Claudia nodded.
“But, first, let’s make sure we haven’t had any visitors while we’ve been away. Joaquim and Luis are probably back at the house by now.”
Her cell phone was in a little compartment near the wheel. She pulled it out and dialed Joaquim’s number. Someone picked up on the third ring.
But it wasn’t Joaquim. Maybe a wrong number.
She hung up and tried again.
Joaquim Almeida’s cell phone rang for the second time. Silva glanced at the screen.
“Same caller,” he said to Joaquim and handed him the phone. “This time, you answer. If it’s Carla, you tell her no one showed up for your little party. If she asks if it’s safe to come back here, you say it is.”
Another ring.
“We gotta talk,” Joaquim said, “about what you’re gonna do for me if I cooperate.”
Another ring.
Arnaldo poked Joaquim’s ribs with his forefinger.
“Take the fucking call,” he said.
Joaquim winced and pushed the button.
“Yeah,” he said.
Silva grabbed Joaquim’s wrist and pulled the telephone a centimeter away from the thug’s ear.
“Joaquim?”
Silva had heard the voice twice before: on the recording made by the Dutch police and on the video showing the death and dismemberment of Andrea. The hairs rose on the back of his neck.
“It’s me,” Joaquim said.
“Your voice sounds strange. Anything wrong?”
“No. Nothing.”
“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Joaquim?”
“Lie? Why would I lie?”
The woman had taken control of the conversation. Joaquim wasn’t up to wresting it back.
“Where’s that brother of yours?”
“He’s around here someplace.”
Silva and Arnaldo exchanged exasperated looks.
“Put him on,” the woman said.
Only then did Joaquim recognize his mistake. He started to stammer.
“I… well… he’s…”
Click.
She disconnected without even bothering to tell Joaquim he was a lying sonofabitch.
“Some of them could be broken. I’d need an X-ray to confirm it,” the doctor said, slipping off his stethoscope and dropping it into his bag.
It was an hour later. They’d taken Joaquim Almeida back to the Hotel Tropical. The concierge had summoned a physician.
“See,” Joaquim said, “I told you I needed a hospital.”
“Shut up,” Arnaldo said.
“On the other hand,” the doctor said, looking at Joaquim like he was something he’d found sticking to the bottom of his shoe, “fractured or bruised, the treatment’s the same. You can’t splint ribs. I’ll prescribe something for the pain.”
“Something strong,” Joaquim said. “Give me something really strong.”
Silva cut in. “Will you certify he can travel?” he asked.
“You promise to get this piece of trash out of Manaus,” the doctor said, “and I’ll sign anything you want.”
In death, Father Vitorio Barone achieved the notoriety he’d coveted in life. The next morning, Rede Mundo led its eight o’clock news with the story of his murder.
The news anchor, an attractive brunette with an overbite, dished up the details with a shiver of delight. And she didn’t know the half of it. If the brunette had been aware that both a deputado’s granddaughter and Claudia Andrade were involved, she would have had, as Arnaldo put it, a triple orgasm right there on camera.
But she wasn’t aware, and Silva had no intention of enlightening her.
Chief Pinto, on the other hand, made a show of being totally forthcoming. He might not have known the whole story, but he knew how to make the best of what he had. His well-rehearsed sound bite went on for almost fifty seconds.
The chief described the priest’s grisly demise in graphic detail, told how one of the murderers had been shot dead by the cops and informed viewers the other had been captured. But he didn’t say which cops had done the shooting and the capturing.
When asked why the priest was at the Mainardi home in the first place, Pinto frankly admitted that he didn’t know. And as to Lauro Tadesco’s role in the affair, that was still under investigation.
The chief’s performance was followed by a series of reactions to the murder.
A spokesman for the National Association of Bishops said Father Vitorio’s death was a tragic loss and so forth and so on, the usual nil nisi bonum.
This was followed by a montage of comments from some of Father Vitorio’s former students, none of whom seemed to have acquired a turn-the-other-cheek attitude from associating with their former mentor, and all of whom expressed satisfaction that at least one of the killers had paid with his life.
The next face to appear on the television screen caused Arnaldo to choke on his breakfast coffee.
Roberto Malan wasn’t a Catholic, didn’t represent the State of Amazonas in the chamber of deputies, and had nothing to do with the death of a priest in Manaus. But there he was, in a tight close-up, speaking from his office in Brasilia.
“ Rede Mundo wouldn’t have gone to him,” Hector said. “He must have-”
He stopped short when Silva held up a hand.
“… not of my faith,” Malan was saying, “but Father Vitorio was a man whose service to the poor demanded respect. Certainly, he had mine.”
“Five will get you ten Malan never heard of him before he got knifed,” Arnaldo put in.
“No bet,” Silva said. “Now will the two of you kindly shut up?”
Malan paused and continued. “Brazil has, this day, lost a good shepherd. It’s not only a loss to his flock, it’s a loss to our country as a whole.”
“Does he talk like that in person?” Arnaldo asked.
“No,” Silva said.
The deputado leaned forward. He looked straight into the lens. His skin began to redden in anger. His voice took on a tone of righteous indignation.
“His death,” he said, “is an outrage, made all the more outrageous because it was entirely avoidable. Yes, avoidable! So who, in the end, are we to blame for Father Vitorio’s demise?”
Malan left viewers in no doubt he had the answer to that, but he took another pause, building up the expectation.
“The Almeida brothers, certainly,” he said, “and the nefarious-”
“Nefarious? Oh, please,” Hector said sotto voce, and raised his eyes to the ceiling.
“-person or persons who employed them. But they’re not the only ones. Others contributed to Father Vitorio’s death. They didn’t contribute by shooting him, or ordering him to be shot, but they’re guilty just the same. They’re guilty of gross negligence.”
“Here it comes,” Arnaldo said.
“And who are these negligent incompetents? My fellow Brazilians, they are the federal police! Yes, the federal police! Those same federal police who let the mass murderer, Claudia Andrade, slip through their fingers not twenty months ago. If the federal police had been truly zealous in their efforts, dedicated in their comportment, efficient in their methods, they would have apprehended Claudia Andrade long ago. And if they had taken the initiative to suppress the dastardly exploitation of minors, with which the death of Father Vitorio Barone is
