The Darkest Heart (32 page)

‘You were great,' I said.

She turned to look at me and nodded with a small, sharp movement. The way her eyes stared out from the sweat and grime covering her face gave her a savage look, but she was as beautiful then as she had ever been.

I could not have loved Daniella any more than I did right then.

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and allowed myself the briefest moment to enjoy the rare sense of certainty of my feelings, then I pushed those thoughts away. ‘Hold this,' I said, handing the rifle to Daniella. ‘If he tries anything, shoot him.'

She nodded and I ran back to the box seat, talking a crowbar from the store and wedging it behind the padlock. One swift pull and the metal tore away from the wood.

When I returned to Daniella a few seconds later, I was reloading my pistols as I watched Leonardo begin wading across the shallows, and by the time my revolvers were tucked away in their holsters, he had stopped moving and turned to stare at me. His eyes were wide, his mouth open, a look of panic on his face.

‘Shit,' he said. ‘Get me out of here. Pull me out.'

I took the rifle from Daniella and aimed at him. ‘Sand getting soft?'

Leonardo looked down at the water and began moving from side to side, trying to free himself from the sand that was sucking him down. ‘Get me out,' he said again. ‘Please.'

I'm trying to think of a reason. I mean a
good
reason, why I shouldn't just let you drown. Let the sand take you right down and make you a part of the river.'

‘Please.' He had the same panicked tone I had heard when the
jacaré
tried to take him.

‘Bring us closer,' I said to Daniella, lowering my voice. ‘You can do that, right?'

‘Sure.' She stared down at Leonardo. ‘Are you going to help him?'

I'm not sure yet.'

She nodded, staring for a moment longer, then went back to the wheelhouse.

Within a few seconds, the engine was burbling and we were edging closer to the sandbank.

‘Thank you,' said Leonardo. ‘Thanks.'

I'm coming to help
them,'
I pointed at the
Estrella
, ‘not you.'

‘
I
need help,' Leonardo shouted as his panic mounted. ‘
I
need pulling out. What about
me
?'

‘What
about
you?'

‘Surely you're not going to let this man die,' said a soft, lightly accented voice.

I didn't need to look up to see who had spoken.

Over on the
Estrella
, Matt had lowered his pistol and his head. He almost seemed ashamed to be armed. Santiago was turned away from me, looking back onto his own boat. And there, framed in the open doorway of the housing, was Sister Dolores Beckett.

Our eyes met, as they had done when the boat had passed us earlier that day, and once again the woman looked into my soul. Perhaps it was a trick they taught nuns; they didn't carry any weapons other than a soulful stare and the word of God.

Her face was not calm, not serene, but neither was there any
urgency or panic. She was stern like a schoolteacher demanding something of a child. She kept her expression fixed and hard, but her voice calm and confident.

I stared back, hoping to see some darkness in her. I wanted there to be a reason for her death. I would kill her to protect those I loved, and I would take the money for her blood, but I wanted there to be something more. A reason. There had to be
something.

‘You must help him,' she said.

‘Must I?'

‘‘Yes. Of course.'

‘Please,' Leonardo's voice was constricted by fear. ‘Make him help me.'

But no one else knew how he had terrorised us. How he had threatened and murdered.

‘Don't let him kill me.' He must have thought he was dead for sure, and yet here was a chance at life.

I broke eye contact with Sister Beckett and glanced round at the others. There were some strong personalities here, but everyone was turned towards her, submitting to her.

‘He's not a good man.' I said.

‘It's not up to us to judge who is good and who is not.'

In Candomblé they taught people there is no good or bad, only destiny. Some of the boys in the
favela
used it as an excuse to do whatever they wanted, but Sofia told me that even though there might not have been good or bad, everything we did was returned to us, one way or another. Perhaps this was how Leonardo's evil should be returned to him; by being sucked down beneath the River of Deaths.

‘If you leave him there he will die,' Sister Beckett said.

I nodded. ‘Yes he will.'

‘And we will have murdered him.' She was still standing in the doorway, another figure just visible behind her.

