'What's that supposed to mean?'
'Just what I said. I won't even be here when he arrives.'
'Why the hell not?'
'I'm going to Presidente Vargas.'
'What for? What's in Presidente Vargas?'
'The seat of the diocese. The bishop's secretary. We have an appointment.'
'Cancel it. Send somebody else.'
'Didn't you tell me my top priority was to-'
'Yeah, well now you have two top priorities: The murders of the bishop and Muniz Junior. I don't want to see you back here until you've solved both.'
'With all due respect, Director, we're not even sure the Muniz kid is dead.'
'Kid? The man's thirty-seven, or he was thirty-seven. Whichever. And if he isn't dead, so much the better, but I want you to stay there until you get to the bottom of it. Oh, I almost forgot. I have something for you. Information about the rifle, the one Ferraz's men found in the tower. The bullets that killed the bishop were definitely shot from it. They traced the serial number.'
'And?'
'And a Belgian arms dealer by the name of…' Silva heard the director rustling through some papers, 'Hugo van Aalst bought it directly from the manufacturer.'
'A Belgian? Did you say a Belgian?'
The director took in an exasperated breath and grunted. 'Yeah. So what?'
'Nothing. Go on.'
After a pause, the director did. 'That's Aalst with two `a's.' He sold it to the Paraguayan army, and he has an end user certificate to prove it. The Paraguayans say they can't find it. Sound familiar?'
'Too familiar.'
Not a few Paraguayans made a very lucrative living by supplying contraband to their neighbor to the north. Most of it came across the so-called 'Friendship Bridge' near Iguacu Falls. Scotch whiskey, cigarettes, and weapons were all popular items.
The registration of the weapon was a dead end. They'd never be able to trace it to the killer, but Silva didn't think it would be a good idea to stress that fact at the moment.
'Hang on,' the director said.
He left the line without waiting for a response, but he was back less than five seconds later: 'Minister on the other line. Keep me posted.' He hung up without saying goodbye.
Silva looked at his watch. It was already too late to call Irene. With a shake of his head he got up, crossed the living room of their suite, and knocked on Hector's door. His nephew, wearing a bathrobe, his hair still wet from the shower, opened it immediately.
'You don't look happy,' Hector said.
'I'm not,' Silva said, but he didn't elaborate. 'That Poli woman said that Pillar is staying here, right?'
'Right.'
'Get some clothes on and see if you can find him. Try to keep it friendly. Invite him for a drink.'
'In the bar?'
'No. Here. In twenty minutes.'
The young man behind the reception desk confirmed that Pillar was, indeed, registered in the hotel.
'Room four-oh-seven,' he said to Hector, 'in the back of the building. Certainly not one of our best, but he asked for the cheapest-'
'Where's the house phone?'
'Over there, senhor.'
Hector had already turned his back when the clerk added, 'But if you're going to call Senhor Pillar, I'm afraid you're not going to find him.'
Hector turned back to the clerk. 'No?'
'No, senhor. There are quite a few messages for him, some of them urgent, so I tried to call him when I came on duty.'
'When was that?'
'At five. When he didn't pick up, I asked the chambermaid to check the room. His bed hasn't been slept in.'
'How about his room key?'
'He left it with me at about this same time last night. I don't think he's been back since.'
Hector was breathing hard when he got back to the suite. Too impatient to wait for the elevator, he'd run up four flights of stairs.
His uncle's aplomb immediately deflated him.
'So you don't think he was kidnapped?'
Silva shook his head. 'By the landowners? Unlikely.' He set aside the thick folder he'd been leafing through and picked up the scotch and water he'd prepared for himself. 'Muniz is their local leader, and he's gone missing.'
'Well, then, maybe somebody else organized it.'
'Maybe. But I doubt it. You leave a message?'
Hector nodded. 'And a tip to the desk clerk to make sure it stayed on the top of the pile. Some pile, by the way. He has more people trying to get in touch with him than you do. What's that?' He pointed to the folder Silva had been perusing.
'Pillar's dossier. I brought it from Brasilia. Pour yourself a drink and have a look.'
Hector did just that.
The dossier had been opened back in the days of the military dictatorship, before Pillar had been forced to flee to asylum in Uruguay. Kept current to the present day, it chronicled, in great detail, the life of one of Brazil's premier activists.
Hector didn't see eye-to-eye with Pillar's politics, but as he skimmed the pages, he started building up a grudging respect for the man. Pillar was a firebrand, but he certainly wasn't a megalomaniac. When he spoke, and there were summaries of many of his speeches, he always stressed that he wasn't the President of the Landless Workers' League. The organization had, he insisted, no chief executive, no board of directors, no hierarchy. They were all comrades, all equals in the struggle for land reform.
And Pillar certainly wasn't in it for the money. He lived simply, drove a sixteen-year-old Fiat and resided alone in a studio apartment in one of the less-fashionable neighborhoods of Brasilia. An exhaustive examination of his financial dealings seemed to indicate that he was scrupulous in accounting for the contributions made to his organization and that he regularly paid his taxes.
In dictatorships, people like Pillar are imprisoned and tortured, often killed. In the great democracies they sometimes become candidates for president or prime minister. But they seldom win.
More than 1,500 of Pillar's colleagues had been murdered in the land wars of the last decade. He was more visible than any of them, but the threat to his life didn't seem to make him afraid, only angry. If Pereira, the local man, was anything like him…
The telephone rang. Hector started to close the dossier, but his uncle stood. 'Keep reading. I'll get it.'
Silva identified himself, said 'yes' twice, gave his room number, and replaced the receiver. 'Better conceal that dossier after all,' he said. 'That was Pillar. He's on his way up.'
Luiz Pillar was older, and thinner, than he looked in his photographs. His brown eyes were sunk deeply into their sockets. His cheekbones showed sharply under his brown skin. He was certainly a man under pressure. Perhaps he was ill. He reminded Hector of a painting by Edvard Munch, the one called The Scream. He was dressed in faded jeans and a red T-shirt emblazoned with the logotype of the league, a crossed hoe and pitchfork on a circular white field.
Silva offered him a hand and after a moment of hesitation Pillar took it.
Hector offered him a drink and Pillar refused.
'Are you here to arrest me?' he asked.
'Why would you think that?' Silva said.
