by A. D. Flint
Nogueira was into his stride, lobbing plenty of gringos and caipirinhas into his spiel about why silly drunken gringos shouldn’t wander onto the beach late at night.
“What happened to the boy you shot that night?” Jake cut in.
“You don’t need to worry. You are protected by us. And we will get the other boy, you have my word on that.”
It occurred to Jake that the captain had a habit of answering a different question or just starting a new conversation in response to anything that didn’t suit him.
Jake didn’t owe either of the kids. He owed dumb luck. But in the hours spent staring at the ceiling and at the TV, the pain swirling with narcotic relief, all kinds of things kept intruding. The expectant face of the lawyer. Other faces from before. Bodies. Broken and bloodied and burned out in the desert. Accusations. The images had followed him to Brazil, and with them came the swarm of shame and anger.
“But why shoot him if he wasn’t armed?” Jake persisted. He had time on his hands, and a streak of belligerence.
“He was armed,” Nogueira said. “Both of them were.”
“No, that’s not right—” Jake checked himself. He wanted to reveal only what was necessary. “I’m sure only one of them had a gun.”
Jake saw something shift in the cabo then, barely noticeable. His expression was set, but maybe it was something in his eyes or in his body language. He didn’t know exactly what it meant, but it meant something wasn’t right.
“Senhor Jake,” Nogueira said, trying to sound bored, “it’s all in your statement.”
“I gave a statement?”
“Of course. The last time we came. We typed it up and brought it for your signature,” Nogueira said, presenting it with a flourish.
Jake had trouble focusing on the print and read through it twice to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. “There’s hardly any detail in this and I never said they were both armed. This isn’t right.”
“Senhor, when we came to see you last time it was just after it happened. You were tired but your recollection of the events was very clear. After that, when you start reading stuff and seeing stuff on TV, and talking to other people, the events can become confused. And when you take morphine over a number of days it can make the unreal seem real. I have seen this many times.”
Jake hadn’t known which way was up at that last visit. He had been incapable of giving a clear account in English, let alone Portuguese. Afterwards, to get a foothold in the narcotic fug, he had started measuring his recovery in units of pain, holding off for as long as possible before zapping himself with a bonus squirt of the morphine pump. He soon lost interest but the eights and nines on his pain Richter scale were registering less frequently. There were fewer squirts of morphine, and his mind was more lucid.
“Only one of them had a gun,” Jake repeated slowly.
“I can assure you, when we intercepted them they were both armed. My officers and I were involved in a firefight with them. We saw it first-hand.”
Jake had to keep control of the anger. He had to remember more.
“Senhor Jake, excuse me, but we are short of time,” Nogueira said. “We need your signature.”
A crisp image jumped from the jumble of murky figures and flashes and psychedelic swirls that had churned through Jake’s head countless times. “The kid who shot me – he was wearing a Flamengo shirt,” he said. The dark red and black stripes of the Rio football team on the skinny frame. “Was the one you caught wearing a Flamengo shirt?”
Nogueira looked like he’d just got a parking ticket. “You realise these kids tried to murder you, don’t you? What does it matter about a football shirt?”
“I want to alter my statement to include it. And I want it to say that only one of them pulled a gun.”
“We don’t need to do that,” Nogueira growled. Catching himself, he redialled jovial mode. “You’ve had a big knock on the head and you have all those drugs washing around inside you. You need to rest. Let us deal with the cop stuff.”
“I’m not signing that statement,” Jake said. “It’s your version of events, not mine.”
The stick-on charm evaporated, Nogueira’s face turning to stone. His eyes narrowed, flashing with anger. “We’re not just a bunch of dumb hick cops, Senhor. I did my homework. I looked you up, found out that you made a bit of a name for yourself back in England.”
Jake shifted uncomfortably in the bed.
Nogueira had a nasty smile. “That touched a chord, uh? You’ve been in this territory before and it didn’t work out too well then, did it? You learned nothing from that, no?”
“You’re going to have to try harder than that.”
