'BRAZILIAN PSYCHO is a riveting and explosive masterpiece of political crime fiction that deserves to share the shelf with AMERICAN TABLOID, THE POWER OF THE DOG and A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS, and confirms Joe Thomas as one of our very best contemporary crime writers.' David Peace
'Complex and compelling, and shot through with moments of horror and beauty, BRAZILIAN PSYCHO is a magnificent achievement.' The Times Crime Club
'Fans of Don Winslow and James Ellroy's epic forays into the societal effects of systematic dysfunction and corruption will want to check this out' Publishers Weekly
Brazil, 1 January 2003: President Luis Inacio 'Lula' da Silva begins fifteen years of left-wing government.
1 January 2019: Jair Bolsonaro is inaugurated, a president of the populist right.
How did it come to this?
A blockbusting novel of our times, Brazilian Psychointroduces and completes Joe Thomas's acclaimed Sao Paulo quartet. Over sixteen years, a diverse cast of characters live through the unfolding social and political drama, setting in motion a whirlwind of plots and counterplots: the murder of a British school headmaster and the consequent cover-up; the chaos and score-settling of the PCC drug gang rebellion over the Mothers' Day weekend of 2006; a copycat serial killer; the secret international funding of nationwide anti-government protests; the bribes, kickbacks and shakedowns of the Mensalao and Lava Jato political corruption scandals, the biggest in Brazilian history.
Brazilian Psycho weaves social crime fiction, historical fact, and personal experience to record the radical tale of one of the world's most fascinating, glamorous, corrupt, violent, and thrilling cities.
PRAISE FOR JOE THOMAS
'Brilliant' The Times 'Feverish energy' Guardian 'Wonderfully vivid' Mail on Sunday 'Sophisticated, dizzying' GQ 'Vivid and visceral' The Times 'Superbly realised vivid and atmospheric' Guardian 'Original' Mail on Sunday 'A stylish, atmospheric treat an inspired blend of David Peace and early Pinter' Irish Times 'Sparse, energetic, fragmented prose' The Spectator 'Vibrant, colourful, and complex' Irish Independent 'Stylish, sharp-witted, taut. A must for modern noir fans' NB Magazine 'Definitive confident and energetic' Crime Time 'Brilliant manic energy' Jake Arnott 'Wildly stylish and hugely entertaining' Lucy Caldwell 'Vivid, stylish, funny' Mick Herron 'Gripping, fast-paced, darkly atmospheric' Susanna Jones 'Snappy, thoughtful, moving' John King 'Exciting, fresh, incredibly assured' Stav Sherez 'Happy days!' Mark Timlin 'Utterly brilliant' Cathi Unsworth 'Had James Ellroy and David Peace collaborated on a novel they'd have written something like this' Paul Willets
Release date:
June 17, 2021
Publisher:
Quercus Publishing
Print pages:
470
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
There’s fuck all to do, thinks Beto. Sunday night blues.
Nothing, nada, zip, which is why he’s bouncing about with his mates Andre and Fat Pedro on the day of the first round of the presidential elections.
The results are coming in already, and though Beto doesn’t much care for politics, he’s pleased that Bolsonaro appears to be killing it, romping home.
Killing it is a good phrase for old Bolsonaro, Beto thinks.
He’s heard he’s got a psycho edge to him, Bolsonaro, a killer instinct.
Ten years in the Military, a paratrooper in the 80s: Beto’s heard this means he’s hard as nails. He survived that stabbing attempt for a start, a few weeks ago.
Beto’s seen him on TV in the hospital, giving it the come on then.
Hard as nails –
Brazilian psycho.
Beto is wired tight, tense. And he’s afraid, too, frightened of something, something he can’t quite put his finger on.
Not that he’s showing it, mind.
His mates have a year on him, but he’s top boy in their little gang of three.
Sixteen years old and king of the jungle.
The Bixiga Boys.
Bixiga, the bladder of São Paulo. An old-school neighbourhood either side of Avenida Paulista. Born and raised there, and now out of school and on a retainer to keep the peace. That’s the remit: police the area for undesirables. Fat Pedro’s older brother got them the gig. Beto’s not sure who got him his gig, but there’s money coming in from somewhere.
Beto thinks it’s likely a neighbourhood-watch scheme approved by the Military Police.
