by Cleo Coyle
“Eat first.”
“But—”
He placed a fork in my hand and tucked a napkin under my chin.
“What am I? Three?”
“Just eat.”
He didn’t have to tell me again. While I twirled the pasta around my tines, he poured the wine. Then he drained his own glass and poured a second. Or was he on his third?
I tasted the pasta and sauce—tangy, aromatic, rich with umami—and began to devour it.
Matt sat down across from me. “While you were at the hospital, I talked to the detective in charge of the Brooklyn shooting. They still haven’t recovered bullets or even bullet fragments, and they’ve stopped looking.”
“Oh, come on. Not a clue who fired?” I said, mouth half-full.
“For starters, that whole cupcakes-versus-muffins turf war stuff didn’t fly with Sergeant Ortiz. Maybe he listened politely while you ‘explained’ it”—Matt made little quote marks in the air—“but Ortiz was practically laughing it off when I talked to him.”
“So who were they shooting at?”
“Nobody. Detective Ortiz believes they were stray bullets, the result of local squabbles. There are housing projects not far from my warehouse, and Red Hook has a notorious history of gang violence. He says shootings like that are common enough in the area.”
“But I told his officers what Buckman said, that someone out there might be trying to kill me. Didn’t Ortiz call Buckman to verify?”
“They talked,” Matt said with a nod, “but in the end Buckman didn’t convince Ortiz that the two crimes were connected. Ortiz believes if you have a stalker, his MO is vehicular homicide, not gunplay.”
I set aside my empty bowl, took another hit of wine. “From the guilty look on your face, you have a theory. What is it?”
“I think your friend Buckman is right, Clare. Someone is out to kill you, and I know who it is.”
“You know?” I stared. “How long have you been holding out on me?”
“I haven’t been holding out on you,” he insisted. “I started to put two and two together after the shooting this afternoon. That’s why I called Ortiz for an update.”
“Well, if this is another one of your jilted party girls, tell her to go stalk your wife—”
“It’s more serious than that…” Matt said. “It involves… it’s hard to explain. There’s a lot to the story.”
“Tell me. Cut to the chase.”
“Okay. When I was in Brazil, I took a meeting with one of the biggest drug lords in the country, and now he wants you dead.”
THIRTY-ONE
THE wineglass slipped from my hand and rolled across the table, leaving a bloodred trail.
“A Brazilian drug lord wants me dead?! Me? An innocent little Greenwich Village shop manager? Why?”
“I told you, it’s complicated.”
I held my head. “Explain, Matt. Tell me everything. And dial it way back. Start at the beginning.”
Matt took the chair across from me, and then took a breath—
“It all started with coffee.”
“Coffee?”
He nodded. “I ran into Nino Duarte on a layover in São Paulo. Nino is an old carioca pal from my crazy days in Rio—”
“I remember Nino. You introduced us once.”
“Nino invited me to Terra Perfeita, his coffee farm.”
“In the Golden Valley, right?”
The Golden Valley, better known as Carmo de Minas, was obscenely fertile. Farms in that valley produced bananas, mangoes, limes, lettuce, and tomatoes, and higher up, about a million coffee plants clung to a thousand miles of rolling hills. I knew all about Brazil’s Carmo de Minas. Everyone in the trade did—which was why Matt’s next statement came as a surprise.
“Nino’s farm is not in the Golden Valley, Clare. It’s located between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, in the Paraíba Valley. That’s actually where the coffee industry began in Brazil.”
“That I didn’t know.”
Matt nodded. “Those plantations were prosperous once. But they’ve been abandoned for decades.”
“Because?”
He glanced at his empty glass. “After two centuries of overfarming, most people believed the soil was played out, but Nino thought they were wrong, and his gamble paid off. Turns out the soil is amazing. Terra roxa—‘purple dirt,’ the old Portuguese plantation owners used to call it. Nino said it was the unique properties of the soil that helped him create, in his words, ‘the best cup Brazil ever produced.’”
Matt finally gave in to temptation and reached for the wine. I blocked his hand. “Listen to me. This is life or death—according to you, my life or death. I need to understand what you’re telling me, which means I need you to be sober and in control. Now tell me more about Nino.”
Matt nodded, set the bottle aside. “I was dubious about his boast, but I went to see his farm anyway. He calls his yellow bourbon Terra Perfeita Dourada—‘Nuggets of Gold from the Perfect Land.’ It’s a mouthful, and for my money Nino should have called it Ambrosia, because this stuff really is the nectar of the gods.”
“Come on, Matt.”
“No, no, I’m not exaggerating. Nino was right, Clare. It is the best cup ever produced in Brazil.”
“Do you have a sample?”
