She was going to preside over deaths.
Last moments, for thirteen-year-old Claudia Andrade, were profoundly exciting, more so than boys, toys, parties, pretty clothes, more so than anything.
She’d never, ever, be able to get enough of them.
MANAUS
Present Day
The door of the aircraft opened to suffocating heat, a strong smell of rotting vegetation, and a weaker one of decomposing fish.
Arnaldo was waiting in the shadow of the terminal building.
The three of them shook hands and started walking.
“It’s Hector’s first visit to Manaus,” Silva said.
“Lucky bastard,” Arnaldo said. “This is my fifth.”
Just ahead, facing them, was a tourist, snapping photographs. When the guy lowered the camera Silva caught a glimpse of deep bags under heavy-lidded eyes.
On the way to the hotel, Arnaldo reviewed his conversations with Father Vitorio. Then he handed them the original rap sheets of Carlos Queiroz and Nestor Porto, the ones he’d lifted from the archives of the Manaus PD.
The photographs were much more legible than on the faxes received in Brasilia. There was no mistake. They were the same men who’d been seen performing on two of the snuff videos.
Queiroz and Porto shared two common features: protuberant lower jaws and piglike eyes. They looked like members of some primitive tribe.
“You take Queiroz,” Silva said to Hector. “I’ll take Porto.” “How about me?” Arnaldo said.
“You hate those archives, don’t you?” Silva said. “The reception you got from Coimbra and his people, the dust, the heat?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“So stick with it. See what else you can come up with.”
Arnaldo let out a sigh. “This is penance for that Hotel Plaza business, isn’t it?” he said.
Number twenty-seven Rua da Independencia, Queiroz’s last known address, was five stories of mildewed brick with a shop window on the ground floor. Beyond the glass, which looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in Hector’s lifetime, were religious articles: bibles of all sizes, hymnals, plastic statues of saints, icons of the Virgin Mary, rosaries, portraits of the Pope.
And, if God couldn’t help, you had only to climb a flight of stairs where you could visit a fortune teller, a homeopathic physician, or a lawyer. The remaining floors in the building were given over to apartments, four opening off each landing. Queiroz’s place was listed as 3C, but the name next to the bell said Cintra. The girl who answered the door wore a red dress with a neckline that plunged to her navel and a hem that ended just below her crotch. She didn’t look to be more than twenty, but it was a hard-lived twenty. The smile on her face faded when Hector asked about Carlos Queiroz and disappeared completely when he made it clear he had no interest in her services.
“Abilio,” she said, raising her voice just a little.
A door opened somewhere behind her. Seconds later a mean-looking guy with a single earring pushed her aside and intruded himself into the doorway.
“What do you want?”
“I just told your girlfriend. I’m looking for Carlos Queiroz.” “Never heard of him,” the guy with the earring said. He started to close the door, but Hector inserted his foot.
“What the hell…?” the guy said, blustering.
Hector waved his credentials in the guy’s face. “Let’s start all over again,” he said. “This is who I am. Who are you?”
“I don’t want any trouble,” the guy said, backing down.
“Me neither. Answer the question.”
“Abilio.”
“Abilio who?”
The guy paused for a moment then said, “Sarmento.”
Hector figured it was probably true. He also figured it wasn’t a name that Abilio normally answered to. Most people in Abilio’s business didn’t use their real names, hence the “Cintra” on the mailbox.
“Prove it,” Hector said.
Abilio nodded as if he’d expected that and stepped back from the door. “You can come in,” he said, as if he had a choice.
Like most places in Manaus, the place stank of fish. And it was hot, hotter even than down on the street. A sweat-stained couch, a folding aluminum table, and a TV set were the only furniture in the living room.
Abilio was wearing a pair of faded bathing trunks, plastic sandals, and nothing else. The sandals made little flopping sounds as Hector followed him down the hallway into the kitchen. The girl, barefoot, sloped along behind them. A pair of men’s trousers had been tossed in a heap in the corner. Abilio bent over to retrieve them. As he rose a wallet fell out of one of the pockets.
The sink was piled high with dirty dishes, the stove with unwashed pots. Another girl, who could have been a younger sister of the first, was squatting on the floor, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. She looked at Hector, then down at her bare toes, her brow furrowing as she tapped ash on the floor.
She’s not just using marijuana, Hector thought. She’s on something stronger. Crack, or maybe heroin.
Abilio rifled the contents of the wallet and came up with a dog-eared identity card. He handed it to Hector.
Abilio Sarmento, aged twenty-four, looked ten years older.
“Who else lives here?” Hector said.
Abilio said nobody did, said they’d been renting the apartment for the last three months, and that hell, yes, the girls were over eighteen.
Again, Hector told him to prove it.
Abilio left the kitchen and returned with both girls’ identity cards. Like him, they were named Sarmento: Aparecida Maria and Maria Aparecida, nineteen and eighteen years old respectively.
“My sisters,” Abilio said, before Hector could ask.
“Your parents didn’t have much imagination, did they?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Anyone got a record?”
All three of them did: the young women for lewd conduct, Abilio for stealing a car and possession of cocaine. He’d pleaded guilty, done thirteen months, and claimed he’d been clean ever since.
None of them knew Carlos Queiroz. Aparecida Maria, the sister who wasn’t stoned, said the building superintendent probably did. He lived down in 2D.
Hector told Abilio to show him around the apartment.
There were two bedrooms and three mattresses, two in one bedroom, one in the other. Clothes and personal effects overflowed cardboard boxes being used in lieu of furniture.
In the bathroom, shampoos, conditioners, and lotions surrounded the bathtub. Creams and cheap perfumes crowded the glass shelf above the sink. There was no shower curtain. The floor was wet from someone’s recent bath. Nothing suggested that anyone else lived in the apartment.
Hector said he was going down to talk to the building superintendent, but he might be back.
Abilio didn’t seem overjoyed by the prospect.
The Superintendent was a full-blooded Indian, not an unusual situation in a city where there were more natives than on any single reservation. From the way he spoke Portuguese, Hector figured he’d been educated by missionaries in his youth. That youth was gone, but he didn’t have a single gray hair. He could have been anywhere between fifty and seventy, and was dressed in a clean blue shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. His living room was well furnished and a good deal cleaner than the one occupied by the Sarmentos.
“Carlos Queiroz?” he said. “Yes, I remember him. Good riddance.”
