Every Bitter Thing (21 page)

“We appreciate your call, Senhor Vasco.”

“I'm pleased to be of service. You don't intend to take Senhor Clancy and his wife out of here in handcuffs, do you?”

“Hopefully not.”

Vasco looked relieved. “I'm glad to hear it. It wouldn't be a scene we'd relish. Such things have a way of upsetting the guests.”

“You sound like it's happened before.”

Vasco smiled a sad smile. “The Gloria has been here a long time. For that matter, so have I.”

“Where's our man?”

“Sixth floor. Room 666.”

“Six sixty-six,” Gonçalves said. “But that—”

“Is the number of the beast,” Vasco said. “Yes, I've heard that one before. Silly, isn't it?”

But Gonçalves didn't think it was silly at all. He was already turning pale.

Chapter Thirty-Three

A
BILIO
S
ACCA'S CRIMINAL HISTORY
was such that it would have caused even the most dedicated of social workers to throw up her hands in defeat.

Still only forty-two, Sacca had a criminal record going back thirty-three years, more than two thirds of them spent behind bars. First arrest: age nine. Shoplifting. Charges dismissed. First conviction: age eleven. Armed robbery. It was Sacca's debut in that particular specialty—and his last performance in it.

He'd the misfortune to choose a plainclotheswoman for his victim. When she'd drawn her gun, the woman reported, the kid had dropped the shard of broken glass he'd been threatening her with and started to cry.

Since he either didn't know, or wouldn't admit to, the whereabouts of his parents, Abilio was committed to the FEBEM, a reform school where no reform ever took place. The judge gave him five years, partly to get him off the streets, partly in the hope he'd get an education. The judgment was successful on both counts. It kept him away from honest citizens, and it taught him a great deal about breaking the law.

It was true that he'd never become a
successful
criminal, but that stemmed from Abilio's own shortcomings and had nothing to do with the excellent instruction he'd received from his fellow delinquents. He was a pathetically bad liar, and he
liked
people, commendable attributes in an honest citizen but two major drawbacks for a criminal. He was, furthermore, a practicing alcoholic. Of all things in life, he was most fond of getting drunk with a few convivial companions.

São Paulo's underworld being what it was, it stood to reason that not all of those convivial companions had Abilio's best interests at heart. Sometimes they were police informers; sometimes, even, cops. That had led to a number of charges, some proven, some not, but Abilio never seemed to learn. Within a week of being released, he would be back in one bar or another, shooting his mouth off all over again.

Abilio's most recent arrest hadn't stemmed from indiscretion, but it had been monumentally stupid all the same. His objective had been a jewelry store, and jewelry stores, because of their alarm systems, were invariably hard targets. A wiser crook would have picked something easier, or would have planned better. A wiser crook wouldn't have undertaken the enterprise dead drunk. And a wiser crook certainly wouldn't have chosen a shop where the owner lived upstairs and was known to possess a firearm.

Sacca's record contained another indication that he wasn't among the brightest: other than the time he'd spent at the cost of the state, Sacca had never lived anywhere except in Santo André. He was, by now, one of the “usual suspects,” one of the first people the cops would look for whenever a burglary was committed.

Burglary. Burglary. Burglary. As Silva scanned Sacca's record the word kept repeating itself. No murders, no assaults, nothing but burglaries.

And that, Silva thought, was inconsistent with the personality of a murderer. Sacca may not have been good at what he did, but it
was
a specialty. And that specialty was nonviolent. After his single youthful indiscretion Sacca had never again been accused, or suspected, of threatening someone's life, much less of taking it.

Silva studied Sacca's most recent likeness, the booking photo from the jewelry-store affair. It revealed some things the video hadn't. Sacca had large brown eyes and rather delicate features. Despite the stain on his cheek, he was a type who would have attracted sexual attention from his fellow prisoners, particularly when he was a younger man. That fact, and a further perusal of Sacca's sins, strengthened Silva in his conviction that they hadn't yet found their killer. If Sacca had had a violent turn, he would have fought to protect himself from rape. There would have been a record of fights, maybe even stabbings, in the time he was behind bars. But there was nothing of that nature. On the contrary, the man had, again and again, been given time off for good behavior.

