The truth of the matter was that Mateo Lima was a nasty son of a bitch, and there weren’t many people in Carapicuiba, or the surrounding communities either, who were willing to buy flowers and shrubs from the likes of him.

Nor were there many people willing to hire a guy who was color blind to care for their flowers.

So there they were, Luca and Mateo, stuck with each other.

The survival of Mateo’s flower and shrub nursery depended upon Luca’s work as a gardener. And Luca’s continued employment depended on Mateo keeping his mouth shut about Luca’s condition, which Mateo, the blackmailing bastard, had made clear he’d do only if he became Luca’s exclusive supplier.

It was remotely possible, of course, that Mateo had made an honest mistake about those supposedly blood-red bougainvilleas. But Luca didn’t think so. The most likely possibility was that Mateo was trying to pull a fast one because he had no blood-red bougainvilleas in stock.

The other possibility was that Mateo had been having a joke at Luca’s expense. He found color blindness funny.

Either way, Mateo had underestimated the consequences for both of them. If Juraci saw those bougainvilleas flowering in pale purple, she’d have a fit. And then she’d shoot her mouth off to all of her neighbors. Luca would wind up losing his customers, Mateo would be stuck with his flowers and shrubs, and both of them would soon be scratching to make a living. That was why the bougainvilleas had to go before they brought flowers into the world.

Killing bougainvilleas, as any gardener will tell you, is a tough proposition. The normal technique is to dig them out by the roots. Luca would have to be subtler than that. He’d have to make it appear they’d fallen victims to some mysterious blight.