Every Bitter Thing (4 page)

“It's not a routine. I'm not trying to trick you. I honestly want you to tell me what happened.”

Garcia began speaking in a rush. “You say you want the truth? All right, here's the truth: I wanted to patch it up between us. I'd tried everything else, so I threatened to kill myself, and—”

“Wait. You threatened to kill yourself?”

Garcia frowned. “You said you read the letters.”

“Not all. There were a few unopened.”

“A few? How many is a few?”

“Seven.”

“Seven. The last seven?”

Silva nodded.

Garcia stared past him. A tear pearled out of his left eye and ran down his cheek. He made no attempt to wipe it away.

“Yesterday,” he said, “I spent the day with a bottle. I got shitfaced. I passed out for a while, woke up, and started drinking again. Sometime around midnight, or maybe it was later, I heard banging around upstairs. His living room is … was … just above this one. I thought to myself,
He's with that bitch Gustavo Fernandez
.”

“One moment, Senhor Garcia,” Silva said. “You said you heard ‘banging around.' Did you hear a shot?”

“A shot? No.”

“You're sure?”

“Of course I'm sure. I know what a shot sounds like. There was no shot. Why do you want to know if there was a shot? What does a shot have to do with anything?”

“Who's Gustavo Fernandez?”

“Gustavo Fernandez is a whore. Gustavo Fernandez is a filthy, money-grubbing whore Juan met in a sauna.”

“A sauna?”

“In Miami. Gustavo is Cuban, one of those so-called exiles. Always complaining about how Che Guevara and the Castro brothers took their island away, but they wouldn't go back to it if you paid them.”

“And this Gustavo? He's here now? In Brasília?”

“I thought he was. He's been here twice before. Juan paid for his tickets both times. Business class, no less. The little bitch said he wouldn't fly tourist.”

“And now you think he's here again?”

“I assumed he was when I heard the noise.”

“You think Gustavo killed Juan?”

“How should I know?”

“I'm not asking you what you know, Senhor Garcia. I'm asking you what you
think
.”

“Then I think … not. Gustavo had a good thing going. He was in it for the money. Why should he kill a goose that was laying golden eggs for him?”

“Could Juan have done something to make Gustavo jealous?”

Garcia shook his head.

“Impossible. Gustavo didn't care about Juan. I couldn't get Juan to see that, but it's true.”

“All right, so you heard this banging around….”

“And it sounded like they were having a rough fuck on the carpet. I couldn't stand it. I was drunk. I went up there on an impulse.”

“Drunk,” Pereira repeated. “And angry too, I'll bet.”

“Angry too, I admit it. Being angry isn't a crime.”

“Murder is,” Pereira said.

“Goddamn it! I've already told you. I didn't kill him!”

“Senhor Garcia,” Silva said, “please.”

Garcia took a deep breath.

“I took the elevator. When it stopped on three—”

“Wait a minute. You took the elevator? For one floor?”

“Normally I'd walk up the stairs, but I was so drunk, I decided to take the elevator. As I got off, I heard the metal fire door to the stairwell slam shut. All the banging had stopped. I walked into the apartment—”

“You walked into the apartment? Are you telling me the door was open?”

“I used my key.”

“So the door was locked, as usual?”

“Not as usual. Juan likes to keep it on the dead bolt. He has a lot of art in there.”

“But this time it was only on the latch?”

“Yes.”

“As it would have been,” Silva suggested, “if an intruder had walked into the corridor and pulled it shut behind him.”

“Yes. Yes, that's right.”

“Please go on. You entered the apartment, and….”

“And at first, I didn't see anything. I called Juan's name. He didn't answer. I was on the way to his bedroom when I passed the couch and saw him … lying there. It … it was awful. Can you imagine my shock? My horror? Seeing someone you loved, seeing them like
that
?” Garcia raised a hand to his face. “His left eye was almost—”

“I saw it. What did you do then?”

“I panicked. I was afraid the criminal might still be there. I ran down here and locked myself in.”

“And then?”

“And then I made myself another drink to settle my nerves. And I got to thinking. That stairwell, it goes down to an exit at the back of the building. It's normally locked, but if it isn't, you can get out without being seen by the doorman. I got my courage up, went downstairs, and checked the door. Someone had broken the lock.”

Pereira told Vargas to go downstairs and examine the door.

“The night doorman works from midnight to eight,” Garcia continued. “He must have a day job, because he sleeps half the time. He sacks out on a couch in the lobby. You have to pound on the glass if you want to get in. I
thought
about waking him up, telling him about Juan, about the door.”

“But you didn't?”

