Alan, the Champion — Chapter 6 — The Beggar
First name on the list: Sombra. Alan learns the price of climbing.
Before he was King, he was cannon fodder, a convict, a killer. At thirteen, he ran grown men.
The first name on the list was Sombra.
Boss of the Baixada — the gang on the other side of the train tracks, the only one in Marélia big enough to give the Banca trouble. The two had hated each other so long nobody remembered why. Reasons are decoration. What matters is every spot they had was a spot we didn't.
The Banca had wanted Sombra dead for years and never got close. The guy had no house, no routine, no recent photo. Slept somewhere different every night. He wasn't the strongest in the Baixada or the richest. He was the hardest to find, and in that world that's the same as being the most powerful.
But every ghost has a crack. His was coffee.
Nobody has a problem talking to a kid.
I spent weeks roaming the Baixada in busted sandals, begging for change, carrying notes from one corner store to another. And I kept tying the loose ends together. A newsstand owner complained that "Sombra" never bought anything, just walked by. An old lady said her son had seen "the man" drinking coffee near the market. A Baixada dealer, no clue who he was talking to, mentioned his boss was picky about coffee — only drank it from one place, a specific bakery on the lower street, and nobody ever knew the day.
Nobody knew the day. But there was only one place.
So I stayed at the place.
I sat on the sidewalk across from the bakery dressed as a beggar.
Right leg bandaged and crooked, strapped in a splint, so I'd look lame and nobody would think of asking me to run. A dirty strip over one eye and the other half closed — I could see the whole street and look like I couldn't see a thing. Clothes grimy on purpose. A plastic cup in front of me with a few coins I'd put there myself.
I stayed three days.
The first day a lot of people walked by and nobody gave me anything, which was good, because it meant I was convincing. The second day a cop told me to move along and I cried until he gave up. In the small hours of the third day I almost fell asleep for real.
Then he showed up.
Mid-morning, no hurry, hands in his pockets. An ordinary man. It's always an ordinary man.