She immediately caught the past tense. 'Why do you say `was'?'
'I'll tell you in a moment. Was he married?'
She nodded. 'And he's got two kids. They spend most of their time in Rio. The wife is a socialite. A spoiled bitch, addicted to dinner parties laced with caviar, champagne, and foie Bras. If she spends more than a week living on the fazenda she gets claustrophobic.'
'Claustrophobic? How big is this place?'
'About half the size of Denmark.'
'No kidding?'
'No kidding.'
'Jesus. How about their kids?'
'She keeps them with her. Says they can't get a decent education in Cascatas. She's got them in the American School in Rio.'
'Muniz's paranoia-the fact that he surrounded himself with hired guns-was that because he feared reprisal for Azevedo?'
'Not only that. He had another reason.'
'Which was?'
'This isn't the first time the league has made a grab for some of his property. They tried it about fourteen months ago. Muniz got the State Police to help him evict them. A couple of people were killed, including a seven- year-old girl. The league blames him for that, too.'
'I remember reading about the girl. She caught a stray bullet.'
'That's what Colonel Ferraz says. The league people tell a different story. They claim Muniz shot her on purpose, just to make a point.'
'Why didn't the league people bring charges?'
'They tried, but the local judge is a friend of the Munizes,' some crook by the name of Wilson Cunha. He threw them out of court.'
'The Azevedo thing, was that before or after?'
'Before and after. Azevedo was the guy who led the invasion of the property, and he was the guy who tried to press charges for the murder of the little girl. Junior started getting threats. That's when he started locking his doors and, some say, laying plans to make an example of Azevedo.'
'What's your best guess about who's responsible for Junior's disappearance?'
'For heaven's sake, Chief Inspector. He disappears one night, and they invade his fazenda the next. What do you need? A road map? It had to be the league. Who else? Your turn now, and I hope it's good.'
'Oh, it is, Vicenza, it is.'
Silva looked around and leaned closer. Her perfume had a faint lemony scent. 'It's not a kidnapping anymore. Muniz is dead. They found his body, on a hill, about two kilometers down that road. His old man just arrived and he's already up there.'
She threw her cigarette to the ground and crushed it under one of her black pumps. She'd only taken one puff on it, the one to get it lit.
'A pleasure doing business with you, Chief Inspector. We'll catch up later.' Then, with a sideways glance at the competition, she started strolling toward the blue truck as if she was disengaging herself from a fruitless conversation.
Chapter Twenty-six
Arnaldo didn't think It would be a good idea to take a rental car into a favela, so he took it back to the hotel and left it in the garage under the building. Then he found a place under the shadow of a jacaranda tree and looked up and down the dusty, deserted street. There was no sign of a taxi. He was thinking about going back inside and asking them to call one when a white-haired lady, trailing a poodle of the same color, came out of a neighboring apartment building. While the dog sniffed at Arnaldo's crotch, and they both tried to ignore it, the lady directed him to the nearest taxi stand.
It turned out to be a three-minute walk away, on a parallel street called the Rua Tiradentes, and consisted of a telephone box bolted to a lamppost. A yellow Volkswagen Beetle with both doors open was parked along the curb. The passenger's seat, the one next to the driver, had been removed to facilitate access.
'We're going to a favela called Consolacao,' Arnaldo said, folding his considerable bulk into the back and slamming the door on the passenger's side.
The driver, who'd been fanning himself with a magazine while leafing through another, turned around and stared at him. He was a black man with a day's growth of white beard and a bald head. 'No, we're not,' he said. 'Not me. Those people will slit your throat for a few reais.'
Arnaldo took out his badge and flashed it. 'Consolacao,' he said, 'or the nearest police station.'
'Merda,' the driver said, but he slammed his door, started the engine, and pushed down the flag.
'Isn't this thing air conditioned?' Arnaldo asked.
'No,' the driver said. 'Why don't I bring you over to the cab stand near the bus station? You can get an especial with air conditioning and the whole bit. You'll be a lot more comfortable.'
'Forget it. Get moving.'
'No charge. I'll take you for free.'
'Get moving, I said. Now, listen up. When we get there you're going to help me find a woman-'
'Look, senhor, if all you want is a whore I can-'
'Shut up and drive. I was talking.'
What passed for the favela's main street was an unpaved alleyway lined with shacks built of scrap lumber. Every now and then a narrower alleyway branched off to the left or to the right. There was no room for the driver to maneuver, no way for him to avoid the water-filled potholes, any one of which might have been deep enough to engulf one of his wheels. He bounced ahead slowly, cursing under his breath.
'Stop next to that woman,' Arnaldo said. 'We'll try her first.'
The woman in question was carrying a blue plastic washtub on her head and picking her way through the garbage that lined the street. The windows in the back of the cab didn't open, so Arnaldo had to lean over the driver's left shoulder to talk to her.
'Senhora?'
She stopped and gave him a wide, curious smile.
'I'm looking for a woman who has a son named Edson Souza.'
'Sorry,' she said, 'I don't know her.' And then, almost as an afterthought, 'Senhor?'
Arnaldo leaned forward hopefully.
'If I were you, I wouldn't go driving around this neighborhood.'
'You see?' the taxi driver said as they pulled away. 'Now you heard it from somebody else, and she lives here, for Christ's sake. Let's get out of here.'
'Keep going.'
They came next to a group of five youths standing in a circle.
'Stop here.'
'Senhor, for the love of-'
'Stop, I said.'
The driver stopped and looked down, writing something on a clipboard, avoiding the five pairs of eyes.
The youngest kid was about thirteen, the oldest maybe seventeen. They were all dressed in clothes that looked several sizes too big for them, and they all had shaved heads. Arnaldo was reminded of the school of barracudas he'd once seen while scuba diving. He'd been about thirty meters down, on the wreck of the old Principe de Asturias, just off the north coast of Ilha Bela. The damned fish had looked at him then just like the kids were looking at him now, as if they were deciding whether it would be safe to flash in and take a bite.
'What?' the oldest kid said.
No greeting, no smile, just the single word. Arnaldo asked the same question he'd asked of the woman with
