And that’s how we began the affair.
7.
Veronique liked variety and would take me to different places in her imported coupe. We frequented motels in Barra, in Copacabana, on Avenida Brasil, in Grumari. And she was a good fuck, the old lady. I don’t know if she practiced vaginal strengthening, I never asked, but she had pretty strong pelvic musculature and liked giving me pussy squeezes, a thing that clamped my cock when I came and sent me into outer space. She was cultured too and would laugh when I didn’t understand her talk after fucking, some weird stuff about the finiteness of life and the emptiness of existence. What was empty was my balls after swashing the old lady’s insides.
In late afternoon, after a primo lay in a motel in São Conrado, we were having beer in Gávea at a young people’s hangout. Veronique wasn’t concerned, she was up for it and didn’t care if everybody realized she was a rich old woman accompanied by a ripped gigolo. I think she even took pride in it. She had a gringa’s mentality, a feminist. And around the third beer she says: “My husband is fucking rich. And he’s a piece of shit.”
That’s when the alarm went off. Talking about the hubby? Veronique was different. But I already knew that. And with all the beer I had drunk, I didn’t pay any attention to the alarm bell. I said, “Aren’t they all? Let’s talk about sexy stuff. I love your accent.”
“No. Let’s talk about my husband. You can enjoy the accent at the same time.”
And she went on talking about how her husband was indifferent, cold, selfish, and hermetic. Hermetic is a word I’d never heard.
“Someone who lives inside himself like a mollusk,” explained Veronique.
And she went on jerking me around with that business about the rich, cold, selfish, hermetic Mr. Mollusk. At the time it didn’t really register with me, I was sleepy and I had worked out in the morning, fucked in the afternoon, and was now pounding beer. I have a weakness for drink. So that was as far as it went, and I returned to Grajaú and went to sleep.
8.
I went on with my life, but with Veronique it was different: I couldn’t manage to close out the chapter and move on to another MTC like the playbook says. My strategy was never to let an affair go past three months. It’s that old business about a dead fish starting to smell the next day. Cougars last three months. Then they begin demanding more than they give. They’re human, are they not?
The truth is, I was starting to like Veronique.
Crazy, I know. I’ll confess, she’s older than my mother. But Mom is all messed up, diabetic, with high blood pressure and borderline senile. She’s even wearing adult diapers and using a walker. If she was already heading downhill when my old man died, just imagine what she’s like now. But Mom is younger than Veronique, just check their IDs. And I did check Veronique’s ID one day when she fell asleep after fucking. That bugged me a little. Falling in love with a woman older than my mother is troubling. And with shaky hands! I should’ve found a shrink while there was still time. I tried to break away, let a few days go by without calling, but I missed her. Missed her, isn’t that a bitch? I had never felt that, it was like some alien squeezing my chest from inside.
There was no way out—I fell in love with Veronique. I know, passion like this is a faggy sentiment, but it happened. It took a long time for me to realize it and still longer for me to admit it. I was hooked. Happy as a clam: she gave me money and didn’t demand anything in return, kept my morale high and fucked like a rabbit in heat. You don’t fix something that isn’t broken, my father used to say, God rest his soul.
9.
One afternoon the bill arrived.
But it didn’t come in the form of a summons or an arrest warrant. Nothing like that. I already said that Veronique was intelligent, tough, and she knew how to handle me. We were in Guaratiba, at an inn, Veronique on top molding my joint like clay. I screamed as I came, feeling pain and arousal at the same time. My dick was turning red from all the compressing that Veronique was doing with her tight musculature. It was like she had crab claws instead of ovaries. I was in that dopey state after coming, looking serenely at the greenish sea through the window, when she went back to making insinuations about Mr. Mollusk.
“Now then,” she said, “I’ve got something to propose to you.”
Propose? Married toned cougars don’t make proposals. They make deposits. The alarm went off for the second time. But it was already too late, though I wasn’t aware of it at the moment.
“What?”
“Your financial independence.”
“What kind of talk is that, Veronique? You think I’m here for the dough?” I laid the indignation on thick.