“Now you’re talking…” Matt rose from the table. “The green beans arrived at the warehouse about an hour before your party—and a couple of days ahead of schedule, thank God. I couldn’t wait to see your reaction, so I used our small-batch sampler in the basement to roast a pound…”
Matt returned to the table with a French press. He prepared the beans, allowing me to smell the gold-flecked grounds before covering them with water, just off the boil.
The aroma was, I had to admit, astounding. Beyond mere nutty or earthy—there was a sweetness to these ground beans that was so powerful I could almost feel it on my tongue.
“Smell it, Clare! This coffee is going to win Brazil’s Cup of Excellence. And when it does, we’re going to rake it in, because I practically cornered the market.”
I tensed. Matt’s unbridled enthusiasm brought me to a new level of wary skepticism.
The Cup of Excellence was an extremely strict worldwide competition, crowning the very best coffees produced in a specific country for a given year. It was an imprimatur of coffee excellence, and winning the coveted cup raised the profile of the producer to an international level—and sometimes even the roasters who scored the beans for distribution.
Brazil had the most competitive producers in the world, and its Cup of Excellence was one of the most difficult to win. Matt’s claim that his sourced coffee would win it was akin to a Hollywood producer bragging that he was going to win the Oscar for Best Picture of the Year—no matter how good the film, there were bound to be others up there with you that were just as good. It was always a crapshoot.
“I bought as much of the micro-lot as Nino would sell me,” Matt continued. “The rest is going to auction, after the awards are judged and the price goes through the roof.”
“And you paid how much for this privilege?”
“About three times the going rate for Brazil premium. Nino needed quick cash to pay last year’s bills, so I got a real bargain. It looks like a lot of money on paper, but when Terra Perfeita Dourada hits auction, it will sell for eight or ten times the amount I paid—”
“If, Matt. If it wins, places, or shows in the Cup of Excellence!”
“It’ll win.” Matt poured, careful to keep the sediment out of our cups. “It damn well better win.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’d already gone through my budget for this year’s harvest—and then some—before I paid Nino a visit. I had to take an additional line of credit from a bank in Zurich to make the purchase.”
“You went into debt on a bet! What were you thinking?! We’re not running a casino! Putting all your borrowed money on this stuff winning the Cup of Excellence is unbeli
evably risky—”
“As risky as borrowing cash to buy a food truck?”
And that’s when I understood. That was why Matt had been so upset about my food-truck investment. We were both crossing our fingers over gambles that might—or might not—pay off.
“Matt, I know your brokerage business is separate from the Blend, and you have every right to keep risks like that to yourself, but I wish you would have told me about this sooner.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re more than business partners. We’re friends. And if you’re in a jam, I might be able to help you out of it.”
Matt appeared skeptical.
I sighed. “You should at least give me a chance to try.”
“Okay. Then start by trying this coffee. It really is ambrosia. One sip and you’ll forget your troubles.”
Matt slid a cup across the table, and I brought the warm liquid to my nose and inhaled. The smell was complex and tantalizing. Bright, clean, and sweet, so sweet the scent practically compelled me to taste it, so I did. Then I sipped again. And again—
“My God…”
I stared into space, unseeing. Then I actually closed my eyes. I didn’t want my sense of sight to get in the way. “It’s so smooth… balanced on all levels… yet the spectrum of flavors is mind-blowing.” I sipped again. “There’s a kick here, too. Holy cow, it’s so heavily caffeinated it goes down like crack!”
Matt grimaced. “Ouch.”
“Ouch is right—you still haven’t told me about this drug dealer?”
“You wanted me to start at the beginning, didn’t you?” Matt tapped his cup. “So tell me what you taste.”
I licked my lips. “First the brightness. A berry… there are notes of cocoa, of course, but it’s a light note like a Belgian-style milk chocolate. And I can taste a caramel sweetness, but it’s more than just sugars caramelizing in the roasting process… this is a toasty, buttery caramel, like a shortbread, rolling around the mouth with complexity…”
“I taste blueberry,” said Matt, “some raisin… but mostly cherry…”
“More like cherry Lambic.”
“You’re right. It’s like a deep, almost fermented dimension to the fruitiness.” Matt took another long sip and a wistful expression crossed his face. “Ciliegie sotto spirito…”
“The spirit of cherries,” I translated with a nod, and I knew the taste was bringing him back, as well—to that special Italian spring when we met and those sweet red orbs soaking in grappa and sugar.
“With that shortbread note, it’s almost like a fresh-baked slice of cherry pie, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Cherry pie with a splash of my grandmother’s liquori casalinghi.”
Matt smiled. “Like that cherry liqueur you made for me one summer from your nonna’s recipe.”
“I haven’t made that in years,” I said, suddenly needing to. “How is this bean processed? Semi-dry?”
“Water pulped. Then sun dried.”
