Blood of the Wicked

by Leighton Gage

  “Compulsory military service?”

  “Nope. Volunteer. Before that, he was a street kid. He used the military to get himself off the street, but once he was in he didn’t like it. He took a swing at a superior officer. They gave him six months in the stockade and chucked him out. Other than that, nothing.”

  “Any news from your sister?”

  “Yup. Marly and the kids are safe and sound in Riberão, and I was wrong. She really has no idea where Edson is. I talked to her by telephone.”

  “Too bad we haven’t got a way to let the kid know his mother’s safe,” Silva said. “He knows that, he might come in.”

  “I’ve got the number of Vicenza’s cell phone,” Hector blurted out.

  The two men turned to look at him.

  “Really?” Silva said, raising an eyebrow. “Do you now?”

  “I . . . I asked her for it. Just in case,” Hector said, flushing.

  “So call her.”

  Hector tried. But there was no response.

  * * *

  VICENZA PELOSI sensed that Edson was holding something back, but it didn’t bother her overmuch. She had enough for a great story. All she had to do now was to figure out how to present it without getting the network sued for libel. She believed everything the kid had told her but he hadn’t a shred of evidence to back him up. And then, to make it worse, he pricked her balloon.

  “I’ll say goodbye now,” he said and pointed. “He’ll take you back.”

  She heard the sound of an engine, turned, and saw the taxi appearing from among the trees.

  “No, no, no,” she said. “I need to get your story on tape. You have to come with me.”

  “With Ferraz out there?” The kid looked at her as if she had some kind of mental deficiency. “No way! I’ll come in when he’s locked up. Not before.”

  “A chief inspector from the Federal Police is in town. I’ll get him to protect you.”

  The kid shook his head stubbornly. “It’s not safe,” he said.

  “What if Ferraz finds you?”

  “He won’t. I’ve got friends.”

  “But . . . but without you there’s no proof.”

  The kid met her eyes. “And with me, there’s no proof. Just my word against his.”

  “No, it’s not like that. It’s—”

  “It’s exactly like that, Senhorita Pelosi. But now that I’ve clued you in on what’s happening, all you need to do is to prove it.”

  He made it sound easy.

  “Edson, listen to me. I’m a reporter, not a cop. It’s the cops who have to get the proof, and you have to help.”

  “I already helped. I called you didn’t I? You’d better leave now. Your car’s here.”

  “But—”

  “No, Senhorita Pelosi, I’m sorry, but if Ferraz gets his hands on me, he’s gonna kill me.”

  The kid turned his back on her and started walking away.

  “How will I get in touch with you?”

  He stopped and turned around. “Like you did before. On television. From here on in, I’m going to watch all your broadcasts.”

  Behind her, she heard the sound of the taxi’s door being opened.

  ON THE drive back to town she applied all her skills to extract something from the driver. She got no response. Not a shake of the head. Not a smile. Nothing.

  As they turned into Republic Square, she gave it one more try. “You must be one of those friends Edson was telling me about.”

  “There’s a taxi stand over there on the Rua Garibaldi,” he said, giving the first sign that he hadn’t suddenly become a deaf mute.

  “Why don’t you just bring me to my hotel?” she said, trying to get more time to work on him.

  He shook his head and pulled over to the curb.

  The registration number, she thought as he pulled away. I’ll make a note of it. Silva can trace it.

  But he’d thought of that, too.

  The rear end of the taxi had been liberally smeared with mud. The license plate was completely illegible.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  COLONEL FERRAZ’S PRIVATE LINE rang a little before six.

  “That you, Palmas?”

  “Yes, Colonel. Mission accomplished.”

  Ferraz grinned.

  “I’m on my way.”

  The colonel hung up, took his holster from the hook on the wall and went out to his car. His driver opened the rear door, but Ferraz shook his head.

  “I’ll drive myself. Get a patrol car to take you home.”

  “As ordens, Coronel.”

