Dying Gasp (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-four

“
L
OOK 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.

I
F 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.

L
IKE 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 Rondônia. 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.

M
ANAUS’S CHIEF crime-scene investigator was Caio Lefkowitz, but nobody called him Caio, only Lefkowitz. A
paulista
resident of the state of São 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.”

L
EFKOWITZ 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.”

Chapter Twenty-five

M
ARTA’S MOUTH WAS DRY, and it wasn’t only because she was afraid. The handkerchief they’d stuffed into it was sucking up her saliva like a sponge.

It was obvious, now, what they were up to, as obvious as the tears streaming down her cheeks. Her captors would be thinking they were tears of fear, about which they’d be right, and tears of resignation, about which they’d be totally wrong. There was
no way
she was going to give in to rape that easily. She wasn’t some simple country girl from the backwaters of the Amazon. She was a Malan. She’d resist them every centimeter of the way. She’d punch, and kick, and scratch. If they took out the handkerchief, she’d sink her teeth into the animal’s ear. With luck, she’d get it clean off before he knocked her senseless.

C
LAUDIA BECKONED to Delfin.

“Here,” she said, and dropped a glittering thing into his palm.

“Put it in your mouth,” she said. “Keep it in your cheek.” Delfin stared at the little brass key, bright against his skin. “What’s it for?”

“The cuff on her ankle.”

“What about the—”

He would have said
cord I use to strangle her with
, but Claudia cut him off. The girl was right next to them, listening.

“You’re going use the one wrapped around her wrists,” she said. “It’s silk. Now, pay attention. I’m going to say ‘action’—”

“What?”

“Action,” she repeated. “I’m going to say the word ‘action,’ and when I do, you step into the shot—”

“What’s that mean, step into the shot?”

“You go over to her,” the woman said, “and you start cutting her clothes off.”

“With what?”

“With this.” The guy with the bags under his eyes handed him a knife. It was one of those commando things, sharp all the way down the front and halfway down the back.

“Last thing you do with it,” she said, “you cut through the cord and free her hands. Just cut one loop. Unwind the rest. When you’re done with the knife, drop it on the floor. Otto here”—she tilted her head toward the guy with the bags under his eyes—“will pick it up, so she doesn’t get her hands on it. Can you remember all of this?”

“Sure,” he said. “You think I’m stupid?”

She blinked her eyes at him and paused for a beat before she went on. “Once you free her hands, she’ll probably try to scratch you. Don’t worry about it. We cut her nails. Just make sure she doesn’t poke out an eye.”

“Okay.”

“When her hands are free, hold her wrists, or sit on her, while you spit out the key and unlock the handcuffs. Make sure she never gets off that bunk. If she does, we have to start all over again.”

“Can we do that?” he said.

“Of course we can, but try to get it right the first time. Once I turn those lights on, it’s going to get very hot. None of us are going to enjoy being in here any longer than we have to.”

“Okay. So once I get the handcuffs off her ankle, what’s next?”

“You do what we discussed. Any questions?”

“No.”

“Good. Otto, give me that camera.”

The camera wasn’t one of those little dinky things Delfin had seen the tourists use. It was almost as long as the woman’s arm and had a pad on the bottom so she could rest it on her shoulder.

“Otto,” she said, “lights.”

Delfin was looking at the largest of them when it came to life. He looked away, but a blue spot persisted in his vision. It started to fade, but it was there when Claudia’s European client came down the companionway and settled into the bunk opposite him. And it was still there when she said “action.”

Q
UARTZ HALOGEN lamps are hot, and they seem hotter still when they’re switched on in a confined space. Twenty-two minutes into the recording, and despite the air-conditioning working flat out, the ambient temperature in the cabin was up to a hundred and eighteen degrees Fahrenheit, fully five degrees hotter than in the blazing sun.

The smells made their discomfort worse. The acrid smell of sweat. The steely smell of blood. The smells of excrement and urine.

Claudia held on long enough to get a shot of Delfin disemboweling Marta with the same knife he’d used to cut her clothes off—proof for any viewer that the girl was really dead—then she made a sudden dash for the deck.