They’re all three bumming smokes and kicking rubbish round the back of that junkie, faggot haven, the park off the avenue.
Looking for a hophead to roll, a rent boy to scare. Do their job right.
Fat Pedro’s prattling on about the election, the protests that have been going on for weeks, who’s right and who’s wrong, and what happens now our man’s in charge, or soon to be.
He doesn’t have a clue what he’s on about, Beto thinks.
Fat Pedro’s talking about getting organised, joining some skinhead mob or other, something about his brother’s connections, showing these lefty fucks what’s what.
Beto’s not listening. This new president-elect means there’s a green light to work, that’s how Beto sees it.
His eyes open, and wide, and looking.
It’s on now, anything goes, and that’s why he’s scared, a little jazzed, if he’s honest about it. The sense of power.
And yes, he is wound right up.
It’s been a miserable few days and he’s got the hump.
Life can piss you off in the bladder, in Bixiga, is what they say.
And doesn’t Beto know it. His mum on his case to get a real job, his dad beaten down and a shell of his old self, a sad sack who now clears tables and washes dishes at one of the Italian canteens up the road.
He used to be something, Beto’s old man. At least that was what it felt like, to Beto. Perhaps that’s the point: it was only Beto who thought he was something.
He picks up a rusting aerosol can. He grabs Fat Pedro by his fat throat.
He sticks the nozzle in Fat Pedro’s face.
Will you shut up? he says.
Fat Pedro’s got his hands up, trying to push Beto off him.
Leave it out, you twat, he says, you’ll fucking blind me.
Beto’s laughing, wheeling Pedro around, pressing down on the button.
I’m a graffiti artist, Beto is saying. Ele não! Ele não! he yells, laughing.
Ele não, meaning Not him, meaning vote anyone but Bolsonaro, a graffiti protest that’s popped up all over the city in the last few weeks. You see it sprayed on bridges and walls, inside tunnels and on the side of buses.
Beto’s laughing and Fat Pedro’s spitting, covering his eyes, but the aerosol’s not working.
Nada, fuck all – nothing.
A hiss of air is the only thing it produces.
Beto pushes Fat Pedro away and tosses the can.
Fuck this, he says.
Then: something to do.
The air crackles. There’s a shift. Beto can smell it.
He nudges Andre.
Hang about, he says.
What?
Queer.
Where?
Walking down the side road, see him? Carrying shopping bags, the thieving little cunt.
Where?
There, you twat.
Beto points.
Oh yeah.
Well then? come on.
What?
Come on, you know the rules: see a queer and you have a go at him. See what he’s got for us in those bags. Come on.
All right, slow down, I’m coming.
And then Beto sees the queer’s T-shirt:
EleNão
And that does it. You’ve got to stand up, he thinks, you’ve got to represent your boys, your side.
And they’re all three of them across the park and the queer sees them and he quickens –
This is not the first time Beto and his boys have gone after a flash-looking gay lad.
These queers need to know.
But it’s the first time one of them is sporting the EleNão business.
Which is really not on.
They need to know their place and it ain’t here.
Bolsonaro’s all about getting rid of these scumbags, ruining our great country and blah blah blah.
And Beto is moving quicker now and the lad’s done a right and gone into the park hoping he’ll lose them round the back of the hedges, so Beto sends Fat Pedro gasping off round the other way, and Andre loops round, and a couple of old drunks grunt encouragement from a bench, lift their cans, but Beto ignores them, he’s wound tight, he’s let loose, and then they spring the lad three-ways, all of them on him in a moment, and he drops his bags and Beto’s head is on his nose, and there’s a crack and a yelp, and Fat Pedro and Andre are sticking it to him in the ribs, thump, thump, crack, and Beto pulls his steel and he sticks it to him, right in the neck, he feels it go in smooth, and he watches it go in and then he watches it come out, he slides it out, and Fat Pedro and Andre look at him like what the fuck and they’re shaking their heads and they’re primed to run but Beto’s not going anywhere, he thinks, and he watches the lad bleed out, watches him stagger, watches him bleed, watches him stagger, and he gets a few yards, a couple of steps, and then Beto watches him fall.
And then, calmly, Beto walks over to him.
He lifts the queer’s T-shirt. He lifts the T-shirt with its slogan: EleNão
Fat Pedro is hissing at him to come the fuck on.
