Requiem for a Killer Read Online Free Page A

I’ve changed too, maybe not willingly, but I’ve
changed. Since then unbridled capitalism and globalization have
imposed themselves in such a crushing manner that they’ve made me
see that those ideas of equality, of a strong and centralizing
government that owns the bulk of the land, banks, natural resources
and industry were no more than an ideal that could never be
achieved. It took me a long time to see that our fight was akin to
Dom Quixote jousting against the windmill. Time gave us a cold
shower of reality.”
    This woman was well acquainted with the
ideology she advocated and showed herself to be much more
enlightened than she had at first appeared to be.
    “And what do you believe in today?”
    “Inspector Dornelas!”
    “Joaquim, please.”
    That professorial tone, typical of
card-carrying communists who thought they had all the answers was
beginning to annoy him.
    “Joaquim, I’m sorry. Today I try to look for
social equality within a market economy, if that’s possible. You
know, we live in such a socially unjust world…The rich pay less tax
than the poor, the sick die waiting in line at the hospitals,
children leave school without understanding even one page of what
they read. It’s like they say: functional illiterates. We need to
do something!”
    Marina Rivera sounded like she was
campaigning for public office. Dornelas considered reminding her
that she already held one when he was interrupted by an obese man
barging into the room while knocking on the open door.
    “Am I interrupting something?”
    “Nildo!” she said enthusiastically while
getting up from her chair. Dornelas followed suit and shook the
councilman’s hand.
    “I’m sorry I’m late. I had to go by Peixe
Dourado. One of our refrigeration units broke down and we had to
transfer half a ton of fish to another one, otherwise we would have
lost everything. Would’ve been a tremendous loss. My brother only
took over running the business recently and he’s still not familiar
with our procedures.”
    Nildo Borges owned Peixe Dourado, the
largest fishing company in Palmyra. His business spread its
tentacles to almost all areas of the fishing industry: production,
processing, resale, both in and beyond the city, as well as doing
some exporting.
    In order to take his seat as a councilman,
Nildo had placed his brother Wilson in charge of the business. That
way he could dedicate more of his time to public service,
participate in the city’s important decisions and voting issues and
stop handing over free ammunition to the opposition. However, it
wasn’t uncommon for him to be absent from the Council taking care
of private business that required his presence; fundamental issues,
as he would say.
    There were rumors that he and his company
benefitted from his political position. Although many tried, no one
was ever able to prove anything that incriminated him. It could
only be one of two things: either Nildo Borges was an example of
integrity, or he was a Harry Houdini in the way he was able to
dodge investigations that, according to the word on the street,
were all settled by under-the-table agreements and give-and-take
deals. He turned to Dornelas.
    “Shall we talk in my office, Inspector?” he
turned back to Marina. “We’ll talk soon.” Dornelas caught the wink
he threw in her direction and was once again intrigued.
    While he followed him and sat down in front
of a big, littered desk, Dornelas puzzled over the relationship
between the two, which seemed to have evolved from a student
friendship into something bigger, some kind of close association
that was difficult to define.
    Nildo Borges closed the door behind him,
took off his jacket, hung it on a hook on the wall and fell into a
reclining chair; Dornelas feared for its hinges.
    “How unfortunate for the man in the
mangrove, don’t you think Inspector?” he asked rhetorically while
running his hands through his black and shiny gelled hair, like
Vito Corleone in the The