The Ways of Evil Men

by Leighton Gage

  “What?”

  “Pandolfo buggering his boss, right there on the rocks.”

  “So the two of them are homosexuals?”

  “Or bisexuals, or maybe Lisboa just pays Pandolfo to do it. God knows, but I do know one thing.”

  “Which is?”

  “That Torres told the story to everyone who was willing to listen. And those he told must have told others.”

  “So the whole town would have had a good laugh about it.”

  “Especially about Pandolfo, him always playing the cabra macho and all.”

  “You think that if they’d found out—”

  “They might have killed Torres? Maybe. But there were other people in this town that might have had it out for him.”

  “Like whom?”

  “Torres was a real ladies’ man. And most of those ladies are married.”

  “In a town like this, that’s probably dangerous.”

  “It is.”

  “You know any names? Of some of the women, I mean.”

  Osvaldo didn’t like the question, she could see that. He pursed his lips, put both palms on the table and pushed back his chair to increase the distance between them. “Jade, I … Look, I’d like to help, I would, but this is my stock in trade. I rent rooms to those people. They have a right to my discretion.”

  “This is a man’s life we’re talking about here.”

  “You got a point. And it’s a bum rap. It’s clear as cheap cachaça that Borges arrested the wrong man.”

  “So out with it. In a situation like this, you can’t keep quiet.”

  Osvaldo sighed, scratched the side of his nose, leaned forward again.

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay, I’ll tell you, but you didn’t get it from me.”

  “Understood. I promise.”

  “The wives of three of those guys at the table.”

  “Three?”

  “Like I said, Omar was a real ladies’ man.”

  “Which three?”

  “The mayor, Bonetti, and Frade.”

  Again, Jade picked up her cup. It had cooled. She took a sip. “So, from what you’re telling me, the only man sitting at that table who didn’t have a reason to kill Omar Torres—”

  “Was the priest,” Osvaldo said.

  Chapter Twelve

  OSVALDO SERVED HER A light lunch, and Jade tried to do justice to it, but wound up leaving most of it on her plate. Just before one, they left the Grand and walked around the corner to the delegacia. A crowd had gathered in front of the little brick building, many of them women.

  Someone spotted Jade and said, “It’s that FUNAI woman.”

  Someone else said, “She’s here to get that murderer out of there.”

  Norma Prado, a cashier from Paulo Cunha’s supermarket, ran up to Jade and spit in her face.

  “Indian lover!” she said.

  Another woman kicked Osvaldo in the shin. “Shame!” she said.

  “Ouch, Ofelia,” he said. “That hurt.”

  “It was supposed to. Shame on you, helping this, this … FUNAI woman”—she made FUNAI sound like an epithet—“to defend some dirty Indian. You make your living in this town. Don’t you think you should be on our side?”

  Jade recognized her. Ofelia Prado was a close friend of her housekeeper, Alexandra Santos.

  “Don’t you think the Indian has a right to be heard?” she asked.

  “He’s got a right to a noose,” someone in the crowd said.

  Jade thought the voice sounded like Alexandra’s. She looked around, but didn’t see her.

  “Why don’t you just go home to São Paulo, or wherever else you came from?” Norma the Spitter said.

  “Norma’s right,” another woman shouted, “the bitch is an Indian lover!”

  “Indian lover! Indian lover! Indian lover!” Soon the whole crowd was chanting it.

  Jade and Osvaldo, the voices ringing in their ears, jostled their way to the front door. They found it blocked by one of Borges’ men carrying a shotgun.

  “We’re expected,” Jade said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I know.” He didn’t sound any more welcoming than the people in the crowd, but he stepped aside.

  They found Borges and Father Castori drinking coffee in the delegado’s office. Jade found a paper handkerchief in her purse and, spotting a mirror on the wall, went to clean off the woman’s saliva.

  “What are you doing here?” the priest asked the hotelkeeper.

  “I brought him along to translate,” Jade said.