He waves him away.
Beto lifts this T-shirt, and he takes his knife, and he scratches lines on this dead faggot’s skinny chest.
He scratches two lines.
V for Victory.
He then scratches more, the six lines of a swastika, a clear, bloody swastika.
And he laughs and he laughs and he laughs.
Junior has been in the Military Police for six years now.
This doesn’t quite make him a veteran, but it does mean he’s been around, he’s seen some shit. Like any Militar who has lasted this long, Junior has trodden a few fine lines in his time.
He stands, now, next to the flashing lights of a police motorbike. He watches the road, listens to his younger colleagues talk big. They are on duty off Avenida Paulista, top end of Rua Bela Cintra.
Today was the first round of the presidential elections and it is Sunday night quiet. They’ve been placed here for a specific detail –
There’s been talk of a lefty protest, a gathering of students and radicals and other do-gooders on the main drag.
And if that happens, then the anarchist black blocs will turn up.
And they always enjoy a spot of decorating.
Smashing the windows of corporate businesses, spraying paint, throwing paint, leaving tacks on the road, smashing traffic lights, breaking into the secure cashpoints, sticking rubbish bins through the glass-fronted shops of the malls.
That kind of thing.
‘Anyone does show,’ one of Junior’s colleagues is saying, ‘it’s on, right? We use whatever means necessary to bring them in, certo?’
‘Whatever means necessary?’ says another.
‘Yeah, dickhead, force. We can use any appropriate force. It’s a green light. It’s done. We can do what the fuck we want to any mouthy prick who breaches the peace, entendeu?’
Junior says nothing. They’ve got enthusiasm at least, and the lad’s right, too, mais ou menos.
More or less.
Bolsonaro is romping home in this first leg of the election and this gives them a bit more room for manoeuvre. He’s got a pretty much hundred per cent approval rating with the Militars, unsurprising given his military career and his position on handling the criminal elements of society.
Which is: get the big Militar dogs to eliminate them.
There’s an old saying in São Paulo when a crook is ironed out by a policeman or a private security guy with a gun.
It is spoken with a shrug, with indifference.
The saying: Menos um.
Meaning: ah, well that’s one less then.
In a town like this, the only good bandit is a dead bandit.
Bolsonaro has that message nailed on, Junior thinks, and it’s no surprise São Paulo is voting for him. Despite all the lefties and students and radicals and do-gooders, Bolsonaro will get this city too.
And the reason for that, Junior knows, is because a good number of the liberal, left-leaning types here are so utterly fucked off with the Workers’ Party, with Lula and Dilma and all that went with it; they’d rather vote for the man Jair Bolsonaro or not vote at all.
Junior doesn’t understand this, himself. Voting is a legal obligation. Not voting is a bigger admin and bureaucratic ball ache than voting.
It is really making a point.
They’re going to regret doing that, Junior reckons.
His boys are still rabbiting.
‘Point is, right, the country’s ripe for change, this is a protest vote. This is a fuck Brasília vote, sabe? It’s a vote for us, for the systems that exist outside of politics that keep the country in any sort of fucking order, yeah?’
Junior’s listening and not listening, but he also thinks his younger colleague might be onto something. The lad’s name is Felipe and he’s a clever little fucker, and a ruthless one too.
He’ll go far.
‘See, what the lefties don’t get is that the attempted assassination of Bolsonaro, that nut with a knife who went for him at the rally, will make him stronger. What doesn’t kill you, entendeu?’
Junior reckons this is true too.
‘Bolsonaro is many things,’ Felipe’s saying now, ‘but he ain’t any good in a debate, in a formal chatter with other politicians. This way, he doesn’t even need to do it. It’s golden. And it shows how fucking serious he is.’ Felipe’s laughing. ‘No one can stop him. God, no less, has chosen him to rescue Brazil.’
‘You don’t believe that, do you?’
‘Doesn’t matter, a lot of people will.’
Junior sighs, shakes his head.
He’s senior man here and he’s decided to let them get on with it.
There’s no one about. The bars are all closed, the malls were done hours ago.
It’s a big space, Avenida Paulista, a monument to the financial muscle of the city, a great fuck-off symbol of power and wealth.
But on a Sunday night it’s deserted.
