by Mark Dawson
The line had been cut. It was impossible to miss. It was a neat incision, clearly deliberate. He knew that it could not be something that could be attributed to wear and tear; he had checked the lines that afternoon, and they had all been just as he had expected. Fluid was dripping out of the line now, viscous globs that stained his fingertips as he probed the incision.
He slid across so that he could check the opposite wheel and saw the same thing: a neat, intentional slice that had been made in the rubber between the steel line and the wheel cylinder. More fluid was running out of the cut, falling to puddle on the asphalt.
He lay there for a moment longer, just staring at the damage that had been done. It was a skilful job; the lines had not been cut all the way through, not quite enough for him to have noticed it earlier on in the race but more than enough to cause the brakes to fail if he pumped them too hard. He thought about the route: most of the early going was flat out, and the only significant turn until he reached this hairpin was the switchback on Avenue Niemeyer where he had lost Aldo.
He thought back to the start of the evening. His attention had been distracted during his talk with Palito. He had turned away from the car, and that might have been enough time for someone to slide underneath with a blade and go to work.
He scrambled out from underneath the car and stood. The road was still quiet and, perhaps emboldened by the peace, an owl hooted loudly and swooped by low overhead. Paulo went around to the front of the car. The fender had been mangled beneath the outcrop, with large holes torn in the metal. He didn’t even want to think about the damage that must have been done to the suspension. He started to price how much it would cost to fix, but then stopped himself: that was irrelevant now. He didn’t have the money to afford replacement parts and, worse than that, Palito was going to want to get paid.
He slumped back against the hood. No money meant no treatment for Eloá. He had failed her, Rafaela, and himself. He closed his eyes against the tears that had started to form, but it was no good. They ran down his cheeks as he bowed his head and waited for Marcos to come and pick him up.
10
Drake drove Milton through Santo Cristo until they reached Santa Teresa. It was an exclusive neighbourhood, a collection of high-end villas and apartments on a hilltop that stood between Rio’s centre and the sandy crescent of beach that fronted Copacabana and Ipanema. It was different in atmosphere to the other districts that they had passed through; this was more like a village, with narrow, winding streets that were lined with elegant mansions, many of which had been converted to accommodate boutique hotels, cocktail bars and, as they neared the summit, restaurants offering romantic vistas of the bay beyond. He slowed by the side of a particularly impressive building—more modern than the other properties that they had passed—and reversed off the road and into a private garage.
Milton got out of the car and jogged up a flight of stairs to follow Drake to the front door. They paused under a porch and looked around. The property was large and had been built on the edge of the forest on a part of the hill that was particularly secluded. It benefited from an elevated position, and it had a million-dollar view: Milton gazed out at Sugarloaf Mountain, Guanabara Bay, and the sparkling lights of the skyscrapers that studded the central parts of the city.
“Very nice,” Milton said.
“Like I said, business has been good.”
“Is it yours?”
“Rented,” he said, then pointed to an unfinished villa on the other side of the road. “Looking at that one, though. The developer went bust. I reckon I can get that for a steal.”
Milton looked over at the property. It would be as impressive as this one when it was finished.
Drake reached for the door handle. “Come inside,” he said. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Milton put his hand on Drake’s elbow. “There’s one thing,” he said. “I don’t use my own name. I’d rather you kept that between the two of us.”
Drake regarded him curiously. “This to do with what you did after the Regiment?”
“Yes. And don’t ask me to talk about that, because I can’t.”
“So what do I call you?”
“John Smith.”
Drake chuckled. “Very imaginative.”
“Humour me.”
“Of course,” he said. “John Smith it is.”
Milton followed Drake inside. They passed into a large living room with expansive windows and stepped through open French doors onto a patio with a vaulted concrete pergola. The patio was generously provisioned with outdoor furniture, and a woman was resting on a bamboo armchair, her long legs propped up against the edge of a glass table.
“I’m home, baby.”
The woman turned at the sound of Drake’s voice. Milton could see at once that she was an uncommon beauty. She stood, and her long dark hair, parted in the centre, fell down to the middle of her back. Her eyes were framed with eyeliner, her lashes were dark and full, and her lips were painted a subtle red.
“This is Sophia,” he said to Milton. “Sophia, this is John”—Drake caught himself—“Smith.”
The woman closed the distance between them and, instead of taking the hand that Milton offered, she brushed it aside and leaned in to kiss him on both cheeks. Her scent was heady and strong; she smelled of citrus.
She stepped away from him and smiled. “Shawn has been looking forward to you coming all week,” she said to Milton, reaching up to touch him on the shoulder. “He doesn’t have many visitors.”
“What are you talking about?” Drake protested, although Milton could see that he enjoyed Sophia’s gentle teasing.
“How long have you been in Rio, baby?” she asked him.
“A year.”
“A year and a half,” she corrected. “And how many visitors have you had?”
“My mother,” he replied with a grin.
She turned to Milton and shrugged. “You see?”
