Table of Contents
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Introduction by Tony Bellotto
PART I: Part I: Purgatory of Beauty & Chaos
The Hanged Man
Adriana Lisboa
Largo do Machado
Toned Cougars
Tony Bellotto
Leme
The Cannibal of Ipanema
Alexandre Fraga dos Santos
Ipanema
PART II: Divided City
The Booty
Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza
Lapa
The Return
MV Bill
Cidade de Deus
Weekend in São Conrado
Luiz Eduardo Soares
São Conrado
RJ-171
Guilherme Fiuza
Leblon
PART III: Murmuring Fountains
Argentine Taxi
Arthur Dapieve
Cosme Velho
Blind Spot
Victoria Saramago
Tijuca Forest
The Enigma of the Victrola
Arnaldo Bloch
Jacarepaguá
PART IV: Rio Babylon
Tangerine Tango
Marcelo Ferroni
Barra da Tijuca
The Wait
Flávio Carneiro
Downtown
The Story of Georges Fullar
Raphael Montes
Copacabana
The Woodsman
Luis Fernando Verissimo
Bangu
About the Contributors
Excerpt from USA NOIR edited by Johnny Temple
Also in Akashic Noir Series
Akashic Noir Series Awards & Recognition
About Akashic Books
Copyrights & Credits
INTRODUCTION
Deciphering an Enigma
The images of Rio de Janeiro are well known: high rises aligned along white sandy beaches, a blue sea, freshwater lakes, and luxuriant forests that stretch through winding mountains of stone; Sugar Loaf linked to the ground by cable cars in hypnotic shuttle; hang gliders crossing the sky in flights without destination; the open arms of Christ the Redeemer blessing a happy, cordial, mixed-race people ever ready to dance a samba or offer a welcoming smile to the tourists who move about in the streets admiring beautiful women shimmying nude atop floats in Carnival parades . . . Opa!
This is not a tourist guide. The city revealed in this book is a different Rio.
Even though famous landscapes are present in the pages of Rio Noir, what is exposed here is a world of shadows, blood, intrigue, violence, hideouts, and mystery (and also of humor, of course, as is necessary with any undertaking involving Cariocas).
Long ago, Rio ceased to be an idyllic city of tourist enchantment, and crime scenes of savage drug traffickers, violent cops, and corrupt politicians document that fact with disturbing regularity in newscasts worldwide. Nowadays, the image of the city of beautiful beaches, sensual women, lively gay people, and likable swindlers is inexorably tied to shootouts and bloody disputes between criminal factions. The divided city, fractured into a cosmopolitan middle class and a populace residing in neglected poverty-ridden communities, has become the poster child for a country of enormous social inequality and disquieting violence.
All of which holds great excitement as raw material for crime fiction!
This conclusion is paradoxical and somewhat disturbing, I admit, but is there any city more paradoxical than Rio de Janeiro?
The capital of Brazil from 1773 to 1960—and of the entire Portuguese Empire during the Napoleonic Wars—the international symbol of the nation, the principal tourist destination of the southern hemisphere, host city of the 2016 Olympics, characterized by the highest indices of violence and poverty, Rio is much more than the city seen on postcards, in socioeconomic statistics, and shocking newspaper reports.
The city is above all an enigma in search of being deciphered.
I may sound off base in stating that no one is better suited to decipher enigmas than writers of crime stories. Among other functions, noir fiction allows exploration of the social aspects, the human strengths and weaknesses that make up the daily life of any great city.
In an effort to decipher this enigma, I invited Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza, MV Bill, Luiz Eduardo Soares, Guilherme Fiuza, Arthur Dapieve, Victoria Saramago, Arnaldo Bloch, Adriana Lisboa, Alexandre Fraga dos Santos, Marcelo Ferroni, Flávio Carneiro, Raphael Montes, and Luis Fernando Verissimo to join me in the creation of the anthology you are leafing through (not, I warn, without some risk of getting blood on your hands).
Choosing these authors was like climbing Sugar Loaf for the simple pleasure, after having stealthily scaled the sheer vertical rock, of gazing upon a limitless horizon. In this work, writers of both sexes skillfully move between fiction of different genres, journalism, humor, horror, philosophy, public safety, psychoanalysis, rock, rap, social and political activism, and law. Even those who had never written noir fiction were moved to tell stories that, in distinct forms and twists, present a puzzle that dares to test the limits of the genre. Whether we have succeeded in deciphering an enigma with the dramas of our procurers, card readers, colonels, cops, traffickers, socialites, slum dwellers, embezzlers, tourists, brokers, detectives, journalists, politicians, assassins, editors, outlaws, travelers, coup plotters, writers, lovers, and everyday citizens, I don’t know. But we have surely added a large shadow to the sunny landscape of this wonderful city.
Tony Bellotto
March 2016
PART I
Purgatory of Beauty & Chaos
The Hanged Man
by Adriana Lisboa
Largo do Machado
Nowadays I almost never come to Largo do Machado. The gymnastics equipment I see when I leave the subway, for example, I’m not familiar with, and I think it was put here in the square some years back. I remember having read something about it in the paper. Today, under the fine, cold rain, it appears no one is motivated to exercise. The concrete tables where I used to see old men playing checkers and cards are also unoccupied. The pigeons look for shelter wherever they can. There in the distance, haughty and sad, the church watches.
