A Vine in the Blood (14 page)

“Torture her? Of course not. What kind of people do you think we are?”

“If you didn’t torture her, why did she scream?”

“They all scream, Senhor. That’s just the way they are. We try to keep them quiet, but it doesn’t always work.”

“Keep them quiet? Really? And what do you do to keep them quiet?”

“We give them nuts, Senhor, and sometimes a piece of fruit.”

T
HE HOSTAGE
in the warehouse wasn’t the Artist’s mother. She was a Lear’s macaw.

One of Gloria’s men put in a call to the IBAMA, the Brazilian environmental agency. A no-nonsense female wearing a bush shirt and sporting a nose stud showed up about half an hour later. She introduced herself as
Doutora
Kipman.

“Physician?” Hector asked.

“Biologist,” she said. “Who’s Silva?”

“That would be me.”

She stuck out a hand. “Congratulations, Chief Inspector. You did a great job today. We’ve been after these two characters for quite some time.”

“What’s going to happen to them?”

“You caught them
em flagrante
.” She rubbed her chapped hands together in glee. “They’re gonna get at least five years, maybe even seven.”

“Five
years
? For smuggling birds?”

Kipman bristled. “The Lear’s macaw is the second rarest macaw in the world. Do you know how many of these birds survive in the wild, Chief Inspector?”

“I have no idea.”

“Then let me tell you. There aren’t more than eight hundred of them, eight hundred in the wild and maybe another fifty in captivity. That’s it. There are no more. That one preening itself over there represents more than one-tenth of one percent of the entire species.”

Silva looked at the blue bird with new respect. “Is that so?” he said.

“That’s so,” she said. “And God knows whether it would have survived the journey to wherever they were sending it to. They pack them in boxes, tape their beaks shut so they can’t squawk, tie their feet together so they can’t move. Jail is too good for those two bastards. They should get a taste of their own medicine.”

Kipman looked angry enough to tape their mouths and tie their legs herself.

“How much money are those things worth?” Silva asked.

“We have strict legislation against keeping them in captivity, even stricter legislation against their export. No permit has ever been issued. I’d estimate they would have realized at least twenty-thousand Reais for this one.”

“Twenty thousand Reais? For a parrot?”

“You think that’s a lot? There’s one collector in Singapore who’d pay double that if they could get the bird to him. Poor thing. Look at her. She’s so nervous.”

“How can you tell?”

“She’s picking at her breast feathers.”

Chapter Seventeen

“C
RAP
,” S
AMPAIO SAID
. “I already told the minister about that warehouse.”

“Told him what, Director?”

Silva was holding the telephone several centimeters from his ear. Sampaio wasn’t quite shouting, but it was close.

“I assured him it was just a matter of hours until we had the Artist’s mother back. What do I tell him now?”

“Perhaps, Director, it was a little premature to have assured the minister—”

“If I want your advice on how to do my job, Chief Inspector, I’ll ask for it. You have no idea what kind of pressure I’m under. What’s Godofredo’s take on this?”

“I haven’t spoken to Godofredo yet.”

“Call him. Call him right away. You should have involved him long before now.”

Godofredo Boceta was the Federal Police’s profiler, an academic blowhard hired by Sampaio himself. Silva was never averse to asking for expert advice from people he respected, but Boceta was a man for whom he had no respect at all. The profiler had never been of help in the solving of any case.

“I’ll call him as soon as I get back to the office,” he lied.

“Where are you calling from?”

“A car. We’re on our way to see Fiorello Rosa.”

“Rosa? What the hell do you want to talk to Rosa for? Rosa has been in jail for five years!”

“Seven.”

“Seven, then. What can you possibly expect from him?”

“He re-wrote the book on kidnapping. He’s the best that ever there was. He might have some ideas about how this one went down.”

“Even if he does, why should he talk to you?”

“Because he has a parole hearing coming up.”

“How do you know that?”

“I received a letter. I’ve been asked to testify.”

“Don’t waste your time with Rosa. It’s not going to get you anywhere. Godofredo is the guy you have to talk to. How about that network of snitches Pedro Cataldo’s got?”

“He’s working it, but there’s no word on the street.”

“And that bicheiro, Miranda?”

“I’ll speak to him before the day is out.”

F
IORELLO
R
OSA
, PhD and master kidnapper, was a most uncommon felon. He’d been a professor of criminology and had published seven books on the subject. His work had earned him high praise in the academic community, some notoriety in law-enforcement circles, and far too little money.

So, sometime in the late nineties, Rosa set his mind to bettering himself—and chose kidnapping as the most lucrative and least violent way of achieving his objective. At the time of his arrest, he’d been abducting people for almost six years and hadn’t once, in all that time, missed a single university lecture because of it.

