Requiem for a Killer (3 page)

“Right. How about us having a little chat
about it in my cabinet here at the City Council, say around
noon?”

“Can we do it at two o’clock? I have a
pressing engagement for lunch.”

“Perfect. I’ll expect you at two then.”

Dornelas hung up and left the cell phone on
the desk for Anderson to find easily. He left. He would eat
something at the precinct cafeteria and then go home.

His salary didn’t allow him to eat at
restaurants very often, and he didn’t like to just show up and ask
for a courtesy takeout – as some policemen did – because it made
him feel like a beggar. And besides, he knew that the restaurants,
much to their disliking, traded food for police protection, a
spurious business he wanted no part of.

Chapter 3

N
ow on a full
stomach, Dornelas opened the door to his house around one o’clock
to find Lupi with his ears straight up and wagging his tail
frantically, displaying the typical canine anxiety that appears
when they are about to piss through their ears. If he didn’t move
quickly the hem of the couch would be drenched again. He got the
leash and collar out of the cupboard next to the door, picked up a
plastic bag and went out into the street, dragged by the excited
dog.

Ever since Flavia had left with the children
the small, old two-story row house with the checkered windows in
the new city’s little downtown area had become too big for him and
the dog. But now that he could do anything he pleased, Dornelas
liked being able to enjoy the animal freedom of walking around the
house naked without having to answer to anyone.

His territory duly marked, Lupi went back
home with him and lay down on the living room rug while Dornelas
turned on the computer. With the precinct’s server on the blink, he
wanted to consult the tides on the Navy’s site and check the
changes that month with the approximate time of death – information
the medical examiners would provide – and maybe find out where the
body had come from to end up stuck where it was found.

He printed out the four pages with the tidal
forecasts for the month, turned off the computer and left. In
fifteen minutes he would be meeting with Nildo Borges.

*

The City Council was located in an imposing
and shiny three-story building fronted with granite and full of
black windows, resulting in total discord with the rest of the
city’s poor architecture.
‘Somebody made a lot of money on this
construction job,’
he thought. A project of that size was not
the product of just one man, but of a well-structured gang
involving people from the private sector, politicians and public
employees. Bezerra da Silva’s samba song popped into his mind.

“…
Here really is society’s cream of the
crop: doctors, executives, even magnates Through drink and argument
I came to my conclusion:

If you cry ‘thief!’, not one will be left my
brother,

If you cry ‘thief!’, not one will
remain...”

What really pissed Dornelas off was to think
that a building that size catered to a group of only eleven
councilmen, along with an entourage of public servants – nepotism
included – and had cost the public coffers, the taxpayers money, a
fortune.

After having his picture taken, and another
of his ID card, he took the elevator up to the councilman’s cabinet
on the third and top floor. He stepped out in front of the
reception counter with an attendant standing behind it. He
presented himself, stated his business and was told to knock on
door number nine.

The door opened and emerald-colored eyes
stared out at him. Dornelas found himself face to face with the
lushness of a tropical rain forest, complete with its musky scent
of virgin jungle; one that any man would gladly enter to get lost
searching for El Dorado.

“Inspector Joaquim Dornelas, I suppose!” she
said, thrusting out her hand. “My name is Marina Rivera. I’m
Councilman Nildo Borges’ Chief of Staff. Please, come in.”

Dornelas shook the girl’s hand delicately,
as if holding a little bird. And when she leaned over he saw, ever
so briefly, her small, firm breasts, as perfect in size and shape
as a sculpture.

“The Councilman just called from his cell
phone, he had a slight holdup but he’s on the way,” she said.

Dornelas entered what looked like the
reception area of a public health clinic: a connected computer on
an otherwise empty desk, three hungry-looking people squeezed
together on a bench, the usual picture of the smiling Brazilian
president hanging on the wall and a scrubby plant in a corner.

“Will he be long?”

“Fifteen minutes at most. Would you like
something to drink… water, coffee?”

“Water, please.”

With nowhere to sit, he remained standing.
Marina spun around on her heels, tossed her black-haired braid
behind her and cast him a naughty look over her shoulder before
disappearing behind the only door into the cabinet. Dornelas felt a
flame lighting up inside, the kind that can burn out of control and
level an entire forest.

She returned in a flash. He gulped down the
glass of water.

“Why don’t you wait in my office until the
Councilman gets here,” she suggested.

“I don’t want to get in your way.”

“I insist. There’s nowhere for you to sit
out here.”

She went in with Dornelas close behind
her.

“Have they identified that body yet?” Marina
asked while they walked through a spacious office with low dividers
that separated four desks in a kind of cross and two desks up
against the back wall. There were only two people working
there.

“Nothing yet. But the Councilman seems to
have information about him. That’s why I’m here.”

They entered a small office that connected
to a larger one that might belong to Nildo Borges. She went behind
the desk and looked straight at him.

“I’d like to help you,” she said sugar
sweetly. “Tell me if I can, whenever you like.”

Fire, Dornelas, fire!

“I’ll remember that,” he replied before
sitting down and taking out a calling card from his jacket pocket
and putting it on the desk. “Please, don’t let me bother you. I
really don’t want to interfere with your work.”

“I’m just going to finish this e-mail.”

Pretending not to notice the inspector’s
presence, Marina Rivera sat upright in front of the computer and
began typing on the keyboard. Dornelas looked inward and tried to
understand why he was so attracted to this woman. He studied her
big, green, delicate doe eyes. She opened them wide, making her
seem even more fragile and innocent. But something about her
disturbed him.

“Done!” exclaimed Marina with a little
bounce, looking up at him.

Dornelas let go of his thoughts and
straightened up in his chair before asking, “Do you know anything
about this morning’s crime?”

