He heard a garage door open. The Passat rolled forward and then stopped. The door closed again. The man killed the engine, got out of the car, came around to Edson's side, and helped him out.
Edson asked if he could take off the hood.
'Not yet. Put your hands on my shoulders and follow me.'
The guy had apparently done this sort of thing before. He warned him when they were coming to each of the two flights of steps and he told him exactly how many of them there were both times.
At the top of the second flight, he could feel carpeting under his feet.
'Now, stand still.'
He heard a door open. And then he smelled it again: that same cloying, flowery smell from the car.
A new voice. 'So this is our little whore for the night, hmm? I want to see your face, boy, but I don't want you to see mine. Shut your eyes. Are they shut?'
'Yes.'
'Good. Keep them that way. There'll be more money if you do, trouble if you don't.'
Edson kept his eyes tightly closed, felt the plastic bag slide off of his head, felt the new man's breath on his face: he was that close.
'Yes,' the man said. 'Well done.'
The words weren't meant for him.
'I'm glad you approve,' he heard the first man say. His voice sounded different, as if dampened by their surroundings. Edson imagined a place with a lot of curtains on the walls. He heard a click. The light beyond his eyelids went out.
'Now you can open your eyes.'
He did, not that it made any difference. Everything was pitch black.
'Move forward, until you feel the bed with your knees.'
He did that, too.
'Now, slide to your right. No, no, you stupid boy, to your right. Good. Keep going until you feel the bedside table.'
'Yeah.'
'Do you feel it?'
'I said, yeah.'
'Don't be insolent. Think of the money. Now disrobe.'
'What?'
'Take off your clothes and drop them on the floor next to the table. That way, you'll be able to find them again when you leave.'
The next ten minutes were strange and the five that followed them, a nightmare. To begin with, they didn't ask him to do any of the things he was used to doing. They just let him lie there while they did it to each other. When he started to join in, as he thought they wanted him to do, they pushed him away. And then, suddenly, it happened. They were all over him. Worst of all, one of them was in him. And not in his mouth, like he'd agreed, but where he'd specifically said he didn't want them to go. He tried to struggle, but he was just a boy and these were two strong men. One held him down, while the other did it to him. They didn't use any jelly or anything.
He tried to bite the one who was holding him down, but the man let go just long enough to give him a blow that made him see a white flash and then blue stars in the night.
'Keep still, you little bastard, keep still.'
He stopped struggling. It was too late, anyway. The thing he'd never wanted done to him had been done to him. He started to whimper, and that seemed to encourage his tormenters all the more. One of them climaxed with a long cry and, after a moment of satiated rest, made way for the other.
The second one reached under Edson's body, grasped his flaccid penis and squeezed it when he climaxed. And then it was over, and they were telling him to get dressed, and that he'd be taken back to where he came from.
Tears still creeping down his cheeks, he did what they'd told him to do: As a guide to finding his clothes, he felt for the table. And when he did, he touched a fat wallet. Without thinking twice, he palmed it, and as soon as he'd located his jeans, he stuffed it into a pocket.
His heart started to beat faster. If they turned on the light, they'd be sure to notice.
But they didn't.
'You dressed?' the first man said a minute or two later.
'Almost.'
'You earned another hundred. Put this on.'
He felt the plastic bag, took it, and slipped it on. He had to turn it to position the hole in front of his mouth.
'Okay. The same drill. Hands on my shoulders.'
Fifteen minutes later he was back on Republic Square, 250 reais richer, feeling dirtier than he had in all of his young life and with the wallet still in his pocket.
Chapter Forty-two
Edson came to the end of his story without meeting Father Angelo's eyes.
The old man put his hand on the boy's shoulder. 'Look at me,' he said.
Edson did, and something in the priest's expression must have encouraged him. His posture straightened and his sunken shoulders rose.
'Tell us the rest of it, why don't you?' Father Angelo said.
'The wallet belonged to that canalha Farias,' Edson went on, faster than before, eager to get it over with. 'There wasn't much money, but there was his identification card and his driver's license and even a credit card. I tried to use the credit card, but that was only the next day, in the afternoon. He'd canceled it by then.'
'What did you do with it?'
'Threw it in the river.'
'The wallet too?'
'All of it. Everything except the cash.'
'Where?'
'I threw it off the Goulart Bridge.'
Silva looked at Father Angelo.
'The river is deep there, and fast flowing,' the priest said, shaking his head. 'I think it's highly unlikely you'd find anything.'
Silva addressed Edson directly: 'What did you do then?'
'I sent a letter to Dom Felipe.'
'Why didn't you tell Father Brouwer or Father Angelo?'
'I… I was embarrassed. I didn't want them to think…'
'Okay. Why the bishop?'
'Because I didn't know him, and he didn't know me, and he's the boss of all the priests.'
'Did you tell the bishop everything you just told us? About what they did to you? About the wallet?'
'Yes.'
'Do you think he believed you?'
'Maybe not at first, but after a while he did. He asked me to go with him to the police.'
'That doesn't necessarily mean-'
'Yes, it does. Because I told him I was afraid of the police, and he said that he couldn't stop Father Gaspar without me coming forward, and I said I'd like to help, but I couldn't, and he said I had to, that it was my… Christian duty, yeah, that's it, Christian duty, and that it had to be stopped, because it had happened before and it would happen again if I didn't-'
'Happened before? It had happened before?'
