Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 4. Whole No. 245, April 1964

The Photographer and the Policeman by James Holding

The first exploit of The Photographer (“The Photographer and the Undertaker,” in the November 1962 issue of EQMM) was included by Anthony Boucher in his Honor Roll of distinguished mystery short stories published in American magazines during 1962. Now Mr. Holding has turned The Photographer into a series character, and this second exploit is a worthy successor to the first tale of the professional assassin of Brazil, hireling of The Big Ones, who prefers to think of himself by the softer and fancier sobriquet of The Nullifier...

Manuel Andradas didn’t tell his seatmate on the plane that he was going to Lisbon to kill a man.

In fact, being quiet and self-effacing both by preference and for business reasons, he wouldn’t have told his seatmate anything if he could have avoided it. But on the long flight from Rio to Lisbon, his neighbor with the long jaw and friendly eyes quite naturally attempted to strike up a conversation with him on several occasions to relieve the tedium of the journey. One such gambit began, “You are going to Lisbon for pleasure?”

Manual said indifferently, “Not entirely. I am a photographer, Senhor—”

“Verahos,” his neighbor supplied eagerly. “A photographer? Professional, or as a hobby only?”

“Professional. I go to Lisbon to do a photographic essay on that city for the Illustrated Weekly of Rio.”

“Ah! Then you will be able to combine business with pleasure. What a delightful assignment.”

“Yes,” Manuel conceded. He looked from the window of the plane at the cloud cover below them that masked the long Atlantic swells.

Verahos went on cheerfully, “I go to visit my parents who are fisher folk in the village of Cascais above Lisbon on the coast. You know it?”

“No.”

“A charming place to be born in, but not to live one’s whole life in, believe me. I left it for Rio twenty years ago. But now my parents grow old. I wish to see them again before it is too late, you understand. So my father is to meet me at Lisbon in his fishing boat and sail me home to Cascais for my two-week holiday. Thus I shall see nothing of the capital this trip, alas.” He sighed. “A pity, too. For Lisbon is the gayest city in the world — even gayer than our beloved Rio.”

“Indeed,” Manuel said. He closed his eyes. “Will you excuse me, Senhor Verahos, if I take a short nap? I slept poorly last night.”

“Of course,” murmured Verahos, abashed.

Manuel Andradas did not sleep, however. As the plane droned eastward, he was remembering his meeting yesterday with Rodolfo, his contact in Rio with The Corporation, The Big Ones. He had met Rodolfo as usual in the Rua Ouvador near the flower market. They had walked together to a cafe on Avenida Rio Brando, and over an inky cafezhino, Rodolfo has said, “You are lucky this time, Photographer.”

“Lucky?” asked Manuel, unsmiling.

“Assuredly. You go abroad. To our mother country. To Lisboa. You take a pleasure trip.”

“I do not object,” Manuel said. “What is the price?”

With Andradas, the price was always the first consideration; he loved only two things in the world: money and photography, in that order.

Rodolfo’s long thin lips lifted. “Five million,” he said softly, and waited for Manuel’s reaction.

The dull brown eyes of the Photographer flickered momentarily with surprised pleasure. “Five million cruzeiros! It is a handsome fee.” He allowed himself a grin. “Am I to nullify Salazar, then?”

“Not so,” Rodolfo assured him. “The Corporation’s client does not aim that high.”

“Who, then?”

Rodolfo wrote a name and address on the edge of the flimsy menu and turned it for Manuel to see. Manuel committed it to memory while sipping his coffee. Then he nodded. Rodolfo tore the menu into tiny pieces and placed the scraps in his jacket pocket.

“This one should be a challenge to you,” Rodolfo said.

“Why?”

“You will see,” Rodolfo said, and smiled. “You pay your own expenses, of course.”

“Va bem,” Manuel agreed reluctantly. He hated to think of that fine round figure of five million being reduced by even a single cruzeiro. But perhaps he could arrange — “Va bem,” he said again.

