A campaign for the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff is in full swing, yet 100,000 people take to Avenida Paulista in Sao Paulo in her support.
On the same day, a young man from a wealthy family is murdered.
Detective Mario Leme discovers the body. Two Military Policemen confront him.They strongarm him into the back of an SUV.
Set against the backdrop of the biggest political corruption scandal in Brazilian history, Playboy is the story of Leme's attempt to clear his name, and find the young man's killer. Leme's investigation runs right through Sao Paulo society, from the bottom, to the very top and has implications far beyond. And the fight to prove his innocence might just cost Leme his life.
A stylish, taut, and atmospheric novel in the hardboiled tradition of American noir, Playboy is a thrilling examination of the seething, violent street life of Sao Paulo and the political convulsions of contemporary Brazil.
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:
September 5, 2019
Publisher:
Quercus Publishing
Print pages:
285
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(And why does this particular corruption scandal threaten to topple the government?)
It began in March 2014 as a routine federal investigation into money laundering through a car wash and garage complex in Brasilia, the country's capital. Two years later, and half a million people flooded the streets of São Paulo to call for President Dilma's impeachment. How did this happen? And where will it lead?
What started it all was the discovery of a Land Rover bought illegally by Alberto Youssef – a convicted money launderer of some distinction and considerable reach – for Paulo Roberto Costa, an executive at Petrobras, one of the biggest oil companies in the world, a company that accounts for an eighth of all investments in Brazil, and provides hundreds of thousands of jobs in construction, shipyards and refineries across the country.
And what this purchase led investigators to uncover was a far-reaching mechanism of corruption in which Petrobras overpaid on contracts to a cartel of construction companies, and, with the guaranteed business, this cartel channelled a percentage of each deal into offshore slush funds. Bribes, leaked documents have shown, were built into the contracts themselves, which made their illegality harder to spot.
So far, so your-basic-traditional-corruption model.
However, things might be about to change. Last week, on 8 March, Marcelo Odebrecht, CEO of the international Odebrecht construction conglomerate, was sentenced to nineteen years in jail for corruption, money laundering and criminal association. And it doesn’t look like he wants to go quietly. To reduce his sentence, he's allegedly been outlining the epic scale of this kickback scheme. And exactly which politicians – and their parties – have benefited directly.
Last week, we saw the results of all of this: calls for Dilma's impeachment. On Sunday, we’ll see the other side of the coin, as hundreds of thousands plan to march in solidarity, in her defence.
If nothing else, it appears that this unfolding scandal runs deep. And the question many people are asking is what's really more important: political ideology and policy-making, or being free of any association at all with corruption in a country in which it is considered systemic.
Brazil, quite clearly, is divided.
Leme sat at the counter, chopsticks poised. He was in the cop-friendly Chinaman's dumpling joint, deep down in Japa-town. Off duty and happy about it.
He angled his empty bottle of Chinese lager at the waitress and she brought him another. The TV was on with the sound down. Military Police in riot gear were hosing down troublemakers on Avenida Paulista, not a fifteen-minute walk away.
‘An elegant business, Mario,’ the Chinaman said, his hand on Leme's shoulder.
Leme had been coming to the Chinaman's for donkeys. He had spent time just across Avenida Vinte e Três de Maio in Bela Vista. Bixiga, as the neighbourhood was known by locals: the bladder of São Paulo. Leme's old man had a hard-on for crispy duck and took him on Sundays to feast. Everyone else was in the eye-talian canteens end of a weekend, but Leme was picking a fattened roast bird out of a line and watching the Chinaman tear into it with a machete. Habits, ne?
Leme nodded at the TV. ‘Which side is this lot on?’ he asked.
‘Well, the nature of the affair seems to be more about the conflict than the ideology.’
Leme smiled. He thought of Renata, his late wife. It was her kind of an appraisal.
The Chinaman went on: ‘But, shortly, we’ll be engaged by the pro-Dilma rally and our chubby, gyppo fuckwit Lula will be pronouncing some political untruths.’ He paused, took a pull at his own lager. ‘So those young men getting their heads serviced by the Militars will be anti-Dilma, I’d wager, and God bless them for it.’
Leme laughed. He’d forgotten. The rally would cause him problems getting home. Since his run-ins a few years back, he no longer drank and drove for fear of angering the wrong Militar. He’d planned to walk across Paulista and down through Jardins until he got tired, then jump in a cab. This changed things.
‘You not a fan then?’ Leme asked, only half-serious.
