Every Bitter Thing cims-4

by Leighton Gage

  It was almost a quarter to eight, and he was still alone.

  He went down to the garage, nosed his black Corolla up the ramp, and plunged into the rush-hour traffic. It took him fifteen minutes to go three blocks. If he’d known it was going to be that bad, he would have drunk a couple of whiskies neat, given the traffic time to die down. But it was too late now. He was in the gridlock, committed to moving forward.

  Running on alcohol, his thoughts took flight: It’s Magda’s fault. If she’d gone along with buying an apartment in town, I’d be living within walking distance of work. But no. Goddamned Magda had to have a house out in Alphaville with a garden, and a swimming pool, and two maids to sit around and drink coffee with. That’s when she wasn’t at the hairdresser’s, or playing cards, or-

  He screeched to a halt, narrowly avoiding a white BMW that jumped the light. He hit the horn. The driver of the BMW, pulling away, opened his window and stuck out an arm to make an obscene gesture.

  His sudden stop had put him on the crosswalk. Pedestrians were moving all around him. He crept forward for another three blocks. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard.

  Eight sixteen now. Getting dark.

  The traffic showed no sign of thinning. Half an hour out of the office, and he hadn’t moved eight blocks.

  The Jockey Club! No races tonight, but the bar is open. Just a small detour.

  He turned left at the next corner, got onto Avenida Europa, made it by fits and starts over the bridge, and turned right. On nights when the nags weren’t running, it was dark under the trees, and the long street was lined with girls. Black girls, white girls, mulattas. Blond girls (they usually got the color from a bottle), red-haired girls (ditto), black- and brown-haired girls. Girls with short-shorts and no panties, girls with dresses cut down to their navels. Girls with hemlines that rose above their thighs. Girls who wore only short bathrobes, or sarongs.

  There were a few cars pulled over to the curb, men on their own, leaning toward open passenger windows, doing some negotiating. Mansur felt a stirring in his groin. Instead of leaving his car with the valet, he took a left at the corner and circled the block.

  When he appeared again, and the girls saw him for a second time, they started strutting their stuff in earnest, pouting their lips, lifting their skirts to crotch level, plunging their hips forward, flashing what they had (or didn’t have) under their short bathrobes and sarongs.

  Mansur swelled to full erection, painful in the confinement of his trousers.

  By the time he’d reached the end of the line, he’d made his choice, but she was back at the beginning of the queue, so he had to circle the block a second time before he could stop. Her voice was deep, deeper than that of most women. If he’d been more sober, he might have paused, thought twice.

  He and his Chosen One cut a deal. She hopped aboard and directed him toward one of the high-rotation motels that lined the Raposo Tavares.

  Sometimes the girls worked scams with the motel’s owners. When the happy couple got to their room, the john would find a man or two waiting for him. Instead of getting laid, he’d be relieved of his watch and wallet. If he was a married man, and wanted to keep it that way, who could he complain to? The cops? Creating a risk that his wife would get her hands on the statement? Leaving her in a position to be able to prove, with a legal document, that he was picking up whores? And then have her divorce him and take all his goddamned money? No way!

  Mansur did go to the Raposo Tavares, but he drove right past the establishment his girl had suggested and went to the Bariloche, a motel he’d used before, a place he trusted. He was too smart, too experienced, to fall for some cheap scam.

  But he wasn’t smart enough, or experienced enough, to spot the Ford Escort that followed him from his office all the way to the front gate of his nice, safe motel.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  In one of those rare moments in Brazilian aviation, Tuesday morning’s first flight from Brasilia to Guarulhos arrived early. The undercarriage hit the ground in Sao Paulo a full seven minutes ahead of schedule.

  Silva turned on his cell phone as soon as the airplane came to a stop. It began ringing almost immediately.

  “Forget about your chat with Mansur,” Hector said. “It’s never going to happen.”

  “Dead?”

  “Dead.”

  “Shot?”

  “In the gut.”

  “Beaten?”

  “To a bloody pulp.”

