The Silence of the Rain by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza

Author:Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza [Garcia-Roza, Luiz Alfredo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-46685-030-9
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2002-11-05T16:00:00+00:00

2

“I would prefer not to,” Bartleby the scrivener repeated calmly and peacefully to his boss and protector. Me neither: I would prefer not to. I’d prefer, on Monday morning, not have to go to the station, not have to attend the release of all the rowdy drunks, transvestites, pickpockets, tough guys, hookers, and junkies. I’d rather not have to fill out useless forms or write reports as an expression of police incompetence. I’d rather, when I meet a pretty woman, not have to start out with the ominous line: “I’m Inspector Espinosa from the First Precinct.”

It so happens that my boss will never hear the sentence “I would prefer not to,” especially not from my mouth. In high spirits I headed to work on Monday morning. The rain from the day before was still coming down, mistier and more insistent, dampening the soul more than the body.

Welber filled me in on the details involving his frustrated attempts to find Max. He had disappeared with all his belongings. There was nothing left in the room in Méier. His sister didn’t even know that he wasn’t home. Max had vanished without leaving any clue as to where he was going. Nothing he’d said to his sister suggested that he’d disappear like that. I was starting to believe it had been idiotic to leave him alone. Either I’d completely misjudged him or something had happened between the day he was released and Saturday that made him break the deal I’d made with him. Bums don’t usually break deals with the police—they know they won’t have a second chance.

I didn’t believe that both crimes had been committed by the same person, even though I was sure they were related. In fact, they had only one detail in common: there were no fingerprints besides those of the victims themselves. If my suspicions were correct, we were dealing not with one but with two murderers—which didn’t help brighten my Monday morning.

It would have been hard for Max to go to a different city. He was a rat in the mazes of Rio de Janeiro; he wouldn’t feel right in a different environment. He was hidden somewhere in the city, and eventually he’d have to stick his neck out. The fact was that Max hadn’t seemed inclined to flee, and, in that case, someone—I didn’t have any idea who—was killing and disappearing people.

The morning passed without event. Before people started cracking jokes about how we’d released the principal suspect, I put Welber in charge of activating our webs of informants to help find Max. He was probably holed up in some fleabag hotel. I ordered a Big Mac and a milkshake from the McDonald’s on the other side of the plaza and sat around waiting for some kind of inspiration that would change the direction of the investigation. “Change the direction” was a euphemism. We weren’t going anywhere. Cops in American movies didn’t have to feel so helpless. The medical experts practically solved it for the detective, who just had to wander the streets of New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles.

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