“Spot on, Claire. That explains the complexity, all those wild flavors, yet so clear and clean.” I sipped again. “The profile’s changing…” Which wasn’t unique—most quality coffees revealed new flavors as they cooled.
Matt nodded. “The cherry is mellowing into a subtler flavor, like an—”
“Apple,” I said. “I’m getting a slight note of exotic vanilla, too, and with that sweet-buttery profile, it almost tastes like a—”
“Caramel apple.”
I met Matt’s gaze. He was right about this coffee, even though in the roasting he went too far—an all-too common occurrence for my lack-of-impulse-control ex. He’d given the green beans a long, lusty lip-lock of heat, when a much more careful kiss would have gotten him to a higher plane of ecstasy.
“Next time,” I advised, “you should go a little lighter on the roast.”
Matt shrugged. “You’re the expert.”
I paused to finish my cup. “Okay. The coffee is superb.”
“Thank you.”
“But you still haven’t explained—”
“The processing?”
“No, Matt. The other part. The Brazilian-drug-lord part. Tell me how this coffee is going to get me killed.”
He nodded, refilled both our cups. “You said it yourself. This coffee goes down like crack. Well, you were closer to the truth than you knew.”
“You’re scaring me.”
Matt rubbed the back of his neck. “I never talk about the places I go and the things I see.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Okay, but mostly I tell you about the good times. In reality, some of the best coffee is cultivated in the worst geopolitical regions on the planet. Wars, murder, terrorism, revolution… you name it, I’ve seen it, heard about it, or witnessed the aftermath…”
Matt liked to think of me as naïve, but I was as familiar as he with the infamous history of brown gold. And I respected his efforts. In fact, I couldn’t help flashing on his mother’s remark earlier this afternoon—about the hard work of digging gemstones out of the darkest mines.
“When we were married, I didn’t want to scare you so I kept my mouth shut about the worst of it. Then not talking about it got to be a habit, and habits are hard to shake.”
“I know you’ve been in some bad situations.”
“And bad places, too… Lately, Brazil has become one of those places…” Matt pushed his cup of ambrosia aside, reached for the wine. This time I didn’t stop him. “Don’t get me wrong. I still love Rio, and the Brazilian people are warm and good-hearted. But something’s gone very wrong in that country, and things are deteriorating fast.”
Matt poured a heady glass. “There are more than fifty thousand murders a year in the urban areas, and because of the economic gap between rich and poor, the violence is escalating. Jobless and hopeless, lots of young Brazilians are turning to a new form of crack cocaine. The traficantes get rich dealing it; the rest use it and die young… Too young.”
“And you met with one of these traficantes? Why, Matt, what were you thinking?”
“I was ambushed.”
“How?”
“Have you ever heard of oxidado?”
“No. Is it Spanish?”
“Portuguese. It means rust, and this drug is so toxic it really does rot your body. It’s like crack 2.0, too. Smoke it once and you’re hooked. The Brazilian police claim oxidado kills three in ten addicts within a year of regular use. It’s gotten so bad that a chunk of São Paulo’s ghetto was known as Cracolândia—Crack Land—until the cops drove the junkies into the streets with tear gas and clubs…”
Matt’s tale brought back my worst memories of New York City during the days of crack cocaine. “With that kind of rampant drug abuse, you get all of kinds delightful consequences. Muggings, burglaries, robberies, turf wars, gang shootings…”
Matt nodded. “I’m pretty careful when I visit Brazil these days. I have no desire to run afoul of oxidado dealers or their violent, desperate customers. So imagine my surprise when Nino invited me to breakfast one morning to meet a very special guest.”
He paused for a long moment, as if he’d forgotten the rest of the story—or desperately wanted to.
“Matt, tell me. Who did Nino want you to meet?”
“The biggest cocaine traficante in São Paulo.”
THIRTY-TWO
I closed my eyes again, but for a very different reason. I no longer cared about heightening my other senses. I simply didn’t want to see what was coming.
“You took a meeting with a drug lord over your morning coffee?”
“Not willingly.”
I opened my eyes. “Does this drug lord work for Nino Duarte, or does your friend work for him?”
“I don’t know exactly how Nino got involved with him. My best guess is loan-sharking. Nino probably needed money to develop his land—this man has plenty of it. The dude calls himself O Negociante, and he kept things pretty formal during our meeting.”
Matt’s eyes
glazed as his focus melted into memory. “I’ll never forget this guy. Neck as thick as his head. Lots of gold teeth, scars, and prison tattoos. A smile wider than a killer shark.”
“What did he want?”
“What do you think? He made me an offer I had to refuse, and I did refuse. But until my flight lifted off from São Paulo’s Guarulhos International nine hours later, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it out of Brazil alive. Once I was in the air, I thought the whole thing was over. But after shots were fired this afternoon, I got to thinking that maybe it isn’t over after all.”
