City of Brick and Shadow

by Tim Wirkus

“Hard to say,” he said. “His house has certainly never seemed cluttered, but it’s weird we can’t find anything.”

  “Yeah,” said Elder Schwartz.

  “There’s got to be something in here,” said Elder Toronto. “Somewhere.”

  So the missionaries looked harder. They searched for hidden compartments within the light fixtures, for hollowed-out chair legs, for secret pockets in the upholstery of the couch, for envelopes taped to the underside of the table, for plastic bags in the toilet tank. They found nothing.

  The last place they thought to look was behind the guarda-roupa. They found nothing there, either, and were just pushing it back against the wall when they heard the front door open. Both elders froze. They heard the door close and then the heavy breathing of a man who had recently been exerting himself. Footsteps crossed the living room and paused momentarily. The missionaries looked at each other. Elder Toronto gestured at the window in the back wall of the bedroom, but before the elders could move, the footsteps resumed and an enormous shape filled the frame of the open bedroom door.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” said the man in the doorway. He was still breathing heavily and his skin shone with sweat. He wore boots, jeans, and a tank top, which revealed shoulders and arms so massive that any other type of shirt would have trouble containing them. His hair was dark, oiled, and parted in the middle, and his face was clean-shaven; if he were to grow a handlebar moustache, however, he would look exactly like the strongman in a circus poster.

  At the moment, his teeth were bared, not in a toothy smile, but in a threatening sneer. “I said, what do you think you’re doing?”

  Back home, when he was a teenager, Elder Schwartz often attended the youth firesides that his stake put on every month. These firesides tended to focus less on church doctrine and more on sensationalist accounts of daring survival. Speakers included a woman whose head had been run over by a car when she was a toddler, a man who had been kidnapped and briefly imprisoned in a sweltering chicken coop during high school, and a couple who had spent three days lost at sea on a tiny sailboat.

  One speaker who made a big impression on the then-fourteen-year-old Mike Schwartz was a man who had been attacked by a grizzly bear while trail running alone in Grand Teton National Park. The man had survived—obviously—and relatively unscathed at that. No lasting injuries except for an assortment of pink, shiny scars across his body and neck. He would have lost an eye, though, he told the rapt audience of teenagers, if it hadn’t been for the high-quality sunglasses he had been wearing. He held up the glasses in question and the audience oohed. A claw-shaped protrusion curved inward from the still-intact right lens.

  But what made the greatest impression on young Mike Schwartz was the man’s account of first running into the bear. He said the massive animal, standing right in the middle of the trail, looked up at him, clearly startled. He looked the bear in the eye—a mistake—and knew it would attack. He said he watched the bear charging forward, watched its muscles moving beneath its fur, and even before it touched him, the man could sense the bear’s power to, if it so chose, tear his body apart.

  Looking at the giant man in the doorway, Elder Schwartz felt the same potential for violence. He imagined the man bounding across the room, picking him up, tearing off a limb, gouging out an eye, crushing his throat. The dangers of their investigation had just become very real again. The man took a step into the room and Elder Schwartz cringed.

  Elder Toronto didn’t budge.

  “You must be Grillo,” said Elder Toronto as the man walked forward.

  The man paused a couple of feet from the missionaries.

  “From next door,” said Elder Toronto.

  The man raised an eyebrow.

  “That’s right,” he said, an odd smile emerging on his face. “That’s right. I’m Grillo.”

  Elder Toronto stepped forward.

  “I’m Elder Toronto,” he said, extending his hand.

  Still smiling, the man swatted Elder Toronto’s hand aside, the force of it nearly knocking the lanky missionary to the ground. The man pointed to the guarda-roupa.

  “What were you looking for in there?” he said.

  “Oh, we weren’t,” said Elder Toronto, his tone cheery and vapid. “We just haven’t seen Marco Aurélio at church lately, so we thought we’d swing by to see if he was home. The door was open, so we figured he’d be here, but I guess—”

  Ignoring Elder Toronto, the man picked up the entire guarda-roupa with his giant arms, raised it above his head, and threw it to the cement floor, where it splintered into dozens of pieces. Elder Schwartz recoiled in fright. The man crouched down and began sifting through the splintered wood. If the man hadn’t been blocking the path to the bedroom door, Elder Schwartz would have sprinted right out of the house.

