The Body Snatcher

by Patricia Melo

  I closed the window and lay down on the bed. I reread the note that Rita had left with Serafina that morning. Reeeck. Reeeck. “Thanks for hanging up in my face. Today is my birthday. You – just you, you alone – are invited to the party, at nine o’clock. Signed, Rita.”

  I opened a can of beer and – reeeck – thought about what to do.

  It would be nice to cool off in the chilly waters of the grottoes, but I felt too heavy to float. Very hot. I thought several times about calling the pilot’s family and backing out. The problem was that returning to São Paulo wasn’t part of my plans. Not even for business. I had already wandered under the Corumbá sun with the classified ads in my hand, looking for something like Carlão’s gas station, where he did everything from manning the pump to patching tires, with time to sit in the shade and let my thoughts wander, and all I had found was bakeries and backyard hydraulic pump shops. And other crap. Everything hot. Nothing for me. But the job in the rancher’s home was good. At least I’d have air conditioning, and that counted for a lot in Corumbá. WE HAVE AIR CONDITIONING, businesses wrote on ornamental plaques to attract customers. Ten degrees cooler is the formula for happiness in those parts. That’s what they were giving me: a good car, with air conditioning, to drive. Besides which, what did it matter that it was the house of the pilot that I had seen die? What did it matter that I had abandoned his body in the river? I didn’t kill anyone, over. Even if I had pulled the youth from the plane and carried him on my back to the city, nothing would have changed. He’d be dead all the same. We’re all going to die someday. What did it matter if I had swiped the coke? Let him throw the first stone, over. All of us steal something at some time or other. Almost all. At least once. Or we’re going to steal. Brazil is full of pricks, that’s for sure.

  In the evening, calmer, I took a cold shower, removed the drugs from the crawl space, and got to work. I had decided I would sell the powder, make some money, and that would be that. A single sale. Without taking chances, because that’s how people fuck themselves. What was temporary becomes a permanent way of doing things. You start making money and somebody feels cheated. Somebody you owe or who owes you. Or is simply envious. A nosy neighbor. An instant enemy. The ones who come out of nowhere without you even noticing. Some guy you treated badly. And he calls the police and blows the whistle on you. Sulamita had said the same thing: catching criminals has little to do with the competence of investigators. Rather, nothing to do. It’s purely see-something-say-something, she said. 800-STOOLIE. People call us giving the name and address of the traffickers. The whole record. In the drug trade, she said, only one thing is absolutely guaranteed: someone is going to rat you out. You stand in line, waiting. It’s like owning a motorcycle: one day for sure you’ll have an accident. You might not die, but you’re going to fall. That’s the way it works. Therefore, I thought, no getting fired up over easy money. No buying more blow. That package was a present, nothing more. A gift from the cadaver. That was the most complicated part, thinking that my luck, the good things that happened to me at that moment, the drugs and the job, had to do with the deceased. Chance? A sign? Whatever it was, it would be an unforgivable sin not to grab the opportunity. That’s something I had learned in my life as a salesman.

  The work of weighing and wrapping the powder helped me arrange my thoughts. I placed a gram in each envelope and sealed it with the red star. I’d seen that in a film, and it struck me as an effective strategy. My customers would right away associate the star with coke free of marble dust, glass, talc, or amphetamines. And I would also sell cheap. That’s the logic of business – better and cheaper.

  Once the Indian stopped making noise, I opened the window again. At the corner, the knife-sharpener arrived with his equipment attached to an old bicycle. Three housewives gathered around him, holding colored parasols. Sparks flew from the grindstone, along with a buzzing that pierced my head like needles. Or bees.

  A little later, the children returned from school in bevies. Moacir closed the bicycle shop. Men on their way home stopped at the corner bar. The street quickly filled with urchins laughing and running around in packs, playing football.

  I smoked a cigarette and watched the sun set behind the house. The temperature started to become bearable.

  At seven forty-five, Moacir appeared on the sidewalk and asked if he could speak to me. I gestured for him to come up.

