Every Bitter Thing

by Leighton Gage

  “Just to take his orders.”

  “What was he drinking?”

  “Beer with Dreher chasers.”

  Gonçalves wrinkled his nose. Conhaque Dreher, cachaça flavored with ginger, was just about the cheapest distilled spirit you could buy.

  “Got pretty drunk, did he?”

  “He got wasted.”

  “Think back. Did he talk to anyone else?”

  “I don’t have to think back, on account of I already told the story twice. By now, I got it memorized. First, I told it to the uniformed guys who showed up just after Graça found the body. Then I—”

  “Who’s Graça?”

  “One of the girls.”

  “She works for you?”

  “None of them work for me. We got an arrangement. They use the place to pick up customers, and the customers buy them drinks. Like that, see?”

  “How did Graça find the body?”

  “The women’s toilet is out there.” Gordo shot a thumb in the direction of the rear door. “She walked out to use it, and she stumbled over him.”

  “This was how long after he left?”

  “Ten minutes? Fifteen? Not long.”

  “Back to my question: did he talk to anyone else?”

  “Just the girl who was sitting at his table, the one he left with.”

  “And that would be?”

  Gordo shrugged. “Some blond,” he said. “I never saw her before. She shoulda come over and talked to me first, but she didn’t.”

  “Why didn’t you talk to her?”

  “The guy was buying anyway, and I was busy.”

  “Seen her since?”

  Gordo shook his head.

  His eyes now accustomed to the dim light, Gonçalves checked out his surroundings. Standing at the bar, just a few meters away, an old man with bleary eyes was staring straight ahead and nursing a drink.

  The other male patrons, seven in number, were distributed between two tables, three at one, four at the other. All of them had given him the once-over when he came in.

  Since then, they’d lost interest.

  The women, on the other hand, were looking at him expectantly. It was still early in the day, and there were only three of them. One, a would-be blond, winked.

  Gonçalves turned back to the bartender. “This Graça, is she here?”

  The bartender stretched his neck to look over Gonçalves’s shoulder.

  “No,” he said.

  “Is there anyone else here now who was here then?”

  “Leonardo was.” Gordo pointed along the bar. “He almost never leaves.”

  The old man with the bleary eyes didn’t react, even though he was close enough to hear every word.

  “But I wouldn’t waste your time with him if I was you,” Gordo said, not lowering his voice, speaking as if Leonardo wasn’t there. “He doesn’t recognize his own wife half the time.”

  “You’re exaggerating, right?”

  “I’m not. She comes in three or four times a week to drag him home, and he honest-to-God doesn’t recognize her. I don’t think it’s just the booze. Something is screwed up in his head.” He pointed at his temple and made a circular motion. Maybe it’s that … that….”

  Gonçalves helped him out. “Alzheimer’s?”

  “Yeah, that. I figure there’s a bright side, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Think about it. Every time he takes her to bed, it’s like he’s fucking a different woman. You married?”

  “No.”

  “Then you have no idea what I’m talking about.”

  “I think I do. There are happy marriages, you know.”

  “So I hear. Never seen one myself. Want another beer?”

  “Not yet. So Leonardo was here, but he really wasn’t. Who else?”

  “None of the guys over there, maybe one of the girls. They’re coming and going all the time. It’s tough to keep track.”

  “All right. One more question. After this guy Girotti went outside, did you hear a shot?”

  Gordo shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “And, before you ask, the answer is yes.”

  “Yes to what?”

  “Yes, I know what a shot sounds like. We hear them all the time around here.”

  Gonçalves picked up his glass and went over to where the women were clustered around a table. Gordo had called them girls, but they were hardly that. They hadn’t been girls for a long, long time.

  They made for a colorful group: one was a mulata, one was black, and one was white.

  “Mind if I sit down?” Gonçalves said.

  “Your mother let you play with big girls?” the mulata said, sizing him up.

  “She lets.”

