'And you think we should be concerned about that? Really, Colonel, I'm surprised at you. That priest, if he's the one I'm thinking of, is a weak old man. He must be pushing ninety.'
'It doesn't take any strength to pull a trigger. He's got a gun.'
'He said that? He said he had a gun?'
'He did. And he said he was going to use it on both of us.'
'I'd like to see him try. I really would. The old bastard is just blowing off steam, that's all.'
'You think so, huh? Well, I hope to hell you're right.'
There was a newfound insolence in the colonel's voice. Muniz didn't like it.
He decided he'd definitely drink one more whiskey.
Chapter Forty-six
Emerson Ferraz turned a cold stare on his deputy.
A sheepish expression came over Palmas's face, and he looked down at the handcuffs shackling his wrists.
The fact that he let the old bastard get the drop on me, Ferraz thought, is something I'm never going to let him forget. Never.
The old bastard in question, Father Angelo Monteiro, had been standing out of sight, and just to the right of Colonel Ferraz's front door, when Palmas rang the bell. So the only person Ferraz had seen through the peephole was Palmas, and Palmas was one of the few people, maybe the only person, for whom Emerson Ferraz would have opened his door without having been given a damned good reason first. So he had opened the door and now here he sat, in his own house, wearing a pair of his own handcuffs, with his ankles firmly bound to the chair he was sitting in.
Palmas was in another chair, and he was even worse off. Father Angelo had forced Ferraz to run a long length of clothesline around and around Palmas's chest and to fasten him firmly to the backrest. When he was finished, the old man made Ferraz stuff one of his own handkerchiefs into Palmas's mouth. Finally, he was instructed to tie a second handkerchief around Palmas's head, and over his lips, to make sure the first one stayed in place.
Ferraz, in his fury, had made the second handkerchief a good deal tighter than it had to be. He could see that Palmas was feeling the pinch. Well fuck him. He deserves it.
The gun Father Angelo was holding looked like an antique. It was a military revolver of some kind. There was a ring on the butt that you could hook a lanyard to, and the thing had a huge bore. The old piece of hardware seemed to be well-oiled, but a lot of the bluing had worn off. If the priest really knew what he was doing, he would have exchanged it for one of the more modern weapons Ferraz had in the house but the old goat hadn't thought of that. He obviously felt he was doing just fine with what he had.
And the thing that really pissed Emerson Ferraz off was that the priest was right. He was doing just fine. There wasn't a damn thing that Ferraz, or his deputy, could do to put him in his place which, as far as Ferraz was concerned, was two meters underground. The colonel was immobilized and angry but he wasn't afraid. Not much, anyway. He didn't think the old man would shoot him on purpose. The trouble was that the antique firearm was fully cocked. The damn thing could go off anytime, doing just as much damage as if the priest had meant to shoot him in the first place. With that in mind, the colonel had decided that his only recourse was to do the old bastard's bidding and be patient until he went away. But once he does… once it's all over, I'm going to find him, and I'm going to hurt him really, really bad before I kill him.
'You did well, Colonel,' Father Angelo said.
'I don't get it. If you're going after Muniz, why did you tell me to warn him?'
'That needn't concern you, Colonel. Now there's just one more thing I want you to do for me.'
'What's that?'
'I'm going to hold that telephone handset up to your ear again so that you can make another call. Just one, and then we're done. A little more than half an hour after you've made that call, I'll be gone.
'Who is it this time?'
'You'll be talking to one of your men, and you'll tell him exactly what I say. No tricks now, Colonel. Don't even think of trying to summon assistance. If you say one wrong word, I assure you that I will shoot.'
Chapter Forty-seven
Silva knocked over a glass of water when he reached out for the phone. Fortunately, most of the liquid wound up on the hotel's carpet, not in his bed.
'That Chief Inspector Silva?' someone lisped.
Silva raised himself to a sitting position and glanced at the numbers on the face of the digital clock. It was 2:14 in the morning.
'Yeah. Who's this?'
'Sergeant Menezes.'
Silva turned on the bedside lamp. 'Who?'
'Sergeant Menezes. State Police. I took you up to the body of Muniz Junior, remember?'
It was that fat sergeant with the gap between his teeth, the one who'd gone up the hill puffing like a steam engine.
'I remember. What is it, Sergeant?'
'You know that priest, Gaspar?'
Some of the water was still dripping off the surface of the table. Silva looked around for something to mop it up and settled on the terrycloth bathrobe he'd draped over the back of a chair. The telephone cord was just long enough for him to reach it.
'What about him?'
'He's dead.'
Silva sat down again, the robe still in his hand.
'What?'
'Dead. Shot his manservant and then killed himself. Colonel says you better get over here.'
'Okay, you old bastard,' Colonel Ferraz said. 'You talked about half an hour. Well, it's been half an hour. What are you waiting for? When the hell are you going to let us loose and get out of here?'
'I told you I'd leave, Colonel,' Father Angelo said. 'I don't recall having said anything about letting you loose.'
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'Let's return to that subject in a moment, shall we?' The priest lifted the sleeve of his cassock and consulted his cheap plastic watch. 'Moreover, it's only been twenty-seven minutes since you made the call.'
He took another puff on the cigarette dangling from his lips, removed it from his mouth, and extinguished it in an overflowing ashtray.
'But twenty-seven minutes might well be long enough. Let's see.'
He took out a pack of cigarettes, but instead of a smoke, he removed a small piece of paper he'd inserted between the pack and the outer wrapper. His reading glasses were inside some kind of a pocket accessible through the neck of his cassock. He fished them out, put them on his nose, and pulled the telephone toward him. Consulting the paper, he dialed a number. While it was ringing, he put a finger to his lips enjoining Ferraz to silence.
The colonel heard a faint click as someone picked up the receiver.
'I know it's terribly late,' Father Angelo said, 'but might I speak to Father Gaspar?' Then, after a short pause, 'Father Angelo Monteiro. And you?' Another short pause. 'Oh, hello, Sergeant. What in the world are you doing there?'
Ferraz couldn't hear a word of the other end of the conversation, but the man who Angelo had addressed as
