by Mark Dawson
The man came back into view and, for a moment, Milton thought that he was going to continue all the way out of the bedroom. But he did not; he stopped, turned to the side, and took a pace toward the wardrobe.
Now.
The man passed through a faint sliver of light, and Milton saw his face: he had a tattoo across it. Milton recognised him: it was the man he had shot in the shoulder during the ambush.
Milton pushed the door open. The man’s eyes bulged wide as he saw Milton and the gun pointed at his chest.
Milton pulled the trigger.
The gun barked, loud despite the suppressor.
Milton fired again.
Milton aimed both shots into the man’s torso, and both found their mark. The first struck him in the right breast, shoving him back a quarter turn, narrowing his profile enough that the second round punched him in the left shoulder. The man stumbled back, tripped over a pair of shoes, and fell onto his backside. He tried feebly to raise his own weapon, but Milton made his attempt moot; he came out of the wardrobe, aimed down, and fired a third shot into the man’s eye.
Milton stepped back and aimed at the door. “I know you’re there,” he called out. “Your friend is dead.”
There was no response, but Milton could hear the sound of quiet footsteps in the hall. He couldn’t work out whether they were advancing or retreating. The door was ajar, but it blocked Milton’s view outside. At least it would restrict the view inside, too.
Milton stepped forward. There was a full-length mirror on the wall of the bedroom, opposite the door. He kept his pistol aimed at the door and slid his gaze sideways to the mirror. The reflection showed him a view of the hallway. It was empty.
“Get out now,” he called, unsure whether whoever it was out there would be able to understand his English. “If you stay, I’ll shoot you, too.”
“Don’t think so, John.”
Milton froze.
It was Shawn Drake.
57
“You’re outnumbered, John.”
The voice was unmistakeable.
Milton struggled to put the pieces together: Drake was still alive.
How was that possible?
“Put the gun on the floor and kick it away.”
Milton scrambled for answers.
Drake must have been involved in the abduction of Alícia Saverin, and now he was cleaning up. Had he been watching Sophia, seen them meet, and then followed Milton? No. He dismissed the suggestion as impossible; he would have had to have Milton under surveillance, and Milton was always alert to the possibility of his being followed. Did that mean that Sophia was in on whatever Drake had planned, then? Had she tricked him?
“What are you doing, Drake?”
“You’re outnumbered,” he repeated, “and you’ve got nowhere to go.”
Milton would have to work out the angles later. For now, he glanced quickly around the room. There was a window, but the curtains were drawn, and there was no way for him to see how easy it would be to open. And, to get to it, he would have to cede his shelter and step into the line of fire of anyone waiting in the hallway. He dismissed the thought; he would have to find another way.
Milton brought up his left hand and held the pistol in a two-handed grip to steady his aim. “This is a really bad idea, Drake.”
“I’d rather it didn’t have to come to this. You’ve been unlucky—wrong place, wrong time. That’s just how it is. You got dealt a bad hand.”
“So you set this up? You sold the Saverins out? Hawkins and Berg get murdered and a girl is kidnapped? For what?”
“Money,” he said. “What do you think? I told you—I’m in the shit. I was going to lose the business. I tried doing it the right way, but you can make more playing both sides. A lot more.”
Milton saw a shadow dart across the mirror. He listened hard, filtering out Drake’s voice. How many were there? Drake on his own? He didn’t think so. There was at least one more man besides him.
“Does Sophia know about what you’ve done?”
Drake didn’t respond, but Milton could hear the sound of movement.
The thought of Sophia reminded him of something she had said to him about Xavier de Oliveira. He needed to keep Drake talking. “Let me guess what happened,” he said. “De Oliveira here found out what you were up to?”
“Something like that,” Drake said. He sounded close. He was in the other room, near to the door. Milton thought he heard the sound of someone whispering.
He backed up to the closet. “So what, then? He was going to go to the police?”
“He was, but not because he wanted to do the right thing. He wanted half of my take—greedy fucker. Couldn’t have that.”
Milton switched the gun to his right hand while he reached behind him with his left. He opened the closet door all the way and then crouched down, his eyes still on the bedroom door as he stretched out his arm and probed the closet.
“So you got rid of him,” Milton said. His fingers touched cold metal.
“No,” Drake said. “They did. He called to threaten me when we were at the concert. That was the last straw.”
“But without him, the team was light.”
“That’s right. And then you said you’d stand in. Perfect timing for me, not so great for you.”
Milton’s hand closed around a long tube. Sophia had said that de Oliveira was paranoid and kept a shotgun in his closet; here it was. De Oliveira hadn’t had the chance to use it to prevent his own death, but perhaps it would help Milton even the odds.
“I was perfect?” he called out. “How’d you figure that?”
“You’re an old drunk, John. You said it yourself.”
“And I wouldn’t be a threat? Not looking like that now, is it? Want to reconsider?”
Drake laughed. “Maybe I underestimated you. Won’t happen again. Come on, John. Come out. Time’s up.”
“I’m alright here, Drake.”
“You don’t come out, maybe I burn the place down.”
