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the next to the last villa on the right. You’ll haveto watch out for a dog that must be loose already. He’s ugly.”
    Big João interrupted:
    “Have you got a piece of meat?”
    “What for?”
    “For the dog. One piece should be enough.”
    “I’ll take a look later.” He was looking at the boys. He seemed to be wondering if he could trust them. “You’ll go in the back way. Next to the kitchen, on the outside of the house, there’s a room over the garage. It belongs to the servant, who must be in the house now waiting for his master. You’ll go in through his room. You’ve got to look for a package like this one, exactly like this…” He went to the pocket in his coat and brought out a package tied with a pink ribbon. “Just like this. I don’t know if it’s still in his room. It might be that the servant has it in his pocket. If that’s how it is nothing more can be done about it.” And a sudden despair seemed to come over him. “If I’d only been able to have gone this afternoon…It certainly must have been in the room then. But now, who knows?” and he covered his face with his hands.
    “Even if the servant’s got it, we can bring it back…” Pedro said.
    “No. It’s essential that no one know how that package was stolen. What you’re going to do is exchange packages, if the other one is in the room.”
    “What if the servant’s got it?”
    “Then…” and the man’s expression became upset again. Big João thought he heard a name that sounded like Elisa. But maybe it was an illusion on the part of Big João, who sometimes heard things nobody else did. The black boy was a big liar.
    “Then we’ll swap the packages just the same. You can rest easy. You don’t know the Captains of the Sands.”
    In spite of his despair the man smiled at Pedro Bala’s boldness:
    “Then you can go. Afterwards, it has to be before two o’clock, come back here. But only if the street’s deserted. I’ll wait for you. Then we’ll settle our accounts. But I want to tell you something in all frankness. If you’re caught and arrested don’t getme involved in the case. I won’t do anything for you because my name can’t be mixed up in this at all. Try to get rid of this package and don’t call me for any reason. It’s a case of win or lose…”
    “In that case,” Pedro Bala answered, “we’ll have to fix a price first. How much are you going to pay us?”
    “I’ll pay a hundred
milreis.
Thirty for each one and ten extra for you,” he pointed at Pedro.
    Cat moved in his chair. Pedro signaled him to be silent.
    “You can give us fifty apiece and then we can do business. That’s 150 clams for the three of us. If not, you won’t get your package.”
    The man didn’t hesitate long. He looked at the hands on his watch:
    “O.K.”
    Then Cat spoke up:
    “It’s not that we don’t trust you. But the whole thing might go wrong and you said yourself that it wouldn’t matter what happened to us.”
    “So?”
    “It’s only right for you to give us something up front.”
    Big João backed up Cat with a nod. Pedro Bala repeated the other one’s last words:
    “Only right, yes. In case we don’t get to you afterwards…”
    “Only right,” the man repeated too. He took his wallet out. He removed a 100
milreis
note. He gave it to Pedro:
    “It’s time to get going. It’s getting late.”
    They went out. Pedro Bala said:
    “Rest easy. An hour from now we’ll be back with the package.”
    In front of the house (the street was completely deserted, in a window of the house a light was on and they saw the shadow of a woman who was walking back and forth) Big João slapped his head:
    “I forgot the meat for the dog.”
    Pedro Bala was looking at the window with the light on, he turned:
    “Don’t worry. This whole thing smells like a love affair to me. That guy laid the missy from here and now the servant hasgot the letters that the two wrote each other and wants to blow the whistle. That