Blue Labyrinth

The argument continued, and a small knot of curious onlookers gathered. It appeared as if the bald one would get his way, after all. Reaching into a secret i

“Meu filho,” he said yet again, in a quiet, non-threatening voice.

The youth stared at the money, but did not take it.

Pendergast again reached into his pocket, drew out another thousand reais, and added it to the wad he was proffering. Two thousand reais — a thousand dollars — was a lot of money in a community such as this.

“Por favor,” he said, waving the money gently in front of the lookout. “Deixe-me entrar.”

With a sudden grimace, the youth snatched the money away. “Porra,” he muttered.

This elicited another outburst from his shaven-headed companion, who was evidently in favor of simply shooting Pendergast and taking the money. But the shorter one silenced him with a volley of curses. He handed the passport and wallet back to Pendergast, keeping the gun.

“Sai da aqui,” he said, waving Pendergast on dismissively. “Fila da puta.”

“Obrigado.” As Pendergast walked past the makeshift guard post he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the shaven-headed youth detach himself from the assembled group and disappear down a back alley.

Pendergast wandered up the central street of the favela, which quickly split into a confusing labyrinth of ever-narrower roads that crossed and recrossed, turned at odd angles, and — occasionally — dead-ended abruptly. People eyed him silently as he passed by, some with curiosity, others with suspicion. Now and then he stopped to ask someone, “meu filho,” but this was greeted with a quick, silent shake of the head and a hurrying past, as if to avoid the mutterings of a madman.

Working through the dullness of the drugs, Pendergast pushed his senses to take in everything. He needed to understand. The alleyways were relatively clean, with the occasional chicken or slinking, emaciated dog. Besides the two guards he saw no weapons, drug dealing, or open criminality. Indeed, the favela seemed to display more order than the city outside. The buildings were decorated in a wild profusion of garishly colored posters and handbills, much of it peeling off and fluttering. The sound was almost overwhelming. From open windows poured Brazilian funk music, conversation, or loud argument; the occasional expostulation of “Caralho!” or some other invective. The air smelled overpoweringly of frying meat. Mopeds and rusted bicycles passed by infrequently — there were almost no cars. At each intersection there was at least one barzinho—a corner bar with grubby plastic tables, a dozen men inside gathered around an ancient TV with bottles of Cerveja Skol in their hands, cheering on the inevitable soccer game. Their voices rose from every point when a goal was scored.

Pendergast stopped, took his bearings as best he could, then started climbing the mountain face that the Cidade dos Anjos was spread across. As he ascended the winding streets, the character of the buildings changed. The three-story concrete structures began being replaced by shacks and shantyhouses of remarkable decrepitude, slats and sections of wood wired or tied together and covered — if they were covered at all — with roofs of corrugated iron. Now garbage appeared, strewn about, and the smell of bad meat and rotting potatoes lingered in the air. Adjoining buildings leaned against each other, apparently for support. Laundry hung in every direction from an impossible tangle of crisscrossing lines, dangling limply in the tremendous heat. Passing a small, improvised soccer field in a vacant lot, surrounded by the remains of a chain-link fence, Pendergast could make out, far below, the stately outlines of the high-rise apartment buildings of Rio’s Zona Norte. They were a mere mile or two away, but from his vantage point they could have been a thousand.

As the pitch grew steeper, the surrounding landscape changed to a confusing welter of terraces, rickety public staircases of badly poured concrete and wooden lathe, and narrow switchback lanes. Dirty children peered at him through barbed wire and broken slats. There was less music here, less shouting, less life. The stillness of poverty and despair infected the muggy air. Lashed-together structures rose up all around, each at its own level and angle, with seeming disregard to the surrounding buildings: a three-dimensional maze of back alleys and passageways and common spaces and tiny plazas. Still, Pendergast mumbled to all he passed the same pathetic phrase: “Meu filho. Por favor. Meu filho.”

As he passed a small, grimy upholstery store, a dented and scarred Toyota Hilux four-door pickup stopped in front of him with a screech. It was barely narrower than the alleyway itself and effectively blocked his progress. While the driver stayed behind the wheel, three young men in khaki pants and brightly colored knit shirts burst out from the other three doors. Each carried an AR-15, and each had his weapon trained on Pendergast.

One of the men stepped quickly up to him while the other two held back. “Pare!” he demanded. “Stop!”

Pendergast stopped. There was a tense moment of stasis. Pendergast took a step forward, and one of the men stopped him with a rifle butt, pushing him back. The other two closed in, pointing their own weapons at Pendergast’s head.

“Coloque suas maos no carro!” the first man yelled, spi

“Entre,” he said roughly.

When Pendergast did nothing but blink in the bright sunlight, the man took him by the shoulders and propelled him into the rear seat. The other two followed, one on each side, weapons still pointed. The first man slid into the front passenger seat; the driver put the pickup into gear, and they shot away down the dingy street, raising a cloud of dust that completely obscured their departure.

37

One of the duty cops stuck his head into D’Agosta’s office. “Loo? You’ve got a call waiting. Somebody named Spandau.”

“Can you take a message? I’m in the middle of something here.”

“He says it’s important.”

D’Agosta looked over at Sergeant Slade, sitting in his visitor’s chair. He was, if anything, grateful for the interruption. Slade, Angler’s errand boy, had stopped in at Angler’s request to “liaise” on their two cases, the Museum murder and the dead body on Pendergast’s doorstep. Just how much Angler knew about what the two cases had in common, D’Agosta wasn’t sure… the man was playing his cards close. And so was Slade. But they wanted copies of all the case files — everything — and they wanted them now. D’Agosta didn’t like Slade… and it wasn’t just the disgusting licorice toffee he was so fond of. For some reason, he reminded D’Agosta of the toady of a schoolboy who, if he saw you doing something wrong, would tell the teacher as a way of currying favor. But D’Agosta also knew Slade to be clever and resourceful, which only made it worse.

D’Agosta held the phone up. “Sorry. I’d better take this. Might be a while. I’ll check in with you later.”

Slade glanced at him, at the duty cop, and stood up. “Sure.” He left the office, trailing an aroma of licorice behind him.

D’Agosta watched him walk away and lifted the phone to his ear. “What’s going on? Has our boy recovered his marbles?”

“Not exactly,” came Spandau’s matter-of-fact tone down the line.

“What is it, then?”

“He’s dead.”

“Dead? How? I mean, the guy looked sick, but not that sick.”