“Jackpot?”
“Those are the Holambra Juniors, and Jan Kloppers is their best striker. Five minutes ago, the kid was there, kicking ass, and his father was watching him do it. Then his grandmother, the old biddy you allowed to leave the house, drove up. They called the kid in from the field and took off, all three of them. You screwed up, Nunes. You should never have let her out the door.”
“If I-”
“Shut up. I’m talking. Fortunately for us, Greetje made a mistake. She told Jan she was taking him to his aunt’s place, and then let him say a quick good-bye to his friends.”
“And he told them where he was going?”
“Exactly.”
“And one of them told you how to find the place.”
“Uh-huh. And now that we’re no longer talking to the old folks, my orders from Hector no longer apply. I’m gonna take the lead. So kindly keep your mouth shut when we get there.”
“You’re a vengeful person, Samantha, a vengeful person. Maybe that’s why the other girls in the office don’t like you.”
“They’re not girls, they’re women, and I couldn’t care less about whether they like me or not. I can’t wait to get back to Sao Paulo and tell everybody how you screwed up.”
“See what I mean?” Arnaldo said. “Vengeful.”
Arnaldo caught sight of it first: the same dusty pickup they’d seen at the Kloppers’ house.
“There,” he said.
The truck was nosed up to the garage of a modern villa. He pulled into the driveway behind it.
They tried the doorbell. There was no response.
“Knock,” she said.
“They heard us. They’re just not coming to the door.”
“Knock anyway.”
He did. There was still no response.
Samantha opened her shoulder bag, produced a Glock, and took a stance to the right of the door.
“Break it down,” she said.
“What?”
“You got a hearing problem, Nunes? I said break down the goddamned door. Then get out of my way.”
Arnaldo shook his head and sighed. Then, leaning into the door and raising his voice, he said, “Listen to me, Kloppers. We need to talk, and we know you’re in there. You want to get your mom and dad in trouble? If you do, just keep on doing what you’re doing.”
Samantha put her mouth next to his ear and hissed: “Are you out of your mind? You think a guy who’s going to all this trouble to avoid us cares about-”
He didn’t let her finish. “Come on, Kloppers,” he said, “play it smart. I’m not kidding. If you don’t open this door right now, I’m gonna have your parents up on a charge of obstruction of justice. Is that what you want? Huh?”
Samantha pursed her lips and shook her head.
And Marnix Kloppers opened the door.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Magda Mansur lived in Alphaville Nineteen. Like the other twenty Alphavilles, Nineteen was surrounded by a high wall surmounted by fragments of broken glass. The glass was anchored in concrete and crowned by electrified razor wire. Situated to either side of a low brick guardhouse were two gates. The one on the right was for visitors.
When Prado rolled his van to a stop, a guard with a revolver on his hip approached the vehicle. “Here to see Magda Mansur,” Prado said.
The guard nodded.
“Police, right?”
“Right.”
“She’s expecting you. Still gonna have to see some ID.”
Everyone reached for their credentials. The guard went through them, making notes on a clipboard as he went.
When he was done, he lifted his arm and signaled to another guard behind the bulletproof glass. That one picked up a telephone. Seconds later, the gate in front of them was opening and a security car was rolling up to lead them to the Mansur home.
“Seems pretty tight,” Hector said.
“Believe me,” Prado said, letting out the brake and putting the van in gear, “they pay for it.”
The gate closed behind them and they started rolling through the streets of the community. The security car kept the speed down to a little less than twenty-five kilometers an hour. Even without the car, they wouldn’t have been able to go much faster: there was a speed bump every fifty meters or so.
“Once you’re in here,” Prado said, “you’re safe. The problem is getting here. The bad guys cover the approach roads like old-time highwaymen, put out sharp stuff to perforate tires and make people stop. And that’s just one of their ploys. Another one is they dress whores in designer clothing, make ’em look like housewives, put ’em next to a car with a flat tire, and then-ah, this is it.”
A hand protruding from the security vehicle was pointing at a red brick house set between two tall palms. Prado pulled into the driveway. The rent-a-cops made a U-turn and drove off.
Senhora Mansur was an attractive woman in her mid-to-late thirties, casually dressed. Pale blue jeans were topped by a baggy sweater. Her hair was drawn back in a severe bun, making a no-nonsense impression. She did not appear to be in any way devastated by her husband’s death. Once they were all seated inside, Prado kicked off the interrogation.
“I apologize, Senhora, for intruding on you at a time like this.”
It was a formula. Every one of the cops present had said it to a bereaved person at one time or another. Silva had probably said it over a hundred times. But he’d never gotten a response like the one Magda gave Prado.
“No, Delegado, I’m the one who should apologize. I’m afraid I shocked that nice man you sent. Tell me, do you think I murdered my husband?”
Silva found her forthrightness refreshing.
“It did cross our minds,” he said, making a bid to take over the interview. Prado sat back in his chair, a sign that he had no objection.
“Of course it did,” she said.
“And did you?” Silva asked.
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “But I thought about it often enough.”
Silva had come prepared to dislike the woman. Instead, he found himself warming to her.
“So you’re not terribly displeased that someone else did it for you?” he said.
“I should have left him years ago. If he was still beating me, I would have. But after I walloped him with one of his golf clubs, a seven iron as I recall, he stopped. We have no children. I’ve got money of my own. So why did I stay with him?”
“Indeed. Why did you?”
“I’d become little more than an object to Luis, something he owned, like a car or a house.” She leaned forward, folded her hands and put her elbows on her knees. Evidently, it was important to her that Silva fully understand what was coming next. “But he didn’t abuse me any more. He paid the bills. He wasn’t jealous. He let me do the things I wanted to do. He was almost never home, and the time he did spend at home he mostly spent sleeping. When I’d tell the women around here that I was considering leaving him, they’d look at me like I was insane.”
“They didn’t think it was important that you no longer loved him? Or that he no longer loved you?”
