Dying Gasp

by Leighton Gage

  She looked at her watch. It was still early enough to call Chief Pinto and invite him to lunch. Some good whiskey, a wad of banknotes handed across the table in a white envelope, and he’d get cracking, probably suggest someone suitable for testing within a day or two.

  Her story to the chief was always the same: some friends of hers, friends in Europe, needed someone for a job, someone who could get tough, someone who could get very tough if the situation warranted it.

  All the people the chief suggested wound up disappearing for good. He wasn’t stupid. He’d noted that. He’d even mentioned it once.

  “Maybe they like it over there,” she’d said. “Maybe they finished the job and decided to stay.”

  “All of them? Every last one of them?”

  “You know how many illegal Brazilian immigrants there are in Europe?”

  The chief had told her he had no idea and that he, frankly, didn’t give a shit.

  “Good riddance,” he’d said. “They were all punks anyway.”

  But since that conversation he’d never again fed her people whose services he might be able to use in future.

  SÃO PAULO

  Decades earlier

  THE FUNERAL Claudia Andrade’s parents planned to attend was that of a great-aunt, but they never made it. On the way, their car was broadsided by a truck. Both were killed instantly. It drew newspaper headlines at the time due to the irony of their being on the way to a funeral and winding up at their own.

  But Claudia’s parents, owners of six fast-food franchises, were really nothing more than glorified shopkeepers. Nothing other than wealth distinguished them. Their case was soon forgotten.

  Claudia had been seven, her brother, Omar, two years younger. He’d been a momma’s boy, deemed too young to attend the double burial, so Claudia, the one who’d always avoided her mother’s embraces, was the one who got lifted up over the coffin.

  “Kiss your mother good-bye,” her uncle Leonardo told her.

  Claudia did as she was told, dutifully pressing her lips against the dead woman’s cheek. Her mother’s flesh was cold. Claudia reacted by making spitting noises and rubbing her mouth. Everybody knew Claudia was a strange little girl. They didn’t blame her for making a scene. They blamed Leonardo. He shouldn’t have done what he did. The Andrade family hated scenes. They remembered the incident, but Claudia promptly forgot all about it. She hadn’t been particularly fond of either one of her parents. She hadn’t been particularly fond of anyone.

  It was another five years before it occurred to her that death was worth thinking about. Then, two weeks before her thirteenth birthday, she had an epiphany. She was living, then, with her Aunt Tamara, her mother’s spinster sister. School was over for the day. She and her brother were walking home. Omar was running on ahead, holding his books in one arm and squeezing his crotch with the other. He was desperate to get to a bathroom before he peed in his pants.

  He crossed the street in front of the house, flung open the gate, and ran up the steps, ignoring the family dog, a miniature dachshund named Gretel. Claudia had never once scratched Gretel behind her ears, never once given her food, and yet the animal lavished her with unrequited affection. The dachshund dashed out through the open gate and started to run across the street.

  Her happy barks were cut off with a loud thump and a wail of pain. The car, a black Ford LTD with tinted windows, never slowed down. Whether the driver was a man or a woman would remain a mystery. The cops weren’t about to waste their time trying to hunt down someone who’d done a hit-and-run on a dog.

  Gretel rolled over and over and came to rest in the gutter at Claudia’s feet. She was still alive—barely—but she was bleeding from the mouth and panting for breath. Claudia put a hand on the soft, reddish-brown fur. She could feel Gretel’s heart, fluttering, fluttering. Then, suddenly, it stopped.

  Claudia shuddered. Her head began to spin. She sensed a shortness of breath, a sharpening of her senses, a wetness between her thighs.

  It was . . . wonderful.

  They buried Gretel in a corner of the back yard. Omar cried at the funeral and planted a cross of two sticks bound together with kite string.

  Claudia squeezed out a tear or two, but more to make Omar feel guilty than from any sense of loss. Head down, hands over her eyes, she found herself thinking . . . thinking. Would they catch me if I killed the parakeet? How about our cat? How would it be to be present at the death of a human being, instead of a mere dog?

