Blood of the Wicked

by Leighton Gage

  “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 of 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 boar
d, 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.

  “Stop.”

  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.”

  Ferraz adjusted the cutting board and reached for Lori’s ring finger. Lori was wearing her Russian wedding ring, the companion piece to Diana’s own. He slipped it off, examined it, and put it into his pocket. Lori didn’t react. She was still unconscious.

  “Where is the little bastard?”

  Diana shook her head. She would have told him if she knew. He raised the cleaver.

  She stared, transfixed, willing him to keep the cleaver where it was. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She struggled to speak.

  The cleaver smacked into the board.

  Diana gave a little squeak. Lori’s blood was flowing freely from all of her stumps, dripping off the board, pooling on the parquet floor of the office.

  “What’s this kid Pipoca’s real name?”

  “Let me stop the bleeding.”

  “You want to help her? Talk fast. What’s the kid’s real name?”

  “I don’t know. Everybody just calls him Pipoca. Everybody.” Pipoca was a nickname, a street name. It meant popcorn. She’d thought it was funny when she heard it for the first time.

  “Where does he live?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Who else knows?”

  “Anton Brouwer. He’s a priest who—”

  “I know Brouwer. Who else?”

  “No one.”

  “Why Brouwer?”

  “He works with street kids. Tries to get them off drugs, find places to live, get jobs. Pipoca talked to him first. Brouwer convinced him to talk to me.”

  “Those federal cops, how much do they know?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t tell them anything.”

  Ferraz gestured with the cleaver. “I swear,” she said in a strangled voice. “I swear to God.”

  “What else do I need to know?”

  “I took photos.”

  “You did what?”

  It was his first sign of anger. She shrank away from him, spoke quickly.

  “I used a digital camera so I didn’t have to process the film. I worked without a flash. No one noticed me doing it, and no one’s seen any of it. No one, except me.”

  “What’s in the photos?”

  “You. Your men. Distributing drugs. Taking money.”

  “Where’s the material?”

  “Here in the computer.”

  “Where else?”

  “There’s . . . there’s a memory stick. It’s in my safe-deposit box at the Itaú bank, the one on Avenida Neves.”

  “And the interviews? The original tapes?”

  “Same place. And a CD, too, with copies of all the transcriptions.”

  “So you lied. I should make this a whole hand.”

  He lifted the cleaver and brought it down again. The severed finger remained on the board. He used the blade of the cleaver to brush it aside, and it fell with a plop into the spreading pool of blood.

  Diana felt a rush of gratitude. Yes, he was right. He’d told her the rules. He could have made it a hand. What’s he done to me? He cut off all those fingers and I’m feeling grateful. Oh, God.

  “Where’s the key?”

  “What key?”

  “The one to the safe-deposit box, you fucking dyke. Where is it?”

  “In my pocket.”

  “Which?”

  “Hip. Left side.”

  Ferraz put down the cleaver, groped in her pocket, and came up with the key. Then he reached for his cigar, only to discover that it had gone out. He tossed it back onto the dinner plate.

  “Anything else I should know about? Anything at all?”

  “No. Nothing. I’ve told you everything.”

  His eyes searched hers, looking for any sign of duplicity. “You know,” he said at last, “I really think you have.”

  He wiped the bloody fingers of his gloves on Diana’s T-shirt, treating it like a dirty rag, kneading her breasts while he was at it.

  Then he took out another cigar and nodded, casually, to the cop who was holding her by the arm.

  Chapter Eighteen

  FATHER ANTON BROUWER WAS a tall man, so tall that he’d developed a slight stoop from leaning over when he spoke to people. He had a nose like the beak of a parrot and a receding hairline of straw-colored blond hair. Like straw, too, it lay every which way on the top of his head. From what Silva had already learned, he was well into his fifties, but unlike Father Angelo he wore his years lightly.

  No cassock for him. His blue denim pants hung low on bony hips. Above them, and tucked in at the belt, he was wearing one of those red T-shirts bearing the logotype of the league.

  He was smiling when he mounted the veranda, still smiling when the old dog got laboriously to its feet, and he leaned over to stroke it. The smile vanished when he found out who his visitor was. Brouwer rose to his full height. The dog continued to stand there, looking up at him with adoring eyes.

  “Chief Inspector Silva and I have been having a pleasant chat,” Father Angelo told him. “He’s here to talk to you about the league.”

  “For the league,” Father Brouwer said, sinking into a chair, “I have all afternoon. As for you, Angelo, you’d better empty that ashtray and clean the table. That’s no way to receive a guest, now is it?”

  Brouwer’s Portuguese was excellent, but there was the trace of an accent there. Silva had never heard anything quite like it. He assumed it was Flemish.

  Father Angelo contemplated the overflowing ashtray. “In time, my boy. I’ll clean it in time. At the moment I’m rather enjoying myself.”

  “Before we touch on the subject of the league,” Silva said, “I have a few other questions.”

  “About?” Brouwer said. The dog came up to him and stuck its muzzle in his lap. Absently, he scratched it behind one of its floppy ears.

  “About Bishop Antunes and about Orlando Muniz Junior. He seems to have disappeared.”

  Silva was watching Brouwer closely to see how he took the news. Brouwer’s expression didn’t change. He didn’t even nod.

  “Let’s start with Muniz,” Silva said. “Do you have any idea what might have happened to him?”

  “Read First Kings Twenty-o
ne,” Brouwer said.

  Angelo chuckled.

  Silva looked from one to the other.

  “How about sharing the joke?”

  “First Kings Twenty-one,” Angelo said, “a passage from the Old Testament. There was a chap by the name of Naboth and he had this vineyard. Stop me if you know the story.”

  Silva shook his head. The old man went on.

  “Ahab, he was the King of Samaria, wanted that vineyard so bad he could practically taste the grapes, but Naboth was like me. The old fellow liked his wine. He made that wine from those grapes, and he told the king to buzz off. Now, Ahab was married to a very unpleasant lady by the name of Jezebel. They decided to . . . what’s the phrase you use? Bump Naboth off?”

  Silva nodded.

  “You also say ‘waste them,’ don’t you? I think I like that even better. So Ahab and Jezebel decided to waste Naboth and lay their hands on the property. They did it, but it was a big mistake. In those days, God used to take a more active role in people’s affairs and he was on Naboth’s side. The Lord avenged Naboth’s death in a most exemplary way: Dogs wound up licking the blood he spilled from Ahab, but Jezebel fared even worse. The dogs ate her. They must have been a good deal fiercer than old Methuselah here.”

  At the sound of his name, the old dog turned his head and looked at Father Angelo. Father Brouwer picked up where his friend had left off.

  “The moral of the story is that if you get greedy for land, you’d better watch out. Muniz should have spent more of his time reading the Bible and less of it exploiting the people who worked for him.”

  Silva looked from one to the other. “Thank you, gentlemen, for the scripture lesson. What else can you tell me about Orlando Muniz Junior?”

  “He was responsible for the murder of an innocent man by the name of Aurelio Azevedo,” Brouwer said. “And not only Azevedo himself, but also his entire family, a wife and two children.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “No. But I’m sure he was. Whatever death Muniz died, he deserved it.”

  Silva pounced. “What makes you so sure he’s dead?”

  “Why . . . you said so, didn’t you?”