Junior can just about make out movement at the top of Rua Augusta across Paulista, the trendy end with the decent bars and padarias, wop canteens and pizza joints probably doing a bit of business. Further down the road it’s your street walkers and strip clubs, your students and your noias, those paranoid addicts.
Down a parallel road to Augusta on Junior’s right is the notorious bender’s paradise, the neighbourhood of Consolação. They’ll very likely be in mourning tonight, he thinks, in ‘Gay Caneca’ the shopping mall in the area, real name Frei Caneca.
Junior chuckles at this.
Funny thing is the nickname is used with affection by those who go there and as an insult by those who don’t.
Junior’s not sure what that means.
It’s not a neighbourhood he spends too much time in. He can’t afford the swank condos that dot the hill down from Avenida Paulista, all curved glass and painted concrete. And the roads around the mall – tighter, street-corner greenery, low-rise bars and clubs – are filled by drag shows and karaoke if they’re legit; and rent-boy pick-up joints at the seedier end if they’re not, neon signs flashing American Bar, or, the tell-tale Americana, the feminine ending indicating that this is very much a man’s world.
And the mall itself is just a fucking mall, so while Junior’s an open-minded young man, there ain’t much for him in old Consolação.
It is what it is.
Of course, now, either way, Bolsonaro’s made his stance on the LGBTQ community, as Junior’s now been told he has to call it, very clear.
The gist being parents should beat the gay out of their effeminate sons.
And yet, Junior’s seen there are gay groups publicly voting for him.
It is a headscratcher, all right.
A fucking mess.
Felipe’s still banging on. ‘Mark my words, lads, we’re in the right game at the right moment. We’re – ’
‘Okay, chega, ne, Felipe?’ Junior says. Enough already. ‘Why don’t you and your adoring audience of one take a turn round the block, eh?’
‘Calma,’ Felipe says.
Junior glares at him.
‘We’re going, Senhor, no need to get your knickers in a twist.’
Junior ignores this and watches Felipe and the other lad, Gilberto, wander off.
He’s left behind with the fourth member of their detail, Rubens, nickname Chatterbox, as he says fuck all.
‘You know what I like about you, Rubens?’ Junior says. ‘The fact you never shut up, falou?’
Rubens says nothing. Junior laughs at his little joke.
The gloom thickens a touch, cusp of night. Junior sniffs at the air. Faint dusting of smoke from fireworks, that trace of exhaust ever-present in the city –
Sunday night blues.
The evening flat, the odd sound of desperate people trying to gee themselves up a bit and finish the weekend on a high.
Good luck.
Junior turns and looks down the hill at the roads that make up leafy Jardins, an area that was as foreign to him growing up as anywhere in Europe. Swank restaurants and stores selling thousand-dollar jeans. Sedate streets. Rich couples ambling around with their tans and their smart clothes. Fast cars parked under roadside trees. The smell of decent food wafting about, Junior always notes. Not like the stench of fried meat and potatoes where he grew up. The place, Junior always thinks, smells like countryside. He wonders which way the political wind blows in the hotels and posh high-rise condos that flank the streets like a row of dominoes.
Maybe Bolsonaro is the guy to flick one and watch them all tumble down, one after another.
Domino rally. Political rally. Junior will work on this little joke, he thinks.
Then: shouting.
Junior turns and sees Felipe and Gilberto pulling a figure dressed in black: hooded top, trousers, shoes, rucksack, all black –
And Gilberto is holding up an aerosol can.
Junior sighs. Why did they bother picking this clown up? The paperwork will be a fucking ball ache.
‘Senhor,’ Felipe says, ‘we found this bitch defacing a prominent landmark with the words Ele Não.’
Bitch. Huh.
Felipe pulls the balaclava off. The woman’s eyes flash defiance.
‘You’ll see, Senhor, that she’s also carrying political leaflets and other contraband in her backpack.’
Contraband. Junior has a rummage inside. It’s kid’s stuff – knocked-off cigarettes. This is a total waste of time.
He rubs his eyes. ‘And you caught her in the act, did you?’
Felipe nods.
‘Where exactly?’
‘Two blocks down. She was giving the bookshop in the mall, Conjunto Nacional, a paint job.’
Junior nods. He doesn’t exactly trust Felipe.
‘She know anything about a gathering here tonight?’
Felipe shakes his head.