“My dear.” She ran her hand along my arm like an affectionate grandmother and I noticed how shaky and fleshless it was, like the hand of a witch in an animated film. “I know you make a good bit of money taking advantage of needy old women, and I see nothing wrong with that. It’s an honest agreement: you give me love and attention and in exchange I give you money. Nothing could be more fair. I know life. You’re forty already, think about it: pretty soon you’ll be middle-aged. And the old ladies won’t want to run their hands along your tired skin, full of spots like mine.” She held her hand in front of my face for me to see the spots. Then she affectionately tweaked my nose. “Life starts galloping after a certain age, and no Viagra can change that. I know you’re not a personal trainer here or any goddamn place. The pittance you wring out of elderly ladies isn’t going to last forever. I’m talking about real money.”
I felt like hugging Veronique. But I’m a pro and kept quiet, wearing the expression of a grifter caught in the act. “What?” I asked.
“You know,” she said, and squeezed the end of my nose.
10.
I took some time to decide.
Deep down I had already decided, but we fool ourselves and pretend we still haven’t decided about what we know is already a done deal. Isn’t that how it is? And I really was in need of dough. Not only for myself but for my mother. She was costing a bundle. Being old is hell. But I’m not the kind of soulless son who dumps his mother in some shithole asylum.
The first thing I’d have to do was buy a gun. I’m a peaceful guy and have never carried a weapon. I set up a meeting with Alferes, an ex-cop I know from drinking at the Black Cat. They say he’s in a militia, but I don’t know about that.
“What do you want a gun for, tiger?”
“Nothing, really. Just to scare a guy.”
“Then scare him with your muscle, you’re ripped. Your arm’s thicker than my leg,” he said, and had me hold my arm next to his leg. It was nighttime and no one else was around, but I was worried someone would see us and think I was a homo paying Alferes for a blow job. In fact, his leg was short and skinny.
“I want it to be a helluva scare. Just seeing the piece pointing at his forehead will be enough to make him shit himself.”
“Then you won’t need any ammunition.”
“Yes, I will. If the guy sees the gun isn’t loaded I’ll look like an idiot.”
“Be careful,” said Alferes.
That Be careful echoed in my brain for some time, but I went ahead anyway. You can’t waste a chance at financial independence when it falls in your lap. Two nights later, in Nobel Square, I bought from Alferes a police .38, black, with its serial number filed off. Plus the ammo.
The next morning I started training. Doing it felt good. It was like something in a movie, when the criminals gear up for the big heist. Scientific, know what I mean?
I went to a vacant lot in the vicinity of Água Santa and took some potshots at old oil cans to improve my aim. And in my head I kept track of the information Veronique was providing me. I felt like Jason Bourne.
11.
Mr. Mollusk, self-absorbed, full of himself, spent most of his time in the couple’s penthouse on Avenida Atlântica, sitting in front of his computer and investing his dough in the world’s stock markets. The cuckold made his living that way. Veron
ique said the money was the product of the sale of a chain of laundromats and a shoe factory that he had begrudgingly administered his entire life and got rid of some years ago. The Mollusk went out three times a week to walk along the oceanfront, accompanied by his male secretary and his chauffeur. But those walks were inconsistent. If it rained, or he woke up in a bad mood, he canceled the walk. He wasn’t a man of regular habits. There was only one thing that Mr. Mollusk always did the same way. At ten o’clock in the morning of the first Tuesday of each month, rain or shine, he would go to the São João Batista Cemetery, in Botafogo, and place flowers on his mother’s tomb. The old woman had died on a Tuesday, fifteen years earlier, and ever since then the nutcase visited her once a month. One detail: there inside the cemetery he insisted on going to the gravesite by himself.
With this information in mind, I began developing Veronique’s plan. She gave me a photo of the old man so I could recognize him, but even so she insisted I see the bag of bones in person. One day I loitered around a kiosk in Copa, drinking coconut water through a straw, and waited for the geezer to come by. Veronique alerted me by cell phone when he left the apartment and said he was wearing a navy-blue Adidas warm-up jacket. When the geriatric passed by, I stared at him to register his features. He was just another old guy like hundreds of others wandering around Copacabana drooling, and he didn’t even notice me. The secretary and the chauffeur were with him, a dark-haired man and a black dude dressed like a nurse.