  Corporal Sanches showed no sign of surprise. It was a badly kept secret that the boss had frequent romantic engagements with a certain married lady of the town. On those nights, he drove himself.

  FERRAZ’S TOBACCO shed was more than a kilometer from the main road, well removed from the other buildings on his fazenda.

  The colonel no longer grew tobacco; he’d switched over to sugarcane. So the building was seldom visited. It was an oblong, wooden structure with a peaked roof and a fading coat of white paint.

  Darkness had fallen by the time Ferraz arrived. His headlights illuminated the figure of his deputy, a dark silhouette against the white wall. Palmas stood with his hands on his hips and stared into the glare.

  Ferraz didn’t waste any time with pleasantries. “How did you nail her?”

  “Stroke of luck, really,” Palmas said, somehow managing to convey that it wasn’t luck at all. “One of the guys I posted saw her get out of a taxi on Republic Square. He called me, and then followed her over to the Rua Garibaldi. I got there in three minutes flat, just in time to see her get into another taxi. I flashed my badge, waved the driver down, and told him to come here.”

  “Where’s the cab?”

  Palmas shot a thumb over his shoulder. The double doors behind him were wide enough to admit a truck.

  “Inside.”

  “The driver?”

  “Taken care of. Watching me do it scared the shit out of her. You’ll find her less bossy than usual.”

  “You question her?”

  “Not yet. Waiting for you.”

  “Good. Let’s see what the bitch has to say.”

  REDE MUNDO led the eight o’clock news with the story of Vicenza’s disappearance. Silva’s cell phone rang at seven minutes past 8:00, while the program was still underway.

  “Hello. Who’s this?”

  “Who the hell do you think it is?” the director said. “Is this our private hotline, or not?”

  “It’s supposed to be, but—”

  “Mario, if anything has happened to that woman, so help me God—”

  “I assume, Director, that you’re referring to Vicenza Pelosi.”

  “You’re goddamned right I am! Did you hear what they said?” The director didn’t wait for an answer. “They said she was involved in ‘research that could have led to a solution of at least one of the murders.’ She goes off to a so-called ‘secret meeting’ and poof, she’s gone.”

  Poof? Silva thought, but he didn’t interrupt.

  “How come you didn’t get the information she got? How come you weren’t off to a ‘secret meeting’? Do you have any idea, any idea at all, how this is going to look? First it was the bishop, then the son of one of this country’s most prominent citizens, then the daughter of a press mogul, and now it’s the country’s leading telejournalist. For Christ’s sake, Mario, when is it going to stop?”

  “She was acting, Director, on information that I—”

  “I don’t want to hear it. You’re always trying to bog me down in details. That’s not my job. My job’s the larger picture. What am I supposed to do now?”

  Silva was tempted to suggest that Sampaio perform an anatomical impossibility.

  But he didn’t.

  THE INSIDE of Ferraz’s shed smelled of old tobacco leaves and fresh blood. The leaves themselves were long gone, but the blood was very much in evidence. It streaked Vicenza’s naked body, stained t
he upright wooden chair they’d bound her to, and pooled on the dirt floor around her feet. There were drops of it on Palmas’s uniform and traces of it on Ferraz’s still naked torso.

  The last few hours had started out with some fun for the two cops, but had, by now, degenerated into something else. The rape was fun. What they’d done with the pliers and the icepick had been fun, but she’d pretty much given up after that. It wasn’t fun at all when she didn’t resist, wasn’t fun at all when the fear in her eyes turned to resolution and acceptance. And now it had become work. She was repeatedly passing out, and they had to keep throwing buckets of water in her face to make her come around.

  I could use some of that water myself, Ferraz thought. It was hot in the shed. Perspiration had soaked his hair and was rolling down his face.

  Palmas was feeling it, too. He had sweat stains on his chest and under his arms, darker gray against the gray of his uniform.

  “I think that’s it, Colonel. She’s done.”

  His deputy lifted Vicenza’s chin and looked at her face. Her eyes were closed. He pried one lid open, snorted, and went to fill the bucket.

