She was a blonde, and a pretty one, but with a minor flaw in her well-groomed façade: she’d neglected to completely close the zipper on the side of her skirt. Arnaldo had the distinct impression he’d interrupted something—and she wasn’t pleased about it.
“Please, don’t turn me away,” he said. “I need the business. I’ve got a wife and fourteen children to support.”
“Fourteen?” she said. “How come I don’t believe you?”
“Then how about this,” he said. “I’m a federal cop, and I want to see your boss.”
She didn’t believe that either. “Maybe,” she said, “you might want to think about getting out of here before I call security.”
“And maybe you might want to look at this,” he said, holding up his warrant card.
She came closer and squinted at it. “Oh,” she said.
“But I admit,” he said, “I lied about the fourteen children. Is your boss in there?” He pointed at the door behind her.
Her response was oblique. “I don’t care if you are a federal cop,” she said. “You can’t just barge in here without an appointment and disrupt our schedule.”
“I just did. Call him right now, or I’ll get out my brass knuckles.”
She heaved a sigh, went back through the door, and slammed it behind her.
Two minutes later she was back. This time, her zipper was properly closed, She saw Arnaldo looking at it, avoided his eyes, and stepped aside.
“Down there,” she said. “The door at the end.”
Two other doors, one to the left, and one to the right, were closed. The corridor she’d ushered him into was no more than four meters long. A toilet and a small storage closet, Arnaldo thought.
There was nothing small, though, about Lúcio Saldana’s office. There were windows on two sides, and the view from both was impressive: in one direction, urban sprawl backed up by distant mountains, in the other, the river. Off to one side was an informal seating area with a couple of armchairs and a couch.
Saldana was standing behind his desk with his necktie askew. He was a weasel of a man with distrustful eyes and a sunken chest that even his expensive suit couldn’t conceal. He looked nothing at all like his handsome sibling.
“Saldana,” he said, forcing a smile, and belatedly extending a hand.
Arnaldo took it. It was moist, and Saldana’s grip was weak. “The name’s Nunes,” he said, “I’m an agent with the Federal Police. But your receptionist has probably told you that already.”
“She has,” Saldana said. “What’s this all about?”
He indicated one of the chairs in front of his desk.
“Your brother’s death.”
Arnaldo sat down and crossed his legs. Lúcio resumed his seat. “I was told,” he said, “that we wouldn’t be bothered about that anymore.”
“We?”
“My father and I.”
“Told by whom?”
“Governor Abbas. Why are you here?”
“I’m here, Senhor Saldana, because the Minister of Justice told the Director of the Federal Police to send my boss and me to Curitiba to investigate your brother’s death.”
“So investigate. But that’s no reason to come and bother me with it. Governor Abbas told my father specifically—”
“We wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t for your friend Governor Abbas. He’s the one who called the Minister of Justice in the first place.”
Lúcio made a dismissive gesture. “The governor isn’t my friend; he’s my father’s friend.”
“Despite the fact your brother accused him of being a crook? Despite the fact your sister-in-law is running against him?”
“The governor knows what my father thought about my brother, and he knows what he thinks about Stella.”
“Which is?”
“He hated Plínio, and he’s got no use for her.”
“Hated his own son?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Enough to kill him?”
“Certainly not.”
“And how about you?”
“What about me?”
“Did you hate your brother?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“A simple one. Did you hate your brother?”
“No, I didn’t hate my brother. We had our differences, I admit, but hate is too strong a word. I didn’t hate him, I didn’t even dislike him.”
“Did you associate with him? Visit him? Talk to him?”
“No.”
“Why not? If you didn’t dislike him?”
Lúcio gave an exasperated sigh. “Plínio and my father were … estranged. I couldn’t have it both ways. I had to choose between them. I chose my father.”
“Are you telling me that neither one would have accepted you having a relationship with the other?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“Why not?”
“My father thought Plínio was an ingrate who’d bitten the hand that fed him. Plínio thought my father had no social conscience, that he’d mistreated my grandmother and that he was supporting a crook.”
“Governor Abbas?”
“Yes, Governor Abbas.”
“And what did you think?”
“I told you. I supported my father.”
“Out of conviction? Or because you’re dependent upon him?”
Lúcio frowned. “I find your question offensive in the extreme.”
“Too bad. How about you put your offense aside and answer it?”
“My father prizes loyalty above all things. I feel it’s my duty to please him. Venality plays no part in our relationship.”
“And you had no part whatsoever in having your brother killed?”
Lúcio placed three fingers on his breast. “I? You must be joking.”
“No, Senhor Saldana, I’m not joking. The first thing we do when we set out to solve any case is to look for a motive. And you had one: with Plínio’s death, you became your father’s sole heir.”
“What you’re suggesting is outrageous.”
“Is it?”
“It is! Now, I suggest you leave.”
Arnaldo had said his piece, received the denial he expected and didn’t think he was about to get anything more out of the interview.
So he took Saldana’s suggestion. And left.
Chapter Seventeen
THERE WAS A TIME when people called Lebanon the Switzerland of the Mediterranean, so peaceful and prosperous was the country.