‘Yes,' Leonardo spoke again. ‘Please don't murder me. Help me. Please.' The sand was pulling him in slowly. He was at least knee deep in it, the water close to his chest. A few minutes longer and he would be gone. ‘We're
not
alike,' he said. ‘You're
not
like me.'

‘Because you would let me sink?' I looked down at him and wondered if it was a good time to remind him of the people he had shot two days ago. ‘And it's not
we,'
I spoke to Sister Beckett. ‘It's
me. I
will have murdered him. And I don't have any problem with that at all.'

‘I dare say you don't,' she replied. ‘But if I stand here and let you do this' – she looked around at the others – ‘if
we
stand here and let you do this, then we will have all killed this man. And I do not plan to let that happen.'

‘And how are you going to stop me?'

‘I'm going to appeal to your better nature.'

‘What if I don't have one?'

‘Everyone does.' She showed me a sad smile. ‘Some of us just need to dig a little deeper to find it.' Then she spoke to Santiago, saying, ‘Captain, please help that man.'

Santiago made a move but I stopped him. ‘No.' I pulled the rifle tight to my shoulder, closed one eye and trained the iron sights on Leonardo's forehead. ‘He doesn't deserve your help.' I dropped my finger over the trigger, beginning to squeeze.

‘Zico.' Daniella put a hand on my back. ‘Don't.'

‘But after everything he's done?' I spoke quietly. ‘After Rocky and the old man and how he threatened you? You put him in there, Daniella and—'

‘He doesn't need to die. He's not dangerous now.'

‘As long as he's alive, he's dangerous.'

‘I don't want you to ...' She shook her head. ‘I don't want you to be like that.'

Perhaps she didn't need to see every side to me.

I sighed and turned back to Sister Beckett. ‘All right. I'll help him. But, trust me, you don't want this man on board your boat.' I put down the rifle and picked up the rope to throw to Leonardo, seeing his hopeful, smug face looking up at me. It would have felt good to let him drown out here. Watching him die would not have given me any difficulty at all. I hardly knew anyone who had deserved it more.

‘Zico?' asked Sister Beckett. ‘Is that your name?'

I looked over at her and nodded.

‘Good,' she said, keeping her eyes trained on mine. 'Pull him up, Zico. You'll be glad you did.'

I took a deep breath and threw him the rope.

I was saving a man's life, but nothing about it felt good. If it hadn't been for Sister Beckett and Daniella, standing firm like pillars to support my conscience, I might have forgotten the money and let him sink below the surface, watch him suck the silt-laden water into his lungs with his last, gasping breaths.

Daniella had asked me to save him, but I knew she was torn between letting him live and letting him die. She was struggling with her own mind, knowing it was wrong and yet wanting it at the same time.

I, on the other hand, was saving Leonardo so that Daniella didn't have to suffer any more guilt than she already was. She had put him in the river, so she would feel responsible for his death, and she would be struggling with the thought that part of her wanted him to die. I also told myself the money was a good reason to keep him alive. Without him, we might never be paid for this trip, and the old man's effort would have been wasted.

The muscles in my back strained as I pulled on the rope Leonardo had tied around his waist. My biceps burned and my forearms tightened into cords. I braced my feet square against the gunwale and put every effort into dragging Leonardo to safety.

He didn't come out of the sand like a cork from a bottle. More like finally sliding a splinter from your finger. It wasn't a sudden movement, but a gradual release as the river let go and finally gave him up.

Once he was free, I hauled him towards the
Deus
, taking no regard for how he spun in the river like a fishing lure, his head bobbing below the surface, water invading his mouth and gritting his eyes.

As the others watched in silence, I pulled him hard against the hull of our boat, banging his face, drawing blood, and then dragging him up. Leonardo clung to the skirt of tyres, trying to
take more control over his rescue now that he was out of the water, but when he finally climbed up onto the gunwale, I took a step back and tugged hard, toppling him onto the deck. I immediately went to him, crouching out of sight of the others and drawing one of my revolvers. With my left hand, I grabbed Leonardo's chin as he gasped for a deep breath of air, and with the other, I pushed the barrel of my gun between his teeth.

