The Ways of Evil Men (7 page)

“What I think, Delegado, is that there might be some extenuating circumstances.”

“Like what? Self-defense?”

“Maybe.”

“No way.” He sighed. “Look, Senhorita Calmon, it was like this: Osvaldo’s place was packed last night. A dozen people saw Omar go out the door. The ones I spoke to are all willing to swear he was so drunk he could hardly put one foot in front of the other.”

“And the Indian? Did anyone see him?”

“Not until they found him next to the body.”

“Torres had the reputation of being quite a lady’s man, didn’t he?”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Who’s to say it wasn’t some jealous husband who killed him?”

“And then went and got the Indian, filled him with cachaça, covered him in blood and left him unconscious next to Omar’s body?”

“It’s possible, isn’t it?”

“Anything’s possible. It just isn’t probable.”

“Was Torres armed?”

“No, he wasn’t. And nobody in this town has ever seen him pick a fight with anybody, drunk or sober. So forget any claims of self-defense. This was aggression, pure and simple. And, besides, it looks like Torres was struck from behind.”

“What was he doing in the alley?”

“His fly was open, his pecker was out and he was facing the wall. He must have been taking a piss, smelled like it anyway. What else do you want to know?”

“When can I see him?”

“Omar? Anytime you like. He’s on a slab down at the doc’s.”

“I’m talking about Amati, Delegado.”

“Amati? That the savage?”

“That’s his name, yes, and he’s not a savage.”

“In my book, anybody who takes a machete to another man’s neck is a savage.”

“I agree with you. But in this case, I doubt that the savage was Amati.”

“Far as I know, he’s the only Indian in town.”

“I ask you again, when can I see him?”

“The doc says he expects him to wake up in four or five hours.”

“One o’clock this afternoon then?”

“One o’clock should do it. See you then.”

S
ILVA
,
BLEARY
-
EYED FROM AN
almost sleepless night, scanned the crowd in the arrival hall at Val de Cans Airport. Barbosa was nowhere in sight.

“Typical,” Arnaldo muttered.

Before Silva could reply someone tapped him on the shoulder. “Chief Inspector Silva?”

The tapper looked to be in his late twenties, was wearing a cheap suit, and had eyes that said
cop
.

“Yes, I’m Silva. This is Agent Nunes. Who are you?”

“I’m Sanches,” he said. “Agent at the Belem field office.”

They shook hands.

“Where’s Barbosa?” Arnaldo asked.

“Delegado Barbosa told me to tell you he was too busy to get away.”

Arnaldo lifted an eyebrow. “Told you to tell us, huh?”

“No one but a suspicious man would take it that way,” Sanches said.

“What way?” Arnaldo asked, innocently.

“The way you just took it.”

“Okay,” Arnaldo said. “You got me. I’m suspicious.”

Sanches grinned. “I figured you might be. I looked at you, and I said to myself, ‘Alex, that guy, Nunes, is one suspicious human being. He might even suspect that the delegado is sitting with his feet on his desk watching the game between Botafogo and Fluminense.’ Mind you, I’m not saying he is, simply that a guy like you might suspect it.”

“Knowing that the game to which you refer is being aired
as we speak,” Arnaldo said, “I might well suspect exactly that.”

“Nor am I saying,” Sanches went on, “that he instructed me to take you to the office the long way around, thereby assuring that the aforementioned game ends before you get there.”

“Agent Nunes and I are well acquainted with Delegado Barbosa,” Silva said. “We know how dedicated he is to his work.”

“
Exactly
how dedicated,” Arnaldo said.

“I’ve only known him for about eighteen months,” Sanches said.

“But it seems like longer, right?”

“Agent Nunes, you took the words right out of my mouth.”

“Delegado Barbosa often has that effect on people. Where’s the car?” Silva asked.

“This way. Do you gentlemen have luggage?”

“One bag each,” Silva said.

E
STEVAN
B
ARBOSA
had missed his calling. He was one of the worst cops Silva had ever known, but, had he chosen to be a thespian, he would have been in a class by himself.

They arrived to find his secretary painting her nails, a false note in his
mise-en-scène
, but the rest was masterful.

Files were everywhere: on the desk, the credenza, the windowsill, even the floor. Barbosa’s jacket had been tossed haphazardly over the back of his chair and his necktie was askew. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled back to reveal his hairy forearms. A lick of hair hung over his left eye, and a telephone was glued to his left ear. He was the very image of a man struggling with an overwhelming workload.

