The Martini Shot by George Pelecanos Page A

another ten immediately and quickly replacing it in his own pocket. He touched the photograph, then pointed to the striped folding chair near the wall to let the Rasta know where he could find him. The Rasta nodded, then smiled again, making a V with his fingers and touching his lips, blowing out with an exaggerated exhale.
    â€œFumo?” the Rasta said.
    â€œNão fumo,” Moreno said, jabbing his finger at the photograph once more before he left.
    Moreno crossed the road and found the old man at the edge of the market. He replayed the same proposition with the man. The man never looked at Moreno, though he accepted the ten and slid it and the photograph into the breast pocket of his eggplant-colored shirt. In the dying afternoon light, Moreno could not read a thing in the man’s black pupils.
    As Moreno turned to cross the street, the old man said in Portuguese, “You will return?”
    Moreno said, “Amanhã,” and walked away.
    On the way back to his place, Moreno stopped at a food stand—little more than a screened-in shack on the beach road—and drank a cold Brahma beer. Afterward, he walked back along the beach, now lit by streetlamps in the dusk. A girl of less than twenty with a lovely mouth smiled as she passed his way, her hair fanning out in the wind. Moreno felt a brief pulse in his breastbone, remembering just then that he had not been with a woman for a very long time.
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    It was this forgotten need for a woman, Moreno decided, as he watched his maid, Sonya, prepare breakfast the next morning in her surf shorts and T-shirt, that had thrown off his rhythms in Brazil. He would have to remedy that, while of course expending as little energy as possible in the hunt. First things first, which was to check on his informants in the center of Boa Viagem.
    He was there within the hour, seated on his striped folding chair, on a day when the sun came through high, rapidly moving clouds. His men were there, too: the Rasta on the wall and the old man at the edge of the market. Moreno had an active swim in the warm Atlantic early in the afternoon, going out beyond the reef, then returned to his seat and ordered a beer. By the time the vendor served it, the old man with the Indian features was moving across the sand toward Moreno’s chair.
    â€œBoa tarde,” Moreno said, squinting up in the sun.
    The old man pointed across the road, toward an outdoor café that led to an enclosed bar and restaurant. A middle-aged man and a young woman were walking across the patio toward the open glass doors of the bar.
    â€œBom,” Moreno said, handing the old man the promised ten from his knapsack. He left one hundred and twenty thousand cruzeiros beneath the full bottle of beer, gestured to the old man to sit and drink it, put his knapsack over his shoulder, and took the stone steps from the beach up to the street. The old man sat in the striped folding chair without a word.
    Moreno crossed the street with caution, looking back to catch a glimpse of the brown Rasta sitting on the wall. The Rasta stared unsmiling at Moreno, knowing he had lost. Moreno was secretly glad it had been the old man, who had reminded him of his own father. Moreno had not thought of his long-dead father or even seen him in his dreams for some time.
    Moreno entered the restaurant. There were few patrons, and all of them, including the middle-aged man and this woman, sat at a long mahogany bar. Moreno took a chair near an open window. He leaned his elbow on the ledge of the window and drummed his fingers against the wood to the florid music coming from the restaurant. The bartender, a stocky man with a great belly that plunged over the belt of his trousers, came from behind the bar and walked toward Moreno’s table.
    â€œCervejas,” Moreno said, holding up three fingers pressed together to signify a tall one. The bartender stopped in his tracks, turned, and headed back behind the bar.
    Moreno drank