Buried Strangers

by Leighton Gage

  “No rear entrance,” he said. “No other way in or out.”

  Silva instructed Babyface to stay behind the wheel and to keep an eye on the door. Then he and Hector trudged up three flights of stairs and located Roberto Ribeiro’s apart-ment. The doorbell didn’t work, or perhaps it couldn’t be heard over the rumble of traffic, so after three unsuccessful attempts, Hector pounded on the door with his fist.

  There was no response. He tried it again, knocking even harder. If Ribeiro was in there, there was no way he wouldn’t have heard it.

  “Police,” Silva said. “Open up.”

  Still no response. Both men took out their pistols. Silva tried the knob. It was locked. Hector examined the door and the frame.

  “A cinch,” he said, “unless he’s in there and has it bolted from the inside.”

  “Do it,” Silva said.

  Hector was lifting his foot when a door across the hall opened.

  “What’s all this fuss?” a woman with a carioca accent said. She looked to be in her late sixties, was wearing a housecoat, and carrying a cat. The cat didn’t take its eyes off Hector.

  “Do you know the man who lives here?” Silva pointed at Ribeiro’s door.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Federal Police.” Silva produced his identification and held it up in front of her. She took a pair of reading glasses that were dangling from a chain around her neck, put them on the end of her nose, and leaned in for a closer look. Apparently satisfied, she stroked the cat and answered Silva’s question.

  “I know him. He’s been here just about as long as I have. Three years. Seems like a nice boy. Polite.”

  “Name of Roberto Ribeiro? Carioca? Mustache?”

  “Yes, all of that. What do you want with him?”

  “Police business. Do you know where he is?”

  The woman shook her head and transferred the cat to her other arm. The cat blinked and then went back to looking at Hector as if he were a bowl of cream.

  “Any idea where he works?” Silva said.

  Again, she shook her head, this time stroking the cat with her other hand. The feline began to purr.

  “I hardly know him,” she said. “Just, you know, to exchange a few words when we pass in the hall.”

  “He live alone?”

  “Alone. Yes.”

  “Go inside, Senhora, and lock your door.” Silva said.

  For a moment, she looked as if she were going to ask another question, but in the end she didn’t. She closed her door without another word. The cops heard her key turn in the lock.

  “Remind me to call Dantas,” Silva said.

  Now that Ribeiro’s neighbor had seen them, they could no longer claim they’d found the door already smashed. They were going to have to justify the break-in. That meant they’d have to get a predated search warrant, and that meant getting Dalton Dantas, that most accommodating of judges, to provide it.

  RIBEIRO WASN’T there.

  The place was surprisingly clean, even the curtains on the window that overlooked the Minhocão, even the win-dowsill. The curtains must have been washed, and the sill dusted, within the last few days. There was a vase of fresh flowers on the coffee table. The bed was made. There were no dishes in the sink. The place even smelled clean, with faint odors of furniture polish and pine-scented disinfectant.

  Hector scratched his head. “Didn’t that woman say he lives alone?”

  “She did.”

  “Sure as hell doesn’t look like it.”

  “No,” Silva said, “it doesn’t.”

  “A namorada, you figure?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he’s gay, or maybe he’s got the world’s best faixineira, but this place doesn’t look like your run-of-the-mill bachelor pad, that’s for sure.”

  “If it’s his faixineira,” Hector said, “I’m going to fire mine and hire his. She’ll be looking for a new employer when we put the bastard away.”

  The apartment consisted of a kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. The interior of the kitchen cup-boards was orderly, the rug in the living room was vacuumed, the sheets on the bed had recently been washed and even ironed, and the towels in the bathroom were neatly arranged on a rack.

  A thorough search of the apartment turned up nothing of interest. No photos, no letters, no record of Roberto’s work-place. The only papers they found were a stack of bills, some paid, some unpaid, and a checkbook from the Bradesco Bank.

