Blood of the Wicked (22 page)
EDSON SOUZA WAS A kid with shoulder-length hair and doelike eyes, more like a girl’s than a boy’s. He was dressed, as Father Brouwer had often been, in a pair of jeans and a red T-shirt bearing the logotype of the league.
When he saw Father Brouwer’s body, a solitary tear escaped his right eye and rolled down his cheek. Silva had the impression he was looking at a kid who’d already done most of the crying he’d do in his entire lifetime.
Father Angelo put his arm around Edson’s shoulders and gave him a comforting squeeze. Edson leaned into him like a dog seeking affection.
“We’ve been looking for you, son,” Silva said. “We want to protect you.”
Edson looked at him with contempt. “Yeah, I heard. And while you were looking, Father Brouwer got killed, and Senhorita Pelosi, and all those people from the league, and Diana and her friend Lori. Some cop you are. Protect me? What a joke! Go fuck yourself.”
“Look, you little—”
Silva held up a hand, stopping Arnaldo in mid-sentence.
“Listen to me,” Silva said. “The State Police are going to be here any minute and Ferraz might be with them.” At the mention of Ferraz’s name, Edson’s eyes rounded in fear. “Arnaldo, get a cover from the bedroom. Put Edson on the floor in the back of the car, conceal him under it, and come back. Someone has to stay here until the State Police arrive.”
“I’ll stay,” Father Angelo offered.
Silva waited until Arnaldo and Edson had gone outside, then said, “I’d prefer it, Father, if Arnaldo were to do that. Stay here, I mean. It would be better if you’d come with us. We might need your help with the boy.”
“As you wish.”
“And while Edson is out of earshot, let me say this: It was a stupid thing you did, hiding him like that. Look at the damage you’ve done. There are people who might be alive today if it hadn’t been for that. One of them is your friend there.”
Father Angelo’s eyes flashed in anger. “It’s easy enough for you to say that, Chief Inspect—”
“No, it’s not, Father. It’s damned hard to say, but it’s the truth.”
“Will you let me finish?”
“Make it quick. We have to get out of here.”
“I understand that, but this will only take a minute, and it’s important that you understand. Our concern, Anton’s and mine, was for the life of the boy. We didn’t know to what degree we could trust you, but there was one thing we knew for sure: As long as Ferraz was on the loose, Edson’s life would be in danger. It still is.”
“But—”
Father Angelo ignored Silva’s interruption.
“Try to follow my reasoning. In order to put Ferraz and his colleagues away, you’re going to need proof, isn’t that true?”
“Of course it—”
“But you don’t have any do you? Not even now.”
“That’s not true. Now it’s different. Now we have a witness.”
“I’m not a fool, Chief Inspector
.
I’ll tell you what you have, and it’s the
only
thing you have: The word of a street kid
,
nothing more.”
“All right. I admit it’s not much—”
“It’s nothing at all. Edson’s word against the word of a colonel in the State Police is nothing at all, and you know it.”
In the silence that followed, there was the sound of a distant siren.
“State Police are coming,” Hector said.
“Put that trapdoor back in place and cover it with the carpet,” his uncle told him.
Hector had barely finished when a vehicle pulled up outside. The siren slid down the musical scale and died out. Car doors slammed. They heard Arnaldo’s voice, and then heavy footsteps on the porch followed by the squeak of the screen door. Two state policemen entered the room.
“Father,” one of the cops said, acknowledging Angelo’s presence. Both of them seemed to know him. He nodded a greeting.
“Guy outside told us what happened,” the other cop said, addressing Silva. “We saw his ID. How about showing us yours?”
Silva and Hector produced their wallets. The eyebrows of the cop who checked their warrant cards went up when he saw that he was in the presence of the Federal Police’s Chief Inspector for Criminal Matters. Apparently, Arnaldo hadn’t mentioned it.
“Father Angelo came in after we did,” Silva said. “We found Father Brouwer’s body just as it is. Nothing has been touched. There’s no reason for us to stay here. If you want a statement, send an
escrivante
to my hotel and I’ll give him one.”
