The Darkest Heart

by Dan Smith

  The handle turned, a twisting and scraping as someone tugged to draw the bolt. I took another step away and drew my knife from its place at the small of my back, holding it so the tip was pointing at the tiled floor.

  When the bolt finally gave and the door swung open, I raised my right arm, the blade of the knife coming up, my whole body twisting, lifting the weapon towards the silhouette.

  ‘Zico? Where the hell have you been?’

  I dropped my arm, the air coming out of me in a long breath. ‘Daniella? What are you doing here?’ I whispered, glancing along the corridor, checking I hadn’t woken Juliana.

  I stepped inside, closing the door behind me, pushing the bolt back in to place.

  ‘Where have you been all night?’ Daniella looked down at the knife in my hand. ‘And what are you going to do with that?’

  ‘I was at the old man’s place, where else would I be?’

  ‘I don’t know, Zico, where else would you be?’

  I put the knife on the chest of drawers and rubbed my face, shaking my head. ‘We drank too much. Carolina fed me and I slept on the sofa. How did you get in?’

  ‘Juliana.’

  I nodded and looked at her standing in front of the window, the first light of the day creeping around the shutter and settling over her, shining through her tousled hair.

  Daniella was wearing one of my T-shirts, the white cotton falling to the top of her thighs. It was big on her, the material at the front falling loose around her breasts, the sleeves baggy and to her elbows. Her legs were naked.

  ‘You slept here?’ I asked. ‘How come?’

  Daniella threw a hand in the air and sat down on the bed. ‘My mother.’

  Taking off my own T-shirt, I tossed it into the corner of the room and went to the sink. ‘Your mother?’ I splashed cold water onto my face, my chest, across my shoulders, not caring that it was falling on the floor. ‘What did she do this time?’

  ‘You’re not the only one who had too much to drink last night.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I said, taking a towel and drying myself. ‘You went to Valdenora’s. She was trying to set you up with her son. What’s his name?’

  ‘Paulo.’

  ‘Yeah. Paulo. How did it go?’

  ‘Awful. All night she was telling me what a nice boy he is, what a clever boy he is, what a good husband he was going to make for someone, not like—’

  ‘Not like me?’

  Daniella nodded.

  ‘So what did you say?’

  ‘I left.’

  I sat down beside her. ‘You mean you just got up and left?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I couldn’t help smiling. ‘Well, good for you. I bet that pissed them off. You tell them you were coming here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even better.’ My smile broadened and I turned to her, pushing her hair from her face. ‘Maybe we should make the most of it, then.’ I lifted the hem of the T-shirt. ‘Maybe we should take this off.’

  Daniella was still for a moment, then she crossed her arms and pulled the shirt off, shuffling away, lying back on the bed and waiting for me.

  I took off my trousers and looked down at her shadowy form, the darkness beneath the swell of her breasts, around the bones of her hips, her stomach, the place between her legs. ‘At least this way you can go to work with a smile on your face.’

  ‘Work? I’m not going to work.’

  ‘You’ll have to.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to her.’

  ‘She’s your mother.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘OK, then don’t talk to her. But you still have to go to work.’

  Daniella giggled.

  ‘What?’

  She began to laugh now.

  ‘Shh. You’ll wake Juliana. What’s so funny?’

  ‘You,’ she said, controlling the laugh. ‘Standing there like that, naked, talking about my mother. Can you imagine her face?’

  ‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘Don’t make me imagine that. Not now.’

  She laughed again and reached up to pull me down on the bed, burying her face in my neck, the laughter subsiding as I ran my hands over her skin, our lips coming together, her fingers on my back, our bodies joining.