Nogueira’s smile disappeared and Marinho put a cautioning hand on his arm. Nogueira shrugged it off and lunged forward to stand over Jake. He thrust an index finger close to Jake’s face. “This is not England, remember that. We play by different rules. No one has your back here and bad things can happen to gringos who step in the wrong places.”
Marinho put a hand on his shoulder. Nogueira took a breath. Recovering a little composure, he allowed himself to be drawn away. Marinho guided him to the door.
Nogueira turned back on Jake at the threshold. He kept his voice calm. “You’re in the wrong place, gringo.”
The anger and adrenaline buzzed on after the cops left. Jake felt alive, the pain in his face forgotten. Sure, his recollection could not be litmus-tested, but there were one or two certainties, even if the truth was a drifting cloud, changing shape as it went. And it felt like there was something hidden behind it. Something he needed to know. Maybe the favela kid was the only one who really knew what had happened. Maybe he knew who owed, and who was owed.
Nogueira was right on one thing, though. Jake had been in this territory before. He had refused to put his name to someone else’s version of events before and he wasn’t about to roll over this time either. Screw the consequences.
No one was going to tell him what to do.
Chapter 8
Marinho
Marinho knocked on the door and entered on Padre Francisco’s ‘yes’. The priest was sitting at the desk in his tiny office, trying to rub the tiredness from his face with the palms of his hands. “Confession is done for today, son.”
“I know, Father. I needed to see you face to face.”
The priest looked at him more carefully. Marinho was in tee shirt and jeans, but he could see the priest clocking that he was a cop now. “Father, I believe you know those boys from the shooting on Copacabana?”
“I can’t give anyone up to you.”
“That’s not why I came, Father. I was on the beach that night. I want to put something right but it’s difficult with my boss.”
“You took the first step, coming here.”
“But my boss has a hold over me. I am tied to him.”
“In what way?”
“He knows something that no one else can know.” His eyes dropped and his head followed.
“You can lessen your burden with me,” said Padre Francisco. “Sharing a secret reduces its power.”
Marinho bit his lip and then nodded. “Maybe you are right, Father. Let me think about it. But I need to tell you about what happened to the boy.” He gathered himself, setting his face, trying to push the emotions away. It was the first time he had spoken to anyone about what had happened, and it was harder than he had imagined. “It was terrible, Father. What passed after the shooting troubles me far more than what passed before.” Hesitant at first, the images then began running in his head and it all came tumbling out as he described the events following Branca driving them away from Copacabana: Marinho was sitting on a fold-down seat on one side of the patrol truck, Nogueira on the other side. The truck bumped over a pothole and Babão’s eyes fluttered open. His eyes were blank only for a moment before he looked up, first at Marinho and then across to Nogueira. Marinho saw the fear return to his face. It was still strong, even as his life was ebbing.
�
�That’s right, friend, this is it,” said Nogueira.
It seemed to Marinho that hopelessness then engulfed the kid and his eyes started to close again. He was drifting away. Nogueira aimed an open-handed blow at his face to snap him back, but the old truck rolled on its ruined suspension, throwing him off balance.
“Slow it down, idiot,” he barked at Branca. A dark stain bloomed across Babão’s shorts, the urine sliding into the thicker trail of blood that was filling the runnels in the metal floor. “Not such a tough gangster now, uh, piss-pants?”
He laid a foot on Babão’s throat and gradually applied pressure. “You shouldn’t have crawled out of your hiding place and come into my beautiful city tonight. And murdering a gringo. Do you know how bad that is for business? Which is your gang?”
“Boss,” Marinho implored, laying a hand on Nogueira’s arm. Nogueira swatted it away irritably and drew close to catch Babão’s weak reply.
“I’m not with any gang, sir. I swear it.”
“Is that so?”
Branca had the lights on and jinked through some traffic, nearly toppling Nogueira from his seat. He roared at him again to slow down.
“Let’s make it simple for you then, uh? Which favela are you from?” Nogueira asked, pressing hard on Babão’s windpipe before easing off for the answer.
Babão coughed and retched. “Morro da Babilônia.”
“Just a regular kid from the favela. No gang, no?”
“I swear it.”