  “What are you looking for, if you don’t mind my asking?” said Elder Toronto.

  Still ignoring Elder Toronto, the man stood up and crossed the room, where he threw the mattress off the bed, picked up the frame and smashed it against the cinderblock wall. Once again, he crouched down, sifting through the pieces.

  “Excuse me,” said Elder Toronto. “What are you looking for?

  The man turned his attention to the mattress, ignoring Elder Toronto as he tore it apart with his bare hands, throwing coils of wire and chunks of foam to the ground behind him. When he had finished with the mattress, he walked into the living room and began tearing apart the sofa. Elder Toronto followed, with Elder Schwartz several steps behind.

  “If you tell us what you’re looking for,” said Elder Toronto, “maybe we can help.”

  The man paused. He stood up and turned around, towering over Elder Toronto.

  “You’re a pretty nervy kid, you know that?” he said, his massive arms beaded with sweat.

  “We’d just like to help if we can,” said Elder Toronto.

  “I know who you are, buddy,” said the man, tapping the name tag on Elder Toronto’s chest, nearly knocking him over. “You want to tell me where Marquinho is?”

  “Who?” said Elder Toronto.

  “My brother,” said the man. “Marquinho. Marco Aurélio.”

  “We were actually hoping you might know,” said Elder Toronto.

  The man put his hand on Elder Toronto’s shoulder and began to squeeze.

  “You know,” said the man. “I hear a lot of rumors about your church. Most of them pretty bad. Now, I’m not the kind of guy who believes everything he hears, so when someone like Marquinho decides he wants to be baptized, I figure I should give your church the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it’s not so bad, maybe it could even help out a guy like Marquinho. I’ll reserve my judgment. And then what happens? Marquinho disappears. Gone. Gone, gone, gone. And now I find the lock on his front door broken and the two of you snooping around in his things. Now, if you’ve taken him off to live in some kind of commune or something, I guess that’s his choice, but don’t you think his brother has a right to know where he is?”

  He removed his hand from Elder Toronto’s shoulder and folded his enormous arms.

  “Grillo, I’m sorry,” said Elder Toronto, rubbing his shoulder. “We don’t know where he is either.”

  Grillo stared down at him. A breeze from the window picked up a piece of stuffing from the demolished couch and blew it across the cement floor. Nobody moved.

  “Now,” said Grillo, breaking the silence, “I’d like you to both turn out your pockets.”

  As the man checked his pockets, Elder Toronto asked if Marco Aurélio had been acting strange at all lately.

  “Do you know how much time I spend with my brother?” said the man, pulling the black notebook from Elder Toronto’s pocket and then putting it back.

  “I don’t know,” said Elder Toronto.

  “I see Marquinho once a month,” said the man, moving on to Elder Toronto’s bag, checking its various compartments, “when he brings over his rent money, or, more likely, his excuse for why he can’t pay. And y
ou want to know something? That’s the closest we’ve ever been. He left home when he was seventeen. I would have been about eleven at the time. He never wrote while he was gone, never called, never let anyone know where he was. Then, a few years back, he showed up here in Vila Barbosa looking for a place to stay, with no explanation of where he had been for the past twenty-five-odd years. That’s just about everything I know about Marquinho, buddy. But you know what? He’s still my brother and I still want to know where he is.”

  Not finding anything of interest in Elder Toronto’s bag, he moved on to Elder Schwartz’s.

  “Maybe we could go talk to Lucinda, and see if she remembers anything you don’t,” said Elder Toronto.

  “Lucinda?” said the man, rummaging through the meager contents of Elder Schwartz’s bag. “I don’t think she could tell you anything more than I just did. Anyway, she’s sleeping right now. I wouldn’t want to disturb her.”

  “Do you think your parents might have any idea where Marco Aurélio could be?”

  “They’re dead,” he said, pulling a copy of the Book of Mormon from Elder Schwartz’s bag and flipping through the pages.