  *

  Daniella stayed for a while afterwards, lying on my arm, drifting in a sleepy haze. I stared at the ceiling and listened to her breathing, trying not to think about Antonio in the room upstairs. I concentrated on Daniella instead, feeling the way her chest rose and fell against me with each breath, the way her skin was warm against mine. I looked at her, moving my head to get her in focus, seeing her eyelashes against the top of her cheek. It was a good moment and I thought about how it would be to have this every morning, every night, and whether it would feel stale or if it would change. But I would need a place and money. I wasn’t a farmer. Like Costa said, I had other talents. I could provide if I needed to. If I wanted to. I was trying to escape that shadow, but if I let it smother me one more time, maybe it could be the last.

  Just one more life.

  Something at the back of my mind was telling me it was always the last time, though; that Costa was a trickster who used his words to twist my thoughts and play games. He was like Anhangá, but instead of provoking me with terrible visions of hell, he was taunting me with visions of what could be heaven.

  I put my hand on Daniella’s shoulder, cupping the bony part in my palm, and tried to decide what I really wanted. A long time ago, in another life, my sister Sofia and I had talked about moving away, and I had always imagined a piece of land for myself, something open and clean and wide, a million miles from the dirty cramped constraints of the favela. That was the dream that might now be in my grasp, but it would be tainted by the very thing I had to get away from if I wanted to be completely free. Blood and death.

  Costa was forcing me back into the shadow, and the person he wanted me to kill made it even harder. I knew it wasn’t right, but I couldn’t see a way out.

  I kissed Daniella’s forehead and she made a soft noise in her throat, opening her eyes and looking up at me. ‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked.

  I shook my head. ‘I was thinking about the first time I saw you. In Ernesto’s. You were with your father.’

  ‘And it was love at first sight?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Lust, then?’

  ‘I thought you were beautiful.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘You still are.’

  There were other beautiful girls, I’d been with a few of them, but there was something about Daniella that drew me to her. She had a spark, a kind of unpredictability that kept me on my toes. She could be soft or she could be fun, but she was tough, too.

  Those first weeks, she flirted with me, touched me when she talked to me, but she did that with others, and I wondered for a while if she was interested in me or not. Even now she sometimes liked to make me jealous by saying this boy was good-looking or that one had a good shape, and I still hadn’t got used to it, but it was just part of who she was.

  ‘You ever thought about leaving Piratinga?’ I asked. ‘We could go now. Just leave town this morning and never come back.’

  ‘Is everything OK?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Everything’s good. I was just thinking that—’

  ‘What about Raul and Carolina, wouldn’t you miss them?’

  ‘Sure, but—’

  ‘And what about my parents and my friends?’

  ‘I wouldn’t miss them.’

  ‘I would.’ She gave me a playful slap and sat up. ‘We can’t just leave. My whole life is here. I want us to get a place here and ...’ She shrugged one shoulder and smiled. ‘You know.’

  ‘I thought you hated your mother.’

  Daniella sighed and flopped back onto the pillow. ‘I don’t hate her, I just ... don’t like her sometimes.’

  She was right. Her life was here and I couldn’t take her away from it. If I wan
ted to be with Daniella, it would have to be here in Piratinga. And I had the old man to think about too. Costa had threatened him just like he’d threatened Daniella. If I disappeared, Raul and Carolina would not be safe.

  11

  When the time came, I propped myself on one elbow to watch Daniella dress. She kissed me, the long kiss of a lover who didn’t want to leave, and then closed the door behind her, going out to face her mother at work.

  For a while, I lay there and listened to the creak of a loud and irritating cicada that had landed on the mosquito netting behind the shutter. He stopped only when there was a loud bang from somewhere on the street, but it wasn’t long before he started again so I opened the shutter and tapped the green mesh to make him fly away.

  I washed and prepared myself for the oncoming day, retrieving my revolvers from beneath the drawer and clipping one to my belt. The other, I secured in a small canvas backpack which I kept under the bed along with a good knife and replacement cartridges.

  I put the backpack on the floor by the wall and took a warm can of Coke and cracked it open. Sitting on the end of my bed, I listened to the town come to life and waited for Costa’s men to come, as I knew they would. Costa wasn’t a patient man, he wanted this job done, so he would be back with his offer. He’d have people standing over him – powerful people who needed to be pleased.

