Blood of the Wicked Read Online Free PDF

any good at all, but she was unable to dwell upon anything else.
    For three months, she cried day and night. Then she ingested twenty of the sleeping pills she’d been hoarding. Silva laid her to rest in the family crypt, turned his back on a legal career, and joined the Federal Police.

Chapter Four
    MARIO SI LVA’S TRAINING AT the Federal Police Academy took seven months. He graduated first in his class and was assigned to the field office in Rio de Janeiro, working drug control.
    That kept him busy for five days out of every week. The other two he spent in São Paulo, a 45-minute flight away. Partly, it was to pursue his courtship of Irene, but mostly it was to follow up on what he then considered to be his best lead. His mother’s wristwatch had vanished along with the rest of her jewelry. It was a Patek Phillippe in yellow gold, unusual anywhere, unique because of the inscription on the back of the case:
    To Carla,
Who enriches my autumn
As she enriched my springtime.
            Mario
    Mario had also been his father’s name.
    Canvassing all of the jewelry stores in São Paulo was a big job. There were thousands of them and some, no doubt, specialized in stolen goods. He thought it best to represent himself as a potential buyer, not a cop. After months of disappointment, Silva no longer felt a surge of adrenaline when he saw a watch that resembled his mother’s until the day he turned one over and found his father’s words staring up at him.
    It was the end of November, 1979. His mother had been dead for ten months.
    “If she’s Clara, and you’re Mario, this is definitely the watch for you,” the man behind the counter said, pushing the sale, trying to make a joke of the inscription.
    He had buck teeth and was young, too young to own the place. He wore an expensive black suit and a silk tie covered with little butterflies. Silva, who’d pegged him as the business’s heir apparent, didn’t reply, didn’t even smile. He just kept staring at the watch, running his thumb over the words on the back of the case.
    The clerk continued his pitch. “I’ve got to be honest with you. We considered polishing it off, but the engraving is too deep. That’s why it’s such a good deal. Do you have any idea what one of these things costs when it’s new?”
    He was distinctly displeased when Silva produced his warrant card and demanded to know how the watch had wound up in the shop.
    THE YOUNG man’s father, as Silva had suspected, owned the place. He wasn’t particularly surprised to be told that the watch was stolen, and his previous experience with such things had taught him to keep meticulous records of his sources.
    The trail led to a pawnshop near the center of town. It was a place with a frontage no more than four meters wide, but it was at least twenty deep, and stuffed with everything from musical instruments to household appliances.
    “Sure, I remember it,” the pawnbroker told Silva. He was a little man with a bald pate, a shock of surrounding white hair, wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a denim vest. “One of the best deals I ever made. The guy had no idea what it was worth. I didn’t figure he was coming back, and he didn’t, but I kept it for the full ninety days anyway.”
    “Why did you think he wasn’t going to come back?”
    The owner hesitated. “I just didn’t,” he said, avoiding Silva’s eyes.
    The man in the vest knew more than he was telling.
    “You got a name? An address?”
    “Sure. It’s the law, right?”
    According to the man’s records, the watch had come into his possession five days after the murder. Still, Silva didn’t get his hopes up. The address was probably false.
    First, he thought, he’d go check it out. Then he’d come back and squeeze the pawnbroker for whatever else he knew.
    An outdated map of the city, and two stops to ask for directions, brought Silva to a little street in the working-class suburb of São Caetano.
    The house was identical to the