  After tossing the place, Silva and Hector canvassed the other apartments in the building. There were sixteen in all, four floors and four apartments on each. They’d already spoken to the woman with the cat. Seven of the other fourteen resi-dents didn’t answer their doors or weren’t at home. They made a note of the apartment numbers for subsequent follow-up.

  No one they questioned seemed to know anything about Roberto Ribeiro. He had no social relationship, as far as they could determine, with anyone else in the building. Finally convinced they’d done as much as they could, Silva called in a two-man team.

  When the men arrived, he told them to keep the building under surveillance in the hope that Ribeiro would come home sometime soon. He and his nephew went back to Hector’s office.

  “Pictures,” he said to Babyface when they got there. “Get me pictures. Ribeiro must have a national identity card, maybe he’s got a record, maybe he’s got a driver’s license, maybe you can track down his family. Make up a circular and an e-mail. Get them to all the field offices, to local and state police, and to the border-crossing checkpoints, particularly the border-crossing checkpoints.”

  “Gonna cost a bundle to do all of that,” Hector said. “Sampaio isn’t going to like it.”

  “I don’t care. Just do it.”

  Babyface nodded and left the office.

  “You think he’ll try to get out of the country?” Hector said.

  “Pray that he does,” Silva said. “And get the word out that I’ll personally eat the liver of any agent who allows him to do it.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  “WHY CAN’T I JUST go to Bahia or someplace?” Roberto asked.

  He sounded like he was half in the bag.

  One of Helena Ribeiro’s hands whitened as she tightened her grip on the telephone. The other continued to stroke her cat. She’d called his cell phone while the federal cops were still tossing his apartment, reached him in the bar where he liked to drink his lunch.

  He tried her patience, that son of hers did. He’d tried her patience ever since he was a little boy, always wanting to know why he had to do this, why he had to do that. Why he had to eat his rice and beans. Why he couldn’t sleep in the same bed when she had a customer. There was a time when she’d thought he’d grow up, stop besieging her with questions, but, no, here he was, forty-one years old and still doing it.

  She hovered over him too much. She knew it. She did his cooking, did his cleaning, made his decisions for him, treated him like a kid. So maybe she was at fault. Maybe the reason he’d never gotten married was because he’d never found a woman who would take care of him as well as she did. But it was too late now. He was grown. He’d never change.

  “You can’t go to Bahia or someplace,” she said patiently, “because the men who’re looking for you aren’t the São Paulo cops. They’re federal police and they’re everywhere. They’re in Bahia, and Rio Grande do Sul, and Rondonia, and Minas Gerais. Everywhere! If you want to avoid them, you have to do as I say.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line as he thought it through. She knew he didn’t want to leave the country, didn’t want to go anywhere they didn’t speak Portuguese, anywhere he didn’t know the ropes. But he’d wind up doing what she told him to do. He always did.

  “How come you’re so sure they’re federal?” he finally said.

  She took a deep breath.

  “One of them waved his ID right in my face. And he wasn’t just any federal cop, he was that Silva, the one who’s on tele-vision every no
w and then. He’s a big-shot chief inspector or some such. And, if he’s on your case, it shows they’re serious.

  I’m not scared of him. I’ve had trouble with cops before.

  It’s not like the last time. Or any other time for that mat-ter. You’re not going to be able to bribe them like you do the locals. These people are relentless. If they catch you, they’ll put you away for a long time. Is that what you want?”

  “No, mamãe.”

  “Then for God’s sake, stop arguing with me and do as I say.”

  It was hard for her to accept that she’d given birth to a dunce. Roberto’s half brother, José Antonio, dead these five years after a drug-gang shoot-out, had inherited the brains in the family. Roberto was no more than a lout, but he was her lout, and she couldn’t help loving him with a mother’s love. That was the reason she’d moved into the apartment across the hall, to be close to her only surviving son.

  “I have some money for you,” she said.

  “How much money?”

  “After I pay for your passport, I should be able to give you five thousand American dollars.”

  “Only five? Caralho, mamãe, I’m going to need more than that. I’d better drop by the bank.”

