“Is this about the Lisboas?” she said. “The missing persons report we filed?”
“As a matter of fact, it is.”
“Why didn’t you say so? Come in.”
“Actually,” Babyface said, “I’d like you to come out. I’d like you to accompany me to our field office. I’ve got a car. I’ll bring you home afterward. It shouldn’t take more than an hour or so.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Ernesto said. “We just got home from a trip to Pernambuco. I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to sleep.”
“Shut up, Ernesto,” Clarice said. And then, to Babyface, “Federal police, you said? Why are you people getting involved?”
“It might turn out to be a kidnapping,” Babyface said. “It’s part of our mandate to investigate kidnappings.”
“Look, Agente. .”
“Goncalves.”
“Agente Goncalves, I’d like to help, I would. That’s why I went to the police in the first place, but I’ve told them everything I know. Not once, but twice. Read the report, talk to Delegado Tanaka, he’ll-”
“Delegado Tanaka’s dead.”
“What?”
“Delegado Tanaka is dead. Someone blew him up with a bomb. We think it might be related to what you told him.
But, what. . how?”
“Senhora Portella, I don’t want to stand here in your doorway, trying to explain the whole thing. I want you to come with me and meet a gentleman who’s flying in from Brasilia specifically to interview you and your husband.”
“From Brasilia?”
Babyface nodded.
“And this gentleman thinks it’s that important? To speak to us, I mean?”
“He does,” Babyface said. “We all do.”
Clarice turned and addressed her husband.
“Ernesto,” she said, “splash some cold water on your face and change that damned shirt.”
Silva and Hector were waiting for them in one of the con-ference rooms.
Ernesto had changed to a T-shirt that had Alberto Korda’s famous portrait of Che Guevara on the front, the one where Che is wearing a beret. The beret was black, and it looked just like the one Ernesto had on his head, red star and all.
Silva took one look at Ernesto’s shirt, and his eyes nar-rowed. It wasn’t because of Che’s politics. Silva felt politics were a man’s own business, even if the man in question was a goddamned Communist. No, politics weren’t the issue. Nationality was.
In 1978, an Argentinian tie with Brazil, and Argentinian victories over Poland and Peru, had knocked Brazil out of contention for the World Cup. Then, in 1990, Argentina had done it again, playing a defensive game and beating Brazil 1–0 in some of the least spectacular soccer ever.
Soccer in Brazil is a serious business, and World Cups are the most serious soccer of all. Silva knew his smoldering resentment of Argentinians and things Argentinian was big-oted, but he couldn’t help himself. His dislike was visceral.
“Senhora,” he said, taking Clarice’s hand and giving her a little bow. To Ernesto, he said, “You are aware, are you not, that that man”-he pointed to the portrait on the front of the shirt-“was an Argentinian?”
Ernesto, who disliked Argentinians quite as much as Silva did, and for much the same reasons, raised a belligerent jaw. “He was not,” he said.
“He was a Cuban and a hero of the revolution.”
“Argentinian,” Hector said.
“Argentinian,” Babyface said.
“Argentinian,” his wife said, “who went to Cuba to help Castro. Now shut up, Ernesto.”
Ernesto mumbled something about lies spread by capital-ist lackeys and lapsed into a sullen silence. It was with no input from him that Clarice recounted, at Silva’s request and for the third time in succession, the circumstances of the Lisboa family’s departure. Then she went on to tell them about her experience in the secondhand furniture shop. She didn’t go into detail, just glossed over everything to finish the story as soon as possible.
“And you told all of this to both Sergeant Lucas and Delegado Tanaka, is that right?” Silva said.
Clarice nodded.
“And I showed him the envelope, the one with the money.
By him, you mean Delegado Tanaka?”
“Yes, Delegado Tanaka.”
“And what did he do then?”
“He told us to bring him to the shop. He wanted to talk to the owner and see the furniture.”
“No goddamned consideration for the working man,” Ernesto said, speaking for the first time in about ten minutes, “none at all. It was a workday, we earn by the hour and we-
Shut up, Ernesto,” Clarice said.
If she hadn’t said it, Silva would have.
“So the three of you went to the shop?” he said.
“Yes, and Augusta’s armario was still there, and so were the table and chairs. The bedside tables, the ones with the Formica tops, had already been sold.”
“Do you recall the address of the shop?”
“I don’t think I ever knew it. But I can show you where it is.”
“For the second damned time,” Ernesto said.
Everyone ignored him.
“And the name of the owner?” Silva asked. “Do you remember that?”
She thought about that for a moment before shaking her head.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Alright, what did Delegado Tanaka do next?”
“He sent us away. It was almost as if. . as if. .”
“As if what, Senhora Portella?”
“Well,” she said, “I know this is going to sound silly, but. . as if he were trying to get rid of us.”
“And I had to take three buses to get to work instead of two, and when I got there the foreman told me it was too damned late, and that I could turn around and go home,” Ernesto said.
This time, Clarice paid some attention to her husband.
“Delegado Tanaka knew we were going to be late, but he didn’t offer to pay for the bus, or anything. Not like this young man here”-she pointed to Babyface-“who says he’s going to take us home after we’re done.”
“And he will,” Silva said. “Now, answer me this, and it’s very important. Do you recall anything about Delegado Tanaka’s conversation with the shop’s owner?”
“Everything,” she said. “We were right there. Until he sent us away, that is.”
“Tell me.”
“Delegado Tanaka asked the owner about the furniture, how he got it, and the owner said he bought it, and Delegado Tanaka asked him if he could prove it, and the owner said he could, that he paid by check and he got the canceled check back, and he even had a copy of a paper he’d given to the carioca.”
“Carioca? What carioca?”
“Didn’t I mention that? The man was a carioca.”
“How did you know?”
“If it talks like a carioca,” Ernesto said, “and if it has a big, fucking medallion from the Flamengo Futebol Club hanging from its neck on a gold chain, it is a carioca.”
Silva felt his heart pounding in his chest. The hairs on the back of his neck were starting to stand up.
“You saw this man? You saw the man who sold the furni-ture?”
“Don’t you get it?” Ernesto said. “He was the same guy who picked up the Lisboas, the same guy who offered Edmar the job. Jesus. You guys are slow on the uptake.”
“It must have been the same man,” Clarice said. “The shop owner said he had a mustache and black, oily hair, just like the man who came to fetch Edmar, Augusta, and their kids. Not only that, he gave the shop owner the same name he’d given us.”
“The same name?” Silva said.
And I’ll bet anything, he thought, that it’s the same name that Arnaldo gave me. Christ Jesus!
“When we first spoke to Delegado Tanaka,” Clarice went on, “he asked me what the man’s name was, and I couldn’t remember. Neither could Ernesto. But then the shop owner went and fetched the check, and he read it off. And I’ve been able to remember it ever since.”
“Roberto Ribeiro,” Silva said.
Hector and Babyface looked at Silva in surprise, but they knew better than to interrupt.