One night when he had taken off the municipal overalls, showered, and put on his nocturnal suit, the two girls who already worked with him brought a third. Young like them. She had the look of someone experienced enough to have written on her face and body that this was no choir girl. She was of the same height as he, which was rare, a shapely body despite some signs of having been around the block a few times, eyes that were alert, expressive, and intelligent. When she spoke to him, her voice became melodious.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Rat,” she said when she was introduced.
“My dear, anyone called Rat can’t go by Mister or Doctor or Sir. Call me Rat. That’s what everybody calls me. And you, what’s your name?”
“Rita.”
“Rita! Just think, Rita and Rat. Made for each other.”
Rita smiled. Standing next to each other they looked like a brother-and-sister circus act: the same height, same physical type, same hair color, only their features showed no resemblance. Rita didn’t have a ratlike face.
Four more months went by—six all told since he had left Cinelândia—and Rita never left Rat’s side. She was observant, alert about those she approached, and possessed an intelligence that surprised Rat daily. Without his asking, Rita began to take care of him, not only emotionally but also physically, despite not having the stature of a bodyguard, though her two friends assured him that Rita knew tactics of attack and defense should they prove necessary.
Rat wanted Rita to become acquainted with downtown. He himself was beginning to miss the square, Lapa, the friends who had stayed behind without his having had time to say goodbye. The cop no doubt continued controlling the area; it was how he made money and maintained his tough-guy reputation. Rat was certain that if he were caught, one of two things would happen: either his body would be discovered floating in the Bay of Guanabara or he would wake up locked in a cell after spending the night in a hospital. One thing he was sure of: the cop wouldn’t forget him, and he had a face easy to remember. Before risking his life by showing up in Cinelândia, it was best to get in contact with Japa to find out how things were.
On Wednesday night, good weather, nice temperature, he arrived in Lapa through the busiest street, in Rita’s clothes and with light makeup to hide the shadow of his beard, wearing a feminine hat with a brim, prescription glasses, and sneakers. It wasn’t enough to attract attention as a woman, but the important thing was not to attract attention as a man. He called Japa from the street. The phone rang until it disconnected automatically. He went to the bar he used to frequent and asked a waiter whom he knew where he could find Japa.
The waiter paused a bit before answering: “From what I hear, in the cemetery, Rat.”
“Killed?”
“That’s what they say.”
“Who did it?”
“All I know is they killed him. How or who it was, I don’t know.”
“When was it?”
“Right after you disappeared. We thought that you too—”
“Make sure they go on thinking that.” He gave the waiter a generous tip and went about disappearing from the area.
To avoid any risk of bumping into the cop, he walked to the Glória station instead of catching the subway in Cinelândia, only a block from where he was.
He arrived at the boardinghouse well before he expected. He removed Rita’s dress and accessories, put on the city worker overalls, and waited for Rita to return, something that depended on luck and her ability of seduction in her work on Avenida Atlântica. He had learned over time to live with that conflict-laden waiting, and he began to understand why pimps frequently beat their women. It wasn’t because they didn’t like them, but because they did. These thoughts ran through his mind at the same time as the memories of Japa. A supercool guy, intelligent, a friend . . . The cop must have beaten Japa badly to find out where he was. And not even Rat himself would be able to say . . . He wasn’t anywhere, or rather, he was in a non-place. That son-of-a-bitch cop had killed Japa. If Rat hadn’t run away, though he had alerted his friend, the cop would have had no reason to do what he did. But an outlaw’s life is like that. Rat was sure the cop had decreed an end to his own life on earth. From that day on, he could be killed without further notice.
Rita arrived while Rat was sleeping. He woke up and beat her without making a sound. He didn’t want to wake up whoever was sleeping on the other side of the divider. And he also didn’t want to hurt her. Rita asked him not to do that anymore. “It’s not necessary,” she said, “I’ll stay with you as long as you want.”
Shitty life. He had to leave the city. He had no way of hiding indefinitely. Anyone who had seen him even once would be able to pick him out of a crowd. He had to change cities or even states. The balance he had accumulated with Japa in the savings account, which was now solely his, should be enough to start over someplace where he didn’t have to hide all day and go out only at night. He wasn’t a bat, he thought, despite it being said that bats and rats were related. If that were true, at least he had gotten the good part; he didn’t fly, but he also wasn’t blind.
The next morning, after reconciling with Rita, he decided to go out to check the status of the bank account he had with Japa. The bank was on Rua do Catete, four stations beyond Siqueira Campos. He took a shower, put on a clean pressed suit, a dress shirt and tie, got his ID and bank card. He descended the Tabajaras slope as if on his way to pick up his car parked on Siqueira Campos but instead he entered the subway station, bought a round-trip ticket, and in a few minutes arrived at the Catete stop. Depending on the balance in the account, he would leave for São Paulo or Vitória. He couldn’t say why one or the other. Maybe the size of the city, the number of people in the street, the behavior of the police . . .
“Yes sir?” said a guard at the turnstile, where bank customers received tickets to see a clerk.
“I want to check the balance in my savings account.”
