“I don’t need an exact number, just an estimate.”
“Well, you’re not gonna get one.”
“A dozen?”
“Maybe a dozen.”
“Young ones?”
“All young ones.”
“Which way did they go?”
She pointed toward the end of the alley, curved her wrist to indicate they’d taken a turn to the right, toward the river. “Merda,” Arnaldo said and went back to fetch his companions.
Chapter Nineteen
The goat took the binoculars from their case on the console, looped the strap over his neck and looked back at his floating dock. The men on it were standing in a compact group, shading their eyes and looking out at the water.
He was at least a kilometer away, and even with binoculars he couldn’t see the cops’ features. That made it damned near certain they couldn’t see him at all.
And besides, there were at least two dozen boats within sight of that dock. There was no way they could know which one was his.
His heartbeat began to slow as he assessed his options.
Federals were bad news. It wasn’t likely he’d be able to bribe them, and he couldn’t expect any help from Chief Pinto. Pinto wouldn’t want to do anything that might bring the wrath of the federal government down on his head. But without the girls, the federals didn’t have a case. All he had to do was to send them off to somewhere safe and keep them there until the fucking federals went back to Brasilia, or wherever the hell else they had come from. In a flash of inspiration, it occurred to him that he was sitting on the solution: the boat. It would be a little cramped, but it was the dry season. Some of them could sleep on deck, or at worst, in shifts, some girls sleeping by day and the others by night. The Anavilhanas Archipelago was less than a hundred kilometers away. There were more islands there than days in a year, lots of beaches, too, where the girls could escape the cramped quarters, go ashore and lie around on the sand.
He had plenty of fuel. All he had to do was stop off at one of those floating shops, lay in a supply of food, cigarettes, and cachaca, then keep the bow pointing upriver. Once he’d found a hiding place amid the islands, he could drop anchor and sit there until things blew over. They’d never find him.
Him? Hang on! Why the hell should he go himself? Without the girls, what could they prove? Why didn’t he just send Osvaldo?
He’d taken Osvaldo on the boat for two reasons: firstly, because the old bastard was a lousy liar and, secondly, because he knew far too much. It would be disastrous if the federals got a chance to grill him.
Osvaldo had been a fisherman. He knew the river. He’d jump at the chance. Who wouldn’t? Jesus. What was better than being anchored off a sandy beach with no work to do, plenty of cachaca, and a boatload of underage whores? The dumb fuck should pay him.
The Goat disembarked at a place where he could catch a passenger boat going toward Manaus. Osvaldo couldn’t wait to get away. When he was about fifty meters off, the motor going flat out, a broad smile creasing his face from ear to ear, he looked back over his shoulder and gave The Goat a happy wave.
It took him three hours to get home. He had to take a taxi from where the boat came in, the immense floating dock near the center of town. It had been built by the English nearly a century ago at the height of the rubber trade. The city fathers kept assuring everyone it was safe, but The Goat didn’t trust them. He expected that dock to sink sometime soon, and he was never entirely comfortable when he was on it.
Roselia started talking as soon as he came in the door. And the more she talked, the more worried The Goat became. When she’d finally spilled all of the details about the visit from the federal cops, The Goat promptly reached for the telephone and as promptly slammed it down again.
What am I thinking? The bastards might already be running a tap.
So he went outside, got into his truck, and drove around for a while, always with an eye on the rearview mirror. When he was absolutely certain that he wasn’t being followed, he went to Carla’s place.
The guy who answered his knock was one of Carla’s thugs, the one who looked like a Viking. He raised his eyebrows when he found The Goat on the other side of the door.
“You here to see Carla?”
“I’m sure as hell not here to see you,” The Goat snapped. “Get her.”
“You better watch your mouth,” the Viking said, but he stepped aside. Carla’s other capanga, the guy with the bags under his eyes, was standing just behind the door, putting a big pistol back into his shoulder holster.
While the Viking went to get Carla, the guy with the bags made small talk about the weather, which was stupid because the weather in Manaus was always the same: rain during the rainy season, less rain during the dry season, hot and humid all year long. But guys from the south were like that. They got four seasons a year down there, all variable, and when they had nothing else to talk about, they talked about the weather.
When the Viking came back, Carla was with him.
She found The Goat pacing back and forth between the door and the window.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“Hello, Carla,” The Goat said. “What makes you think something’s wrong?” He was eyeing Hans and Otto.
“There’s got to be something wrong, or you wouldn’t have shown up here unannounced,” she said. “And anything you’ve got to say you can say in front of them.”
“Aren’t you gonna offer me something?”
She led him to the kitchen. Hans and Otto trailed along behind. They’d been drinking coffee. Their cups were still on the table, still steaming.
“Coffee?” she said.
“You got something stronger?”
She took a bottle of cachaca out of a cupboard, a glass out of another, and put them both on the table.
“Take a seat,” she said.
Claudia and her capangas sat down as well. The Goat poured himself a drink, polished it off in one gulp and immediately refilled his glass.
“Before you have any more of that,” she said, tapping the bottle with the nail of her index finger, “maybe you should tell us why you’re here.”
So he did. He told them about waking up to the sound of a shot, the visit of the cops, how he’d sent Osvaldo upriver with the girls who were too young to practice their trade legally.
“Lucky bastard,” Otto said.
Claudia ignored the interjection.
“Sounds like you’re home free,” she said. “What are you worried about?”
“When I got back,” The Goat said, “Roselia told me they showed her a photo of that girl I sold you, the young one.”
“Marta?”
“Her. You have any idea who she is? She’s the granddaughter of that deputado Malan, that’s who.”
“Merda,” Claudia said.
“Merda is right. She told Roselia who her grandfather was, but Roselia didn’t believe her. I wouldn’t have either. What would the granddaughter of a deputado be doing sleeping on a beach, huh?”
So they’re not here for me after all, Claudia thought.
She felt a surge of relief. It made sense that a big-shot deputado like Malan could bend the federal police to his will, even get them to assign Silva, the best man they had, to lead the search for his granddaughter.
“Where is she?” The Goat asked, drawing Claudia away from her thoughts and back into the conversation.
Claudia raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t see that it’s any of your business,” she said. Then she added, as an afterthought, “You sure you weren’t followed?”
“Aha,” he said. “So she’s still here in the house?”
He tossed off his drink and poured another.
“I’d go easy on that stuff if I were you,” Claudia said.
“Yeah? Well, you’re not me. So she’s still here in the house?”
Claudia nodded. “Locked up in her room.”
“Those cops told Roselia they knew she’d been at my place, knew it.”