“Sim
,
senhor,” one of the cops said with a sideways glance at Anton Brouwer’s mutilated corpse. “You’re at the Excelsior?”
“Yes, the Excelsior. Let’s go, Padre.”
THE TRIP to the hotel took them about fifteen minutes. Father Angelo kept one window open and smoked all the way.
They drove into the subterranean parking garage and succeeded in getting Edson up to Silva’s suite without encountering anyone.
The kid tried not to show it, but he was impressed. A rather normal hotel suite was high luxury for him. He ran his hand over the fabric covering the couch and asked if he could use the bathroom. Hector showed him where it was. On his way back, Edson spotted the bottles behind the bar. “How about a whiskey?”
Silva poured him one. The kid had probably put much worse things in his body, and it might help him to relax. While he was drinking it, Silva nodded to Arnaldo, who took out his cell phone.
The agente dialed Riberão, got his sister on the line, and asked to speak to Marly Souza. The boy froze when he heard his mother’s name.
When Arnaldo extended the telephone, Edson tossed off the rest of his whiskey and grabbed the instrument like he was afraid the agente was going to snatch it away again. The tough little street kid got a catch in his throat when he started to talk to his mother. He cleared it, then turned his back on them and talked for some time in a low voice. They didn’t hurry him. When he finally hung up the telephone almost twenty minutes later he asked for another whiskey, and got it.
“Now talk to us,” Silva said.
THERE’D BEEN a rumor on the street, Edson said, that Ferraz’s men were looking for him. He couldn’t think of another place to turn, so he’d sought refuge with the priests. He’d started out by sleeping on their couch, only bolting down into the hole if he heard a car stop or someone coming up the walk that led through the banana trees.
Then, after a couple of days, the bad dreams started. He found himself waking up several times a night, always in a cold sweat. The priests wouldn’t give him anything stronger than chamomile tea, so he’d tried spending a night in the security of the hole. He slept so much better down there that he’d taken to doing it all the time.
He didn’t exactly know when he’d become aware of the footsteps overhead, but it had been sometime in the middle of the night. It was dark in the hole, pitch dark, and he didn’t have a watch. After the footsteps there was the sound of a struggle, then the voice of Ferraz asking questions, and then the screams.
“That filho da puta Palmas was there too,” Edson said. “I heard him. They hurt Father Brouwer bad, but he wouldn’t tell them a fucking thing. Sorry about the language, Father, but it’s the God’s honest truth. Not a fucking thing. You would have been proud of him. I sure as hell was.”
Father Angelo didn’t comment. His hands were clenched in his lap. He was biting his lower lip.
Now that he was talking, Edson required little prompting. Ferraz, he said, supplied drugs to the street kids of Cascatas. To pay for them, the kids had to get money from somewhere. The ensuing crime wave caused a public revolt. Many townsfolk gave tacit support to what they thought was a death squad. In reality, it was Ferraz’s gang of enforcers, killing the kids who didn’t pay their drug debts.
No matter what anybody might have told them, Edson said, he didn’t have a crack habit. And he’d
never
had a crack habit. He’d seen what the drug could do and it frightened him. But he was even more frightened of Ferraz, who demanded a regular purchase from every kid on the street. So he bought the stuff and pretended to use it. He didn’t sell it to anyone. He just threw it away.
Then he lost one of his friends to an overdose and another to Ferraz’s gang of killers. He wanted to do something, but he didn’t know what. Finally he went to Father Brouwer and talked to him about it.
While Edson talked and talked, Father Angelo smoked and smoked, adding butt after butt to an already overflowing ashtray and filling the air with a thin haze. When Silva asked Edson why he’d called the bishop, the old priest raised his head and looked directly at the kid. This, it seemed, was something new.
Edson swallowed and looked down at the table. If his dark skin had been lighter they might have seen a blush.