I felt ready.
On Friday before the first Tuesday of the month, Veronique and I agreed to go a few days without contact, as a precaution. That weekend, before going to sleep, I spent a few minutes looking at the photo of Mr. Mollusk that Veronique had given me. Then I prayed.
12.
It breaks my heart to see a guy putting flowers on his mother’s tomb because I think of my own mother, and thinking about her brings me down. Thinking that one day she’s going to die.
The sky was cloudy that day. Veronique had told me the cemetery is usually quiet on Tuesdays, and it was true. Mr. Mollusk arrived with his shuffling walk and set the flowers down. Then he kneeled, with difficulty, and began to pray. I snuck up behind him and said, “Rest easy, you’re going to meet her.”
I placed the revolver against the back of his neck and fired.
I remembered to take his wallet, to make it look like a robbery, and left, moving kind of unsteadily. I didn’t stop walking until I got to the beach at Botafogo. I took off my sneakers and walked to the water, feeling the cold sand on my feet. Since the day was cloudy, no one was at the beach. I never thought it would be so easy to kill someone. I took the revolver and Mollusk’s wallet from my pocket and threw them out into the water. I wet my face and washed my hands, which were a bit bloody. Then I stretched out on the sand and realized that my legs were trembling a little, even when I was lying down. I turned over, did about two hundred push-ups to get rid of the trembling, and left, my body feeling as heavy as if I was carrying Sugar Loaf on my back.
13.
In the days that followed, I fell into a weird listlessness, like I had caught a bad flu. My mother asked, “What’s the matter, boy?” and I said it was just the flu. She thought it was dengue but I said no, dengue didn’t stand a chance with me. She had some açaí delivered; I took it and then went out so she wouldn’t keep worrying. I had lots of places I could go, but I decided to return to the beach at Botafogo, don’t ask me why. I caught the 434 bus to Rua Real Grandeza and walked to the beach. It was sunny and I sat on a bench, watching the sea. I peered at the sand, afraid the waves had brought back the wallet and the revolver. I didn’t see anything. I had a strong desire to call Veronique, but I figured everything would be in a total uproar after the wake and the burial. By now she must be talking with the lawyers about the inheritance. At one point I even dialed her cell phone but hung up. I summoned the patience to let a week go by before calling, like we had agreed.
When I returned home, my mother told me Alferes was looking for me. I found that odd. “What did he say?” I asked.
“Nothing, just for you to meet him tonight at the Black Cat.”
“I’m not in the mood for the Black Cat.”
“Go,” my mother said, running her hand over my hair, “the distraction will do you good.”
14.
As soon as I entered the Black Cat, Alferes came up and whispered in my ear: “Meet me in the square at midnight.” Sometimes I have the impression that Alferes is a bit light in the loafers. That business of him wanting to talk to me made me nervous and I decided to have a few beers. Could I have screwed something up?
At midnight I was at the square, anxious. Drinking hadn’t calmed me down but it had given me the urge to piss. Alferes arrived and immediately asked, “Say, tiger, you’re not involved in the death of that numbers bankroller, are you?”
“What bankroller?” I asked. I hadn’t killed anybody connected with the numbers racket. I was so relieved that I decided to relieve my bladder too and started to piss behind a lamppost.
“Raposo Muller, the old numbers kingpin who was murdered.”
“Of course not, Alferes. I just put a scare into a guy,” I said, shaking the snake before putting it back in its nest. “Why would I want to kill some racketeer? You nuts?”
“Because no professional would accept the contract. Besides his numbers connection, he was also a colonel in the army and a torturer during the dictatorship. You watch television, don’t you? Only an insane person would kill that bastard. Or some fall guy. Whoever killed him must be a long way from here. Or else he’s pushing up daisies.”
