“So you did what she suggested? Called Sao Paulo? Got a fix on the street price?”
“I did. And it was just like she said. And I got to the airport early and met her. Early, so the pill I was gonna pop would have time to work before I paid her the money.”
“And?”
“And she’s got the pills.”
“Which are in containers labeled as vitamins?”
“Yeah, that’s right, labeled as vitamins. I choose one of those containers, break the seal, mix around with my finger, and choose a pill.”
“And?”
“And I popped it.”
“Right there in the airport?”
“Right there in the airport. Anybody who sees me, they think I’m popping a vitamin, right? It was cool. I never had Ecstasy before. I had my MP3 player with me, and I can see why the kids-”
“Get on with it.”
“Okay. So I paid her.”
“How much?”
“A thousand dollars. Not much, but then there weren’t that many pills either. It was gonna be a trial run for both of us.”
“And then?”
“And then she takes back the container I opened, pours the pills into a plastic bag and fills the empty container with some other pills from another bag. ‘What are those?’ I say. ‘Vitamins,’ she says, ‘just an extra precaution. If the Customs guys want a closer look, they’ll stop here instead of opening the two that are sealed.’”
“All right. What happened next?”
“I went through security, which gives me no trouble at all, and I took a seat in the departure lounge. That’s when I saw the cop.”
“Cop? What cop?”
“This detective, from Santo Andre, named Georgio Parente. I didn’t notice him at first because I’ve got the buds from my MP3 player in my ears, listening to Chitaozinho and Xororo and grooving on the music. But then I look up and there’s Parente with some lardass, who must be his wife, and a couple of kids almost as fat as she is. The kids are wearing hats with ears. I practically fell off my chair.”
“Hats with ears?”
“Mickey Mouse ears. I figure Parente took the family to Disney. I put my hand over my face and sink down in my seat like I’m sleeping. Every now and then, I look through my fingers. Parente’s kids are running around yelling and stepping on people’s toes. The other passengers don’t like it a bit. They’re whispering to each other and shooting nasty looks at lardass, who’s got her nose in a magazine and isn’t doing a damn thing to stop it. But Parente is, and he’s got his hands full, so he doesn’t notice me.”
“What makes you think he would have recognized you?”
“He’s busted me three times. The last time wasn’t six months ago.”
“All right. What did you do then?”
“I sat right where I was until they called the flight. By this time, I’m thirsty as hell. That’s another thing that Ecstasy stuff does to you: it makes you thirsty. I’m still buzzed, but I can’t groove on the music because I’m worried about Parente. They call the first-class passengers. They board. Then they call business class. I get up, keep my back to him, and line up. On my way to my seat, I grab a newspaper off the rack. The paper’s in English, and I can’t read a word of it, but I buckle up and hold it in front of my face until we take off. He musta walked right by me on his way to economy.”
Silva had an intimation of what was coming. “You were afraid of running into him during disembarkation?”
“Goddamned right I was. My tic was acting up like you wouldn’t believe. He woulda taken one look at me and known something was up. If he’d asked to see my passport, I woulda been fried. Then they woulda gone through my baggage for sure.”
“So,” Silva said, “you decided to get rid of the evidence.”
“Wouldn’t you? It was the last thing I wanted to do. Those damned pills cost me a grand. But I figured it was either lose them or go down.”
“So you waited until the middle of the night. You opened the compartment over your seat and took the pills out of your hand luggage. And then what?”
“I was gonna flush them down the toilet. But then, I got to thinking. What if I’d been wrong? What if it wasn’t Parente? What if it was just a guy who looked like Parente? And even if it was Parente, what if I could get off the airplane and through Customs without him spotting me? Wouldn’t it be stupid to throw all that money away for nothing?”
“So you took the Ecstasy and put it into Julio Arriaga’s hand luggage.”
“Was that the kid’s name? Julio Arriaga?”
“That was his name. What did you plan to do if he got through Customs without a hitch?”
“I had this story all ready. About how I had my hand luggage in the same compartment as his, that I was looking for something there in the dark, that maybe my stuff got into his bag by mistake.”
“Pretty thin. You think he was going to believe that?”
Sacca shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “And if he didn’t, I was gonna take the stuff from him anyway. He was only a kid, not a very big kid either. He couldn’t give me any trouble even if he’d wanted to.”
“Didn’t it occur to you that a kid that age was probably going to have someone waiting for him at the airport? Someone older, more experienced, liable to be suspicious of your story?”
“Yeah, it did. And it mighta been his father, and his father mighta been built like a gorilla, but I couldn’t think of a better idea. Doing it that way, I had a chance of getting my stuff back. If I’d flushed it down the toilet, it would have been gone for good. What would you have done, huh?”
Sacca was looking at Silva as if he actually expected an answer to the question.
“One more thing,” Silva said. “Tell me about the run-in with Mansur.”
“Who?”
“Did you have any trouble with a man on the airplane?”
“Oh. That. Was that his name? Mansur.”
“That was his name.”
“Yeah. Well, he musta told you about it, right?”
“He didn’t tell us a damned thing. He couldn’t. He’s dead.”
“Good riddance, the prick.”
“What happened?”
“He saw me stuffing the kid’s bag. He was across the aisle, acting like he was asleep, but he wasn’t. He saw the whole damned thing, and he heard me lie to the stewardess.”
“And then?”
“He waits until the stewardess buggers off, and he comes and sits down beside me.”
“And he blackmailed you?”
“He did.”
“How much did you give him?”
“Everything I had, over three thousand dollars and almost a thousand reais. The prick.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
On their way back to Hector’s office, Silva posed a question.
“If you discovered,” he said, “that it was Sacca who planted the stuff on your kid, and that Sacca was in a cell in Santo Andre, what would you do?”
