“In Rio and right here in Jardim Tonato, Senhor Policeman, and don’t tell me you didn’t know that.”
“But I didn’t know that.”
“And didn’t know either, I suppose, that they kill people who help cops? That they’ll kill me if they find out you’re here?”
“No, I-”
“Should have left you right where you were. Stepped right in the shit this time, I did. Good and proper. Umm-hmm. Really put my foot in it. What’s your name?”
“Goncalves. Agente Goncalves. Federal police. And, at this moment, I don’t give a damn about the Comando Vermelho or their drug business. I’m not here because of them.”
“No? Then why are you here?” she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.
“He’s okay, ” Hector said, when he called his uncle at eleven the next morning to report on Babyface’s condition, “but he came out of it with a bump on his head the size of a walnut. I made him go to the hospital to have it looked at. They wanted to keep him there under observation, but he wouldn’t have it. Says he feels like a jerk for letting some lowlife punk get the drop on him like that.”
“I guess they didn’t find his badge.”
“Nope. Nor his gun either. He had it in the small of his back.”
“Babyface is one lucky boy. I expect he knows that.”
“He does.”
“Did we get anything out of it?”
“We did.”
Hector told him about Babyface’s benefactor, whose name was Samantha Cruzeiro, and how she’d turned out to be a friend of Clarice Portella, the woman they were looking for.
“Clarice,” he said, “has a younger sister who’s getting married. The two of them, Clarice and her husband, left yes-terday for the wedding. It’s way the hell up in Pernambuco. They’re supposed to be gone for two weeks.”
“Merda,” Silva said.
“From what Samantha told Babyface, Ernesto-that’s the husband-shares your sentiments. He can’t stand his wife’s family, and she had a hell of a time convincing him to shell out for the bus fare. Until the wedding came along-a some-what hasty affair as I understand-he had the money ear-marked for a down payment on a television set.”
“What’s he do for a living?”
“Works in construction.”
“And the woman?”
“A faixineira in Fazendinha, a different lady for every day of the week.”
“Fazendinha?”
“A luxury condominium right next to the favela.”
“Charming.”
“Big fence all around it, big houses on the inside. Babyface went there directly from the hospital.”
“Boy deserves a raise. Too bad there’s a salary freeze.”
“A freeze that doesn’t seem to apply to directors’ salaries.”
“Heard about that, did you?”
“It’s all over the office.”
“Here’s something to add fuel to the fire: Sampaio got it in exchange for a promise not to give a raise to anyone else.”
“Filho da puta.”
“One hundred percent. What else did Babyface find out?”
“The guards at the gate are all moonlighting cops. They keep a list of day workers and the people who employ them. Turns out all of the ladies Clarice works for knew about the wedding, and all of them agreed to give her time off. None of them could give him a contact address or a tele-phone number.”
“Not surprising. I can’t imagine any of them would call her for a chat.”
“Samantha didn’t have any contact information either. It wouldn’t have made any sense. She can’t write, and she doesn’t have a phone. You want us to keep asking around?”
“Probably a waste of time. Same thing applies to involv-ing the cops in Pernambuco.”
“Yeah. By the time you get anything out of those yokels, you’ll be long retired,” Hector said. “Hell, come to think of it, I’ll be retired. We’ll just have to wait until the Portellas get back.”
“I don’t think we have any choice. You left word for them to get in touch?”
“With Samantha, at the condominium gate, and with every woman Clarice works for. Babyface also slipped a note under the door of the Portellas’ shack.”
“How about that detective, Danilo? The guy who helped Tanaka bust the thug? You talk to him?”
“He’s dead.”
“He’s what?”
“Dead. The PCC killed him the night before last.”
The PCC, Primeiro Comando Capital, was another of Sao Paulo’s gangs, one that had its roots in prisons. Originally, they’d dealt exclusively with the interests of prisoners, lob-bying and threatening in an effort to get better food, more living space, less brutality from the guards.
They’d gone on to resolving grudges with the law.
There were now thousands of them, inside prisons and out. Over the past few years they’d killed almost a hundred cops and prison guards, shooting them down on the streets and even staging full-scale assaults on delegacias. Their weapons of choice were AK-47s and hand grenades, but they’d also been known to use light machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. It was another step toward turning Sao Paulo into the most dangerous urban environment on Earth.
“The PCC, huh?” Silva said. “Are we sure?”
“We’re sure. They got the guy who did it. Took him alive and he confessed. Seems Danilo killed his brother in a fire fight about a year and a half ago. I don’t think there’s any relationship between what happened to Danilo and what happened to Tanaka, unless someone in the PCC also had a grudge against Tanaka. But, if there was, the guy they nabbed doesn’t know anything about it.”
“Alright. So where are you going to take it from here?”
“I’m going to talk to Tanaka’s wife. Sergeant Lucas said she’s the one who wore the pants in the family. If that’s the case, and if Tanaka was up to something-”
“Which it sure as hell looks like he was.”
“Which it sure as hell looks like he was,” Hector repeated, “then there’s a good chance Senhora Tanaka knew about it. I figured I’d better bring a search warrant along just in case. I’d be over at her apartment right now if I wasn’t waiting for it. Soon as I have it in hand, I’ll be on my way.”
Chapter Twenty-two
In 1957, a young architect named Lucio Costa was given the go-ahead to start constructing Brasilia. He pro-jected his country’s new capital as a metropolis for the auto-mobile age, a place where roads and avenues flowed through tunnels and over viaducts, never once meeting at intersec-tions. The way he imagined it, there’d be five hundred thou-sand inhabitants and not a single traffic light.
Half a century later, the population of Brasilia was two and a half million, there were traffic lights galore, and the dream of free-flowing traffic was dead, suffocated under a cloud of gasoline and diesel fumes.
It took Silva forty-two minutes to cover the eight kilo-meters from his office to his home, a two-bedroom affair in a government-owned building. The apartment had been part of Costa’s original project and was considered ancient by Brasilia standards, but Silva liked the high ceilings and ample terrace.
His parking slot was close to the service elevator, so he went up that way, letting himself in by way of a laundry room that divided the kitchen from the maid’s quarters. The quar-ters were entirely occupied by shelves lined with books. Silva and his wife, Irene, didn’t maintain a full-time domestic servant.
They did, however, employ a faixineira. She invariably arrived after Silva had left for work, and left before he returned home. He was, therefore, surprised to find her sit-ting at the kitchen table.
He was even more surprised to find his wife completely sober. It was almost ten minutes to eight, and if Irene had been running true to form, she would have downed enough cachaca by then to slur her speech. As it was, there was only an empty coffee cup in front of her.
Silva kissed his wife, smiled at the faixineira, walked to the stove, and sniffed at the coffeepot. The coffee smelled fresh, but the pot was only lukewarm. He lit the gas.