They rose. Rodolfo paid for their coffee as he left the cafe. When they shook hands on the avenue, Rodolfo left a thick wad of money in Manuel’s hand. “Half now,” he murmured. “Good luck, Photographer.” He smiled his oily smile and walked away.

Manuel hitched his camera case higher on his shoulder. On the way to the airline office to arrange for his ticket, he stopped at a street stall and had a glass of cashew juice. He liked it better than coffee.

When the plane approached Lisbon and went into its landing pattern, Manuel could see the carpet of beckoning lights that was the city tilting up to meet him. The dark stripe of the Tagus River was tied like a stick to the illuminated balloon of Lisbon. On the bank of the river opposite the city, Manuel could make out a mammoth, spotlighted statue of Christ that seemed to float in midair with gigantic arms outstretched.

His neighbor saw it, too, and nodded happily to Manuel. “It is Christus Redemptor,” he said, “just like ours on Corcovado.”

Manuel said shortly, “I feel at home already.”

He gathered his raincoat, hat, and camera case and made ready to disembark as the plane touched down. With a sense of relief, he said goodbye to Senhor Verahos, found his small suitcase, and was passed efficiently and quickly through the customs shed.

Then he took a taxi into town and registered at the Bahia Hotel, although Senhor Verahos had recommended the new Ritz as gayer and more modern. The Bahia proved to be much like Manuel himself — quiet, reserved, expensive, with a certain mature dignity not to be encountered in the irresponsible young.

He made a hasty toilet in his room, descended to the dining room where he ate a superb dinner, and then, after briefly consulting a map of the city in the foyer, he left the hotel.

The job had begun. And Manuel felt the small thrill of excitement that always accompanied his first step toward fulfilling one of his contracts with The Big Ones.

He found the house easily enough — a solid, square, stone residence in a quiet street not far from Black Horse Square. The tobacconist in a kiosk at the end of the street confirmed that this was the residence of Senhor Alfonso Santos. Manuel did not permit his face to show in the light as he asked his question, and he quickly withdrew as soon as he received his answer.

As a result of his haste, Manuel did not hear what else the tobacconist was telling him about Senhor Santos, or he would have known that first night in Lisbon why Rodolfo, back in Rio, had smiled when he wished Manuel good luck. As it turned out, Manuel did not discover until the next day that the man he had been hired to “nullify” was Lisbon’s Commandant of Police.

Manuel found this a pretty piece of irony; but he was in no way deterred from proceeding with his assignment. He hired a tiny car through an agency at his hotel. With its aid, once he had marked down his man, he followed Senhor Alfonso Santos about like a faithful dog for two days and nights, observing his habits, studying his movements.

By the end of the second night of surveillance, Manuel was convinced of one fact: he could never, in the ordinary course of events, find Santos alone for long enough to nullify him safely — that is, without prejudicing Manuel’s own safety. For Commandant Santos never went anywhere alone. To be sure, when he rode home at night from headquarters in his bullet-proof car, only a single uniformed policeman was with him — his chauffeur. But the chauffeur-policeman slept at Santos’ house and drove him to the office again next morning.

Manuel wondered if the chauffeur were also present when Senhor Santos made love to his beautiful wife. For even Manuel, who was insensitive to such things, acknowledged that Santos had a beautiful wife. She greeted the Commandant fondly each evening in the doorway of their home, and kissed him fondly each morning when he departed for work.

Ah, well, Manuel philosophized, a Commandant of Police must be very careful, I suppose. A great many people want to kill him, no doubt. I am not alone in this desire, certainly. So if I cannot get to him, it is evident I must bring him to me. But how?

In the end Manuel found the answer in the telephone directory. Although the name Alfonso Santos was not an overly common one, there were two other men of the same name listed in the city book. One of them, a young bank clerk living alone in a rented room, was brutally awakened that night by sinewy hands around his throat, choking out his life.

