Blood of the Wicked (11 page)

“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

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 board, 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

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-one,” 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?”

“No, Father, I didn’t.”

After a moment of silence, Father Angelo spoke. “Chief Inspector Silva is quite right, Anton. He didn’t say it. Perhaps someone at the encampment mentioned it to you, someone who was jumping to conclusions.”

He turned to Silva. “The night before last the league—”

“—invaded Muniz’s fazenda
.
Yes, I know.”

Father Brower shook his head. “Don’t call it an invasion. It wasn’t. What the league did was to
occupy
uncultivated land within a fence put up by Orlando Muniz Junior. When the government—”

Father Angelo put his hand on Father Brouwer’s knee. “I think that Inspector Silva’s concerns lie elsewhere, Anton. He’s only interested in things that are germane to the cases he’s investigating.” He turned to Silva. “Muniz’s foreman was heard to say that his employer had disappeared and that people were searching for him. Perhaps the rumor about him being dead is simply wishful thinking.”

“That must be it,” Brouwer said. “A rumor.”

There was a moment of silence.

Then Silva said, “All right, let’s put Muniz on the back burner for a moment. What can you tell me about the bishop?”

Father Brouwer leaned back in his chair. “I can’t help you very much,” Brouwer said. “I didn’t know him well.”

“Did you like him?”

“As I’ve just said, I hardly knew him.”

“Why would anyone want to kill him?”

“You heard about his sermon? Asking people to come forward if they knew anything about the murder of the Azevedo family?”

“I heard about it, yes.”

“Well, then, there you have it. My guess would be that he was killed by the same murdering parasites who killed Azevedo: Muniz, or one of his cronies.”

“Landowners?”

“Landowners. From all accounts, the bishop wasn’t a particularly likeable man, but I can’t think of anyone else who would have had a reason to kill him.”

“Father Gaspar thinks otherwise. He thinks someone from the league might have done it.”

“From the
league
?”

Father Brouwer was genuinely surprised.

So was Father Angelo. “What possible motive could anyone from the league have?” the old priest asked.

“Perhaps because the bishop withdrew church support?”

“Nonsense,” Father Brouwer said. “Everyone knew that was bound to happen when the old bishop died. Now,
that
man, the old bishop, he was a saint. He cared more about the poor than he did about the opinions of a few learned—and some believe misguided—old men in Rome. We won’t see his like again in our lifetimes. These days, Rome would never appoint a man like him. They’ll only appoint someone else who follows the party line. Dom Felipe did. That’s one of the reasons he got the job.”

“Tell me about the league.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Help me to understand them. What kind of people are they?”

Father Brouwer scratched his chin, and then said, “They’re the stubborn ones.”

“Stubborn?”

“Stubborn. The ones who haven’t given up, the ones who’ve rejected migration to the big cities, the ones who’ve elected to stay and fight.”

“That’s well and good, Father, but they shouldn’t be doing it by occupying land to which they have no right—”

“No right? No
right
?” Father Brouwer scowled. He took a deep breath then let it out, slowly, through his nose. “Tell me this, Chief Inspector: Who has a greater right to the land, someone who’s born on it, sweated on it, drawn his subsistence from it, or some capitalist who paid for it with money, or stole it by forging false documents?”

“Capitalist?” Silva said, raising his eyebrows.

Father Brouwer leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking Marxist, you’re thinking communist. But you’re wrong. I’m neither. I believe in God.”

“How about liberation theology? Do you believe in that?”

Brouwer exchanged a glance with Angelo. “How could I?” Brouwer said. “After all, my superiors in Rome have condemned it.”

“It’s forbidden,” Angelo said. “I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

“Condemned?” Silva said. “Forbidden? So no priest could ever publicly commit to it, right?”

“Right. Not publicly,” Brouwer said.

It didn’t escape Silva that neither one of the priests had actually denied being a liberation theologian. He looked from one to the other. The conversation was going nowhere. He rose to his feet. “I think I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’m at the Excelsior. You
will
call me, won’t you, if anything else occurs to you?”

“Of course,” Father Angelo said.

Father Brouwer didn’t say anything at all. He didn’t even nod.

If you’re reading this, I’m in the coffee shop.

It would have been impossible for Arnaldo to arrive in the few short hours since he’d authorized Hector to summon him. His nephew had clearly jumped the gun. Silva made a mental note to take him to task about it.