Of course, it was remotely possible that no one who'd shared prison with him had found Abilio attractive. More likely, Silva thought, he'd had one powerful lover or had been, in the parlance of prisoners, “everybody's punk.” A man who'd put up with that and not fight back did not seem like a person capable of doling out the hideous damage done to any of the current victims.

Before they even spoke, Silva had a strong conviction that Abilio Sacca was not his man. That conviction was strengthened when he actually had Sacca seated in front of him.

Sacca's eyes were reminiscent of a fawn's, without a sign of even moderate intellect behind them. And he had a tic, an irregular spasm of the muscles around his right eye.

Silva found it disturbing, so disturbing that he was having trouble giving Sacca the fish-eyed stare he reserved for felons.

“Your eye always do that?” he asked, confronting the distraction head-on.

“Nah. I only get it sometimes,” Sacca said.

“Like when?”

“Like when I'm nervous, that's when. What's this all about? Why are the Federal Police interested in me?”

“Come on, Sacca. You know the drill. You don't ask the questions, we do.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.”

“I want to know if you were on TAB flight number 8101 from Miami to São Paulo, the one that arrived on the morning of the twenty-third of November.”

Tic.

“No.”

“I think you were.”

“You can think what you want. Go ahead. Check the passenger list. You're not gonna find me.”

“Not as Abilio Sacca, no.”

Tic. Tic.

“What are you talking about?”

“Ever hear of a guy called Darcy Motta?”

“Never.”

“Uh-huh. You should ask a doctor to check out that tic.”

“I already did. He says it doesn't mean anything.”

“You ever play poker, Sacca?”

“No.”

“Let me give you a word of advice: don't.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Bluffing isn't one of your strengths.”

“I'm not bluffing. You got the wrong guy. Somebody makes a couple of mistakes in his life and you never let him forget it. You know what this is? This is police harassment, that's what.”

“We've got a DVD.”

“You've got a what?”

“We have a video recording of you boarding the flight in Miami.”

Sacca put a hand over his right eye in an attempt to still the tic and stared balefully at Silva out of his left.

“Not true,” he said.

“The God's honest truth,” Silva said.

Chapter Thirty-Four

O
NE OF THE MOST
traumatic events in Haraldo Gonçalves's life took place in the living room of his parents' home. Haraldo had been three weeks short of his eleventh birthday. It was the final game of the World Cup, the decisive game of the tournament.

Twenty-three minutes into the first half, with the score at nil all, Argentina's principal striker fired off a shot that narrowly cleared the top of the goal. Five centimeters lower, and Brazil's hated rivals would have scored. Young Haraldo, in his excitement, wet himself.

The last thing Haraldo wanted was to be saddled with a derisive nickname like Pisspants. Hurrying to his room, he slipped into clean underwear, changed his jeans, and, without giving it a second thought, grabbed a team shirt with the logo and colors of Corinthians. Then he raced back to the living room, clutching the fatal jersey in his hands.

He'd no sooner slipped it over his head when an Argentinean shot struck home. It was the only goal of the game.

There is an expression in Brazilian Portuguese,
vestir a camisa
, literally
to wear the shirt
, but also signifying support for any movement, group, company, or philosophy.

Corinthians was having a spectacularly bad year. To wear their shirt signified supporting a loser. By the final whistle, Haraldo's family, and their invited friends, had reached general agreement: young Haraldo had transferred Corinthians' bad joss to the Brazilian National Team. He was a
pé frio
, a Jonah, a bringer of bad luck. He, personally, had brought on the disaster. That they believed this was bad enough. Worse was that Haraldo came to believe it himself. He took upon his young shoulders the heavy responsibility for Brazil's defeat.

Years later, Haraldo had tried to explain the sequence of events and consequences to a Chilean girlfriend. When he'd finished talking, she told him his family was crazy. And when he demurred, she told him
he
was crazy.

None of them were, but all of them were Brazilian. And Brazilians are superstitious. On New Year's Eve, they dress in white, light candles, and toss flowers, perfume, and even jewelry into the sea to propitiate Iemanjá, the
orixa
of the waters. Any other comportment on that night is, according to common belief, sure to bring ill luck in the year to come.

In Brazil,
Mães-de-Santo
read the future with cowries. Chickens are sacrificed on a regular basis. Offerings of cachaça and cigars can be found along rural roads and near waterfalls, mostly surrounded by the stubs of burned-out candles. There is no Brazilian who has not, at one time or another, wrapped a
fita do Senhor do Bonfim
around his wrist or ankle and tied three knots in it while making his three wishes.

