Buried Strangers

account infor-mation, was a vice president by the name of Bertoldo Perduzzi, and he was a stickler for details. Silva explained the situation with great patience. He wheedled. He cajoled. He came close to losing his temper. But Perduzzi wouldn’t budge. He just kept shaking his head.

“It’s not a question of not wanting to help you,” he said. “I understand this guy might be some kind of dangerous felon, but what if he isn’t?”

“He is,” Silva said. “I can assure you, he is.”

“Okay, he is. I’ll take your word for it. But accounts in this bank are inviolable and the law’s the law. You give me a war-rant, and I’ll be happy to give you whatever you need. But without a warrant, my hands are tied.”

“There’s a dead man, a delegado by the name of Tanaka, who managed to get whatever the hell he needed out of you people. And he did it without a warrant. How come he could and we can’t?”

“I have no knowledge of this man, Tanaka,” Perduzzi sniffed, “but if he’d come to me I would have told him the same thing.”

“I want to talk to your boss,” Silva said.

And he did. And Perduzzi’s boss backed him up.

The only recourse was the legal route, and Silva took it. There was a judge he knew who was friendly, accommodating, and willing to work from home. But by the time the paper-work was ready, all of the people who could have furnished him with the information he needed had left for the day.

Fuming, Silva was waiting on the doorstep when Perduzzi arrived for work on the following morning. The banker greeted the cop like a cherished customer, wished him a cheerful good morning, scrutinized the warrant, and turned to his computer.

Minutes later, Silva was out the door of the bank and into the waiting car.

“Where to?” Babyface said.

Silva looked at the printout in his hand and rattled off an address.

“Never heard of it,” Babyface said.

“It’s that street under the Minhocao,” Hector said from the backseat. “Crime doesn’t pay.”

“I guess not,” Babyface said, letting out the emergency brake. “Not in his case, anyway. Maybe he’s got a habit, or maybe he gambles.”

“Or maybe he just likes living like a pig,” Hector said.

The Minhocao had an official name, but no Paulista ever used it; they just called it the Minhocao, the big worm. It was a viaduct that curled between the city center and the bairro of Agua Branca and had been designed to alleviate the traffic gridlock between the two. For a while, it had done just that, but then the growth of the city clogged that artery, just like it had already clogged most of the others. These days, both the viaduct and the street below were bumper to bumper from early morning to well past midnight seven days a week.

What had once been a middle-class bastion had become cheap and run-down. People chose the neighborhood only if they couldn’t afford to live anywhere else.

There was no telling what color Ribeiro’s building had originally been, or even if it had been built of blocks, stone, or concrete. Exhaust fumes, and time, had colored the facade a uniform, sooty black, just like the stanchions that supported the viaduct.

For want of a better option, Babyface pulled onto the side-walk, the tires of the car crunching over broken concrete until they came to a stop. There was just enough room between the car and the front of the building to get the door open. While Silva struggled to work his fuller frame through the narrow space, Hector went in for a cursory reconnais-sance of the target. He was back in less than thirty seconds.

“No rear entrance,” he said. “No other way in or out.”

Silva instructed Babyface to stay behind the wheel and to keep an eye on the door. Then he and Hector trudged up three flights of stairs and located Roberto Ribeiro’s apart-ment. The doorbell didn’t work, or perhaps it couldn’t be heard over the rumble of traffic, so after three unsuccessful attempts, Hector pounded on the door with his fist.

There was no response. He tried it again, knocking even harder. If Ribeiro was in there, there was no way he wouldn’t have heard it.

“Police,” Silva said. “Open up.”

Still no response. Both men took out their pistols. Silva tried the knob. It was locked. Hector examined the door and the frame.

“A cinch,” he said, “unless he’s in there and has it bolted from the inside.”

“Do it,” Silva said.

Hector was lifting his foot when a door across the hall opened.

“What’s all this fuss?” a woman with a carioca accent said. She looked to be in her late sixties, was wearing a housecoat, and carrying a cat. The cat didn’t take its eyes off Hector.

“Do you know the man who lives here?” Silva pointed at Ribeiro’s door.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Federal Police.” Silva produced his identification and held it up in front of her. She took a pair of reading glasses that were dangling from a chain around her neck, put them on the end of her nose, and leaned in for a closer look. Apparently satisfied, she stroked the cat and answered Silva’s question.

“I know him. He’s been here just about as long as I have. Three years. Seems like a nice boy. Polite.”

“Name of Roberto Ribeiro? Carioca? Mustache?”

“Yes, all of that. What do you want with him?”

“Police business. Do you know where he is?”

The woman shook her head and transferred the cat to her other arm. The cat blinked and then went back to looking at Hector as if he were a bowl of cream.

“Any idea where he works?” Silva said.

Again, she shook her head, this time stroking the cat with her other hand. The feline began to purr.

“I hardly know him,” she said. “Just, you know, to exchange a few words when we pass in the hall.”

“He live alone?”

“Alone. Yes.”

“Go inside, Senhora, and lock your door.” Silva said.

For a moment, she looked as if she were going to ask another question, but in the end she didn’t. She closed her door without another word. The cops heard her key turn in the lock.

“Remind me to call Dantas,” Silva said.

Now that Ribeiro’s neighbor had seen them, they could no longer claim they’d found the door already smashed. They were going to have to justify the break-in. That meant they’d have to get a predated search warrant, and that meant getting Dalton Dantas, that most accommodating of judges, to provide it.

Ribeiro wasn’t there.

The place was surprisingly clean, even the curtains on the window that overlooked the Minhocao, even the win-dowsill. The curtains must have been washed, and the sill dusted, within the last few days. There was a vase of fresh flowers on the coffee table. The bed was made. There were no dishes in the sink. The place even smelled clean, with faint odors of furniture polish and pine-scented disinfectant.

Hector scratched his head. “Didn’t that woman say he lives alone?”

“She did.”

“Sure as hell doesn’t look like it.”

“No,” Silva said, “it doesn’t.”

“A namorada, you figure?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he’s gay, or maybe he’s got the world’s best faixineira, but this place doesn’t look like your run-of-the-mill bachelor pad, that’s for sure.”

“If it’s his faixineira,” Hector said, “I’m going to fire mine and hire his. She’ll be looking for a new employer when we put the bastard away.”

The apartment consisted of a kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. The interior of the kitchen