“Nothing that can help you. As much as I
manage Nildo’s activities here in the Council there are some
subjects that only he knows about.”

This intimacy intrigued him. Going straight
to the point, he asked, “Tell me, what is your relationship with
the Councilman?”

She smiled.

“I was expecting that question.”

He waited in silence.

“Nildo and I go way back. We met in college.
He was like a son to my father. He started getting involved in
politics on the Student Council and I followed him because I
admired his enthusiasm, his ideas. We’ve been friends for a long
time. That’s all.”

“What ideas were those?”

“Equality and economic security for all,”
she recited, sounding like a recording.

“Don’t you think that speech is somewhat
outdated? Do you still believe in it?”

“Inspector Dornelas,” she said in a
professorial tone.

“Please, call me Joaquim.”

“Okay. Joaquim, the world has changed a lot
since that time. I’ve changed too, maybe not willingly, but I’ve
changed. Since then unbridled capitalism and globalization have
imposed themselves in such a crushing manner that they’ve made me
see that those ideas of equality, of a strong and centralizing
government that owns the bulk of the land, banks, natural resources
and industry were no more than an ideal that could never be
achieved. It took me a long time to see that our fight was akin to
Dom Quixote jousting against the windmill. Time gave us a cold
shower of reality.”

This woman was well acquainted with the
ideology she advocated and showed herself to be much more
enlightened than she had at first appeared to be.

“And what do you believe in today?”

“Inspector Dornelas!”

“Joaquim, please.”

That professorial tone, typical of
card-carrying communists who thought they had all the answers was
beginning to annoy him.

“Joaquim, I’m sorry. Today I try to look for
social equality within a market economy, if that’s possible. You
know, we live in such a socially unjust world…The rich pay less tax
than the poor, the sick die waiting in line at the hospitals,
children leave school without understanding even one page of what
they read. It’s like they say: functional illiterates. We need to
do something!”

Marina Rivera sounded like she was
campaigning for public office. Dornelas considered reminding her
that she already held one when he was interrupted by an obese man
barging into the room while knocking on the open door.

“Am I interrupting something?”

“Nildo!” she said enthusiastically while
getting up from her chair. Dornelas followed suit and shook the
councilman’s hand.

“I’m sorry I’m late. I had to go by Peixe
Dourado. One of our refrigeration units broke down and we had to
transfer half a ton of fish to another one, otherwise we would have
lost everything. Would’ve been a tremendous loss. My brother only
took over running the business recently and he’s still not familiar
with our procedures.”

Nildo Borges owned Peixe Dourado, the
largest fishing company in Palmyra. His business spread its
tentacles to almost all areas of the fishing industry: production,
processing, resale, both in and beyond the city, as well as doing
some exporting.

In order to take his seat as a councilman,
Nildo had placed his brother Wilson in charge of the business. That
way he could dedicate more of his time to public service,
participate in the city’s important decisions and voting issues and
stop handing over free ammunition to the opposition. However, it
wasn’t uncommon for him to be absent from the Council taking care
of private business that required his presence; fundamental issues,
as he would say.

There were rumors that he and his company
benefitted from his political position. Although many tried, no one
was ever able to prove anything that incriminated him. It could
only be one of two things: either Nildo Borges was an example of
integrity, or he was a Harry Houdini in the way he was able to
dodge investigations that, according to the word on the street,
were all settled by under-the-table agreements and give-and-take
deals. He turned to Dornelas.

“Shall we talk in my office, Inspector?” he
turned back to Marina. “We’ll talk soon.” Dornelas caught the wink
he threw in her direction and was once again intrigued.

While he followed him and sat down in front
of a big, littered desk, Dornelas puzzled over the relationship
between the two, which seemed to have evolved from a student
friendship into something bigger, some kind of close association
that was difficult to define.

Nildo Borges closed the door behind him,
took off his jacket, hung it on a hook on the wall and fell into a
reclining chair; Dornelas feared for its hinges.

“How unfortunate for the man in the
mangrove, don’t you think Inspector?” he asked rhetorically while
running his hands through his black and shiny gelled hair, like
Vito Corleone in the
The Godfather.

“Dying is part of life.”

“But like that, ditched in the mud for the
vultures to feed on! Whatever happened to human dignity?”

‘
Is it now going to be the Councilman’s
turn to rant on about communism to me?’
thought the Inspector
before going on.

“You called me here, sir, hinting you have
information I don’t.”

“That’s true,” said Nildo while he settled
in the chair like a chicken hatching eggs. “Inspector Joaquim
Dornelas, you know I occupy this seat due to the confidence the
less favored classes deposited in me. I am the voice of the poor
and the needy on the City Council, the voice of those who struggle
for a dignified life, who want nothing more than their own homes,
safe streets and good schools for their children. Look at what we
pay the teachers! It’s a disgrace, Inspector. Walk around the
streets and see the deplorable state the city’s in: clogged up
gutters and open air garbage dumps that contaminate our water. A
calamity, Inspector. A calamity.”

Dornelas sighed and nodded his head heavily
while he imagined the magnetic effect this performance would have
at a political rally: the crowd with arms raised in the air,
jumping up and down while screaming wildly and waving little
banners to the tune of a carnival march loud enough to drive you
out of your mind.

“Well then. You must also know that the
least favored region of our beloved city, the poorest, to put it
frankly, is on Monkey Island, on the other side of the bay.”

“Uh-huh,” mumbled Dornelas, visibly bored.
Impossible to remember how many times in his career he had been
forced to listen to politicians’ dull speeches, always the same
tedious bullshit.

“Great. Because it is due to my close
contact with these people that I received information early this
morning that the dead man was part of a drug trafficking gang
operating in the city, much to the population’s distress since they
have to live with this kind of danger at their doorsteps. A damn
shame, don’t you think?”