed on, and think twice before doing it."
"Then you're naive, Father. Naive. Ferraz is a bastard. You said it, and I believe it, but to them he's their source of the magic stuff that helps them to forget their misery. You say you know those kids better than anyone? Well, if you do, you've been a damned fool."
"Keep your voice down, Chief Inspector, and please stop abusing me. I already feel bad enough. I feel responsible for Diana's death."
Silva took a deep breath, then went on in a milder tone. "No, Padre. You're not. Ferraz is. And I will virtually guarantee you that he's not finished. If he found out about the safe-deposit box, he found out about you as well. Take my advice and disappear for a while. Get out of town until we get all of this cleared up. He'll be coming for you next."
"I can't do that. I'm helping the league with the operation they have underway."
"Stay away from them. It would be just the excuse that Ferraz needs to shoot you."
"I'll consider your advice."
"Which is another way of saying you won't take it?"
The priest had been looking down at his empty glass. Now he looked up and met Silva's eyes. "Probably not," he said. "You mentioned Diana's safe-deposit box. How can he justify breaking into it?"
"He's not a fool, Father. He'll justify it, believe me. What else have you got on him?"
The priest shook his head. "Nothing. But we know he killed Diana and Lori. It had to be him."
"We might know it, but we can't prove it. He's a cop. You think he's going to leave any evidence behind? Forget it. I can already tell you that Diana's apartment will be as clean as a whistle. He won't have left a shred of trace evidence."
"Oh, dear God. There must be something you can do."
"There are several things I can do, but I'd prefer that you don't hang around while I'm doing them. What's the real name of that kid, Pipoca? Do you know?"
Father Brouwer closed his eyes and put his fingers to his lips, thinking about it.
"He told me, but I… no, wait… it's… Edson. That's it: Edson. Edson Souza."
Chapter Twenty-two
"Edson Souza.I'll be damned!" Hector exclaimed after the priest had gone.
"And I asked Ferraz to help us find him," Silva said. "Damn it!"
"You didn't tell Ferraz anything he wouldn't have learned by questioning Diana."
Silva thought about it.
"True," he said.
"Maybe Souza didn't call the bishop about Azevedo's murder. Maybe he called about Ferran."
"I don't think-" Silva's cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket. "Silva."
"I just heard about the Poli girl," the director began without preamble. "Have you any idea whose daughter she was?"
He didn't wait for an answer.
"Dionisio Poli, that's who. In addition to about half the land in the State of Parana, he also owns Editora Julho."
Editora Julho was the largest magazine publishing combine in the country.
"Merda!" Silva said.
"I couldn't have put it better myself. Don't they murder unknowns in Cascatas?"
"I'm sorry to say they do. They kill street kids."
But the director wasn't listening. He was talking. "Jesus Christ. A bishop, then Muniz's son, and now Poli's daughter. The obituaries in that town are beginning to read like a social column. And now the papers here in Brasilia are beginning to pick up on it. The headlines are bad enough, Mario, but the editorials are going to be even worse. You've got to do something. The minister's watching. He's watching both of us. We need results and we need them fast."
"Yes, Director, I'm aware of that. I'm doing my best."
"Any progress?"
"Not yet."
"Jesus Christ," the director said again, this time with an inflection of disgust. "Call me again at six, as usual." He hung up without saying goodbye.
"Him again?" Hector asked.
Silva nodded glumly.
They sat in silence for a while. A chocolate-skinned woman in a red dress went by, swinging her hips. Hector's eyes were still fixed on her retreating derriere when he said, "The minute this Pipoca hears about Diana Poli he's going to panic and try to disappear down some sewer hole."
Hector was decidedly not fond of street kids. Less than a month earlier his former girlfriend, Angela Pires, had been brutally slashed by a thirteen-year-old who was trying to steal her wristwatch. The kid had done the job with a piece of window glass. It had taken five stitches to close the wound on her arm, and she'd bear the scar for the rest of her life.
"With the exception of the sewer-hole part," Silva said, "I agree with you. Look, there's Arnaldo."
Arnaldo scurried across the street, narrowly avoiding being hit by an oncoming truck loaded with rattling, silverpainted gas canisters. He started talking even before he took the seat Brouwer had vacated.
"Empty as my bank account," he said. "Not a damn thing there. Carmen says we owe the bank a hundred-and-fifty reais for a new box. I paid the locksmith. He charged twenty five reais. I hate to see little guys getting stiffed."
"I gather your generosity doesn't extend to the bank?" Hector said.
"What generosity? I got a receipt. I'm gonna declare it."
"And I'm going to approve it," Silva said. "Now go back across the street and settle with the bank. We need some friends in this town."
Arnaldo shrugged and got up.
Silva and Hector ordered more coffee.
"So what's next?" Hector asked.
"You and I will look into the league. We'll go out to that encampment of theirs, the one they set up on Muniz's fazenda, and ask a few questions."
"You really think they're going to tell us anything?"
"Probably not, but we've got to start somewhere. The league is as good a place as any."
"We were interrupted when the director called. Let's get back to that. What if Souza went to the bishop about Ferraz, and Ferraz killed the bishop to keep him quiet?"
"Unlikely. Souza was already talking to Brouwer and Diana Poli. What did he need the bishop for?"
Hector scratched his head. "Yeah, you're right. So I guess our first hypothesis is the most likely one. Souza must know who killed Azevedo."
"Or thinks he does."
"Or thinks he does. Either way, we've got to find him before Ferraz does. We'll leave it to Arnaldo. He excels at that kind of street stuff."
The waiter arrived with two cups of espresso. Hector added some sugar from the dispenser and picked up one of the tiny spoons.
"What do you make of Brouwer?"
"I'm not sure. Remember Father Angelo?"