The traffic moves around the square, a sluggish flow of buses and cars, but the square itself seems strangely uninhabited beyond the irregular stream of people entering or leaving the subway station, their umbrellas challenging one another.
I miss the gypsies. In the period when I lived here they used to hang out in the square offering to read your palm or divine your future in their cards. At the time, they irritated me. Today I feel they would provide me a certain comfort, as proof that my past didn’t totally unravel.
I very rarely come by here. Currently we live in Recreio and our life is there, my work and my wife’s, the children’s school. Before that, there was the long stay in Belo Horizonte. But in the 1980s I lived near here in a two-room apartment on Rua Bento Lisboa. Those weren’t easy times, and I was right to take the job in Belo Horizonte.
I think about going by my old building to see what has changed in the decades since—in this city some things have begun changing with such treacherous speed that I sometimes can’t keep up with it. But I don’t, because of the rain. Distracted, I step in a puddle, soaking my foot. Shit.
Remembering the gypsies takes me back to my girlfriend in those days, Simone, who was interested in tarot. I always considered that kind of thing utter foolishness, but even so there was a homey comfort in seeing her take out the deck from its old box, shuffle the cards, place some on the table—turning them this way and that. There were some curious images. From time to time she would raise her eyes from the cards and observe me obliquely. But whatever the cards told her about me, it was wi
thout my approval.
Simone claimed to have gypsy ancestors. I don’t know if she actually did. She was a bit crazy, to tell the truth. “Ask your cousins to stop bothering people in Largo do Machado,” I once told my alleged gypsy.
“They’re not my cousins,” she replied.
Ours was an unhappy story. We didn’t part on good terms. I take my share of responsibility, but Simone was excessively dramatic. Everything was serious, everything was yes or no, black or white, she recognized no in-between. I learned, years later, of her death in an automobile accident. It apparently happened shortly after our breakup. She was so young. I don’t usually revisit that topic, it pains me, but returning to Largo do Machado (we used to go to the Portuguese wine cellar, and we would have sfihas and tabouli at the Arab’s in the Condor Gallery; sometimes Simone would buy Indian skirts at the Meu Cantinho boutique) knots something in my heart.
The rain gets heavier. My wet sock bothers me. I wait until I make it to the building where I have to take the documents. I could handle the matter of the documents another way, but I’m up for promotion at the end of the year and until then have to suck up to the boss. I sit on a bench in the reception area, take off the shoe and sock, wring out the sock, and put it back on. My foot is still wet, but at least now it doesn’t sink into a puddle of water with each step. The building’s doorman watches me.
I spend more time with the client than I had planned. I know that now, in the late afternoon, especially with the rain, the subway will be hell. I decide to kill time around here, maybe get something to eat, have a beer. The idea of getting home later isn’t all bad. I can’t recall just when I became a slave to routine, but I swear it was involuntary. I think about how odd that is. How we become fossilized in the apathy of that production line. And still have to suck up to the boss.
I call my wife to say that I’ll be home a little late, that I decided to wait for rush hour to end because I’m in Largo do Machado and it’s raining, she knows how it is. They shouldn’t wait for me to have dinner.
I think about checking to see if anything worthwhile is playing at the São Luiz Cinema (when I lived here there was also a movie theater in the Condor gallery, which later became an evangelical church and today I have no idea what it is). I walk under the marquees of the buildings and pass a young boy handing out leaflets. I buy gold, or something similar, I imagine, but when I take one of the papers the coincidence surprises me: Tarot readings. Guidance in love, spiritual issues, answers to your most pressing concerns.
I smile. It looks as if the gypsies who used to wander around the square have also moved up in life and now some have their own private offices. I read the address, which is in the old Condor Gallery building, 29 Largo do Machado.
I stop at the entrance, in front of the gallery. What the hell, I’m not doing anything, isn’t one lie as good as another, whether it’s going to the movies or getting a tarot reading? And who knows, maybe it’s a way of paying homage, however belatedly, to Simone. Who was kind of crazy but wasn’t a bad person and didn’t deserve to have her life cut short so tragically. I decide to look for the place. I take the elevator to the fourth floor.
The door is opened by a beautiful, well-dressed young woman who in no way resembles the gypsies of two decades ago, and I automatically smooth my hair and adjust my collar. I explain that I’d like a reading, is she available?
“When?” she asks.
“Right now, if possible,” I reply. “I live pretty far away, in Recreio, but on the street here I saw a leaflet with your address and was interested.”
“I’m with a client at the moment,” she says.
“I can wait.”
It’s true, I can wait, but more than that, suddenly it has become strangely important for this beautiful girl to read whatever there is to be read about me in the tarot cards.
“It’s going to be awhile. Half an hour, forty minutes,” she says.
I look around. The waiting room is tiny and windowless, but there’s a pile of magazines in one corner, next to a candle and a vase with plastic flowers. An iron thing on the wall representing a sun and moon. A vague smell of incense.
