Before he brought up the boy’s death, Espinosa asked about Vanessa. Vieira didn’t immediately make the connection; it took him a few seconds to fit the girl into the series of events.
“I don’t know her very well. She went out with us a few times, not many; she seemed like a nice girl and was a good friend of Magali. She lives in the same building. I don’t know much else about her. Did something happen to her?”
“No. Is she also friends with Flor?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“The four of you never went out?”
“Damn, Espinosa, I’m starting to think you don’t believe me. Two weeks ago I barely knew who Flor was; when she called me I had no idea who I was talking to. Same with this Vanessa girl; I have a vague memory of what she looks like, but I’m sure that if I ran into her in the street I wouldn’t recognize her. Where the fuck does she suddenly come into this?”
“She didn’t just come into this; she’s always been there. She was a friend of Magali’s and liked her a lot; she’s only trying to help.”
“And why did she only decide to help now?”
“Because, according to her, she was so shocked by what happened that she went to spend a few days with her family.”
“And now that she’s over the trauma, she decided to help?”
“More or less. She didn’t volunteer. I went to find her. And before you ask me how I found out about her existence, the doorman told me that they were friends. I should add that she didn’t like me; she got up and walked out midsentence, while we were eating lunch.”
“That’s a good sign. While you were waiting for the food to arrive, you probably asked her where she was at the time her friend was murdered.”
“Exactly.”
“Goddamn it, Espinosa, it might sound like common sense, but hookers have feelings too.”
“It was too quick.”
“And it wasn’t just with her. You’ve already gone to Flor’s apartment looking for a key, and you squeezed her so much at the station that she came back with a lawyer. What are you worried about? Some kind of hooker plot? I confess that, besides me, you don’t have any suspects, but that’s no reason to go harassing the girls.”
Espinosa noticed that he was getting an extra helping of criticism. He knew that it was because of what he’d done to Flor, and he knew that turning Vieira against him was Flor’s way of settling the score. It was part of the game.
Vieira’s apartment was hot; there was only one air conditioner, in the bedroom, and Espinosa didn’t feel like discussing such matters seated on the bed of his only formally identified suspect. He took his coat off and stood as close as possible to the only window in the small living room.
“They killed the boy.”
“What?”
“They killed the boy.”
“What boy?”
“The one with the wallet … they smashed his head against a rock.”
“Motherfucker…. He was just a child…. Why?”
Espinosa told him what he knew and how he had found the boy. Vieira listened in silence, without comment.
“It could be the work of the same guy who attacked me: same style. A guy who punches a white-haired old man could easily smash a child’s head against a rock.”
“I agree. But what intrigues me is that according to Kika’s description, the man who was chasing the boy was slim, well-dressed, and had something in his pocket that she described as a knife or a dagger. Not the kind of guy who would smash someone’s head in.”
“Why not? He could have hired someone to do it for him.”
“I still think it doesn’t make sense. Think about it. This first guy has no idea that the boy knows about the wallet. The only thing the kid did was follow him through the streets of Copacabana. For this reason alone, a boy gets burned alive while he’s asleep and another has his head smashed in. Those are extreme reactions for such a small inconvenience; that is, if we think the same person killed both of the boys. If not, the situation gets even messier.”
For more than an hour, Espinosa and Vieira discussed the various hypotheses about the events since the loss of the wallet. The hypotheses did not lead to possible conclusions; they just raised more unanswerable questions.
Espinosa’s main reason for visiting Vieira was to verify a secondary, but by no means unimportant, suspicion: did Flor really want her new lover to become jealous of Espinosa? Clearly she did. But what Espinosa knew and she perhaps didn’t was that such strategies were of dubious effectiveness, and not very useful for dealing with Vieira’s unruly personality. In any case, he had decided to be extra careful in dealing with Flor. Vieira’s policeman’s pride had been wounded just as he was feeling most threatened by the onset of old age. Flor was his amulet, protecting him against death; there was no reason to push him too far.
Espinosa’s main worry at the moment was Kika. He didn’t think the man would attack her just for protecting the boy, but he also realized that such reasoning didn’t necessarily apply to someone who crushed children’s skulls. He left her a message.
It was past noon when he got in the car and headed for the station. He’d eat something nearby; on the way he thought about the possibility that his case really boiled down to several completely unconnected cases, a notion he’d entertained several times but had never taken seriously. Despite the hour, traffic was light on the short trip to the Rua Hilário de Gouveia. He parked the car in an iffy space near the station, but before he went in he walked another block and returned carrying a small paper bag containing a sandwich, French fries, and a milkshake. The unwise food choice seemed to go well with the day: this Friday was certainly feeling like a Monday.
The preliminary, very tentative results he managed to get over the phone from the forensic experts, as well as from the autopsy, added nothing substantial to the impression he had himself gleaned from the crime scene. He had ordered his team to shake down their informants for details about each of the deaths in the hopes of finding some link between them.