Milton examined the shotgun: it was a Mossberg 590A1 with the twenty-inch barrel and bayonet lug. Pump-action, chambered in 12 gauge with a shoulder stock for more accurate shooting. He was lucky: the 590A1 was military issue and a solid defensive weapon. Milton turned the shotgun over, pushed back the cartridge stop lever, and let a shotshell fall into his fingers. He checked the load—double ought buckshot—and then reinserted the shell into the magazine tube.
He pressed the stock against his shoulder, slid his right index finger through the guard and aimed at the door. “It’s not too late, Drake,” he called out. “Where’d they take the girl? Help me get her back.”
“And you pretend nothing happened? No, thanks.”
The shadow in the mirror returned. It was a man. He was hidden in the darkness, but Milton didn’t think that it was Drake. The man was edging into the room, hiding on the other side of the open door, most likely assuming that he was hidden from view. He was standing side on, a pistol held in his left hand held up at head height. Milton knew that if he could see the man in the mirror, then the man would be able to see him, too. So far, though, it didn’t seem as if the man had even noticed that the mirror was there.
Milton didn’t wait. He squeezed the trigger. The buckshot punched easily through the flimsy wood. The man screamed and fell back, crashing against the wall and then toppling forward into the room.
Milton had used the recoil to help him pump the weapon faster, the inertia pushing his shoulder back, allowing him to rack the gun at the same time. He moved quickly now, checked in the mirror that the hallway was clear, and then pressed himself against the wall. He heard a muttered, “Fuck,” and then the sound of running feet. Drake was no fool. He probably had a pistol, just like the man Milton had just blown up, and he would know that the pump gun had completely changed the dynamic.
Milton sank low, took a breath, and then swivelled out into the sitting room with the Mossberg up. He saw a quick flash of movement in the yard outside
and then nothing.
Drake was making a break for it.
Milton went after him.
58
Paulo waited in the Benz. Alessandro had told him that they wouldn’t be long, and that he should be ready to move at short notice. Paulo had turned the car around and slotted it against the kerb next to the building.
He was nervous. Neither Alessandro nor Junior had told him what they were here to do, but it couldn’t be good. They had waited nearby for two hours on Rua Alice until Junior’s phone had rung. There had been a quick, clipped conversation, and then Junior had told him to drive to Rua Professor Olinto de Oliveira. A young teenage boy had sauntered up to the car, and Junior had given him a handful of notes before sending him on his way; the boy must have been a lookout, alerting Junior to the arrival of the person who was now inside one of the houses. Two minutes later a second car had arrived, and a man whom Paulo had never seen before had stepped outside and started a terse conversation with Alessandro. All three men had then gone into the house.
Paulo fidgeted; his fingers drummed the wheel, and he couldn’t stop the anxious tapping that animated his right foot. He thought how easy it would be to put the car into drive, press down on the accelerator, and be away from here. But what would he do then? He would have to tell Rafaela what he had done, and somehow persuade her that they would all have to leave Rocinha—leave Rio—and find somewhere they could hide. But he had already paid over a good chunk of the money that Garanhão had given him. If they ran, they would have to start over again: find more money and find another doctor who was able to treat Eloá. It was impossible. There was nowhere that they could go where the don would not find them, and when he did, Paulo knew that his revenge would not be limited to him alone. He would make examples out of all of them—Rafaela, Eloá, Uncle Felipe, maybe even his father in jail—a reminder to anyone else who might be thinking of betraying him that the price would always be too high.
He looked at his watch. The three men had been inside the house for five minutes.
He was wondering what was happening when he heard two gunshots, close together, and then, after a pause of a few seconds, a third. The noises were muffled from being inside, but Paulo had heard plenty of gunshots before.
Paulo gripped the wheel until his knuckles were white. It was Junior and Alessandro and the new man, obviously, but who had they come here to kill?
There was a longer pause, perhaps thirty seconds, and then a loud boom.
He squeezed his eyes shut and, when that didn’t stop the panic, he rested his head on the wheel between his hands and started to pray.
He had his eyes closed when he heard the sound of footsteps. He looked up and saw the third man, the one who had been speaking to Alessandro, hurrying down the steps. He turned onto the street, sprinted to his car, and started the engine. Paulo watched, dumbstruck, as the car raced away, leaving rubber on the asphalt.
He leaned forward, craning his neck in an attempt to better see up the steps, but the angle made it impossible. He reached for the ignition with trembling fingers. There was no sign of Alessandro or Junior. Maybe the gunshots he had heard had not been fired by them; maybe they had been shot. Why was the third guy running? What had happened inside the house?
His heart hammering, he turned the key, bringing the engine to life and reaching for the handbrake.
His attention was fixed straight ahead. He didn’t notice the man approaching from behind, not until one of the doors behind him was pulled open.
He raised his head and looked in the rear-view mirror at the same time as he felt something small and hard press up against his head.
“Inglês?”
Paulo flicked his eyes to the mirror. There was a man in the seat behind him, his face partially hidden by the headrest of Paulo’s seat. Paulo couldn’t see him, but he could see what the man was holding against his head: it was a pistol.