Garcia hung his head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I knew he'd call the police. Then I'd have to explain the whole thing, my relationship with Juan, all of it. I knew the press would tear into me like a shoal of piranhas. I didn't want that.”

The penny dropped for Silva. He suddenly realized he had an answer to Sampaio's questions.

“So instead of calling the police, you called Jorge Rivas, Juan's father?”

Garcia nodded. “I called his mobile phone, his private number. He leaves it on, day and night. It's one of those satellite things, so he can be reached anywhere, anytime. He's an important man, a minister in the government.”

“We know.”

“I didn't think Jorge would forgive me if I called anyone else first. Jorge and I have been friends for a long time.”

“Good friends?”

Garcia paused before he answered. “What the hell. I might as well tell you. Jorge and I were … intimate. It started years ago. We went to boarding school together. We remained friends, even after he was married. He used to swing both ways, you see. Not me. I only like men. Anyway, he got me my job here at the embassy, back when he was the ambassador.”

“You work at the Venezuelan embassy?”

Garcia nodded. “I organize cultural events, parties, that sort of thing.”

“So you're the cultural attaché?”

“No. Not the cultural attaché. I just … organize parties and things.”

“And you stayed on after Jorge Rivas went back to Caracas?”

“Yes.”

“How did the current ambassador feel about that?”

Garcia shrugged. “He didn't like it very much, but what could he say? Jorge is his boss, and Jorge instructed him to keep me on.”

“And you wanted to stay because….”

“Because Juan wanted to stay. It's as simple as that.”

“Does Jorge Rivas know you've been intimate with his son?”

Garcia looked at his lap.

“No,” he said. “He doesn't even know Juan is … was gay.”

“All right,” Silva said. “So you spoke with Juan's father. What, exactly, did you tell him?”

“I told him I'd let myself into Juan's apartment.”

“He didn't find it unusual? You having a key?”

“He knows we take care of each other's plants whenever one of us is traveling. Juan goes to Miami a lot. He likes the nightlife there, the clubs on South Beach. And the saunas, too, although I didn't know
that
until … until Gustavo Fernandez came into our lives.”

“So you told the elder Rivas you let yourself in, and then….”

“I told him the same thing I told you, except I didn't say I was drunk, didn't say I thought I'd heard Fernandez and Juan fucking. I said I heard suspicious noises, thought it might be burglars, said I went up there, saw Juan's body, panicked, and came back here.”

“Did you tell him about the emergency exit, about the lock being broken?”

“Yes.”

“How did he take it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Within a very short time, Senhor Garcia, we're going to deal with a bereaved father who is also the foreign minister of your country. The case has political overtones. We, the police, are going to be under a great deal of pressure, and I want to be as prepared as I possibly can. Tell me, please, how Senhor Rivas reacted to the death of his son. Was he devastated? Angry? Hysterical? What?”

“He … he was none of those things.”

“What, then?”

“He was … offended.”

“Offended?”

“He took it as a personal affront,” Garcia said.

“Don't you think that's a strange way for a father to react?”

“Jorge isn't your average father. He has … how can I put this … a tendency to interpret everything in terms of himself.”

“Megalomania? Egotism?”

“I didn't use either of those words.”

“Tell me what he said.”

“I don't remember exactly, but it was something like didn't the killer realize who he was dealing with? And then,
How dare anyone do something like this to me?
”

Silva raised an eyebrow. “To
me
?”

Garcia gave the faintest of nods. “Jorge wasn't always as hard as that, but when he got to be an ambassador….”

“He got carried away by his own importance?”

Garcia bit his lip, looked out of the window, looked back at Silva. “In all fairness, neither man was fond of the other. Jorge used to call Juan
that little prick
and Juan referred to his father as
the old bastard
.”

“Nice family,” Pereira said.

“When you spoke to him,” Silva said, “did he give you any instructions?”

“He told me to call the police and report it.”

“Anything else?”

“He said he'd get here as soon as he could, said it wouldn't look good if he didn't come.”

“Let me get this straight,” Silva said. “He as much as told you he was coming for the sake of appearances?”

“I told you what he said. You can read into it what you like.”

“All right. You ignored his instructions to call the police. Why?”

“I wasn't ignoring them. I took a drink to fortify myself. Then I took another one. And I … fell asleep. I woke up this morning, looked out the window, and saw the police cars and the ambulance.”

“What time was this?”

“About half past nine.”

“What did you do then?”

“I drove to the airport to meet Jorge's flight. The Foreign Office already knew he was coming, gave him the VIP treatment, and drove him off to have coffee with the foreign minister. He knew I'd be waiting, so he sent someone with a message. I was to go home; he'd be here as soon as he could.”

