Arnaldo nodded.
"A little over seven hours, out and back," he said, and bit into a pao frances heaped with guava jam.
Silva gestured for the hovering waiter to pour him coffee. "Black," he said.
Arnaldo raised an eyebrow. Silva normally took his coffee with milk.
"You look like hell," Arnaldo said.
"So do you."
"Yeah, but I look like hell all the time. Besides, I've been driving all night. What's your excuse?"
"Up most of the night."
"So what? I hear you old guys need less sleep."
Silva snorted. Arnaldo was only two years younger than he was and both of them knew it.
"Gaspar and that guy Euclides are dead," Hector said. "Shot. Both of them."
Arnaldo gave a low whistle. "Any suspects?"
"Not yet," Silva said and flicked his eyes in the fazen- deiro's direction. "How long has he been in here?"
"Not long. Maybe ten minutes." Arnaldo popped the last morsel of bread into his mouth and washed it down with some cafe com leite. "He came over here before he sat down. Asked me what the hell I was doing here."
"What did you tell him?"
"That I was having breakfast, which happens to be the truth. So then I asked him what the hell he was doing here."
"And?"
"He's waiting for Father Angelo. Said the old guy called him. Told him he had information about his son's murder. Wanted to meet him here," Arnaldo glanced at his watch, "at nine. Yep, there he is. Only about five minutes late."
Silva looked over his shoulder.
Angelo Monteiro, a lighted cigarette in hand, was standing in the doorway. He nodded and smiled at the three federal cops, then focused on Muniz.
The capangas stopped leaning against the wall and moved a little closer to their boss. Muniz pointed at the chair in front of him. Father Angelo crossed the room and took it. For a long moment, the two men stared at each other. Then the priest deliberately reached across the table and ground out his cigarette in what remained of Muniz's omelet.
Muniz reddened and started to say something, but Father Angelo didn't wait for him to finish. He leaned forward and spoke. The hand he'd been using to hold his cigarette left the table and crept down to his lap.
Suddenly, Muniz's face contorted in fury. His hand, too, dropped out of sight. Less than a second later there was a sharp report.
Father Angelo's chair tipped over backward, spilling him onto the floor. He clapped his hands to his abdomen. Muniz's hand came out from under the table, gripping a revolver. The fazendeiro sprang to his feet, put the still smoking muzzle up against the black fabric of the priest's cassock and fired again.
The sudden violence took all three of the federal cops by surprise.
Arnaldo was the first to react.
"Drop it," he said, drawing his Glock.
Both of Muniz's capangas reached for their pistols.
"Calma, garotos," their boss snapped, dropping his revolver and raising his hands.
The capangas froze, looking back and forth between Arnaldo and Muniz.
"Calma, I said," Muniz repeated. "Put the guns down."
The gunmen relaxed and lowered their weapons. It wasn't enough for Arnaldo. He went up to each man, relieved them of their pistols, and patted them down. Muniz watched it all with a confident smile, a smile that didn't change when Arnaldo went over and frisked him as well.
"Clean," Arnaldo said at last, and holstered his pistol.
Silva went to the prostrate man, knelt and placed two fingertips on the carotid artery. Father Angelo's skin was warm to the touch, but there was no pulse.
The room was filling with people.
Muniz took the opportunity to play to the crowd. "It was self-defense," he said, raising his voice. "Self-defense. He had a gun under the table."
"There's no gun, Senhor Muniz."
"What?"
"There's no gun," Silva repeated.
"No? Then what's he got in his hand?"
"A pack of cigarettes."
"Cigarettes?" Muniz said, mystified. "No. Look again. He said he was going to shoot me, said he had a gun."
"He said that, did he?"
"You're goddamned right he did." Muniz's surprise gave way to anger. "And that's not all he said. He said he killed my boy. Junior may not have amounted to much, but he was mine. Was I supposed to just
… why are you looking at me like that?"
"You just murdered an unarmed man, Senhor Muniz."
"Murdered? Like hell! I shot him in self-defense. I told you what he said. Are you calling me a liar?"
"No, Senhor Muniz, I'm not calling you anything. Cuff him, Arnaldo. Take him up to my suite."
"Cuff me? Cuff me? Don't you dare touch me, you fucking Neanderthal. I'll have your goddamned job."
Arnaldo walked up to the fazendeiro and kicked his ankles out from under him. Before Muniz had recovered from the shock, the big cop's knee was pressing on his kidneys, and Muniz's arms were being forced behind his back. As Arnaldo led him away, Silva started going through Father Angelo's pockets. He found a cigarette lighter (a cheap affair in pink plastic), a rosary, a few folded bills of low denomination, some small change, two more packs of cigarettes (one of them almost empty), and a single cartridge casing. He brought the casing close to his eyes for a better look. It was a. 22-caliber short. Other than that, there was nothing. No papers, no identification, no other personal effects. The priest's eyes were closed, his features composed, even content. There was no horror written there, no shock. He appeared to be sleeping.
Silva rose to his feet. As he did, someone touched his shoulder.
He turned and found himself looking into a pair of limpid gray eyes.
Merda! Silva thought.
His reaction had nothing to do with the eyes themselves or even the rest of what went with them: dark blonde hair, a flawless complexion, full, sensuous lips and a button nose.
No. His reaction had exclusively to do with the camera that some guy was poking over her left shoulder. There was a tiny red light on the front of that camera and the light was blinking.
"You were a witness to the shooting, weren't you Chief Inspector?" the blonde asked, holding a microphone up to his lips to capture his reply.
"No comment."
"Oh, come on," she said. "We were a couple of seconds too late, but you were right here in the room. You must have seen Senhor Muniz shoot the priest."
"No comment, Senhora…"
"Ferraz. And it's not senhora, it's senhorita, but you can call me Natalia."
"Ferraz. Any relation to-"
"The colonel? No. No relation. But, while we're at it, what's your comment about what happened to him?"
"Happened to him?"
"His murder."
Silva stared at her and blinked. She studied his expression.
"Hey, you didn't know about it, did you?"
"No," he said with a sigh, "I didn't."
She was going to make him look like an idiot. But then, to his surprise and relief, she let him off the hook.
"Cut it, Joao," she said to the cameraman.
The tiny red light gave a final blink and went out.
"To be fair," she said, "there's no reason why you should have known about the colonel. They only found him a little over an hour ago. Shot to death in his living room. Him and that adjutant of his, Major Palmas."
"How did you find out about it, Senhorita Ferraz?"
"Natalia," she said. And then, turning her gray eyes onto Hector, but still speaking to Silva, "Who's your friend?"
"Delegado Hector Costa," Hector said, before Silva could reply.
"Oh, yeah," she said, "you're the nephew, right?"
As Hector's smile faded, she turned back to Silva. "Heard it on the police scanner," she said. "His driver found the bodies."
"Whose driver?"
"The colonel's driver. He picks him up every morning. There's no sleep-in maid, so it's the driver who makes the colonel's coffee. He's got a key to the house. He called it in from the car radio. We picked it up. Got there just when everybody else did."