She found a place in the shade under the awning, put the camera on one of the seats, and took a deep breath of the muggy air. It was heavy with the odor of rotting vegetation, but a damned sight more agreeable than the aromas down below.

The next person out of the cabin was Delfin, nude, one eye turning black, holding Marta’s panties against his ear to stanch the flow of blood.

“Bitch,” he said and sat down.

Claudia wrinkled her nose. She didn’t like having his sweating, filthy ass on her cushions. She made a mental note to have Otto scrub them clean after he’d flushed out the cabin.

Otto was already at it. Hans too. She could hear the splash of the hose, the trickle of water flowing into the bilge, the whir as the bilge pump kicked in. She leaned over the side and saw a pink stream gushing out of the hull.

Delfin was so dumb he still hadn’t tipped to the fact a European customer wouldn’t be down there in the cabin helping with the cleanup.

Hans came on deck, carrying Marta. He’d wrapped her corpse in a piece of black plastic sheeting.

“Still some pieces of her on the bunk,” he said. “I’ll have to shovel them into a bucket. Most are too big to wash into the bilge; they might clog the pump.”

Delfin blinked. It was the first time he’d heard the guy speak. Claudia envisioned wheels churning in his head as he tried to figure out how some Euro freak came to speak Portuguese with a Gaúcho accent. He opened his mouth, maybe to ask, shut it, opened it again.

“Who woulda thought a little package like her could be so much trouble?” he finally said.

“You gonna just sit there and spout deep thoughts,” Hans said, all pretense gone, “or you gonna help me get her into the river?”

“Help? Hell, no. I already did my part.”

“Help him,” Claudia said. The coaming around the cockpit was solid mahogany, and she didn’t want bullet holes in it.

“Fuck,” Delfin said, “Look what the bitch did to my ear.”

He uncovered his ear and pointed to the place where Marta had mangled it with her teeth.

“It’s stopped bleeding,” Claudia said. “Just leave it alone.”

He tried to assess the damage with his fingers.

“Leave it alone, I said.”

“What are you, a fucking doctor?” he said, sarcastically.

“As a matter of fact,” she said, “I am.”

“Yeah, right.”

By then, Hans had laid his burden on the foredeck and was grasping a length of chain.

“Go help him,” she said again.

Delfin gave her an exasperated look and mumbled something, but he got up and moved forward.

Claudia watched the little drama play out on the foredeck: Hans telling Delfin to hold up her body so he could get the length of chain under it, Delfin doing it, Hans whipping out his pistol and putting two quick ones into Delfin’s head.
Pam! Pam!

Down below, the sound of the cleanup continued unabated. Otto must have heard the shots, but he didn’t bother to stick his head out of the cabin.

Hans finished wrapping Marta and turned to Delfin. He’d already prepared a second length of chain, had it up there on the foredeck ready to use. He didn’t bother to wrap Delfin in plastic. The deck was fiberglass, easy to clean, and Otto would hose it down when he finished in the cabin.

Claudia rewound the tape, and started reviewing it in the viewfinder: no dropouts, a little jumpy in some places, a few lapses of focus, but all in all, a good job, different from all of the others because the girl fought like a wildcat. It lent a degree of piquancy to the work.

She hadn’t yet gotten to the point where Delfin was wrapping the silken cord around Marta’s neck when she heard a splash up near the bow. She stopped the playback and took the viewfinder away from her eye just in time to see Hans push Delfin’s body between two of the stanchions.

Another splash.

Hans came aft, toward the cockpit, discontent written on his face.

“I’m not gonna do this no more,” he said, “not unless we get to do her first. You’re a woman. You don’t know how it is, having to stand there, and watch it, and not get any. I woulda had her when she was still warm,” he said, “if you hadn’t told that fuck to open her belly.”

“Had to be done,” she said. “That’s what the customers want. Proof it isn’t faked.”

“Speaking of the fuck,” he said. “How about the money you gave him? The fuck locked it in the trunk of his car. You want to go back and get it?”

Claudia nodded.