  “Damned fool! He said he had a revolver.”

  “He did. It was in his briefcase, but he left the briefcase in his car.”

  “Where did they find him?”

  “In a motel room. The homicide guys know we’re interested in the MO. They called us right away.”

  “How do I get there?”

  “It’s on the right-hand side of the Rodovia Raposo Tavares. You know that big supermarket, the Carrefour?”

  “I know it.”

  “About a kilometer farther on. Call me when you get close.”

  “Transport?”

  “Babyface for you, Samantha for Arnaldo.”

  Samantha Assad was one of the director’s appointments. She had a law degree from Rio Branco, a black belt in jujitsu, and a chip on her shoulder the size of Nelson Sampaio’s ego.

  Arnaldo couldn’t stand her.

  “Call her on her cell phone,” Silva said. “Tell her I’ve determined that Arnaldo will be the point man on this one. He’s the one who’s going to question Marnix Kloppers’s parents. She’s not to pull rank.”

  As a delegada, Samantha stood above Arnaldo in the pecking order. He had no law degree and was simply a senior agent.

  “I already told her,” Hector said. “She said she wouldn’t, but you know Samantha.”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Silva said. “I do know Samantha.”

  The two cars were in the no-parking zone in front of the terminal. A couple of uniformed cops were staring daggers at them. It went against the cops’ grain to have anyone occupying the no-parking zone, even the Federal Police.

  Silva hopped in next to Goncalves.

  “Morning, Babyface.”

  “Don’t you think this Babyface stuff is getting a bit tired, Chief Inspector?”

  Silva made a point of studying Goncalves’s unlined face.

  “Not yet,” he said.

  “You’re driving,” Samantha said, tossing aside her copy of Vogue .

  “No ‘Good morning, Senhor Nunes’?” Arnaldo said. “No ‘How are you, Senhor Nunes?’”

  “My morning went out the window when I heard I’d be spending it with you. And I really don’t care how you are. Get in and drive.”

  “Did it ever occur to you, Samantha, why you’re not married? Is it perhaps because you’re so damned bossy?”

  “Fuck off,” she said and flounced to the passenger side.

  “Tick, tick, tick,” he said, opening the door.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Biological clock. It’s ticking.”

  “My biological clock is none of your business, Nunes. Get your fat ass into the car.”

  He did and slammed the door.

  “We’re taking the Anhanguera,” she said as he started the engine.

  “Holambra is near Campinas,” he said, adjusting the mirrors. “Bandeirantes will be quicker.”

  “Bandeirantes isn’t as pretty. I’m into pretty. We’re taking the Anhanguera.”

  “See what I mean? Bossy.”

  “Shut up. I’ve got a date tonight, and I don’t want to be late, so get moving. The Dutra to the Marginal to the Anhanguera.”

  “You don’t have to tell me how to get to the Anhanguera,” he said. “I’ve lived in this town for more years than you’ve been alive.”

  “Wait,” she said, holding up a hand. “What’s that?”

  Arnaldo cocked his head to listen. “What? I don’t hear anything.”

  “Retirement clock,” she said. “Tick, ti
ck, tick.”

  “I don’t get it,” Arnaldo said, after a few minutes of not-so-companionable silence.

  “What?” she said.

  “Holambra.”

  “Oho,” she said. “So the Great Expert on Sao Paulo doesn’t know what Holambra means.”

  “And you do?”

  “I do. Holambra is composed of the first three letters of Holland, the first two letters of America, and the first three letters of Brazil. Hol-Am-Bra, home of the Expoflora.”

  “What’s the Expoflora?”

  She said, “How could I forget? You’re Arnaldo Nunes. Beauty and art are beyond you. You wouldn’t know anything about the Expoflora.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “It’s only the biggest flower exposition in all of Latin America, that’s all. Three hundred thousand visitors last year.”

  “What do they do the rest of the year?”

  “They grow flowers and bulbs and seeds for the national and export trade. And they sit around and marvel that someone like you can live in this country and be unaware of the existence of their Expoflora.”

