Leighton Gage - A vine in the blood

“Aw, come on, Cintia,” Tico said, “it’s not fair to accuse a guy just because-”

“Fair?” she said. “ Querido, this is Romario de Barros we’re talking about.”

Romario de Barros was the Corinthians’ principal striker, a brilliant player, just not as brilliant as Tico. The fans knew that, the other players knew that, everyone in Brazil knew that. Everyone except Romario de Barros. Truth be told, he probably knew it as well, he just didn’t want to admit it. Had it not been for the Artist, Romario would have been Brazil’s greatest star. As it was, he ran a distant second. For most people, what Romario insisted on calling the “rivalry” between himself and Tico was no more than a joke.

“Romario de Barros,” Silva said, “is a distinct possibility. We’ll look into it.”

“I think you’re gonna be wasting your time,” Tico said.

“Who cares about their time if it pisses Romario off?” Cintia said. “He’s caused you plenty of aggravation. It’s time you caused him some.” She yawned and looked at her gold Rolex. “How about you guys speed it up? It’s getting late.”

Not very concerned about our future mother-in-law, are we? Silva thought.

“And then,” he said, “we also have to consider the possibility that Senhora Santos’s abduction might have been an act of revenge.”

“Revenge?” Tico said.

“Revenge,” Silva said. “Do you know someone, anyone, who might want to punish you by kidnapping your mother?”

Tico rubbed his chin. Then he shook his head. “I can’t think of anybody.”

“How about Joaozinho Preto?” Arnaldo said.

“Never,” Tico said. “He’d never-”

“Who’s Joaozinho Preto?” Cintia said.

All the men looked at her.

“He was a striker for Palmeiras,” Silva said. “Tico broke his leg just before the national playoffs.”

“I still feel bad about that, but it was an accident. Ask anybody. I never even got a yellow card.”

“I don’t debate it. But the accident ruined Joaozinho’s career. He hasn’t played a day since.”

“He never said a word against me,” Tico said, “not then, not since. It was the fans that made a big issue of it, not him. And that photo they took at the time shocked a lot of people. Hell, it even shocked me. But we all take our chances. Joaozinho understood that.”

“So we can probably discount him. Nobody else you can think of?”

“No.”

“But they’re out there,” Cintia said. “You can count on that, querido, they’re out there. Lots of envious bastards who earn their pissy little hundred thousand Reais a year and are jealous of people like you and me.”

She gave his hand a supporting squeeze. He shot her a grateful look.

Arnaldo, whose annual salary, after almost thirty years as a federal cop, was considerably less than one hundred thousand Reais, started to cough.

“Sorry,” he said. “Getting a cold.”

“Maybe,” Cintia said, “you should go and get it somewhere else.”

“Could it have been an act directed against the lady herself?” Silva asked. “Someone intent on hurting her?”

“Impossible,” Cintia said. “There’s no one easier to get on with than my future mother-in-law. Everybody loves her, and she loves them right back.”

Not everybody, Silva thought. Not her neighbors, not that postman she was seen talking to. And, if the lady was fond of you, it’s unlikely she’d have had a detective following you around.

“Let’s talk about Senhora Santos’s house keys,” he said. “Did she give keys to people who worked in her home?”

“Sure,” Tico said, “but she was always careful, always changed locks when she changed servants.”

“How often was that?”

Tico shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe three or four times a year?”

“So she had a problem holding on to servants?”

“She had a problem finding good ones,” Cintia said. “Everybody does. Why do you care about her keys?”

“Just reviewing the possibilities.”

“Wasting our time is the way I see it. They told us the kidnappers smashed her kitchen door. So where do keys come into it?”

Silva was running out of patience with the woman.

“I’m not wasting your time, Senhorita Tadesco. I have good reasons for my questions. Now, Tico, do you have any idea how many sets of keys your mother had?”

“Four. She always got four.”

“Four.”

“Uh huh. One for herself, one for the servants, one for us, and an extra one to keep in the house in case someone lost one of the others.”

“You have yours?”

“Why?” Cintia said.

“Senhorita Tadesco, please. Tico, may I see them?”

“I gave them to you,” Tico said to Cintia.

“No,” she said. “You didn’t.”

“No? I coulda sworn-”

“You didn’t.”

“Then I got no idea where they are,” he said. “We never used the keys she gave us. We never had to. We only went out there when we knew she’d be home, and we always called before we went.”

Silva took a card out of his wallet, jotted the number of his cell phone on the back and handed the card to Tico. “If you find those keys,” he said, “give me a call.”

Tico took the card, looked at one side of it, then the other.

“You think it’s important?” he asked.

“It might be.”

“Okay, then.”

“The radio people, the ones at Radio Mundo,” Silva said, “knew about your mother’s kidnapping before we did. Any idea how that happened?”

Cintia didn’t give Tico time to answer.

“Her Royal Highness,” she said, “Princess Jacques Jardin.”

“The hairdresser?”

“Stylist, the little bicha calls himself. Stylist or coiffeur. He hates to be called a hairdresser. Juraci was late for an appointment. They couldn’t get her at home, so they tried here.”

“And you were here to take the call?”

“We forwarded calls to my cell phone.”

“Dumbo won’t let me have one during training,” Tico said. “He thinks cell phones are a distraction.”

Danilson “Dumbo” Hoffmann was the coach of the Brazilian national team. Nobody who saw his ears ever had to ask where the nickname came from.

Cintia refused to be sidetracked. “Jardin keeps everybody waiting, but he doesn’t like to wait for anyone. You know how much he charges for a cut? Six hundred Reais, that’s how much, and he’s booked back-to-back. Missing a session with Jardin is like missing a private audience with the Pope. Except the Pope probably doesn’t go ballistic and Jardin does. If you’re ten minutes late, it’s like you insulted him. I did it once and now the little bastard refuses to give me any more appointments.”

“Showing up late really gets his nose out of joint,” Tico said. “Even I know that.”

“And Juraci knew that,” Cintia said. “I started to worry right away. I told Jardin’s secretary I’d check around and call her back. I was still trying to locate her, when the bitch called for a second time.”

“How does this-” Silva started to say.

Cintia interrupted him. “You wanted to know why I think Jardin tipped off the radio people. I was telling you. Do you want to hear it, or not?”

“Please go on.”

“So I was talking to this bitch of a secretary, and before I could get in a word edgewise, she started telling me how pissed off Jardin was and how, if Juraci didn’t have a really, really good reason for not showing up, she couldn’t be a client anymore. Jardin was going to give Juraci another fifteen minutes grace, she said, but only in deference to the fact that she was such a good client, and because he liked her. Two minutes after she hung up, Tico called me with the news that she’d been kidnapped.”