  Ferraz thought about it while he was gone. Palmas was right. She was done. There was nothing left to get out of her.

  Palmas came back with the bucket and threw the contents into her face. The water wasn’t cold. It was lukewarm, but it did the job. Ferraz waited until she blinked, then he said, “Finish her.”

  Palmas pulled his knife out of its scabbard and showed it to her. Her eyes were dull and listless.

  “She doesn’t even give a shit anymore,” Palmas said, and casually cut her throat from ear to ear. He didn’t seem to enjoy the act as much as he usually did. He was obviously tired from lugging all that water.

  She started to bleed out. Even then she didn’t react, just kicked out with one of her feet. It was more of a spasm than a conscious movement. Air bubbles appeared around the wound in her throat and frothed down her neck. For a while, the two of them watched her dispassionately. Then Palmas went over and picked up Vicenza’s discarded panties. He’d laughed when he’d seen them for the first time. They were of white cotton, stamped with little brown teddy bears. He started using them to clean his knife.

  “What do you think we should do about the kid?” Ferraz asked.

  Palmas looked mildly surprised. The colonel seldom asked for advice.

  “I don’t think we have to do anything,” he said. “One of his little friends will turn him in sooner or later.”

  Ferraz shook his head. “I don’t like loose ends,” he said.

  “How about I have another chat with his mother? Maybe put a couple of guys to watch her house?”

  “Good idea. Do it.”

  “How about her?” Palmas pointed at Vicenza’s body. “You want me to bury her?”

  “Not good enough. She’s too well known.”

  “So?”

  “So we’ve got to take the heat off and to do that we’ve got to blame somebody else. Finish cleaning the handle of that knife, stick the blade into her a couple of times to pick up some more of her blood, and we’ll go harvest some fingerprints.”

  “Where?”

  “Where do you think?”

  “You want to use the team?”

  “Yeah. And tell them to bring their hoods.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  CLEMENTINA FONSECA WAS THE most precocious and the most promiscuous of Eduardo and Nilda Fonseca’s three daughters. If she hadn’t been precocious she wouldn’t have been interested in boys at all. If she hadn’t been promiscuous she wouldn’t have been lying out there on the bare ground with her panties off and with one hand wrapped around Rolando Pereira’s cock.

  Clementina was only two months past her twelfth birthday, narrow-hipped, small breasted and possessed of a flat posterior. If her charms had ended there, Rolando might not have given her a second look, but God had given Clementina other attributes to make up for what she lacked in voluptuousness. She had high cheekbones, café au lait skin, bee-stung lips, a small but exquisite nose, and the largest and most lustrous brown eyes that Rolando had ever seen.

  Her charms saved his life.

  They were lying in a field, some one hundred meters from the nearest tent, when Rolando heard the engine noises. Seconds later, there was a screech of tires followed by a spatter of gravel.

  He disengaged himself from Clementina and looked anxiously toward his father’s tent. Someone inside lit a lantern. Car doors slammed. Voices shouted obscenities. Armed and hooded men were spilling out of a van.

  “My dress,” Clementina said, in a whine Rolando hadn’t heard before and didn’t particularly like. “Where is it?”

  He felt around in the dark, located the dress, and handed it to her. Then he started pulling up his pants. If the men had arrived just a minute later he would have had an easier time fitting into them.

  The men had powerful flashlights. They were walking from tent to tent, using machetes to cut the plastic sheeting, shining the beams inside, obviously looking for someone.

  There was a shot and a woman’s scream. Clementina got up to run, but he grabbed her by the ankle and pulled her down.

  “Let me go,” she said in a loud whisper. “I have to get home before my father finds out.”

  “Too late. Everyone’s up, but they’ve all got their hands full. Let’s just hope nobody notices we’re gone.”

  Another shot. More screams.

  “What is it?” she said. “Who are they?”

  “The rancher’s capangas,” Rolando said, “come to run us off.”