‘Zico?' Daniella said. ‘What are you doing?'

‘Making him safe.'

‘You're not going to—'

‘No,' I assured her. I'm not going to kill him.' I felt Leonardo relax beneath me, so I pushed the pistol harder and looked into his eyes. ‘Unless he makes me.'

Leonardo shook his head. Much of the soot and grime was gone from his face now, but there was blood around his nose and it seeped between his lips and created a film across the top of his upper teeth. It filled the narrow gaps; a stark crimson against the yellow-white enamel.

With the barrel in place, I frisked my free hand across his body, looking for any sign of other weapons, but there was nothing.

I leaned close to his face and looked into his bloodshot eyes. ‘The only reason you're alive is because I want it to be that way. Don't fool yourself into thinking anything else. The only reason you're still on this boat is because it's where I want you to be, you understand?'

Eyes wide. Mouth wide. Chest hitching up and down, his breathing rasping around the barrel of my revolver.

‘Nod your head.'

He nodded.

‘Good.'

Daniella watched with interest. Not disgust. Not fear.
Interest.

‘So we're going to be nice to the people on the
Estrella,'
I said. ‘Do what we can to help, then we're going to go to Mina dos Santos, OK?'

He nodded again, teeth grating on steel.

‘We're going to deliver your guns and we're going to get the rest of our money, OK?'

Nod.

‘I could kill you right now, put you in the water for the fish, but you owe the old man money. Fuel costs money. His time costs money.
My
time costs money. I could try to make you tell me who the guns are for, but you're not going to give that up easily. It's the only thing keeping you alive and things would get messy before you tell me; I don't want to get into that in front of all these nice people. So for now, you have some value to me. You're going to make your delivery, make your payment and then,
then
, I'm going to decide whether or not to kill you. If you try to screw me before any of those things happens, I will kill you. Do you understand?'

I took the gun away, raking the foresight against the roof of his mouth and crashing it against his teeth.
‘Do you understand?'

‘Yes,' he managed. ‘I understand.'

‘Zico?' I heard Santiago's voice. ‘Everything OK over there?'

‘Fine,' I called back, still out of sight. Then I lowered my voice again. ‘In a second I'm going to let you stand up. When you do, you're going to remove your shirt and your trousers.'

‘What—'

‘Don't talk. Just do it.' I untied the rope from around his waist and grabbed the scruff of his shirt. I hauled him to his feet and stood him straight, dripping onto the deck, so that Sister Beckett and the others could see him.

‘He's safe,' I said. ‘Unharmed.'

‘Are you going to shoot him?' Sister Beckett asked me.

‘Wouldn't I have done it already?'

‘Are you going to shoot him, Zico?' she asked again, wanting a different answer.

I glanced down at the weapon in my hand. ‘I thought about it,' I told her. ‘But no, I'm not going to shoot him. Not yet, anyway.'

‘You've done the right thing,' she said.

‘Take off your shirt and your trousers,' I told Leonardo.

He looked at me as if deciding whether or not I was serious, then started to unbutton his shirt. He removed it with a little
difficulty because it was wet, then he wiped his face on it, the blood spreading into the checked pattern, soaking into the lighter parts, making the injury to his nose look worse. He made sure everyone could see it before he dropped it on the deck at his feet.

‘Trousers.'

He unfastened the button and wriggled out of the wet trousers, struggling to pull them over the bandage around his calf.

‘What are you doing?' Santiago asked, turning to his friend. ‘Why is he taking his clothes off?'

‘Zico's making him safe,' Matt replied for me. ‘The guy must've done something bad.'

‘Like what? What did he do, Zico? What did this guy do to you?'

‘It doesn't matter.'

When Leonardo was finished, he stood beneath the canopy in just a pair of cotton shorts. Shafts of sunlight cut through the singed holes in the canvas and rested on his skin like birthmarks.