“Inglês?” the man said again, his voice as hard and cold as iron.
“Yes,” Paulo forced out. “A little.”
“Good,” the man replied. He gave a little push with the gun, jerking Paulo’s head to the side. “Drive.”
59
Milton called Marks from the back of the car and explained what had happened. The old man listened intently without interrupting, and, when Milton was finished, asked a series of questions that Milton was able to answer quickly and succinctly. Milton’s main concern was where he could take his prisoner. He certainly couldn’t go back to Marks’s house; the road outside was far from quiet, and there was a good chance that someone would see Milton transferring his prisoner from the car to the inside. And, perhaps more important, he did not want his prisoner to be able to find the house again. Milton had not decided what he was going to do with the driver, but if he took him back to the house, then he would have little choice other than to execute him. That course of action was still a possibility, but Milton was not a butcher and he preferred an alternative, if one were available. The driver’s prospects were better the less that he knew. Marks told him to head west, and he would text him in five minutes with the precise location.
Milton kept the gun trained on the driver and assessed him. He was young and frightened. The blood had drained from his face, and his hands trembled on the wheel.
“What’s your name?” Milton asked him.
“Paulo.”
“Paulo?”
“Paulo de Almeida.”
Milton lowered the gun to his lap but kept it trained on the driver. He had passed several police cars on his drive to the house earlier that morning, and the last thing he wanted was for some eagle-eyed cop to see his firearm and pull the car over. Paulo knew that he was armed, and Milton doubted that he would be foolish enough to try to escape. Milton would certainly shoot him if he tried to do that.
“I don’t know who you are,” Paulo said. “I can’t do anything to you. I’m no one.”
Milton didn’t reply.
“I’m just the driver. They tell me where to go; I take them. I don’t work for the gang. This is all a mistake. I shouldn’t be here.”
“We’ll see,” Milton said. “There’ll be plenty of time for you to tell me all about it.”
His phone buzzed as a text arrived. He opened it:
Joy Motel, Estr. dos Bandeirantes, Jacarepaguá. Room eight.
“How far to Jacarepaguá?” Milton asked.
“An hour. Maybe a little more.”
“That’s where we’re going.”
“Please, sir,” Paulo said. Milton could see his eyes in the mirror: they were wide with fear. “Just let me stop the car.”
Milton watched him as he spoke; there was something about him that was very familiar. He stared at Paulo’s reflection and remembered: he had been there when Alícia was taken.
He had been driving the getaway car.
“Let me pull over,” he pleaded. “I’ll go—you’ll never see me again, I swear.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I have a daughter. A family. Please, sir. Please.”
Milton very nearly snapped that de Almeida should have thought of that before, but he held his tongue. There would be a time to ratchet up the fear, but that would come later; he needed him calm for now. “We need to have a talk,” he said. “If you’re honest with me, if you tell me what I want to know, you can go once we’re done.”
60
Paulo had never been to Jacarepaguá before, and, at the insistence of the man with the gun, he followed the satnav to Estrada dos Bandeirantes, a busy road on the very outskirts of Rio.
“There,” the man said, pointing. “The motel on the right.”
The place had a sign outside that announced it as the Joy Motel. It did not look aptly named. It was a collection of one-storey buildings set behind a white-painted concrete wall and eight sickly-looking trees. A neon sign proclaimed that rooms were available for sixty-two reais a night, or a minimum of three hours. A thick tangle of electricity and telephone cables p
assed almost directly overhead. Paulo turned off the road and rolled through a gate and into a parking lot beyond. There were two long single-storey buildings that stood on either side of the lot. Each building had a covered veranda and had been divided into a series of identically sized rooms. The rooms on the left were evenly numbered, and the rooms on the right were odd.
“Number eight,” the man said. “Park outside it.”
It was the room at the far end of the building. Paulo drove slowly ahead, then turned the car in and parked in the space directly opposite the door. He left the engine running, as if that might increase the chance that the man with the gun would change his mind and let him back out and drive back to Rocinha again.
“Switch it off,” the man said.
Paulo’s hand was shaking as he reached forward and killed the ignition.
“This is what we’re going to do,” the man told him. “We’re going to get out and go into that room. The door’s unlocked. You’re going to go first, and I’m going to follow right behind. I’ll have the gun in my hand the whole time. I’d rather not use it, but I will if you make me. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Paulo said.
“That’s good. Okay, then. Nice and easy. Open the door and get out.”
Paulo did as he was told. He stepped out into the baking hot morning and started to walk to the veranda. He could hear the fizzing and popping from the electricity cables and the nearby blare of a car alarm. The car door opened and closed behind him, but he dared not look back. He stepped up onto the veranda, crossed it, and put his hand on the doorknob for number eight. He turned the knob; it was unlocked. He pushed the door open and went inside.
The room was basic. It was bigger than the room that he shared with Rafaela and Eloá in the favela, and furnished with cheap pieces of furniture. Paulo stepped through the doorway, and the man came up close behind him, shoving him between the shoulder blades. He stumbled ahead as the man closed the door and drew down the blinds.