“Here?”

“He owns this apartment. He owns the one upstairs as well. You don't have to tell him, do you? About Juan and me? It has nothing to do with the murder.”

“Doesn't it?” Pereira said.

“No, goddamn it! It doesn't. And he wouldn't want to hear it. These days, Jorge is what he chooses to call
reformed
. But he only uses that expression to me. For the rest of the world, he's never had a homosexual relationship in his life.”

“What kind of an attitude is that?” Pereira said. “I mean, like, who gives a shit these days?”

“Our president does. He'd never permit the presence of a gay man in his government. He'd consider it a national embarrassment.”

Vargas came back with his report. The lock on the exit door had been intentionally smashed. The news didn't impress Pereira. He was reaching for his handcuffs when Silva hustled him into the hallway.

Chapter Six

“I
WANT TO DISCUSS
this,” Silva said.

“What's to discuss?” Pereira said. “Who cares about some broken lock? I sure as hell don't. Garcia might have done that himself.” He started to turn back toward the living room. “I'm going to bust him.”

Silva gripped him by the arm. “Wait,” he said.

“Why?”

“What if you're wrong? What if he doesn't confess?”

“He'll confess. I'm gonna lean on him. When I'm done, he'll own up to it even if he didn't do it.”

“Walter, listen to me. As soon as you finger Garcia Sampaio will steal the ball and run with it. He'll take credit for solving the case.”

“Surprise, surprise. What else is new?”

“If Garcia is innocent, Sampaio will have to eat his words. It'll make him look like an idiot.”

“Garcia
isn't
innocent. And Sampaio
is
an idiot.”

“Yes, he is. But you don't want to give him cause to take offense.”

“I might give a shit if I reported to him. But I don't. Let go of my arm.”

Silva did, but he kept talking. “Sampaio has this thing he calls a favor bank. He does something for somebody, and they wind up owing him one. He can call in chips anytime he wants to and, believe me, Walter, if you incur his enmity, he'll find a way to call in the chips on
you
.”

“Filho da puta!” Pereira said, but now he was paying close attention.

“And how about your own boss, Meireles?” Silva said. “I hear he's angling to become secretary of public safety.”

“True. But Meireles is different.”

“Is he?”

“He's a real cop, for one thing.”

“Tolerant of honest mistakes, is he?” Silva said.

“I'm not making a mistake!” Pereira said.

“Keep your voice down, Walter. Let me give you an alternative scenario: What if this guy Gustavo and his friend Juan had a falling-out? What if Gustavo doesn't have an alibi? What if someone saw him and the victim together a short time before the murder?”

“That's all circumstantial bullshit.”

“And what do
you
have?”

“I got—”

“You've got letters and an established association. What you
haven't
got are the murder weapons. Rivas and Garcia were lovers. Latent prints and hair samples are going to be all over that apartment. They'll be useless as proof. And, anyway, Garcia has already told us he was there last night. Without solid forensic evidence, or an admission of guilt, your case won't hold water.”

“I'm gonna get an admission of guilt. I'm gonna get a full confession.”

“Garcia isn't some punk you can sweat until he says what you want him to say. He's connected.”

Pereira bit his lip. “You think he's got diplomatic immunity?”

“I don't know. But I
do
know he's a friend of the foreign minister of Venezuela. An
intimate
friend, as you just heard.”

“How long do you think that's going to last? When Juan's old man hears about Garcia's little game of hide-the-banana with his son, he'll—”

“You heard what Garcia said. No gays in The Clown's government. It's not much of a stretch from there to no
fathers
of gays in The Clown's government. You think Jorge Rivas is going to thank you for making his son's affair public?”

Pereira rubbed the stubble on his chin. “What's my alternative?” he said.

“Give me time,” Silva said, “to check our database.”

“What database?”

“The one we've got on violent crimes countrywide, the one your people are supposed to be contributing to.”

“Oh, that one. Right. We
do
contribute to it.”

“I'm glad to hear it. Not everybody does. Think about it, Walter. This murder is unusual in three ways: one, the bullet to the abdomen prior to the beating; two, the extreme violence of the beating; three, the absence of the murder weapons. Suppose we don't find the weapons, or suppose we find them and can't link them to Garcia. If there's one more murder,
just one
, that fulfils the other two conditions, and if Garcia can prove he was elsewhere when it happened, a case against him won't hold water. How many victims are gutshot and then beaten? How many corpses have you seen that suffered as much physical abuse as Juan's did?”