Shocked and terrified, the poor fellow struggled desperately when he became aware, though still half asleep, of what was happening to him. He tore at the constricting fingers of his assailant, loosening them enough to gasp, “Stop! Stop! You will kill me!”

“Exactly, Alfonso Santos, Commandant of Police!” a muffled voice whispered back at him from the black void above the choking hands. “Of course I will kill you. For five million I would kill my own brother.” The fingers tightened again.

“Wait!” the bank clerk managed to gurgle through his painfully compressed throat. “You have the wrong man! I am Alfonso Santos, yes. But not Alfonso Santos, the Commandant of Police! I am a bank clerk only! Please, Senhor, I beg you!”

“What?” the voice asked incredulously, the fingers loosening a trifle. “There are two men in Lisbon of that name?”

“Yes! Yes! You want the important one, not me! I am sure of it!”

“I, too, am sure of it now, God knows.” Almost absent-mindedly the fingers loosened still more. “Such a spineless one as you could not be a policeman, that is certain! I am a fool who needs spectacles to read addresses correctly! What will The Big Ones in Rio say when they hear that Verahos has killed the wrong man? A mere bank clerk!”

The unseen stranger spat in disgust. Then he said grimly, “Ah, well, it is a pity, but you must die nevertheless. I cannot let you go now, you understand.”

This time, when the fingers tightened, they were like wire strands. The man on the bed struggled madly. In a moment he collapsed and lay still, the coverlet tangled around his legs.

This was not, however, because he had been strangled. It was because Manuel’s clever ruthless thumbs, pretending to choke in earnest, had pressed heavily down against his victim’s carotid sinuses at the base of the throat, cutting off the blood supply to the brain.

Alfonso Santos, the bank clerk, was unconscious, certainly. But he was far from dead. He would emerge from his nightmare experience with nothing worse than a sore throat.

Manuel dropped a small scrap of paper beside the bed and silently crept through an open window to the alley outside. He returned to his hotel in his rented car, and slept very well indeed for the remainder of the night.

The next morning he set about earning the respectable fee promised him by the Illustrated Weekly of Rio for a picture story of Lisbon. He took unusual pleasure in the job not only because of its photographic challenge, but also because his fee for the pictures — hastily negotiated with the magazine after he discovered he was coming to Lisbon — would pay the “expenses” of his other assignment, thus protecting from diminution the splendid sum of five million cruzeiros he would earn for nullifying Alfonso Santos.

Using a variety of equipment, he took pictures, both in black and white and in color, of Lisbon’s most photogenic scenes: public buildings, municipal parks, Belem tower, Black Horse Square, the panorama from the Castle of St. George, the Royal Palace, the Coach Museum. He motored out to Estoril and took photographs of the Casino there, and the magnificent flower gardens that led to it. He recorded on film the fairy tale Pena Palace on its soaring peak. For two days he forgot Alfonso Santos entirely.

On the afternoon of the second day he returned to his hotel to find a uniformed policeman awaiting him in the lobby. The policeman, quite politely but very firmly, asked Manuel if he would be so good as to come to Police Headquarters for a small half hour. It was thought that he could perhaps assist the police in a certain matter.

Manuel made a show of impatience and anger at being so summarily ordered to waste his afternoon, but he accompanied the policeman to headquarters nevertheless. There he was ushered immediately into the presence of the Commandant, Alfonso Santos. This Santos, seen close-up, was a rather impressive man — large, broad-shouldered, middle-aged, but carefully controlled as to his waistline, and with a no-nonsense manner and a bushy mustache that hid the corners of his mouth.

When Manuel was seated in his spacious office, and the policeman had left, the Commandant said, “You are Manuel Andradas from Rio de Janeiro?”

Manuel nodded. “I am. Please tell me how I can serve you, Senhor.” Santos ignored that. “You came to Lisbon by plane five days ago?”

“Yes.”