  He had bathed, but the grease had impregnated his skin. His sweat was dark, oily. His hair, a shiny mass. Skinny legs, sunken shoulders. He didn’t look like a chieftain’s son, and he’d be screwed if he were forced to hunt a jaguar like his ancestors. Perhaps he didn’t know what it was like to dance in a circle to the sound of the five-string viola, things that Serafina loved telling me about in detail. Now, on Sundays, he would stay in front of the TV, taking care of the children and waiting for his wife, Eliana, to return from the evangelical services. It was said in the neighborhood that she went to meet Alceu, the butcher. Where else could she get meat with no money? asked Serafina.

  Moacir, a bit embarrassed, wanted to know if I could pay my rent ahead of time. He mentioned the medicines he needed to buy for his mother and the kids. The pharmacy is where the poor really get fucked.

  I took part of the money I’d got from pawning the watch and paid for the following month. I asked a few questions and, without hearing anything he said, began thinking about whether Moacir might be the person I was looking for, a kind of mule, to operate my clandestine business. He had been in the area for a long time. He knew lots of people. And our proximity would allow me to control the situation.

  I asked him if he wanted extra work. Easy money.

  If it really is easy, he said, with a shrill laugh.

  I thought I’d have to use all my telemarketer’s glibness to convince the Indian, but when I opened the drawer beside my bed and took out the fifty envelopes, Moacir was already sold. He started to jabber, saying that he himself had thought about going to Puerto Suárez and opening his own business, that it was a waste to have Bolivia practically in our backyard and not to take advantage of it, that he knew a guy there, Juan, who packaged capsules and was a friend of the biggest kingpin, Ramirez, and another, Wilsão, who had taken half a kilo to Araraquara in his stomach, and that “swallowing drugs” brought in “a bundle of dough.” Wilsão had been arrested afterward, he said, and that’s the problem. Wilsão drank and talked too much. When he asked me if Sulamita would cover for us, I answered yes and no, no and yes; I equivocated. Depends. You have to be discreet, I said, don’t say anything to her, leave Sulamita to me.

  Before he left, I insisted that he be discreet.

  Later I changed my mind and went after Moacir to dissolve the partnership, but he wasn’t at home anymore.

  Sulamita phoned me when I returned home. The plane had been found in the Paraguay River, and she and Joel had taken part in the recovery.

  I should have kept quiet, just waiting. Instead, I got in my van and left. I had learned something: it’s while waiting that you start exchanging ideas with the devil, over.

  9

  Leaving Highway 26A, in the direction of Onça Hill, the stretch of dirt road begins. The air is pleasant and calm, and you smell the fragrance of flowers from the woods. On the radio, the same old thing: music and trash. Luciene and Josias got drunk and smoked grass all Saturday afternoon. After he was caught, Josias confessed that he’d received a demonic order from heaven to dismember the girl as soon as she fell asleep. Since she took a long time to do so, Josias decided to strangle her before cutting her up. The pieces of the girl were thrown into Deep Creek.

  I opened the window and repeated, So far so good, over. I’m not Josias, I didn’t dismember anyone. I don’t know Luciene. I’m not floating in Deep Creek, over.

  At the first bridge, a police car followed by an ambulance passed me. I knew very well where they were heading and felt a certain relief. And also fear.

  I bypassed the gas station and parked near the restau
rant. If that actually was a party, I was the first to arrive.

  In the narrow, run-down shed, there wasn’t room for ten tables. It was decorated with drawings of ibises, tapirs, parakeets, cormorants, herons, and crows that Carlão himself had painted and that I had nicknamed the Pantanal Horror Show. It had formerly been a restaurant, but now the place sold trinkets to tourists because Rita wasn’t a good cook like Carlão’s ex-wife.

  The kitchen was in the rear, looking out onto a large open patio. I imagined that Rita and Carlão had decided to hold the party outside because of the heat.

  I found Rita by herself, seated in a lounge chair, smoking and drinking. She was wearing a light green dress, the skirt raised and crumpled in her lap so that her firm, pretty legs were visible. Her hair, gathered in a knot, formed a kind of nest on top of her head.

