“Back so soon?” Pedro Cataldo said. “What happened with Talafero?”
Silva told him.
“You believe him?”
“I’m suspending judgment. Meantime, what can you tell me about Miranda?”
“Captain Miranda? Now, there’s a piece of work. I’ve been after him for years.”
“How close are you to nailing him?”
“Not close. He’s a slippery bastard.”
“Why ‘Captain’?”
“Because he was.”
“Military?”
“An army officer. During the dictatorship, he worked in Section II.”
Silva’s mouth crinkled in disgust. Section II was a torture squad, the most notorious of them all. The Section’s members received monetary rewards for capturing, or killing, left-wing militants-and they’d sooner kill than capture. After the country reverted to democracy, it became known that many of Section II’s victims weren’t militants, or even left-wingers.
“While he was busy killing people for the government,” Pedro continued, “he also got involved in contraband.”
“Smuggling?”
Pedro nodded. “Whiskey and cigarettes, but it didn’t work out. He and a dozen of his buddies got busted.”
“He confessed?”
“He confessed, but when he got in front of a judge, he claimed it was beaten out of him.”
Silva snorted in disgust. “And?”
“His case was thrown out on appeal.”
“Grounds?”
“Torture, if you can believe that.”
“How’s that for irony,” Arnaldo said.
“In fiction,” Pedro said, “nobody would believe it. By the time he was acquitted, though, Miranda had become a persona non grata to his army buddies. They cashiered him.”
“So,” Arnaldo said, “the army promoted him for killing people, and threw him out for smuggling. What a country we live in!”
“So there he was,” Pedro said, “thirty-five years old, no marketable skills, and looking for something to do with his life. Apolidoro Nasca gave it to him.”
“Who’s Apolidoro Nasca?”
“Was, not is. He’s been dead for years, but he was a big man once, a crook who controlled the animal game in the four biggest towns in the state of Minas Gerais. You’re in a job like that, you need killers to work for you. Miranda was a killer with credentials, so Nasca hired him. For a while, so they say, Miranda only killed the people Nasca told him to kill. Rivals, deadbeats, people who were skimming money.”
“And then?”
“And then, one day, Nasca disappeared.”
“Miranda took over his operation?”
“Uh huh. What you’re thinking is what everybody thinks-but nobody can prove it. Then Uncle Scrooge-”
“Uncle Scrooge?”
“Nelson Catto, the chief bicheiro. His nickname was Uncle Scrooge. So Uncle Scrooge starts keeping a close eye on what Miranda is doing in Minas Gerais. Within a year, he doubles the income of the business, which means he doubles the cut for Uncle Scrooge. Within three years, the Captain is up there on the Council of Seven, the guys who run the operation for the entire country. As soon as they put him in the chair he moved from Belo Horizonte to Sao Paulo. It took him less than six months to consolidate the market.”
“Consolidate the market?”
Cataldo nodded. “Before Miranda came along, Sao Paulo was divided into three districts, all about equal in size. Now it’s just one.”
“How did he pull it off?”
“Easy. He was already on the Council. All he had to do was assign dead men’s territories to himself.”
“Except, first, he had to make them dead?”
“Exactly. By the early-nineties, he was into his golden years, having a great run, walking around dressed in expensive Italian suits. It annoyed the hell out of Lili Norunha. She spent years building up a case against him.”
“I knew Lili well,” Silva said. “I liked her. A lot.”
“I did too. She told me, before she died, that she’d managed to implicate Miranda in sixty-two murders. But in the end, the whole thing fell apart. He only got six years.”
“Wait a minute,” Arnaldo said. “This guy kills sixty-two people and he only gets six years in prison?”
“Miranda got to the jury. And then he went after Lili. I know it, but I can’t prove it.”
Judge Lili Norunha had been found in her apartment, shot dead, on the 27th of November, 1998. Her husband and two sons were murdered with her. Officially, the case had never been solved.
“Uncle Scrooge died in 2001,” Pedro went on. “Natural causes, they say. Maybe it’s even true. Miranda stepped up, became the boss of bosses. He still is.”
“Still wearing his Italian suits?”
“No more. He learned his lesson. These days, he keeps a much lower profile. But he’s the one guy nobody screws with. Not that anybody would want to. He’s making lots of people tons of money. He’s the best manager the bicheiros ever had, the head of the whole rotten organization.”
“So, when you finally get him, you’ll be able to stamp out the game?”