“So your papers show,” the Commandant said, “and our customs records at the airport.”

Ah, Manuel smiled to himself, he desires me to know I cannot lie to him because he knows all about me.

As though this were indeed the purpose of his brusque opening remarks, Santos now assumed a more friendly and confidential manner. “Senhor Andradas,” he said, “I have here a passenger list of Flight 1703 — Rio to Lisbon — on the Portuguese Airlines for five days ago. It bears your name for Seat 14. And beside you, in Seat 15, it bears the name of a Senhor Salvador Verahos.”

Manuel nodded again.

Santos leaned forward. “It is concerning Senhor Verahos we wish to inquire of you.”

“Has something happened to him?”

“He has disappeared. And we would like very much to find him. In conversation with you during the flight, did he by any chance mention his plans when he got to Lisbon?”

“No,” Manuel replied thoughtfully.

“Not even a hint of what he meant to do, where he meant to go, on reaching Portugal?”

“Not even a hint. May I ask why?”

“You may ask.” The Commandant sat back with a sigh of frustration and said, “We have reason to believe Senhor Verahos was sent to Lisbon to kill me.”

Manuel started. “To kill you!”

“It sounds fantastic, I know. But that would seem to be the case.” Manuel made a sympathetic clucking sound. “I do not understand.”

“This Verahos throttled a man two nights ago who bears the same name as mine. But before he completed the throttling, he discovered he was choking the wrong man. It was I, the Commandant of Police, whom he had been hired to kill for five million.”

“Escudos?” asked Manuel in awe.

Santos smiled. “Probably not. Cruzeiros, more likely, since the assassin was hired in Rio.”

“Even so,” Manuel said with respect, “five million is a nice sum.”

The Commandant said sardonically, “It is, of course, flattering to be valued so highly. But you can see why I am anxious to find Verahos. I have talked with Rio on the telephone. They were of no help. Verahos’ destination? Lisbon, they say. His background? A farm machinery salesman, respectable, travels constantly throughout Brazil, but no known close friends or relatives there. Here, his papers were in order, and he smuggled nothing through customs. Yet all trace of him vanished when he left the airport — except for his attempted murder of my namesake.” The Commandant paused.

“Attempted murder?” said Manuel. “I thought the other Santos was throttled?”

“His victim, with my name, did not die, thanks to God. Verahos left him for dead, it is true. But he recovered. And naturally reported the incident to me, since I seemed to be the intended victim. In his chagrin at attacking the wrong man, Santos reports that Verahos mentioned his name, Rio, and the amount of his blood money.”

“How did you know he sat next to me on Flight 1703?” Manuel allowed wonderment in a reasonable degree to creep into his tone.

“While strangling Alfonso Santos, the wrong one, he unwittingly dropped a torn scrap of an airline envelope. It showed the flight number. That was sufficient for us.”

“You work fast. Two days.”

“Please to think back, Senhor Andradas. You are my last hope,” the Commandant said urgently. “Surely Verahos made conversation with you on the flight? It is a long one.”

“I slept most of the way. I am sorry. For the rest, we talked of nothing but Lisbon. He knew the city. I had never been here. You see?”

“It cannot be helped. As a photographer on assignment, you wanted to learn all you could, eh?”

“You know that also?”

“Naturally. We asked Rio about you, too. But tell me.” A baffled expression crossed Santos’ face. “Have you ever heard of anyone in Brazil called The Big Ones?”

“The Big Ones?” Manuel’s voice dropped with sudden uneasiness. “Who has mentioned The Big Ones?”

“Verahos. Have you heard of them?”

“Yes, Commandant, I have. Nothing clear and certain, you understand — gossip and rumor only. You know? The Big Ones are also called sometimes The Corporation, I believe.” Manuel spread his hands. “Did not Rio inform you of this?”

“They disclaimed any knowledge of it.”

“From fear, perhaps. Deny the existence of anything you fear, eh?”