Junior breathes, heavy. ‘Okay,’ he says, ‘you two take her in. I’ll go and verify the damage to public property. Rubens, you wait here.’
Felipe smiles.
Rubens says nothing.
One hour later and back at base. Junior stalks the corridors. He’s looking for Felipe and Gilberto. They didn’t return to their position on Bela Cintra, disobeying orders.
There’s no sign of them anywhere.
Where the fuck have they got to?
He tries the locker room.
He tries the rec room.
He tries the canteen.
No one’s seen them, no one knows where the fuck they are, not since they brought that tasty anarchist back with –
And then that’s when it hits him.
He takes the stairs double quick.
He ignores the shout of the duty officer –
He’s down the line of holding cells, opening and slamming doors.
Last cell on the left.
The door closed.
The blind down.
Junior tries the handle.
The door locked.
Junior hears words –
You’ll do what we say, you miscreant bitch. Hear that? Nothing. Your cowardly fucking subversive no-good friends aren’t going to help you now.
Junior hears sobs –
I’m going to enjoy this.
Slaps –
That’s coming off. It’s all coming off.
He hears struggles –
This is V for Victory, sweetheart.
Junior shakes. Jams the door.
Barges, kicks – The door splinters.
It gives –
Junior sees Felipe, his fingers forming a V, his tongue flicking between this V –
He sees the woman, naked, sobbing, in a ball.
There’s Gilberto, his head down.
Felipe, smiling.
1
Money talks
January 2003
What was São Paulo like in 2003? Like it is every year: filled with a grandiose sense of its own worth, its own self-importance. Yeah, so Lula and the PT were elected and the left-wing buoyed, flying on the wings of hope and optimism, and the students and the unions and the lefties and gays and the anarchists and addicts and the dealers and pimps and the artists and aristocrats were pretty hopped up too. It was a good time to have a social conscience; it was a good time to be young and forward-looking. Who knew that the socialist paradise would mean cash-money and credit for all. Well, not all. There was still the little something known as the São Paulo elite, and they held the keys to the safe, a fortress in the jungle.
Assis, 54, businessman
Detective Mario Leme is on his way down to the swank old neighbourhood of Jardim Paulistano to figure out who has whacked the headmaster of the British International School in his own home.
Leme is green and he is apprehensive.
He knows the school; who doesn’t? It takes a serious amount of dinheiro, cash, to even consider sending your kids there.
The monthly fee is well over what Leme earns as a rookie detective in the Civil Police.
It is a closed community, in many ways, protective of itself and its interests, and he reckons they won’t be tickled pink to have him poking about the place, asking awkward questions.
And on top of this, Leme’s superior – Superintendent Lagnado, a squat man with a mean streak – has made it clear how this whole investigation is going to go.
‘Now, Leme,’ he said earlier that morning, ‘I think it’s pretty obvious this is a robbery-went-wrong scenario. Rich white guy tragically iced by nasty, opportunistic street thug. You shouldn’t need more than a few days to sort it out.’
Leme has a feeling that this won’t be the case, and he’s not sure why.
Ricardo Lisboa, Leme’s old friend and partner, drives. ‘This is loselose, son.’ He keeps his eyes dead ahead. A big man in a slovenly suit, he’s funny, Lisboa. ‘A couple of Catholic priests at a kid’s party,’ he says, ‘is what we’ll be.’
Leme doesn’t doubt it and says nothing.
‘Know who goes to this school?’
Leme shakes his head.
‘Maluf’s grandkids for a start. Mick Jagger’s boy. I think the word I want is elite’
Leme nods.
Paulo Maluf: one-time São Paulo mayor.
They coined a phrase for old Maluf: Roba mais faz.
He steals but he gets things done.
It’s what São Paulo has voted for time and again.
It’s more important that the city runs – the rubbish gets picked up, the metro works, the roads are repaired – than to worry about the kickbacks and shakedowns at City Hall.
But, of course, most of these kickbacks and shakedowns relate to the contracts that enable the city to run.
Though this might change, Leme thinks, with lefty Lula installed in office only the day before. It might change, yes, but when it comes to social transformation of any sort, São Paulo is a fucking mule.
‘Do me a favour,’ Leme says. ‘Don’t start.’
‘It’s a new beginning,’ Lisboa declares.
Leme shakes his head.