Throughout his criminal career Rosa selected his victims based upon their ability to pay, a strategy he considered wise at the time, but one which, when he was brought to justice, added to his troubles. Rosa’s furious and resentful ex-victims used all of their influence to make sure the judge threw the book at him. The judge, eager to please the power elite, did just that. The miscreant was sentenced to fourteen years.

To Rosa, the severe sentence came as a most disagreeable surprise. He’d never committed murder or mayhem on his victims. Indeed, he’d never touched a hair of their heads. He’d expected to get away with a sentence of no more than eight, which might have put him out in four.

The prison where Rosa was being held was in Guarulhos, not far from the international airport of that name. After Silva hung up with Sampaio, he and Arnaldo chatted about Rosa’s arrest.

“Refresh my memory,” Arnaldo said. “I took the kids to the beach for a few weeks. When I got back, you had the whole thing wrapped up.”

“Luck,” Silva said, and told the story.

The last of Rosa’s victims had been a wealthy advertising man, a partner in a successful agency. Rosa’s gang had kept him in captivity for almost three months while the terms of his release were being negotiated. As day followed day, with few developments to break the monotony, one of Rosa’s henchmen had gotten sloppy. Against all instructions, he’d left the prisoner alone and gone down to the local padaria for a coffee and a
cachaça
.

The place where the gang had been holding their victim was a semi-detached house, rented specifically for the purpose. It wasn’t soundproof and, if the guard had followed his instructions, there was no reason why it should have been. But when the captive heard movement next door, he called out to his guard and, getting no response, raised his voice and hazarded a cry for help. Before long, he managed to attract the attention of a student living in the adjoining garret.

When the guard got back from his recreational excursion, he found Silva and his men waiting for him. The guard, in exchange for leniency, fingered Rosa as the mastermind.

The abduction of the ad man had been the last in a series that Silva, as a professional, admired for meticulous planning and execution. It had taken place in broad daylight at what was, ostensibly, a police roadblock. False cops, cars and uniforms correct in every detail, were checking licenses and registrations of vehicles. They’d established their trap between the home and the office of their victim.

In the subsequent interviews, it appeared everyone noticed the strange accent of the cop who was doing all the talking, but such was the power of his uniform that no one questioned his authority.

The false cops had gone through the motions of attending to almost a hundred other vehicles by the time the man they were after pulled up to the checkpoint. They left him fidgeting and looking at his watch for a full five minutes. His impatience kept building, and building, and when his turn came, he rolled down the three centimeter thick bulletproofed window without a squeak of protest.

It was all over in a heartbeat. No one died; no one was shot; no one was manhandled. Rosa’s thugs simply bundled their victim into a vehicle and took off with him. They left his driver shackled to the car’s steering wheel with two pairs of handcuffs.

The getaway car was indistinguishable from any other police cruiser in the city. As soon as they were around the corner, they stopped to remove their license plate, revealing another already in place. Then they drove four kilometers to a garage, where they switched the police car for a van. Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at the hideout.

The little room was ready and waiting, with a television and a stack of books. On a tray sat a bottle of the ad man’s favorite whisky, a bucket of ice, and a cut-crystal glass of the kind he liked to do his drinking from.

Rosa had done his research well. He knew their victim was an alcoholic. He didn’t want to put his life in danger by exposing him to withdrawal symptoms—and he even provided him with the proper pills for his hypertension and type 2 diabetes.

The “cops” he’d hired, the only members of the gang who might be recognized, were immediately flown to Argentina, the place they’d come from. They embarked, by private plane, less than an hour after the commission of the crime. None were apprehended.

“C
HIEF
I
NSPECTOR
Mario Silva,” Rosa said, when they led him in. “What an agreeable surprise.”

“Hello, Professor. You seem happy to see me.”

“I am.”

“Why?”

“I’m not stupid, Chief Inspector. We aren’t exactly friends.

We haven’t seen each other in seven years, and when they told me you were coming, I could only think of one reason for your visit. You want something.”

“I do indeed.”

“As do I. You’re aware that I’m coming up for a parole hearing?”

“I’ve been invited to testify.”

“So my attorney told me. And this gentleman is?”

“My colleague, Agent Arnaldo Nunes.”

“Pleased to meet you, Agent Nunes. I’d offer you a hand, but …” Rosa held up his shackled wrists.

“I think we can dispense with those,” Silva said, and nodded to the guard.

The guard removed Rosa’s handcuffs and left without a word.

“Sit down, Professor.”

Rosa rubbed the red marks on his wrists and shook hands with both Arnaldo and Silva before taking a seat.

“It’s the Artist’s mother, isn’t it?” he said.

“Yes,” Silva said, “it is.”

“Just before the game with Argentina, too. Rather unpatriotic, don’t you think?”

“That’s exactly what I think.”

Silva dropped a sheaf of papers on the table. Rosa looked at it, but he didn’t extend a hand to pick it up.