“Who are The Big Ones, Andradas?”

“You know of the Mafia organization, Senhor? The Syndicate in America? The Big Ones are rumored to be its Brazilian counterpart.”

For a moment Santos said nothing, although his eyes widened. “Why would The Big Ones, in Rio, send a man to kill me?” he asked then. “I did not even know of their existence. Surely I offer no possible threat to them.”

Manuel hesitated. “I have heard it said in Rio that The Big Ones, for a stipulated price, will assign one of their professional assassins to accommodate a client.”

“You think this Verahos might be such an assassin? A machinery salesman?”

“Who knows? It is believed in Rio that a respectable mortician was one of their killers for a time. Why not a machinery salesman?”

“But why kill me?” Santos returned to the central question.

Manuel shrugged. “Are you wealthy?” he asked lightly, smiling to rob the question of its insolence. “Is there someone in Brazil who might wish to hasten your departure from this life? There are many possibilities.”

In a tone of sudden shocked realization Santos muttered, “My stepson?” Manuel found himself thinking of the Commandant’s beautiful wife. But he resolutely turned his thoughts elsewhere. He preferred not to know the reasons behind his “nullifications.”

The Commandant smacked a hand on his desk in sudden anger. “Oh, if I could but find this assassin, Verahos!” He grimaced. “I could learn...” His voice trailed off. “We do not even have an adequate description of this man,” he said then, “except for a vague one from the airline hostess and that would fit a thousand men. Can you help us there?”

Manuel sat forward with a smile. He said quietly, “Would a photograph of Verahos help you, Senhor? I have one, I believe. A black and white.”

“A photograph!” Santos’ eyes became almost incandescent with eagerness.

Manuel tapped his camera case. “Right here. But undeveloped. I took an atmosphere shot of passengers embarking on Flight 1703 before we left Rio — for my article, you understand. If I am not mistaken, Senhor Verahos, my seat-mate, was in it.”

“Give me that film!” Santos said peremptorily.

“Not so, with permission,” Manuel protested. “I trust no man to develop my films but myself.”

“Then develop that film immediately. Why didn’t you tell me you had it?” Santos pressed a button on his desk. “Fernando,” he told the policeman who appeared, “take this man to our photographer’s dark room at once.”

As Manuel rose to follow the policeman, he said, “If the picture is good, Senhor, I could make many prints of it for your men to use. Also, you could cause it to be published in the city’s newspapers. And perhaps offer a substantial reward for information—”

“Allow me to know my own business,” Santos snapped. Then he softened. “I owe you a thousand thanks, Senhor Andradas. If your picture is a good one, it should solve our problem. Providing, of course, Verahos is still in Lisbon. Which he must be, if he plans to kill me, eh?”

Manuel bowed and followed his guide from the room.

The following day’s newspapers carried a large photograph of Verahos’ face, obviously blown up from Manuel’s group picture of the airplane passengers. He was cryptically labeled “an enemy of the state” in the caption, and a reward of twenty thousand escudos was offered for information leading to his apprehension.

Manuel grinned, his dull eyes momentarily brighter. After a leisurely breakfast he packed his bag, returned his rented car, picked up a seat on the noon plane for Rio at the airline office, then checked his bag and camera case in a public locker just at the top of Avenida da Liberdade outside the Parque Eduardo VII wherein lies Lisbon’s famous botanical garden, the Estufa Fria.

This enormous conservatory, filled with a riotous profusion of flowers, plants, ferns, and trees, is provided with a roof of horizontal lattices of wood to control the sunlight that enters. Its sweet-smelling interior is honeycombed with tiny winding paths, with hanging galleries amid the greenery, with murmuring fountains and arched bridges. In the park outside, white peacocks strut, swans float on a pond in noble dignity. Manuel had photographed it all two days before.

