“I didn’t hang up on you. We were cut off.”
Arnaldo paused long enough to let Coimbra know that he wasn’t buying it. Then he said, “How about you go get me Rosario’s ficha?”
Coimbra looked at his boss, then back at Arnaldo.
“I looked for it after you called,” he said.
“And?”
“And I couldn’t find it.”
“Let me get this straight,” Arnaldo said. “You lost his personnel file?”
“I didn’t say we lost it,” Coimbra said. “I said I couldn’t find it. I’m sure it’s around here somewhere. Leave your number. I’ll call you when we locate it.”
Which will be about the time the river freezes over, Arnaldo thought.
“How about the rap sheet on Damiao Rodrigues?” he said.
“There is no rap sheet on Damiao Rodrigues. There never was a rap sheet on anybody named Damiao Rodrigues.”
“How can you be sure? You have a personal acquaintance with every bad guy in this town?”
Coimbra’s glasses had slipped down over his nose. He pushed them back, magnifying the size of his pale eyes.
Face like a ferret, Arnaldo thought, but eyes like a Weimaraner. “I’ve been working in archives for twenty-two years,” Coimbra said. “The name Damiao is unusual. I would have remembered it if I heard it, and I assure you I never did.”
“So how come we got this E-mail from Rosario?”
“I have no idea. You’ll have to talk to him about that.”
“Which is what I’m trying to do. Are you now going to tell me that no one in this building knows Rosario well enough to tell me where he lives?”
“Of course not,” Coimbra said, adding a sniff to his squeak. “After we spoke, and in the spirit of interagency cooperation, I went over there myself and tried to find him for you. I just got back. He moved. No forwarding address.”
“The E-mail is from yesterday, goddamn it!”
“I can’t help that. He moved. That’s all I can tell you, and that’s what his neighbors will tell you, too. Go over there if you don’t believe me. I’ll give you the address.”
“I might just do that.”
Coimbra gave him a ferrety little smile.
Which is when Arnaldo knew for certain that going over there wouldn’t do a damned bit of good.
After Coimbra left, Pinto raised both palms in a gesture of helplessness.
“Well, then,” he said, as if that was the end of it. “Anything else I can do for you?”
Whatever was going on, the chief was a part of it. Arnaldo was sure of that.
“Maybe you can tell me a little bit about the trafficking of women here in Manaus?”
“Looking to get laid?” Pinto asked with a leer.
“Business,” Arnaldo said.
“Business?” the chief said. “Prostitution is a local matter, and there’s no law against it. It’s no business of the federal police.”
“I didn’t say prostitution,” Arnaldo said, “I said trafficking. That’s illegal. And when it’s happening across state lines, it is our business, especially when the girls being trafficked are minors.”
The chief stopped smiling. “You been talking to that fucking priest?”
“What fucking priest?”
“Barone. That Salesian.”
“No. I haven’t. Should I?”
The chief swatted the air with his hand as if he was brushing away an annoying insect. The hand was still holding his handkerchief, and little droplets of moisture flew off and flecked the wall next to his desk. He brought the drenched handkerchief back to his forehead and resumed patting.
“I want to have a look at your archives,” Arnaldo said.
The chief shot him an indignant look.
“What?” he said.
“Your archives. I want to go there and have a look around.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got photographs. I’m gonna try to match them with names.”
The chief’s smile returned. “Coimbra can do that for you,” he said. “Just give me the photographs. I’ll make it a priority, have an answer for you in a day or two.”
And I already know what that answer would be, Arnaldo thought. “I have to do it myself,” he said.
The chief frowned, and his eyes turned cold. “Are you suggesting my people are untrustworthy?”
“Not at all,” Arnaldo said blandly.
“Then what are you suggesting?”
“I’m not suggesting anything, Chief. The matter is confidential, a question of national security. I’m not supposed to delegate any part of it. If you want more information, you gotta talk to my boss.”
“The governor called me,” the chief said. “The governor and the mayor. They both got calls from the director of the federal police in Brasilia. He made them promise to cooperate, but he wouldn’t tell them anything either.”
Arnaldo raised both palms in the same gesture of helplessness the chief had used just minutes before.
“Well, then,” he said. “If my boss won’t tell the mayor and the governor, how can you expect me to tell you?”
The archives, located in the basement of the delegacia, were a warren of ceiling-to-floor shelves, dusty, deprived of daylight, and lit only by fluorescent lamps. The stuffy atmosphere was entirely disagreeable and so was Arnaldo’s reception. Coimbra showed his displeasure at the invasion of his lair. He and the chief exchanged what they probably thought were surreptitious glances.
“I want you and your people to extend Agente Nunes every consideration,” Chief Pinto said.
“As ordens, Senhor. Every consideration.”
The only things missing were a wink and a nudge.
“What, exactly, are you looking for?” Coimbra said.
“That’s confidential,” Arnaldo said. “Just show me your system.”
“I don’t like people digging around in my files,” Coimbra said. “They get things out of order. All you have to do is tell me what you want, and I’ll fetch it for you.”
“I’d rather do it myself,” Arnaldo said.
“And I’d rather you didn’t,” Coimbra said.
They glared at each other.
“I’ve got an idea,” Chief Pinto said, as if it had just occurred to him. “Alberto here can help you. You can do it together.”
Arnaldo shook his head.
“I’m gonna do it alone,” he said.
Arnaldo was a believer in the adage “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
After an unsuccessful morning in the archives, and an equally unsuccessful attempt to get a decent lunch in the padaria across the street, he was ready for a break. He decided to use it to locate the man the chief had called “that fucking priest.” A Salesian, Pinto had said. By inquiring at the first church he came to, Arnaldo discovered there was only one Salesian in Manaus: Father Vitorio Barone, who ran a school in the Sao Lazaro district. The parish priest was even able to furnish him with an address: number fourteen Rua de Caxias.
The Rua do Caxias turned out to be a narrow lane bisected by a filthy canal, more of an open drain than a waterway. A smell of raw sewage assailed Arnaldo’s nose. A mangy brown dog with visible ribs was tearing into a plastic sack of garbage in front of number twelve, a shack built of scrap lumber.
The neighboring building, number fourteen, was a mansion by comparison. Anywhere else it would have been categorized as a dump. Two stories tall, and twice as wide as any other house on the street, it was a haphazard
