Father Brouwer had come home.
Chapter Seventeen
Diana opened the door to her apartment and frowned. She took a step inside. There was tobacco smoke in the air, something strong, like-she sniffed again-yes, like a cheap cigar.
Lori didn't smoke. Neither did Diana, and they invited few people who did. They didn't even own an ashtray. The occasional visiting smoker was handed a water glass to use as a substitute and asked to go outside, onto the terrace, before lighting up.
Diana started to back out of the door, but someone gave her a push between the shoulder blades and sent her sprawling. She struck her head against the edge of the coffee table on the way down. Behind her she heard the sound of the door hitting the jamb like a trap slamming shut. She saw a tiny drop of blood fall onto the white carpet. She lifted her hand and touched her forehead. Wet.
A man with a scar on his left cheekbone, wearing the uniform of a major in the State Police, pulled her to her feet and hustled her into her home office. There was something strange about his grip. She glanced at the hand he'd wrapped around her arm. Gloves. The man was wearing latex gloves.
Colonel Emerson Ferraz, also wearing latex gloves, was tapping at the keyboard of her computer. He was wearing something else, too: a white apron, disposable and plastic, like the ones Diana had seen on medical examiners.
Lori was there, tied to a chair, gagged with what looked like a fragment of her own pantyhose. She'd been crying, and her mascara had run, staining her cheeks. Her legs were spread, and her skirt was bundled up around her waist, exposing strands of pubic hair.
"Oh, no," Diana said.
"Oh, yes," Ferraz said. His cigar was resting on a dinner plate. He picked it up and put it into his mouth. The tip glowed.
Diana was frightened, but she was also angry. "You didn't have to do that," she said, pointing at Lori. "I'm the one you came for."
"You've got to be joking," he said, expelling a cloud of smoke. "I wouldn't fuck you with my worst enemy's dick. Besides, Blondie here was just to pass the time until you got home. And she wasn't bad, for a dyke."
"You're an animal. Disgusting. A pig."
Her words seemed to make no impression on him at all. When he spoke again his voice was exactly the same as before: calm, detached, and very cold. "Did you really think you were going to get away with it, really think no one was going to tip me off?"
"Who was it?"
"You think I keep track of their names? I didn't even bother to negotiate. I gave the little bastard what he asked for: five hundred reais. He's a crackhead. I'll get it all back within a week. Okay, enough small talk. I haven't got all day."
He pointed at the computer. "Where are the backups?"
"Backups?"
"Copies, printouts, any duplication of this material in any form."
"There aren't any."
"Really?"
He put his cigar back onto the dinner plate. Next to the makeshift ashtray there were two other items he'd taken from their kitchen: a wooden cutting board and a small meat cleaver. Lori used the cleaver to make Chinese food. She kept it as sharp as a razor. Ferraz picked up the cleaver with one hand and gripped the board in the other. Then he got up from his chair, balanced the cutting board across Lori's thighs and splayed out the fingers of her right hand on the marbled surface. Lori's eyes rounded and seemed to enlarge. She looked at her hand, then at Diana, making a silent appeal.
Ferraz raised the cleaver and held it poised in the air. "No, don't-"
Diana stopped short as Ferraz slammed the cleaver into the board, severing Lori's index finger. Blood gushed from the open wound and would have spattered his clothing if he hadn't been wearing the apron. Lori gurgled through the gag and then, mercifully, she fainted.
Ferraz looked down and frowned when he didn't see the finger. Not relinquishing his hold on the cleaver, he dropped to his hands and knees and finally found what he was looking for behind one of the legs of the desk. He picked it up and held the bloody end in front of Diana's nose.
Diana felt a wave of nausea. The other cop was still holding her right arm. She lifted her left hand and covered her mouth.
"You vomit on me," Ferraz said, "and I'll beat the shit out of you."
She turned her head and let it go. Ferraz took a quick step backward to protect his shoes. When Diana's spasms had passed he said, "Every time I don't get an answer, I'm going to cut off another finger. If I run out of fingers, I'll move to her toes. If I think you're lying, I'll take off a hand. If I still think you're lying, I'll take off another hand. Do we understand each other?"
He threw Lori's finger aside as if he was tossing away the stub of his cigar.
Diana nodded. Her nostrils were filled with the sour smell of her own vomit and the steely odor of Lori's blood.
"Now, who else has seen, or heard, that interview?" He pointed to the screen of the computer.
"Which? Which interview?"
"The one with Pipoca."
"No one."
He looked upward and sighed, as if asking for the blessing of patience. Then he turned around and stretched out Lori's middle finger.
"Sto " P.
But he didn't. This time, he held on to the newly severed finger and dangled it in front of her nose.
"No one," Diana said desperately. "No one else. Honest to God, no one but me. I didn't even tell Lori."
Ferraz adjusted the cutting board and reached for Lori's ring finger. Lori was wearing her Russian wedding ring, the companion piece to Diana's own. He slipped it off, examined it, and put it into his pocket. Lori didn't react. She was still unconscious.
"Where is the little bastard?"
Diana shook her head. She would have told him if she knew. He raised the cleaver.
She stared, transfixed, willing him to keep the cleaver where it was. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She struggled to speak.
The cleaver smacked into the board.
Diana gave a little squeak. Lori's blood was flowing freely from all of her stumps, dripping off the board, pooling on the parquet floor of the office.
"What's this kid Pipoca's real name?"
"Let me stop the bleeding."
"You want to help her? Talk fast. What's the kid's real name?"
"I don't know. Everybody just calls him Pipoca. Everybody."
Pipoca was a nickname, a street name. It meant popcorn. She'd thought it was funny when she heard it for the first time.
"Where does he live?"
"He wouldn't tell me."
"Who else knows?"
"Anton Brouwer. He's a priest who-"
"I know Brouwer. Who else?"
"No one."
"Why Brouwer?"
"He works with street kids. Tries to get them off drugs, find places to live, get jobs. Pipoca talked to him first. Brouwer convinced him to talk to me."
"Those federal cops, how much do they know?"
"Nothing. I didn't tell them anything."
Ferraz gestured with the cleaver. "I swear," she said in a strangled voice. "I swear to God."
"What else do I need to know?"
"I took photos."
"You did what?"
It was his first sign of anger. She shrank away from him, spoke quickly.
"I used a digital camera so I didn't have to process the film. I worked without a flash. No one noticed me doing it, and no one's seen any of it. No one, except me."
"What's in the photos?"
"You. Your men. Distributing drugs. Taking money."
"Where's the material?"
"Here in the computer."
"Where else?"
"There's… there's a memory stick. It's in my safe-deposit box at the Itau bank, the one on Avenida Neves."
"And the interviews? The original tapes?"