“Visitors?”
“None that were remembered, sir. I asked.”
Da Silva looked up. “No girls?”
“Not that anyone at the hotel remembers, sir. I asked about that especially.” A sudden thought struck Perreira. “Say, that’s an idea, sir! Maybe this Chaney was in the habit of visiting some of the girls in some of Valadares’ places. Maybe that’s the connection between them.”
“That might be fine as far as Chaney is concerned,” Da Silva said a bit sarcastically, “but it would be a little far for Torres to come. All the way from Porto Alegre just for a girl? They must have houses there.”
“I’m sure,” Perreira said, “and Valadares probably owned all of them or at least some of them.” He swallowed and added, “sir,” as if to take some of the sting out of telling his superior something he should have thought of himself.
Da Silva smiled. “Don’t let a person off when he acts stupid or you’ll never make captain.” His smile faded to be replaced with a frown. “It’s a thought, but it doesn’t feel right. I keep coming back to that same question — why Paraíso? If the connection between these men were girls and houses, why were they all killed in Paraíso? Why were they all brought to Paraíso? Because they were, and I know it. No. There’s another connection.” He looked at Perreira. “What is it?”
Perreira racked his brain for something to say. He hated to be found wanting when the captain wanted answers, but this time he was truly blank. “I don’t know, sir,” he said at last, and then added for lack of anything better., “The only thing I can think of is they all went up there by plane...”
Da Silva thought about it a moment. “I wonder... Perreira, get your notebook.”
Perreira wondered what he had said to make the captain wonder. “Yes, sir.”
“I want you to find out if the four men — Torres, Chaney, you know — all flew up to Paraíso with the same airline. Or with the same pilot.”
“Look sir,” Perreira said, now sorry he had opened his big mouth in the first place, “it would be almost impossible. I’m not sure any one airline even services all those cities, and if they did, would different airlines transfer pilots that quickly? I mean, would Cruzeiro do Sul, for example, have a pilot on the Porto Alegre run one day, and then would that same pilot show up, say, on Vasp, flying from Rio to Paraíso a few days later? Or to the Recife-Paraíso run a week earlier? Pardon me, sir, but it seems a little farfetched.”
“It may be,” Da Silva admitted. “Still, suppose Cruzeiro do Sul, or any other line, had a flight that started in Porto Alegre, say. Suppose it stopped in Rio, then went on from Rio to Recife, and from Recife it stopped at Paraíso. Then the pilot would hit each town at a different hour, but that same pilot could hit each city on his run. And if he made the run regularly, he might well have picked up each of our victims and brought them to Paraíso.” He came to his feet. “Come on. I’ll walk you over to the Edifício Rio Branco. While I’m checking out Valadares’ office there, you can go around to the airlines around there and see if any of the personnel ever heard of Chaney, or of anything else helpful. Find out about their pilots. I’ll meet you downstairs later.”
Perreira looked puzzled. “Sir — why does a pilot for the connection between the victims seem better to you than a call girl?”
Da Silva smiled gently. “It doesn’t.”
“You mean, we’re reaching?”
“Exactly,” Da Silva said, “except in this business the secret of success isn’t to say you’re reaching — at least not to a superior. You merely say you’re being thorough...”
There was a time when the Edifício Rio Branco was the most prestigious business address in Rio de Janeiro, avidly sought after by the major companies, mostly American, but that was a long time ago, before the new skyscrapers with their more modern conveniences began to rise farther along the Avenida Rio Branco in the direction of the Praça Mauá, before the narrow streets of Candalária were removed to permit the construction of the broad Getúlio Vargas with its twenty-story edifices marching side-by-side in almost military rank toward the Ministry of War and the railroad station; before, in fact, many businessmen tired of the problems of the city’s center entirely and began to move to Flamengo, or Botofogo, or even Copacabana itself.
In those distant days when the Edifício had been in its glory, sharing the area with the Senate across Rio Branco, Guanabara Bay had actually lapped the stone wall that formed the opposite side of the Avenida Beira Mar, just short yards away, with small yachts rising and falling lazily on the pulsing water almost beneath the eyes of the building’s occupants. Captain Da Silva, pausing on the top step to the entrance to the building’s lobby, looked at the beautifully landscaped landfill that had now moved the bay nearly half a mile away, and wondered if the many changes in the city really spelled progress. True, in the old days, before the new highways that nearly covered the new fill, it took forever to get from the center of the city to the southern suburbs, but it had been a relaxing ride by trolley — taxis being impossible to obtain — giving one time to properly savor the true flavor of the city. Now one traveled the landfill at ninety miles an hour, frightened every inch of the way, and the trolleys were a thing of the past, together with the stucco walls and the cobblestone streets and the sense of relaxed living. I must be getting old, Da Silva thought, with an inward smile that had more than a touch of nostalgia in it; I haven’t thought of those days since those days, and I was a university student at the time. He turned and walked into the building. Memories were fine, but crime was a now thing. Unfortunately.
The creaking lift, its operator reading O Dia without paying the slightest attention to their route, deposited him on the eighth floor and he walked along the wide terrazzo corridor searching for the proper office number. He almost passed it, for the frosted glass bore no descriptive legend, and the number had long since been almost chipped to oblivion, but it obviously had to be between 865 and 869. He twisted the knob and pushed his way into the office.
To one whose knowledge of theatrical agencies had been gleaned from old motion pictures like Tin Pan Alley, starring Betty Grable and John Payne, the office of Joaquim Saldanha Valadares would have proved a grave disappointment. Not only was there no efficient-and-tough-as-nails secretary to keep the hordes of stage-struck applicants from the aloof agent in the inner office, there was no hordes. Nor was there an inner office. In fact, Da Silva noted, there wasn’t even an old upright piano on which the non-existent stage-struck hordes could prove or disprove their talent. Instead the large barn-like room seemed to be used mainly for the storage of a large number of filing cabinets, and its only occupant was a tough-looking man in need of a shave, cigarette pasted to his lower lip, tilted back in a swivel chair behind a battered desk reading the Jornal de Esportes. He looked up at Da Silva, his face expressionless.
“Yeah?”
Da Silva looked around a moment and then brought his gaze back to the man in the chair. “Senhor Valadares?”
“He ain’t here.”
“Do you know when he’ll be here?”
“When he gets here,” the man said evenly. “He don’t report to me. And who wants to know?”
“Well,” Da Silva said easily, “after all, he’s supposed to be a theatrical agent, I’m told. I’m having this affair, you see, and I’ve been looking for entertainment—”
“You ain’t looking for entertainment,” the man said with a humorless smile. “You’re giving it.” He waved his hand. “Man, you smell cop from here to Nova Iguaçu.” He turned back to his paper. “Go away. You’re wasting my time.”