Graveyard Samba (Devil Barnett Detective Series Book 4) Read online

  Judge Paulo Tavares had been seeing this mistress twice a week for the past two years. Her name was Fabricia, she was thirty-three years old and beautiful, originally from Fortelleza, and worked as a manager in a curio shop. Today was her day off. In addition to regularly giving her his essence, the Judge also presented Fabricia with generous presents of cash, which she was grateful for.

  Paolo looked over at her and admired the soft smooth skin of her flawless body. He felt a bit sad knowing their relationship could really never go any further or be any different. After all he was almost thirty years older than she was. Still, it didn’t stop him from having romantic fantasies. She’d always said that his romantic nature was the thing she loved most about him.

  Paolo looked at his watch on the night stand and groaned. Almost 1:00 p.m.

  Fabricia turned to him and frowned.

  “Don’t tell me,” she said.

  “Yes, regrettably, I have to be in court this afternoon.”

  “Are you still working on the case they had you on television about?” she asked, sitting up in bed.

  “Yes.”

  “You looked so handsome, when you were being interviewed.”

  “Why thank you, my dear,” he said and kissed her forehead.

  “In reality you are an artist. I think this kind of work isn’t good for your spirit. You need to do the thing you were born to do. When are we going to Bahia? You promised, remember,” she smiled at him coquettishly.

  “Just as soon as this case is finished. I think maybe two more weeks.”

  He turned and kissed her naked body, then like a magician doing a conjuring trick, produced a necklace with one small diamond held by a gold chain. He held it before her and watched her greedy eyes drink in its sparkle.

  “For an angel with expensive tastes,” Tavares grinned as he fastened the necklace around her delicate throat.

  She pulled herself on top of him and they made love again. When he had finished, Paolo got up and went into the bathroom and started running the shower.

  She followed him.

  “In Bahia, I’m going to see to it that you spend lots of time painting. I love your pictures,” Fabricia told him as they climbed into the shower together still wearing the necklace.

  “Ummmm,” Paolo moaned with ecstasy as the warm shower mingled with the tiny bites Fabricia was giving him all over his body.

  He finished his shower and dried himself while Fabricia went into the other room.

  As the Judge dressed himself, he thought about Bahia. He had been there only once many years ago. The thought of him enjoying the beach with such a beautiful companion made him feel twenty years younger.

  “You sure it’s only going to be two weeks?” she purred from the edge of the bed. She was now dressed in a sexy blue lace camisole with matching panties.

  “I’m hoping less. It’s a pretty cut and dried case. Pornographers who forced young girls into prostitution.”

  “Horrible, absolutely horrible,” Fabricia said frowning. She would have never thought of telling the Judge that she had turned her first trick when she was only thirteen, for her boyfriend who was sixteen and strung out on drugs.

  “Yes, these people are the scum of the earth. I wish I were in the position to put them to death, but unfortunately the law won’t let me. But don’t worry my love soon we’ll be on the beach, away from our troubles” he said, then winked at her and looked out over the city from her top floor apartment at 360 Rua Russell in a section of Rio de Janeiro called Gloria.

  From where he stood, he could look to his right and see the memorial commemorating one of Brazil’s most famous politicians, President Getulio Vargas, along with the side of the famous Gloria Hotel with its black and white sign. His gaze swooped down through the tree branches into the park that lay below him, where he saw a few city workers dressed in green uniforms relaxing and having a mid-morning siesta on the various cement benches near the children’s playground. To the left, he watched the buses passing along Avenue Beira Mara. He read their numbers and destinations as they stopped at the traffic light at the corner. 438 Leblon, 107 Urca, 472 Leme, 158 Gavea, 409 Jardim Botanica. Committing the bus numbers to memory somehow took him out of himself, which was just where he needed to be at the moment. He imagined the buses on their way to somewhere else and the green park below as a calm and cool serene refuge, which was the exact opposite to what was going on inside his head at the moment.