“You called Dom Felipe?” Father Angelo said. “You never told me that.”
“No, Father.”
The kid squirmed in his chair.
“Was it something else about Ferraz?”
“No, Father.”
“What then?”
Edson didn’t answer.
“Immediately afterward,” Silva said, “the bishop called Gaspar Farias. Gaspar says he can’t remember what the bishop wanted to talk about.
“The fuck, he can’t,” Edson exploded. “He knows all right, the filho da puta.”
Father Angelo leaned back and opened his mouth in surprise. Edson didn’t notice. He was still looking down at the surface of the table.
“So you know why the bishop called Gaspar,” Silva said.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Father Angelo put a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
Edson swallowed. “Please,” he said, and looked at the priest. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not to you. Not to him.”
Silva leaned back and locked eyes with the old man. Father Angelo blinked, gave the slightest of nods, and took over the interrogation.
“But you spoke to Dom Felipe, didn’t you?”
“That was different. I didn’t know him. And, besides, it was by telephone.”
“What you told him, it’s important, isn’t it?”
The boy didn’t look up. He swallowed again, nodded again.
“And you know that I love you and that Anton loved you and that nothing could ever change that, no matter what you’ve done?”
The boy searched the old priest’s eyes.
“Yes,” he said. “I know that.”
“Remember how proud you were of Anton? About how brave he was?”
Another nod.
“Don’t you think he’d be proud of you if you were to be brave now?”
The answer was some time in coming. When it did, it was only a single, strangled word: “Yes.”
“Well, then,” Father Angelo said, as if it was all settled, as if the boy had just agreed to speak.
And, after a good ten seconds of silence, he did.
IT HAD RAINED THAT night, a persistent, steady downpour that cut visibility to no more than fifty meters and kept most of the kids off the street. But Edson was broke, and he had to work, so as soon as it slacked off a bit he grabbed an umbrella, went out to his usual corner, and started trolling for business.
The streetlights on Republic Square had been smashed since forever, so there was never much light even under the best of circumstances. That night, with the rain coming down, it was even darker than usual. But, light or no light, he wouldn’t have been able to see much of the guy’s face anyway because he was wearing a big rainhat, and he had it pulled down so that it almost covered his eyes.
Edson’s customers normally didn’t approach him on foot. On the rare occasions when they did, it generally meant that the John hadn’t come out of the closet and didn’t want to run the risk of having his wheels spotted.
“How much?” the man in the rain hat asked.
“A hundred and fifty,” Edson replied, expecting a counter-offer.
“Okay,” the guy said, surprising him, “but there are conditions.”
“I don’t take it in the ass,” Edson said, “and I don’t swallow. Find somebody else.”
“
Your
conditions are okay,” the man said, “you want to hear mine?”
“I’m listening.”
“There are two of us, and my boyfriend’s shy.”
“Which means?”
“He doesn’t want you to see his face. You have to wear a hood until we get there.”
“And then?”
“And then you do us in the dark.”
“Let’s see the money,” Edson said. The double act didn’t bother him. He’d done that before.
“You see the money when we’re in the car,” the man said. “What do you call yourself?”
“Pipoca. How about you?”
“You don’t have to know. Are you coming, or not?”
The car was a Passat, and not a new one. The inside stank of tobacco and of something else, too, something sweet and flowery. Once he was behind the wheel the guy lifted his ass to get at his wallet and counted out the hundred and fifty.
“You do a good job,” he said, “and there’s a tip at the end of it.”
Edson folded the money and put it in the pocket of his jeans. “Remember the deal,” he said.
“I remember. You suck, but you don’t swallow. You fuck, but you don’t want to be fucked, right?”
“Right.”
Rainhat reached under his seat and came up with a plastic trash bag.
“What’s that?” Edson said.
“You don’t listen, do you? It’s to put over your head.”
“A hood, you said.”
“What the fuck do you think we are? Seamstresses? Bite a hole with your mouth so you can breathe.”
