“‘Friend’ is a stretch. More like a business associate. By the way, have you seen him around lately?”
“No.”
“Me neither. Funny. He hardly ever missed a Friday night. Anyway, the federals had a picture of him. They asked the Manaus PD to match it with a name.”
“And?”
“And they did, and it was Damiao. The clerk who handled it, some rookie, shot off a reply before checking with his boss. Asshole. Trying to show how efficient he was.”
“And then?”
“Chief Pinto heard about it. He knew Damiao did me the occasional favor, knew I wouldn’t appreciate having the federal police mucking around.”
Carla sipped her beer. She feigned unconcern, but he didn’t buy it. She was definitely acting.
“Pinto called in the clerk and reamed him,” he said, “told him to make himself scarce. Then he trashed the file, told the feds it had gone missing and the clerk had quit.”
Carla put down her glass so violently that it was a wonder it didn’t break.
“It sounds to me,” she said, “like there are at least two assholes in the Manaus PD, and one of them is Chief Pinto. Didn’t it occur to him that acting like that would bring the feds down on him like a swarm of hornets?”
“Apparently not. Anyway, the swarm turned out to be just one guy. He started asking questions about the exploitation of minors and all that kind of crap. He had authorizations from the mayor and the governor, and he wanted personal access to the archives. The chief said he’d be happy to help. The Fed said no, he’d do it himself, and he didn’t want any company. One of the chief’s guys peeped through a crack in the door while the fed was working. The fed had a bunch of photos, and he was comparing them to rap sheets from the archive.”
Carla’s pupils seemed to dilate. Her eyes hadn’t left his. Her mouth was slightly open.
“This federal cop,” she said, “what’s his name?”
The Goat rubbed his forehead.
“Armando something… or maybe Arlando something.” “Not Costa,” she said. “Not Hector Costa.”
The Goat shook his head.
“The chief told me, but I really don’t-”
“Silva?” she said. “Mario Silva?”
“Silva?”
Now, she’d surprised him.
“Silva?” he repeated. “Hell, no. Not him. Him, I woulda remembered. What makes you think a big shot like Silva would be interested in people like us? Unless, maybe, there’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Nonsense.”
“Is there?”
“What is this?” she said. “An inquisition?”
The Goat sat back in his chair and took another sip of whiskey.
“All right, Carla,” he said. “I don’t tell you my business, why should you tell me yours? But you’d better make goddamned sure that yours doesn’t interfere with mine. And if the feds pick you up, you’d better keep your mouth shut. You don’t say a word about me. Not a goddamned word, understand?”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Are you threatening me?” she asked.
The Goat drained his glass and stood up.
“Yeah,” he said. “I am.”
Chapter Sixteen
When the Goat left, she summoned Hans and Otto.
Hans Hauser and Otto Weil were descendants of Bavarian immigrants who’d settled in the southern state of Santa Catarina. Their ancestors’ reluctance to mix their blood with that of inferior races like the Portuguese, Spanish, and Italians who’d also populated the region resulted in inbreeding. Physically, the effect had been minimal. Both were splendid specimens of Teutonic manhood. Mentally, though, it was a different story. They were, moreover, as mean-spirited as they were stupid. They’d been the kind of children who’d beat up smaller kids on the playground, drowned stray cats, and pulled the wings off butterflies. Then they’d grown up and graduated to theft, rape, and murder.
Hans, being slightly more intelligent, was the leader of the pair. He had long blond hair and a moustache that made him look like a Viking. The hair and moustache turned heads on the street, even back home in Santa Catarina and especially in Manaus, where blond hair was rare.
Otto’s salient features (apart from the tattoos on his upper arms, one of which was a dagger dripping blood and the other a girl who’d wiggle her hips if he’d tighten his bicep in a certain way) were the bags under his eyes.
Claudia had never seen him without those dark circles. She wasn’t sure if they were there because Otto never got enough sleep, or whether they were simply part of his physiognomy. Distressed at having to stare into those dark pits every time she looked at him, she’d taken to buying him sunglasses. He kept losing them, one pair after the other.
They sat in front of her like a couple of Rottweilers expecting dinner while Claudia told them about the federal cop who was poking around in the police archives.
“I want you to follow him,” she said. “Make damned sure he doesn’t notice you.”
“He won’t,” Hans said. “We’re good at that.”
“What do you want us to do with him?” Otto said.
“I just told you.”
“I mean after we follow him,” he said.
“Take a camera,” she said. “Take photos. I want to know what that federal cop looks like.”
“You think he’s after us?” Hans said.
“Maybe.”
“Why maybe?”
She considered how much to tell them. After a long moment, she said, “Arie Schubski, my distributor in Amsterdam. The police got him.”
“Merda,” Hans said. “Somebody should go over there and shut that bastard up before he spills his guts.”
The implication was that the “somebody” should be Hans himself. Mostly, it was Otto who got to do the bag work, carrying tapes to the Netherlands and bringing the money back. Hans had been angling to be chosen for the next delivery, but a murder would do just as well. Claudia knew how his mind worked. He was already thinking about getting high in one of those coffeehouses and fucking a blond girl.
She shook her head.
“What Arie had to tell,” she said, “he’s already told. Besides, he didn’t know a hell of a lot. Not even my real name.”
“So what brought the federals to Manaus?”
“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” she said.
Apparently, it didn’t occur to Hans that she might be lying to him as well.
“I dunno,” Otto said. “Maybe we should just keep out of his way. Maybe lay low for a while.” Otto was the dumber one of the duo. He’d been caught more often. It had made him cautious.
“Let me do the thinking,” she said. “You just do what you’re told: follow the federal, make sure he doesn’t know he’s being followed, take photos.”
“You’re the boss,” Hans said.
“You’re goddamned right I am,” she said.
When Hans and Otto left, she sat down and contemplated her next move.
Now that she’d struck a deal for the girl, she was anxious to get started. It had been too long between videos, and she was beginning to feel restless. Restless wasn’t perhaps the right word, but it had been the word her uncle Ugo always used when he came to her in the night.
“I’m feeling restless,” he’d say. Then he’d ruffle up her nightgown. He always cried afterwards. She was only eleven at the time, and often she’d cried with him. Then he’d wipe away his tears, and hers, and tell her that she mustn’t ever tell anyone what they’d been doing, “because then they wouldn’t let us do it anymore.”
As if she cared. She didn’t care about sex then; she didn’t care about it now. And she didn’t cry anymore either. About anything.
The Goat’s description of her latest acquisition had intrigued her. She rather liked the idea of a girl who was a virgin and would fight to stay that way. Her customers were accustomed to seeing girls willingly submit to the sex, sometimes even get actively involved in it, before being surprised by the sudden turn of events. Now, she’d be able to offer them something different: a girl who struggled from the very beginning, a girl who’d be beaten bloody before she was penetrated.
She began thinking about a protagonist, the man who’d do the raping and the killing. One thing Arie Schubski had taught her, and he’d taught her a great deal in that single meeting of theirs, was that anyone shown on camera couldn’t be left alive.