Leighton Gage - Every Bitter Thing

“And this Gustavo? He’s here now? In Brasilia?”

“I thought he was. He’s been here twice before. Juan paid for his tickets both times. Business class, no less. The little bitch said he wouldn’t fly tourist.”

“And now you think he’s here again?”

“I assumed he was when I heard the noise.”

“You think Gustavo killed Juan?”

“How should I know?”

“I’m not asking you what you know, Senhor Garcia. I’m asking you what you think.”

“Then I think… not. Gustavo had a good thing going. He was in it for the money. Why should he kill a goose that was laying golden eggs for him?”

“Could Juan have done something to make Gustavo jealous?”

Garcia shook his head.

“Impossible. Gustavo didn’t care about Juan. I couldn’t get Juan to see that, but it’s true.”

“All right, so you heard this banging around…”

“And it sounded like they were having a rough fuck on the carpet. I couldn’t stand it. I was drunk. I went up there on an impulse.”

“Drunk,” Pereira repeated. “And angry too, I’ll bet.”

“Angry too, I admit it. Being angry isn’t a crime.”

“Murder is,” Pereira said.

“Goddamn it! I’ve already told you. I didn’t kill him!”

“Senhor Garcia,” Silva said, “please.”

Garcia took a deep breath.

“I took the elevator. When it stopped on three-”

“Wait a minute. You took the elevator? For one floor?”

“Normally I’d walk up the stairs, but I was so drunk, I decided to take the elevator. As I got off, I heard the metal fire door to the stairwell slam shut. All the banging had stopped. I walked into the apartment-”

“You walked into the apartment? Are you telling me the door was open?”

“I used my key.”

“So the door was locked, as usual?”

“Not as usual. Juan likes to keep it on the dead bolt. He has a lot of art in there.”

“But this time it was only on the latch?”

“Yes.”

“As it would have been,” Silva suggested, “if an intruder had walked into the corridor and pulled it shut behind him.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s right.”

“Please go on. You entered the apartment, and…”

“And at first, I didn’t see anything. I called Juan’s name. He didn’t answer. I was on the way to his bedroom when I passed the couch and saw him… lying there. It… it was awful. Can you imagine my shock? My horror? Seeing someone you loved, seeing them like that?” Garcia raised a hand to his face. “His left eye was almost-”

“I saw it. What did you do then?”

“I panicked. I was afraid the criminal might still be there. I ran down here and locked myself in.”

“And then?”

“And then I made myself another drink to settle my nerves. And I got to thinking. That stairwell, it goes down to an exit at the back of the building. It’s normally locked, but if it isn’t, you can get out without being seen by the doorman. I got my courage up, went downstairs, and checked the door. Someone had broken the lock.”

Pereira told Vargas to go downstairs and examine the door.

“The night doorman works from midnight to eight,” Garcia continued. “He must have a day job, because he sleeps half the time. He sacks out on a couch in the lobby. You have to pound on the glass if you want to get in. I thought about waking him up, telling him about Juan, about the door.”

“But you didn’t?”

Garcia hung his head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I knew he’d call the police. Then I’d have to explain the whole thing, my relationship with Juan, all of it. I knew the press would tear into me like a shoal of piranhas. I didn’t want that.”

The penny dropped for Silva. He suddenly realized he had an answer to Sampaio’s questions.

“So instead of calling the police, you called Jorge Rivas, Juan’s father?”

Garcia nodded. “I called his mobile phone, his private number. He leaves it on, day and night. It’s one of those satellite things, so he can be reached anywhere, anytime. He’s an important man, a minister in the government.”

“We know.”

“I didn’t think Jorge would forgive me if I called anyone else first. Jorge and I have been friends for a long time.”

“Good friends?”

Garcia paused before he answered. “What the hell. I might as well tell you. Jorge and I were… intimate. It started years ago. We went to boarding school together. We remained friends, even after he was married. He used to swing both ways, you see. Not me. I only like men. Anyway, he got me my job here at the embassy, back when he was the ambassador.”

“You work at the Venezuelan embassy?”

Garcia nodded. “I organize cultural events, parties, that sort of thing.”

“So you’re the cultural attache?”

“No. Not the cultural attache. I just… organize parties and things.”

“And you stayed on after Jorge Rivas went back to Caracas?”

“Yes.”

“How did the current ambassador feel about that?”

Garcia shrugged. “He didn’t like it very much, but what could he say? Jorge is his boss, and Jorge instructed him to keep me on.”

“And you wanted to stay because…”

“Because Juan wanted to stay. It’s as simple as that.”

“Does Jorge Rivas know you’ve been intimate with his son?”

Garcia looked at his lap.

“No,” he said. “He doesn’t even know Juan is… was gay.”

“All right,” Silva said. “So you spoke with Juan’s father. What, exactly, did you tell him?”

“I told him I’d let myself into Juan’s apartment.”

“He didn’t find it unusual? You having a key?”

“He knows we take care of each other’s plants whenever one of us is traveling. Juan goes to Miami a lot. He likes the nightlife there, the clubs on South Beach. And the saunas, too, although I didn’t know that until… until Gustavo Fernandez came into our lives.”

“So you told the elder Rivas you let yourself in, and then…”

“I told him the same thing I told you, except I didn’t say I was drunk, didn’t say I thought I’d heard Fernandez and Juan fucking. I said I heard suspicious noises, thought it might be burglars, said I went up there, saw Juan’s body, panicked, and came back here.”

“Did you tell him about the emergency exit, about the lock being broken?”

“Yes.”

“How did he take it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Within a very short time, Senhor Garcia, we’re going to deal with a bereaved father who is also the foreign minister of your country. The case has political overtones. We, the police, are going to be under a great deal of pressure, and I want to be as prepared as I possibly can. Tell me, please, how Senhor Rivas reacted to the death of his son. Was he devastated? Angry? Hysterical? What?”

“He… he was none of those things.”

“What, then?”

“He was… offended.”

“Offended?”

“He took it as a personal affront,” Garcia said.

“Don’t you think that’s a strange way for a father to react?”

“Jorge isn’t your average father. He has… how can I put this… a tendency to interpret everything in terms of himself.”

“Megalomania? Egotism?”

“I didn’t use either of those words.”

“Tell me what he said.”

“I don’t remember exactly, but it was something like didn’t the killer realize who he was dealing with? And then, How dare anyone do something like this to me? ”

Silva raised an eyebrow. “To me?”

Garcia gave the faintest of nods. “Jorge wasn’t always as hard as that, but when he got to be an ambassador…”

“He got carried away by his own importance?”

Garcia bit his lip, looked out of the window, looked back at Silva. “In all fairness, neither man was fond of the other. Jorge used to call Juan that little prick and Juan referred to his father as the old bastard.”