“You think they could stay sober long enough to do this job?”
The chief nodded. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “You give me the twenty-five. I have a little talk with them. I tell them I’m gonna let them loose, but on one condition: they have to do a job for you.”
“And they’ll buy that?”
“In a heartbeat. I’ll tell them I get a cut. Being greedy bastards, they’ll relate to that.”
“How much do I offer?”
“Not too much.”
“How much?” she insisted.
The chief shrugged. “Best way to work it is this: You explain the situation and ask them to set a price. Don’t agree right away. You’re not going to pay them anyway.”
“I’m not?”
“No, you’re not. But you don’t want them getting suspicious. Keep it simple. Plan it for them, otherwise they’ll probably fuck it up.”
“And afterward?”
“Afterward, you kill them. The Almeidas are scum. They’re also broke, so there’s no other way I’m gonna earn money off them. And there’s no sense in letting them shoot their mouths off about this, or go back to being dangers to the good citizens of Manaus.”
“What good citizens?” Claudia said.
When the chief left, he was carrying a substantial part of her ready cash, twenty-five thousand Reais for the Almeida brothers and an additional five thousand for returning Marta Malan.
Two hours later, he dropped the two felons off at Claudia’s door. Joaquim was the elder of the two and the one who did all the talking. Luis sat and stared at Claudia out of a pair of thoroughly emotionless brown eyes. The eye color was about the only characteristic the two brothers shared, that and their willingness to kill people for money.
Joaquim was short, so short that he didn’t quite come up to Claudia’s chin. Luis, taller by a head, and with much broader shoulders, still had all his front teeth. Luis’s face was elongated and shriveled by some kind of a disease. He obviously hadn’t shaved in several days. The overall effect reminded Claudia of a jackfruit with hair.
Joaquim, in contrast, was clean-shaven and round-faced. The few front teeth he had left were stained with tobacco. He only showed them when he smiled, which wasn’t often, but he was smiling now, even after hearing that three of the people they were being asked to kill were federal cops.
Or maybe because of it. It wasn’t every day that somebody asked you to kill a federal cop. A “service” like that was worth a bundle.
“I’ll give you a group rate,” he said, “twelve thousand for all three of them.”
“Four thousand each,” Claudia said. “The cops might be worth that but a priest and a kid aren’t.”
“Wait a minute,” Joaquim said. “The chief didn’t say anything about a priest and a kid.”
“I’m saying it now,” she said. It had always been her intention to kill Father Vitorio and Lauro Tadesco as well, but Chief Pinto didn’t have to know that. If he did, he’d ask for more money. “A priest and a kid. How much?”
Joaquim ran a hand over his chin. “Three thousand sounds about right for a priest,” Joaquim said. “How old is the kid?”
“I don’t know. Eighteen? Nineteen, maybe. But he isn’t going to give you any trouble. I have the impression he’s rather naive.”
“Okay. A thousand for him. How much is that altogether?” “Sixteen thousand,” Claudia said. “I’ll give you thirteen.” “Make it fifteen and you got a deal,” Joaquim said.
“Fourteen, or you can go back to jail.”
Joaquim’s eyes hardened.
“Chief Pinto wants half,” he said. “So how much does that leave for us?”
“Seven,” Claudia said, “but since he doesn’t know about the priest and the kid, you can tell him I’m only paying you twelve. You give the chief six. That way you’ll walk away with eight.”
Joaquim might have been lousy at math, but the idea of screwing Chief Pinto obviously appealed to him.
“Done,” he said. “How do you want to do it?”
“We have to get them away somewhere. Not too far from town, but isolated enough not to attract any attention while you’re busy.”
Joaquim smiled. “I got just the place,” he said. “Little house off the main road. Dirt road to get to it. Brush and banana trees all around. Deserted.”
“Deserted?”
“Used to be owned by a couple of old farts named Mainardi, but they’re dead now.”
“All right. Now, do you know the favela of Sao Lazaro?”
“Yeah. That slum? What’s that got to do with the federals?”
“If you shut up and listen, I might tell you.” She waited for him to look suitably chastened, but it didn’t happen. He just kept staring at her out of those emotionless eyes of his.
“You go there,” she said. “You ask around until you find a school run by a priest by the name of Vitorio Barone.”
“Barone. That’s the priest you want dead?”
“That’s him. You want to write it down?”
“Uh… yeah. Maybe I’d better.”
She pushed a pad and a pencil across the table. He licked the point of the pencil and made a careful note.
“Okay,” he said. “Then what?”
“As soon as you find out where the school is, knock on some of the neighbors’ doors. Tell people you’re looking for a kid named Lauro Tadesco. And, before you ask, yeah, that’s the kid I want dead.”
“Wait.”
He wrote that name down too, pursing his lips as he spelled it out. “Okay. So, we find this Tadesco guy. How do we get him, and the priest, and the federals out to the Mainardi’s place?”
“You find a girl who works the streets, somebody who can tell a good story.”
“Shouldn’t be too difficult,” he said. “Most whores are pretty good liars. What story?”
“Pay attention,” Claudia said.
Chapter Twenty-one
Arnaldo’s cell phone rang while they were picking at their dinner, a fish stew larded with coconut milk and dende oil. Arnaldo put down his spoon to take the call, but he didn’t pick it up again after he hung up. He shoved the half-empty plate aside, put the phone back into his pocket, and braced his elbows on the table.
“The Goat’s back,” he said.
Silva stopped chewing. “Who says so?”
“Father Vitorio.”
“And how does he know?”
Arnaldo shrugged.
“He didn’t say. I didn’t ask.”
“Cheeky bastard,” Hector said, then added, “The Goat, I mean, not Father Vitorio. You want to go over there now?”
“Unless you gentlemen want to finish this first,” Silva said, pointing to the bowl in the middle of the table.
The three of them stood up.
T HE MUSIC in The Goat’s boate was loud, too loud: a Daniela Mercury axe tune, distorted by high volume and cheap speakers. The light was dim, the smell of perfume stronger than on Silva’s last visit. A tired-looking whore was shuffling around the dance floor with a customer. Three men were grouped together at a table. They were drinking beer and leering at the remaining merchandise, consisting of five brunettes, who’d probably been born that way, and one blonde, who definitely hadn’t. The Goat had them displayed with their backs to the wall, one girl to a table. The whores recognized the federal cops, and each of them found somewhere else to look.
The Goat might have noticed if he hadn’t been beaming at Silva and his companions, whom he took to be new customers. He continued beaming as they approached the bar. Silva took a seat in front of him.
“ Bem vindo,” The Goat said, raising his voice so Silva could hear him over the music.
“You the guy they call The Goat?” Silva asked.
“That’s me,” The Goat said, a gold incisor catching a pinpoint of light from the candle that stood between them.
Before Silva could produce his badge, something over his shoulder caught The Goat’s attention. Silva turned around to see what it was.
Roselia was standing in the doorway that led to the bedrooms making frantic signs to The Goat. She stopped when Silva caught sight of her, took a step backward and closed the door.