Dying Gasp (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-eight

T
HERE WERE TWO CELL blocks in Manaus’s delegacia central: a larger one, with ten cells divided equally on either side of a concrete corridor, and a smaller one, with two. The smaller block was on the second floor and reserved for female prisoners. The female cells were depressing and damp, but they were five-star accommodations when compared with the cells down in the basement. There, an area originally designed to hold a maximum of forty prisoners held almost two hundred men. They had to sleep in shifts, because there wasn’t room for all of them to lie down at once.

The light, the little there was, came from five fluorescent tubes on the ceiling of the corridor. At one time, there’d been lights inside the cells as well, but after the bulbs had been smashed half a dozen times the warders had given up replacing them.

The prisoners were expected to clean their own cells, which they never did. The place was a dim paradise for vermin. The plumbing had long since given up the ghost, and the inmates were reduced to using buckets for human waste. The smell of unwashed bodies mingled with the rank odors of urine and excrement.

Arnaldo, to whom Pinto had been entrusted, pushed the chief through the door at the head of the corridor and followed along behind him, jangling a ring of keys as he went. The chief was still in uniform and his arrival was greeted by grim silence until the prisoners realized that his hands were cuffed behind his back. Then the jeering broke out.

“Who wants to share a cell with him?” Arnaldo said, taking a position in the center of the corridor, just out of reach of groping hands.

Everyone did, but one voice, deeper than the others, cut through the rest.

“Put that fresh piece of meat in here.”

The man who owned the voice stepped forward into the dim light. His shaved and tattooed head towered above the shoulders of every other man in his cell.

“Friend of the chief’s, are you?” Arnaldo said.

The man gripped the bars with hands the size of hams. His smile was pearly white against his dark skin.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Me and the chief, we go back a long way,”

“Get me out of here,” Pinto croaked.

“Give me a good reason why I should,” Arnaldo said.

“I’ll tell you everything.”

“That’s a good reason,” Arnaldo said.

W
HILE THE chief and Coimbra were giving their statements, and falling all over each other in an attempt to shift blame, Silva dispatched Gloria’s team to find and bring in the men Pinto had called just prior to his arrest.

When Sargento Carvalho and Tenente Jordão found out that the chief and Coimbra were cooperating, they entered into the spirit of the thing. They talked about the bribes being paid to the mayor and the governor. They talked about their involvement in the drug trade. They talked about the traffic in underage girls and confirmed that the felons on the list taken from Coimbra had been paying for protection. Silva went from interrogation room to interrogation room, letting the confessions ring like music in his ears.

There was only one false note, one area of dissonance: not a single member of the chorus had any information about the current whereabouts of the woman they’d known as Carla Antunes.

T
HE THREE federal cops went from the delegacia central to The Goat’s boate
.
By the time they got there, it was half an hour after sunrise.

Rosélia received them at the front door, wearing a nightgown and suppressing a yawn. Her hair was in disarray. There were circles under her eyes.

“I already told you,” she said. “I have no idea where he goes fishing. Somewhere on the river, that’s all I know. So why don’t the three of you get lost.”

Silva waved a paper under her nose.

“What’s that?” she said.

“A search warrant. Assemble the girls.”

She looked from the warrant back to him.

“You’re wasting your time,” she said. “They don’t know a damned thing.”

The girls all looked as disheveled as Rosélia did. Silva addressed them as a group.

“We’ve arrested Chief Pinto,” he said, “and some other cops along with him. They’re going to prison, and so is The Goat.”

“He’s lying,” Rosélia said, loud enough for even the girls in the back of the room to hear it.

“If any of you want to leave,” Silva continued, “you’re free to go. No one is going to follow you. No one is going to force you to come back.”

Silence.

Silva tried again.

“Who knows where I can find The Goat?”

More silence.

“The sooner I find him,” he said, “the sooner he’ll be in jail.”

One of the girls, olive-skinned and with a broken nose, looked like she was about to say something.

“You?” he said, pointing at her.

The other girls turned to look at her.

Rosélia didn’t look, she glared.