  “Are you crazy? Remember how that Jap tracked you the last time? Who’s to say the federals haven’t done the same thing? No, Roberto, you stay away from that bank. Five thousand will keep you in food and lodging for five or six weeks at least. I’ll send you more once you’re settled. Now, listen care-fully. I want you to go to one of those machines that make photos, you know the kind?”

  “Where you put in some money and sit inside and—”

  “Yes, yes, that’s right. You have to get me a photo. There are different options you can choose from, but the one I want has to be passport sized. You’re not allowed to wear any sun-glasses, you have to look directly into the lens of the camera, and for God’s sake, take that gold chain and that stupid medallion off your neck.”

  “It’s not stupid, it’s—”

  “Don’t argue with your mother, Roberto. If I say it’s stupid, it’s stupid.”

  “Alright. Alright. How long is it gonna take, this passport?

  After I have a suitable photo, probably three or four days. I’ll try to pay them extra for a rush job. We have to move quickly. They’ll be circulating your photo before long, might even put it on television. Why, oh why, did you ever have to take up with those disgusting people? Now, see where it’s brought you? You should have listened to me when I told you—”

  “Okay, okay, you were right. Now, stop being a pain in the ass.”

  “Don’t take that tone with me, Roberto Ribeiro. Apologize to your mother.”

  Silence.

  “Tell me you’re sorry.”

  “Alright, I’m sorry. But don’t you think you’re going over-board? All they got is a description. You know how those police artists are. They hardly ever get it right. I’ll just shave off my mustache and cut my hair. It’s not like they’ve got a photo of me or anything.”

  “Roberto, they have a picture of you.”

  “A picture? No way.”

  She sighed. José Antonio would have been one step ahead of her all the way. With Roberto, you had to explain every damned thing.

  “They’ll have gotten it from your national identity card.

  That one’s no damned good. I was what? Fourteen? Fifteen?

  They’ll age it. We’ve wasted enough time in talking. Cut your hair, shave off the mustache, get the photograph, and then check into some cheap hotel downtown. Call me from there, and I’ll come over and pick up the photo. Don’t go back to that clinic. Don’t even put your head out of the door of that hotel room until I come to you with the passport and an airline ticket.”

  “You mean I gotta sit around a fucking hotel room for three or four days?”

  “Maybe longer.”

  “Goddamn it! Where am I going?”

  “Paraguay.”

  “Paraguay? Fuck me.”

  SILVA LEANED over the photos on Hector’s desk. The one from the national identity card showed Ribeiro as a teenager. The mug shot e-mailed by the police in Rio was more recent, only twelve years old. According to the paperwork, Ribeiro was now forty-one.

  A police artist had taken the two photographs as a point of departure, spoken to the Portellas and Senhor Goldman, and done a likeness of how Ribeiro currently might look. He’d had to add a mustache and move Ribeiro’s hairline up toward the top of his head. Then he’d made another version with shorter hair and without the mustache. Silva figured that the first thing Roberto would do was lose the mustache.

  Just to be safe, the artist had also made a version with Roberto’s hair tinged blond. They probably wouldn’t need that one. The carioca’s skin was swarthy. Blond hair would have made him more noticeable.

  “What about his driver’s license?” Silva asked.

  Hector shook his head. “He’s had it for years,” he said. “It’s like yours and mine. No photograph. The state of São Paulo didn’t require them until 1998. He’s kept renewing it with-out one.”

  “Alright,” Silva said. “How soon can we get the flyer out?

  You want to use this one?” He pointed at the version without a mustache and with the cropped hair.

  “Hell, no. Use all of them. And add this headline: Wanted for the kidnapping and possible murder of one of our own. That should get everyone’s attention. How soon?”

  “We can distribute to the field offices, airports, seaports, and border crossings within an hour.”

  “Thank God for e-mail. How about the local cops?”

  “Only sure way is to use paper flyers and distribute them by courier service. Two days, minimum.”

  “TV stations?”

