“‘Mind if I ask you a question?’
“The geezer turns around. ‘What?’
“‘Did you pay for that seat?’
“‘I did,’ the geezer says, ‘I bought it for my beloved wife of fifty-eight years.’
“‘And?’
“‘She died.’
“‘Gee, I’m sorry to hear that, but, um… this is the World Cup, after all. Surely, you’ve got some relative, or maybe a friend, you could have offered it to?’
“‘I do,’ the geezer says. ‘I’ve got a lot of relatives, and I’ve got a lot of friends, and one after the other, I offered it to every last one of them.’
“‘And no takers?’
“‘Nope.’
“‘That’s amazing.’
“‘I thought so too,’ the geezer says. ‘As a matter of fact, I thought it was downright crazy. Can you imagine? They all decided to go to her funeral instead.’”
Silva was till chuckling when they reached Tico Santos’s front door. Somewhat to his surprise, the Artist answered the door himself.
“Which one of you is Chief Inspector Silva?” he said.
“I’m Silva. This is Agent Nunes.”
“Thanks for coming,” Tico said, as if he’d issued an invitation. “The living room’s this way.” He pointed with his chin. “Follow me.”
When Tico turned his back, Arnaldo whispered into Silva’s ear, “ Football giant, my ass.”
Tico was a head shorter than Arnaldo and probably fifty kilograms lighter.
“They mean it figuratively,” Silva said.
Tico heard him say something, but it was clear he hadn’t understood what it was. Without stopping, he spoke over his shoulder, answering a question Silva hadn’t asked.
“Maybe an hour ago,” he said. “I hired a private plane to get here.”
He didn’t bother to explain where he’d come from; he assumed Silva would know. And Silva did. Tico had been in Curitiba, in training, with the rest of the Brazilian team.
They entered a space about the size of a small ballroom. The far wall was windows, nothing but windows, floor to ceiling. Beyond them, a thousand lights sparkled in the mansions sprinkled over the hills of Morumbi.
The view was nothing less than spectacular.
So was the woman who was sitting on one of the white leather couches. She didn’t bother to get up.
“Cintia Tadesco,” the Artist said, “my fiancee. Cintia, this is Chief Inspector Silva and… sorry, I forgot your name.”
“Agent Nunes.”
Side by side, Tico and his girlfriend were a study in contrasts. Both were in their mid-twenties, but it was there that any similarity stopped. One of Tico’s brown eyes was noticeably darker than the other. His irregularly-spaced teeth were crooked; his forehead was a little too short; his chin a little too long; his nose a little too wide.
Cintia, on the other hand, was stunningly beautiful, taller than her boyfriend, taller than most men, with a figure that would stop traffic on Avenida Paulista at rush hour. The word statuesque popped into Silva’s mind. He recalled some things his wife, Irene, an inveterate consumer of gossip magazines, had told him about Cintia.
Cintia was not just a beautiful face; she was a prima donna, generally disliked by the photographers and art directors with whom she spent her days. Tico followed her around like a lapdog. They were due to marry in the spring. A few of Tico’s friends suggested she might be a gold-digger. Those that did were no longer Tico’s friends.
She gave the cops an appraising look. “I hope,” she said, “you’ve got some good news.”
“I wish we did,” Silva said. “At the moment, all we’ve got is questions.”
“In that case,” she said, taking charge, “Let me say this: Tico has had a long day. There’s nothing more he can tell you. He’s tired. He’s stressed. He needs sleep. How about you come back tomorrow morning?”
“The first few hours are always crucial. We’ll try to take up as little of his time as possible. Yours, too, Senhorita Tadesco.”
“I’m not too tired,” the Artist said. “This is my mother we’re talking about. I want to do everything I can to help. Make yourselves comfortable.”
Cops one, Tadesco zero, Silva thought as he took a seat.
“Discounting the ransom,” he said. “Can you think of any reason why someone might have kidnapped your mother?”
“You don’t think five million dollars is reason enough?” Cintia said.
If she couldn’t get rid of them, she apparently intended to make her presence felt.
“It’s a good one, Senhorita Tadesco, and it may be the only one, but we shouldn’t fail to consider other possibilities.”
“Like what?”
“A group of Argentineans so focused on winning the Cup they kidnapped Senhora Santos to put Tico off his game.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“It probably is. How about this: someone thinks he has star quality, but Tico outshines him. He kidnaps Tico’s mother. Tico doesn’t play, and the kidnapper has a chance to be the big star of the Cup.”
Silva put as little faith in that possibility as he had in the first. He expected Cintia to reject it out of hand.
But she didn’t.
“Romario de Barros!” she said.
“Aw, come on, Cintia,” Tico said, “it’s not fair to accuse a guy just because-”
“Fair?” she said. “ Querido, this is Romario de Barros we’re talking about.”
Romario de Barros was the Corinthians’ principal striker, a brilliant player, just not as brilliant as Tico. The fans knew that, the other players knew that, everyone in Brazil knew that. Everyone except Romario de Barros. Truth be told, he probably knew it as well, he just didn’t want to admit it. Had it not been for the Artist, Romario would have been Brazil’s greatest star. As it was, he ran a distant second. For most people, what Romario insisted on calling the “rivalry” between himself and Tico was no more than a joke.
“Romario de Barros,” Silva said, “is a distinct possibility. We’ll look into it.”
“I think you’re gonna be wasting your time,” Tico said.
“Who cares about their time if it pisses Romario off?” Cintia said. “He’s caused you plenty of aggravation. It’s time you caused him some.” She yawned and looked at her gold Rolex. “How about you guys speed it up? It’s getting late.”
Not very concerned about our future mother-in-law, are we? Silva thought.
“And then,” he said, “we also have to consider the possibility that Senhora Santos’s abduction might have been an act of revenge.”
“Revenge?” Tico said.
“Revenge,” Silva said. “Do you know someone, anyone, who might want to punish you by kidnapping your mother?”
Tico rubbed his chin. Then he shook his head. “I can’t think of anybody.”
“How about Joaozinho Preto?” Arnaldo said.
“Never,” Tico said. “He’d never-”
“Who’s Joaozinho Preto?” Cintia said.
All the men looked at her.
“He was a striker for Palmeiras,” Silva said. “Tico broke his leg just before the national playoffs.”
“I still feel bad about that, but it was an accident. Ask anybody. I never even got a yellow card.”
“I don’t debate it. But the accident ruined Joaozinho’s career. He hasn’t played a day since.”
“He never said a word against me,” Tico said, “not then, not since. It was the fans that made a big issue of it, not him. And that photo they took at the time shocked a lot of people. Hell, it even shocked me. But we all take our chances. Joaozinho understood that.”
“So we can probably discount him. Nobody else you can think of?”
“No.”
“But they’re out there,” Cintia said. “You can count on that, querido, they’re out there. Lots of envious bastards who earn their pissy little hundred thousand Reais a year and are jealous of people like you and me.”
She gave his hand a supporting squeeze. He shot her a grateful look.