“Maybe I should call in back-up,” said Nogueira. “Get some angry cops with grudges and big guns to drive into your favela and shoot the place up a bit. Sweep the filth back up the hill, you know?”
Nogueira shifted his weight back onto Babão’s windpipe. Babão writhed in his own bloody mess on the metal floor, his eyes bulging and filled with terror.
“Boss, come on,” Marinho said. Firm this time. Nogueira lifted a finger in warning, not even looking up from Babão.
The kid’s eyelids fluttered, a shudder running through him. Life slipped away and his last breath rattled free, his body limp.
Nogueira shook his head. When he finally looked up at Marinho, he was stony-faced. Daring him to say something. Marinho kept quiet.
Pulling up round the back of the station, Branca came to the back to open up. “What happened?” he said.
“Our suspect has suffocated,” said Nogueira, still looking at Marinho. “I think you forgot to open a window, son, so now you’re going to have to take another little drive with him.”
Marinho knew that this was Nogueira’s way of getting the body out of his precinct. Dump it in someone else’s territory. Let them deal with the paperwork headache.
“No, boss, please, I can’t do that.”
“Oh yes, you can, cabo, and you will.”
Marinho was powerless. Nogueira either bent subordinates to his will or blackmailed them. With Marinho, he could use the latter tactic. And Marinho had heard about a cop before his time who had turned on Nogueira. He had ended up dead.
Chapter 9
Vilson
It was a boxy old television. Someone had left it overnight in the dumping ground near the bottom of the favela. What a find. It looked pristine amongst the rubble, tins, plastic and rubbish sacks. This early in the morning, kids hadn’t even smashed in the screen yet.
Vilson’s bent-up screwdriver didn’t fit the screws in the back. He hammered at the edge of the plastic with a piece of brick and levered it with the screwdriver. He managed to get his hands into the gap, tearing skin on the jagged broken plastic, and wrenched some more. A big flap of plastic snapped off. Now he could get at the copper wire wound around the tube.
He could sell it.
Selling the wire from fifty televisions still wouldn’t get him the money he needed, but he didn’t know what else to do. And it was better than squatting in the dust of his shack, knocking his head against the wall.
“What you got there, Canela?”
Four kids were lined along the shaded side of the dumping ground, none of them more than twelve.
“Don’t call me that, you cheeky little bastard,” said Vilson, stuffing the coil of wire into the pocket of his shorts.
“The boss is pissed with you,” the kid said. “He’s getting heat from the cops because of your stunt on the beach.”
“Your boss? Don’t make me laugh, you’re not soldiers,” Vilson said. This bunch just fed off scraps from Anjo. They added eyes and ears to his official lookouts and sentries.
More than a week had passed since the robbery, and cops had entered the bottom of the favela the previous day and kicked in a few doors. Anjo had put the hill in lockdown. He wouldn’t do anything to Vilson until his deadline was up – that was one of the things he liked to make a show of, sticking to his word – but he didn’t want Vilson disappearing.
“You owe him money,” the kid said, “so hand over what you got there.”
Vilson had to stand firm. He couldn’t let this bunch push him around, that would be total humiliation. Scared of a bunch of kids.
The kid picked up a broken chunk of brick, his friends following suit. “I said hand it over.”
Vilson wished he had escaped the favela when he had the chance. He told himself that he had hung on for Babão, hoping for the return of his friend. He should have set out to find his mother. But locked deep within him was the fear of pursuing a dream that was as remote as a fairy-tale castle.
He knew what shape the fear would take when Anjo came for him. Fear of the unknown was paralysing.
“You’re testing my patience,” the kid said, drawing his arm back, loading it to hurl his brick.
Vilson pulled the coil of wire from his pocket and tossed it over, his hands shaking with humiliation.
The kid relaxed the arm holding the brick. “Is that it?” he sneered. “A piece of dumb wire. If you’re still empty-handed come Sunday night the boss is going to do you up on the Burning Hill, you know that, don’t you?”
Vilson didn’t answer.
The kid flicked his shoulder back and dummied a throw, laughing as Vilson shrank back.