And he delivered his first line with perfect timing. “I’ve got a situation here,” he said. “I’ll have to call you back.” He slammed the telephone into its cradle, nodded to his visitors,
and snapped orders to his secretary. “Take the files off those chairs. Hold my calls. Get some coffee.”

Silva noted, with some pleasure, that Barbosa hadn’t been taking care of himself. He’d put on at least twenty kilos since the last time the Chief Inspector had seen him.

Arnaldo helped with the files, the secretary left to get the coffee, and Barbosa got right down to business, as any busy man would.

“We got a call from that Calmon woman.”

Silva frowned. “When?”

“About an hour ago,” Barbosa said. “Your cell phone went to voice mail, so she called here to make sure you got the message.”

“Which was?”

“That Indian? The one she wants you to talk to?”

“Yes?”

“He killed a man.”

Arnaldo, clearing away the last of the files to create sitting space, looked up at Silva. Silva kept his eyes fixed on Barbosa.

“
What?
When was this?”

“Last night. Slaughtered him with a machete.” Then, to Arnaldo, “Thanks.”

Silva sank into one of the chairs Arnaldo had cleared. “Who was the victim?”

Barbosa shrugged. “Some rich landowner. I didn’t catch the name.”

“Why?”

“Nobody knows for sure, but they think it must be revenge for what happened to his tribe.”

“What makes them so sure the Indian did it?”

“They found him dead drunk with a bloody machete in his hand, right next to the corpse.”

“Give Arnaldo the FUNAI woman’s number,” Silva said. “He’ll call while we talk.”

Barbosa sifted through the disordered paperwork on his desk, located a scrap with Jade’s number, and handed it to Arnaldo. Arnaldo took his cell phone out of his pocket and stepped out of the office.

When he was gone and they were alone, Silva said, “So you’re too busy to go to Azevedo, eh?”

Barbosa smiled. “You have no idea.”

“Actually, I think I do.”

The door opened and his secretary came in. There were three cups of coffee and three glasses of water on her tray. “Agent Nunes is outside making a call,” Barbosa said, pointing to the door. “Take him his.”

She nodded, put down two coffees, two waters, and left.

The interruption gave Silva time to get a rein on his temper. “Tell me about Azevedo,” he said.

Barbosa took an appreciative sip of his coffee. “The fishing is great.”

“I’m not into fishing.” Silva tried his own coffee. It didn’t surprise him to discover how good it was. Barbosa made a habit of treating himself well.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Barbosa said. “I love it, and I’m willing to put up with a little discomfort in order to do it. Work is something else. When I’m working, I set a lot of store by my creature comforts. If I had to go to Azevedo to work, I’d dread it. But when I go there to fish, I see it with different eyes.”

Silva wondered if he was being provocative or just insensitive and concluded it was the former, but he wasn’t about to give Barbosa the satisfaction of showing his irritation. “What else can you tell me about the place?”

“Named, I’m told, after Enrique Azevedo, who came up from Rio Grande do Sul and settled there.”

“Population?”

Barbosa scratched his chin. “Two thousand? Three? It’s growing pretty fast, but it’s still a fucking hole in the ground. Smack in the middle of the rainforest. Television and Internet only via satellite. Lots of poor people. A few rich ones,
fazendeiros
mostly, except for one businessman who’s got a finger in everything and owns half the town. Half a dozen bars, a couple of whores, one of everything else.”

“What do you call everything else?”

“One doctor, one lawyer, one delegado, one hotel. Like that.”

“Tell me about the delegado.”

“Friendly. A good fisherman. Big family.”

“Professionally, I mean.”

“I never worked with him. But I told him you’re coming, and he said he’ll do anything he can to help.”

Silva drained his cup, took in some coffee grounds that had been lurking at the bottom. He reached for the water, spooled it around in his mouth to get the grains out of his teeth.

Barbosa watched him doing it. “I should have warned you about that,” he said. “She boils the coffee in the water and then strains through a cloth, but the cloth has a loose weave, and—”

Silva cut him short. “What’s his name?”

“Borges.”

“Why didn’t he help?”

“The alleged crime took place on the reservation. Not his jurisdiction.”

“How about the mayor? Who is he?”