  It was then and there, standing over that little mound of earth, that Claudia Andrade decided what she was going to do with her life.

  She was going to preside over deaths.

  Last moments, for thirteen-year-old Claudia Andrade, were profoundly exciting, more so than boys, toys, parties, pretty clothes, more so than anything.

  She’d never, ever, be able to get enough of them.

  MANAUS

  Present Day

  THE DOOR of the aircraft opened to suffocating heat, a strong smell of rotting vegetation, and a weaker one of decomposing fish.

  Arnaldo was waiting in the shadow of the terminal building.

  The three of them shook hands and started walking.

  “It’s Hector’s first visit to Manaus,” Silva said.

  “Lucky bastard,” Arnaldo said. “This is my fifth.”

  Just ahead, facing them, was a tourist, snapping photographs. When the guy lowered the camera Silva caught a glimpse of deep bags under heavy-lidded eyes.

  On the way to the hotel, Arnaldo reviewed his conversations with Father Vitorio. Then he handed them the original rap sheets of Carlos Queiroz and Nestor Porto, the ones he’d lifted from the archives of the Manaus PD.

  The photographs were much more legible than on the faxes received in Brasilia. There was no mistake. They were the same men who’d been seen performing on two of the snuff videos.

  Queiroz and Porto shared two common features: protuberant lower jaws and piglike eyes. They looked like members of some primitive tribe.

  “You take Queiroz,” Silva said to Hector. “I’ll take Porto.” “How about me?” Arnaldo said.

  “You hate those archives, don’t you?” Silva said. “The reception you got from Coimbra and his people, the dust, the heat?”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “So stick with it. See what else you can come up with.”

  Arnaldo let out a sigh. “This is penance for that Hotel Plaza business, isn’t it?” he said.

  NUMBER TWENTY-SEVEN Rua da Independencia, Queiroz’s last known address, was five stories of mildewed brick with a shop window on the ground floor. Beyond the glass, which looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in Hector’s lifetime, were religious articles: bibles of all sizes, hymnals, plastic statues of saints, icons of the Virgin Mary, rosaries, portraits of the Pope.

  And, if God couldn’t help, you had only to climb a flight of stairs where you could visit a fortune teller, a homeopathic physician, or a lawyer. The remaining floors in the building were given over to apartments, four opening off each landing. Queiroz’s place was listed as 3C, but the name next to the bell said Cintra. The girl who answered the door wore a red dress with a neckline that plunged to her navel and a hem that ended just below her crotch. She didn’t look to be more than twenty, but it was a hard-lived twenty. The smile on her face faded when Hector asked about Carlos Queiroz and disappeared completely when he made it clear he had no interest in her services.

  “Abilio,” she said, raising her voice just a little.

  A door opened somewhere behind her. Seconds later a mean-looking guy with a single earring pushed her aside and intruded himself into the doorway.

  “What do you want?”

  “I just told your girlfriend. I’m looking for Carlos Queiroz.” “Never heard of him,” the guy with the earring said. He started to close the door, but Hector inserted his foot.

  “What the hell. . . ?” the guy said, blustering.

  Hector waved his credentials in the guy�
�s face. “Let’s start all over again,” he said. “This is who I am. Who are you?”

  “I don’t want any trouble,” the guy said, backing down.

  “Me neither. Answer the question.”

  “Abilio.”

  “Abilio who?”

  The guy paused for a moment then said, “Sarmento.”

  Hector figured it was probably true. He also figured it wasn’t a name that Abilio normally answered to. Most people in Abilio’s business didn’t use their real names, hence the “Cintra” on the mailbox.

  “Prove it,” Hector said.

  Abilio nodded as if he’d expected that and stepped back from the door. “You can come in,” he said, as if he had a choice.