“Hey, you boys, what’s going on?” It was Padre Francisco, coming up the hill toward them.
“Just playing, Father,” said the kid, moving away, his posse following.
“Vilson?” Padre Francisco asked.
Vilson nodded. “Sure, they’re just fooling around, Father.”
“You boys remember that I know your mothers,” Padre Francisco said after the kids.
“I’ll give her your best,” the leader said quietly over his shoulder, the others giggling.
Padre Francisco spoke when they had gone. “A policeman came to see me today.”
Vilson’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t ask me to turn myself in to those animals, I won’t do it.”
“It’s not that, son, it was about Babão. I’m so sorry, it’s bad news.”
“No. He is alive. I feel it,” said Vilson. “Thanks be to God.” The words had become a constant prayer in the week since Babão had disappeared. Babão, his only friend. But his stomach churned. His body knew.
“Son, this young policeman was on the beach that night. He saw Babão die.”
Vilson’s breath caught in his throat. “No, it’s not true. They do nothing but lie. How can you believe him?”
“He told me that he took no part in the killing and that he wants to help you. I believe him, Vilson. I looked into his heart.”
“He tricked you – it’s a trick – the cops have already been knocking. They just want to kill me too.”
He caught himself saying it – ‘kill me too’. Even as he tried to deny it he had acknowledged the truth about his friend.
The grief flooded his body but there were no tears. In his experience, crying in front of others only drew more cruelty.
There was a long silence before Padre Francisco spoke. “This tourist would have died if it wasn’t for you – you know that. Vilson, something good came
from this terrible thing. Perhaps this is the sign that you were looking for.”
Vilson stiffened, something sharp cutting through his grief. “This thing in the gringo’s head was destined to kill him, the bullet should have killed him. That was his fate. The gringo cheated death. Babão was taken in his place.”
“No, my son, you’re not making sense.”
“Babão was not meant to die, it was the gringo’s time. It’s as plain as day.”
“You’re upset. This doesn’t make sense.”
Vilson took a step back from Padre Francisco, almost stumbling on the rubble. How could the priest not see it?
There was only one way back from all of this. One way to rebalance fate. To clear the path for him to find his way back to his mother.
The gringo had to die.
Chapter 10
Anjo
The slightest breeze came through the window to the young boss of As Formigas Vermelhas. It felt almost cool in the first light of the day. Anjo’s house was larger than most in the favela, better finished than most, but the money was in the electrical gadgetry – a giant TV, the best sound system, the latest games consoles.
He was curled in a huge leather beanbag, his soldiers draped over sofas, lying on cushions on the floor, some on the hard tiles, sleeping the fitful sleep that follows a two-day cocaine binge.
Anjo – Angel. An ironic nickname picked up in childhood, his mother having cursed him with her dying breath as she gave birth to him. It was just a story, one that had grown from a cruel jibe in early childhood. But it had dug itself in and become reality for him.
An aunt had taken him in for a few years, but she was hardly ever there, always working her cleaning jobs for rich folks down in the city in return for stingy wages or the sack if their place wasn’t left spotless. There were no older brothers or sisters to protect him whilst she worked. Bigger children had taunted and bullied him, and the overriding feeling he remembered from his early childhood was fear. He also remembered the day when he had changed everything. A couple of older boys started picking on him, he was maybe only seven years old at the time, and the other young kids he was playing with backed away and went silent. They didn’t have the guts to stand with him. Anjo was frightened but the pinch of anger made him talk back at the older boys. They chased him through the alleyways of the favela, shouting and laughing, enjoying the sport. It didn’t take them long before they had him cornered. Desperate, he unfolded the rusted little penknife that was his prized possession and waved it at them with all the threat he could muster. They taunted him. They didn’t believe he would do anything. He remembered feeling terrified, paralysed, feeling that they were right. And then one of them tried to grab his arm. Anjo lashed out instinctively and opened the boy’s face with the little blade. Blood poured down his face in a sheet from the long, deep wound across his cheek and nose. The cut boy and his friend panicked at the sight of so much blood.
