Thief (20 page)

“I don't know,” the scientist said. “I've never had anything happen like this in my entire life.”

“Anything new in your entire life? Anything that would attract murderers and would-be kidnappers?”

Santos seemed to struggle again, before replying: “Our on-going research is promising. But I don't see how that gets Lourdes naked and strangled like that.”

Neves nodded, said, “First glance she looks like she was asphyxiated while having sex. Supposedly makes the orgasm stronger. You know anything about that, Ms. Santos? Like who she was fucking?”

“No,” she snapped. “Lauren didn't discuss her sex life, and neither do I.”

They'd had the entire discussion so far in the anteroom of the suite, and before the detective could continue his questioning, there was a knock at the door. A uniformed patrolman stuck his head in and said, “You have visitors, sir.”

“Let them in,” the detective said.

A man Monarch recognized as Todd Carson came in first, looking ashen. He went straight to Santos's side, and said, “My god, Estella. Are you all right?”

“No, not really,” she said.

Philippe Rousseau entered after Carson, wringing his hands, and saying, “Is it true? Lourdes is dead?”

The lead scientist nodded, tears welling in her eyes as she looked from him to two younger people who were bringing up the rear. Edouard Les Cailles was in his late twenties, disheveled, lanky, and drunk. Graciella Scuippa was in her mid-twenties, Brazilian, and appeared intoxicated as well.

When Graciella saw Santos nod, she held herself, moaned, “No.” She hid her head against Edouard's chest, and burst into tears.

Choking back his own emotion, Rousseau's research assistant rubbed Graciella's back. The academics and their assistants all agreed with Santos's timeline. The three graduate researchers left the offices around noon, They were all drinking and having a good time, dancing in the streets of Central Rio around 2 p.m. when Lourdes Martinez announced that she had to go meet someone and would catch up with them later.

“She was real evasive about who she was meeting, and we were kidding her about a new boyfriend,” Graciella said, crying again.

An older man exited the crime scene, came down the hall to Neves, and muttered something in his ear. The detective nodded, said, “I need to know where you all were between 7:45 and 8:15.”

Carson said he was eating at a local Boteca. Rousseau had been jogging in Ipanema. The assistants said they'd been partying along with millions of others in and around the Central district of Rio.

“I was on my way to the ball,” Santos said. “I have a taxi receipt.”

“People see you at Scala?” Neves asked.

“Many people,” she said. “I was there trying to raise money for our research.”

“I'll need a list of names,” he said. “And you Mr. Monarch?”

Monarch said, “Around seven forty-five I was taking a shower at my hotel. Around eight fifteen I was also in a cab, and yes, I, too, have a receipt.”

He handed it to the detective, who studied it a moment and then nodded. “That's enough for now. But I'll need your contact information. Any plans to leave the country soon, Mr. Monarch?”

“No,” he replied. “I kind of like it here.”

“But what about Lourdes?” Graciella asked. “Her body, I mean?”

“There'll be an autopsy and then it will be released to her next of kin.”

Carson's research assistant began to weep, “This is going to crush her parents. They were like her best friends.”

Out in the hallway, Rousseau's assistant said, “What do we do now?”

“We go home,” Santos said. “We sleep. And then we meet in the morning, decide on a plan of action.”

“Did you raise any money?” Rousseau asked.

The scientists raised her chin, said, “I developed some promising leads.”

“We're screwed,” the Frenchman grumbled. “Our reputation will be in ruins.”

“And the sky might fall in the morning,” Santos snapped at him, and then looked at Monarch. “Shall we?”

“Wait,” Carson said. “
He's
going home with you?”

“I'm checking her apartment,” Monarch said, gazing at him evenly. “After what's happened, wouldn't you say it's the commonsense thing to do?”

“I could do that,” Carson said.

“Not like him you can't,” Santos said.

