engraving is too deep. That's why it's such a good deal. Do you have any idea what one of these things costs when it's new?'
He was distinctly displeased when Silva produced his warrant card and demanded to know how the watch had wound up in the shop.
THE YOUNG man's father, as Silva had suspected, owned the place. He wasn't particularly surprised to be told that the watch was stolen, and his previous experience with such things had taught him to keep meticulous records of his sources.
The trail led to a pawnshop near the center of town. It was a place with a frontage no more than four meters wide, but it was at least twenty deep, and stuffed with everything from musical instruments to household appliances.
'Sure, I remember it,' the pawnbroker told Silva. He was a little man with a bald pate, a shock of surrounding white hair, wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a denim vest. 'One of the best deals I ever made. The guy had no idea what it was worth. I didn't figure he was coming back, and he didn't, but I kept it for the full ninety days anyway.'
'Why did you think he wasn't going to come back?'
The owner hesitated. 'I just didn't,' he said, avoiding Silva's eyes.
The man in the vest knew more than he was telling.
'You got a name? An address?'
'Sure. It's the law, right?'
According to the man's records, the watch had come into his possession five days after the murder. Still, Silva didn't get his hopes up. The address was probably false.
First, he thought, he'd go check it out. Then he'd come back and squeeze the pawnbroker for whatever else he knew.
An outdated map of the city, and two stops to ask for directions, brought Silva to a little street in the workingclass suburb of Sao Caetano.
The house was identical to the buildings on either side, hastily constructed out of white stucco, showing fissures in the mortar. In contrast to the green and flowery gardens of the neighbors, the short path leading to the front door was hemmed by dusty red earth. The door was blue, but its paint was peeling, showing the cheap pine beneath. The tiles on the front steps were cracked, and one was missing altogether, the impression of its ribbed underside still visible in the gray cement.
Silva tried the doorbell.
It didn't work.
He knocked.
There was no answer, but he could hear a baby squalling from somewhere inside.
He knocked again, louder.
The woman who finally opened the door had prematurely graying hair and a crying, red-faced baby in her arms.
'Boa tarde, senhora,' he greeted her. 'Does Jose de Alencar live here?'
To his surprise, she nodded. An appetizing smell of garlic sauteing in olive oil was coming from the kitchen. It reminded Silva that he hadn't had lunch.
'Is he home?'
'Who wants to know?' she said, suspiciously.
Silva flashed his warrant card.
'Federal Police. I want to talk to him about a case.'
'Let me have a closer look at that,' she said.
He reopened his wallet. She scrutinized his credentials.
'Yeah, okay,' she said. 'He's here. Come in.'
As he stepped through the front door, she put the baby over her shoulder and started patting it on the back, but the squalling continued.
'You're lucky,' she said. 'He just switched over to the eight PM to four AM shift. If you'd come last week, you wouldn't have caught him.' She'd raised her voice to make herself understood over the baby's crying. Now, she raised it still further. 'Jose, you got company.'
She showed a distinct lack of concern about an unexpected visit from the police. The reason became clear when her husband walked in, buttoning his shirt. There were stripes on the sleeve and insignia on the lapels.
Jose de Alencar was a sergeant in the Sao Paulo Police Department.
That explained the reticence of the pawnshop owner. Nobody wanted any trouble with the SPPD.
'I've got lunch on the stove,' the woman said.
'You want me to take him?' the sergeant asked, pointing at his son.
De Alencar was in his mid-thirties, pale skinned, with a cruel mouth and gray eyes that turned soft when he looked at his offspring. He had a thin but well-tended mustache on his upper lip.
The woman smiled at him. 'No,' she said, 'He's okay. Just a little bit of colic, I think. Come soon. I don't want you bolting down your lunch.' A moment later, she and the squalling baby were gone, leaving the two cops alone.
Silva glanced around the room. An expensive stereo system, a brand-new television set, a leather sofa and two leather armchairs, a table that looked to be made out of jacaranda wood. None of it fit. Not with the house's external appearance, and certainly not with a guy who was supposedly surviving on the salary of a municipal cop.
'So you're Jose de Alencar?'
The sergeant picked up on Silva's tone of voice. His gray eyes went from soft to hard, seemed almost to change their color, becoming a shade darker. 'Yeah. Who are you?'
Silva's credentials were still in his hand. He held them out.
De Alencar took a step closer and read them. 'A federal, huh?' he said curiosity turning to hostility. 'What do you want?'
Silva's mother had described her assailants as in their early twenties and mulattos. This guy was in his thirties and white. His teeth were good. He had no tattoo. There was no way he could be one of them.
'It's about a watch you pawned,' Silva said. 'A gold one with an inscription on the back.'
'When was this?'
'October of last year. You left it with Gilson Alveres, who owns a pawnshop on Rua Rio Branco. Your signature's on the ticket.'
'So what?'
'I want to know where you got it.'
'What's it to you?'
'It belonged to my mother. Someone stole it.'
The sergeant's face reddened, but whether in embarrassment or irritation, Silva couldn't tell.
'Well, I sure as hell didn't,' he said. 'I found it,'
'Found it? Where?'
'On the street.'
'Where on the street?'
'I don't remember?'
'Try.'
'I told you, I don't remember.'
'And you expect me to believe that?'
'I don't give a shit what you believe. Fuck you.'
Silva saw red. He reached out his left hand and grabbed the sergeant by the front of his shirt. 'Where did you really get that watch?'
The sergeant was at least twenty kilograms lighter than Silva, and maybe ten centimeters shorter, but he didn't back down.
'You got any idea who you're dealing with? You take me on and you're going to have the whole damned force on your back. Let go of my shirt.'
