Dead Heat Read Free Page B

something?’
    ‘No thanks, I’m all done with today.’
    Paz says nothing for a long minute.
    ‘You did what you had to do, Carvalho. You know that, right?’
    I look across at her.
    ‘It’s easy to justify,’ I tell her. ‘Harder to live with.’
    She drives another mile without saying a word. She grabs a box of Belmonts from the dashboard, pulls one out with her teeth and then offers me the pack, even though she knows I don’t smoke.
    ‘I’m fine.’
    Paz looks across at me.
    ‘Are you?’
    Her voice is unusually soft, but before she can follow up, her phone bleeps. She shifts in her seat and pulls her phone from her back pocket. She holds it up and tries to read the text as she drives, and the car instantly veers towards the kerb.
    ‘I hate it when you do that,’ I tell her, and she shrugs, which is as close to an apology as I’m going to get. She hands me the phone and turns her eyes back on the road. She looks tired. It’s been a long day.
    ‘It’s from Vivo Movel,’ I tell her. ‘Gilmore’s phone records. He didn’t call the number we found at the apartment, but he rang another athlete last night.’
    Paz glances over impatiently.
    ‘Lucas Meyer. A South African wrestler. Heard of him?’
    Paz shakes her head.
    ‘Do you think he was involved in trying to kill the President?’
    ‘If Gilmore had told anyone what he was planning, they would have told him it was a hopeless idea. So no, I don’t imagine Meyer was involved. He can wait until the morning.’
    Paz rolls the Fiat to a halt on the kerb outside my house. Felipe is in the window waiting for her.
    ‘You’d better be right,’ Paz says. ‘Because otherwise I’m going to be retiring at the same time as you.’

PART 2
LUCAS MEYER

CHAPTER 6
    I’VE PLAYED FRIDAY-NIGHT dominoes with Igor Morales in the back room here at Casas Pedro for the past twenty years, and I have been meeting Vitoria Paz here since the day she became my partner. This morning the old bar is full of worn-out partygoers, and it smells of last night’s beer. I take a coffee outside to a bright-red plastic chair that rocks on the uneven pavement when I sit.
    The bar is hidden in the labyrinth of streets behind the Botafogo high-rises, and most of the drinkers here are Brazilians who know how to party. Some of the women still have green-and-gold paint streaked across their faces. The TV is showing pictures of the opening ceremony, and pictures of Tim Gilmore being dragged into an ambulance at the back of the Maracanã. It’s not a great start to the day. I stir my coffee and mull over the events of the previous night. If I hadn’t shot Gilmore, somebody else would have done the job. And if nobody else had done the job, the President would be dead.
    None of it makes me feel any better.
    I’m halfway down the coffee when Paz slips into the seat in front of me, the red plastic legs scraping their complaint on therough pavement. Her dark complexion can’t hide the rings under her eyes and she lets out a long sigh. She looks pretty much how I feel.
    ‘Problem?’
    She waves towards the bar, calling for coffee.
    ‘Not especially,’ she says, avoiding my eye.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘You want the good news or the bad news?’
    ‘Always start with the bad.’
    Paz is about to speak when the barman arrives. She orders the same mud-thick coffee as me, then shifts back in her chair and runs a hand through her mop of spiralling hair.
    ‘Captain’s not too happy.’
    I shrug. That’s nothing new.
    ‘He’s getting a lot of heat.’
    Despite the gloom, I laugh. I am genuinely surprised at his naivety.
    ‘What the hell did he expect?’
    Paz’s coffee arrives and she flashes the barman her broad smile. He melts for a moment, before backing away and stumbling into a plastic chair. Paz’s smile drops as she turns back to me.
    ‘He says you’d be suspended right now, if it wasn’t for the President stepping in.’
    I fold my copy of O Globo and place my empty coffee cup on