‘Dilma? Fuck no,’ the Chinaman said. ‘The puta don’t got a noble bone. Sour-faced lefty cunt that's richer than God? On our dollar? No, Senhor. I form my political allegiances elsewhere.’
Leme grimaced. Nodded, slowly. ‘It's your right as a citizen, my friend.’
‘Yes, I know my rights,’ the Chinaman said. ‘Don’t forget, young man, I was made by this town in the seventies. With your father.’ He smiled. ‘So, as you can imagine, I do know my rights.’
Leme raised his lager and they knocked bottles. ‘So was Dilma,’ he said.
The Chinaman chewed this over. ‘Yes, I suppose so. It was a dishonourable time that affected many fine young minds. Though she seems reluctant to desist harping on about it. You know they tortured her when she started talking.’ He paused, cracked a grin. Winked. ‘It was the only way to shut her up!’
The Chinaman roared.
Leme winced. He smiled. Faz o que, ne? he thought. What are you going to do? Old-school Paulistanos have their reasons for being suspicious of the rise of the left.
He wondered what Renata would make of all this. He knew where she would be spending her afternoon. Which is what made up his mind.
He popped a prawn dumpling. He nailed the rest of his lager. He threw some notes on the counter.
‘Ciao,’ he said. ‘I’m going to see what the gyppo and the slag have to say for themselves.’
He upped and left the restaurant. The bell rang as the door shut behind him. He turned left. Across the road, a man wheeled right and studied a window display in a Japanese supermarket. His arm was bent at the elbow. He flashed a look behind him as he spoke on his phone. The look seemed aimed at Leme. Was it? Leme slowed, eyed the man, couldn’t place him – at least not from the back of his head.
It's not the paranoia that kills you, Leme thought.
He kept a slow pace. He didn’t make the guy on his phone.
Leme hit Avenida Paulista twenty minutes later. There was a sea of red T-shirts. Cheap red baseball caps. Red balloons. A shit-tonne of them. And the odd, menacing black flag. Meaning: trouble ain’t too far away.
Leme rubbernecked the crowd. The usual student rabble, the air around them hash-thick. A good number of workers: tough-skinned and gnarly men; grinning, dancing women. Lots of condo-dwellers eating out tonight, Leme thought, then felt a flash of repugnance that he had thought that. Some middle-class do-gooders, Renata's old mob, he expected. Gaggles of slouching anarchists in heavy metal slogans, bandana-ready Standard. A textbook lefty bash, attendee-wise.
He bought a can of lager from a gawker with a cool box and worked his way slowly against the flow, aiming at the MASP building. Its outsized, red spider's legs fit right in. Even the museums were on Dilma's side today.
There were placards – everywhere.
Brave heart: there will be no coup
The Chinaman would have loved that one, Leme thought. There were placards with photos of a gurning Lula, ‘2018’ emblazoned across his chest.
All Support
Leme studied the placards. All of them were stamped with #. His girlfriend Antonia had tried to explain to him what # meant only the other day.
‘There's nothing more boring than a middle-aged man shrugging at the idiocy of the modern world,’ she’d said. She’d gestured at their living room. ‘An analogue throwback in a digital world. How original.’
He’d laughed at that.
The revolution is a click away, he thought. It's just a click away, click away. He smiled. Jagger-Richards it up a bit, entendeu?
He came up with his own little slogan: vai tomar no coup. Bilingual magic, that pun. Go take it up the... coup. He’d work on it.
He wormed through the crowds, south side of the avenue. It was a pertinent fucking contrast, the corporation towers flanking a marching band of anti-capitalists. Or pro-democrats. These days it was all so black and white it was hard to tell the difference.
Antonia let it wash over her: no nuance, no séance.
Or as the Chinaman was fond of saying: no barley, no parlay. Meaning: you wanna chat, we gonna drink.
There was a surge. Leme was pushed back against the Conjunto Nacional mall. The grill was down. A janitor peered through. Sensible positioning, son, Leme thought.
Then another man caught his eye, also just the other side of the grill. Leme, brow-furrowed, tensed. It was the guy from outside the Chinaman's – no doubt. Coincidence?
It's not the coincidence that kills you.
He gave the guy the sidelong fisheye. Definitely him. He was unshaven, hair unwashed, filthy little tache, corpse-pale, stick-thin, jittery.
Leme turned away so the guy wouldn’t see his face, and tried to place him.
He acted crowd-curious.
He turned back to study the guy again. And he was right there, next to him, the grill separating them. Leme could feel the guy's heavy breath.
