Robert Fish - The Fugitive

“It could be that their consciences bothered them.”

Da Silva looked down at the bandaged man beside him, his warm eyes full of thankful appreciativeness. “Very good.”

He turned away again, sighing deeply, shrugging. “Little Ari Schoenberg took care of the beast’s head; I’ll take care of the wriggling fingers and toes that were left behind!” There was grim promise in his tone of voice.

“How?” Wilson asked curiously.

Da Silva smiled, a hard smile. “I don’t know. Maybe they will all be bothered by consciences. Possibly they will all commit suicide.” He laughed angrily, slapping Wilson on the back. “Don’t look so shocked.” He patted Wilson more gently this time. “Don’t be worried. I said I don’t know. I don’t know what I will do. But it will be taken care of; that I promise!”

They left the wide steps, beginning to walk slowly down the street, accommodating their pace to Wilson’s slight limp. At the corner they paused and Da Silva looked back at the Instituto, the morgue, where the tattered remains of Ari’s body lay. “When this is all over and forgotten,” he said softly, “I’ll take his body from wherever they put it and have it buried in the Jewish Cemetery here in Rio. I think that is what he would have wanted.”

They turned the corner into the Avenida. Ahead of them, across the little spit of bay with tumbling waves, the sheer cone of Sugar Loaf rose in the bright sunlight. A tiny car pulled its way along the fine cables, struggling toward the summit.

Da Silva tore his eyes away from it and turned to Wilson, suddenly smiling in his old carefree style.

“There is one punishment that Mathais, Strauss, Gunther, and all of the others will suffer,” he said almost happily, “a punishment that is worse than any I could possibly inflict upon them!”

Wilson looked at him with raised eyebrows, questioningly.

“The money!” Da Silva said with a bitter chuckle. “The money! The two million dollars! Here it is, in Brazil, somewhere; here it is with no owner, theirs for the taking! But where? You see, now that Herr Busch is dead, nobody knows!”

He put his hand under Wilson’s arm, helping him to cross a side street. They paused as traffic swept by them; then, with the street clear, they crossed and continued down the avenue, basking in the afternoon sun and the warm satisfaction of their friendship. In the distance, Sugar Loaf looked calmly down, endless and eternal, its peak fronting the sky majestically.