  “Then sit,” the black woman said. “I’m Dorothy. This is Amalia”—she indicated the youngest—“and this is Ruby.”

  “Haraldo,” Gonçalves said.

  Amalia was the one who’d winked at him. She reached out and fingered his necktie.

  “Nice,” she said. “You a cop?”

  “Yeah, I’m a cop.”

  “I like cops,” she said. “Want to go somewhere and show me your gun?”

  “Not today, thanks. I’m working.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”

  She took a cigarette from the pack on the table and held it to her mouth, waiting for him to light it.

  “Sorry,” Gonçalves said. “I don’t smoke.”

  Amalia reached into her purse, produced a cheap plastic lighter, and handed it to him. He held the flame to the tip of her cigarette. She put a hand around his, as if she needed to steady it, which she didn’t. When he doused the flame, she released him and took a long drag.

  “I hate to break up this little scene,” the black woman said, “but you can do me with handcuffs if you want.”

  Gonçalves shook his head. “I just want some information,” he said.

  “Caralho, you’re no fun at all,” Amalia said, tipping off some ash.

  The white one didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at him. It occurred to Gonçalves that she might have been pretty once.

  “The least you could do is to buy us some drinks,” Amalia said.

  “What are you having?”

  She inclined her head in the direction of the bar. “He knows,” she said.

  “But I don’t,” Gonçalves said.

  “Champagne,” she admitted: part of her deal with the bar’s owner, no doubt.

  “How much?”

  “Has to be a bottle. It goes flat, so Gordo doesn’t sell it by the glass.”

  “How much?”

  “Sixty reais.”

  She blew a smoke ring in his face. The ring was damn near perfect. She must have spent a lot of time perfecting the technique.

  “Sixty reais, huh?” Gonçalves said.

  The champagne couldn’t have been imported, not in a bar like this, not for a price like that. And if it wasn’t imported, it was a ripoff. But Gonçalves figured it was worth it to get the girls talking. When he turned in his expenses, he hoped Silva would think so too.

  “All right,” he said.

  The white woman emerged from her stupor to flash him a smile. It was a surprisingly sweet smile, but it didn’t last.

  The black woman lifted a hand and made a gesture to Gordo.

  A minute or so later, he bustled over and made much of opening a bottle of Peterlongo, cheap sparkling wine from Rio Grande do Sul. Gonçalves could have bought it for less than ten reais in any second-class supermarket. The better stores didn’t stock it.

  He waved off the glass that Gordo offered him and pointed at his own. “Give me another one of those,” he said.

  “One Antarctica, coming right up.”

  Gordo hustled off, smiling for the first time since Gonçalves had waved his credentials in his face.

  “Wise choice,” Amalia said, grinding her cigarette into the ashtray and taking only the tiniest sip of her wine. The butt continued
to smolder. “Okay, what do you want to know?”

  “You remember that murder a while back? Body found out back?”

  “Sure, I remember. Thing like that doesn’t happen every day, not even around here. Besides, a friend of mine stumbled over him when she went out to do xixi. It scared her half to death. She came back screaming.”

  “You remember the woman he was with?”

  “Sure.” Amalia tipped wine onto the butt. It sizzled and went out.

  “Do you know her name?”

  “I’ve been working this joint for three years. I thought I knew all the girls, but that one….” She shook her head.

  “She been back since?”

  “No. You think she had something to do with it?”

  “Maybe. Maybe she lured him outside so the killer could get at him.”

  “Or maybe she was just trying to turn an honest trick, and when the killer showed up she made herself scarce.”

  “That’s possible too. What do you remember about her?”

  “She was goddamned fast, for one thing.”

  “What do you mean, fast?”

  “That João, the murdered guy, he wasn’t here two minutes. We’re all still looking at him, waiting for him to make a move. Then she sashays in like she owns the place. She didn’t look around, didn’t smile at anybody; she just made straight for his table and took a seat.”