“You calling me a sucker?”
“No. Or a dead man. It’s just that I worry about my customers.”
“Okay,” I said, “I’m dying to get some sleep.”
Alferes had a distant look, as if he’d seen a ghost come up behind me. “I never heard of anybody being murdered in a cemetery,” he said.
“Cemetery? What cemetery?”
“Who told the fool to go to the cemetery without a bodyguard?”
“What are you talking about?”
“They wasted the lunatic in São João Cemetery while he was praying at his mother’s tomb. This country’s gone bonkers.”
I felt like shitting my pants, but I concealed it and said goodbye to Alferes. Something was very wrong.
I wasn’t able to sleep that night. Early the next day, when I looked at the newspaper on my way to the bakery, I saw that the old man I had killed at the cemetery wasn’t Mr. Mollusk but the retired numbers kingpin Raposo Muller. In the photo of the funeral, I saw his widow, a fat old hag I didn’t know. I became dizzy and had to support myself against the newsstand to keep from falling. I called Veronique, but she didn’t answer. Not then or ever again.
15.
I was remembering Ronald Biggs.
There comes a time when you have to run away somewhere. He fled to Rio. I had to flee from Rio. My bad luck.
But it’s not all that bad here. There’s that crazy president, an old pothead with the air of a hippie about him. Maybe they’ll be more understanding to a HIG—highly idiotic grifter—like me. I swear that weighed heavily when it was time to decide where to go. The beaches here have their charm, although the local toned cougars can’t hold a candle to the ones in Leme. The advantage is that here all the cougars are gringas, including the Brazilians. And they’re the ones who support me. Sure, I’ve had to go back to getting women tourists drunk to survive. I’m taking a break from toned cougars. Trauma. Today I settle for ugly cougars and old bags. I lead a modest life, I earn enough to pay the rent for the small apartment where I live and the fees at the shitty asylum where I had to dump Mom, near Friburgo. In any case, today is a special day for me. I’ve just received a letter from France. And to think I didn’t believe there was such a thing as letters anymore. I kept it to open at the beach. I’m not much of a reader, but when it happens, I like to read lying on the sand so I can quickly doze off.
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My dear, pardon the confusion. I hope you’re not terribly angry with me. After all, stealing from a thief is not really stealing. It took some doing to find your address. Your mother helped me, but only after a lot of convincing. It was hard to find her in that asylum/exile in the mountains. Don’t worry, she revealed your whereabouts to me because I’m a respectable lady and older than her. I know you’ll never forgive me, but you at least deserve an explanation. In 1972 I was a few years past thirty and shared an office with my husband Ivan, like me a psychiatrist. We weren’t guerrillas but we sympathized with enemies of the military regime and even hid political fugitives in our apartment on Lagoa. One day we were dragged from the apartment by agents of the dictatorship. We were barbarously tortured and Ivan was murdered. They probably threw his body into the sea, because it was never found. The man who tortured us and killed Ivan was Colonel Raposo Muller, that monster whom you did the favor of eliminating from human society. As soon as I was released, I came to France and tried to rebuild my life. I paid a high price. I spent decades without the courage to return to Brazil. But I never gave up on the idea of one day taking revenge on Raposo Muller. The animal, after leaving the army, became a powerful racketeer and was constantly surrounded by hired gunmen, even after he retired. It wasn’t until recently that I gathered the courage and returned to Rio to exact my vengeance. But no professional assassin I contacted would agree to kill him. It would be too dangerous. Even when I said I had studied the monster’s movements and discovered that he visited the cemetery by himself once a month, no one would agree to kill Raposo Muller, fearing retaliation. I know that I could have—and should have—shot the abominable torturer myself. Don’t think I wouldn’t have felt enormous pleasure in doing so, even if it cost me my life. And it wasn’t out of fear that I didn’t, but from lack of confidence in my abilities. I’m old and my hands tremble a lot, as you know. Unfortunately, you can’t fire a gun with your pussy. In any case, I will always be grateful to you in the time I have left, which won’t be that long.
Rio Noir Page 3