Leighton Gage - Every Bitter Thing

Tic.

“No.”

“I think you were.”

“You can think what you want. Go ahead. Check the passenger list. You’re not gonna find me.”

“Not as Abilio Sacca, no.”

Tic. Tic.

“What are you talking about?”

“Ever hear of a guy called Darcy Motta?”

“Never.”

“Uh-huh. You should ask a doctor to check out that tic.”

“I already did. He says it doesn’t mean anything.”

“You ever play poker, Sacca?”

“No.”

“Let me give you a word of advice: don’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Bluffing isn’t one of your strengths.”

“I’m not bluffing. You got the wrong guy. Somebody makes a couple of mistakes in his life and you never let him forget it. You know what this is? This is police harassment, that’s what.”

“We’ve got a DVD.”

“You’ve got a what?”

“We have a video recording of you boarding the flight in Miami.”

Sacca put a hand over his right eye in an attempt to still the tic and stared balefully at Silva out of his left.

“Not true,” he said.

“The God’s honest truth,” Silva said.

One of the most traumatic events in Haraldo Goncalves’s life took place in the living room of his parents’ home. Haraldo had been three weeks short of his eleventh birthday. It was the final game of the World Cup, the decisive game of the tournament.

Twenty-three minutes into the first half, with the score at nil all, Argentina’s principal striker fired off a shot that narrowly cleared the top of the goal. Five centimeters lower, and Brazil’s hated rivals would have scored. Young Haraldo, in his excitement, wet himself.

The last thing Haraldo wanted was to be saddled with a derisive nickname like Pisspants. Hurrying to his room, he slipped into clean underwear, changed his jeans, and, without giving it a second thought, grabbed a team shirt with the logo and colors of Corinthians. Then he raced back to the living room, clutching the fatal jersey in his hands.

He’d no sooner slipped it over his head when an Argentinean shot struck home. It was the only goal of the game.

There is an expression in Brazilian Portuguese, vestir a camisa, literally to wear the shirt, but also signifying support for any movement, group, company, or philosophy.

Corinthians was having a spectacularly bad year. To wear their shirt signified supporting a loser. By the final whistle, Haraldo’s family, and their invited friends, had reached general agreement: young Haraldo had transferred Corinthians’ bad joss to the Brazilian National Team. He was a pe frio, a Jonah, a bringer of bad luck. He, personally, had brought on the disaster. That they believed this was bad enough. Worse was that Haraldo came to believe it himself. He took upon his young shoulders the heavy responsibility for Brazil’s defeat.

Years later, Haraldo had tried to explain the sequence of events and consequences to a Chilean girlfriend. When he’d finished talking, she told him his family was crazy. And when he demurred, she told him he was crazy.

None of them were, but all of them were Brazilian. And Brazilians are superstitious. On New Year’s Eve, they dress in white, light candles, and toss flowers, perfume, and even jewelry into the sea to propitiate Iemanja, the orixa of the waters. Any other comportment on that night is, according to common belief, sure to bring ill luck in the year to come.

In Brazil, Maes-de-Santo read the future with cowries. Chickens are sacrificed on a regular basis. Offerings of cachaca and cigars can be found along rural roads and near waterfalls, mostly surrounded by the stubs of burned-out candles. There is no Brazilian who has not, at one time or another, wrapped a fita do Senhor do Bonfim around his wrist or ankle and tied three knots in it while making his three wishes.

Haraldo’s family members were no more spiritually inclined than any of their neighbors, but certainly no less. By the time that year’s Cup had rolled around, their Candomble priests and priestesses had been busy for weeks. Blessings, hexes, sacrifices, prayers, all had been performed. And then Haraldo had undone the lot by slipping into that cursed jersey.

His mother didn’t speak to him for two days, his father for a week, his sister for almost two months.

Now, almost a quarter century on, the superstitious child had become a superstitious man, the most superstitious man any of his colleagues had ever met. Goncalves didn’t walk under ladders. He would go around the block to avoid crossing the path of a black cat. His heart skipped a beat at the spilling of salt. He avoided unlucky numbers like the plague. It was, therefore, with great trepidation, and a drawn Glock, that Haraldo Goncalves approached the door of room 666 in the Hotel Gloria. Something awful was behind that door, Goncalves knew it. He’d taken his gun out of its holster even before he’d left the elevator.

“It’s that superstition crap all over again, isn’t it?” Arnaldo said. “You want to scare some innocent citizen half to death? Put that thing away.”

“Innocent, hell. Clancy’s in there with a woman.”

“So what? No law against that.”

“He’s a priest, for God’s sake! He’s a priest and he’s in there with a woman.”

“Maybe he’s just taking her confession.”

“Oh, sure, right.”

The elevator came to a stop, they got out, and the door closed behind them. There were signs on the wall. Room 666 was to the left. Arnaldo muttered something and started walking.

“What?” Goncalves said, hurrying to catch up. “What did you say?”

Arnaldo stopped in front of 666, put a finger to his lips and knocked.

“Yes? Who’s there?”

If Something Awful was behind the door, it had a sweet voice and an American accent.

“Federal Police,” Arnaldo said.

“What do you want?” The woman sounded confused, not frightened.

“Open up,” Arnaldo said, “and we’ll tell you.”

“Please show me some identification first,” she said. “Hold it up where I can see it.”

Polite. But firm.

Arnaldo fished for his wallet, held his ID in front of the tiny aperture in the door.

There was a short pause, then the rattle of a chain. The door opened, first a crack, then wider. The woman who came into view flinched at the sight of Goncalves’s Glock.

And what a woman she was. She had long blond hair, high cheekbones, and a perfect complexion. The areas around her blue eyes and full lips bore no makeup at all. She didn’t need it.

“Senhora Clancy?”

“Yes.”

“Your… husband. Dennis Clancy. Where is he?”

A voice behind her said, in English, “Someone looking for Dennis Clancy?”

“Yes, dear, they are,” the blond responded in the same language. “They say they’re federal policemen.”

“I’m Dennis Clancy,” the man said, stepping into the doorway. “You speak English?”

“Badly,” Arnaldo said. It wasn’t true. He spoke English quite well.

“Splendid,” Clancy said, willing to accept badly as quite good enough. “So Petra won’t have to translate. Come in, won’t you?”

The room was small, the wallpaper faded, the carpet thin and stained. Chipped Formica tables flanked the double bed. A coffee machine stood on the chest of drawers, a television hung from a rack bolted to the ceiling, an armchair graced a corner. The only other piece of furniture, a writing desk, was butted up against a grimy window that overlooked an air shaft. Six sixty-six wasn’t one of the Gloria’s best rooms.

Dennis Clancy closed the door and directed the federal cops to the chairs. Goncalves took the one at the writing desk. Clancy and the woman sat side by side on the bed. He took her hand in his.