The Darkest Heart (48 page)

‘I guess that's where my money is,' I said. ‘My five thousand dollars. Why don't you tell them the combination?'

Again, Costa hesitated, then he swallowed, nodded and told them the numbers.

Luis keyed them in, pulled open the door and stood aside so I could see what was in there. Two shelves. A small bundle of notes on the lower one, reais. On the top shelf there was a bundle of papers weighed down with an automatic pistol.

‘No way of knowing if it's loaded,' I said to Luis. ‘Safety on or off. It wouldn't be worth it. You can take out the money, though. Count it.'

Luis looked at me, then slowly put his hand into the safe and took out the cash. He leafed through it a couple of times, then counted each note individually. ‘Two hundred reais,' he said.

‘No dollars?' I looked at Costa.

‘Not in there. I have to put it together. Have to make sure you did what I asked.' He narrowed his eyes.

‘How would you ever know? She was supposed to disappear, remember. No trace.'

‘And did she?'

‘Well, she's dead, but I didn't kill her. And there are a lot of people who can confirm that.'

‘You didn't ...' He lowered his eyebrows. ‘Then ... I don't have to pay you?'

‘I suppose not,' I said. ‘But then, you weren't going to pay me anyway, were you? There never was any money; it was all a lie. Maybe some clever trick to make the Branquinos think you're worth something. To make them let you leave this place you hate so much. So there was no money, no land, and you sent these two idiots to kill me.'

Costa shook his head and his mouth struggled to form the right word. ‘N ... No.'

‘And, even worse than that, you were going to pay them to kill the old man. My girlfriend, too. Thirty reais,' I said. ‘I would have thought I was worth more than that. At least a hundred. Maybe even two.'

Costa opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.

‘And these two?' I said. ‘How much were you going to pay someone to kill
them?'

‘What?'

‘Come on, Costa, it took me a while to catch on to it, but I know what you're planning. Someone much smarter than me worked it out. They kill me, someone else kills
them
...' I gritted my teeth and swallowed my anger. ‘You want to bury this deep,' I said. ‘All that talk we had about investigations, people taking an interest in the kind of things you people do – the kind of things you ask people like
me
to do.'

‘No.' He shook his head, looking at the other two men. ‘I mean. If you didn't ... if it wasn't you who ...'

‘Wouldn't make any difference, though, would it, Costa?'

‘Is it true?' Luis took a step towards Costa.

‘No.' Costa shook his head, the sweat running from his forehead. There were dark patches under his arms, down the front of his chest.

‘I can see why you'd be worried,' I told him. ‘About what Luis
and Wilson might do, I mean. And you'd be right to worry. I think they could be very bad men. Worse than me. Less controlled.' I leaned closer to him. ‘Tell you what. You tell me the truth, and I'll let you live. I'll kill these two men and walk out of here. You can keep all your money but I'll never want to hear from you again. Anything happens to anyone I know – I so much as see someone suspicious – I'll come straight to your house and I'll kill your wife and I'll kill your children. Do you believe me?'

Costa nodded.

‘So tell me the truth.'

He looked at Wilson and Luis as he weighed his options. Tell me what I wanted to hear and he would live. I would kill his two
pistoleiros
and walk away. Tell me something else and I would kill him right now. He only had one choice. Whether it was true or not, he only had one choice.

Like he had given me only one choice.

‘I paid them to kill you,' he said.

‘And then you were planning to do the same to them? These men right here? One of them with a family?'

‘Yes.'

‘Louder, Costa.'

‘Yes.'

‘And didn't you say to me, before I left, that if I did this job for you right, you would let me have them?'

He nodded.

‘And, by that, you meant you would let me kill them?'

There was silence in the room. I looked at Luis and Wilson, both men staring at Costa like they wanted to rip out his heart.

I shook my head at Costa. ‘You're so full of lies. Even your lies are lies.' I turned my pistol on Wilson and Luis. ‘Didn't I tell you?' I cocked the hammer back with my thumb. ‘He'd kill us all.'

Wilson took an involuntary step backwards, so he was half hidden by his partner's body, but Luis didn't take his eyes off Costa. As if he were trying to murder him with his final look.

I waited like that, ready to fire, then sighed and lowered my pistol. ‘Well,' I said. ‘I suppose he's all yours now.'

All three men looked at me in confusion.

Everything that had happened over these last few days had begun with them, and now it would end with them.

As much as I wanted to punish Costa for what he had done, he had already made it clear there would be consequences for me if anything happened to him. If his employers thought I'd had anything to do with his death, the crime would not go unpunished. So I would let Luis and Wilson do it for me. Let them be punished for his death.

I could kill all three of them without lifting a finger.

‘We don't need to be enemies,' I said to Luis and Wilson. ‘This devil is our enemy. He would have us all killed then take his money and buy something expensive for his wife.'

They both turned to face Costa and there was no mistaking the murderous look in their eyes.

There's a hundred reais each in there,' I said. ‘A nice-looking
pistola
, too.'

‘What ... ?' Costa stepped back and held up his hands as he floundered for the right words. ‘You ...'

‘You're a devil.' I looked right at him. ‘Anhangá. I know it, and now these men know it.'