  About nine thirty, I heard voices in the corridor, Juliana talking fast and loud, footsteps approaching. She was still talking when there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Costa,’ I said, opening up and doing little to disguise my distaste as I looked him up and down.

  ‘Zico.’ Despite the heat and his inability to cope with it, Costa was wearing a pressed shirt and a tie.

  I’m honoured. You want to come in?’ I pulled the door wide and looked over his shoulder at Luis and Wilson. ‘Those two can wait outside; there’s something they need to do. Upstairs, I mean.’ I let my eyes meet theirs so they would know I was not afraid of them.

  ‘We’ll get to that when we’re ready,’ Luis said.

  Costa put out a hand to stop me as I took a step forward. ‘Enough,’ he said. ‘We’ve got things to talk about, Zico. Luis and Wilson will clear up their mess.’ He turned to look at them. ‘Won’t you?’

  The two men had more to say, but they tightened their lips and nodded like children.

  ‘Right.’ Costa cast his eye around my room then turned up his nose. ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘Maybe we should talk outside. Your place stinks even more than my office.’

  ‘So,’ I asked as we left the building and headed towards the waterfront. ‘You got some news for me?’

  Luis and Wilson walked a few metres behind us, out of earshot.

  ‘She’s pretty, your girlfriend. Daniella, right? She stayed the night.’ After just a few steps, Costa’s face was shining.

  ‘So now you’re watching my place?’

  ‘Just keeping you safe.’ He grinned like a devil.

  ‘More like making sure 1 don’t leave town. Just keep those idiots away from Daniella,’ I told him, glancing back at the two men shadowing us. ‘And any other idiots you have.’

  Costa smiled. ‘They’ll check on her from time to time, that’s all. They’ve been told not to harm her until I allow it.’

  The thought of Costa having that much power threatened to overwhelm me. I wished I could take my friends out of Piratinga and I wished I didn’t want his money. If those two things were different, I could settle this right now. ‘And who was that last night? By the old man’s place?’

  ‘Last night?’ Costa looked surprised.

  ‘Have you got someone watching the old man?’

  ‘No one was there last night.’

  I stopped. ‘You sure about that? Someone was there and if it wasn’t one of yours, then—’

  ‘I haven’t come here to talk about ghosts in the night, Zico.’ Costa came to a halt and turned to face me. There was an impatient edge to his voice. ‘Do you want to hear the offer or not?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘Then walk with me.’ Costa scanned the road but there was hardly anyone about. Just a few cafés and shops opening up, their owners winding out the awnings.

  I stayed as I was, thinking about the man on the beach. Maybe he was just a fisherman returning from the river, but something about it didn’t feel right. It had been too late, and he’d been afraid of Rocky. All the fishermen knew the old man and that meant they all knew Rocky.

  ‘Zico?’

  ‘Yeah. OK.’ I picked up my pace, letting my flip-flops slap in the red dust that had piled at the side of the road. We passed the whitewashed buildings, the smell of coffee and fried steak drifting out from a café, making my stomach groan.

  Luis and Wilson continued to follow, always a few metres behind so they couldn’t hear what we were saying but would be on hand if Costa needed them.

  ‘They won’t go to ten.’ He lowered his voice. ‘It’s too much.’

  ‘I thought you wanted this to be agreeable to everyone’

  ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself, Zico. I said they won’t go to ten, that’s all.’

  We were walking past the school now, the whole place quiet because all the kids were in class, doing things I never did.

  ‘How much then?’ I thought about Daniella – about how much money I’d need to marry her, build or buy a place of our own.

  ‘Five.’ It sounded almost painful for him. ‘They’ll go to five.’

  ‘They can afford it. Five thousand dollars is nothing to them.’

  ‘And they’ll give you a piece of land. Just outside town, close to where the old man lives.’

  I stopped again and looked at Costa, trying not to show any emotion. ‘A place? Of my own?’