But peace and prosperity were short-lived.
In 1957, just fourteen years after winning independence from the French, Lebanon was invaded by the US Marines.
Ten years later, 300,000 Palestinians, fleeing the Arab-Israeli conflict, surged across the border and established camps, many of which remain until this day.
Nine years after that, the Syrian military moved in (they stayed for more than thirty years) and twice, in 1976 and 1982, Lebanese territory was invaded by the Israelis.
Each new outbreak of violence plunged the country deeper into chaos and caused more of her children to seek new homes abroad.
Many chose Brazil.
By the beginning of the 1990s, there were, it was said with some justification, more Lebanese in São Paulo than in Beirut.
But, before the refugees, before the great torrent of immigration began, there were a few young Lebanese upon whom Brazil exerted its attraction, not as a refuge, but as a land of limitless opportunity.
Two such adventurous spirits were Farid Nassib, newly graduated from the American University of Beirut with a degree in medicine, and his wife, Shada.
They arrived in São Paulo in the spring of 1950. Two years later, their son was born. They named him Jaco, after Farid’s father, and fate decreed that he should enter the world at the same hospital, and on the same day, as Mario Silva.
Placed in adjoining rooms, and shuffling around a common hallway, it wasn’t long before the new mothers struck up a
conversation—and discovered they had much in common. It was the first child for each. Their husbands practiced the same profession. Both mothers had lost their own mothers, so both were lacking in that support so important to a woman about to bring home a baby for the first time. A friendship arose, first between the wives, later between their husbands.
When their sons were five, a house became available on the Rua Bela Cintra, the street where the Silvas lived. Doctor Nassib bought it and became the Silvas’ neighbor.
The two boys, Mario and Jaco, were friends from earliest childhood. They maintained their friendship after Jaco married and moved to Curitiba, his new wife’s hometown. The marriage was of short duration, less than three years, but Jaco’s relationship with Curitiba became permanent.
Even as a boy, Silva’s friend had been an inveterate gossip, so it was quite natural he’d be drawn to journalism as a profession. He’d been a reporter for as many years as Silva had been a cop and, during the last twenty-five of those years, had drawn his pay from the Gazeta do Povo, the most important newspaper in the State.
Jaco had begun his career as a reporter, covering the long, mostly boring, meetings of Curitiba’s City Council and the public and private lives of its members. Fifteen years later he’d been given his own column, and in the course of the last decade he’d become universally recognized as one of the country’s leading authorities on the complicated world of Brazilian politics.
Jaco and the two federal cops met for dinner at a little place on the Rua Amintas Barros. Jaco had told them it was the best Lebanese restaurant in the city, and Silva believed him. Jaco had always been somewhat of a gourmet.
There was none of the faux atmosphere that often permeates such places, no middle-eastern fabrics decorating the walls, no hookahs, no photos of the Bekaa Valley, no mijwiz playing in the background, but it was exotic all the same. The scents that perfumed the air were of spices uncommon to Brazilian cuisine and at least half the clientele were conversing in languages other than Portuguese.
Jaco, as he was accustomed to doing with non-Lebanese, ordered for them all. The hummus, baba ghanouj, esfihas and kibbeh that preceded the main course were all more than good, but the beef chawarma that followed was extraordinary. Silva pronounced it the best he’d ever eaten and Arnaldo agreed with him.
Meals in Brazil, as in Lebanon, are made to be enjoyed—and business is never discussed in the course of them, but after the dishes had been cleared away and the owner, solicitous to a fault, had left them to their coffee, Jaco leaned forward, lowered his voice and began talking about Plínio and Stella Saldana.
The story he told stood in sharp contrast to everything they’d heard before.
“Plínio was a politician,” Jaco said, “not as bad as some, maybe even better than most, but no saint. He started off as an idealist, I’ll give him that, but he fell in love with the power of office.”
“And his idealism didn’t last?”
“No. It didn’t last.”
“How about his wife’s?” Arnaldo asked.
“She retained hers. She’s a stronger person than he was, and smarter, but.…” Jaco toyed with his cup.
“What?” Silva said.
“This is going to sound weird.”
“Say it.”
“I think there’s something dangerous about her.”
Arnaldo frowned. “Dangerous?”
“Maybe dangerous is too strong a word. Immoderate might be a better one.” He looked at his old friend. “Do you recall, Mario, how we thought, how we acted, back in 1968?”
Silva smiled at the memory. “Our foolish youth, Jaco. I look back on that time, and I think, was that me? How could I ever have been that naïve? That idealistic?”
“Foolish, yes. Naïve, maybe. Idealistic, certainly, but here’s the thing: we weren’t out to kill people. For us, and for most of our fellow students, it was all just riot and rhetoric.”
“Your point?”
“Excessive zeal, even when it’s rooted in a desire to do good, can have terrible consequences. The worldwide student riots in ’68 led to the founding of organizations like the Aliança Libertadora Nacional, the Brigata Rossa, the Rote Armee Fraktion and the Weather Underground, all of which viewed the killing of innocents as morally justified as long as it led to the achievement of their goals.”