‘But you made me say it,' Costa finally managed. ‘You
made
me. I wasn't going to have them killed. I wasn't going to—'

‘Sure you were,' I said, going to him and putting my mouth close to his ear. ‘And it looks like you didn't know me as well as you thought, eh? When you asked me to kill Sister Beckett, I knew I didn't want to do it, not even for the money, but you forced me into a corner. Now you know how that feels.'

Walking to the door, I stopped and turned to Luis and Wilson. ‘He's all yours,' I said.

Luis reached into the safe and took out the gun. He looked at Costa as he ejected the magazine, checked the load and slipped it back in, racking the slide to bring a cartridge into the chamber.

‘You don't want to stay for this?' He looked at me. ‘It's as much for you as it is for us.'

‘No,' I said, turning the handle and shrugging the shadow away. ‘I don't have the stomach for this any more.'

61

Leaving the shadow behind, I let myself out of Costa's office and stepped into the light, not knowing what was going to happen now. I headed down to Ernesto's place, staying in the open, where the sun was hot on my shoulders and felt good.

Coming into the bar, there were a few men drinking beer, not talking much because it was too hot or they had nothing to say.

‘Zico,' Ernesto said as I came in. ‘Beer?'

‘Brahma.' I held up a finger before turning to the other men.

Marco was among them, the man who had brought the old man home. He came close to me, his eyes to the floor. ‘I'm sorry about Raul,' he said. ‘I did what I could.'

‘You brought him home.'

And from behind Marco, one of the others spoke, saying, ‘He was a good man.'

‘Yes he was,' I told them.

‘We'll miss him.'

Ernesto put a beer on the counter and I took a long drink before fishing in my pocket and pulling out a few notes.

‘On me.' Ernesto put his hand on my arm.

‘Thanks.' I raised the bottle saying,
‘Saúde,'
and took another drink. I swallowed and looked at the men sitting at the bar. ‘Saw the
Estrella,'
I said. ‘She's stuck on the sand just at the mouth of the Rio das Mortes. Can anyone help?'

‘When?' asked one of the men. Zeca, I think he was called.

‘Yesterday. They were still there this morning.'

He nodded, stood, and drained his beer. ‘I'll go now,' he said, looking round. ‘Anyone else?'

‘Sure.' Another stood and finished his beer. ‘We'll get it out.' He looked at me. ‘You bringing Raul's boat?'

‘No,' I said. ‘She's gone.' It felt right that the river had taken the
Deus e o Diabo.
She and the old man had been connected somehow, unable to exist without each other.

‘We saw smoke,' Ernesto said. ‘Was that—'

‘That was her,' I told them.

The men nodded and left the bar, so I ordered another beer and followed them outside, walking down to the riverbank. I climbed onto Zeca's boat and sat at the bow, thinking about Raul and Carolina. I thought about Leonardo and about his brother waiting for him in Belem. It was all I really knew about him.

I took the cutting from my pocket, feeling the soft newspaper between my fingertips, and looked down at the photograph of Sister Beckett. The collection of black and grey dots didn't do justice to the woman who had died in Mina dos Santos. It illustrated nothing of her strength or determination. I considered letting the breeze take it as Zeca started the engine, but changed my mind, deciding to put it in my pack for safe keeping.

When I brought it onto my lap, though, and opened the fastenings, I realised that it wasn't my pack at all. This was Leonardo's backpack.

He must have been carrying it when Daniella shot him in the bar, and in our haste to leave Fernanda's, I had picked up his instead of mine.

I tried to remember everything I had lost, reassuring myself that it wouldn't matter who found it. Nothing could identify me and everything could be replaced. Perhaps there would even be something here other than cigarettes and
cocaína
that I could use.

What I found was an automatic pistol with a spare magazine, a knife, three packets of cigarettes and what looked like a package of
cocaína.
There was a spare T-shirt in there too, and at the bottom, a brown paper bag that I pulled out and opened.

I stopped when I saw the money. American currency bound in two bundles of hundred-dollar bills. My guess was that there was at least ten thousand dollars in that paper bag.

I scrunched it closed and stared out at the tree line, wondering if the money had always been there or if Leonardo had picked it up in Mina dos Santos. Perhaps it was down payment on the guns – the rest to be paid when he brought the weapons ashore. It didn't really matter. It belonged to Daniella and me now. To Carolina too.

Replacing the paper bag, I looked at the picture of Sister Beckett once more before refolding it and laying it on top. I closed the backpack and put it by my feet, then watched the water while I sipped my beer, thinking about the old man, and the number of times we had set out together on the river.

A slight wind picked up, throwing a cloud of sand my way.

I wiped my eye with the back of my hand and waited to bring Daniella home.

Also by Dan Smith

Dry Season

Dark Horizons

The Child Thief

Red Winter

About the author

Dan Smith grew up following his parents across the world. He's lived in many places including Sierra Leone, Sumatra, northern and central Brazil, Spain and the Soviet Union, but is now settled in Newcastle with his family. Dan's debut novel,
Dry Season
, was shortlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2011.

THE DARKEST HEART

Copyright © 2015 by Dan Smith

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First Pegasus Books hardcover edition 2015

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