“It’s a long way from home,” Drake protested again.
“But Rio has the beaches and the weather and football—and still they do not come.”
“I think what she’s trying to say is that I’m not very popular.”
“I’m saying that I’m glad John has taken pity on you.”
There was an obvious spark between the two of them; Milton could see it and found it rather charming. Milton remembered an awkwardness to Drake that was amplified whenever he was around women. The recruits had often gone out in Hereford during their training; it had been easy to identify them as soldiers, and as always, there were local women who went out with the aim of snaring a soldier for themselves. Milton had always been too shy to be a ladies’ man, and he had found comfort in the fact that, even though Drake talked a good game, he was even worse than him. It was odd given Drake’s obvious good looks and the fact that it was evident to everyone—bar him, perhaps—that he was regarded as a prize by the women who tried to catch his eye. The relaxed banter between Drake and Sophia was something Milton would not have credited to the man that he remembered.
Sophia laid a hand on Milton’s arm again. “What about you, John?” she said. “What do you do?”
“I’m a cook,” he said.
“So he says,” Drake said. “I don’t believe it. He was always terrible at cooking.”
“I’ve had a lot of time to practice.”
“Shawn,” she chided, waving a hand in mock exasperation. “What kind of places do you work?”
“Nothing special,” he said, thinking of the taximan’s shelter where he had worked for the longest stretch of time since leaving the Group. “I’ll usually find somewhere to work for five or six months, and then I’ll use the money to go travelling.”
“You’re not married?”
“No,” he said.
“No girl?”
“Not at the moment.”
She cocked an eyebrow in an exaggerated show of surprise. Milton could see why Drake had fallen for her. She was good loo
king, but she had a sultriness that was extraordinarily attractive. He found himself wondering how old she was, and guessed that she must have been at least fifteen years Drake’s junior. His friend had aged well, his good looks a little more refined now that he had more lines on his face, yet Milton concluded that he was still batting well above his average when it came to his new girlfriend.
“So you’ve come for the festival?”
“Yes,” Milton said. “It’s been on my list for years.”
“It’s good this year, no?” she said. “You come with me and Shawn—I show you what it is like for locals, not tourists.”
“Perfect,” Milton said, yawning.
“Tired?”
“It was a long flight,” Milton said.
Drake looked at his watch. “It’s still early. I thought we could go out for a drink?”
Milton had been worrying about that. He remembered Drake as a big drinker, like most of the soldiers he had served with over the years, and he knew that Drake would want to go out and hit the bars with him. Milton had spent an hour of the flight flicking through the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous in an effort to find the fortitude that he knew he would need to resist the temptation. He was confident that he would be able to say no to Drake, but he wasn’t looking forward to the badgering that he knew he could expect, and then the ribbing about being a lightweight that would follow.
“I’m pretty tired,” Milton said.
“A couple of drinks? There’s this bar I know, not far from here. You’ll love it.”
“Not tonight,” he said. “I can barely keep my eyes open. And tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.”
“What happened to you?” Drake said. “You were always the last man standing.”
“Like I said,” Milton offered. “Getting older.”
Drake didn’t press. “All right,” he said. “Maybe it’s best to save our strength for tomorrow. The beer will taste like piss at the festival, but at least there’ll be plenty of it. Come on—I’ll show you to your room.”
11
Paulo walked up the Hill to his uncle Felipe’s bar. It was the only place that he knew in Rocinha where he could get a drink without any money. Although Felipe made frequent references to the size of the tab that Paulo had been allowed to run up, he had never made any serious attempt to collect it.
The bar was a cheap dive, and Paulo knew that it was only kept going because it was a convenient business through which the profits of some of the neighbourhood’s more unsavoury operators could be washed. It was not much bigger than the front room of the house in which Paulo had grown up, with a makeshift bar at one side of the room and six mismatched stools set out next to it. The walls were decorated with photographs of soccer players: there were pictures of Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, with one poster showing the statue of Christ with the head of Neymar photoshopped onto it. The wooden bar had been scarified by the graffiti of the listless regulars, and, at one end, a glass cloche had been lowered over a plate of stale pastries that had probably been there for two days already.
Paulo approached the bar. “Hello, Uncle.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Felipe said. “You look like shit.”
“Money troubles.” He let the sentence drift away and shrugged sheepishly.
“You and all the rest of us.”
“This is worse.”
“Were you racing tonight?”
Paulo nodded. “Someone cut my brakes. I crashed it.”
“Cut your brakes?” Felipe frowned and put his shoulders back, giving an impression of outrage that Paulo knew was false. Felipe was too selfish to do anything to help; his indignation was for show. “You know who did it?”
“I know,” Paulo said. “But it doesn’t matter. I couldn’t prove it.”
“You want a drink?”
