Hector had surreptitiously switched off his mobile phone while Aline was showing him the pictures. Now he turned it on. He intended to call his uncle, but the phone rang before he could hit the speed dial.
Haraldo Goncalves’s name was on the caller ID.
The conversation that ensued prompted Hector to order another cachaca. He was still sipping it when the phone rang once again.
“Why couldn’t I reach you?” Silva asked.
“I switched my phone off.”
“Why?”
Hector told him about his disturbing conversation with the bereaved mother.
Silva was silent for a moment. He knew what it meant to lose a child. Then he said, “Completely different MO.”
“And it happened in a jail,” Hector said. “No way it could be connected.”
“Maybe not. But the boy was in that cabin with the others, and that’s too much of a coincidence to ignore. Did you hear about the flight attendant, Bruna Nascimento?”
“Just now. Babyface called.”
“Call him back. Tell him to turn around, go to international arrivals and try to talk to the customs agents who nailed the kid.”
“How about Bittencourt? That delegado?”
“Take him yourself. He’s liable to pull rank with Goncalves. And don’t call him first. Surprise him.”
Hector looked at his watch. “Not even noon. I should catch him easy.”
“Who did the autopsy on the Arriaga boy?”
“I don’t know. I’ll find out.”
“From Gilda?”
“From Gilda. I’ll call her straightaway. That it?”
“No. One more thing: call Mara and ask her to see what she can find out about the kid’s father.”
“You think-”
“I don’t think anything. I’d just like to know.”
The guy behind the counter picked up Hector’s glass and gave him a questioning look. Hector shook his head and pointed at the coffee pot.
Chapter Seventeen
Luis Mansur’s first phone call from the Federal Police initially provoked curiosity, then irritation.
A woman who identified herself as Senhorita Mara Carta asked if he was the Luis Mansur who’d flown from Miami to Sao Paulo on the twenty-second of November.
“Yes,” he’d said. “What’s this all about?”
“That was on TAB flight 8101, is that correct?”
“Yes. Why do you want to know?”
“Are you acquainted with a man called Juan Rivas, or a man called Jonas Palhares, or a man called Victor Neves?”
“No. And why the fuck are you asking?”
She sniffed. “I’ve given you no cause to be offensive, Senhor Mansur. I’m just doing my job. Did you make the acquaintance of any of the other passengers on that flight?”
“What is this? The Spanish Inquisition?”
“No, Senhor, it’s the Federal Police, and I advise you to answer the question.”
“I never speak to people on airplanes.”
That was not, strictly speaking, true. The two times Mansur had been seated next to an attractive woman, he’d tried very hard to strike up a conversation.
“If you didn’t speak to anyone,” the voice on the line went on, “what did you do on that flight?”
This was really too much. Mansur was tempted to hang up on her, but it was the Federal Police.
“What does anybody do on a flight? I had a drink. I ate my dinner. I watched a movie. Then I put on a sleeping mask, stuck in some earplugs, and slept all the way to Sao Paulo.
Now, I want to know-”
She didn’t let him finish. “That’s all for the moment. Someone will be contacting you soon.”
She hung up, without so much as a thank you.
Bitch!
Mansur had interpreted “soon” as sometime within the coming days. But the second call came less than an hour later, and at a most inconvenient time. He was in the process of firing Jamile Bastos and had made it clear to Rosa, his secretary, that he was not to be disturbed. But he hadn’t locked the door to his office and that, in retrospect, proved to be a mistake.
Jamile possessed an ample bosom and very long legs. Mansur had made a play for her, and she’d brushed him off. He wasn’t about to let her get away with this simply because she showed up on time and was good at her job. She was a single mother with two children to feed. She had obligations. She should have known better.
He’d been expecting tears, got them, and was handing Jamile a third paper handkerchief when Rosa barged in without waiting for a response to her knock. Luis raised his chin and glared at her, expecting her to back out again. But she didn’t. Instead, she took a deep breath, closed the door behind her, and came over to whisper in his ear.
“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, Senhor Mansur, but I have a chief inspector from the Federal Police on the line. I told him you weren’t to be disturbed, but he insisted. He says it’s vital he speak to you.”
Mansur was about to tell his secretary that the federal cop could wait until he was damned good and ready to call him back. But at that moment, Jamile rose to her feet, called him a canalha, and stormed out, the tears still running down her cheeks. He’d been only seconds away from explaining, in detail, exactly what she had to do to keep her job, and he had a full erection. The cop’s timing couldn’t have been worse.
“What’s this cop’s name?” he snarled.
“Silva. Chief Inspector Silva.”
“Put him on,” Mansur said.
The first thing the Sao Paulo businessman said was, “What’s so goddamned important?”
Silva took the telephone away from his ear and looked at it, as if it was the instrument itself, and not the man, who had offended him.
“Am I speaking to Luis Mansur?”
“You are.”
“Senhor Mansur, I’m-”
“Chief Inspector Silva of the Federal Police. So my secretary told me. I repeat, what’s so goddamned important?”
Silva suppressed a brusque retort. “There is a chance, Senhor Mansur, that your life is in danger.”
“What?” Mansur said. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You traveled business class aboard TAB flight 8101 from Miami to Sao Paulo on the twenty-second of November, correct?”
“I already answered that question the last time you people called. What’s this ‘life in danger’ crap?”
“Someone has murdered five of the people who traveled with you.”
“Five people on the same plane?”
“Five people who were in the business-class cabin.”
Silva elected not to mention young Julio Arriaga. Five killings were, he thought, quite enough to make an impact; gauging by Mansur’s response, he was right.
“You’re shitting me,” Mansur said.
“I can assure you, Senhor Mansur, that I am not, as you put it, shitting you.”
“ Caralho. What happened to them?”
“They were shot and subsequently beaten to death.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Senhor Mansur?”
“I’m here. Who’s doing this and why?”
“We have, as yet, no idea. The murders took place in four different cities.”
“Then how can you be sure they’re connected?”
“The method of killing was the same, a single shot to the abdomen followed by beating with a blunt object. And the bullets were all fired from the same gun.”
“Who was killed?”
“The flight attendant, Bruna Nascimento.”
“I remember her all right. Arrogant bitch. Lousy service.
Who else?”
“Juan Rivas-”
“Sounds like a fucking Argentinean.”
“A Venezuelan, actually.”
“Almost as bad. Who else?”
“Victor Neves.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Jonas Palhares.”
“Him either.”
“And Paulo Cruz.”
“The professor? The writer? That Cruz?”
“That Cruz.”
“His funeral was in the paper. I didn’t know he was on the same plane.”