It was past two in the morning when the taxi pulled up in front of the scientist's apartment building in Botofogo. Drunken revelers were stumbling toward home. Two men and three women were laughing hysterically in the lobby. And the muffled thump and grind of samba music still echoed in the hallway outside Santos's apartment.

The scientist unlocked the door. Monarch pushed it open and flipped on the light. It had been trashed.

Santos was shocked at first to see her home life upside down, but then slowly turned furious as the extent of the search became clear. Every drawer, every cabinet, every closet, every piece of furniture had been emptied or overturned.

Santos's eyes watered and her jaw chewed the air before she covered her mouth and nose with her hands in a prayer pose and said in a trembling voice, “What's happening, Robin? I feel so … so violated.”

“It's understandable,” Monarch said soothingly.

“I should call the police,” she said.

“I don't know how much good that will do,” he said. “This place looks like it was run through by pros. How about I help you clean up, and figure out if anything's missing. I don't think they'll be coming back, but I'll sleep on your couch until morning.”

Santos looked ready to argue, but then said simply, “Thank you.”

As the thief worked to return the apartment to some kind of order he asked, “What do you think they might have been after, Estella?”

Again the scientist hesitated.

“Does it have to do with your research?”

Santos sighed finally, said, “It could be. The ramification of our work is … profound. I'm not a businessperson, but I can see where it might be profitable.”

“Why don't you tell me about the research?” he said.

“I can't talk about it.”

“Pay me something, and my lips are sealed. Client privilege.”

“I didn't know that applied to security consultants.”

“It applies to this security consultant.”

The scientist chewed her lip, and then got her purse, handed him a ten Brazilian Real note, and said, “Feel like coffee?”

“Love some,” he said.

Over back-to-back espressos, she laid the situation out for him. Monarch listened intently and without comment until, finally, she said, “That's it.”

“And you believe this is real, not just something they're telling you?” he asked.

“It's real enough to warrant further study,” she said.

“But this academic journal wouldn't publish on that basis?”

“We got shot down by the peer reviewers,” Santos said. “They didn't think the method of inquiry met rigorous scientific review, and referred to the population sample as entirely too small.”

“That all?”

She laughed. “That and the fact that we have refused to reveal the location of this miracle. One of our peer reviewers, a real prick from Tulane, implied that it was a hoax.”

“So that's what you need money for?” Monarch asked. “To go back?”

“Yes,” Santos said. “And with the right equipment to do a full study.”

“Why did everyone turn you down tonight?”

“Because we can't say the research is pending publication. Without that, no one wants to put up a dime.”

“How much are we talking?”

She looked at him, rubbed the back of her neck, said, “I didn't want to—”

“How much?”

Santos sighed. “Two hundred and fifty thousand.”

“Done,” Monarch said.

“What?” she cried.

“I'll give you the two hundred and fifty thousand,” the thief said calmly. “But on two conditions.”

“Anything.”

“One, I go with you.”

Santos's face fell. “Anything except that.”

“Why?” he asked. “You obviously need protection, and I'll be in a position to monitor my generous investment in your work.”

She seemed uncertain. “And the other?”

“If this turns out to be legitimate, you give me first option on the discovery.”

Tears dripped down her face. Monarch was puzzled.

“Okay, forget the option. Just think of the money as a donation.”

She wiped at her tears and waved at him, saying, “No, I'm sorry, I'm never like this. But it's like you're some angel God sent to watch over me.”

Monarch felt the conflict ignite in him. He'd already conned her into believing him a trusted ally, but when it came down to it, the thief was going to steal her secrets. He liked Santos, but he loved Sister Rachel.

“I'm no angel,” he said. “Just a guy who'd like to see you succeed, and besides, there's nothing better than a great adventure.”

“Adventure,” Santos said, with a soft, knowing smile. “You have no idea what you're in for, Robin Monarch. Absolutely no idea.”

 

26

8:45
A.M.