  “I don’t live in this country,” Arnaldo said. “I live in Brasilia. It’s kind of like Oz, with politicians.”

  A little later, he said, “So how come a gang of Dutchmen decide to come and live in Brazil?”

  “Economic refugees,” she said. “Came after the Second World War when their country was still a wreck.”

  “And we were the land of the future. Funny how things change.”

  “I can’t believe you’re such a cynic. That’s another thing I dislike about you.”

  “How come you know all this? About Holambra, I mean?”

  “Because I, unlike a certain Neanderthal I could mention, am aware of my surroundings. I am also a curious person-”

  “You can say that again.”

  “-who is always interested in finding out things about other people.”

  “Nosy, I’d call it. And while we’re on the subject, did Hector tell you I’m to take the lead with the Kloppers?”

  She looked out the window.

  “Did he?” he insisted.

  “Yes,” she sniffed.

  And the silence descended again.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Silva called Hector when they were passing the Carrefour.

  “Just keep coming until you see the sign,” Hector said. “It’s blue and white, and it flashes. You can’t miss it.”

  Indeed, they couldn’t. The huge sign was on a concrete pillar ten meters high. Sky blue and white are the Argentinean national colors. The Bariloche for which the motel had been named is an Argentinean winter resort where much of the architecture appears to be Swiss, or German. The motel, doing its best not to look out of place on a subtropical hillside, and failing miserably in the attempt, consisted of about thirty small chalets surrounded by a cinder-block wall. They went through the untended main gate and found themselves surrounded by uniformed cops, technicians, detectives with badges dangling from lanyards, gawkers, and the ladies and gentlemen of the press.

  Silva got out of the car. Goncalves went off to face the challenge of finding a place to park.

  Silva was immediately set upon. Hector, springing forward to rescue his uncle from the gang of reporters, took him by the arm. A uniformed cop lifted the yellow crime-scene tape so they could pass under it. That brought them out of the crush, but not beyond the cacophony of shouted questions. The journalists wanted to know who the victim was, whether there was more than one of them, how he, she, or they had been killed, when Silva was going to be available for comment.

  The tenor of their questions indicated that they were being kept in the dark, for which Silva gave silent thanks.

  “Show me,” he said.

  “That’s the garage,” Hector said, pointing it out.

  Most high-turnover establishments had garages. Clients didn’t want to run the risk of having their vehicles spotted by spouses, acquaintances, or private detectives.

  Brazilian motels, by and large, are not places where one stops with one’s family to spend a night. You can do so in a pinch, but you’re still going to have to pay by the hour and put up with a lot of squeaking, banging, and groaning from your neighbors.

  The higher-class places offered such amenities as in-room saunas and whirlpool baths. The Bariloche was at the other end of the scale, a no-frills establishment, designed to provide the basics and appeal to the frugal.

  “The ME has only been here for about twenty minutes,” Hector said. “He’s still at it.”

  “Paulo?” Silva was hoping it would be his friend, Paulo Couto, Sao Paulo’s chief medical examiner.

  Hector shook his head. “Plinio Setubal, a friend of Gilda’s.”

  “Don’t know him.”

  “Young, but good.”

  “Who’s here from the civil police?”

  “The man himself.”

  “Janus Prado?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  Unlike Goncalves, both Silva and his nephew liked Sao Paulo’s head of Homicide.

  “He’s agreed to keep it quiet,” Hector said, “until we can tell Sampaio. But he wants it to be soon.”

  “Understandable. Let’s get to it.”

  Inside the ersatz chalet, a couple of uniformed cops were watching a video on the TV. The sound were turned down, but you didn’t need sound to follow the action. It was that kind of video.

  Near the far wall, a guy in green scrubs had Luis Mansur’s pants down to his ankles and was removing a thermometer from the corpse’s rectum.

  Between the body and the door, Janus Prado was talking to a man with an unruly mop of hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a paunch.

