“Hell,” Hans said. “It’s dangerous just sitting here.”
He was right about that. By now, she must have heard the helicopter a half dozen times, flying around in circles up there like some demented insect. One of those times it had passed directly overhead. She’d sat on her bunk, her palms sweating, until the sound of the motor had vanished in the distance.
“Besides,” he said, “it isn’t like I’m leaving you without protection. Otto’s gonna be here.”
“Yeah,” Otto chipped in. “We got it covered. Tonight it’s him, tomorrow me. We decided.”
The boat was moored to two trees, in a minor tributary, some thirty kilometers east of the city. The location was decked over by a canopy of vegetation that made it invisible from the air.
“I don’t think you get it,” she said, looking from one to the other. “I don’t want either of you going anywhere.”
Hans reached for a bottle of cheap cologne. “Stop wasting your breath,” he said. “I’m going.”
“And I’m going tomorrow,” Otto said.
“I pay you to-”
Hans didn’t let her finish.
“You don’t pay us at all,” he snarled, catching her eye in the mirror. “Once you start dishing out the money, you can start giving orders again.”
“I told you,” she said. “I have the money. I just don’t want to run the risk of going to get it. I promise-”
“Your promise,” Hans snarled, “is the only reason we’re still here.”
He splashed some aftershave into one armpit of his shirt. The stuff smelled like cloves.
“You could at least make an attempt to change your appearance,” she insisted. “Cut your hair. Shave off that moustache.”
Hans splashed the other armpit.
“I like my moustache,” he said.
And he left.
The hull heeled and began to rock as someone climbed aboard the boat. Claudia awoke with a start. Footsteps sounded on the deck overhead. She grabbed her pistol and pointed it at the door.
“Who’s there?” she said, when the footsteps reached the main cabin.
“Who the fuck do you think?”
Hans’s voice. He sounded drunk.
She glanced at her watch. It was six-thirty in the morning, time to get up. Claudia had always been an early riser. She climbed out of bed and unlocked the door to her cabin. There he was, standing in the saloon, smelling of cachaca, staring at her out of a pair of bloodshot eyes. His hat was turned around, the visor projecting over the back of his neck.
“Point that gun somewhere else,” he said.
She lowered the Glock, put it on the table and started making coffee. Otto, who slept in the saloon, sat up in his bunk, rubbed his eyes, and yawned.
“What time is it?” he said.
“Six-thirty,” Claudia told him. “Time to get your fat ass out of bed.”
An early riser, yes, but not a morning person.
“I thought the first bus was at eight,” Otto said, sleepily.
Claudia saw Hans’ eyes flick toward her pistol. She made a grab for it, but wasn’t fast enough. Hans snatched it up, took a step backward, and pointed it at her chest.
“The Goat was looking for us,” Hans said, talking to Otto, not to Claudia. “He had two capangas with him. Get some rope.”
“The Goat? Jesus Christ! He must be pissed,” Otto said.
“He is pissed.”
“What did he say?”
“Get the fucking rope, and I’ll tell you.”
The goat showed up an hour later. He was alone.
The first thing he did was to rip off the tape they’d put over Claudia’s mouth.
It stung like hell. She licked her lips and tasted blood.
“You got any idea what you did to my life, you lying bitch?”
“It wasn’t me,” she said. “It was that prick, Silva. He’s the one to blame, not me.”
“I don’t see it that way. What you did with all those people in Sao Paulo, that was just sick.”
The story was all over the media by now. She’d heard it on the boat’s radio. The Goat must have seen it on television. She wasn’t Carla Antunes any more, she was Claudia Andrade, accused of mass murder and organ theft. There was no use denying it.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “What I was doing in Sao Paulo was-”
He didn’t let her finish. “What you did to the girls I sold you, that was sick too. Silva was right to go after you. You deserve everything you’re gonna get, you crazy-”
Hans cleared his throat.
The Goat turned to face him.
“What?” he said.
“The rest is between you and her, right? You got the money you promised me? The ten thousand? Me and Otto, we got to be going.”
“Oh, yeah,” The Goat said, “what I owe you. I got it right here.”
He reached under his shirt. But when his hand came out again it was holding a pistol. In one flowing movement he raised it and shot Hans through the heart. Otto was still standing there with his mouth open when The Goat put a bullet into his forehead just left of center.
Claudia’s ears were ringing from the reports. Her nose filled with the acrid stench of gunpowder. The Goat turned on her, still holding the pistol.
“No,” she said. “Don’t. You don’t want to shoot me. I’ve got money. We can make a deal.”
The Goat shook his head.
“Fuck your money,” he said. “And shooting is too good for you. I got something else in mind.”
He put the pistol down and peeled off his shirt.
Next to the empty holster on his belt dangled a silk cord.
Chapter Thirty
The following morning, a little after seven, the telephone rang in Silva’s suite. It was Lefkowitz. He told Silva that Claudia Andrade was on a slab down at the morgue. Silva called Hector first, then Arnaldo.
“It couldn’t have happened to a nicer girl,” Arnaldo said.
The morgue turned out to be a single-story concrete building, appropriately located on a dead-end street. There was one of those electronic keypads on the front door. Lefkowitz was standing next to it.
“Body was wrapped up in plastic sheeting tied with clothesline,” he said, punching numbers on the pad.
The lock clicked. He pulled on the door and ushered them inside. They started walking along a dim corridor, lit at intervals by round globes. The place smelled like morgues everywhere-and of something else too. Silva thought it might be mold.
“You guys know Yamaguchi?” Lefkowitz asked.
“No,” Arnaldo said, “but hum a few bars, and I’ll try to fake it.”
“That joke,” Lefkowitz said, “was old when my grandfather was a boy. Yamaguchi is the medical examiner, and I gotta warn you: the woman has no sense of humor.”
“Perhaps not with your tired routines, Lefkowitz, but with outstanding wit like my own-”
“Where did they find Claudia?” Silva cut in.
“Somebody dumped her at your hotel,” Lefkowitz said. “The night clerk saw it happen, right through the glass of the front door. He was behind the reception desk when this white Volkswagen van pulls up. The side door opens. Bang, she’s on the sidewalk. Slam, they close the door. Vroom, the van takes off. It’s gone by the time he gets