“What has all this got to do with Stella Saldana?”
“She’s a zealot, Mario, committed to her ideals, maybe even fanatically so.”
“To the extent of being a physical threat to someone who might get in the way of her programs?”
“Potentially, yes.”
“Including her husband?”
“Anyone.”
“Come on, Jaco. Even from you, that’s pretty far-fetched.”
Jaco smiled. “Hey, if I can’t share my thoughts with you, who can I share them with? I sure as hell can’t print them in my column. The last thing the Gazeta needs these days is another lawsuit.”
“Does anyone, other than you, see these tendencies in Stella? Is anyone else saying the sort of things about her that you’re saying to me right now?”
Jaco shrugged. “Not as far as I know. Maybe you want to take everything I’m telling you with a grain of salt. I’ve been so close to so many politicians for so long I don’t trust any of them anymore.”
“Plus the fact,” Silva said, with a smile, “that you have a tendency to exaggerate.”
Jaco returned the smile. “It’s my Levantine character. Some people think we Lebanese live on chawarma and esfihas. In fact, we live on intrigue. Now, about Nestor Cambria.…”
“What about him?”
“You know about him and Stella?”
“Him and Stella? What about him and Stella?”
“They were an item once. About that, there’s no doubt. It’s a fact.”
“After she married Plínio?”
Jaco shook his head. “Before. Long before. Before she met Plínio, before they were all in law school together.”
“Ancient history.”
“Perhaps. But there was a rumor, not long before Plínio was killed, that they’d gotten back together.”
“Any proof it’s true?”
“If I had proof, I wouldn’t have called it a rumor.”
“You believe it?”
“I’m of two minds. But here’s the thing: if, and I say if, it’s true, it might just have been Stella getting her own back on Plínio.”
“Getting her own back? What do you mean?”
“So you don’t know about Eva Telles?”
“Who’s Eva Telles?”
“Plínio’s girlfriend.”
“He had a girlfriend?”
“He did. And Stella might have known about her, because Stella isn’t stupid, and Eva isn’t discreet. Senhorita Telles was running around telling people Plínio was going to ditch Stella and marry her.”
“You think Governor Abbas knows about this woman?”
“Without a doubt. Abbas has Madalena Torres working for him, and Madalena is a lady who makes it her business to know everything about everybody. She even has a dossier on me. She told me so herself. Fair enough. I’ve got one on her. She’s had so many lovers she—”
“Let’s stick with Abbas. If he knew Plínio had a mistress, why didn’t he use it against him in the campaign?”
“The talk on the street is because Abbas has his own little affair going on, and Plínio found out about it.”
“Ha. So it was a standoff?”
“Uh-huh. Plínio agreed to keep his mouth shut if Abbas did the same. That kind of stuff happens more than you might imagine in politics.”
“It could never be more than we might imagine,” Arnaldo said. “We live in Brasilia, remember?”
Jaco grinned at him. “Of course we do. I stand corrected.”
“So what’s your best guess?” Silva said. “If he’d been elected governor, would Plínio have ditched Stella for Eva?”
“No way. Ev
a is pretty, but she’s not … um … intellectually gifted. She wouldn’t have been of any help to him, and in many ways she’d have been a hindrance. I’m more inclined to put credence in the other rumor.”
“Which is?”
“That Plínio had tired of Eva and was about to break it off.”
“So there’s another damned suspect,” Arnaldo said.
“Two,” Jaco said. “Don’t exclude Stella.”
“We’re not,” Silva said. “About this Telles woman, can you get me contact information?”
“Sure. I’ll send it to you in a text message, first thing in the morning. How about some more coffee?”
Silva and Arnaldo both nodded. Jaco raised a hand. The waiter came to their table and took their order.
“Have you spoken to Plínio’s old man, Orestes?” Jaco asked when the waiter was gone.
“I have,” Silva said. “He’s a nasty piece of work.”
“He is. But the world won’t have to put up with him for much longer. He’s sick. Cancer. He’s got a year, at most.”
“How do you find out these things?”
“A quarter of a century of cultivating contacts,” Jaco said. “If the politicians in this town knew how well-informed I am, I’d fear for my life.”
He treated it as a joke, but Silva knew he was serious.
“Braulio Serpa,” Arnaldo said, “thinks Plínio’s brother might have been behind his murder.”
“So he could inherit all the loot when the old man kicks off?”
“Exactly.”
“A possibility,” Jaco said. “Lúcio’s a greedy bastard. But Orestes is another possibility. The old man’s capacity for hatred is boundless, and he hated Plínio. The thought of Plínio getting his hands on any of his money would have been intolerable to him.”
“Lovely family,” Arnaldo said.
“If I agreed with you,” Jaco said, “we’d both be wrong.”
“How about Orestes’s mother?” Silva said. “What do you think of her?”
“Ariana? She’s the exception. A splendid old bird; the last of her kind. How she could have produced that son of hers is a mystery to me.”
The waiter brought their coffee. Jaco waited until they’d been served before he spoke again.
Perfect Hatred Page 11