  The priest glared at her reflection in the mirror. “I’m here for that,” he snapped. And then, to Osvaldo, “I always suspected your sympathies were on the side of the Indians. Now, I’m sure of it. Leave. Your services won’t be required”

  “I want him here,” Jade said, “or I wouldn’t have brought him.

  Castori opened his mouth and turned to the delegado for support.

  But he didn’t get it. “She’s the FUNAI agent,” Borges said. “Sorry, Father, but it’s her call. This is a political hot potato, and I intend to play it by the book.”

  The delegado stood up, snagged a ring of keys from a hook on the wall, and led the way to a door in the far wall. Jade, Osvaldo and the priest trailed along behind them.

  “We tried to pump some coffee into him,” Borges said over his shoulder. “But he made a face and spit it out.”

  He opened the door and entered a corridor with two cells on either side. Amati was in the last one on the left. His eyes lit up when he saw Jade and Osvaldo.

  “Looks like hell, doesn’t he?” Borges said. “He must have the mother of all hangovers.”

  Amati did, indeed, look like hell. His eyes were bloodshot, a discolored lump was on his left temple, and the clothing Jade had given him was covered with stains.

  “Torres’s blood,” Borges said. “Let’s start by asking him what he had against Omar.”

  Jade was about to object to the nature of the question, but the priest, in his haste to regain the role of translator, spoke first, eliciting an indignant reply from the Indian.

  “He says he didn’t have anything against Omar Torres,” Osvaldo stepped in before the priest could render Amati’s words into Portuguese. “He doesn’t even know who Omar Torres is.”

  “Liar!” the priest said.

  Jade turned on him. “Your opinion, Father, isn’t germane to this interview.”

  “And what’s your opinion, Senhorita Calmon? Do you think this murdering savage is innocent?”

  “How about both of you cool down?” Borges said. “You,” he pointed at Osvaldo. “Ask him where he got the cachaça.”

  Osvaldo put forward the question and translated the reply.

  “He wants to know what cachaça is.”

  “Oh, please,” the priest said.

  “You disagree with that translation, Father?” Borges said.

  “No,” Castori said, “but—”

  “Then please let him do what he came here for. Go on, Osvaldo, tell him what cachaça is.”

  When the answer came back, the priest opened his mouth to object.

  Borges put a hand on his arm. “One more interruption, Father, and I’ll have to ask you to wait outside.”

  “I told him it’s a drink that makes people crazy,” Osvaldo said. “He said we should ask Father Calmon because he knows all about the stuff. Then he said his head hurts. And he wants to know why you have him locked up.”

  “Tell him.”

  Osvaldo did. Amati’s eyebrows went up in surprise. He shook his head in denial.

  “He says he didn’t kill anyone.”

  The priest scoffed.

  Borges shot him a cautionary look before posing his next question. “If he had nothing against Torres, and he didn’t kill him, what was he doing in that alley?”

  Amati’s response was a long one. He ended it by touching the lump on his temple, a gesture that caused him to wince.

  “He said he’s a light sleeper,”
Osvaldo translated. “When someone came into his room, it woke him up. He turned his head toward the door, but he couldn’t see much because the corridor was dark. My corridors usually are, by the way, because the lights work on timers—saves me a bundle on electricity.”

  “You don’t have to editorialize,” Borges said. “Just translate.”

  “Okay. So a light went on, shining right into his eyes. It blinded him. Sounds to me, from what he said next, that it was a flashlight, one of those big ones. He thought I was the one who was holding it because Jade wouldn’t visit him in the middle of the night, and no one else knew he was there. He called out my name and asked what I wanted. He didn’t get an answer. The light came closer. He asked again. Still no answer, but the light kept moving. It came right up to his hammock and then something hit him hard, right there.” Osvaldo pointed to the lump. “And that’s it. That’s all he remembers. Next thing he knew, he was waking up here. And he wants to know if we can give him something to take away his headache.”

