He was quick and dodged the punch, leaning backward so it passed just out of range. I drove myself to my feet, wanting to strip him of his knife.
But he got underneath me and popped his shoulder up under my solar plexus, slammed me against the closed doors. I hammer-smashed my fist against the scapula and rotator cuff of the arm with the knife. On the second blow, over the noise of Tavia fighting the other guy, I heard the stiletto clatter to the floor of the gondola.
I tried to knee him in the face. He blocked it, got hold of my belt, and spun me around and into Tavia, who crashed into the corner. My guy squatted, tried to punch me in the groin. I shifted my hips, took the blow on the thigh. He snatched up the knife before I could get at it.
He slashed at my right side, high along the ribs, but I got hold of his elbows and pinned them against the glass. He had the knife in his right hand, gripping it like an ice pick. He seemed high on something, manic, and I feared I wasn’t going to be able to hold him for long.
The tip of his knife blade crept closer and closer to my left eye. Staring at it, I saw a little sign behind and above the knife; I didn’t get the exact words, but I caught the drift. I drove my head toward his, trying to smash the bridge of his nose. He twisted and took the blow to the side of his face. It rocked him.
I let go of his left elbow, reached up, and tugged the lever below the emergency-release sign. The doors flung open behind him. He had a moment of understanding what I’d done, of terror, and he tried desperately to regain his balance before he pitched backward, flailing and screaming, into the night air and then was gone.
Behind me, I heard an “Uhh,” and I spun around. Tavia heaved for breath as she stepped back from the second guy, her hair disheveled, her forearm cut in two places, and the stiletto sticking out of the low center of his chest. He gasped like a fish out of water, quickly at first, then slower, and then not at all.
She glanced at me, said, “What do we do with him?”
The next station was still two hundred meters away. We looked ahead, saw a wide stripe of pitch-darkness on one particularly steep hillside, and, after checking his pockets and finding nothing, we pushed him out the door too.
Tavia had a spray of his blood on her blouse and there was blood on her hand from the cuts to her forearm. We used her jacket to mop up the blood on the floor and seats. I gave her my jacket. We left the gondola, walking casually until we cleared the station and found a side road and then as quickly as we dared.
We went to the clinic where we’d talked to Mariana Lopes the day before. She wasn’t there, but her nurse cleaned, stitched, and bandaged Tavia’s wounds, never once asking how she’d gotten them.
“You all right?” I asked after we’d left.
“Not a chance,” Tavia said.
“Is that the first time you’ve had to kill someone?”
“No, but it still takes you over.”
“Like his ghost is still with you.”
She nodded, and shuddered. I wrapped her in my arms, kissed her temples, said, “You did what you had to. We both did.”
“I couldn’t get my gun drawn,” she said.
“Happened too fast.”
“They didn’t try to rob us.”
“Just went for the kill.”
Tavia turned stony. “So they were gangsters. On assignment.”
We returned to Spirit favela and that same spot against the retaining wall high in the slum, up against the jungle. Urso was there, eating and drinking with four or five of his homeboys.
Tavia marched up to him with the bandages on her arm exposed and a .380 in her hand.
“We had an agreement, Bear,” she said, aiming at his head. “Does your word mean nothing?”
Urso’s hands flew up. “Hey, fuck, Reynaldo! What you talking about? The Bear’s word is gold.”
“We got attacked on the Alemão gondola. Street trash with knives. They targeted us.”
“That’s nothing to me,” Urso said. “I can’t keep freelancers from moving into Alemão. That’s the BOPE’s job.”
Tavia was still mad and skeptical. “You saying those weren’t your boys?”
“Hello?” said the Bear. “We got a deal, right?”
“So why aren’t you out looking?” I asked.
“Been looking all day, L.A.,” he said. “You’re getting your money’s worth.”
“So what have you heard about those girls?”
“People saw them dragged into a gray van down the hill from all the shooting. No license plate, so that doesn’t tell us anything, but we’re working out from the point where they were put in the van.”
“Narrow your search area,” Tavia said, and she told him that the girls were being held within hearing distance of train whistles and close to barking dogs and wind chimes.
“Trains?” the Bear said. Then he nodded. “Okay. That helps. But chimes? Shit, man, everyone’s auntie got chimes. Different size, shape, tone. And there are dogs everywhere.”
“We can send you a digital file of the exact sounds,” I said.
Urso brightened. “That works. After we eat, me and the boys will go down by the tracks, listen for chimes and dogs barking. We good?”
Tavia studied him critically again for several beats before saying, “Okay, Bear, we’re good.”
Chapter 24
Dressed to kill in heels, a tight black leather skirt, and a black silk blouse that showed off her ample figure, Luna Santos was in her mid-thirties with lush black hair and a gorgeous olive complexion. Her heart pounded with anticipation as she exited a taxi by the aqueduct, two stories and eight hundred feet of stark white arches in the heart of Lapa, an edgy entertainment district in Centro.
On one side of the aqueduct, fans were already lined up to get into a sprawling outdoor music club. The square on the other side of the arches was jammed with revelers. Seven days to go until the Olympics, and already the city was packed with people ready to bust loose and celebrate. Luna was more than ready to party with them.
She bought a caipirinha, a potent cachaça rum drink and sort of Brazil’s national cocktail.
Luna walked on, sipping the minty, sweet booze, feeling the alcohol fire through her, aware of but not acknowledging the men who openly admired her as she passed. The fact that Lapa could be a little dangerous after dark only added to the general thrill.
I want fear tonight, she thought. I want drama and passion and sweat.
Her brain began to imagine the forbidden pleasures the night might bring, and she felt herself tremble with excitement and—
Luna’s cell phone rang. She stopped on the crowded sidewalk, dug her phone out of her evening purse, checked the number, and felt the anticipation drain out of her.
Cupping her hand around the mouthpiece, Luna answered. “Antonio?”
“I’m sorry, baby,” her husband said. “I have to work late.”
“I figured,” she said. “Sleeping at the office again?”
Her husband, defensive, said, “Just a few more days, Luna, and I’ll be—”
“Gone for the next sixteen.”
Exasperated, Antonio said, “You understand what I’m doing is important?”
“Sorry, but I’ve got to go. My movie’s about to start.”
Luna hung up and then turned the phone off.
Tonight is not about Antonio and his career, she thought. Tonight has zero to do with the Olympics. It’s about me. It’s about the needs of Luna Santos.