  “You think he knew her?”

  “Hell, no. He looked surprised. I thought he was going to tell her to fuck off. But he didn’t.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “They talked. He drank. The drunker he got, the louder he got.”

  “What did you hear him say?”

  “Nothing. Just the same crap, over and over. He was shitfaced.”

  “Could you hear anything the woman said?”

  “Not a word. But she was trying to calm him down. She put a hand on him right here.”

  Amalia laid a hand on Gonçalves’s thigh.

  “After a while,” she said, “she moved it up to—”

  Gonçalves crossed his legs.

  “Hey,” she said, “you don’t have to get all fidgety on me. I was just explaining.”

  She took another cigarette out of the pack and put it between her lips. Gonçalves picked up the lighter and lit it.

  “So she’s got her hand between his legs,” he prompted.

  “She’s grabbing his cock, that’s what she’s doing. But does he move? No, he orders another round. And then another one. He was here for hours. Guy like that, guy who just gets out of jail, you’d think he’d be crazy for a woman, right? But no, he just keeps drinking. Around about the time I’m thinking he’s gay, he finally pays the bill. When he stands up, his legs are all wobbly, but I can see he isn’t gay at all.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then they left. They went out that way.”

  Amalia pointed toward the back of the bar. Gonçalves followed the line of her finger and saw a single door. On the wall next to it was a crudely painted sign. The sign said SENHORAS.

  “Why didn’t Girotti wait here until she got back from the toilet?”

  “Are you kidding? There was no way she was going to let him do that, no way she was going to give anybody else a chance to get their hooks into him. She took him by the hand and led him outside. The lady’s toilet opens onto the alley. So does that door. And the alley itself runs between two streets. She never came back.”

  “What did she look like? Describe her.”

  Amalia took another puff on her cigarette. Some of the smoke rose past her eyes and caused her to squint. Or maybe she was just remembering.

  “She was white, and she was blond. Maybe that’s why he let her stay. Guy like him doesn’t get many chances with a white woman. And I’ll bet he never had a blond in his whole life, probably wanted to know what she looked like down there.”

  “Tall? Short?”

  “Neither. Medium, I’d say.”

  “How about her eyes?”

  “She was wearing sunglasses, big and really dark. She must have had a hard time seeing anything.”

  “Suppose you saw her in a lineup. Would you recognize her?”

  “Not in a million years,” Amalia said.

  Chapter Eleven

  Via E-mail

  To: Mario Silva, Headquarters, Brasília

  From: Mara Carta, Field Office, São Paulo

  Further to your request, please find attached the passenger list for Transportes Aéreos Brasileiros flight 8101 on the 22nd of November last year.

  Cordially,

  Mara

  Mara Carta was Hector’s intelligence officer. The attachment consisted of six pages. The first was dedicated exclusively to first-class passengers. It added nothing to Silva’s knowledge. The last four listed the people in economy class. There, too, he found nothing of interest.

  But the second page was a revelation. The third name Silva read caused him to blink; the last three brought him bolt upright in his chair.

  TAB Flight 8101 22 Nov. Passenger List (cont.) Business Class Cabin

  Passenger Name Nationality

  1 Arriaga*, Julio BR

  2 Clancy, Dennis, Fr. US

  3 Cruz, Paulo, Dr. BR

  4 Porto, Lidia BR

  5 Kloppers**, Jan BR

  6 Kloppers, Marnix BR

  7 Mansur, Luis BR

  8 Motta, Darcy BR

  9 Neves, Victor BR

  10 Palhares, Jonas BR

  11 Rivas, Juan VE

  Silva consulted João Girotti’s rap sheet and then placed a call to his nephew.

  “Have you seen that passenger list for TAB 8101?”

  “Not yet,” Hector said. “Why?”

  “Cruz, Rivas, Neves, and Palhares are on it.”

  “All four?”

  “All four.”

