'Guarana.'
'What a surprise,' Silva said.
In coffee shops, Agente Arnaldo Nunes always perused the menu from appetizers to desserts, and almost always ordered a cheeseburger and a guarana.
Arnaldo was an experienced man, considerably older than Hector, almost as old as Silva himself. He was a good cop, but his lack of formal education had blocked his advancement. The law required federal delegados to have a law degree from an accredited university and Arnaldo, having married young, could never find either the money or the time to get one. He was condemned to working out his time as a lowly agente. Silva had known him for over twenty years. They were comfortable with each other, despite the difference in rank.
The waiter offered Silva a menu. Silva shook his head.
'One cheeseburger, medium, and one guarana. That's it?' the waiter said, looking at each of them in turn.
'That's it,' Arnaldo said.
'You got it.'
The waiter turned on his heel, managed to look right past an aged couple trying to get his attention, and strolled off toward the kitchen.
'The guy's a real pro,' Arnaldo said, in mock admiration. 'Those geezers coulda shot off rockets, and he wouldn't have raised an eyebrow.'
He scanned the tables around them, leaned forward, and lowered his voice. 'We got a trace on the incoming phone call, the one from Edson Souza to the bishop. Turns out it originated right here in Cascatas, from the post office.'
'Post office?'
'It's one of those places where you fill in a form and make a deposit. Then the operator sends you to a booth and places the call. After you finish, you go back and get your change.'
'And nobody remembered the caller, I suppose?'
'Nobody remembered. But I got these.'
Arnaldo took a transparent envelope from his breast pocket.
Silva examined the objects inside: Forms the post office used for requesting telephone calls.
'Why didn't you send them off to have them dusted for prints?'
'I thought maybe you wanted to use that local guy..
'Ferraz?'
'Yeah, Ferraz.'
'No. We'll do it ourselves. Send them to Sao Paulo. It'll be quicker than going through Brasilia.'
'Okay. I took the prints of the clerk for comparison. Same guy was on duty both times.'
Silva held the bag closer to his nose and studied one of the forms. The name of the caller and number he'd called were filled in with a blue pen. The amount of the deposit, the cost of the call, and the amount of the balance were written in another hand, in black ink.
'Souza is lefthanded,' Silva said.
'How can you tell?'
'The heel of his hand brushed over the wet ink while he was writing. Look here. See?'
Arnaldo took the envelope. He was still studying it when his guarana arrived. He put the envelope back in his pocket, took a sip, and said, 'What's next?'
'Ferraz's men know the town,' Silva said. 'We don't. As much as I hate it, I'm going to ask him to help.' He glanced at his watch. 'He's probably back from lunch by now. I'll go over and have a talk with him.'
'Want me to do it?'
'No. He gave Hector the brush-off. He'd do the same to you. Hector says he's a son of a bitch.' He briefly summed up what his nephew had learned about Ferraz and added what Father Angelo had told him.
'Sounds like a real sweetheart,' Arnaldo said. He would have embellished his remark, but the waiter arrived with his cheeseburger. Arnaldo moved his drink aside and sat back in his chair while he was served. When the waiter had gone he opened the bun and made a face.
'Medium, my ass,' he said, and probed the overcooked meat with his fork. 'You want company? With Ferraz, I mean.'
Silva shook his head. 'You start checking available sources to see if we can't get some information on this Souza. Credit cards, bank statements, utility bills, all the stuff that's easier for us to get than it is for Ferraz.'
'You think somebody who uses a post office telephone has a credit card?'
'No, but maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe he didn't have to use it. Maybe he decided to use it. Anyway, we have to go through the motions. Check the phone book.'
'I already did. It's thinner than the director's dick and there's no Edson Souza.'
'Do you talk about me like that? And how do you know about the director's dick, anyway?'
'Only behind your back, and because the director has been fucking me ever since he got his appointment.'
Arnaldo was referring to the current freeze on salary increases. Silva definitely didn't want to get him started on that subject.
'Hector's on his way back from Presidente Vargas,' he said. 'After I see Ferraz, I'm going to make some telephone calls and turn in early. Let's all meet for breakfast. Here, at nine. I'll leave him a note.'
'Okay. Sure you don't want to check out the nightlife?'
Silva shook his head. When the opportunity arose, Arnaldo always asked the same question and he always got the same answer. But asking was part of their ritual.
Arnaldo took a cautious bite of his cheeseburger and grimaced in disappointment. 'You really want to have breakfast here? I'll bet the cook in this place can't even boil a fucking egg.'
Chapter Nineteen
Ferraz's secretary was a uniformed policewoman in her mid-forties with a no-nonsense hairdo and an abrasive manner.
'I already told you on the telephone, Chief Inspector. He's in a very important meeting. He doesn't want to be disturbed.'
'Just tell him I'm here,' Silva said.
She gave him a scornful look, picked up her telephone, and stabbed a button set into the base.
'Chief Inspector Silva is here,' she said and then, after a moment, 'Yes, here. He asked me to tell you.'
She hung up. 'You can wait,' she said.
A table against the wall bore a pile of magazines-a half dozen dog-eared and outdated copies of Veja, three of Agricultor Moderno, and two of Gente-as well as a tattered copy of Diana Poli's newspaper, Cidade de Cascatas.
The headline on the front page caught his eye: ANOTHER HAM: THE FIFTH.
Silva checked the date: Two days before the bishop had been shot. He picked it up and took a chair.
The photo spread across the bottom half of the page made it clear that the headline didn't refer to smoked pork. In Brazil the word ham, presunto, has a secondary and more sinister meaning. It's giria-slang-for a murder victim who has been bound in a special way, ankles tied to wrists, so that the body takes on a form roughly resembling a ham, and then shot, execution style, with a single bullet to the back of the head.
Making presuntos is a signature of a death squad, rogue policemen who take it upon themselves to thin out the ranks of the criminal population. It was an aberration in law enforcement, and as such, should have been immediately reported to the Federal Police. But no one had. Diana's article was news to Silva.
All five of the victims had been street kids, and all five had been murdered in exactly the same way, at a frequency of about one a month for the last four months.
Silva muttered an obscenity and reread the story from beginning to end, absorbing the salient details. He had plenty of time to do it.