"The old guy you told me about? The one who lives with Brouwer?"
"Him." Silva took a sip of his coffee. "He said Brouwer was incapable of spilling innocent blood. That's the way he put it, "spilling innocent blood."
"There's just one problem with that."
"What?"
Hector drained his cup.
"Suppose Brouwer doesn't think the blood he's spilling is innocent?"
Chapter Twenty-three
The task Silva gave him presented Arnaldo with a dilemma: The only people who could help him find a street kid were other street kids. But trying to start a casual conversation with a street kid wouldn't work. The kid would either clam up or run. And he couldn't just go out and arrest one. Without some kind of a charge that would stick, even a federal cop couldn't get away with that. And, besides, where could he take him? Bringing him to Ferraz's jail would be useless. The kid would be so terrified that he'd never open up. Taking him to the hotel would attract too much attention, and might have fatal consequences if the colonel found out about it.
Arnaldo considered going to a seedy part of town and flaunting his wristwatch and wallet. But, no, that wouldn't work either. He was a big guy, so they'd have to set on him in a group or leave him alone. If they left him alone, he'd be wasting his time. If they set on him in a group, he'd have to pull a gun, but then somebody was liable to get hurt.
Finally, and somewhat reluctantly, he came up with a way to go about it.
The desk clerk at the Hotel Excelsior, the one who looked like an Indian, frowned when Arnaldo asked him the question. "A boy?" he said. "You want a boy who-"
Arnaldo didn't let him finish. "You heard me. And wipe that look off your face. I'm after information, not sex."
"Information, huh?" The clerk smirked.
"Answer the question. Where do they hang out?"
"I wouldn't have any idea." The clerk's smirk was carrying over into his voice.
"No?"
"No. Now, if it was a girl you wanted-"
"I told you what I wanted, and I just told you why. And don't tell me you don't know, because this is a small town and everybody knows things like that. Don't make me lose my temper. You won't like it."
The clerk absorbed Arnaldo's change in attitude, and crumbled.
"The rumor is that they hang around Republic Square," he said, lowering his voice even though they were alone in the lobby. "But they're like tapirs. You don't see them much in the daytime."
Arnaldo thought about it. His first reaction was to go to his room, have a nap, and hit the street after sunset. But, if he did that, Ferraz might find Pipoca first and it would be goodbye Pipoca.
"Where is this Republic Square?"
The clerk gave him directions, adding that it was "in the old part of town."
Until he got there, Arnaldo figured that "old" was a misnomer. Cascatas wasn't really old as towns go, but this part of it sure as hell looked old. The square was as dirty and rundown as anyplace you could find in Sao Paulo, which was almost four hundred years older.
The clerk at the hotel hadn't bothered to mention that there was an open-air market in the square every Tuesday and Friday. That was annoying for Arnaldo, but was a good thing for the businesses that surrounded the square. Because if the market vendors hadn't hosed down the place, as they were doing when he arrived, it might never have been cleaned at all. Unfortunately, the storm drains were mostly blocked with garbage, which meant that the hosing simply served to concentrate the detritus on top of the grates. The air was heavy with the smell of rotted fruit and spoiled fish. The elaborate cast-iron lampposts, once the pride of a new city, were rusting, and in two cases broken off just above the ground. Arnaldo noticed that there was something else about the lampposts: Every single globe was broken. He suspected it had been done on purpose to assure that the square would remain a dark place after sundown.
The buildin
gs surrounding the square were all of a pattern and all four stories tall. Some of the windows on the upper floors bore signs: a homeopathic doctor, a tarot card reader, and several businesses identified only by their names. At ground level, offices were interspersed with a few shops: One sold herbs, small statues and other artifacts for use in the spiritualist rituals of Candombh and Macumba, Brazil's equivalent of voodoo. Another was occupied by an ironmonger. The proprietor had stacked wooden boxes containing horseshoes, and funnels of all sizes, beside his door. The ironmonger was flanked, on one side, by a place heaped with secondhand furniture and, on the other, by a bar.
The bar had only a handful of clients, all wearing the aprons that identified them as vendors from the market. They were seated around a rusting collapsible table and drinking straight cachaca. An old man with a day's growth of beard was hovering nearby, making a halfhearted attempt to sell lottery tickets and trying to cadge a drink. One of the men at the table stood up, offered his almost-empty glass to the ticket seller, and strolled off in the direction of his stall. The old man lifted the mouthful of cachaca to his lips and drained it in one gulp.
The housewives had already bought their fruits, vegetables, meat, and fish and had departed. With the exception of the drinkers, the vendors were packing up. Arnaldo decided to wait it out.
It didn't take long.
Half an hour after he arrived, all vestiges of the market were gone, the bar had closed, and the square was virtually empty. It was almost two o'clock by then and getting into the hottest part of the day. Arnaldo went back to where he'd parked his car, stripped off his tie and threw it on the front seat. He left his jacket on to cover his holster. Then he went back and started trolling, walking around and around the square in a clockwise direction.
He was beginning to think he was wasting his time when he heard a voice: "Looking for company, senhor?" The voice wasn't brazen. It was soft, young, almost embarrassed. He looked around for the source and spotted a kid looking at him from the alleyway between two of the crumbling redbrick buildings. The boy might have been a teenager, but Arnaldo doubted it. He looked to be eleven, twelve at the most, and had eyes grown large with hunger. The eyes reminded Arnaldo of a character in one of those Japanese cartoons that his son, Julio, liked to watch on television. A dirty sweatshirt from the PUC hung low over the kid's faded jeans. The PUC-The Pontificia Universidade Catolica- was one of Sao Paulo's institutions of higher learning. The shirt was as close to it as the kid was ever going to get.
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