“But, first, let’s make sure we haven’t had any visitors while we’ve been away. Joaquim and Luis are probably back at the house by now.”

Her cell phone was in a little compartment near the wheel. She pulled it out and dialed Joaquim’s number. Someone picked up on the third ring.

But it wasn’t Joaquim. Maybe a wrong number.

She hung up and tried again.

J
OAQUIM
A
LMEIDA’S cell phone rang for the second time. Silva glanced at the screen.

“Same caller,” he said to Joaquim and handed him the phone. “This time, you answer. If it’s Carla, you tell her no one showed up for your little party. If she asks if it’s safe to come back here, you say it is.”

Another ring.

“We gotta talk,” Joaquim said, “about what you’re gonna do for me if I cooperate.”

Another ring.

Arnaldo poked Joaquim’s ribs with his forefinger.

“Take the fucking call,” he said.

Joaquim winced and pushed the button.

“Yeah,” he said.

Silva grabbed Joaquim’s wrist and pulled the telephone a centimeter away from the thug’s ear.

“Joaquim?”

Silva had heard the voice twice before: on the recording made by the Dutch police and on the video showing the death and dismemberment of Andrea. The hairs rose on the back of his neck.

“It’s me,” Joaquim said.

“Your voice sounds strange. Anything wrong?”

“No. Nothing.”

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Joaquim?”

“Lie? Why would I lie?”

The woman had taken control of the conversation. Joaquim wasn’t up to wresting it back.

“Where’s that brother of yours?”

“He’s around here someplace.”

Silva and Arnaldo exchanged exasperated looks.

“Put him on,” the woman said.

Only then did Joaquim recognize his mistake. He started to stammer.

“I . . . well . . . he’s . . .”

Click.

She disconnected without even bothering to tell Joaquim he was a lying sonofabitch.

“
S
OME OF THEM COULD be broken. I’d need an X-ray to confirm it,” the doctor said, slipping off his stethoscope and dropping it into his bag.

It was an hour later. They’d taken Joaquim Almeida back to the Hotel Tropical. The concierge had summoned a physician.

“See,” Joaquim said, “I told you I needed a hospital.”

“Shut up,” Arnaldo said.

“On the other hand,” the doctor said, looking at Joaquim like he was something he’d found sticking to the bottom of his shoe, “fractured or bruised, the treatment’s the same. You can’t splint ribs. I’ll prescribe something for the pain.”

“Something strong,” Joaquim said. “Give me something really strong.”

Silva cut in. “Will you certify he can travel?” he asked.

“You promise to get this piece of trash out of Manaus,” the doctor said, “and I’ll sign anything you want.”

I
N DEATH, Father Vitorio Barone achieved the notoriety he’d coveted in life. The next morning,
Rede Mundo
led its eight o’clock news with the story of his murder.

The news anchor, an attractive brunette with an overbite, dished up the details with a shiver of delight. And she didn’t know the half of it. If the brunette had been aware that both a deputado’s granddaughter and Claudia Andrade were involved, she would have had, as Arnaldo put it, a triple orgasm right there on camera.

But she wasn’t aware, and Silva had no intention of enlightening her.

Chief Pinto, on the other hand, made a show of being totally forthcoming. He might not have known the whole story, but he knew how to make the best of what he had. His well-rehearsed sound bite went on for almost fifty seconds.

The chief described the priest’s grisly demise in graphic detail, told how one of the murderers had been shot dead by the cops and informed viewers the other had been captured. But he didn’t say
which
cops had done the shooting and the capturing.

When asked why the priest was at the Mainardi home in the first place, Pinto frankly admitted that he didn’t know. And as to Lauro Tadesco’s role in the affair, that was still under investigation.

The chief’s performance was followed by a series of reactions to the murder.

A spokesman for the National Association of Bishops said Father Vitorio’s death was a tragic loss and so forth and so on, the usual
nil nisi bonum
.

This was followed by a montage of comments from some of Father Vitorio’s former students, none of whom seemed to have acquired a turn-the-other-cheek attitude from associating with their former mentor, and all of whom expressed satisfaction that at least one of the killers had paid with his life.