Arnaldo was where he’d promised to be. It was still lunchtime, and the restaurant was crammed with people dressed in the fashion of the countryside. At that time of the year, with temperatures peaking around 40 degrees Celsius— 104 degrees Fahrenheit—the men were clothed almost exclusively in thin cotton shirts open at the neck. Arnaldo, in a beige suit, starched white shirt, and blue necktie, stuck out like a penguin in a chicken coop.

He was frowning at a menu when Silva slipped into a seat in front of him.

“A cheeseburger, medium,” Arnaldo said to the hovering waiter.

“And to drink, senhor
?
”

“Guaraná.”

“What a surprise,” Silva said.

In coffee shops, Agente Arnaldo Nunes always perused the menu from appetizers to desserts, and almost always ordered a cheeseburger and a guaraná.

Arnaldo was an experienced man, considerably older than Hector, almost as old as Silva himself. He was a good cop, but his lack of formal education had blocked his advancement. The law required federal delegados to have a law degree from an accredited university and Arnaldo, having married young, could never find either the money or the time to get one. He was condemned to working out his time as a lowly agente
.
Silva had known him for over twenty years. They were comfortable with each other, despite the difference in rank.

The waiter offered Silva a menu. Silva shook his head.

“One cheeseburger, medium, and one guaraná. That’s it?” the waiter said, looking at each of them in turn.

“That’s it,” Arnaldo said.

“You got it.”

The waiter turned on his heel, managed to look right past an aged couple trying to get his attention, and strolled off toward the kitchen.

“The guy’s a real pro,” Arnaldo said, in mock admiration. “Those geezers coulda shot off rockets, and he wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow.”

He scanned the tables around them, leaned forward, and lowered his voice. “We got a trace on the incoming phone call, the one from Edson Souza to the bishop. Turns out it originated right here in Cascatas, from the post office.”

“Post office?”

“It’s one of those places where you fill in a form and make a deposit. Then the operator sends you to a booth and places the call. After you finish, you go back and get your change.”

“And nobody remembered the caller, I suppose?”

“Nobody remembered. But I got these.”

Arnaldo took a transparent envelope from his breast pocket.

Silva examined the objects inside: Forms the post office used for requesting telephone calls.

“Why didn’t you send them off to have them dusted for prints?”

“I thought maybe you wanted to use that local guy. . . .”

“Ferraz?”

“Yeah, Ferraz.”

“No. We’ll do it ourselves. Send them to São Paulo. It’ll be quicker than going through Brasilia.”

“Okay. I took the prints of the clerk for comparison. Same guy was on duty both times.”

Silva held the bag closer to his nose and studied one of the forms. The name of the caller and number he’d called were filled in with a blue pen. The amount of the deposit, the cost of the call, and the amount of the balance were written in another hand, in black ink.

“Souza is lefthanded,” Silva said.

“How can you tell?”

“The heel of his hand brushed over the wet ink while he was writing. Look here. See?”

Arnaldo took the envelope. He was still studying it when his guaraná arrived. He put the envelope back in his pocket, took a sip, and said, “What’s next?”

“Ferraz’s men know the town,” Silva said. “We don’t. As much as I hate it, I’m going to ask him to help.” He glanced at his watch. “He’s probably back from lunch by now. I’ll go over and have a talk with him.”

“Want me to do it?”

“No. He gave Hector the brush-off. He’d do the same to you. Hector says he’s a son of a bitch.” He briefly summed up what his nephew had learned about Ferraz and added what Father Angelo had told him.

“Sounds like a real sweetheart,” Arnaldo said. He would have embellished his remark, but the waiter arrived with his cheeseburger. Arnaldo moved his drink aside and sat back in his chair while he was served. When the waiter had gone he opened the bun and made a face.

“Medium, my ass,” he said, and probed the overcooked meat with his fork. “You want company? With Ferraz, I mean.”

Silva shook his head. “You start checking available sources to see if we can’t get some information on this Souza. Credit cards, bank statements, utility bills, all the stuff that’s easier for us to get than it is for Ferraz.”

“You think somebody who uses a post office telephone has a credit card?”

“No, but maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe he didn’t
have
to use it. Maybe he
decided
to use it. Anyway, we have to go through the motions. Check the phone book.”

“I already did. It’s thinner than the director’s dick and there’s no Edson Souza.”