Every Bitter Thing (13 page)

Chapter Eighteen

T
HE
C
USTOMS AGENTS WHO'D
nabbed Junior Arriaga were Fausto Mainardi and Douglas Caetano. Mainardi, who seemed friendly enough, was a veteran in a baggy suit. Caetano, new to the service, was surlier but a better dresser. They brought Gonçalves to the windowless room where they'd interrogated the teenager.

A television camera was mounted high in one corner, a monitor in another. A microphone protruded from the ceiling. The only source of illumination, a fluorescent tube, was protected by a metal grate.

Gonçalves, preparing to take notes, tried to move his chair closer to the table. It wouldn't budge. He looked down and saw it was bolted to the cement floor.

“Why are we interested in this kid?” Mainardi said.

The
we
was a reminder. The Customs Service was a division of the Federal Police. Mainardi and Caetano fell into the category of colleagues. They expected Gonçalves to tell them the whole story.

Which he did, starting with the murder of Juan Rivas and emphasizing the director's personal interest in the case.

When he told them about young Arriaga's murder, neither man seemed shocked—or even interested.

“Sounds unrelated,” Mainardi said.

“Probably no connection at all,” Gonçalves agreed, “but my orders are to follow up on it. Tell me what you remember.”

“Start with the old system,” Caetano said to his partner.

Mainardi nodded and leaned back in his chair. “Time was,” he said, “we asked people with taxable goods to fill in a form. Those that didn't, they'd go straight to nothing-to-declare. There was this button they had to push, and a sign right next to it, all in lawyer's language:
By pushing this button I affirm
yadda, yadda, yadda and so forth and so on. If an arrow in front of the pusher went green, it would be pointing left and they were home free. But if the arrow went red and pointed to the right, and a loud fucking buzzer went off, they'd have to go to the tables and start opening their bags. Way I heard it, some cousin of some higher-up sold us this system and cut a nice deal for doing it. Way I heard it, it was the most expensive buzzer-and-light system in the history of the world.”

“Not to be impolite,” Gonçalves said, “but what's this story got to do with—”

“Hold your horses. I'm getting there.”

“You gotta hear the whole thing,” Caetano said. “Otherwise you're not gonna get it.”

Mainardi waited until Gonçalves nodded. Then he continued. “A lot of us were pissed off about the changes. We figured we were better than any random system. We lobbied for an override, a little transmitter we could keep in our pockets and use to buzz anybody who looked suspicious. In the end, the higher-ups agreed.”

“Uh-huh,” Gonçalves said. He started to drum his fingertips on the table.

“Almost there,” Mainardi said. “So we used the hybrid system, random and override, for a couple of years, until the guy who had it installed retired to his villa on the French Riviera, or some such place, and the new regime took over. That's when we switched.”

“To what?”

“Now
everybody
has to fill in the form, whether you have goods to declare or not. We stand there and collect them. Anybody looks suspicious, we shake 'em down. Back to square one, you know what I mean? But it wasn't square one, because working with the other system taught us something.”

“Which was?” Gonçalves said, still drumming.

“Which was that no matter how good we think we are, we're still gonna make mistakes. The random system picked up people we would never have expected. And we chose to stop people who, no matter how shifty they looked, weren't trying to get away with a thing.”

“And that's what happened on this flight, the one the kid was traveling on?”

Mainardi pointed a finger at Gonçalves as if it was a gun. “You got it,” he said. “There we were, young Douglas and me, working the flight in question and collecting the forms. First thing that happens is, I pull a guy name of …”—he consulted the file he'd brought with him—“Darcy Motta.”

“Why did you pick on him?” Gonçalves asked, his interest quickening.

“Same reason I pick on anybody. He looked shifty. But no, I'm wrong. The guy's carrying hand luggage and a small suitcase, that's it. Inside the suitcase there's a pair of pants, a couple of dirty shirts, ditto underwear. In the hand luggage, there's a carton of cigarettes, a pack of chewing gum, some condoms, and a couple of girlie magazines. Meanwhile, young Douglas here decides to shake down Arriaga, an innocent-looking fresh-faced kid, somebody you wouldn't suspect in a million years.”

