The Paradise Prophecy (15 page)
Read The Paradise Prophecy Online
Authors: Robert Browne
S
he was halfway through her muffin when a young man walked past the coffeehouse window. Twenty-five, slender but muscular, with raggedy brown hair and few days’ worth of stubble on his chin. Hollywood pretty, like so many of them were out here—and a predator, no doubt about it.
he was halfway through her muffin when a young man walked past the coffeehouse window. Twenty-five, slender but muscular, with raggedy brown hair and few days’ worth of stubble on his chin. Hollywood pretty, like so many of them were out here—and a predator, no doubt about it.
He knew this before the guy had even disappeared from view.
A moment later, the pretty boy was back, now looking in the window at the girl, then breaking into a smile, moving around to the door.
As he pulled it open, he caught her gaze and said, “Carrie?”
The girl seemed confused and a little flustered, then the guy was crossing to her table, giving her his best Jack Nicholson grin, but without the mischief or malevolent wit behind it.
“Carrie Whitman, right? You were in my Fundamentals of Scene class last year. We did that improv. The love scene, remember?”
The girl, looking slightly embarrassed, said, “I think you’ve got me mixed up with somebody else.”
“No, no, no,” he told her, then pulled out a chair and sat. “I’ll never forget that kiss you gave me. And you’re just as hot as you always were.”
The girl started to redden. “Seriously, I’m not this Carrie girl, and I’ve never taken an acting class in my life.”
The guy frowned. “You sure you aren’t pulling my chain? Because I swear to God you two could be . . .” He paused, looking at her more closely now. “Yeah, yeah, I guess you’re right. When I think about it, you’re definitely a lot hotter than she ever was.” He got to his feet, pushed the chair in. “Sorry for being such a douche.”
Oh, he was good.
“Don’t even worry about it,” the girl said.
The guy flashed her another smile, then nodded to her and headed out the door. She was already on the hook, her head turning, following him with her gaze as he once again walked past the window.
Then he stopped, turned. Came back inside.
He was looking at her knapsack now. “Did you just get into town?”
The girl was an innocent, but she wasn’t completely naive, and she hesitated before answering. “Yeah. Just a little while ago.”
He held out a hand to shake. “I’m Zack.”
She stared at it a moment, as if weighing a decision, then finally shook it. “Jenna.”
“You looking for a place to stay tonight?”
“Uhh . . .” Another moment of hesitation. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Me and a bunch of my friends are crashing at a place up in Burbank. There’s plenty of room, you wanna join us. It isn’t much, but it’s way better than any of the shitty-ass hotels around here.”
In the middle of all this, a woman wandered into the coffeehouse and ordered an Americano. Zack wasn’t exactly speaking at a conversational level, so her attention was caught before she’d even closed her wallet.
Zack was still in the middle of his pitch, the girl starting to come around, weakening at the prospect of not having to sleep in an alley or a junkie dive, when the woman turned and said, “Bobby, get the fuck out of here before I call the police.”
Her tone was flat, matter-of-fact, no-nonsense.
Zack wheeled around, annoyed by the interruption. But his demeanor changed the moment he realized who she was. Apparently, he and this woman had a history.
Jenna frowned at him. “I thought you said your name was Zack?”
“Middle name,” he said, and of course he was lying. Everyone in Hollywood was trying to reinvent themselves. “And I don’t like it when people call me Bobby.” He shot a look at the woman now.
The woman didn’t back down. “And I don’t like when you prey on girls who are nearly a decade younger than you are. I mean it, Bobby, go now or I really will call the police.”
She pulled out her cell phone to punctuate the threat. Zack looked as if he were about to get all hot and bothered, maybe go postal on her, but after a moment he merely glanced at the two women, muttered the word
bitch
and slinked out the door.
bitch
and slinked out the door.
Jenna looked dismayed. “Who was that guy?”
“Nobody you want to get involved with, dear. He hangs around the shelter sometimes, harassing the girls, and I’m always having to chase him away.”
“Shelter?”
“I run a homeless shelter down the street.” She glanced at Jenna’s knapsack. “We’ll probably be full up tonight, but it’ll be dark soon and if you need a place to stay, I’ll be happy to put a sleeping bag on my office floor.”