  He finished dressing and slipped what was the Brazilian equivalent of three hundred American dollars into Fabricia’s bikini panties.

  “You don’t have to do that, you know, I have enough to last me for a while. Besides I get paid tomorrow,” she said. She had always found it better to play the part of the innocent with men like the Judge, who saw themselves as experienced men of the world. It made them feel better about themselves.

  “No, you take it.”

  She kissed him at the door and watched him get on the elevator.

  The Judge looked at his watch again. He still had almost an hour and a half before the afternoon session in Praca Onze. That would give him time to look over the new evidence that had been presented, as well as time for a nice sandwich.

  Paolo rode the elevator down to the underground parking garage where his Mercedes chariot awaited.

  “Sir, would you be so kind as to donate something to the poor?” the voice said, as Paolo opened the door of his car. He turned to see a middle-aged priest holding a small green bucket.

  “Anything will be greatly appreciated,” the priest said gently.

  Paolo’s instinct was to frown. Somehow this man had intruded on his afterglow and had rushed him back into hard reality more quickly than he had wished. In the fantasy world that Paolo shared with Fabricia he was a romantic cavalier, but in the real world he had forged the reputation as a hard and shrewd man with a no-nonsense manner and a brusque personality.

  “No, sorry,” Paolo said, instinctively turning away from the priest. As he did so he heard a loud popping sound. A nanosecond later, Paolo felt his breath catch in his throat. He inhaled quickly for another breath, but the next breath was not there. He tried to breathe again but still nothing. Panic. Then a hot burning sensation filled his body. Paolo turned towards the priest, who was now holding a gun instead of the green bucket.

  Paolo fell to the ground. He could feel the burning sensation growing and growing. It had turned to pain. He couldn’t speak. Now he realized that the priest was kneeling over him.

  “You have heard that it said, do not commit adultery. But now I tell you. Anyone who looks at a woman and wants to possess her is guilty of adultery with her in his heart. So if your right eye causes you sin, take it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose a part of your body than to have your whole body thrown into hell. Those are the words of Peter, my son, teaching about the pitfalls of adultery,” the priest said to Paolo just before all life spilled from him onto the ground of the underground parking lot.

  When the priest had finished his business, he walked calmly from the parking lot without looking to see if anyone had seen him. He walked to the nearest bus stop and boarded the first bus that arrived. It was the 119 to Copacabana. As he rode along the city streets, any thought of what he had just done seemed to have escaped him. When people met his eyes and spoke the words, “Hello, Father,” deferentially, he responded by nodding and smiling sweetly.

  Floating inside the bus just above the head of the priest was the boy who was once called Jesús. He wasn’t quite sure of what he was, or the form he existed in now. He was what humans called a ghost. Jesús did not know why he was a ghost or even why he was floating on the bus, but only that again as before he had followed a command sent to him through a beam of colourful light in his dream path. The ghost Jesús saw the people and felt all of their emotions at the same time. They were hurried, sad, frightened, hurt, confused, envious, happy, proud, evil, all mixed together.

  Jesús turned his eyes towards the priest and saw the colours emanating from the spirits of his soul. They were all blue. All calm and cool and blue.

  “Father,” an old woman said to the priest. “I think we have met before. Is your name Father Benedictus?”

  “No,” said the priest pleasantly, “You must have me confused with someone else. People who know me don’t call me by any name in particular, but I am known as The Man of Heavenly Love.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I waited all morning for Carlinhos to reach out, but no call came. I didn’t have a way to contact Ramón and I hadn’t heard from Vargas who also knew where I was staying. I tried calling back to the IML, but as I expected they had nothing to tell me. And when I asked for Carlinhos directly they said he was off sick. So all I could do was wait. I decided to have the best of both worlds. Stay near the hotel and still take in a few more sights. I had never been to Sugar Loaf which was really nearby, so that’s what I did. From the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, you can see the whole beach front from Flamengo on one side straight down to Leblon on the other. It was one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen.