“But if you wouldn't suspect him, why—”

“Let me finish. Turns out the kid is carrying three plastic containers. They're pretty big, about the size of a jar of mayonnaise. On the outside, it says they're multiple vitamins.

Under the caps are foil seals. At least there are on two of them. The seal on the third one is broken. And what's inside that one really
are
vitamin pills.”

“Kid's eyes got real big,” Caetano said, “and he started to stammer. Claimed he'd never seen those containers before in his life. I picked up one of the sealed ones and rattled it. It sounded like it was full of pills, just like it's supposed to be. But then I ask myself what kind of pills. I break the seal, and guess what?”

“Not vitamins.”

“Ecstasy. Branded, no less. Little dollar signs on every pill.”

“Again, why did you pick on the kid?”

“You're gonna laugh.”

“I doubt it.”

“No, really, you're gonna laugh. It wasn't because I suspected him at all. I just wanted to bust his chops.”

“Why did you want to bust his chops?”

“Because he was an arrogant little punk who pissed me off, that's why,” Caetano said.

“Let me get this straight. You chose to make trouble for him because he rubbed you the wrong way?”

“What good is power if you don't abuse it, right?”

“What did he do to annoy you?”

“It was the way the little bastard looked at me, like I was beneath him.”

Julio Arriaga, a fifteen-year-old kid, was dead because of a few Ecstasy pills and because this prick hadn't liked the way he'd
looked
at him.

Gonçalves tightened his jaw, but Caetano didn't seem to notice and went blithely on. “‘What's this?' I said, when I pulled the first container out of the kid's bag. ‘I got no idea,' the kid says. ‘It's not mine.'”

“Not mine,” Mainardi said, joining in. “You have any idea how often we hear that?”

“A lot, I suppose,” Gonçalves said.

“You bet your ass,” Mainardi continued, “a whole lot. We took him here, cuffed him to the table, let him stew while we ran the tests. We needed the results to make the case.”

“We came back here,” Caetano chimed in, “told him he was good and busted, and guess what? He's not so arrogant any more. You want to see the tape?”

“In a minute. What did you do next?”

“Did what we're supposed to do.” It was Mainardi again. “We called the civil police. They took him away.”

“To the nearest delegacia? The one where Bittencourt is in charge?”

“The nearest. The Fifteenth. I don't know what the chief honcho's name is.”

“Tell me more about this Darcy Motta.”

“What's to tell?”

“Physical description?”

“Forty, maybe forty-five,” Caetano said after a moment's thought. “Maybe a meter ninety, maybe ninety kilos. Got a brown spot right here.” He touched his right cheek. “Like one of those things old people get.” His eyes shifted to his partner's hands. There were liver spots on the backs of both.

Mainardi took them off of the table and folded them in his lap.

“Anything else you remember?”

Mainardi shook his head.

Gonçalves turned back to Caetano. “And you?”

“No,” Caetano said. “That's it. The little fucker practically pissed himself. The tape's a gas.” He pointed at the television monitor. “Want to see it now?”

Chapter Nineteen

“M
AJOR
F
UNCHAL ISN'T AVAILABLE
at the moment. Who's speaking?”

It was a woman's voice, and she wasn't happy.

Jealous wife
, Mara thought. “Agent Mara Carta of the Federal Police,” she said.

The woman's tone softened. “Sorry. He's sleeping.”

“Sleeping?” Mara glanced at the clock on the wall of her office. It was two thirty in São Paulo, one thirty in Manaus.

“I know what you're thinking,” the woman said. “He walked in here this morning stinking like a pig and looking like death warmed over. I doubt if he's slept more than two hours in the last forty-eight. People who call here generally know how it goes when he's on a mission. They don't want to wake him up. You probably did just that.”

“Sorry,” Mara said.
A protective spouse, not a jealous one
. “Who am I speaking to, please?”