Bingo. Leme half-knew him. His detective partner in the Polícia Civil, Lisboa, knew him. His journo friend Silva knew him.
‘Remember me?’ the guy asked. ‘Don’t run now. Be cool, ne?’
Leme smiled, didn’t look at him. He tiptoed and craned. Ah, Lula's on the stage. He couldn’t see much beyond a bloated red shirt.
The sweat stains were ominous.
‘I remember you. Fat João. Helluva joke that. You’re even skinnier than I remember. Why are you following me?’
‘Something for you.’
‘What?’
‘A tip. Something you want to see.’
Leme nodded. The guy was textbook-rat, informant-type working for chump change. He’d seen him once, twice, three times over the years, maybe. Never directly and never one to one. This was new.
OK.
‘And what, I have to make it worth your while?’ Leme asked.
‘Not necessary – taken care of. I’ve just got a message for you.’
‘Who from?’
‘Not part of the deal.’
Leme weighed it. Lisboa, Silva – they can vouch for him. That's good enough.
‘OK, shoot.’
‘Know the dodgy little park in Praça Alexandre de Gusmão?’
Leme nodded.
‘You might want to take a look. Like, now.’
Leme raised eyebrows. ‘That the message?’
‘Don’t shoot the messenger, chief.’
Leme turned. The rat had skedaddled.
Leme let it marinate a moment.
It's not the curiosity that kills you.
He made up his mind. He could scoot over; pick up a cab nearby either way.
Leme edged further away, just catching a key line crackling through the inadequate PA: Democracy is the only way to allow people to participate in the government’s decisions.
Leme wondered what that had to do with accusations of pilfering state funds and harvesting kickback money.
He tossed his beer can and got off the main drag.
Leme edged through Jardins towards the park. There was a taxi rank there he was sure would be freed up despite the rally. Old-school hardheads, no fans of The Snake.
It was Sunday-quiet. No real overspill from Paulista. Side-street dirty. Fast-food wrappers and empty cans blew about. Mangy dogs dug in. A group of drunk students let fly at them, laughing. Boot-heavy thumps turned to rib-cracking. The dogs yelped and whimpered. The students kicked cans and scarpered, singing.
Leme followed at a distance down Alameda Santos. They passed the Intercontinental Hotel and arrowed towards the square and Parque Tenente Siqueira Campos behind. Leme figured he’d pass by and boost a taxi down Peixoto or Azevedo if the rank was empty. At night, the park was a hotspot for hopheads and noias – paranoid crackheads – homeless bums and sex pests. It was getting dark. Leme wondered what exactly this tip was. Some Vice shit, he’d guess.
It's not the assumptions that kill you.
The students crossed the road in a drunk-spread, arms-wide traffic-taunt.
Though there were no cars.
It seemed the city was giving the Boss Bitch the swerve today, Leme thought.
Aside from the swarm of lefties just up the road.
He scoped the cab options. There were none. The students were gathered by the park railings. He watched them. They laughed and kicked jokes to and fro.
They sat on a moped that was propped against the gate.
Leme eyed them.
Something not quite right.
Ah, leave it, he thought. I’m off duty. Not my problem, no Senhor, not today.
Wide-berth it.
Kids, joshing.
Then a shout: ‘Caralho, bicho!’ Mate, look out!
And another: ‘Puta, que isso?’ What the fuck's going on?
A different, deeper voice. An instruction: ‘Get the fuck off. Embora pentelho! Drive. Let's go. Vamos, vamos!’
The students jumped back.
The students fanned out.
The students turned and scrammed, five-ways.
Leme watched.
Two men in black T-shirts and black balaclavas jumped on the moped and gassed it the wrong way down the square. Then burned off up Jaú.
Leme looked – hard.
Number plate blacked out.
Leme waited.
Nothing.
He scanned the street both ways.
Nothing.
He cocked an ear.
Rally-traffic. Cracked voices and cheers.
He studied the buildings above street level and the shuttered shops.
Nothing. No obvious lights.
He crossed the road.
And he saw why the students had left in such a hurry.
At the bottom of the railings, poking out from beneath a bush –
A body.
Leme pulled his phone and began to spear in the emergency number.
He examined the body as he did.
A kid. A bloodied pink shirt. Sleeves rolled up. Smart pair of jeans. Slip-on black leather shoes. No socks.
Leme stopped dialling.
He got down on one knee. Looked more closely.
Chest wounds. Face untouched.
Good-looking lad. How old? About twenty-something. Hard to tell exactly these days.
Pink shirt.