  Like most places in Manaus, the place stank of fish. And it was hot, hotter even than down on the street. A sweat-stained couch, a folding aluminum table, and a TV set were the only furniture in the living room.

  Abilio was wearing a pair of faded bathing trunks, plastic sandals, and nothing else. The sandals made little flopping sounds as Hector followed him down the hallway into the kitchen. The girl, barefoot, sloped along behind them. A pair of men’s trousers had been tossed in a heap in the corner. Abilio bent over to retrieve them. As he rose a wallet fell out of one of the pockets.

  The sink was piled high with dirty dishes, the stove with unwashed pots. Another girl, who could have been a younger sister of the first, was squatting on the floor, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. She looked at Hector, then down at her bare toes, her brow furrowing as she tapped ash on the floor.

  She’s not just using marijuana, Hector thought. She’s on something stronger. Crack, or maybe heroin.

  Abilio rifled the contents of the wallet and came up with a dog-eared identity card. He handed it to Hector.

  Abilio Sarmento, aged twenty-four, looked ten years older.

  “Who else lives here?” Hector said.

  Abilio said nobody did, said they’d been renting the apartment for the last three months, and that hell, yes, the girls were over eighteen.

  Again, Hector told him to prove it.

  Abilio left the kitchen and returned with both girls’ identity cards. Like him, they were named Sarmento: Aparecida Maria and Maria Aparecida, nineteen and eighteen years old respectively.

  “My sisters,” Abilio said, before Hector could ask.

  “Your parents didn’t have much imagination, did they?”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. Anyone got a record?”

  All three of them did: the young women for lewd conduct, Abilio for stealing a car and possession of cocaine. He’d pleaded guilty, done thirteen months, and claimed he’d been clean ever since.

  None of them knew Carlos Queiroz. Aparecida Maria, the sister who wasn’t stoned, said the building superintendent probably did. He lived down in 2D.

  Hector told Abilio to show him around the apartment.

  There were two bedrooms and three mattresses, two in one bedroom, one in the other. Clothes and personal effects overflowed cardboard boxes being used in lieu of furniture.

  In the bathroom, shampoos, conditioners, and lotions surrounded the bathtub. Creams and cheap perfumes crowded the glass shelf above the sink. There was no shower curtain. The floor was wet from someone’s recent bath. Nothing suggested that anyone else lived in the apartment.

  Hector said he was going down to talk to the building superintendent, but he might be back.

  Abilio didn’t seem overjoyed by the prospect.

  THE SUPERINTENDENT was a full-blooded Indian, not an unusual situation in a city where there were more natives than on any single reservation. From the way he spoke Portuguese, Hector figured he’d been educated by missionaries in his youth. That youth was gone, but he didn’t have a single gray hair. He could have been anywhere between fifty and seventy, and was dressed in a clean blue shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. His living room was well furnished and a good deal cleaner than the one occupied by the Sarmentos.

  “Carlos Queiroz?” he said. “Yes, I remember him. Good riddance.”

  “How long ago did he move out?” Hector asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  Hector frowned.

  The Indian shook his head.

  “It’s not what you’re thinking,” he said.

  “What am I thinking?”

  “That I don’t want to help. You’re wrong. I’m happy to help, but we have a high turnover. It’s easy to lose track.”

  “I don’t need a specific date, just an approximation.”

  The Indian pulled his lower lip. “Look,” he said, “it’s this way: I collect the rent. It’s due on Mondays. I go from door to door, pick up the cash, and take it down to the bank, where I deposit it in Senhor Aquino’s account. Senhor Aquino owns the building, but he only drops by about once a year.”

  “So?”

  “So on a Monday, about nine weeks ago—or it could have been eight or ten—I knocked on Queiroz’s door, expecting to collect, as usual. He didn’t answer, which I thought was funny, because it was about eleven A.M., which is the time he usually got up. I went back the next day and the next. I tried him in the early morning. I tried him late at night. It was always the same. For the whole two weeks he never answered, and I never saw him again.”