  “Oh,” said Elder Toronto. “I’m sorry.”

  “A bus accident about ten years ago. Marquinho was long gone by that point. Obviously, he didn’t make it to the funeral. Didn’t even find out about it until he moved back here.”

  “I see,” said Elder Toronto.

  The man zipped up Elder Schwartz’s bag and handed it back to him.

  “All right,” said the man. “Time to go.”

  Elder Toronto said, “Actually, I was thinking maybe we could—”

  “Nope,” said the man, and herded them toward the front door, a moving wall of muscle.

  “Just one more question, then,” said Elder Toronto as the man bounced them out the doorway.

  He fished the black notebook from his pocket and pulled out the folded photograph.

  “Do you know who the man with your brother is?” asked Elder Toronto.

  “Nope,” said the man, without looking at the picture.

  “Well, thanks anyway,” said Elder Toronto, putting the photograph and the notebook back in his pocket. “And thanks again for talking with us. We’ll let you know if we find out anything new.”

  The man stepped forward, his giant body filling the door frame.

  “Maybe we’ll stop by tomorrow,” said Elder Toronto.

  The man nodded his massive head. “Oh, I’ll be seeing you soon, buddy,” he said, smiling.

  “Okay,” said Elder Toronto, as Elder Schwartz pulled him by the elbow, eager to leave.

  When the missionaries looked back at Marco Aurélio’s house from half a block away, they could still see the man standing in the doorway watching them go.

  CHAPTER 12

  By nine o’clock that evening, much to Elder Toronto’s chagrin, they had learned nothing new. No one else on Marco Aurélio’s street, or any nearby street, knew a thing about him. As a last-ditch effort, the two missionaries headed over to Abelardo and Beatrice’s house.

  “Remember on Sunday,” said Elder Toronto, by way of explanation, “Beatrice said that Marco Aurélio had been coming over to their house every night to talk to Abelardo. Those two have nothing in common—I think we need to find out what they talked about.”

  When they got to their house—a narrow little shoebox of brick sandwiched between two slightly larger houses—darkness had fallen. Elder Toronto clapped at the gate. Nobody came to the door. The two missionaries waited. They clapped again. Nothing. Peering through the gate, the elders could see that the house was dark.

  Elder Toronto ran a hand over his oily face.

  “This whole day’s been a waste,” he said.

  Elder Schwartz said that he thought walking away unscathed from their encounter with Grillo had been success enough.

  “Well, I’m glad you can be so glib about it,” said Elder Toronto. “A friend of ours is in serious trouble, and you’re just glad we didn’t get roughed up a little.”

  “I think he could have done more than just rough us up a little,” said Elder Schwartz. The interaction had left him shaken.

  Elder Toronto turned and clapped again in case Abelardo and Beatrice were sleeping inside.

  Just then, Leila, the woman who lived in the house on the left, stuck her head out the front window. The elders had met her before, had even taught her a few of the missionary lessons before she decided she wasn’t interested in their church.

  “Evening, elders,” said Leila.

  “Evening, Leila,” said Elder Toronto. “Have you seen Abelardo or Beatrice today?”

  “You just missed them,” said Leila. “They left about half an hour ago to visit Beatrice’s sister.”

  “Which one?” said Elder Toronto.

  “The one in Parque Laranjeira. The one that Abelardo doesn’t like. The other sister is on vacation.”

  “I see,” said Elder Toronto. “So they won’t be back for a while?”

  Leila shook her head.

  “Not until tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” said Elder Toronto.

  “That’s right,” said Leila. “Is something wrong, elders?”

  “No,” said Elder Toronto. “Did you actually see them leave?”

  “Sure,” said Leila. “Beatrice knocked on my door as they were leaving and asked me to listen for robbers, just like she does every time they go out together. Not that they have much worth stealing.”

  “I see,” said Elder Toronto.

  “Do you want me to tell them you came by?”

  “No, thank you. We’ll just stop by again tomorrow.”

  Leila wished the elders a good evening and withdrew back inside her window.