Lisboa continues, ‘The Workers’ Party begin their reign with a hard-on for rubbing out inequality and whatnot. And the very next day, a symbol of the, you know, the elite, is the victim of a nasty-looking snuff job.’
Leme nods, tries not to smile.
‘All I’m saying,’ Lisboa says, ‘is that it’s poetic, know what I mean? Symmetry.’
Lisboa pulls off Alameda Gabriel Monteiro da Silva and into the low-rise, green spaces of the roads behind the school. There are women power walking, clad in expensive Lycra, dogs trotting beside them on leads. Maids and nannies dressed in white, shoulders hunched, scurry between shops, home, school. Kids kick footballs. Kids fuck about. School is out.
Lisboa ghosts round shallow bends, eases past glittering SUVs.
Leme spies the private security booths on every corner.
It is this kind of a neighbourhood.
Security is business, after all, and whether or not the guys stationed in the booths have any idea how to prevent crime – and it certainly hasn’t helped in this case – the booths themselves, and the camera systems that flow from the booths, tend to be a pretty good deterrent.
Leme notes different security company names on different booths.
Leme clocks the house where the headmaster lives. It is big. The gate is green, heavy. Barbed wire bunched on top. Leme clocks the uniforms and the tape, the flashing lights and the neighbourhood gawpers, the local rubbernecks.
He points at a space. Lisboa nods, pulls over –
‘Deep breaths, old son,’ Lisboa says. ‘Walk in the park.’
Leme spears his door. ‘More like the fucking jungle, mate.’
Work. The sun beats down. Large trees form shadows on the uneven pavement. Leme runs his hand over his neck, under his collar. He wipes sweat; grime clings to him.
Leme flashes his badge. A uniform steps aside. Leme steps inside.
A dark hallway. A rectangle of light from the door. Keys on a small table. Silver cufflinks. Tasteful paintings on the walls. A small coat folded up on a chair.
Leme moves through. The back door is open. It is taped off to show this is how it was found, undisturbed by anyone since the night before.
Back garden. Chairs clustered around a metal table with a glass top. A barbecue in the corner, ash collected in the bottom. Leme runs his finger across the grill. Still greasy. Leme looks for signs of activity. There are light dustings of dried mud. There are small living quarters on the other side. The maid’s, he assumes. To his left, a side entrance from the street. This door is locked, from the outside, Leme thinks. No sign of a key.
A helicopter buzzes overhead. Leme lights a cigarette.
Lisboa stands in the doorway to the garden.
Leme nods upstairs. ‘What are they saying?’
‘Early hours. Single blow. Blunt instrument, most likely. Something heavy.’
‘No weapon then?’
‘No sign, as yet.’
Leme nods. ‘Who found the body?’
‘The maid,’ Lisboa says. ‘She’s in a fair old state.’ He gestures across the garden. ‘Her room.’
Leme nods. ‘Anything missing?’
‘His wallet is still on the dressing table.’
‘Full?’
‘For now.’
Leme snorts.
Upstairs. Three men in white flit around the body. They step back.
Elegantly furnished, the room is calm. The bed is ruffled. There are clothes scattered over it. On the dressing table is an open notebook next to a Louis Vuitton wallet. A stylish wooden chair lies on its back.
The light is on in the en suite. Damp towels hang over the shower rail. Toothbrush bristles damp. Clean and uncluttered.
Bedroom –
The body face down on the carpet.
A crumpled red dressing gown, slashed open and untied, revealing a pair of white Y-fronts. Thin, hairless legs bent like question marks. Arms halfway to his face.
His legs bound by a red tie at his ankles.
His hands bound by a blue tie at his wrists.
He wasn’t able to protect himself.
A pool of sticky blood from a wound to the back of the head. A hairy, rounded belly, a concave chest. An odd air of virility.
Leme is green.
What hair is left is matted and stuck down, plastered over the wound. Thin strands of it are stiff, as if they would snap like icicles.
Footprints in the spilt blood clotted on the carpet.
Leme is apprehensive.
Nausea hits and Leme doubles up.
He examines something on the floor.
The sickness eases and Leme straightens.