Haraldo's family members were no more spiritually inclined than any of their neighbors, but certainly no less. By the time that year's Cup had rolled around, their
Candomblé
priests and priestesses had been busy for weeks. Blessings, hexes, sacrifices, prayers, all had been performed. And then Haraldo had undone the lot by slipping into that cursed jersey.

His mother didn't speak to him for two days, his father for a week, his sister for almost two months.

Now, almost a quarter century on, the superstitious child had become a superstitious man, the most superstitious man any of his colleagues had ever met. Gonçalves didn't walk under ladders. He would go around the block to avoid crossing the path of a black cat. His heart skipped a beat at the spilling of salt. He avoided unlucky numbers like the plague. It was, therefore, with great trepidation, and a drawn Glock, that Haraldo Gonçalves approached the door of room 666 in the Hotel Gloria. Something awful was behind that door, Gonçalves knew it. He'd taken his gun out of its holster even before he'd left the elevator.

“It's that superstition crap all over again, isn't it?” Arnaldo said. “You want to scare some innocent citizen half to death? Put that thing away.”

“Innocent, hell. Clancy's in there with a woman.”

“So what? No law against that.”

“He's a priest, for God's sake! He's a priest and he's in there with a woman.”

“Maybe he's just taking her confession.”

“Oh, sure, right.”

The elevator came to a stop, they got out, and the door closed behind them. There were signs on the wall. Room 666 was to the left. Arnaldo muttered something and started walking.

“What?” Gonçalves said, hurrying to catch up. “What did you say?”

Arnaldo stopped in front of 666, put a finger to his lips and knocked.

“Yes? Who's there?”

If Something Awful was behind the door, it had a sweet voice and an American accent.

“Federal Police,” Arnaldo said.

“What do you want?” The woman sounded confused, not frightened.

“Open up,” Arnaldo said, “and we'll tell you.”

“Please show me some identification first,” she said. “Hold it up where I can see it.”

Polite. But firm.

Arnaldo fished for his wallet, held his ID in front of the tiny aperture in the door.

There was a short pause, then the rattle of a chain. The door opened, first a crack, then wider. The woman who came into view flinched at the sight of Gonçalves's Glock.

And what a woman she was. She had long blond hair, high cheekbones, and a perfect complexion. The areas around her blue eyes and full lips bore no makeup at all. She didn't need it.

“Senhora Clancy?”

“Yes.”

“Your … husband. Dennis Clancy. Where is he?”

A voice behind her said, in English, “Someone looking for Dennis Clancy?”

“Yes, dear, they are,” the blond responded in the same language. “They say they're federal policemen.”

“I'm Dennis Clancy,” the man said, stepping into the doorway. “You speak English?”

“Badly,” Arnaldo said. It wasn't true. He spoke English quite well.

“Splendid,” Clancy said, willing to accept badly as quite good enough. “So Petra won't have to translate. Come in, won't you?”

The room was small, the wallpaper faded, the carpet thin and stained. Chipped Formica tables flanked the double bed. A coffee machine stood on the chest of drawers, a television hung from a rack bolted to the ceiling, an armchair graced a corner. The only other piece of furniture, a writing desk, was butted up against a grimy window that overlooked an air shaft. Six sixty-six wasn't one of the Gloria's best rooms.

Dennis Clancy closed the door and directed the federal cops to the chairs. Gonçalves took the one at the writing desk. Clancy and the woman sat side by side on the bed. He took her hand in his.

“The coffee is quite dreadful,” he said, “otherwise I'd offer you some. You already know our names. What are yours?”

“I'm Agent Nunes. This is Agent Gonçalves.”

“Good. What can I do for you?”

“You can answer some questions. Did you arrive in this country on the morning of the twenty-third of November?”

“I did.”

“On TAB 8101 from Miami?”

“Yes. But my visa is perfectly in order, and I haven't—”

“Just answer the questions, please. Why did you come to Brazil, Father Clancy?”

“Just Mister Clancy, or Dennis, if you prefer. We've elected to leave the church.”

“
We?
Wait a minute. Are you telling me she's a nun?”

“He's telling you,” she said, “that I
was
a nun. Sister Clare. Before and after that, I was Petra Walder. Now I'm Petra Clancy.”