  “That’s it, then? That’s the connection we’ve been looking for?”

  “Looks that way. On the night of the twenty-second to the twenty-third of November, they were all traveling in the business-class cabin of Flight 8101, TAB.”

  “Where was Girotti?”

  “He was in jail. He’d been there for a week.”

  “How did he get out?”

  “The witness, the only witness, recanted.”

  “Recanted? Just like that?”

  “Just like that. His lawyer was Dudu Fonseca.”

  “Fonseca? Where did a punk like Girotti get the money to hire Fonseca?”

  “Good question. And here’s another we should be asking ourselves: if Girotti had the money, why did he elect to sit around cooling his heels in jail? Fonseca could have had him out in a day.”

  “Maybe Girotti didn’t have the money when he went in. Maybe he came into it after he got pinched.”

  “That’s the most logical explanation, isn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh. Fonseca doesn’t lift a finger unless he gets a retainer in advance.”

  “True. He generally needs to bribe some witness or another.”

  “Or to hire someone to scare the witness off.”

  “Also true.”

  “What’s our next step?”

  “Warn the surviving passengers.”

  “I suppose it didn’t escape you that one of them might be the killer?”

  “It certainly did not.”

  “Who are they?”

  “There are seven of them, one female. They’re all Brazilians, except for one of the males.”

  “And he is….”

  “An American, Dennis Clancy. There’s an ‘FR’ in front of his name.”

  “A priest?”

  “Either that or a misspelling. There’s a ‘DR’ in front of Cruz’s. Maybe they typed an F instead of a D.”

  “And the others?”

  “The woman was Lidia Porto. The men were Julio Arriaga, dependent of an airline employee, probably a kid.”

  “Airline employee? TAB headquarters is here in São Paulo. Want me to handle that?�
��

  “Would you? His mother’s name is Aline Arriaga. She’s the employee.”

  “Got it.”

  “Next, Kloppers, Marnix and Jan, father and son. Jan is the son, described here as a minor.”

  “Kloppers? What kind of name is that?”

  “No idea. The last two are Luis Mansur and Darcy Motta.”

  “Names and nationalities, that’s all we’ve got to work with?”

  “At the moment, yes.”

  “There are going to be Mansurs, Portos, and Mottas galore.”

  “Put Mara on it. Tell her to get into the national identity card database and start sifting. Meanwhile, I’ll see what I can find out about the American.”

  SILVA’S NEXT call was to the immigration section. He spoke to a clerk who said his name was Cizik.

  “Cizik?”

  “My old man was a Czech, Chief Inspector. How can I be of assistance?”

  Silva explained what he wanted. Cizik told him everything was computerized. It would only take a moment.

  A couple of minutes later, he was back on the line. “I’ve got copies of Clancy’s visa application and entry card. First name, Dennis? Occupation, priest?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Hmmm, what?”

  “Unusual case. It appears Father Clancy is still in Brazil.”

  “And that’s unusual?”

  “He’s been here for almost three months. Most gringos stay for three weeks or less. The few who stick around generally come in on another kind of visa.”

  “Such as?”

  “Study or work.”

  “Could he have left? Could it be a computer glitch?”

  “It’s possible, wouldn’t be the first time. But frankly….”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s not likely. He listed a hotel in São Paulo. Want me to call them?”

  “I do.”

  “Give me twenty minutes.”

  CIZIK WAS better than his word. Silva’s phone rang in less than ten.

  “It checked out. He stayed at the Hotel Gloria on Avenida Ipiranga, in São Paulo. But it was only for one night.”

  “The Hotel Gloria? Why do I—”

  “Bobo, Chief Inspector. He used to live there.”

  “Bobo, the TV star. Of course. I’ll get a man over there. Who did you talk to?”

  “The manager, a fellow by the name of Vasco.”

  “I appreciate your assistance, Cizik. Now listen. It’s very important we find this man Clancy.”