Paulo nodded. Felipe had hung a bottle of cachaça on the wall. He took a dirty glass, rubbed it with a dishcloth that he wore tucked into his belt, and held it underneath the optic so that he could pour out a miserly shot. He put the glass down on the bar. Paulo sat down, took it and sank it in one hit. He put the glass back, but, instead of refilling it with another shot, Felipe turned away and started to grumble about football to the fat man to Paulo’s left. He would give him another drink later, but he would make sure that Paulo knew that it would be going on his tab and that, because he still hadn’t called the debt in, Paulo still owed him. Felipe had always been the lesser brother, and Paulo suspected that having his sibling’s son rely on his patronage was his way of improving his self-image. Paulo didn’t care; it meant that he could drink for free, and, when he had no money and nowhere else to go, his uncle’s attitude was a price he was prepared to pay.
“Look at that,” the fat man said, pointing to the TV on the wall. “They got another one.”
Paulo turned. The TV was tuned to a news channel, and the presenter was talking about the PBN scandal. Paulo had been following along with each new development as avidly as everyone else in the country. It was the biggest story anyone could remember. Everyone knew that corruption was a problem in Brazil. It had always been that way, but the police investigation into PBN had been stunning in how deeply it had already cut into the state. The thoroughness with which the case had proceeded was surprising, but perhaps more remarkable than that was how powerless the politicians had been to do anything to stop it. The government had been elected on a promise to tackle corruption, and, now that they had established the enquiry and given it the powers that it needed to do the job, there seemed to be nothing that they could do to call it off. It was like a car with no brakes sitting at the top of a hill; one little push had set it in motion, but now it was rolling so fast and with so much momentum that it could not be slowed down. It would crash through everything and anything that was in its way.
The channel cut to footage of a man in a suit with his hands cuffed in front of him. Paulo recognised the arrivals lounge at the airport. Paulo had never been there before, but he had seen the Brazilian team returning from the World Cup last year.
“Who is it?” Paulo said.
“You don’t recognise him?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I did.”
Felipe tapped him on the shoulder and handed him another shot. “It’s Lima.”
The fat man nodded. “He took bribes from a company that wants to drill the oilfields. They said it was millions. Millions. Guys like that, they never get caught.”
Felipe laughed, a barking sound that always caused the regulars to turn around in shock until they remembered what it was. “Except now they do.”
Another man came into the shot behind the man in cuffs. Paulo knew who this man was—everyone did. It was Saverin, the judge who was running the anti-corruption investigation from Curitiba. The others in the bar raised their glasses; one man applauded, until, realising that no one else had followed his example, he let the clapping awkwardly fade away. Paulo had seen the fuss that had been made of Saverin, who had become something of a celebrity. He had seen graffiti on walls and banners draped from bridges declaring ‘God save Saverin.’ The protestors who took to the streets against corruption did so wearing masks of the handsome judge and held up placards suggesting that he should run for president. At the last carnival, Saverin had been lauded with a five-metre-high doll and a samba tribute song. He was more famous than the businessmen and politicians that he brought down.
Felipe came out from around the bar and took the empty stool next to Paulo.
“Cheer up,” he said.
“What am I going to do?”
“How much do you need?”
“A lot.”
“For Eloá?”
Paulo nodded.
“I wish I could help,” he said, and, again, Paulo knew that he had said it for the benefit of the others who might be listening to their conversation. Felipe made a lot of being a family man, and he wouldn’t want anyone to think that he would leave his nephew in financial difficulty, especially when
his grandniece was involved. “Could you get another job?”
Paulo snorted. “Do you know how much the treatment costs?”
“You don’t have any savings?”
He shook his head. “I’m broke.”
“Then there’s only one thing left to do.”
“What?”
“Speak to Garanhão.”
“Are you crazy?”
“You asked me for ideas. That’s all I’ve got.”
“I can’t,” he said. “If Rafaela knew I went to ask him…”
“But she wants the treatment for Eloá, too.”
“Of course she does.”
“Then maybe she’d understand. Desperate times, desperate—”
“I’m not sure I’d ever be that desperate,” Paulo cut in. “Jesus. What would my father say?”
“He’s not around to offer you any advice,” Felipe said, the subtext being that he was around and that Paulo should be grateful for that.
“I know that,” Paulo said.
“Look,” Felipe went on, “I know a guy who knows a guy. I could get you a meeting with him.”
“Thanks,” Paulo said, but shook his head to turn the offer down.
Felipe shrugged. “You want another?”
He nodded that he did. He had the taste for cachaça now. He wanted to forget his problems.
Part II
The Second Day
12
Milton woke at six, put on his running gear, and went out before the temperature could rise any higher. He ran through Santa Teresa, descending the hill that overlooked the city’s harbour. The neighbourhood looked very different in the daylight, and Milton passed elegantly faded plantation mansions arrayed along the cobblestoned streets. He took Rua Monte Alegre to Rua Frei Caneca, then headed for the Carioca Aqueduct and the Lapa Arches. He followed the path around the Catedral Metropolitana de São Sebastião and then started to climb the hill toward the house.