  “Okay,” said Elder Toronto. “I think I know where her sister lives. We should get moving.”

  “But we wouldn’t make it there until after ten.”

  “So?” said Elder Toronto.

  “So, they both know we’re not supposed to be out that late,” said Elder Schwartz. “And you know Abelardo—he’s a stickler for the rules. He would definitely call President Madvig if he caught us out past curfew.”

  Elder Toronto frowned.

  “That’s true,” he said. “Unless we come up with a good cover story. Which we can do.”

  He started walking in the direction of the nearest bus stop.

  “Let’s go,” he said over his shoulder to Elder Schwartz.

  “No,” said Elder Schwartz, who hadn’t moved.

  In a show of defiance, he sat down on the sidewalk in front of Beatrice and Abelardo’s house.

  “Seriously?” said Elder Toronto, stopping.

  “We’re done for the day,” said Elder Schwartz. “We need to go home.”

  “Come on,” said Elder Toronto with a jerk of his head. “We need to talk to Abelardo.”

  “No,” said Elder Schwartz.

  He picked up a pebble and threw it into the street, watching it kick up a tiny cloud of dust where it landed. He glanced, from the corner of his eye, at the other missionary. With a forced breeziness, Elder Toronto ambled up the sidewalk to his seated companion.

  “Hey, man, what’s the deal?” said Elder Toronto, crouching down next to Elder Schwartz.

  “I’m done for the day,” he said.

  “You’ve been a real trooper today,” said Elder Toronto. “But I need—”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m a three-year-old.”

  “Okay,” said Elder Toronto, “but we’ve just got to do one more thing today. It won’t be dangerous. We just need to go talk to Abelardo.”

  The evening light cast a rusty glow over the street.

  “It’ll be easy,” said Elder Toronto. “We talk to Abelardo all the time. What do you say?” He elbowed Elder Schwartz conspiratorially.

  “Don’t touch me,” said Elder Schwartz.

  Elder Toronto rose from his crouch and leaned against the dirty metal bars of Abelardo’s front gate. He
rubbed at his eyes.

  “See,” said Elder Schwartz, craning his head around, “you’re exhausted. You need to go home and sleep.”

  Elder Toronto stifled a yawn.

  “Why can’t I just figure this out?” he said softly.

  “We should head home,” said Elder Schwartz.

  “No,” said Elder Toronto, pushing away from the gate. “We’ve accomplished nothing today. We can’t just go home.”

  “Maybe we’ll have better luck tomorrow.”

  “We don’t have that kind of time. Plus, nothing’s going to change between tonight and tomorrow,” said Elder Toronto. “What do you think will be different?”

  “I don’t know,” said Elder Schwartz. He stood up. “For one thing, you’ve been awake for nearly forty hours. You’ll think better if you get some sleep. We both need sleep.”

  In an almost unheard-of development, Elder Toronto conceded the point by not responding.

  “You just need some sleep,” repeated Elder Schwartz, taking advantage of his rhetorical momentum.

  “Maybe so,” said Elder Toronto.

  He squinted into the setting sun.

  “There’s one more place we need to go,” he said.

  “No,” said Elder Schwartz. “I’m done for the day.”

  “It’s on the way home.”

  “No.”

  “It’ll be quick.”

  “Where?” said Elder Schwartz.

  “The lanchonete,” said Elder Toronto. “I want to talk to the owner again.”

  “No,” said Elder Schwartz.

  “Come on,” said Elder Toronto. “It’ll take five minutes. Please? As a favor to me?”

  Elder Schwartz looked at their two shadows stretched out on the sidewalk, a doubling of their face-off.

  “Fine,” he said. “But we go straight home afterwards, no matter what we find out.”

  “Absolutely,” said Elder Toronto.

  “Do you promise?” said Elder Schwartz.

  “I promise,” said Elder Toronto.

  Whether or not his companion’s promise was sincere, Elder Schwartz knew how to get back to their apartment from the lanchonete.

  “All right,” said Elder Schwartz, and they started walking.

  When they got there, though, the lanchonete’s rolling metal gate had already been pulled shut over the entrance.