The room's only furniture was a double bed with thin sheets, gray from many washings. Through an open door, Arnaldo could see the interior of a closet where a few metal hangers hung suspended from a crossbar. There was a rusty sink, but no bathroom. An aluminum ashtray was perched precariously on the windowsill. The place stank of leaky plumbing, mold and old cigarette smoke. There was no air-conditioning.
"Thirty reais," the kid said, sticking out his hand.
Arnaldo reached for his wallet and paid him. The kid put the money in his pocket and started to undress.
Arnaldo scanned the room. No mirror, so no two-way glass. Some holes in the wall, but the superficial ones showed plaster, and the deeper ones showed brick. A shade on the window, but it was pulled down. They weren't being watched.
The kid was down to his shorts now, and he was staring at Arnaldo.
"You can hang your stuff in the closet," he said.
"No."
"Suit yourself, then. Throw it on the floor for all I care. Or just drop your pants and I'll do you standing up."
"I'm not here for sex. I'm here for information."
The kid took an involuntary step backward. "What kind of information?" he asked suspiciously.
"I want to know about a kid who calls himself Pipoca. His real name is Souza."
The kid started scrambling for his clothes. "I don't know any Pipoca."
"No?"
"No. And no Edson Souza, neither."
The kid grabbed his sneakers and made a move for the door. Arnaldo got there first and pulled the key from the lock.
"Who said his name was Edson?" he said, softly.
"Caralho," the kid said, realizing his mistake. "Leave me alone. They know me here. All I got to do is scream."
"Go ahead," Arnaldo said.
"What?"
"Go ahead and scream. Let's see what happens."
The kid's eyes darted toward the window.
"Long way down," Arnaldo said, but he glanced that way anyway.
Which must have been what the kid wanted because suddenly there was a switchblade in his hand. Where he got it from was a mystery. The kid wasn't wearing anything but a pair of jockey shorts.
"Drop it," Arnaldo said.
But the kid didn't. Instead, he stretched out his arm and leaped forward, aiming the point at Arnaldo's gut.
He'd picked the wrong guy. Arnaldo was skilled in capoeira, the Brazilian martial art. In capoeira, blows are delivered by the feet and they're stronger than any punch. The agente tried to be as gentle as he could, but the art hadn't been developed to be gentle; it had been developed to maim and kill. The kid went flying head over heels and wound up in a heap in the corner. On the way, the knife flew out of his hand. Arnaldo retrieved it, snapped it closed and put it in his pocket.
"I'm a cop," he said.
The kid scrambled to his feet and backed up against the wall, as if Arnaldo had said, "I'm a murderer." He held his hands up in front of him, the palms toward Arnaldo, as if he was fending him off. He looked terrified.
"Look, kid… What's your name?"
The kid swallowed, twice, before he got it out: "Rambo."
Arnaldo wanted to smile, but didn't. "Okay, Rambo, listen up. I'm not from here. I'm not one of Ferraz's men. I'm a federal cop, and I come from Sao Paulo. Look."
He reached into his coat, saw the kid flinch when he caught sight of the shoulder holster, then relax when he pulled out his wallet, not his gun. He showed the kid his badge and warrant card. It didn't help. Rambo remained as skittish as a colt. Arnaldo could only think of one reason for him to be acting like that.
"You've been warned about us, right?"
The kid licked his lips.
"Told that anybody who talks to us is going to get hurt?"
The kid blinked.
"Killed?"
The kid looked at the door.
"Okay. Here's the way it's going to be. You're going to tell me what you know about Edson Souza-"
"No. I don't know anything."
"Shut up and listen. You're going to tell me what you know about Edson Souza, or I'm going downstairs and tell that asshole at the reception desk that you did."
"What?"
"I'm going to tell him I'm a cop, show him my badge and tell him you spilled your guts all over this room, tell him you told me everything I wanted to know. Then I'm going to question him, and when he refuses to talk, as he will, I'm going to beat the shit out of him."
"You can't. You can't tell him I told you anything. That would be a lie-"
"No shit? Now if, on the other hand, you tell me what I want to know I'm going to give you two hundred reais, and I'm going to walk out of here with a smile on my face just like somebody who got his dick satisfactorily sucked. I'm not going to like that, first, because I'm going to have to advance you the two hundred from my own pocket and, second-"
"They'll kill me."
"-and, second, because I really would like to beat the crap out of that tub of lard downstairs. Kill you? They'll kill you if they think you talked. Since when would they kill you for giving somebody a blowjob? Isn't that how you pay for the stuff they sell you? How old are you?"
"Sixteen."
"One more lie, just one more, and I'm on my way downstairs. Then, after I finish with that filho da puta, I'm going to find some other kid who'll tell me whatever I want to know. I won't bother to come back looking for you because within a day or two you're going to be dead. With two hundred reais, on the other hand, you could easily afford a bus ticket out of town. It's your choice."
He didn't expect the kid to tell him cops weren't supposed to do what he was doing, and the kid didn't. This kid had seen cops do much worse.
Rambo ran his hand through his hair, muttered something under his breath and finally met Arnaldo's eyes. "Give me the two hundred," he said.
Arnaldo handed it over. He was getting low on cash. He'd have to stop by an ATM.
"They're looking for him, too," the kid said, taking the money. He counted it, folded it and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans. Then he started putting them on.
"Who?"
"The cops. The State Police. Anybody who finds out where Pipoca is gets five hundred reais. Anybody who tells you guys anything gets a bullet in the back of the head."
"What do they want him for?"
"He owes them money. For dope."
"You know that for a fact?"
"No. But that's what it usually is. You stop buying, they beat you up; you don't pay them what you owe, they make a ham out of you."
"Where is he?"
"I don't know."
Arnaldo shook his head and stuck out his hand. "Give me the two hundred back," he said.
"Wait. Will you fucking wait for a second? Listen to me. Honest to God, I don't know. If I did, I would already have told them. Shit, man, they would have given me five hundred reais. You only gave me two hundred."
The kid had a point. Arnaldo dropped his hand. "Where's he from, this Pipoca?"
"Around here."
"What do you mean by `around here'?"
"Around here. Cascatas."
"Look, Rambo"-Arnaldo tried to keep the sarcasm out of voice when he used the kid's street name-"if I don't find Pipoca before your friends do, they're going to kill him."
"They're not my friends."
"And they're not mine, either. Give me some help here."
The kid thought about it. After a while, he said, "I heard him say he has a mother."
"Everybody's got a mother."
"A mother he visits. A mother he talks to. Somebody who cares about him."
The kid made it sound as if having someone who cared about you was a marvel, like it was the rarest thing in the world.
"Now we're getting somewhere. You got a name?"
Rambo didn't. And he didn't have anything else that would have helped, other than a vague memory that Pipoca seemed to be pretty familiar with a favela by the name of Consolacao.