“How long ago did he move out?” Hector asked.
“I’m not sure.”
Hector frowned.
The Indian shook his head.
“It’s not what you’re thinking,” he said.
“What am I thinking?”
“That I don’t want to help. You’re wrong. I’m happy to help, but we have a high turnover. It’s easy to lose track.”
“I don’t need a specific date, just an approximation.”
The Indian pulled his lower lip. “Look,” he said, “it’s this way: I collect the rent. It’s due on Mondays. I go from door to door, pick up the cash, and take it down to the bank, where I deposit it in Senhor Aquino’s account. Senhor Aquino owns the building, but he only drops by about once a year.”
“So?”
“So on a Monday, about nine weeks ago-or it could have been eight or ten-I knocked on Queiroz’s door, expecting to collect, as usual. He didn’t answer, which I thought was funny, because it was about eleven A.M., which is the time he usually got up. I went back the next day and the next. I tried him in the early morning. I tried him late at night. It was always the same. For the whole two weeks he never answered, and I never saw him again.”
“Two weeks? Why two weeks?”
“When they move in, everyone pays three weeks in advance. Two of those weeks are the security deposit. Tenants are supposed to pay every Monday after that.”
“For an additional week, in advance?”
“Exactly.”
“So, when he missed his payment, Queiroz had a right to stay for an additional two weeks?”
“Either that, or give us notice, tell us he’s moving out. Somebody does that, we return what’s left of their deposit.” “But Queiroz never did?”
“Give us notice? Never.”
“Okay. And when the two weeks were up?”
“I did what I always do. Used my passkey. He’d left dishes in the sink. There were cockroaches all over the place. Big as that, ” he said, showing how big that was by distancing the tips of his thumb and forefinger.
“Queiroz left a light on,” the superintendant continued, “as if he’d gone out at night and never come back. Very inconsiderate of him. Electricity is included in the rent, but Senhor Aquino doesn’t count on people leaving lights on twenty-four hours a day. Queiroz’s sweaty and dirty sheets were still on the bed. I didn’t even want to touch them. The man lived like a pig.”
“What else did you find in there?”
“His clothes. Everything I ever saw him wear. Some furniture, not much. Just a mattress, a kitchen table, a couple of chairs, and an old sofa.”
“What did you do?”
“Left the furniture. Put a sign in the window. It didn’t take long to find another tenant. These places are cheap, and they’re close to the center of town.”
“What about his personal effects?”
“I put them in boxes and stored them down in the basement. This Queiroz, he’s…”
“He’s what?”
“Well, for want of a better word, mean. Mean and a bully. I didn’t want him coming back here and getting mad because I threw his stuff away.”
“Can I have a look in those boxes?”
“Sure.”
The boxes were of no help. Clothes, some condoms, a few pornographic magazines, toiletries, two bottles of cachaca, one of them full. There was nothing that gave Hector an insight into Carlos Queiroz or suggested where he might have gone.
“What do you think?” the Indian asked, gesturing toward the little pile of boxes. “Do I have to keep holding on to this stuff?”
“I wouldn’t bother if I were you,” Hector said. “I can pretty much assure you Senhor Queiroz won’t be coming back.”
“Nestor Porto lived with his mother and grandparents,” Silva said.
“And wouldn’t hurt a fly, sang in the church choir, and helped little old ladies cross the street,” Arnaldo said.
The three federal cops were back at the Hotel Tropical, having a drink at the bar.
“Not quite,” Silva said. “The grandfather seems like a hard-working guy, an electrician. Nestor was born when his mother was fifteen. Nestor’s father took off when he found out she was pregnant. Nobody’s seen him since. The grandmother was supposed to be taking care of Nestor while his mother finished school, but the grandmother contracted lung cancer and died within a year. The kid got into a bad crowd, dropped out of school, started using drugs, built up a habit, got caught robbing a house.”
“Same old, same old,” Arnaldo said.
“They put him away for fourteen months. Third day he was back, he smashed all the dishes in the house and beat the shit out of his grandfather.”
“The grandfather file a complaint?”
“No. Nestor apologized, said he was on crack, swore he’d never do it again. After that, they pretty much left him alone, never knowing what might set him off. He started going out at night, coming back at all hours, sometimes not coming back for two or three days. Then he was arrested again. Armed robbery. He got five years, three of which he served with the big boys.”
“I remember reading that part on his rap sheet,” Arnaldo said. “The three years, I mean. They must have wiped the juvenile charges.”
“Now, here’s the thing,” Silva said. “Last November, about two months after he got sprung for the second time, he joined his mother and grandfather for breakfast. They were surprised to see him at that hour of the morning. Normally, he didn’t climb out of bed before noon. They asked him what he was doing at the breakfast table. He told them to mind their own business. When he left, he said he’d be home for dinner, but he never came back.”
“So he disappeared,” Hector said, “just like Carlos Queiroz.” “Indeed,” Silva said. “Just like Carlos Queiroz.”
Chapter Seventeen
Early on, before she started testing prospects, Claudia had a disagreeable experience. A guy by the name of Pedro Soares told her that if she paid him enough he’d let her photograph him fucking anything on two legs and several things on four. But when it came time for him to perform, he’d proven to be a disappointment. The female lead was deft with both her mouth and her fingers, but her ministrations hadn’t helped a bit. She couldn’t tease an erection out of him. By that time, though, Pedro already knew too much to be allowed to live. Claudia sent him out on the river with Hans and Otto and sent the still unsuspecting girl back to her room.
A second mishap had been worse. The sex part went off without a hitch, but when it came to the snuff the subject balked.
“I’m not gonna do it,” he said. “And I’m not gonna let you guys hurt her.”
He was a big man, bigger than Otto, and accustomed to getting his way. He was already out of the bed and halfway toward Otto when Hans shot him, pam, pam, pam, three times in the chest, then, when he was down, pam, once more in the head. By then, of course, the cat was out of the bag. The girl knew what was going to happen to her, and she was already screaming. Claudia had to tell Hans to put a bullet in her head.
The camera captured it all, but Arie Schubski refused to distribute it. He said his customers didn’t want quick