  “And we’re supposed to believe that?” the priest asked.

  Osvaldo turned on him. “You claim to know everything there is to know about the Awana, Father. But let me tell you something: if you think he’s lying, it proves you don’t know shit.”

  “How dare you talk to me that way!”

  “The Awana don’t lie! Truth is programmed into their genes.”

  “And there’s Indian blood in yours, so of course you’d defend him even though it’s obvious—”

  “What’s obvious, you damned fool, is that somebody knocked him out, forced alcohol down his throat, and set him up to take the fall for—”

  “Shut up,” Borges said. “Both of you. Okay, Senhorita Calmon, now you’ve heard his side of the story. Kind of a tall one, if you ask me.”

  “I don’t recall asking you, Delegado.”

  “No need to get snippy. All I’m after here is justice. Any more questions?”

  “Not at the moment, but there’s something else we have to discuss and before we do—” She looked at the priest. “I’d like him to leave.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” the priest said.

  “Sorry, Father,” Borges said, “but she’s within her rights. So you’re going to have to.”

  The priest sniffed at Borges, narrowed his eyes at Jade and left without uttering another word. Seconds later, they heard the front door slam.

  Borges smiled. “A little advice for both of you: don’t attend communion in this town ever again. If you do, it’s likely you’ll find something nasty slipped into your wafer.”

  “I never attend his church anyway,” she said.

  “And I never will again,” Osvaldo said.

  “Okay, Senhorita Calmon, out with it. What did you want to say?”

  “You have no jurisdiction over the Awana. As a representative of the FUNAI, I’m making an official request that you release this man into my custody.”

  Borges’s eyes rounded in surprise. “Are you kidding? Did you see that crowd outside?”

  “How could we miss them?”

  “You see how pissed off they are about this?”

  “They were quite vocal about it.”

  “One of the women,” Osvaldo said, “spit in her face. Another one kicked me in the shin.”

  “Which is why,” Jade said, “we want to get Amati out of here and take him to a place of safety.”

  “A place of safety? Around here? There’s no place safer than my jail.”

  “I intend to bring him to the airport and fly him to Belem. He can be incarcerated there until we sort this out.”

  “No way,” Borges said, shaking his head.

  “You’re refusing?”

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  “The murder took place here in Azevedo, which means I’m in charge. And until a court tells me otherwise, he’s my suspect, and he’s going to stay in my jail. You have every right to get a lawyer and try to get him moved. Meanwhile, I intend to do my duty.”

  “You’re making a mistake, Delegado. Can’t you see that his life—”

  “Moreover,” Borges said, stressing the word as he rode roughshod over her objection. “Even if I was willing to turn him loose, which I’m not, there is no way you’d ever get him out of here. They’re around in back as well.”

  There was a door with a glass pane at the end of the corridor. Osvaldo frowned, went there, and looked through it. “He’s right. Not as many, but just as mad.”

  Jade bit her lip. “All right,” she said. “But it’s your job to keep this man safe until I—”

  “You don’t have to tell me my job, Senhorita Calmon, but if those people out there storm this jail, I’m not going to start shooting my fellow citizens in an attempt to stop them.”

  “So you’re not prepared to lift a finger to help him?”

  “A finger, yes. A firearm, no.”

  “And if they break in and attempt to take him?”

  “I won’t wound anyone, much less kill anyone. It’s a question of the greatest good for the greatest number. Those people out there are acting out of a sense of justice. They’re good people, most of them. They believe in an eye for an eye, and since there’s no death penalty in this country—”

  “They want to kill him.”

  “That’s my guess. And it’s also my guess that they wouldn’t be averse to killing me if I tried to stop them.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “SO WHAT NOW?” OSVALDO asked, studying the angry crowd through the front window of the delegacia. It had become larger—and Father Castori had joined it.

  “I want you to call Federal Police headquarters in Belem,” Jade said. “Try to get in touch with a Chief Inspector Silva.”