By eleven o’clock he had seen several groups of visitors enter the conservatory. Only then did Manuel walk to a telephone outside the grounds and put in a call for Alfonso Santos, Commandant of Police. Stubbornly he insisted to four different voices at headquarters that he must speak to Santos personally, on a matter connected with the “picture in the newspaper this morning.” This magic phrase ultimately brought Santos himself on the line.

“Senhor Commandant?” asked Manuel through his handkerchief.

“Yes, yes. What is it about the picture in the paper? Have you seen the man?”

“Yes, your honor. I have seen him. And I know where he is at this moment.”

“Where?” asked Santos in the rather bored voice of a man who has already run down a hundred false leads.

“About the reward,” Manuel said ingratiatingly. “I am a poor man, your honor. A cutter of grass and pruner of bushes—”

Santos interrupted. “If you have found the man we want, you shall have the reward. Where is he?”

Manuel whined, “Rewards are often forgotten after the criminal is caught. Will you give me your word, Senhor Commandant, as an honest gentleman, that you will personally bring the reward for me when you come to arrest the man I have located for you?”

“You have my word, fool!” Santos ground out impatiently. “Now where is he, in God’s name?”

“He has but a moment ago gone into the Estufa Fria,” Manuel said. “I am Campo, a gardener there, sir. I was picking up a discarded newspaper just now and saw the picture of the criminal in it. When I looked up from the paper, I saw the very man himself! Dios! It was a true miracle! Twenty thousand escudos! When he saw me look from the newspaper picture to him, he hurried into the conservatory. I swear it. He is still there. Come quickly with your men. And your honor—”

“What?” Manuel could hear Santos shouting orders in his office.

“Do not fail to bring my reward, if you please. You gave your word. Campo, remember the name, sir. I shall make myself known to you after you capture this dangerous enemy.”

Manuel permitted himself a faint smile as he left the telephone booth. He paid an admission at the gate of the Estufa Fria and disappeared inside to await the arrival of Santos and his men. He concealed himself behind the fat fronds of a large banana tree near a fountain close to the entrance.

He had chosen well. For when the police arrived — eight of them including the chauffeur-bodyguard who drove Santos’ car — Commandant Santos selected the fountain clearing in the green jungle as his command post. His men were ordered to fan out and comb the byways and galleries of the gardens; to screen the wandering tourists in the conservatory as unobtrusively as possible for the wanted assassin, Verahos.

Commandant Santos himself, with his personal bodyguard, stayed by the fountain to await results and to prevent anyone from leaving the place until the search had ended. The bodyguard kept a hand on the flap of the pistol holster at his belt while his eyes shuttled warily this way and that — ostentatiously looking for danger like a clown in a carnival, Manuel thought.

Silently, Manuel took from his pocket a plastic tube about four inches in length. He removed from it a device that looked for all the world like a feathered dart except for an odd plunger arrangement on its weighted forward end where the needle was. It was a weapon of Manuel’s own design and he was quite proud of it. With unaccustomed whimsicality, but with perfect logic, he called it his “sleep gun.” For the dart contained 100 c.c.’s of a potent liquid tranquilizer which, when the dart penetrated a living target, was forcefully ejected into the body from the hollow needle.

Manuel stepped from his concealment long enough to throw this dart, with a powerful overhand jerk of his forearm, at the broad back of Santos’ bodyguard half a dozen paces away. Then he melted behind his banana tree once more.

He heard an exclamation from the bodyguard, a sort of choked-off grunt. Peering through the leaves, he saw the man reach frantically behind him to explore the cause of this sudden stab of pain, and in the same motion, spin around to face Manuel’s hiding place. Santos turned, too, at his bodyguard’s exclamation, and regarded the men with surprise.

“What’s wrong?” the Commandant asked sharply.

“Something stung me,” the man replied, puzzled but not yet alarmed. He brought from behind his back, with a hand already noticeably slow and lethargic, the dart he had plucked from his flesh.

“What is that?”