“I’ll stay here and read a little, if you can see me next?”
Everything seems totally professional. The phrases: I’d like a reading. I’m with a client. If you can see me right away. I sit in the black faux-leather armchair, pick up a magazine, begin leafing through it. I see orderly stacks of business cards: other people offering alternative therapies there in the same small space. Every Wednesday night, transcendental meditation. Right, I didn’t imagine that tarot readings would pay the rent.
My reading lasts an hour. I sign a check and leave there transformed. I don’t remember much of anything that was said, except for the comments about a particularly interesting card, the Hanged Man (actually, a guy dangling upside down, tied by one of his feet). According to the card reader—Renata—the Hanged Man indicates a situation of personal sacrifice of something valuable: when I leave the building, words like destiny, initiation, indecision, and self-denial are still floating in my head, like moths around a lamppost. A well-conceived plan that remains only a theory, Renata also says. Loss and helplessness would be the negative aspects of the card. On the other hand, there’s also a very positive aspect, the possibility of changing one’s life, of interior peace.
I leave there dreaming of changing my life and interior peace. More than that, I leave there dreaming of Renata.
My wife and I have had our crises, some of them quite serious, but awhile ago we fashioned a modus vivendi without major disturbance, for the sake of the children. We’ve been married for twelve years, which is the number of the Hanged Man tarot card, I think, I who always found that sort of thing utter nonsense. But suddenly, while being jostled on the subway en route to the Cantagalo Station, I’m making plans to set up another reading with Renata, to return to Largo do Machado.
I’d left the car in my sister’s garage in Copacabana. I collect the car without going up to say goodbye to her. I put on music and think about Renata on the long journey from Cantagalo to the Avenue of the Americas. I’m still thinking about her when I turn onto my street, park the car in my spot in the garage, and take the elevator to my floor—still thinking about her when I open the door to the apartment.
* * *
At my second reading, two weeks later, I want to talk more about myself. I want Renata to know me. The first time, I was reticent, asked generic questions to which she gave generic answers. Now I want to pluck my soul out from under the skin and spread it out for Renata, take it, explain this, please—and you don’t need to return it afterward. As far as I’m concerned, she can spread my soul on the floor and walk on it if she wishes.
This reading takes almost two hours. The World card (challenge of seeing something that must be concluded) and the Tower (imminent moment when it will be necessary to knock down old structures) appear in meaningful positions. Renata’s hair is loose this time, long dark hair like that of the gypsy she is not. She is wearing large silver earrings and a T-shirt that outlines her pert, pretty breasts. She is more sexy this time, and I want to believe it’s not by chance.
At the end of the reading she asks me if I’d like another cup of tea, and obviously I accept, while still debating with myself whether I should invite her to get something to eat nearby. She brings the teapot with hot water and a small box with tea bags of various kinds. Then she brings a plate with raisins. I conclude it’s better to leave the invitation for the next reading, today would be hasty. In any case, we have time to chat a little.
“Well,” she says, sitting down and pushing her hair behind her ears, “how did you become interested in tarot?”
“Oh, it’s a long story,” I answer. “I had a girlfriend, many years ago, more than twenty years—almost thirty, actually—who liked tarot. She wasn’t a professional but liked to do it for herself, for her friends. I confess that I thought it sheer foolishness, I thought that in the rea
dings the person heard what he wanted to hear. For example, if the card said, It’s necessary to knock down old structures, the person would always manage to frame it in the context of his own life—that’s what I thought.”
“But you don’t think that anymore?”
“You’ve changed my opinion about tarot,” I say excitedly. “When I was here the first time I was quite skeptical, but now I’m seeing things differently.”
“And why did you come the first time if you thought tarot was silly?”
“That old girlfriend of mine. We had a difficult relationship, at the end. Ugly fights, things I don’t miss at all. Later I found out she died in a car accident. She was still quite young.”
“Oh, that’s so sad, I’m sorry.”
The tarot reader’s almond eyes fall on mine. She seems so sweet.
I take a raisin from the plate, put it in my mouth, and chew. Sweet. The wedding ring on my left hand bothers me.
“It’s very rare for me to come to Largo do Machado,” I continue. “My life these days is all in Recreio and Barra, but that afternoon, two weeks ago, I happened to be here on business and started thinking about Simone, my ex-girlfriend. When a boy handed me your leaflet I thought I should come, as a kind of homage to her. I don’t know. It’s as if something made the decision for me.”
Renata gets up and goes to the window overlooking the square. “We never know the reason for certain decisions,” she says. “It’s as if they were made not by us but by some entity, something external.”
I rise and go over to her. “There’s something I have to tell you, Renata. Forgive me if it seems rather sudden. But I haven’t been able to get you off my mind since the first time I was here.”
She doesn’t turn to look at me. I see her in profile and the tension is obvious in her face. The situation isn’t easy, she knows I’m married, but I don’t want to come across as rash, just one more guy trying to get her into bed. (I imagine there must be many, and I don’t even know if she’s in a committed relationship. She probably is.) I’m genuinely interested in Renata, although beyond that nothing is clear to me.
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