The girl pressed her lips firmly together and shook her head.

Silva sensed she didn’t believe him. She wanted to, but she didn’t.

The journalists he’d called hadn’t believed him either. They’d told him they’d have to send reporters to the delegacia central to check the story out. That had been forty-five minutes ago. In Manaus, even the media moved at a snail’s pace.

“It’ll be on the radio any time now,” Silva said, hoping it would. “Hector, see if that thing works.”

He pointed to the audio system on the bar. All you could pick up in Manaus were local stations, and Hector chose one at random. They were broadcasting an old Roberto Carlos tune.

“You might be worried about where to go,” Silva said, still addressing the girls. “There’s a hospice in the city run by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. I’ve spoken to them. They’ll give you a place to sleep, give you food, help anyone who wants to do something else with their lives.”

Not one of the girls met his eyes. They were all staring at the wall, or at the floor, or at Rosélia.

“When I leave here,” Silva said, “I’ll be taking Rosélia with me. You have nothing more to fear from her.”

Rosélia shot him a nervous glance.

As if on cue, Hector turned up the volume on the radio.

A breathless female voice replaced the music:

. . . were arrested at their homes in the early hours of this morning.
Formal charges have yet to be brought, but we’ve been informed
that Chief Pinto and his associates will be accused of racketeering,
extortion, and murder. The federal police . . .

The girls’ voices overwhelmed that of the news reader.

Hector lowered the volume.

The girls fell silent, and every face turned toward Silva. They were looking at him differently now. Some of them were smiling.

“This woman,” he said, pointing at Rosélia, “says she doesn’t know where The Goat is. I think she might be lying, but there’s nothing I can do about that. She has the right to remain silent. As for you girls, we’ll leave you alone for a few minutes to reflect upon what you want to do, whether you’d prefer to stay here, or try to return to your homes, or take advantage of the offer being made by the good sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. My men and I will be outside, waiting for your decisions.”

Rosélia suddenly realized what Silva was up to. “Take me with you,” she said.

Silva shook his head.

“I’m sure the girls will be grateful for your . . . advice.”

Rosélia froze. The girls moved in to encircle her. One of them picked up a heavy glass ashtray.

Silva led his companions to the door.

When they were outside, he said, “Two or three minutes will probably do it.”

Two or three minutes did.

T
HE GOAT was sunbathing when he heard the sound of the engines. Cautious, as always, he swept up his clothes and satellite telephone before retreating into the brush above the beach.

The boat that swung into view from behind a neighboring island was gray, and so were the uniforms of the half-dozen men he could see on deck. Two of them were holding machine pistols. The helmsman spotted The Goat’s boat and made a beeline toward it. When they were about fifty meters away, he lifted an electronic megaphone. There was a crash of static, and The Goat’s name rang out across the water.

“José Luis Ignácio Braga. Come out of the cabin with your hands up.”

The sailors started hanging out fenders. The naval patrol boat came alongside The Goat’s cruiser. The girls, as they’d been instructed to do, remained below in the cabin, but Osvaldo came up on deck. When he saw the weapons, he raised his hands. The Goat took another step backward into the concealing foliage, turned on his heel, and started running toward the inflatable he’d stashed on the other side of the island.

The Yamaha sixty-horsepower four-stroke had an electric starter. It was almost too much engine for the little boat. Almost.

The navy men must have heard the roar when The Goat pushed the engine to full throttle, but he was shielded by the island, so they couldn’t see him. And, at his top speed of almost seventy kilometers an hour, there wasn’t a chance in hell they’d be able to catch him.

BRASILIA

“
M
Y ADMINISTRATIVE assistant,” Malan said, “
Senhorita
Godoy.”

Silva wasn’t surprised that the deputado had left him cooling his heels for over thirty minutes, but he was surprised to find a woman in Malan’s inner sanctum. Senhorita Godoy was somewhere between fifty and sixty, a thin-faced individual in a dark suit, with a blouse buttoned up to her neck. “A pleasure, Senhorita,” Silva said.