  ‘There’s an old house there, it’s not much, needs fixing up, but you can have it.’

  ‘They must really hate this nun.’

  Costa widened his eyes and glanced over at Luis and Wilson. ‘Keep your voice down, Zico, nobody can know about this.’ He stepped closer to me. ‘If this gets out ... if anybody but you and I know about this, and I mean anybody, then everything changes.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Just keep it to yourself.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘So you’ll do it?’

  On the other side of the road, a horse ambled past, hooves thumping in the dirt, its rider swaying in the saddle. I watched them and thought about Costa’s offer. It was a lot of money, the land and the house meant more, but it was nothing if something went wrong; and God knows there was enough that could go wrong.

  I looked at him, his face dotted with perspiration, his nose moving as he pursed his lips, sucking them together.

  ‘You already know I’ll do it. You knew it from the moment you made the offer. I don’t have any choice and that makes me so damn angry with you, Costa.’

  ‘But the money’s good, right?’ He grinned.

  ‘Yeah.’ I had to agree. ‘The money’s good.’

  ‘You’re a smart man, Zico.’

  ‘Not smart enough,’ I said. ‘Not by far.’

  Costa put his arm round me and I could smell his aftershave. His familiarity with me, his dominance, came only from the protection his employers offered him and from his understanding of what this place meant to me.

  We walked for a while in silence, before he started telling me the detail, saying, ‘She’s coming in by plane the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘To Piratinga?’

  ‘Um-hm. Gets here early. Seven o’clock. She’s going to meet with the bishop and then she’s taking a boat down Rio das Mortes.’

  ‘Rio das Mortes?’ It was the same place the old man was headed.

  Costa looked at me and nodded. ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘No.’ I shook my head and thought for a moment about the mysterious cargo the old man was to collect. He didn’t know anything about the man who had chartered his boat. ‘And she’s taking the river? Why no
t take the road?’

  ‘I don’t know, maybe she likes the water, what difference does it make?’

  ‘And what’s she going there for?’ I wondered if there was some connection with the job Raul was doing. Sister Beckett coming in by plane, taking a boat along Rio das Mortes; cargo coming in by plane, taking a boat up the same river. Maybe they were supposed to meet somewhere in the middle.

  ‘She’s visiting reservations on the cerrado, some shit about working with the American companies to put animals back on the land. Teaching the natives to look after themselves. Or maybe she’s complaining about agriculture again, who knows.’ The way he shifted his eyes when I looked at him, I thought he was lying. He knew something he wasn’t telling me.

  ‘Which reservation?’ I asked. ‘There must be at least four.’

  ‘I don’t know, but she’s going to Mina dos Santos first.’

  ‘The gold mine?’ The same place the old man’s cargo was headed. It could have been a coincidence or it could have been planned that way, I had no way of knowing for sure, but I might be able to make it work in my favour. ‘Is she staying there? At the mine?’

  ‘One night at Fernanda’s.’

  ‘What boat?’ I asked. ‘Whose boat will she be on?’

  ‘Santiago’s. The Estrella do Araguaia.’

  I was already thinking I’d go out with the old man today, do his pick-up, make the delivery. We’d be on the river ahead of Santiago, which would be better than following; the old man’s boat would never keep up with the Estrella. If we tried to follow them, we’d lose them and the money would slip away from me. But if we were ahead of them, things would be different. We were leaving today which meant we could be in Mina dos Santos before them. We could wait for them there. Last time we went there we stayed a day before returning, so it wouldn’t be unusual. Mina dos Santos would be a good place to do it.

  A good place for her to disappear.

  Just one more life.

  I could see it already in my mind. The old man and I could rent rooms at Fernanda’s. It would be easy enough for me to slip from one room to another in the early hours before sunrise and take the woman in her sleep. No one would ever know. And there are many places in a gold mine for a body to disappear like it was never there. Except, the way it played out in my head right now, when I put the knife to her throat, my hand hesitated.