  I came back down to Botafogo beach and walked around. By then it was around 4:30. I rang my hotel from a payphone for messages, but there was still nothing. I was hoping for a message from Sonia. I’m not even sure what I wanted to say, I just knew I wanted and needed to say something. Even something as trite as I love you. We had broken up, this time it seemed for good, but I was still hopeful that somehow the relationship could be salvaged. A couple times I got the urge to give Jim’s office a call and get them to send a message to him about all the trouble I was having.

  But even as the thought crossed my mind, I knew I wouldn’t do it. Jim had asked me to do this because it was important to him, and he had known
as well as I did that I wasn’t going to let him down. I spent the rest of the afternoon waiting but still no one had called. By 11:30pm, I was tired of waiting so I went to bed. Twenty minutes later I was dreaming about a boy who had bloody stumps for legs. He was walking and singing with the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard. It was like a whole choral arrangement when he sang. I think I recognized the tune as Ave Maria. Then it was as if someone was above my bed and looking down at me and I woke up.

  My head was still foggy as something pushed my gaze toward the window. It was the image of the boy in the dream in silhouette, more like a shadow really but only for a fleeting moment, then he was gone. I shook my head vigorously and looked again toward the window. Nothing. I sat on the side of the bed and drank from the cup of water on the night stand. It had seemed so real.

  Then the phone rang.

  “Hello Mr. Barnett, don’t say my name,” the voice said.

  I instantly recognized it as the voice of Ramón, the man who I had met in the restaurant the night before.

  “Yeah OK.” I said.

  “I found something. I’m going to meet someone tonight who knows something about what we were talking about. I will call you first thing in the morning to let you know what I find out,” he said, then hung up.

  The clock on the nightstand showed t 2:12 am. I figured the morning was soon enough for me to find out, so I happily and peacefully went back to sleep.

  At 5:26am, the phone rang again and I answered it immediately.

  “Mr. Barnett, there is a package for you, just outside your door,” a voice that did not recognize told me and hung up.

  Who in hell’s name had something worth sending so early in the morning? A package no less. I padded to the door on bare feet and opened the door. My eyes immediately went to the small brown package resting on the floor by the doorsill. It was about half the size of a shoe box and wrapped in brown paper with no writing on it. I eyed it suspiciously. My first thought was it could be a bomb. I waited a minute and for some reason decided that it probably wasn’t. I picked the package up, looked at it for a good half minute as lots of thoughts rattled around in my head. I then listened for any ticking and smelled it. Why I couldn’t say. Just instinct I guess. I shook it and then hefted it in my hand. The contents seemed light and harmless enough but I still didn’t feel comfortable. I fashioned a hook from a coat hanger then pulled on my pants and went into the corridor looking for a broom closet. I found one just down the hall and grabbed a broom. Back in my room, I broke the handle from the base of the broom with my leg and then taped the end of the coat hanger to it with duct tape I still always carried when I travelled. I decided exactly how I would open the package, then placed it on the balcony.

  Already the sun was waking up and starting to cast a warming glow over the shore. I placed the bed between me and the package and went to work with the broom handle and hanger. As I carefully manoeuvred the wrapping, the rational side of my mind whispered I was probably being just melodramatic, but I didn’t listen to that part of my mind and kept doing what I was doing. I reasoned it was better to listen to the paranoid side of my mind, than have my balls blown off.

  The box opened without an explosion and I peeled back the layers of tissue paper. Inside was a pair of severed ears, a human tongue and two eyeballs freshly cut from their sockets. I must have stared at the contents for a full minute before I recovered my bearings.

  The first thought that went through my mind was where could I get a gun and the second one was who was the unlucky bastard whose body parts were in the box? Two names ran through my mind, as I placed the box on the top of the dresser. Then the phone rang.