  Prado spotted Silva and came over to extend a hand. The other man trotted along behind, as if he were Janus’s pet.

  “Mario,” the civil cop said, nodding agreeably.

  “Janus. How’s life?”

  “People ask me that all the time. You know what I tell them? Life is fragile. Life is a question of luck. Some filho da puta could come along and snuff you just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “If Arnaldo was here,” Silva said, “he’d call you a philosopher.”

  “No,” Prado said, “he wouldn’t. If Nunes was here, he’d call me a bullshit artist. I ever tell you I threw a party when he left Sao Paulo?”

  “ You threw a party for Arnaldo?”

  “ He wasn’t invited. The party was for the rest of us. I still owe you one for hauling him off to Brasilia and getting him out of my hair.”

  “I’ll tell him you sent your regards.”

  “I didn’t.” Prado took the arm of the man behind him and brought him forward. “This is Gabriel Rocha,” he said. “He has a story to tell. Gabriel, this is Chief Inspector Silva of the Federal Police. Tell the nice man what you saw.”

  Rocha, who wasn’t sure how he was supposed to react to the preceding exchange and consequently had kept his eyes on Silva’s left earlobe, now looked him full in the face.

  “I tried to tell him,” he said, his Portuguese thick with the cadences of the Northeast, “but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “Tried to tell who what?” Silva asked.

  “That dead guy,”-Rocha inclined his head in the direction of Mansur’s body-“I tried to tell him. But would he listen? No, he wouldn’t. ‘You got room?’ he says. ‘Yeah,’ I says, ‘I got plenty of room. But are you sure you want to come in here with that?’ And I point at Eudoxia. And she puts out her claws and damned near spits at me. ‘And what the fuck business is it of yours?’ the dead guy says. ‘You got any idea,’ I says, ‘what she-’ I was gonna say what she is, but would he let me explain? No, he wouldn’t. Too fucking drunk, that’s what. He wanted two hours, and he wanted to pay cash. So I took the money and I gave him the key. That’s it. That’s all I know.”

  “Wait,” Silva said. “Slow down. Go back to the beginning. The guy over there drove up to the gate, and he h
ad this girl in the car, and-”

  “No. No! That’s just the point. He didn’t have no girl in the car. He had Eudoxia!”

  “And if Eudoxia isn’t a girl, what is she?”

  “She’s a man, that’s what she is! A whaddayacallit.”

  “Transvestite?”

  “Yeah, a transvestite. Anybody who isn’t a complete asshole, or who isn’t completely smashed, is gonna spot it right away. We got bright lights over there at the entrance. Eudoxia uses lotsa powder on her face, and she shaves close, but you can still see her beard. And that voice of hers! Deep, really deep, not a bass, mind you, but certainly not a tenor, more like a baritone. Hey, you like opera?”

  “You’re saying she doesn’t sound like a woman?”

  “I guess you didn’t hear me the first time, so I’ll say it again: Eudoxia has a voice like an opera singer, a male opera singer. I guess you didn’t hear my question either: you like opera?”

  “Yes, I like opera, but-”

  “Listen to this, then,” Rocha said. And then, to everyone’s amazement, he sang the first stanza of “La donna e mobile.” He could have passed for the Duke of Mantua in a second-rate company, which was still pretty good for a guy who kept the gate in a motel.

  When he finished, there was a slight pattering of applause from everyone, including the two cops who’d been absorbed by the video.

  Basking in the attention, he opened his mouth to continue. Before he could, Silva put a hand on his arm.

  “Very nice,” he said, “but we’re investigating a murder here. Tell me more about this Eudoxia. You’ve obviously seen her before.”

  “Lotsa times,” Rocha said, not pleased to have been cut off in mid-performance. “She hangs out with all those whores near the Jockey Club. It’s like camouflage, being surrounded by real women. It helps fool the guys who pick her up. Mind you, they’re generally drunk or they wouldn’t be taken in so easy. Like I say, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out she’s really a man.”

  “It must be disconcerting when they find out.”