“Really?”
“Really. But you’ll have to decide before my Americano comes, because there are a lot of other girls out there who could use that space.”
A moment later the woman’s order was ready, and Jenna hefted her knapsack and went with her out the door.
He considered following them but didn’t think it was necessary. Jenna would be in capable hands tonight, and that was all that mattered. Zack the pretty boy was bound to be a complication—he had a feeling Jenna hadn’t seen the last of him—but he could handle that in due course.
As the two women disappeared from view, he could still hear the siren song of Jenna’s soul. Those high, sweet notes that told him he had finally found the one he’d been looking for for so many years.
What a shame she had to die.
14W
hat you are about to experience, senhors and senhoritas, is the Wild West of Sampa.”
hat you are about to experience, senhors and senhoritas, is the Wild West of Sampa.”
Callahan had crowded into the back of the ancient tour van, finding herself pressed up against a fat American tourist and his wife.
Their driver and tour guide was a middle-aged Brazilian woman who wore a wireless headset that piped her voice over speakers mounted throughout the van. She gave her spiel only in a thickly accented English, so if you didn’t speak or understand the language, you were shit out of luck.
“Keep your cameras ready,” she said. “This is a sight you will want to remember.”
Callahan had spent the previous afternoon and part of the morning reinterviewing witnesses—Gabriela Zuada’s crew, her bandmates, her security team—leaning on them with questions about the pop star’s potential enemies, especially those who might be involved in Satanic worship. But the only name that consistently came up was José de Souza. The drug lord Gabriela had once worked for.
Which only confirmed that, dangerous or not, the man needed to be questioned.
And Callahan would have to do the questioning.
So here she was, feeling the bump of the road beneath her as the van rolled along the highway at the edge of the city.
Off to their left were the beginnings of
Favela Paraisópolis,
a ramshackle shantytown, its multicolored, dilapidated metal-and-plywood shacks lining the highway, looking as if they might collapse at any moment.
Favela Paraisópolis,
a ramshackle shantytown, its multicolored, dilapidated metal-and-plywood shacks lining the highway, looking as if they might collapse at any moment.
The
favela
was located in the heart of the São Paulo suburb of Morumbi, one of the richest in Brazil. The contrast between unapologetic wealth and abject poverty was stark, visceral and depressing. Callahan wondered what it must be like to live in the shadow of such wealth, waking every morning and looking out at the glass-and-steel high-rises knowing they represented a world you would never be invited to enter.
favela
was located in the heart of the São Paulo suburb of Morumbi, one of the richest in Brazil. The contrast between unapologetic wealth and abject poverty was stark, visceral and depressing. Callahan wondered what it must be like to live in the shadow of such wealth, waking every morning and looking out at the glass-and-steel high-rises knowing they represented a world you would never be invited to enter.
She had to give Gabriela credit for managing to pull herself out of this rat hole. It couldn’t have been an easy thing to do.
The van made a turn, pulling onto a narrow, debris-strewn street. There was a dumping ground off to the right, mounds of rubble and trash piled several feet high, blocking the view of the highway.
They rolled past it and stopped as a pack of teenagers on battered mopeds buzzed by, shouting obscenities and flashing what Americans would think of as the “A-okay” sign. In Brazil, however, it meant something quite different.
Ahead, the street was teeming with
favelados
—residents of the
favela
—young and old alike, some parked in rickety metal chairs, others looking down onto the street from second-story windows, still others standing in front of crude storefronts, hawking candy and bottled drinks to passersby.
favelados
—residents of the
favela
—young and old alike, some parked in rickety metal chairs, others looking down onto the street from second-story windows, still others standing in front of crude storefronts, hawking candy and bottled drinks to passersby.
Two boys, who couldn’t have been more than nine or ten, stood near an open doorway, passing a joint between them in blatant disregard of authority. Assuming there
was
any around here.
was
any around here.
Laundry hung from windowsills. Bundles of frayed electrical and telephone lines were strung between the buildings, crisscrossing the sky above the street like multicolored spiderwebs. The street itself was littered with old car tires, chunks of loose cement and overflowing garbage cans, one of which had been overturned by a mangy dog, hunting for food.