  “It’ll be on the national news at eight tonight.”

  “Good. Okay, I think we’re covered on Ribeiro. Let’s get back to Arnaldo. What about that travel agency?”

  “We tossed it. There’s nothing useful in their paperwork. Rivas is looking at their computer as we speak. We still have the building covered.”

  “And Arnaldo’s cell phone?”

  “Hasn’t been switched on since the last time you spoke to him.”

  PASSPORTS AND visas are not checked only upon arrival in Brazil, but also upon departure. The people who do the checking are the federal police, so Silva was in a position to exercise a certain degree of control.

  He followed up the e-mails by initiating a series of tele-phone calls to the delegados responsible for monitoring Brazil’s borders. He could have let Babyface, or Hector, or someone else do it, but he knew the personal touch, his own voice on the line, would have more impact.

  He started with São Paulo’s three international airports, moved on to the seaports of Santos and São Sebastião, and then continued the process in an ever-widening circle. He took a break, and caught five hours of sleep on the couch in the reception area, but he was up again at seven in the morning, calling people at home when he couldn’t get them anywhere else.

  By nine thirty, he’d gotten as far as Manaus, the self-styled capital of the Amazon and most definitely not one of his favorite places. Manaus was a cesspool, dirty, hot, foul smelling, with one of the highest indices of childhood pros-titution in the country and administered by corrupt and indolent officials. Corruption and indolence had a way of affecting almost everyone transferred there, including mem-bers of the federal police.

  “Who the hell is this?” the sleepy delegado said when Silva awoke him at home.

  It was an hour earlier up there, but Silva still thought the lazy bastard should have been behind his desk, or at least on the way to the office.

  “Chief Inspector Silva, calling from São Paulo.”

  “Oh.” There was a rustle of bedclothes and a muffled com-plaint from a female somewhere in the background.

  “What can I do for you, Chief Inspector?”

  Silva explained the situation, told the delegado to
check his e-mail, and moved on to the next number on his list.

  Chapter Forty-three

  WHILE SILVA WAS SPEAKING to the people in charge of border checkpoints, Denise Ramiro, a medical technician at Dr. Bittler’s clinic, was gently sucking air out of a pipette she’d inserted into a test tube of blood.

  A thin column of the red liquid arose. Swiftly, with a ges-ture she’d performed a thousand times, Denise removed the pipette from her mouth, covered the tiny hole with the tip of one latex-gloved finger, and then lifted it, allowing a small quantity of the blood to dribble into another test tube on the opposite end of the same rack.

  Denise had no inkling of the origin of the blood in the first tube, no idea that it had been drawn from an Indian baby snatched from the Xingu reservation. She knew only that the blood in the second tube was that of Raul Oliveira, one of Dr. Bittler’s patients.

  Denise, like most of the employees at the clinic, was a thor-oughly honest person with an impeccable record. And, like them, she was wholly unaware of how Dr. Bittler sourced the organs he used for transplants. In fact, the only people on his staff privy to that information were Bittler himself, Claudia Andrade, Roberto Ribeiro, Gretchen Furtwangler, Bittler’s longtime secretary, and the anesthesiologist, Teobaldo Vargas.

  Harvesting organs was not a simple procedure, but it was a good deal simpler than implanting them. It required fewer people, less expertise, and less time. And it was performed in one of two secret operating rooms, located under the build-ing, accessible only from the parking lot.

  Denise had no knowledge of those operating rooms, or of the adjoining oven used for cremating human remains, or of the holding cells that were used to keep the unwilling donors until their time came.

  She was aware that the clinic seemed to have an almost unending supply of organs, but as far as she was concerned, the organs were obtained in ways common to the profession, if not strictly legal. She assumed it was a simple matter of her boss giving money to the families of the recently deceased.

  No, it wasn’t supposed to be that way, but this was Brazil. People with money had always enjoyed special privilege. That’s just the way it was. It had been going on for so long that Denise, and most of her compatriots, didn’t even think of questioning it.