Wilson looked hurt. “Sir, you are speaking of my native state.”
“Well, would you?”
“In all honesty, no,” Wilson said. “I wouldn’t even pick it second.”
“Well, then,” Da Silva said, and finished his brandy. He reached overhead, pressing the button for the stewardess. The pretty girl came down the aisle pushing her cart; Da Silva saluted her rapid response with a bright smile. Once he and Wilson had been served, he leaned a bit into the aisle, watching her continue toward the front of the plane. He leaned back and raised his glass.
“To stewardesses. With good legs,” he said. “Where were we?”
“We were trying to figure out what Chaney was doing in a place like Paraíso,” Wilson said sternly. “Get your mind off girls. You must feel better about flying if you’re starting to get passionate in the air.”
“It’s the brandy,” Da Silva said, and sipped as if to prove his point. “Well, to get back to business. Chaney was your national; you tell me what he was doing in Paraíso — you had him under surveillance.”
“When I say we had him under surveillance, I don’t mean we had a man on his tail all the time. The answer to your question is, I have no idea what he was doing there. Now that I’ve satisfied your curiosity,” Wilson went on, “you answer a question of mine. What’s wrong with the idea that these murders were done by other people — other than the police, I mean — and that Death Squad signs were hung around their necks as a put-off?”
Da Silva lit a cigarette and opened the folder in his lap.
“You mean beside the one I already gave you? Well, you haven’t read these reports, yet.” He tapped the top sheet of the open folder. “Of the four who were killed, the first one — two weeks ago — was a local character named Valdir Limeira, a professional gambler—”
“And your theory is he took the police chief in a poker game one night—”
“And you think you’re joking, but you might not be. In any event, gambling is against the law, whether it’s honored more in the breech than other laws. Anyway, his papers were intact, and his watch. That was on March 6—” He lifted some of the papers, consulting the ones beneath. “Then, three days later, on March 9, a man named Leopoldo Bethencourt came to Paraíso and on the tenth was found dead, with the sign around his neck. According to his business cards he had an export-import business in Recife. The third was named Manuel Assis Torres, and he came from Porto Alegre on the twelfth and was found dead the following morning. According to his papers he was a commercial photographer; his camera and other photographic equipment weren’t touched. The fourth was Chaney, who came to Paraíso on the seventeenth and was found dead the next day.” He closed the folder and looked at Wilson, somewhat like a professor encouraging a rather bright student. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Well,” Da Silva said patiently, “what did the four of them have in common?”
“They were all killed—”
“I’m serious,” Da Silva said a bit sharply.
“In that case,” Wilson said, “they didn’t have anything in common as far as I can see. Or as far as we know so far. They came from different places on different days. Except for the gambler — apparently he came from Paraíso itself.”
“He did, and the others were from different places. And I want to know why they came there, and in time I expect to find out. But what else did they have in common?”
Wilson frowned at Da Silva in uncertainty. “Nothing that I can see. What are you driving at? What’s on your mind?”
Da Silva crushed out his cigarette and instantly lit another. He leaned back and tapped the folder with his forefinger.
“Just this,” he said. “My guess is that if the first one was outside the law, and the last one was outside the law, then I think it’s a fairly reasonable assumption to consider that the other two were also a little less respectable than their business cards would have us believe. Despite the Minister’s faith in their goodness. After all, anyone can have a card printed.”
Wilson shook his head half-admiringly.
“Man, when you get a theory you sure like to torture facts to make them fit! Is there anything in that folder to make you think that Torres or this Bethencourt were anything else but what they were supposed to be?”
“No,” Da Silva admitted. “But when a death squad comes into being, it’s usually because the police — or, rather, just a few of the police, thank God — think that punishment of lawbreakers by the courts is too slow, and that a helping hand from them—” He shrugged.
“So,” Wilson said sarcastically, “if a death squad killed them, therefore they must be criminals. And, of course, being criminals makes whoever killed them a death squad. Beautiful! I’ll bet you play solitaire with a marked deck. What happens to your lovely theory if you check out this Torres and Bethencourt and find out they’re exactly what their business cards claim them to be?”
“Then I guess I’ll have to dream up another theory,” Da Silva said, and grinned.
“And I’m sure you’ll manage,” Wilson said with disgust. He shook his head. “Has it ever occurred to you that each one of the four could have been killed by a different person for completely different reasons, and a sign hung around each neck just to give a stubborn thickheaded, intransigent detective, whose name escapes me at the moment, the basis for one more of his wild-eyed theories?”
“Why, no,” Da Silva said with a gentle smile. “It never occurred to me at all. Because, you see, all four were killed by exactly the same method — we call it modus operandi in the police — a bullet in the chest and one more, for luck, in the head...”
“And I don’t suppose that a person, hearing of the method, couldn’t simply copy it?”
“I might point out,” Da Silva said evenly, “that the ones in the best position to know what method was used were the police themselves. And there was very little local or national publicity, as the Minister said. However, you didn’t let me finish: I was about to say” — he paused a moment for effect, a faint smile on his face — “that the bullets all match. They all came from the same gun.”
There was a short silence as Wilson digested this new fact. “Oh,” he said, and looked at Da Silva resentfully. “You cheat.”
“At times,” Da Silva said, and became serious. “Now, these four men were all killed by the same person or persons, certainly by the same gun. For the sake of argument, let’s assume I’m right and that they were all the type of person the death squads like to eliminate. Here we have four men from different parts of the country, all coming to Paraíso. Let’s ask the same question we asked about Chaney. Why did they go there?”
“A meeting, do you suppose?”
“On different days?” Da Silva asked sarcastically.
“I forgot,” Wilson said, not at all disturbed by his error. “I’m still not convinced your theory is right. I thought death squads always concentrated on Brazilians, and yet there is Chaney...”
“There’s always a first time to expand,” Da Silva said, “and from what you tell me of Chaney, you have to admit he certainly had the credentials to join the club.”
“And not only that,” Wilson went on, as if Da Silva had not spoken, “there’s the matter of this Judge what’s-his-name—”
“Magalhães.”
“Magalhães. If what the Minister said was true, it seems hard for me to believe a death squad could, or would, operate in his territory.”