  “Hello, Mr. Barnett. I trust you have looked inside the package. Let this be a warning. Your late friend Ramón did a very stupid thing and went poking his nose into business some people were very unhappy about. If you continue, the same thing that happened to him will happen to you. What Ramón was involved in is not your business. My advice to you is to go home.”

  Then the phone went dead.

  I sat on the bed and tried to think. The man on the phone was a hundred percent right. This wasn’t my business. But on the other hand, I didn’t like people trying to put the fear of God in me either. Maybe Jim’s brother hadn’t been involved on the side of the angels in this business. Maybe he was a dirty journalist who sold his soul to the devil for a story. On the other hand maybe he was alright and got killed trying to do the right thing. But no matter. The man on the phone had told the truth. This wasn’t my business. Common sense was telling me as soon as the airport was open I should call and leave a message for Jim that his brother’s body had disappeared and I was taking the first flight back to the States.

  I tried to get back to sleep but couldn’t for thinking about the box on the dresser.

  Deep in my gut, I was feeling old ghosts starting to stir—ghosts that were crying to be unleashed on the world. My ghosts were habitual and habit is a hard thing to break.

  The thought of Ramón being killed was just one part of it, the other part was the instinct that went with my having been an assassin for fifteen years. My ghosts were calling to me, planting thoughts of devastation and death. But I was determined to ignore them. I fought those demonic thoughts with everything I had and kept telling myself I was happy to be going back to Harlem tomorrow. Just as the bedside clock showed 6:30am I suddenly felt very tired and instantly drifted off to sleep.

  ***

  The boy ghost called Jesús floated to the middle of the room and once again saw the man called Devil Barnett asleep. The man’s spirits glowed peacefully blue and green, aside from a few thoughts that glowed orange in their confusion to seek out answers. The sleeping man’s blue spirits acknowledged his presence and the boy ghost returned their greeting. The ghost floated up to the ceiling and perched himself on the light fixture in the middle of the room. The early morning breeze floated in gently from the Copacabana beach through the cream-coloured linen curtains covering the windows. It slowly moved the air around the light fixture where the boy ghost sat until the fixture began to sway. The movement reminded the boy of a sound so far away it could have been from the time when he wasn’t who he was now. After a few moments the sounds configured and became more familiar. Instinctively Jesús began to hum a melody as he gently swayed in the semi darkness. The melody he hummed was called Ave Maria.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Bam, bam, the sound of knocking at my door, made me jump up. Instinctively. I reached under my pillow for my gun. But it wasn’t there. And for good reason. I was on vacation in Rio, what the hell did I need a gun for? My reaction was just an old habit dying hard.

  “Police, Mr. Barnett, would you open the door?” a muted voice announced through the closed door.

  My eyes instinctively went to the unpleasant package of severed extremities on the dresser. I moved the box from the dresser to under the bed and answered the door.

  Two men stepped inside the room and to my surprise one of them was Luis Vargas, the policeman I had met at the Yoruba restaurant with Ramón. The other was taller, thinner and darker, with a long angular face and eyes set too close together in a way that made him look like the long lost descendent of a rat.

  “This is my partner, detective Vinicius Sangalo. We’re sorry to disturb you so early but we heard something which led us to believe you might be in danger.” Vargas said.

  I was fully awake now. “What did you hear?” I asked.

  “That you have recently received a package from some very dangerous people,” Sangalo said glaring into my face with the traces of a weird smile that would have seemed natural enough if he had been in a lunatic asylum.

  “But why would dangerous people want to have anything to do with me? I’m just a tourist,” I said.

  I decided to play it cautiously because I had no way of knowing who his partner was, or if Vargas had told his partner we had already met. I figured Vargas would eventually give me a hint of how I needed to play it.

  “Rio, like any other city, has its share of criminals,” Vargas said. “In this case there must be some reason they think you might be able to do them harm.”

  “The package, we need to see the package,” Sangalo interrupted in Portuguese as his eyes swept the room and then rested on my face disdainfully.