let him pass, then got off his stool.
“Where’s my money, asshole?” Chavez said in Portuguese.
The man spun around, fists coming up. Chavez raised his hands to ear height. “Easy, easy-”
He slapped his right palm down on the man’s face, shattering his nose. He staggered backward, and Chavez followed, delivering a thumb-punch to the hollow beneath his larynx. The man went down. The other patrons watched curiously but made no move to intervene. Debts were debts.
At the back of the room, Dominic was already out of his seat and marching Hadi out the back door.
Chavez walked up to Lancia and stepped on his gun hand, then jerked the gun from his belt. “You speak English?”
The man sputtered.
“Nod if you speak English.”
The man nodded.
“Get to your feet or I’ll shoot you dead right here.”
Dominic was waiting in the alley. It was fully dark now. To the left, the alley ended in a wall, into which was set a stairway leading up into darkness; to their right, twenty yards away, the mouth of the alley.
Hadi stood against the brick wall beside a cluster of garbage cans. Dominic had his gun out and tucked behind his thigh. Chavez shoved Lancia from behind, and he stumbled into the wall beside Hadi.
“Who are you?” Hadi asked.
“Shut up,” Dominic growled.
Chavez saw Dom’s fingers curling and uncurling on the butt of his gun. “Easy, Dom.” He picked up a wad of newspaper from the ground and tossed it to Lancia. “Wipe your nose.”
“Fuck you.”
The door burst open beside them. Silhouetted by the dim light from the pool hall, Chavez saw a figure standing a few feet back from the threshold. His hand came up, extended toward them. Chavez double-tapped him in the chest, and he fell back. Chavez kicked the door shut.
“Go, Dom.” He leveled his gun with Hadi and Lancia. “Move.”
At the mouth of the alley, a figure was running toward him. A gun muzzle flashed orange, then twice more. Chavez sidestepped behind the garbage cans and fired twice. The figure dodged to one side.
“Stairs,” Chavez ordered.
Prodding Lancia and Hadi along, Dom headed for the stairs. Chavez back-walked with them until he felt his shoulders bump into the wall, then turned and followed.
Charging up the steps on the heels of Dominic, Chavez reached the top and looked around. An alley stretched to the left and to the right; above them, overhanging balconies. Behind them and to the right, another rectangle set into another brick wall. Chavez gestured toward it. Dominic nodded and shoved Lancia and Hadi up the steps. Behind, Chavez heard the scuff of a shoe and looked back down the steps. Their pursuer was there, head peeking around the corner. Chavez pulled back, went still. After ten seconds of silence, the scuff of a shoe echoed up the steps.
Chavez tucked his gun into his belt, took two steps to the right, then reached above his head and snagged the balcony’s lower rail. He chinned himself up, then reached again, grabbing the upper rail and pulling himself over. He dropped flat on the balcony.
The footsteps continued coming: Step… pause. Step… pause… In the distance, sirens were warbling. Would gunshots be enough to get the police to come into the Rocinha? he wondered. He closed his eyes and listened, waiting for the echo to change.
Step… pause. The shoe scuffed again. No echo this time. The man passed beneath Chavez’s balcony, obviously trying to decide.
He jumped down, ran to the body, did a hurried frisk, then charged up the stairs. Dominic was waiting at the top, crouched down behind a Dumpster with Lancia and Hadi. A hundred yards away, the alley opened into a parking lot faintly illuminated by streetlamps. From somewhere close by came the bouncing of a basketball and kids shouting back and forth.
“We’re down to two,” Chavez said.
“We’ll make due with these.”
Chavez dropped the items he’d taken from the dead man on the ground: passport, a wad of cash, a set of car keys. He picked up the keys and dangled them before Lancia and Hadi. “Which car, the Fiat or the Corcel?”
Neither man answered.
Dominic grabbed Hadi by the hair, jerked his head back, and jammed the barrel of his gun between his lips. Hadi resisted, clenching his teeth. Dominic took his opposite hand and slapped Hadi hard on the side of his windpipe. He gasped. Dominic jammed his gun into Hadi’s mouth.
“Five seconds and I’ll spray your brains down this alley.” Hadi didn’t respond. Dominic jammed the gun deeper. Hadi started retching. “Four seconds. Three seconds.”
Chavez watched his partner, watched his eyes. Facial expressions can be manufactured when necessary, but the eyes were a little trickier to get right. The look in Dominic’s eyes told Ding he was serious.
“Dom…”
“Two seconds…”
“Dom!” Chavez rasped.
Hadi was nodding, raising his hands in supplication. Dominic withdrew the gun, and Hadi said, “Ford Corcel.”
Lancia growled, “You’re a traitor.”
Dominic pointed the gun at Lancia’s left eye. “You’re next. Where’s it parked?”
Lancia didn’t respond.
“This time you get three seconds,” Dominic said, then shifted his gun, jamming it against Lancia’s knee. “Then a cane for life.”
“One block east of the pool hall, middle of the block on the south side.”
Chavez said to Dom, “Go grab it. I’ll babysit our friends.”
Fifteen minutes later, Chavez heard a honk and looked down the alley. The Corcel was sitting there, side door open. He got Lancia and Hadi up and walking. At the car, he prodded them into the backseat. “Found this in the trunk,” Dominic said, holding up a small coil of rusted baling wire.
Chavez leaned over the seat. “Gimme your hands.”
Dominic started driving.
“We’re gonna need some privacy,” Chavez said. He sat sideways in the passenger seat, gun resting on the backrest.
“I think I’ve got the place. Saw it on the way here.”
The building was nearly identical to all the others-four-story rectangle with one door and balconied windows-except that the windows and door were boarded up. On the side of the building, a set of steps overgrown with shrubbery rose into the darkness. An official-looking seal was plastered across the front door. In Portuguese it read “Condemned.”
“Here,” Dominic said. “Be right back.”
He got out, shoved his way through the overgrown steps, and disappeared. He was back in two minutes. He nodded at Chavez, who got out and fell in behind Lancia and Hadi as they followed Dominic up the steps. After about thirty feet, the shrubbery thinned out and the steps turned right onto a porch. Like the one below, the back door was emblazoned with the “Condemned” seal, but this one was hanging by only its bottom hinge. Dominic lifted the door free and set it to one side. Chavez ordered Hadi and Lancia inside.
Under the glow of Dominic’s LED penlight, it quickly became clear why the building had been condemned. The walls, floor, and ceiling were covered in soot and in some places charred down to the supports. The floor was a
