Beluga was dismissive. “You’re pretty sure? What, you got some scientists who do those tests in your pockets or something? You know nothing.” His voice grew intense. “River, you’re a good guy.” He patted his chest. “You got heart. You stay away from that man.”
River was thoughtful a minute. “I can’t just stay away. He killed someone. He stole a human life.”
Beluga groaned. “Yes. I know he killed someone—several someones,” the big man said, scratching Convict’s head. “I stay away from Tio Amato. He lives in a big house on a little hill right in the city. It has high gates—and a swimming pool and a movie room and a dozen guards. He pretends he does good things, giving money to churches and schools. He gives to the churches so that the padres will let him in and ignore what they know in their hearts—that the money he has comes from selling drugs—bad drugs, heroin, opiates, street mixes with poison—to the young people. He gets them hooked, and they need more drugs. Then Tio Amato has more money and cars and planes—and he sells the drugs in other places. And when people get caught working for him, they know never to say his name because he reaches into the police stations with his money too, and those who would talk against him wind up in ditches—or thrown over bridges. I had friends … friends who were excited to work for him, excited for the money they would make. Friends who believed he was just a rich man who was misunderstood. Maybe they needed to believe that—the poor can be desperate. But these friends I’ve had over the years … some of them just disappeared one day and were never seen again. River, listen to me on this. You stay far away from him, my friend.”
“You want me just to forget that I saw a body dumped? The body of a murdered man?”
“You don’t know what you saw. If you try to report it—you’re dead.”
“Okay, Beluga, I was heading to the little bridge. I heard a splash. I crawled upward on the cliff and looked down and the men were staring over the bridge—and the car’s trunk was open. What do you think?”
“I think you forget what you saw and mind your own business.”
“Come on, there have to be honest police in Rio.”
“There are—but which ones? The ones who are honest would do something—maybe—if they could. They never have anything that will allow them to search Tio Amato’s house, to prove that he sells the worst drugs. That he kills at will. If they ever had proof—which you do not have—they could do something. Look, River, I like you. I want you to live, I want you to draw. Forget this—you’re a foreigner. There’s nothing you can do. There’s definitely nothing you can do with what you have.”
“It’s not … right,” River said.
Beluga was quiet for a minute. “Years ago, I managed a hostel in the city. It was a little place—no pretty land and trees like this, but travelers came and I enjoyed meeting them and seeing them come and go. I could tell them all about Rio de Janeiro, tell them when the best entertainment was going on, what to see, what to do—how to see the magnificent Christ the Redeemer statue at the most beautiful time of day, when the sun rose and the mist cleared.”
River waited for him to go on. After a moment, Beluga shrugged and lifted his hands, stretching them outward in a helpless gesture. “River, Rio is different; Brazil is different. People are the same—we want to live and let live, have children, watch them grow, sleep, eat, and have sex with those we love. But there are the very rich and the very poor. I was born very poor; I grew up hauling and working for others. When I was little, I was shoved out of lines. When I grew up, I learned that the rich expect to be at the front of the line. I worked my way through school as a farmer; I grew up then to box and fight—for the pleasure of the rich. I got tired of fighting for the amusement of others, but I made some money doing it. I had a wife, and she died, and I didn’t want another—but I still loved and needed people around me. I made enough to buy my own business. I’m still a big man,” he said quietly. “A strong man. I felt I no longer had to prove it—or that I had learned about the rich and life. But I made a comment to a tourist, a young fellow, telling him to stay away from the house on the hill. He had come to Rio to party, and he was looking for something more than a drink. He didn’t listen to me—but he must have mentioned my name before he disappeared. I was walking the city a few days later, asking if he had been seen. The next thing I know, five men attacked me in an alley. I hurt them; I can do that. But in the end, I was beaten to a pulp and broken in many places. I’m surprised I was not simply shot—and tossed over a bridge. I learned from that; I stay away from the city and from that man. Do you understand me?”
River listened gravely, thinking that he could not imagine Beluga in the ring; he was so gentle despite his size. He had known Beluga a long time, or so it seemed, or maybe he had just liked him so much that it seemed they had been friends forever. He hadn’t really known much about the man’s past.
He did understand Brazil. Money did matter; money had power.
But he couldn’t accept that money could buy murder; as Beluga had said, the majority of the people were good; they wanted lives filled with enough to eat, good music, and love and happiness.
He also knew that no matter where you were in the world, there were those who were more than willing to hurt others—to kill, even—for their own gain.
“I understand, Beluga. But there must be a way.”
“Not for you, not for me. Don’t you see? It cannot be you. Maybe some government agent who is good and honest will figure out a way to bring him down. All that can happen between you and Tio Amato is that you are hurt and broken—and perhaps tossed in a river yourself. No!” Beluga’s voice changed and he straightened to his full, impressive height. He obviously wanted to change the subject. He tapped on the paper. “Who is this?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“There—that man a bit in the distance.”
River looked at the drawing. At the far side of the bridge—looking up at where he would have been himself—was another man.
He was in casual clothing: jeans, T-shirt, and a hoodie. He wore dark glasses and had sandy hair. Many of the Brazilians were light-skinned—people of German and other European descent were plentiful in the city—so he might have been Brazilian, and he might have been a foreigner.
River didn’t remember sketching him on the paper—and he sure as hell didn’t remember seeing him.
“I don’t know,” River said with a shrug. “Artistic license, I guess.”
“There was no one else on the bridge?”
“No, I passed a woman and a few children as I traveled on in, but I don’t remember seeing another man. I just conjured him out of my imagination.”
Beluga considered him for a moment, brows furrowed. “Maybe it is you, watching him? I like this drawing. I will take it for your stay tonight.”
“You just told me that there might not be room.”
Beluga shrugged. “I’ll find room for you—in the barn or on the back porch of my house. But, no dog.”
Convict whined, setting his nose on Beluga’s lap.
“You’re a dog; you can stay outside,” Beluga told him.