No socks.
Aha.
The lad was rich. A playboy type.
Not the usual corpse to wash up on these shores.
Leme needed the cavalry and double-quick time.
He stood, turned, phone to his ear.
A blue-red flash.
Fuck.
‘Good afternoon,’ said an especially ferocious-looking member of the São Paulo Military Police.
These boys did not like Leme's mob, the Polícia Civil side of things, the detectives. Didn’t like to get their hands dirty was one complaint. Cerebral and fresh with it. Bunch of fucking pussies was the general feeling.
The Militar had a sadistic look in his eye. ‘And what the fuck do we have here then, old man?’ he said.
‘Less of the old, eh,’ Leme said.
Leme hit the hang-up button and raised his hands.
Junior
Less of the old?
Jesus, the fucking front on this guy. The face on the lad. Serious bolas. The cunt's caught leaning over a corpse by two Militars and he's got the garra and nouse to crack wise.
May not be the smartest move, however, thought the younger of the two, Junior. Old Assis had a temper on him, and there was no one around and they could easily make this an in flagrante-type scenario.
Bang, bang, medals and honour and all that jazz: just got to make sure the bullets are in the right place.
Junior scoped the street. Assis cuffed the guy.
Assis said, ‘You going to tell us what the fuck you were doing, son?’
The guy smiled. Shook his head.
Assis nodded at Junior. Flicked his chin at the body. ‘Have a look,’ he said.
Junior did as he was told. He gloved up and examined the John. He could see he was a kid, about the same age as Junior, maybe a few years older. Who knew when a corpse flattened things out a touch. Different type of kid, though. Caucasian glint to him, for starters. Dressed rich.
The body wasn’t too well hidden. A few leaves, a couple of branches, almost discarded, it seemed. It was the bottom end of the park and the slope down was steep enough the stiff wouldn’t be seen too easily though. Like maybe he’d been rolled down the hill in the trees – good cover – and then pushed through the railings. There was a stillness to the air. Junior could hear the rally, but the distance pulled that stillness closer to him.
The park was deserted. Not a surprise. Normally was at that time of the day: the cusp of night. Any respectables well away by then, before the hopheads and noias, perverts and paedos turned up. Snide little line of underage rent-boy cocksuckers available to those who sought it. Drop-out schoolgirl pussy for hire for your less than discerning nonce, too, Junior had heard.
Takes all sorts.
Fuck knows what this lad was up to, but Junior guessed it wasn’t pretty. He looked like he could afford a lot better.
‘ID?’ Assis called out.
Junior frisked the stiff. Not his first time and harder, in fact, than rifling the pockets of a real live human. Not called stiffs without reason. He was no medic, but Junior didn’t think the kid had snuffed it too long ago.
In the pockets, he found:
Cigarettes – Marlboro Red
Lighter – a gold Zippo
Keys – house and car
A wallet – Louis Vuitton, brown
In the wallet, he found:
NADA.
Not a sausage. But it was old, well-thumbed, and recently emptied, Junior reckoned.
‘Então?’ Assis called out.
‘Nothing, Senhor,’ Junior replied.
‘Cash?’
‘Nope.’
‘Shame.’
Junior raised an eyebrow. Assis continued, ‘Rich kid gets robbed, gets merced. Textbook.’ He pulled his radio.
Junior held tight.
‘That how it usually works?’ the guy asked.
Assis glared at him. ‘Ask your opinion, did I?’
The guy smiled. ‘Only it's an odd decision to take the poor cunt's ID and bank cards, as well as his cash, and button his coat while they’re at it. Tad risky, entendeu? Somewhat incriminating, perhaps?’
Assis said nothing. Junior flanked the guy, wondering if the old temper might just kick in and kick off. Junior fingered his revolver, spread his legs a touch.
Assis got back on the radio. Assis barked some instructions.
Junior held tight. The air thinned, cooled, as the fat sun, once raw, hostile, sloped off.
Moments later, a Militar SUV pulled up. A colleague, Edu, hopped out. Assis bundled the guy into the back.
‘You two stay with the stiff. There's people on their way.’
The SUV gunned, then squealed, then roared.
‘Nasty business,’ said Edu, nodding at the stiff.
Junior sighed. ‘Pois é,’ he said.
‘What happened?’
‘No idea, mate,’ Junior said. ‘We found that guy standing over him.’ Junior gestured to where the SUV had been. ‘It ain’t even obvious how the kid was ironed out. He doesn’t look that bad, to be fair.’
Edu smirked. . . .
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