Pedro laughed. “I’m not that naive, Mario. The game is here to stay; it will be with us forever. As soon as Miranda is out of the picture, some other bicheiro will step up and take his place.”
“If it isn’t going to change anything, why are you so set on putting him away?”
“The game is secondary compared to the other stuff he’s up to.”
“Murders?”
“The murders don’t bother me all that much, because the people he kills are mostly crooks. I’m focusing on the other stuff.”
“Corruption?”
“Big time. Everybody knows the bicheiros have a deal going with the civil police. They’ve had one for years. There’s no way they could operate if they didn’t, but Miranda has taken it to a whole new level. He’s gone beyond bribing cops and judges. He’s investing in political campaigns, fattening the bank accounts of senators and deputies. He’s even got the governor of Sao Paulo on his payroll.”
“Jesus. I had no idea.”
“Most people don’t. Since Miranda took over, it’s not just the game anymore. Now it’s bingo parlors, casinos and slot machines. Every day it’s something new, every day it’s something worse. The man’s greed is monumental.”
“You try going after him for his taxes?”
“I did, and he’s covered. He now makes his living, he says, as a”-Pedro used his fingers to make quotation marks in the air-“ financial consultant. He takes in upward of a halfmillion a month in so-called commissions from people he claims to be advising on investments. And he pays taxes on every centavo. Meanwhile, he’s squirreling away millions in Uruguay, or the Caymans, or some other place I don’t know about.”
“But you’re trying like hell to find.”
“You bet I am.”
“Getting back to Talafero for a minute, do you buy into his story about Green Mangos?”
“No, I don’t. Bicheiros like Miranda are supposed to support samba schools. People expect it of them. When Miranda inherited the Sao Paulo bank, he inherited the obligation to support Green Mangos along with it.”
“So it’s not like his heart is in it?”
“Miranda doesn’t have a heart. Green Mangos, for him, is a cost of doing business. He does it to generate goodwill, keep his customers satisfied. That’s what I think. Mind you, I could be wrong.”
“Talafero was pretty convincing.” Arnaldo sounded doubtful. “You shoulda heard him.”
“If I had,” Pedro said, “I still wouldn’t buy it. Since you guys were here last, I’ve been doing some digging about Talafero. There’s a reason why he might want to sick you guys onto Miranda.”
“Which is?”
“To distract Miranda, get him off his back.”
“Why would that be necessary?”
“Talafero’s setting up a new business, one Miranda doesn’t like.”
“What is it?”
“Making book on football games.”
“What’s new about that? You can do that now.”
“Not the way he’s doing it. With the lotto you have to bet on the outcome of a series, and with the Internet you have to use a credit card.”
“Uh huh. So?”
“So, if you want to bet on an individual game, and you don’t have a credit card, which most people in this country don’t, you can’t do it. And you can’t bet small amounts.”
“Talafero is taking centavo bets?”
“He is, which opens it up to kids and pensioners and people living in favelas.”
“Just like the animal game.”
“Which is why Miranda doesn’t like it. And, since the whole country is football crazy, folks are flocking to Talafero and his football action.”
“And away from Miranda and his animals.”
“Exactly.”
“Stupid,” Arnaldo said. “Miranda isn’t going to take it lying down.”
“But Talafero didn’t get where he is today by being stupid,”
Silva said.
“You think he’s worked out a plan for neutralizing Miranda?”
“I think it’s likely. But let’s not get sidetracked. Our primary objective is to recover Juraci Santos and to see that the people who murdered her maids get what’s coming to them. Miranda and Talafero only merit investigative time if they can contribute to that objective. We’re not going to waste more energy on Talafero until we’ve explored a few other avenues.”
“How about Miranda?”
“We’ll talk to him. But what Pedro just said makes sense. His samba school is unlikely to be as important to him as Talafero seems to think it is or, at least, told us it was. With all of his other businesses absorbing his attention, I don’t think it’s likely he’d set out to kidnap Juraci if it was only for the money.”
“If you don’t think he’s involved in the kidnapping,” Pedro said, “why do you want to talk to him at all?”
“Because a man in his position would have more underworld connections than anyone. He’ll be plugged in. People will tell him things. He’ll know where to go to get answers.”
“So?”
“So I’m going to ask for his help in bringing the Artist’s mother home alive.”
“I see two things wrong with that,” Pedro said.
“Tell me,” Silva said.
“Miranda is a selfish bastard. He’s not likely to help without getting something in return.”
“That’s one. What’s the other?”
“We have no reason to believe Juraci Santos is alive at all.”