  “Not that guy Barbosa?”

  “No. Silva.”

  “Okay. Who’s he? And what do you want me to tell him?”

  “He’s a man they’re sending to investigate the genocide.”

  “From Belem?”

  “From Brasilia. I’ve only spoken to him by telephone, but he made a good impression. I left him a message earlier this morning, but that was before we talked to Amati and before this crowd gathered. I want you to update him on what’s happening, tell him to get here just as quickly as he can.”

  “What if I don’t manage to talk to him?”

  “Talk to Barbosa. Ask him to pass the message along.”

  “All right. What are you going to be doing in the meantime?”

  “Talking to Kassab and seeing if there isn’t some way we can pry Amati loose from Borges and get him out of town.”

  They opened the door. The shouting got louder. A few people detached themselves from the group and followed Osvaldo toward his hotel. A much larger party, about a dozen in all, surrounded Jade, kept pace with her on her way to Kassab’s office, and heaped abuse upon her every step of the way.

  “Indian lover!”

  “Cretina!”

  “Go home, bitch!”

  Kassab’s receptionist, shocked by their arrival, locked the door as soon as Jade was inside. Then she called her boss.

  The lawyer emerged, left both women in his waiting room, and went outside to talk to the demonstrators. Less than a minute later, the crowd was moving back the way they’d come, and the lawyer was ushering Jade into his inner-sanctum.

  “What did you say to them?”

  “I appealed to their reason. Now, what can I do for you?”

  She suspected it was more than that, suspected he’d told them things he was unwilling to tell her, but there was no time to lose.

  “I’d like to hire you on behalf of the FUNAI to represent the Indian, Amati. Delegado Borges is—”

  Kassab held up a hand. “I’m sorry, Senorita Calmon, I can’t help you.”

  “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  He sighed. “Look. I’d be the first to agree that everyone, even a murdering savage, has a right to a fair trial. But no one in this town would ever forgive me if I we
re to speak in defense of that Indian.”

  “Tell me this, Senhor Kassab: how much of what’s going on out there”—she pointed in the direction of the delegacia—“is about justice and how much is about getting rid of an impediment to having the reservation declassified?”

  “In all honesty? It’s probably more about the latter, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”

  “Didn’t you just say he had a right to a fair trial?”

  “I did. And I stand by that statement.”

  “So what do you suggest I do?”

  “Bring in a public defender from Belem. Ask him to—”

  “Wait,” she said, holding up a hand. “What’s that?”

  Kassab paused to listen. The tumult on the street grew louder. A shot was fired, then another.

  “Unless I miss my guess,” he said, scratching his chin, “that’s an indication your Indian isn’t going to need a lawyer after all.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE AIRPORT AT AZEVEDO consisted of a parking lot, a red earth runway, and a one-room shack. The parking lot was empty, the runway was so short that their pilot had to stand on his brakes to stop the landing roll before they plowed into a stand of trees, and the shack was locked.

  “Strange,” the pilot said, rattling the door. “I wonder what happened to the kid.”

  “What kid?” Silva said.

  “He holds down the office. His old man owns those Cessnas.” The pilot pointed out two 172s with identical paint jobs. “The kid has been flying them since he was twelve. They get him more ass than a toilet seat.”

  “At least there’s somebody in this town who knows how to show a girl a good time,” Maura said. “What do the other boys do for amusement?”

  “Probably stay friends with the kid,” Arnaldo said. “So what’s your best guess for what’s going on? Local festival, maybe?”

  The pilot shook his head. “There’s only one, and it was last month. Must be something else.”

  “How far are we from the Grand Hotel?”

  “Too far to walk.” The pilot started fishing in the leather bag he was carrying. “But somewhere in here … ah, here it is.” He brandished a business card. “Azevedo’s only cab driver.” He took out his mobile phone. “Now if their goddamned phone tower isn’t down again …”