“A... a dart,” the man began, speaking somewhat thickly. Then awareness seemed to hold him for a moment. He said, “My Commandant, I beg you, look to yourself...” just as the full effects of the tranquilizer hit him and he collapsed comfortably to the stone paving, sighing as contentedly as a drowsy baby. His eyes closed.

“Dio!” Santos murmured in utter bewilderment. He bent over his companion anxiously, unconscious for the moment of his own peril.

The water of the fountain made a faint tinkling sound as it fell into its stone basin. So Santos did not hear the slight scrape of shoe on stone as Manuel took five long, quick strides from behind the banana plant, placed hands like iron clamps around Santos’ throat, and squeezed with paralyzing strength.

In a mere ten seconds the wildly threshing body of the policeman had been dragged silently out of sight up a little pathway. And when Santos was no longer capable of crying out, Manuel drew back his stiffened right hand and delivered the fatal blow efficiently and silently to the side of Santos’ neck, just under ear and hairline.

The Commandant crumpled to the path bonelessly. After a quick look around, to make sure he was still unobserved, Manuel withdrew from his pocket his Minox camera and photographed Santos’ face, close-up. The spark of the tiny flashbulb was no more noticeable in the slatted sunshine of the conservatory than a bird flying across the latticed roof.

Then, with a sense of pleasant anticipation, Manuel stooped and felt in the breast pocket of Santos’ uniform. He nodded. Yes, Santos was indeed an honest man. The reward money for a poor gardener named Campo was there.

When Santos’ body was found in the Estufa Fria, Manuel was already in a taxi on his way to the airport, with his “sleep gun” dart safely restored to its tube in his pocket.

Two days later, over a beer in a café on Corcovado, with the Christo Redemptor looming above them, Rodolfo said to Manuel, “So, Photographer, your first failure. This time, you were beaten to the prize, eh? I was sorry to hear of it.”

“Failure?” Manuel returned equably. “I did not fail, Rodolfo.”

He handed Rodolfo an enlargement of the miniature Minox picture he had taken of Commandant Santos in the Estufa Fria. Plainly visible in the photograph were the unmistakable signs of death: contorted, congested face, bulging eyes staring at nothing, cruel contusions on the policeman’s neck.

“Does he look alive and well?” asked. Manuel with heavy sarcasm. “And could I take this photograph of him if I were not there?”

Rodolfo examined the picture. He said “The radio reported that he was killed by an enemy of the state — a Brazilian from Rio named Salvador Verahos. A wanted man, known to have been in the conservatory when the Commandant arrived. A desperate man who disabled a bodyguard by some magic, killed the policeman under the noses of his men, stole money from his body, and somehow escaped after his murderous attack.” Rodolfo lifted his head. “This is not speculation, Photographer. This is fact. The authorities in Lisbon even have a photograph of the murderer, this Verahos. How do you explain this?”

“I do not explain,” said Manuel. “I merely suggest that you present your client with my proof.” He nodded at the photograph of Santos. “And have the other half of my money for me tomorrow.”

“What about this Verahos?”

“Ah,” said Manuel, clicking his tongue against his teeth in deprecation, “it is men like Verahos who give Brazil a bad name abroad, is it not?”

Looking across the table into Manuel’s muddy, unsmiling eyes, even Rodolfo, the emissary of The Big Ones, felt a small bead of fear roll between his shoulder blades. But only for a moment. He picked up the photograph of the dead Santos and rose. “Very well,” he said. “Until tomorrow, then.”

Manuel nodded and finished his beer. “Did the radio say,” he asked Rodolfo then, “that there is a reward offered for Verahos?”

“Of course. He is, after all, an enemy of the state. And a known murderer. They want him more now than ever.” Rodolfo paused. “Why do you ask?”

A gleam came into Manuel’s carefully lowered eyes. “Because,” he said quietly, “if there is a reward, I shall write and claim it. For I can tell them where to find this Verahos.”