  “Two weeks? Why two weeks?”

  “When they move in, everyone pays three weeks in advance. Two of those weeks are the security deposit. Tenants are supposed to pay every Monday after that.”

  “For an additional week, in advance?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, when he missed his payment, Queiroz had a right to stay for an additional two weeks?”

  “Either that, or give us notice, tell us he’s moving out. Somebody does that, we return what’s left of their deposit.” “But Queiroz never did?”

  “Give us notice? Never.”

  “Okay. And when the two weeks were up?”

  “I did what I always do. Used my passkey. He’d left dishes in the sink. There were cockroaches all over the place. Big as that,” he said, showing how big that was by distancing the tips of his thumb and forefinger.

  “Queiroz left a light on,” the superintendant continued, “as if he’d gone out at night and never come back. Very inconsiderate of him. Electricity is included in the rent, but Senhor Aquino doesn’t count on people leaving lights on twenty-four hours a day. Queiroz’s sweaty and dirty sheets were still on the bed. I didn’t even want to touch them. The man lived like a pig.”

  “What else did you find in there?”

  “His clothes. Everything I ever saw him wear. Some furniture, not much. Just a mattress, a kitchen table, a couple of chairs, and an old sofa.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Left the furniture. Put a sign in the window. It didn’t take long to find another tenant. These places are cheap, and they’re close to the center of town.”

  “What about his personal effects?”

  “I put them in boxes and stored them down in the basement. This Queiroz, he’s . . .”

  “He’s what?”

  “Well, for want of a better word, mean. Mean and a bully. I didn’t want him coming back here and getting mad because I threw his stuff away.”

  “Can I have a look in those boxes?”

  “Sure.”

  The boxes were of no help. Clothes, some condoms, a few pornographic magazines, toiletries, two bottles of cachaça, one of them full. There was nothing that gave Hector an insight into Carlos Queiroz or suggested where he might have gone.

  “What do you think?” the Indian asked, gesturing toward the little pile of boxes. “Do I have to keep holding on to this stuff?”

  “I wouldn’t bother if I were you,” Hector said. “I can pretty much assure you Senhor Queiroz won’t be coming back.”

  “NESTOR PORTO lived with his mother and grandparents,” Silva said.

  “And wouldn’t hurt a fly, sang in the church choir, and helped little old ladies cross the st
reet,” Arnaldo said.

  The three federal cops were back at the Hotel Tropical, having a drink at the bar.

  “Not quite,” Silva said. “The grandfather seems like a hard-working guy, an electrician. Nestor was born when his mother was fifteen. Nestor’s father took off when he found out she was pregnant. Nobody’s seen him since. The grandmother was supposed to be taking care of Nestor while his mother finished school, but the grandmother contracted lung cancer and died within a year. The kid got into a bad crowd, dropped out of school, started using drugs, built up a habit, got caught robbing a house.”

  “Same old, same old,” Arnaldo said.

  “They put him away for fourteen months. Third day he was back, he smashed all the dishes in the house and beat the shit out of his grandfather.”

  “The grandfather file a complaint?”

  “No. Nestor apologized, said he was on crack, swore he’d never do it again. After that, they pretty much left him alone, never knowing what might set him off. He started going out at night, coming back at all hours, sometimes not coming back for two or three days. Then he was arrested again. Armed robbery. He got five years, three of which he served with the big boys.”

  “I remember reading that part on his rap sheet,” Arnaldo said. “The three years, I mean. They must have wiped the juvenile charges.”

  “Now, here’s the thing,” Silva said. “Last November, about two months after he got sprung for the second time, he joined his mother and grandfather for breakfast. They were surprised to see him at that hour of the morning. Normally, he didn’t climb out of bed before noon. They asked him what he was doing at the breakfast table. He told them to mind their own business. When he left, he said he’d be home for dinner, but he never came back.”