Leighton Gage - Every Bitter Thing

“But I don’t,” Goncalves said.

“Champagne,” she admitted: part of her deal with the bar’s owner, no doubt.

“How much?”

“Has to be a bottle. It goes flat, so Gordo doesn’t sell it by the glass.”

“How much?”

“Sixty reais.”

She blew a smoke ring in his face. The ring was damn near perfect. She must have spent a lot of time perfecting the technique.

“Sixty reais, huh?” Goncalves said.

The champagne couldn’t have been imported, not in a bar like this, not for a price like that. And if it wasn’t imported, it was a ripoff. But Goncalves figured it was worth it to get the girls talking. When he turned in his expenses, he hoped Silva would think so too.

“All right,” he said.

The white woman emerged from her stupor to flash him a smile. It was a surprisingly sweet smile, but it didn’t last.

The black woman lifted a hand and made a gesture to Gordo.

A minute or so later, he bustled over and made much of opening a bottle of Peterlongo, cheap sparkling wine from Rio Grande do Sul. Goncalves could have bought it for less than ten reais in any second-class supermarket. The better stores didn’t stock it.

He waved off the glass that Gordo offered him and pointed at his own. “Give me another one of those,” he said.

“One Antarctica, coming right up.”

Gordo hustled off, smiling for the first time since Goncalves had waved his credentials in his face.

“Wise choice,” Amalia said, grinding her cigarette into the ashtray and taking only the tiniest sip of her wine. The butt continued to smolder. “Okay, what do you want to know?”

“You remember that murder a while back? Body found out back?”

“Sure, I remember. Thing like that doesn’t happen every day, not even around here. Besides, a friend of mine stumbled over him when she went out to do xixi. It scared her half to death. She came back screaming.”

“You remember the woman he was with?”

“Sure.” Amalia tipped wine onto the butt. It sizzled and went out.

“Do you know her name?”

“I’ve been working this joint for three years. I thought I knew all the girls, but that one…” She shook her head.

“She been back since?”

“No. You think she had something to do with it?”

“Maybe. Maybe she lured him outside so the killer could get at him.”

“Or maybe she was just trying to turn an honest trick, and when the killer showed up she made herself scarce.”

“That’s possible too. What do you remember about her?”

“She was goddamned fast, for one thing.”

“What do you mean, fast?”

“That Joao, the murdered guy, he wasn’t here two minutes. We’re all still looking at him, waiting for him to make a move. Then she sashays in like she owns the place. She didn’t look around, didn’t smile at anybody; she just made straight for his table and took a seat.”

“You think he knew her?”

“Hell, no. He looked surprised. I thought he was going to tell her to fuck off. But he didn’t.”

“Then what happened?”

“They talked. He drank. The drunker he got, the louder he got.”

“What did you hear him say?”

“Nothing. Just the same crap, over and over. He was shitfaced.”

“Could you hear anything the woman said?”

“Not a word. But she was trying to calm him down. She put a hand on him right here.”

Amalia laid a hand on Goncalves’s thigh.

“After a while,” she said, “she moved it up to-”

Goncalves crossed his legs.

“Hey,” she said, “you don’t have to get all fidgety on me. I was just explaining.”

She took another cigarette out of the pack and put it between her lips. Goncalves picked up the lighter and lit it.

“So she’s got her hand between his legs,” he prompted.

“She’s grabbing his cock, that’s what she’s doing. But does he move? No, he orders another round. And then another one. He was here for hours. Guy like that, guy who just gets out of jail, you’d think he’d be crazy for a woman, right? But no, he just keeps drinking. Around about the time I’m thinking he’s gay, he finally pays the bill. When he stands up, his legs are all wobbly, but I can see he isn’t gay at all.”

“And then what?”

“And then they left. They went out that way.”

Amalia pointed toward the back of the bar. Goncalves followed the line of her finger and saw a single door. On the wall next to it was a crudely painted sign. The sign said SENHORAS.

“Why didn’t Girotti wait here until she got back from the toilet?”

“Are you kidding? There was no way she was going to let him do that, no way she was going to give anybody else a chance to get their hooks into him. She took him by the hand and led him outside. The lady’s toilet opens onto the alley. So does that door. And the alley itself runs between two streets. She never came back.”

“What did she look like? Describe her.”

Amalia took another puff on her cigarette. Some of the smoke rose past her eyes and caused her to squint. Or maybe she was just remembering.

“She was white, and she was blond. Maybe that’s why he let her stay. Guy like him doesn’t get many chances with a white woman. And I’ll bet he never had a blond in his whole life, probably wanted to know what she looked like down there.”

“Tall? Short?”

“Neither. Medium, I’d say.”

“How about her eyes?”

“She was wearing sunglasses, big and really dark. She must have had a hard time seeing anything.”

“Suppose you saw her in a lineup. Would you recognize her?”

“Not in a million years,” Amalia said.

Via E-mail

To: Mario Silva, Headquarters, Brasilia

From: Mara Carta, Field Office, Sao Paulo Further to your request, please find attached the passenger list for Transportes Aereos Brasileiros flight 8101 on the 22nd of November last year.

Cordially,

Mara

Mara Carta was Hector’s intelligence officer. The attachment consisted of six pages. The first was dedicated exclusively to first-class passengers. It added nothing to Silva’s knowledge. The last four listed the people in economy class. There, too, he found nothing of interest.

But the second page was a revelation. The third name Silva read caused him to blink; the last three brought him bolt upright in his chair.

TAB Flight 8101 22 Nov. Passenger List (cont.) Business Class Cabin

Passenger Name

Nationality

1

Arriaga*, Julio

BR

2

Clancy, Dennis, Fr.

US

3 Cruz, Paulo, Dr.

BR

4

Porto, Lidia

BR

5

Kloppers**, Jan

BR

6

Kloppers, Marnix

BR

7

Mansur, Luis

BR

8

Motta, Darcy

BR

9

Neves, Victor

BR

10

Palhares, Jonas

BR

11

Rivas, Juan

VE

Silva consulted Joao Girotti’s rap sheet and then placed a call to his nephew.

“Have you seen that passenger list for TAB 8101?”

“Not yet,” Hector said. “Why?”

“Cruz, Rivas, Neves, and Palhares are on it.”

“ All four? ”

“All four.”

“That’s it, then? That’s the connection we’ve been looking for?”

“Looks that way. On the night of the twenty-second to the twenty-third of November, they were all traveling in the business-class cabin of Flight 8101, TAB.”

“Where was Girotti?”

“He was in jail. He’d been there for a week.”

“How did he get out?”

“The witness, the only witness, recanted.”

“Recanted? Just like that?”

“Just like that. His lawyer was Dudu Fonseca.”

“Fonseca? Where did a punk like Girotti get the money to hire Fonseca?”