The pleasure, apparently, wasn’t mutual. Senhorita Godoy said nothing at all. Her cold gray eyes squinted at Silva through a pair of rimless glasses. She had a small mouth and thin lips. The lips were pursed.

Malan’s expression, in contrast, was almost jovial. Silva recognized at once that it wasn’t so much his ultimatum that had secured him an appointment, as it was a desire on the part of the deputado to humiliate him. Malan kicked off their conversation with a vengeance.

“No use begging me to change my mind, Silva. It’s made up and someone of your limited talent and ability isn’t about to change it.”

“With all due respect, Deputado, I think we should limit this conversation to the two of us.”

Malan raised an eyebrow. “And I think not. I have no secrets from Senhorita Godoy. Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of her.”

Silva remembered her now. The Godoy woman was an important figure in Malan’s church, a lady bishop or some such. It was said that the deputado kept her around because his coreligionists believed that anyone with Senhorita Godoy at his side must truly be laboring in the vineyards of the Lord. She was the mistress of the moral high ground.

“As you wish,” Silva said.

He put his briefcase on his lap and opened it. “I have here,” he said, “a number of documents from the Dutch police. This one”—he removed a sheaf of papers and put it on Malan’s desk—“is the transcript of an interview with Frans Oosterbaan, an associate of an Amsterdam businessman named Arie Schubski. And this one”—he removed a second sheaf and put it alongside the first—“is a list of Senhor Schubski’s clients provided by the aforenamed Senhor Osterbaan. There’s one name on the list, one in particular, to which I’d like to draw your attention. He’s an individual who lives right here in Brasilia, one who regularly receives DVDs mailed to him from the Netherlands.”

While Silva had been speaking, Deputado Malan had been turning pale. Senhorita Godoy apparently hadn’t noticed. She was looking at Silva with a slightly bored expression, as if she was wishing he’d get to the point.

Deputado Malan’s next statement took her entirely by surprise. “Leave us,” he said.

She turned to look at him. “Are you addressing me?” she said, thin eyebrows climbing toward a frizzy hairline.

“I am,” he said.

Her pale skin turned red in embarrassment. She took in a deep breath, released it with an unladylike snort, and rose to her feet.

“Hurry up, hurry up,” Malan said.

“I’m not accustomed—”

She got no farther.

“For Christ’s sake, get out,” he said.

Gathering what dignity she could muster, Senhorita Godoy made for the door and slammed it behind her. Malan took his head in his hands and looked down at the desktop, massaging his temples with his fingertips.

“This could ruin me,” he said.

“It certainly could.”

The deputado took a deep breath and looked up. A tear of self-pity appeared at one corner of his left eye.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” he said, “but I can’t help myself. It’s an addiction, like alcohol or drugs.”

The tear started rolling down his cheek. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped it away.

“Like alcohol or drugs,” Silva repeated.

“So help me God. I’d never do anything like that myself. I just like to . . . watch it, that’s all. If I don’t buy that merda, someone else will. It’s not like I’m a one-man market, inciting those criminals to do what they do.”

Silva remained silent.

“The reason you’re here,” Malan said, “it’s money, isn’t it?”

“Partly,” Silva said.

“I knew it! You and your holier-than-thou attitude! Silva, the incorruptible cop! You have your price, just like everyone else. How much do you want?”

“For me? Nothing.”

“What?”

“The federal police’s budget allocation, Deputado. I not only want you to approve it as proposed, I want you to stand up in that committee of yours and fight for an increase of twenty percent.”

“I’m only the chairman. I only have one vote. I can’t guarantee—”

“Oh, I think you can, Deputado. I didn’t say fifty percent, I didn’t even say thirty percent. I’m a realist. Twenty percent will do us very nicely, and I’m sure you can get it.”

Malan’s tears had dried up, as if they never had been. This was something he understood. This was politics.

“Suppose I can. What else?”

“Stop demanding my resignation. Call my boss and tell him you were overwrought by your granddaughter’s murder, that you overreacted, that you want me kept on the case. Then tell the same thing to the press.”