He scans the room. He notes angles, positions of limbs. He measures, with his eyes, the distance from doorway to bed, how far the victim has fallen. With a pen pulled from his shirt pocket, Leme turns pages of the notebook. Scribblings in English, what look like dates, to-do lists. He jabs the pen into the wallet, springs it open. There are swank-looking credit cards, a fairly hefty fold of notes. Not too shabby. The wallet’s clean lines and the smoothness of the leather suggest it’s new. There are no identifying features, no photos of loved ones, no business cards or memberships to any clubs, nothing like that.
Leme notes how the chair landed. It was, he thinks, pushed back as the victim stood. Supposing it was the victim who was sitting there.
He nods and heads back downstairs.
Kitchen. Lisboa fiddles, bent over a coffee machine.
He looks up. ‘How does this fucking thing work?’
Leme says, ‘No idea, mate.’
Lisboa shakes his head. He flicks his eyes at the ceiling. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think the intruder came through the side entrance,’ Leme says, slowly, deliberate. ‘He then came through the back door. It wasn’t a forced entry, though he might have jimmied the door without causing obvious distress to it. He goes upstairs. The victim is at his dressing table, writing in his notebook, or doing his makeup, counting his money, whatever the fuck he does before bed. Clothes all over it, so maybe he’s having some kind of a wardrobe spring clean, you know, as you do. The intruder steps into the room. The victim stands quickly, his chair falls behind him. He takes a step or two towards the intruder, who comes towards him. Maybe they exchange a blow or two, or tussle, though nothing too violent, nothing too forceful, entendeu? Maybe not. The intruder threatens him. Grabs the ties from the bed. Secures his hands and legs. Perhaps he has a weapon, uses it to keep him quiet. Perhaps he simply overpowers him. Then the victim turns to try to get away, flight instinct, and the intruder nails him with a heavy blow.’
Leme pauses.
Leme is green.
Lisboa says, ‘If he tied him up before the blow. Could have done it after.’
‘Yeah,’ Leme says, ‘though why he’d do that, I don’t know. Maybe he pulls the clothes from the wardrobe afterwards too, a cover.’
They stand, quiet.
‘So, victim falls,’ Leme continues, ‘bleeds out, and intruder retraces his steps to leave. Either the back door was open when he arrived and so he leaves it, or he forgets to shut it in his panic. That might tell us something about the cunt’s experience of breaking and entering. We’ll check with the maid what the lock-up procedure is exactly.’
Leme is apprehensive.
‘She says door’s normally locked, but sometimes it’s not.’
‘Helpful. Anyway, the intruder goes out the side entrance, locking the door from the other side. Though I haven’t checked for the key to confirm this.’
‘No sign.’
Leme sighs. ‘That sound about it?’
Lisboa nods. ‘Yeah, it does, once he’s in. Question is whether we can get any visual of him getting in.’
‘You can start with those private security booths out on the street then, mate. They’re looking at the CCTV back at the ranch.’
‘And what are you going to do?’
Leme leans over the machine, pulls the plug and grins.
‘I’m going to get us some coffee.’
Leme marches up onto Alameda Gabriel Monteiro da Silva. On the opposite side of the street, a padaria. A group of manual labourers hunched over coffee and shots of cachaça. Exhaust fumes from trucks, shunting through gears on the busy road outside. Leme orders two coffees pra viagem – to go – and sits tight, up at the counter. The waitress makes small talk in response to which Leme grunts. The waitress shrugs, Leme takes the coffees and leaves her a fat tip.
He crosses the road, the school on his left.
There are shouts, the sounds of children playing.
They don’t even know yet, he thinks.
Whose job will it be to tell them? Well, his. Or at least his job to decide who does.
This is a helluva first case, he can see that already.
Not so much a fish out of water as gutted, deep fried and served up on a platter with batata fritas.
He scoots past the school.
He notes the private bodyguards outside.
The kids are kidnap targets, many of them.
They are the sons and daughters of media moguls and politicians, of businessmen and construction magnates, of lawyers and hedge fund managers, of philanthropists and rock stars.
They are the sons and daughters of an awful lot of money, of an awful lot of wealth, inherited and made.
A bodyguard half-turns, faces Leme. Leme steps to one side to avoid him. The bodyguard shapes up to speak and Leme stops.
The bodyguard holds his hands over his crotch. He’s wearing aviator sunglasses. He smiles at Leme, a mean little smile. ‘You’re the detective, right?’
Leme nods. The bod
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