“His name is Hugo Toledo.”

“What do you know about him?”

Barbosa rubbed his lips with a forefinger, thought about it
before he spoke. “Son of one of the earliest settlers, has one of the larger
fazendas
. His daddy was the mayor before him. Let me see what else.” He scratched his head. “Oh, yeah, he hates Indians. Hell, they all do. Like I said, the town’s growing fast, but they all think it would grow faster without that reservation.”

“So if that last Indian were to be out of the way—”

“Toledo sure as hell wouldn’t be shedding any tears about it. But poison a whole tribe? Nah! I don’t think he’d go that far. Matter of fact, I don’t think any of them would. You want my opinion?”

“What is it?”

“You’re wasting your time. Either disease killed those people or another tribe did.”

“That’s not what the survivor says.”

“The survivor is a murderer. Why shouldn’t he be a liar as well?”

“I don’t exclude the possibility. Who else pulls weight in the town?”

“Paulo Cunha.”

“Who’s he?”

“The businessman I mentioned. He’s got a
fazenda
as well, but it isn’t one of the biggest.”

“Who owns the biggest?”

“I couldn’t tell you. Borges will be able to fill you in.”

“Okay. Who else might we have to deal with?”

Barbosa pursed his lips, unpursed them when the answer came to him. “The town doctor, a crotchety old bastard, name of Pinto. You’re not going to find it easy to get along with him.”

“I don’t have to. We’re bringing our own.”

“Rodrigues?”

“No. Someone else.”

“Wise move. Rodrigues is a pain in the ass.”

If Silva had shown any sign of agreement, Barbosa, being Barbosa, would undoubtedly play the comment right back to Doctor Rodrigues—and cite Silva as the source. The Chief Inspector already had enough problems with the woman, and judged it better, therefore, not to react to the remark at all.

“Who else?” he said.

“A lawyer by the name of Kassab, Renato Kassab. I only met him once, but he struck me as a real shyster. Then there’s the guy who owns the hotel—”

Barbosa stopped talking when the door opened. Arnaldo came in. “No luck,” he said. “It keeps going to voicemail.”

“Could be the cell phone tower is down,” Barbosa said. “It happened the last time I was there. It’s the highest thing in town, and it rains a lot, so it’s constantly getting hit by lightning.”

“No generator?” Arnaldo asked.

“Are you kidding? This is Azevedo we’re talking about. The town has outgrown its electrical net. The power is off at least a quarter of the time, and in the rainy season, it’s closer to half.”

“This isn’t the rainy season, is it?”

“No. You’re lucky. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t rain a lot though. It just rains
more
during the rainy season.”

“So,” Arnaldo said, “I don’t suppose we can count on the air-conditioning either?”

“Nope,” Barbosa said, blandly. “And when it comes to air-conditioners, there’s an additional problem.”

“Which is?”

“Fluctuations in the voltage. They get fried.”

Arnaldo took a deep breath. “What other delights await us?”

“Flies. Billions and billions. Beetles, too—as big as bars of soap, but they don’t bite like the flies do. They’re just scary.
And you don’t want to go wandering around in the rainforest. It’s full of snakes.”

All of Barbosa’s bad news was being delivered with a broad grin, but when he saw the way Arnaldo was looking at him, he tried to suppress it.

“Accommodation?” Silva said, to defuse the situation.

“Like I said, there’s only one hotel. It’s called the Grand, but it’s anything but.”

“Simple?”

“Let’s put it this way, if one of those tourist publications was handing out stars, it wouldn’t get any.”

“I can’t wait,” Arnaldo said.

Barbosa couldn’t resist a final dig. “You would if you knew what you were getting into.”

“How do we get there?” Silva said.

“You could rent a jeep. The road’s unpaved, so you don’t want any vehicle that isn’t four-wheel drive.”

“How far is it?”

“About seven hundred and fifty kilometers, and there isn’t much along the way, except for two gas stations. One’s about two hundred kilometers out, another about six hundred. No hotels. If you can’t make it in one go, which you probably can’t, you’ll have to sleep in your jeep.”

“How long is it likely to take?”

“If you’re lucky, between eighteen and twenty hours. But if you get heavy rainfall along the way, all bets are off. The road turns to mud, fifty centimeters deep in some places, and you can’t move in either direction. You just have to sit and wait until it firms up.”