“ Look who’s here,” Arnaldo said, pointing toward the driveway.
Silva turned his head. A uniformed man with a protruding stomach was strutting in their direction.
“The chief?” Silva asked.
“In the flesh,” Arnaldo confirmed. “Kindly note how much of it there is. Is that guy fat, or what?”
Summoned by a telephone call from the federals, half a dozen local cops were already on the scene. The senior man, a sergeant, had attempted to assume jurisdiction and confiscate their weapons, but Silva had told him to go to hell. He figured him for the one who’d called the chief.
Pinto stopped in front of Arnaldo.
“What the fuck is going on?” he said.
“And good morning to you too, Chief,” Arnaldo said.
“Who’s this?” He pointed at Silva.
“My boss, Chief Inspector Mario Silva.”
Pinto turned his back on Arnaldo.
“So maybe you’re the one who can tell me what the fuck happened here?”
“A couple of thugs killed Father Vitorio Barone,” Silva said, “and a young friend of his, name of Lauro Tadesco.”
“What a shame,” the chief said, without a trace of regret. “Who did it?”
“The Almeida brothers.”
“Luis and Joaquim? They’re scum. If both of them were dead, this town would be better off.”
“Then it’s half better off already,” Arnaldo said.
Pinto blinked, but he didn’t turn his head. “You killed one?”
“Luis,” Silva said. “Shot while resisting arrest.”
“Where’s the other one?” Pinto said.
“Down the road a bit, in a car.”
“Hand him over,” the chief said. “He’s mine.”
“In your dreams,” Silva said. “We’re holding on to him.”
“The hell you are. Murder is state, not federal. You can’t hold him. I can.”
“We’re charging him with something else.”
The chief’s features drew together, as if he’d just tasted something nasty.
“What?”
“I can’t tell you. It’s confidential.”
“Confidential? That’s a load of crap.”
“Is it?”
“You’re gonna need a place to keep him.”
“We have a place to keep him. The Tropical.”
“You’re gonna put a scumbag like Joaquim Almeida in the Hotel Tropical?”
“We’re thinking of getting him the Presidential suite,” Arnaldo said.
“Something else,” Silva said. “According to Joaquim this was a contract hit. The woman who hired them calls herself Carla something, has a house down by the river, lives there with a couple of capangas, big guys from down south. Ring any bells?” “Not a one,” the chief said.
“We’re going over there to arrest them, gonna need some of your men.”
“Yeah? Well, you can’t have any. Any arresting has to be done, we’ll do it ourselves.”
Arnaldo said, “You recall getting calls from the mayor and the governor? Something about full cooperation?”
The chief glared at him.
Arnaldo pulled out his cell phone.
“Maybe a call would help,” he said. “Who do you want to hear it from? The governor, or the mayor?”
Pinto ignored Arnaldo, addressed Silva.
“How many men you need?”
“Ten should do it,” Silva said. “Ten with automatic weapons and a forensic team. Have you got one?”
“Of course we’ve got one. This isn’t the sticks, Silva.”
“Could have fooled me,” Arnaldo said.
If looks could kill, Joaquim would have been dead the minute the chief set eyes on him. He cringed to one side of the back seat, keeping Hector between himself and Pinto. The chief spoke to him through the open window.
“Where’s this house, you little shit?”
Joaquim played along, just as the federals told him he should, acting as if he hadn’t spilled his guts about the chief and as if the chief wasn’t the prick who’d dropped him into all this shit in the first place.
Like everything else in Manaus, the assault team took a while to assemble. But when they got there they turned out to be surprisingly well-equipped. They also looked like people who knew what they were about. Silva was impressed.
The house, too, impressed him. It was reminiscent of something built in colonial times: thick walls, small windows, a red tile roof. It stood in the middle of a clearing, providing a clear field of fire on all sides. If defended, it would be a hard nut to crack. The federal cops stood well back and let the team get on with it.
They hit the main door in a frontal assault, blowing it off the hinges with a small explosive charge and tossing in some flash-bangs before they went in themselves. It was all over in less than a minute.
The leader of the assault team appeared in the doorway and motioned the others forward.
“Clear,” he said.
The federal cops crossed the threshold, dragging the surviving Almeida brother with them. It only took two minutes to confirm that the place was empty.
“Where did they go, Joaquim?” Silva said.
“How the fuck should I know? I told you, I only seen her once.” Arnaldo was already balling his fists when the punk added, “But her boat’s gone.”
“Boat?”
“Yeah, she had a big fucking boat tied up to that dock behind the house.”
“She might have taken her boat,” Silva said to the chief. “Have one of your men check with the navy. Maybe they can get us the registration number and a description.”
“If she isn’t really stupid,” the chief said, “she’s gonna paint over the number, maybe even paint the whole goddamned boat.”
“But maybe not yet,” Silva said. “She doesn’t know we’ve nailed Joaquim. She might just be out for a cruise on the river. Get your men out of sight in case she comes back.”
The chief turned and gave some orders to a guy with a little moustache and sweat stains under the arms of his shirt. The guy ran off toward the house, shouting instructions, being self-important.
“Then too,” Silva said, “maybe she didn’t take the boat at all. There are only two roads out of this town, right?”
“Wrong,” Pinto said. “There are three. You got one road that runs north, up to Roraima and on to Venezuela. You got another road on the other side of the river. That one runs from Careiro down to Porto Velho in Rondonia. The third one, the short one, is on this side of the river. It goes to Itacoatiara.”
“Okay, three roads. That’s it?”
