Arnaldo was not pleased when Silva told him why he'd wanted the rental car.
"Why can't we just send him by bus, like we did his mother?"
"Too risky," Silva said. "By now, Ferraz knows she's gone. He'll be checking the buses, looking for the kid. And we can't use one of our own cars because the colonel already knows what they look like."
Silva's cell phone chose that moment to ring.
"Wipe that smile off your face, you little punk," Arnaldo said to Edson. The kid had been looking back and forth between Silva and Arnaldo like he'd been watching a tennis match.
"Fuck you," the kid said.
Silva pulled the phone out of his pocket, wishing the damned thing had a caller ID. He pushed the call button.
"Mario?"
It was the director. Again.
"I've got to take this call," he said, putting a hand over the mouthpiece.
Arnaldo snorted, grasped Edson's shoulder, and propelled him out of the room.
"Hey," the kid said, "keep your paws to yourself, you big gorilla."
"Cut the crap," Silva called after them.
"What the hell do you mean, `cut the crap'?"
"Sorry, Director, that wasn't meant for you."
"I should hope not. What's this business about somebody offing a priest? What did this Brouwer guy have to do with what happened to the bishop?"
"As far as I know, nothing at all. I don't think the killings are connected. How, may I ask, did you find out about Brouwer?"
"Not from you, that's for damn sure. On the news. Ana heard it."
Ana. Silva liked the director's secretary, but sometimes…
"Has it occurred to you, Mario, that ever since you arrived things have been getting worse?"
"I take exception to that remark, Director."
"I don't give a damn what you take exception to. Are you one iota closer to solving the bishop's murder?"
"As a matter of fact, I am. He's a pedophile and-"
"Whoa. Slow down. The bishop was a pedophile?"
"No. The man who killed him is. Well, actually it wasn't the man himself, but this manservant of his who-"
The director, interrupting, cut right to the chase. He wasn't a man who cared about details, no matter how juicy they might be.
"Can you prove it?" he said.
"No. Not yet."
"What do you mean by not yet?"
"Well, we've got a witness-"
"To the killing?"
"Not to the killing, to the pedophilia. He's a street kid-"
"A street kid? And he's going to testify against a pedophile?"
"Yes, except that the pedophile is a priest and-"
"A priest? Did he confess?"
"No. He denies everything. But I'm sure he did it, as sure as I've ever been of anything in my life."
In a moment of silence, rare for him, the director reflected. Then he softened a bit. Not much, but a bit. "Well, I suppose we're better off today than we were yesterday. Wrap it up, Mario, wrap it up."
And, although he didn't wait for Silva's reply, he actually went to the trouble of saying goodbye.
Just before the handset hit the cradle, Silva heard him bellowing for the long-suffering Ana.