Silent Assassin(79)

CHAPTER 43


Rio de Janeiro, February 15





Conley’s contacts gave them an address for a Rodrigo Martins Bezerra only twenty minutes away, and sent a picture to Conley’s cell phone. Bezerra was forty-three and tan with short dark hair and a smiling, untroubled face that made him look about ten years younger. He lived in an upscale apartment building, not quite as nice as the scene of the crime, but still one of considerable luxury.

Security was tight in the local buildings, especially the richer ones. There was a double gate on the outside, with a reinforced hut for the doorman. Through a two-way metal drawer, Conley slipped the man his police credentials, which he had acquired through his local contacts. They argued for a bit, and the guard let them in.

“He most likely knows English, but let me do the talking,” said Conley. “We’ll get more out of him if we’re a little more attentive to local cultural subtleties.”

“Are you saying I’m blunt?” asked Morgan with a grin.

They arrived at the floor and knocked on Rodrigo Bezerra’s door. Conley rang the doorbell, and Bezerra, wearing Bermuda shorts and a white shirt with three buttons undone, opened the door. He looked like he hadn’t been up very long.

“Hello,” said Conley cordially. “We’re conducting an investigation with the help of local police. We were wondering if we might ask you a few questions.”

“Hey, gringos!” he said jovially, masking a distinct nervousness underneath. “Come in! Come in! What can I help you with, my friends?”

“You were at a party yesterday,” said Conley. “Is that right?”

“I go to a lot of parties,” said Bezerra. He didn’t seem any more nervous than before. Morgan figured he couldn’t know what had happened.

“Well, they don’t all end like this,” said Conley.

“Oh, I don’t know how it ended,” said Bezerra. “I left early.”

“We know,” said Conley.

Bezerra looked puzzled. “What do you mean, you know?”

“Bezerra, I know you and the guests were using cocaine at the party.”

“What? Cocaine? I never—”

“Stop,” said Conley. “I don’t care. I didn’t come here to arrest you for drug possession. But I need to know: did you use any yesterday?”

“No, of course not, I—”

“Don’t lie to me,” said Conley. “If you did and we don’t get you to a doctor right now, you’re going to die. So again: did you use last night?”

“What? What are you saying?”

“Answer the question, Bezerra,” said Morgan.

“No. Not last night. I—I have a drug test coming up. At my job. Why? What happened at the party?”

“They’re all dead, Bezerra,” said Conley.

“Dead?”

“The cocaine was tainted. They were poisoned, everyone.”

“What? Poisoned?”

“We need your help,” said Morgan. “We need to know where they got those drugs!”

“I don’t know! I wasn’t with them when they got it!”

“And you don’t know where they go?”

“How should I know?”

“Listen, asshole, if you don’t tell us, more people will die,” said Morgan. “A lot more. I guarantee it.”

“Okay, okay! Look, I wasn’t with them, so I don’t know. But they have this guy. I don’t know his address. Just a name and a number.”

“All right,” said Conley. “What is it?”





They only got a first name, Robson, for the dealer, in addition to the phone number. The address that the number was registered to was bogus. Conley had his people run a trace on the phone instead. This led them to a nearby favela. Morgan was following Conley up the hill, through the favela. There was a strange beauty to the accumulated buildings, growing organically around, against, and on top of each other. The houses were made of exposed brick. Water reservoirs were equally exposed, and clotheslines hung between windows. Above, there were tangles of wires and a mess of television antennas.

Conley drove them in his local car, a Ford compact. By this time, the sun had long disappeared behind the hills that rose from the sea. People were slowly streaming up the hill, coming back from the day’s work, on foot, on bicycles, and in vans.

“This place is controlled by a gang led by a man named Paulinho AK. That’s AK as in AK-47. Apparently he’s partial to the Kalashnikov.”

Conley pulled over. The signal was coming hundreds of feet from the mass of houses to their right.

“From here, we walk,” said Conley. He led the way in between two houses. The alleyway was so narrow and the buildings on either side were so tall that it almost felt like a cave, dark but for lights that shone from windows and the occasional external light. The twilight still appeared overhead, nothing but a sliver that ran the length of the passageway. They came at last to a door, damaged and with peeling green paint and a lot of exposed brick underneath. The outside of the house was painted white and with the dirt of many years. Conley banged on the door.