Up until then, the press hadn’t connected the deaths. In fact, Espinosa himself could not find any ties, even the most tenuous, that might make sense of it all; the sole common thread was Espinosa. He was afraid that the press would start exploiting the deaths, especially given the media’s fascination with serial killers. He thought about concocting a minimally intelligent story in case reporters started asking questions. The call from Kika surprised him in the middle of his first attempt.
“I thought that you’d decided to lay off, or forgotten about me. I must say the second idea scared me more.”
“Don’t be silly. I need to talk to you, and it’s important that it be before you set up your stand tonight.”
“Fine. We can meet before I leave for Copacabana.”
“Great. I’ll get you at six-thirty in front of your building.”
The other urgent task was finding Clodoaldo. He made a list of the organizations that helped street children and eliminated the ones he knew Clodoaldo didn’t deal with. The list wasn’t extensive, and it didn’t take long to discover that they knew as much about where Clodoaldo was as he did. He decided to go back to the meeting point on the Avenida Atlântica to try to find out something from the kids. He went back to get the car and headed toward the area around the Galeria Alaska. He found only two kids, who hadn’t been there when he’d been introduced to the group, and, on a nearby block, the parking attendant. No one had seen Clodoaldo; he had vanished without a trace.
Espinosa went back to the station, where he disguised his sense of impotence by doling out large numbers of assignments and busily making phone calls. Before finishing his day at the office, the call he had been dreading finally came in: a reporter asking if there was any connection between the deaths of the two street kids. None. And he could answer with a clear conscience; he wasn’t lying, because he honestly didn’t know of any.
He got out of the car to greet Kika and help her put her pictures in the rear seat of t
he car, which had to be done quickly because the traffic on the Rua do Catete was intense and parking wasn’t allowed.
“You were so mysterious on the phone.”
“Mysterious? I hardly said a word.”
“Exactly. I mean, not just because of that—you don’t talk much anyway—but there was a feeling of mystery on the line.”
The car was already on one of the streets leading to Flamengo Beach, which at that hour was packed bumper-to-bumper because of all the cars from downtown heading back to the residential areas.
“Maybe you’ll think the question I’m about to ask you is mysterious.”
“Didn’t I tell you there was mystery in the air? What do you want to know?”
“Would you be able to stop showing your pictures on the Avenida Atlantica for a while?”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“For your own safety.”
“But why? What’s going on?”
“They killed the boy.”
“What?”
“The boy was found dead last night.”
“What? Who found him?”
“I did.”
“You? Where? Who killed him?”
Espinosa decided to give her a highly abbreviated account, since it was impossible to put a positive spin on the way the boy had been killed. When he tried to skip over that detail, however, Kika interrupted him and demanded full disclosure. By the time the story was over, tears were running down her motionless face. Despite the slow traffic, she didn’t say a word until they had reached Copacabana.
“Do you think that whoever killed the boy is going to try to kill me too?”
“I don’t think so. But I don’t want you taking any chances.”
“To get that son of a bitch, it might be worth being the bait.”
“Forget it.”
“Why?”
“Because the guy already incinerated a sleeping child and smashed in the head of another. Think about it.”
“Why do you think he’d want to kill me?”
“Maybe he thinks the boy told you something.”
“But what could he have told me?”
“I don’t have the slightest idea. And the worst is that I don’t think the boy knew either,”
“Do you think he was killed by mistake?”
“No. The other one died by mistake. He was deliberately killed by the murderer, who is the only one who knew why he was killing him. He himself didn’t know why he was dying.”
“I don’t understand. I don’t even want to understand. I want to get the son of a bitch. I’m not going to hide. The boy hid, and a lot of good it did him.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“I’m sure. Besides, it’s only a week till Christmas, the time when we sell the most. I’m not rich. I need to pay my bills.”
“In that case, I’ll stay with you tonight. On other days we’ll figure something out.”
“I think you’re worrying too much. There’s no reason for the guy to try anything against me.”
“Kika, guys like that don’t need a reason.”
“If I were a man, would you protect me like this?”
“I don’t know if I’d do it like this, but I’d do something.”
“What if I refused to be protected?”
“Then you’d make my job a lot harder.”
They were still inside the car; a little bit of afternoon light was filtering through the windows, and despite the harsh tone of the dialogue, Kika was looking at Espinosa more affectionately than provocatively. She liked the well-mannered way he approached her, and she liked the way he talked, nearly free of slang and completely devoid of obscenities. She liked the noninvasive way he made his presence felt. Heat was also coming in through the windows.
“What would you say to having a bite to eat before you set up your stand?”
“I couldn’t eat after the news you’ve brought me.”
“We wouldn’t have to sit down. I could get us some sandwiches.”
The first artists were already setting up their stands when Espinosa arrived with the pictures and the metal mount. Kika carried a paper bag with their dinner.
“I need your help for something important,” Espinosa said. “I never saw the man who chased the boy. I don’t know what he looks like, and if he shows up you have to give me a signal immediately.”