  You’re the first to arrive, she said. You win a prize. A one-way ticket to anywhere a long way from Corumbá.

  I sat down in the chair beside her, and she immediately put her feet with their bright-red nails in my lap. She was drunk.

  I asked about Carlão and she told me he’d gone for beer. It’s gonna be a big party; I even invited a group of guitar players. You like to dance?

  I said no.

  I’ll try to teach you, but it isn’t easy. You have to let me lead.

  What about the other guests?

  They’re getting here. Along with the food. I ordered everything. A huge cake like your mother used to make. In layers. And you, you rude man, still haven’t congratulated me. How old do you think I am?

  Congratulations.

  How old?

  What?

  How old?

  I don’t know. Not old.

  Take a guess, she said, stamping with her foot on my right thigh.

  Twenty-two.

  Almost. I’m not gonna be specific, ’cause ten years from now I don’t want you to know my age.

  I removed her legs from my lap, but she put them back again.

  I’m never getting old, she said. I use cream all over my face. And if I’m ugly at forty I’ll kill myself. I’d rather die young than get all wrinkled. Do you think I’m pretty?

  Yes. Where’s Carlão?

  I’m the one having a birthday, not Carlão. It’s about me today.

  She got up and pulled me by the hand. Let’s have a beer, she said, before the party starts.

  In the kitchen, she opened the refrigerator, took out two cans and handed me one. And then she wrapped her arms around my neck. I felt the cold can against the back of my neck, and the chill went down my spine.

  What are we doing here? she asked.

  The party, I said. Cake, dancing, etc.

  I’m talking about our future. A plan for our lives. A project. Why don’t we run away from here?

  Carlão is taking a long time, I said.

  You’re not going to tell me you plan to marry a corrupt cop who you hardly know.

  She’s not corrupt, I said.

  But she’s a cop. And all cops are corrupt. Let’s speak the truth: the vacation was great. You got out of that funk of yours and I had a real good time in the Pantanal. It was cool with Carlão. I mean, until I met you it was cool. But Carlão is an old man.

  I started to laugh. Carlão is only three years older than me, I said.

  It’s exactly those three years that fuck everything up, it’s the same difference between a woman of thirty-seven and one of forty, understand? A fundamental difference. I’m not into him anymore. It was cool and all, but I’ve had enough. Corumbá is for the birds. You’re from São Paulo, and I’m not from here myself. This is no place for the two of us. I know very well that you’re crazy about me. From the day you set foot in here I saw how you looked at me. I know why you moved out of here. You don’t want to hurt Carlão. But mark my words, the two of us have to be together.

  It was only then that she told me that Carlão had gone to Campo Grande. Also, that there wasn’t a party at all. And it’s not my birthday, she said.

  By then she was laughing and kissing me. Until that day, I can honestly say I tried to resist. When things between her and me heated up, I disappeared. And when she called me I wouldn’t answer, or if I answered I’d blow her off. And when I began thinking about Rita I remembered the day Carlão had called me into his office and shown me a gun, saying that it was how problems were resolved in those parts.

  If the whole thing were just a film, we’d be at the moment when you feel like telling the character to get out of there. It’s a tense scene: the character knocks at the door of the fatal house and asks, Anyone there? No one answers and he goes in anyway. And inside there’s a killer or a dead body or both. In the film, the guy goes ahead and the rest you know already. Lots of blood. Pure adrenaline. In real life, you don’t go in. By way of compensation, you do worse things. You rob a cadaver. You hire some loser of an Indian to sell the blow you stole off the corpse. You fuck your cousin’s wife. You do that because you believe you can make a mistake, just one, just one more, and another, just one more little screw-up, and then return and go on with your path, your film, because the course of life continues there, static, waiting for you to screw up and return later.