There was a soft knock on the door. Silva opened it.

“What is it, Safira?”

“Excuse me,” she said. “Senhor Jorge Rivas is here.”

Silva grimaced. “Already?”

“Sim, Senhor.”

“Let's go, Walter,” Silva said. “Think about what I said.”

“I'm thinking,” Pereira said. “Goddamn it, I'm thinking.”

I
N THE
living room, Rivas had his hand on the shoulder of a weeping Tomás Garcia and was studiously ignoring Detective Vargas. The young cop's cheap suit had classified him as a man of no importance. No importance, at least, to the Foreign Minister of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

The minister was a diminutive man, a fact about which he must have been sensitive, because he was wearing shoes that added about four centimeters to his height. His eyes were dry and clear, those of a man who'd learned to sleep comfortably on a first-class airline recliner, those of a man who'd done just that.

His striped dress shirt was starched and unwrinkled, certainly changed since his arrival. An Hermès tie, firmly knotted, was pulled up to the limits of his collar and held in place by a gold pin. Otherwise clad in a splendid example of the Italian suitmaker's art, he exuded an air that reminded Silva of someone else he knew: Nelson Sampaio. Rivas's first words added weight to that impression.

“Who's in charge here?”

“This is Delegado Walter Pereira,” Silva said, “head of Homicide here in Brasília.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Mario Silva, Chief Inspector for Criminal Matters, Federal Police.”

“Your boss went to the airport to meet my flight.”

“Did he, Senhor?”

“If he's an ass-licking shit called Sampaio, he did.”

“That's him,” Arnaldo said.

“I'll be sure to tell him you said that. Who the fuck are you?”

“Agent Haraldo Gonçalves, Senhor,” Arnaldo Nunes said without missing a beat. “Federal Police.”

“Two of you, huh? Two federals and”—he glanced back and forth between Vargas and Pereira—“two civils. Well, you're not stinting on the manpower, at least. What do the Federal Police have to do with this?”

Silva formulated his answer with care: “Consideration for your position, Senhor.”

“You know what it looks like to me? It looks to me like your ass-licking boss stuck his nose into my son's case so people would pay attention to
him
. He may have thought I didn't notice him at the arrival gate, but I did. When he wasn't fawning on one of his betters, he kept trying to stick his head into the shots so he could get on camera. When we got to the VIP lounge, away from the reporters, he button-holed me. Told me you people were going to crack this case in short order. Have you? Have you cracked the case?”

Silva looked at Pereira.

“What?” the Venezuelan said, shifting suspicious eyes from one to the other.

“No, Senhor,” Pereira said at last. “We haven't yet cracked the case.”

“Well, what are you doing hanging around here? Get out and solve it. Leave me and my friend alone. We have grieving to do. Christ, I wish I was in Caracas where the cops know their jobs.”

Pereira flushed and opened his mouth for a sharp retort, but Silva surreptitiously stepped on his foot. “We're finished here, Senhor,” he said. “But before we move along …” Tomás Garcia, with the mien of a dog fearing a blow, took a step away from Rivas and lowered his head between his shoulders. “… I'd like to offer you my heartfelt sympathy on the death of your son.”

“Thank you,” Rivas said stiffly, then turned his back on the four cops and led Garcia off toward the bedrooms.

“H
OW THE
fuck do you do it?” Pereira whispered, when the door closed behind them.

“Do what?” Silva asked.

“Keep your patience with a blowhard like that.”

“We get a lot of practice,” Arnaldo said.

“Reminds me of that filho da puta, your boss.”

“Like I said. Practice.”

“All right, Mario,” Pereira said, “I still think you're wrong, but I'm gonna go along for the ride. What do you expect me to do while you're checking that database of yours?”

“Talk to the other doormen. Find out when Rivas came home for the last time. Find out if he was alone. Find out if he had any visitors. Continue looking for the murder weapon. Believe me, Walter, you have nothing to lose by playing it this way. You might even uncover something that will strengthen your case against Garcia.”

“Or absolve him completely,” Arnaldo said.

Pereira stuck out his jaw. “Somebody teach a course in ballbusting at that federal police academy of yours, Nunes?”

“You're looking at him,” Arnaldo said, exuding false modesty.

“Gustavo Fernandez,” Silva said, thinking aloud, “is a Cuban exile, probably an American citizen now. Either way, he would have needed a visa, which means we'll have a record of his address in Miami. I can get a friend, an American cop, to do a background check.”

“For all the good that's going to do,” Pereira said.

“Stop being so damned negative, Walter. We may just come up with something.”

“When pigs fly,” Pereira said.