Espinosa got the impression that it was only then that Kika realized she was in real danger, that she had to remain alert, that the police officer by her side wasn’t (or wasn’t only) there to seduce her: people had been killed. The rest of the night passed uneasily, though nothing happened and they were both pleased to be together. Espinosa hovered around Kika like a moth near a flame. Every time a man with straight black hair approached, Espinosa put his hand on his revolver, awaiting some gesture, some head movement, some expression of Kika’s, positive or negative. When they got in the car at the end of the night, after storing her apparatus in the garage, Espinosa thought that once again he had taken a big risk in not asking for backup. On the way back to Catete he hardly said a word, aware of every muscle in his body, and even when he got out in front of Kika’s building to help her with her pictures, he was still entirely focused on the people moving down the street.
It was Friday night. Just over twenty-four hours earlier he’d found the boy at the rock in Leme. Only a few minutes ago, on the same beach, he had played the role of the girl’s protector, a role in which he had failed just days earlier with the boy. On the way home he stopped off for a beer; he would have had something stronger, but he remembered that all he’d eaten that day was two sandwiches. He’d go for a third.
He’d have to wait until Monday for more detailed information about the boy’s death, though he wasn’t sure exactly what he was hoping to learn. He read only the first section of the newspaper, but even so couldn’t have said what the headlines were or identified the most important stories. The voices of children playing in the street filtered through his open windows, together with the light and the warm morning air. In shorts, shoeless and shirtless, he was still feeling the December heat. Body and soul formed a single sticky mess: thinking was as painful as running or going to the gym; reading was impossible; listening to music, out of the question. He slowly put on his oldest, lightest tennis shoes, examined his shorts and decided they were presentable, rummaged through the bottom of his closet in search of a straw hat he used sometimes when he walked on the beach, stuck some money in his pocket, and left, determined to shake off the melancholy that was threatening his weekend.
He walked along Copacabana Beach toward Ipanema beneath the summer sun; a southwesterly wind blew, keeping the temperature comfortable. He continued unhurriedly to the canal of the Jardim de Alá, which separates Ipanema and Leblon, then doubled back; on his return the sun was at his back. The stroll took a little more than two hours, including two stops at kiosks along the beach, where he bought coconut water and corn on the cob. For some reason, however, that day’s walk didn’t lend itself to reflection, as such excercises usually did.
When he got back home, sweaty and tired, his electronic guard dog was blinking its red eye at him. The green one let him know that it hadn’t been asleep; he listened to the messages after showering. The first was from Clodoaldo, saying that he was almost positive he knew who’d killed the boy but still needed to verify a detail that had something to do with the man who took the wallet. The message was ambiguous; it wasn’t clear if the man with the wallet was suspected of the murder or if he could merely throw some light on the crime.
Even though there were no other candidates for the role of murderer, it didn’t make sense. Why would the man kill the boy? Even more, given that there was no reason to suppose there were two different killers, why would he kill two boys? What Espinosa couldn’t fathom was the purpose of the murders; the first was a case of mistaken identity, but why would anyone want to kill the second boy? He nee
ded to find Clodoaldo, whom he also thought was at risk; maybe his disappearance meant that he had already been attacked. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been in a dangerous situation, and Clodoaldo had vast experience in getting out of such jams. Espinosa was sure, however, of one thing: those deaths had nothing to do with Vieira’s lost (and found) wallet. The boy had believed that was why he was being stalked, but it obviously wasn’t the real motive. He listened to Clodoaldo’s message again in search of some sign of where he was calling from. Nothing. The absence of noises could, at most, indicate that the call was made from a closed phone booth or an apartment. Clodoaldo had never told anyone where he lived.
After Clodoaldo’s message came one from Kika. He noticed, not without sadness, that because it followed Clodoaldo’s, the message seemed less intense. And yet he couldn’t leave her unprotected, especially if she was determined, in spite of his admonishments, to continue doing business on the Avenida Atlantica. He called the newest detective on his team, fresh out of the police academy, who wouldn’t be bothered by having to work on a Saturday night. The kid had another advantage: like Espinosa, he was Copacabana born and bred and, like Espinosa, he knew the soul of the area.
Maldonado, the new detective, was short, ugly, and stiff as a fire hydrant. He met Espinosa in front of a chic nightclub on the Avenida Atlântica, and they went off to find Kika. While they were walking, Espinosa brought the kid up-to-date, at least on the details he thought relevant for the task he was about to assign. The detective was worried that no one had a description of the suspect beyond “thirty, straight black hair, medium stature.” If he went on that description, he would have to arrest half the men he saw. They arrived before Kika did. Most of the artists were still setting up their booths; many hadn’t gotten there yet. They waited for her in front of the garage where she stored her metal stand. Maldonado picked up on Espinosa’s worry about the girl’s delay and, even though he’d never seen her before, started to look around. When she finally arrived, they clicked immediately: they were the same age and spoke the same dialect, minimizing potential miscommunication. Espinosa, puzzled, watched their immediate understanding unfold. Kika gave a brief description of the man (the same one she’d provided Espinosa), which was enough for Maldonado to get a precise mental portrait. Immediately, despite his stature, he began scanning the horizon.
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