  “Ai, meu Deus!” She wasn’t whispering anymore.

  Clementina’s father had only recently joined the league, but Rolando, despite his tender years, was an old hand at this. His father, Roberto, was the head of the whole encampment, the leader of the league in all of Cascatas, the best friend of the now-legendary Aurelio Azevedo.

  Clementina lifted her head to look. He pushed her nose back down into the dirt. “Don’t move,” he said, but he snuck a look himself. He was just in time to see his father come out of their tent. One of the attackers shone a light in his face and, recognizing him, called out to the others.

  They gathered around him like a pack of mad dogs. He tried to throw a punch, but they overpowered him and forced him to his knees. Two men held him fast by the arms while others went into the tent and returned with Rolando’s mother and his little sister, Lourdes.

  “Where’s the boy?” he heard one of them say.

  Boy? That was him! They were looking for him!

  “He’s not in the tent, Senhor,” one of the hooded figures said.

  “Merda. All right, let’s get it over with.” The man who’d been called senhor had a voice hoarse from shouting. He was obviously the leader.

  “Right,” the figure holding Roland’s sister said. He pulled out a knife and drew it across Lourdes’s throat. She was so surprised she didn’t even scream.

  But his mother did: A long drawn-out wail of anguish, cut short by the blast of a shotgun.

  They shot his father last, first in each kneecap, then in the abdomen and finally in the head, using a pistol for all four shots. His father didn’t say a word, didn’t beg them for mercy, didn’t even cry out.

  And yet all the time it was happening, Rolando heard his father’s voice, coming to him from somewhere within his own head. Keep quiet, Rolando. Too late for me, boy. Don’t give them a chance at you. Don’t die for nothing. Come back when you’re older. Avenge me.

  The man who’d shot his father was wearing gloves. He bent over the body, pressed something shiny into his father’s hand and took it away again.

  The other people in the encampment were scattering in all directions, some of them toward the road, others dispersing into the neighboring fields. One group was coming directly toward Clementina and him.

  She recognized her parents and both of her sisters. Before he could stop her, Clementina was on her feet and running to meet
them.

  A second later the hooded figures opened up with automatic weapons, spraying bullets into the dark. Rolando heard shots fly over his head like angry bees, heard one of them strike Clementina with a sound like the one his mother used to make when she beat a rug. Clementina staggered, turned, and looked back toward him. Her eyes were wide, the front of her pink dress dark with blood. Her saw her lips move and thought she spoke his name. But he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be sure of anything except the chattering of the guns.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  THE CLOCK RADIO NEXT to Silva’s hotel bed went off at three minutes past 8:00 in the morning. The voice that faded-in was a man’s, and he was reading the news.

  . . . as yet unconfirmed number of dead and injured. The owner of the fazenda, Orlando Muniz, has been unavailable for comment, but a spokesman for the landowner denied any involvement in the massacre. Meanwhile, Emerson Ferraz, local Commandant of the State Police, had this to say . . .

  Silva turned up the volume on the colonel’s gravelly voice.

  Some people are saying that Orlando Muniz is responsible for this outrage. It might seem to many to be a logical conclusion to draw after what they saw on TV the other night. But anyone who does would be wrong. You have to evaluate Senhor Muniz’s previous actions in the context of the situation at the time. He’d just been exposed to the body of his murdered son and he was, understandably, very upset. Now he’s had time to consider and I can assure you—

  Outrage. Logical conclusion. Evaluate. Context. The voice was Ferraz’s, but the words weren’t. The colonel made that doubly obvious by stumbling over some of them.

  Silva shot out of his bedroom, crossed the suite’s living area, and opened Hector’s door.

  “Hector?”

  Hector opened his sleepy eyes and blinked.

  “Get up. Ferraz was just on the radio. There’s been some kind of a massacre on Muniz’s fazenda.”

  Hector threw off the covers and got out of bed.

  “And the son of a bitch didn’t call us?”

  Silva didn’t bother to respond to that.