The plastic was resilient, and Edson had to put it on and take it off a few times before he got it right. The man waited until he did before starting the engine.
They drove for almost twenty minutes. The first eight turns were all to the left. Edson could feel his body being pushed to the right by the inertia. He figured the guy had taken him a couple of times around the square. After that, it got confusing. He soon gave up trying to figure out where they might be going. He really didn’t give a damn anyway. He already had the money.
“Sit tight,” the man said, coming to a sudden stop.
He heard a garage door open. The Passat rolled forward and then stopped. The door closed again. The man killed the engine, got out of the car, came around to Edson’s side, and helped him out.
Edson asked if he could take off the hood.
“Not yet. Put your hands on my shoulders and follow me.”
The guy had apparently done this sort of thing before. He warned him when they were coming to each of the two flights of steps and he told him exactly how many of them there were both times.
At the top of the second flight, he could feel carpeting under his feet.
“Now, stand still.”
He heard a door open. And then he smelled it again: that same cloying, flowery smell from the car.
A new voice. “So this is our little whore for the night, hmm? I want to see your face, boy, but I don’t want you to see mine. Shut your eyes. Are they shut?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Keep them that way. There’ll be more money if you do, trouble if you don’t.”
Edson kept his eyes tightly closed, felt the plastic bag slide off of his head, felt the new man’s breath on his face: he was that close.
“Yes,” the man said. “Well done.”
The words weren’t meant for him.
“I’m glad you approve,” he heard the first man say. His voice sounded different, as if dampened by their surroundings. Edson imagined a place with a lot of curtains on the walls. He heard a click. The light beyond his eyelids went out.
“Now you can open your eyes.”
He did, not that it made any difference. Everything was pitch black.
“Move forward, until you feel the bed with your knees.”
He did that, too.
“Now, slide to your right. No, no, you stupid boy, to your
right
. Good. Keep going until you feel the bedside table.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you feel it?”
“I said, yeah.”
“Don’t be insolent. Think of the money. Now disrobe.”
“What?”
“Take off your clothes and drop them on the floor next to the table. That way, you’ll be able to find them again when you leave.”
The next ten minutes were strange and the five that followed them, a nightmare. To begin with, they didn’t ask him to do any of the things he was used to doing. They just let him lie there while they did it to each other. When he started to join in, as he thought they wanted him to do, they pushed him away. And then, suddenly, it happened. They were all over him. Worst of all, one of them was
in
him. And not in his mouth, like he’d agreed, but where he’d specifically said he didn’t want them to go. He tried to struggle, but he was just a boy and these were two strong men. One held him down, while the other did it to him. They didn’t use any jelly or anything.
He tried to bite the one who was holding him down, but the man let go just long enough to give him a blow that made him see a white flash and then blue stars in the night.
“Keep still, you little bastard, keep still.”
He stopped struggling. It was too late, anyway. The thing he’d never wanted done to him
had
been done to him. He started to whimper, and that seemed to encourage his tormenters all the more. One of them climaxed with a long cry and, after a moment of satiated rest, made way for the other.
The second one reached under Edson’s body, grasped his flaccid penis and squeezed it when he climaxed. And then it was over, and they were telling him to get dressed, and that he’d be taken back to where he came from.
Tears still creeping down his cheeks, he did what they’d told him to do: As a guide to finding his clothes, he felt for the table. And when he did, he touched a fat wallet. Without thinking twice, he palmed it, and as soon as he’d located his jeans, he stuffed it into a pocket.
His heart started to beat faster. If they turned on the light, they’d be sure to notice.
But they didn’t.
“You dressed?” the first man said a minute or two later.
“Almost.”
“You earned another hundred. Put this on.”
He felt the plastic bag, took it, and slipped it on. He had to turn it to position the hole in front of his mouth.
“Okay. The same drill. Hands on my shoulders.”
Fifteen minutes later he was back on Republic Square, 250 reais richer, feeling dirtier than he had in all of his young life and with the wallet still in his pocket.