“Beth.”

“His wife?”

“The only one, as far as I know. What did you say your name was?”

“Mara.”

“It's like this, Mara. He always comes back from one of these things flat-out exhausted. The officers feel they have to set an example, so they push themselves harder. He's only thirty-six, but this jungle survival stuff is a young man's game. I'm trying to talk him into getting out of it, but he loves it. And I love him. So what am I going to do, huh? What do you want to talk to him about?”

“I need some information about a man who served under him, a certain Julio Arriaga. It would have been three or four years ago, maybe a little more.”

“The name doesn't ring any bells. But I'll have him call you back. You're here in Manaus?”

“No. São Paulo.”

Mara recited her telephone number. Beth read it back. “If he runs true to form,” she said, “he'll get up in a few hours, eat something, and then crash for the night. If that happens, I'll have him get back to you. Otherwise, he'll call tomorrow morning.”

But Mara didn't have to wait that long. Major Funchal called back less than half an hour later.

“Julio Arriaga?” he said, his voice hoarse. “Yeah, I remember him. He was a good soldier, but that temper of his…. What's he done now?”

“His son was murdered. We're investigating.”

“Junior? Somebody murdered Junior?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“Jesus. Arriaga loved that kid with a passion. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be in the murderer's shoes.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“What I said. Julio is a dangerous guy to cross. You know what his specialty was?”

“No. What?”

“Stealth killing.”

“You think he'd be capable of practicing that specialty of his on someone who killed his son?”

“He'd sure as hell know
how
to do it if he wanted to.”

“How come he left the service? His file lists him as resigned. But it doesn't say
why
.”

“No. It doesn't,” Funchal said. And stopped there.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Is it important?”

“Very important. Lives might depend on it.”

“All right, then. The fact is, he struck a superior, a lieutenant. He should have gotten a prison term and a dishonorable discharge, but….”

“What?”

“Well, frankly, we cut Arriaga some slack. The lieutenant was a prick, an incompetent, and, worst of all, he was wrong. Arriaga was good at what he did, and right. But we can't have enlisted men going around beating up officers. Julio had to go. He took it hard. As to the lieutenant, the poor bastard had no idea how lucky he was. If Julio had wanted to go all the way, he certainly could have, and some of us thought he should have. I'm not going to tell you any more than that.”

“You people work with silenced weapons?”

“We don't just sleep rough and eat snails.”

“Which handguns do you use?”

“Just one. The M975.”

“Which is?”

“The military version of the Taurus PT92.”

“Then it's a single/double action 9x19 Parabellum, a copy of the Beretta 92?”

“Nice to talk to a woman who knows her handguns. Our M975s are so quiet, somebody fires one in the next room, you hardly hear it.”

“And I suppose Arriaga had lots of experience with that particular pistol?”

“Lots. And he was an expert marksman. There was this trick he used to do with an ax head and balloons. He'd shoot at the sharp edge of the ax. The ax would divide the bullet in two. He'd burst a balloon on either side of the ax with a single shot.”

“Impressive.”

“More impressive was that he could do it seven or eight times out of every ten.”

“Those M975s of yours, do you lose one every now and then?”

“Some of the guys get pretty attached to their handguns. We don't make a fuss if one disappears. We're all professionals here, and we figure lost weapons are ultimately gonna be used in good causes.”

“You think Arriaga might have taken one with him when he left?”

“I didn't say that.”

“No, Major, you didn't.”

“Can I tell you one more thing?”

“Sure.”

“I know Arriaga pretty well, and I like him. He's not unjust. He's not a thug. He's got a clearly developed sense of right and wrong. I hope to hell he isn't the guy you're looking for, but if Julio did this thing, the guy who messed with his kid would have deserved everything he got.”

“Thank you, Major. You've been very helpful.”

“What do you think should happen to a slimeball that kills a kid?”

“I'm not prepared to say.”

“Understandable, you being from the Federal Police and all, but my feeling is that we understand each other perfectly.”