“Christ, Silva, in case you hadn’t noticed, that’s the Amazon jungle out there.” The chief threw out his hand like he was grabbing a piece of it. “Three is pretty impressive, if you ask me.”
“The road to Itacoatiara, where’s it go from there?”
“Nowhere. But it’s a road. Anybody trying to get out of town could use it, then switch to a boat.”
“And they’d also need a boat to get to Careiro and go south, right?”
“Right.”
“So we have to cover the river.”
“Forget the fucking river. We only got three boats. We’ll never be able to stop everybody. You got any idea how much traffic there is, how many boats are out there?”
“A good reason not to try, right?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“I want people covering the airport as well.”
“We can’t go stopping every woman in a car, on a boat, or getting ready to board an airplane.”
“You don’t have to. You only have to stop one. I’ve got a picture of her. I’ll let you copy it. I want it back.”
“Where did you get a-”
Silva didn’t let him finish.
“She might be traveling in the company of a fifteen-year-old girl. I’ve got a picture of her too. You gonna get on board with this, or you want to hear from the mayor and the governor?”
The chief gritted his teeth.
“Give me the goddamned pictures,” he said.
Manaus’s chief crime-scene investigator was Caio Lefkowitz, but nobody called him Caio, only Lefkowitz. A paulista resident of the state of Sao Paulo-from Campinas, he had curly black hair, ears that stuck out like a chimpanzee’s, and thick eyeglasses. The glasses made him look like a studious monkey.
“Pleased to meet you, Chief Inspector.”
Unlike almost everyone else Silva had met in Manaus, Lefkowitz sounded like he meant it. They were standing in the front yard, watching the assault team pack up their gear. “Lefkowitz?” Silva said, rubbing his chin. “You have a brother who’s a federal cop?”
“Uh huh. Jaime. Two years older than I am. Works out of Rio de Janeiro.”
“I’ve heard good things about him,” Silva said.
“And I about you. What brings you to Manaus?”
“I was about to ask you the same question.”
“My wife,” Lefkowitz said, glumly. “She’s a biologist, loves poking around in the jungle, and I love her. Otherwise…”
“We get the picture,” Arnaldo said, and stuck out a meaty paw. “Arnaldo Nunes. This here’s Hector Costa. That punk over there is Joaquim Almeida, and he can go fuck himself.” “Hey,” Joaquim said. “How about that doctor, huh?”
Everybody ignored him.
“The ladies and gentlemen of the press will be here any minute,” Lefkowitz said.
“Merda,” Silva said.
“Yeah. I thought I’d warn you. Pinto called them just now. That’s why he’s scribbling away over there, working out some kind of eloquent statement. He’s a real hound for publicity, the chief is. Never misses an opportunity for an interview, and a murdered priest doesn’t come along every day.”
There was something about Lefkowitz that inspired Silva’s confidence. He made a snap decision.
“How about we go inside the house?” he said. “Just the two of us.”
“Sure.”
He and Lefkowitz started walking.
“You asked me what I was doing here,” Silva said, stopping when they were out of earshot, but still outside. He told Lefkowitz everything he hadn’t told the chief: about the missing girl, about the woman who’d been calling herself Carla Antunes, about the snuff videos. By the time he’d finished, the eyes behind Lefkowitz’s glasses were huge.
“So Carla Antunes is really Claudia Andrade,” he said shaking his head. “The chief’s gonna shit a brick.”
“No, he isn’t,” Silva said, “because you’re not going to tell him.”
“You’re going to keep Pinto in the dark?”
“You bet I am.”
“How come you decided to come clean with me?”
“Because I trust you to keep your mouth shut, because I sense you’re not a great fan of the chief-”
“You’re right, I’m not.”
“And because it will help you with your investigation. There are certain things you should look for.”
They started walking again, climbed over the remains of the front door, and entered the house. When they came to a room with a king-sized bed in the middle of the floor, Silva let his eyes roam over the ceiling and the walls. Both were white, but the walls were a shade lighter.
“Fresh paint,” Lefkowitz said.
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“We’ll find out for sure,” Lefkowitz said, “and we’ll also find out if there’s anything under it. How long will it take you to get me Claudia Andrade’s fingerprints?”
“A few hours, no more.”
Lefkowitz looked around him. He’d been sweating in the heat outside, and his glasses were slipping down his nose. He pushed them back up with his forefinger, ran a forearm across his brow, and started to roll up his sleeves.
“Good,” he said. “She must have left a few more around here somewhere. And, if she did, we’re gonna find them. First, though, let’s see if there’s any blood.”
Lefkowitz and his two assistants mixed and sprayed Luminol, closed the heavy curtains, and turned on a blue light. The wall, and patches of the floor, lit up like Copacabana on a Saturday night.
“I did a job in a favela once,” Lefkowitz said, looking at the glowing spots where blood had once splashed and pooled. “A whole family had been slaughtered: mother, father, and three kids. Drug thing. Father was a dealer, and he didn’t pay his suppliers. They killed the lot of them, threw the bodies in the river and scrubbed the place with a liquid detergent.” Lefkowitz turned toward him, his face eerie in the blue light. “This place is worse. There have been times when this room was swimming in blood.”
“How many?” Silva asked. “How many did she kill here?”
Lefkowitz blinked behind his thick lenses. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to tell you that, but I’ll try. First thing we’ll do is to sort the blood residue by type.”
“That the best you can do?”
“No. DNA testing is best I can do. But DNA analysis is expensive. The chief will never approve it.”
“Fuck the chief,” Silva said. “The federal government will pay.” “I like your style,” Lefkowitz said, “especially the fuck-the-chief part.”