Overall, it looked to Callahan like a war zone, and probably was from time to time.
The driver rolled slowly forward through it all, weaving past the debris, giving the passengers a taste of what it meant to live in a country that was ill-equipped to handle its poverty.
“Each year, São Paulo’s middle class becomes poorer and poorer,” she said, “and the
favelas
grow in response. Many
favelas
have their own schools and day-care centers, but most of the children grow up in the streets, and must learn to be quick-witted and stealthy if they are to survive. Some people call this the Devil’s playground.”
favelas
grow in response. Many
favelas
have their own schools and day-care centers, but most of the children grow up in the streets, and must learn to be quick-witted and stealthy if they are to survive. Some people call this the Devil’s playground.”
God’s dirty little secret, Callahan thought. The forgotten people, left to rot in their own waste, with little or no chance of ever moving beyond this hole they called home. They were born, grew up and died here—often violently—barely a blip on heaven’s radar screen.
The van’s driver would likely tell you that Barbosa Tours was helping these people by bringing visitors with cash to the slums. But the truth was, the tour companies who had come up with this hefty rationalization for their greed were nothing more than traffickers in human misery. These weren’t tourists, but voyeurs. And Callahan didn’t doubt that a large percentage of every dollar spent went into some fat cat’s pocket.
The van turned a corner onto a slightly wider but no less desolate street, then pulled to the side and stopped next to an open storefront. Inside, the store’s shelves were lined with cheap manufactured and home-crafted trinkets, along with a selection of local sweets like
beijinho de coco
,
brigadeiro
and
olhos de sogra
.
beijinho de coco
,
brigadeiro
and
olhos de sogra
.
The
favela
’s version of a tourist trap.
favela
’s version of a tourist trap.
The driver set the brake and stood, calling for the passengers to exit the van, explaining that they’d be traveling on foot now. Callahan filed out along with the others, making sure to fall in behind the Long Island duo, knowing that this was her time to slip away.
Across the street, to the left, was a narrow alleyway. As her fellow passengers marched dutifully into the trinket shop, she circled behind the van and crossed to the alley without a backwards glance.
She had carefully studied satellite images of the
favela
and had much of the layout committed to memory. Martinez and his crew had pinpointed what they believed to be de Souza’s compound, and she knew she was headed in that general direction.
favela
and had much of the layout committed to memory. Martinez and his crew had pinpointed what they believed to be de Souza’s compound, and she knew she was headed in that general direction.
As she emerged on the other side of the alley, however, she was confronted by an almost impenetrable maze of tenement-lined streets. The earthbound view was much more intimidating than the satellite version and a wrong turn might impede her progress.
Pulling her smartphone out of her backpack, she called up her GPS app and studied the route she’d mapped out earlier that morning. She had hoped to navigate the less busy streets, to lessen the chances of being watched, but as she made her way through the maze, she knew now that this was a practical impossibility. The place was packed with
favelados
. She already felt eyes on her and was sure that it wouldn’t be long before de Souza knew exactly what she was up to.
favelados
. She already felt eyes on her and was sure that it wouldn’t be long before de Souza knew exactly what she was up to.
She turned a corner, moving into another alley, then stopped short.
A shirtless old man lay in the middle of it, flies buzzing around his head. He wasn’t breathing, and Callahan couldn’t tell if he was the victim of violence or had simply collapsed and died.
Whatever the case, she didn’t like looking at him.
As she carefully stepped around him, something flickered at the periphery of her vision, and she whirled, catching only a glimpse of undefined movement, as if someone had just darted past the mouth of the alley.
Somebody following her?
The old man’s attacker?
Callahan wasn’t prone to paranoia, but this was the kind of place that nurtured it, and a sudden sense of unease washed over her. She knew how to handle herself in a fight, but she’d always taken the attitude that it was best to avoid one if at all possible.
Especially when she wasn’t functioning at her optimum level. Lack of sleep had a way of dulling your senses, slowing your responses. She’d managed a couple hours last night, but it hadn’t been enough to drive away the tremors.
If anything, they were getting worse.
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