ON THE OTHER SIDE
of Rio, Silvio Juan Barbosa ignored the dramatic views of Sugarloaf Mountain and Copacabana Beach out his window, and rolled the nugget of his future around and around with his thumb, middle, and index fingers.

Worrying the nugget had a calming effect on the fifty-nine-year-old. Indeed, at the moment, it was the only thing keeping Barbosa from throwing one of his monumental tirades at the two men standing in front of his carved ebony desk.

“You had her and you let her get away?” Barbosa asked.

“No, senor,” replied a brute named Correa who'd worked for Barbosa for years. “The doctor, she has a bodyguard now. A mixed–martial arts machine.”

The other man, Gomes, had a black eye. “It's true, senor. A total machine.”

Barbosa took this news with some surprise. Correa's sheer size and devotion to capoeira, Brazil's martial art, made him a terror in a fight. And Gomes was an expert in jiu-jitsu and a former cage-wrestling champion.

Standing up from behind his desk, Barbosa slipped the nugget of his future into his pants pocket and wondered what kind of man you would have to be to single-handedly take on Correa and Gomes and get the better of both of them in a street brawl.

Setting that aside, trying to focus his thoughts, Barbosa crossed to a giant map of Brazil framed on the wall. There were large red pins stuck in the map, clusters of them in places, especially so in Amazonia. His eyes traveled to a large area of the map depicting Brazil's far northwest corner where there were no pins at all.

He studied that area as his hand drifted to his pocket and retrieved the nugget. He would not surrender. Even if Estella Santos had muscle now, it would not stop Barbosa from fulfilling his heart's desire.

“If we can't force it out of her, we'll let her lead us to it,” he said at last. “Use my jet, fly to Manaus, and get whatever gear you'll need for the jungle. Wait for her, and follow her wherever she goes. Just stay out of her bodyguard's way.”

Correa's face screwed up. “But if we're in the jungle following—”

“Be smart about it, man,” Barbosa snapped. “Use GPS transmitters. Plant them in their gear. Use the company helicopters. They're at your disposal. Bring satellite phones, weapons, and all the money you might need to make bribes. I don't care what it takes, gentlemen. Find me that ridge, and I'll make you both richer than your wildest dreams.”

Both Correa and Gomes straightened up at that last bit.

Barbosa saw it and said, “But if you plan on returning empty-handed again, I advise you not to return at all. The consequences will be … well.”

*   *   *

When they'd gone, Barbosa retreated into old habits. He'd gotten what he'd wanted in life by always having redundant plans. He'd discovered a long time ago that the best method of achieving a goal was to attack it from as many angles as possible.

Barbosa retrieved a disposable phone from a desk drawer and hit redial. A moment later a man answered. “Yes?”

“Are you still with me?”

“Haven't you seen this morning's
O Dia
?” the man whined. “Page three?”

Barbosa's attention shot to the folded newspaper on the corner of his desk. He grabbed it, opened it to page three, and scanned the headlines until he saw the story of the young expatriate American student murdered in Estella Santos's offices.

“Was this necessary?” Barbosa asked.

“Very.”

“No evidence left at the scene?”

“Nothing that can't be explained.”

Barbosa thought through this development. He decided that the act, though severe, was worthy of some reciprocal gesture of trust.

“I'm sending reinforcements to Manaus,” he said. “I expect you to assist them if need be.”

“That's not a problem. Obviously we're willing to do whatever it takes.”

“Good,” Barbosa said. “I'll be in touch.”

He hung up, put the phone back in its drawer, and kicked back in his chair, feet up on his desk, and held his future up so the sun caught it. At first glance the nugget didn't look like much. Irregularly shaped, it weight eighteen grams, a little more that half a troy ounce. The surface was scorched black and pitted, almost like hardened lava.

But the charring only covered one side.

When Barbosa turned the nugget over, the shiny side gleamed more brilliantly than mercury and a thousand times more valuable. He'd looked at it every waking hour since it was first dropped into his hand. He never failed to marvel at its beauty.