  Before I realized it, we were on the floor, her grunting, me sweating, both of us in a clumsy frenzy like the dogs I’ve seen copulating in the vacant lot next to my house. We barely managed to rip our clothes off, we fucked clothed, with Rita’s panties chafing my cock. The heat and the fear of being caught increased my desire; I let her take charge, the bitch. On top of me. Lick my face, she said, bite me, suck me, put it in, put it in, deeper, and then, just as I was about to come, she started calling me puppy, and it was as if that word had the power to drag me away and make me understand what was going on. You’re gonna be at my feet, puppy, she said, you’re gonna obey me, be my slave. I was overcome with terror, Puppy, a collar, she repeated, breaking the rhythm, not allowing me to come, and it was only then that I grasped what was happening and decided to set things straight. I got her off me, placed her on the floor. She opened her legs but I didn’t plunge into that fissure. Instead I held her head between my legs and did the rest by myself, using my hands, until I came.

  I left her lying there, her face smeared with cum.

  10

  I drank two cups of coffee.

  You don’t look very happy, said Dalva when I entered the pantry.

  I was late, but no one seemed to care. The atmosphere in the house was completely unlike the day before. There were many people in the garden, friends, politicians, and journalists, and trays with coffee and juice came nonstop from the kitchen. We could even hear a few laughs if we paid attention. Did you hear? Dalva asked.

  I already knew everything and repeated to myself: so far so good, over. Everything under control.

  Hours earlier I had woken up startled inside the van, with Sulamita leaning against my window. What’re you doing here? she asked, giving me a kiss. I had parked in front of her house, waiting for her to return from the rescue mission.

  Morning came and we went to the local bakery, holding hands. Sulamita’s pants were stained with mud, wet up to the knees. I began talking about my new job right away, emphasizing the name of the family so she would make the inevitable association, and when it happened, I was overcome with an uneasy feeling as if I were stuck in mud. Quite a coincidence, she said.

  Afterward, while we were having coffee, she told me that the plane had gotten stuck in a sandbar, with its cabin out of the water, and that it had been recovered and there was a chance the pilot was still alive.

  I thought I hadn’t heard right.

  He wasn’t there, she repeated.

  Who?

  The pilot.

  He wasn’t in the plane?

  His safety belt was undone, and both the plane’s doors were unlatched.

  She said there was a theory that the youth had lost his memory and was wandering through the woods. Or was seriously injured, somewhere in the nearby area
. Two teams, one by land and another by air, were combing the Pantanal at that moment.

  She also said that all the investigators had been reassigned to speed up the search. When we have a case like this, she said, it’s always the same old story: the governor squeezes the secretary, who squeezes the director, who squeezes the department head, who squeezes the precinct chief, and the thing explodes in the ranks.

  Later, at home, in the shower, I had to repeat aloud to myself that there was no way they could involve me in that episode. They couldn’t incriminate me. Arrest me. I hadn’t done anything. Except steal. I had checked the boy’s pulse twice. Very good coke, over. I reviewed everything, every detail, organizing my thoughts. It wasn’t hard to imagine what happened after I left the scene of the accident. My mistake was undoing the pilot’s safety harness and not closing the doors. It was a lapse on my part. Dead, over. Released, he was carried off by the current. Rotted, over. It was a matter of time, they would find the body caught in some bend of the river. I read somewhere that bacteria work quickly in cases of death. That idea also tormented me: the corpse floating, its face in the mud, the belly swollen, and flies buzzing around it.

  On the other hand, there was a degree of comfort in it. So far everything’s okay, I told myself. I’m not the cadaver. I’m not going to rot. Or float, over.

  For the rest of the morning I stayed in the garage, listening to the news on the radio. The topic was nonstop. They said lots of things. That the open area aided the sweep and that the pilot would be found in the next few hours. That the pilot was a black belt in judo. That he was in excellent physical shape. That he had won the latest equestrian competition in Rio de Janeiro. Rich family. They repeated that a lot, the wealth. All that money, I thought, doesn’t keep you from ending up like that. In the swamp. They also said that Junior was a young man much loved by all. Handsome. A good guy. Except they didn’t mention that he liked snorting coke. Incredible how a tragedy is enough to turn an ordinary person into a hero.

  It was that same day, a bit later, that I saw her for the first time. Dona Lu, that’s what everybody called her. Lu for Lourdes.