“You're married?”

“We're married,” she said.

“M
ERDA
,” A
BILIO
Sacca said.

“Indeed,” Silva said, “and you're in it up to your neck. Come on. Start talking.”

“I got nothing to say.”

“Yes, you do. Want me to tell you why?”

“Okay. I'll play along. Why?”

“Because we're investigating multiple murders, all performed by the same person.”

“Not me. I never killed anybody in my whole life.”

“With only two exceptions, the people who were travelling with you in that business-class cabin are either dead or they've been cleared.”

“And one of those two exceptions did the killing? Is that what you're saying?”

“It's a distinct possibility.”

“It was the other guy.”

“With you people,” Hector said, “it's always the other guy.”

“And, in this case,” Silva said, “the other guy is a Catholic priest.”

“So what? Priests can kill people.”

“They can. And maybe he did. But if I can't pin the murders on him, I'll pin them on you.”

Tic. Tic. Tic.

“Wait. Wait. Wait. You're saying you're gonna pin 'em on me even if I didn't do 'em?”

“Correct.”

The Brazilian civil police framed people like Sacca all the time. Sacca knew this, and Silva knew he knew it.

“You got no call to do something like that,” Sacca said. “I never done nothing to you!”

Silva shook his head, as if in regret.

“Sorry, Sacca,” he said. “One of the murder victims was the son of the foreign minister of Venezuela. The president wants results. The minister of justice is on my boss's back. You see the bind I'm in. I've got to deliver.”

“And you deliver by framing me?”

“Or the priest. Makes no difference to me, except I figure you'll be easier.”

Tic. Tic. Tic.

Within Sacca's world, what Silva was saying made perfect sense. The little burglar rubbed a hand over his face.

“Maybe we can work something out,” he said. “What is it you wanna know?”

“There was a boy in the compartment, traveling alone. Remember him?”

“Yeah, I remember him. I remember everybody. I got a good memory for faces.”

“You were searched when you were going through Customs, right?”

“Right,” Sacca said, cautiously, a wary look in his eyes.

“They didn't find anything on you,” Silva said.

“Right again. So, what are you—”

“But they found something on the kid.”

“I don't know anything about that.”

“Ecstasy pills.
Your
Ecstasy pills. You were smuggling them in from the States.”

“No, I—”

“You got up in the middle of the night, took those pills out of your hand luggage, and slipped them into his. The kid was busted with your pills. They took him away and put him in a cell with hardened criminals. An hour or two later, he was sent to a communal shower.”

“Why are you—”

“Shut up and listen. Someone tried to rape him. He wouldn't have it. They killed him and raped him anyway. He was fifteen years old.”

Sacca shrugged. “You know what the kid should have done? He should have just let them do it. I mean, he'd be alive today if he had, right? Sometimes you just gotta—”

“You framed him, didn't you?”

Abilio Sacca opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. At that moment, he reminded Silva of a ventriloquist's dummy.

“I didn't frame him,” he finally said. “It wasn't like that at all.”

“No? How was it, then?”

“I want to see a lawyer. I'm not saying another word until I see a lawyer.”

“No deal,” Silva said.

“What do you mean, no deal? I got a right to a lawyer. I don't have to talk to you guys.”

“Thing is,” Silva said, “I'm under a lot of pressure here.”

“And what the fuck do you think you're putting
me
under?”

Silva couldn't count the tics any more, they were coming that fast. “Ah. But that's different,” he said. “You're a convicted felon. I'm a cop.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Talk. I need answers now, right now. I can't wait. And if you don't give me those answers, I'm gonna pin those murders on you.”

Beads of perspiration broke out on Sacca's brow. “Look, how about we do this? How about you turn off that camera up there in the corner—”

“It's not on.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Do you have a choice?”

“Give me your word.”

“What?”

“Your word. Give me your word it's not on.”

“You have my word. It's not. But, if it would make you more comfortable, how about we have this conversation somewhere else: out in the yard, for example?”

“Good idea. Now, I want your agreement on the rest.

Then I talk.”

“What rest?”

“I don't sign anything. I just tell you. You get me a lawyer, a good one, and you don't tell him shit about the conversation we're about to have. And you don't testify about it either. Not you, not this guy here.” He pointed at Hector.

“All right.”

“All right? Just like that? All right?”