“For that you don’t need a ticket, you can check it on the ATM. Any one that’s unoccupied. Over there, in that row of ATMs. Just use your card.”
He took the card from his pocket, checked the password on a small piece of paper kept in his wallet, and went to the first available machine. He chose the options that he wanted, typed in the two passwords requested by the machine, and removed the printed slip with the balance. He didn’t immediately understand what it said. He ordered another printout, then went to look for the clerk who was helping customers and asked the meaning of what was printed on the yellow slip of paper.
“What is it you want to know?” asked the clerk.
“I want to know my balance.”
The clerk took the paper and looked at it for several seconds, then said, “Your balance is zero, sir. Your savings account was closed.”
“Zero? Closed? I never closed any account. Where did my money go?”
“You had best speak with the manager. I only help customers in the use of ATMs.”
* * *
It was a ground-floor apartment in the rear, with windows that looked out only on a deteriorating wall two meters beyond the living room window. The apartment door had never been painted and the doorbell hung from the hole that should have housed it. At least it worked. At the second ring, a middle-aged woman opened the door halfway and hung onto the knob with one hand.
“Good evening, my name is Rita, I’m—”
“I know who you are,” said the woman in an openly unfriendly manner. “Are you here for the booty or for your man?”
“Who are you?”
“Who are you, ma’am? I’m Rat’s partner’s sister. And I’ll repeat the question: are you here looking for the booty or for Rat?”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Of course. The same place he sent my brother to.”
“He’s in jail?”
“No. He’s dead.”
Silence. The two women were still at the threshold, one inside grasping the doorknob, the other outside, arms hanging loose at her side
. No sound came from inside the apartment; an indistinct noise came from the street, as if it were far away.
“Dead?”
“Or disappeared, which is the same thing.”
“And the other thing you asked if I came looking for?”
“The booty? You don’t know what it is? It’s what’s stolen from the defeated, the product of illegal work, robbery. Or do you think what Rat did was legitimate work?”
“You said your brother and he were partners.”
“My brother was a lawyer. What he did was get his man out of jail or keep him from getting arrested. Rat paid my brother for his work as a lawyer. They didn’t do the same thing.”
“I don’t know your name.”
“Zilda.”
“I don’t know why you’re talking to me like this. And I didn’t know your brother or you, ma’am. I came here because Rat said, in case of a problem, to look for his partner and gave me this address. I’m not here to fight or ask anybody for anything. I just want someone to tell me what they did with Rat.”
“I already told you. Probably the same thing they did to my brother. Beat him to death, then throw his body in a hole somewhere.”
Rita stared at Zilda without knowing what to say. She waited for the other woman to say or do something, but she just went on gripping the doorknob with both hands. Rita turned and left in the direction of the building’s entrance.
* * *
Dead. With each passing day the word took on the most varied meanings. Some days it even meant its opposite, life, but this word too lost its value, coming to mean merely “not dead.” Rita’s head had not been nurtured enough with ideas capable of filling the emptiness she felt since Rat had disappeared. Zilda made no distinction between Rat’s death and the death of her brother. They were cheap deaths, second-class deaths, devoid of ceremony or emotion. So poor that neither of the two bore a true name. One of them called himself Rat and the other was known as Japa.
Rita didn’t know what to say, and she had difficulty figuring out how to express her feelings, as if for the privileged classes there were catalogs of sentiments, one for every situation, and she had no personal or literary references to orient her at such moments. So she didn’t suffer, for fear of suffering the wrong way. Rat was her only reference in situations like this.
She walked away without knowing which way to go. Rat spoke a lot about Cinelândia, just as he spoke of the activity in Lapa. Rita didn’t like Lapa, or didn’t like Japa’s sister who lived in Lapa, and she extrapolated her displeasure to the rest of the neighborhood that she hadn’t even gotten to see properly. She asked someone the shortest route to Cinelândia and followed the instructions, hopeful of finding Rat or some trace of him. She wasn’t wearing her “work” clothes and her petite size and absence of makeup made her look like a young woman recently out of adolescence and curious about adult life. She’d been told this was the busiest night in Lapa and its surrounding areas. But she wasn’t interested in the liveliness of the place, she wanted only to be able to move in the midst of the crowd without being noticed. That was what Rat used to do. And because of this she couldn’t understand how Rat had been caught. Ever since leaving Cinelândia he was extremely careful; besides which, he knew how to disguise himself. Even with his peculiar physical type and physiognomy he managed to pass unnoticed among people he had known for a long time. How could he have been caught? While she looked for the subway entrance, Rita tried to put herself in Rat’s place and think as he would if he were caught.
To her, Rat would only be caught if he was the victim of a trap resulting from a tip-off. This was her first thought. He wouldn’t be caught because of distraction. And who would be capable of setting that trap? He had no real friends, he didn’t even socialize, he spoke only when necessary. Few knew of his life and habits. And even fewer could set a trap for him. The first such person, Rita had thought, was Japa, because he knew Rat intimately, in addition to being his business partner and lawyer. The second was Zilda, Japa’s sister and caregiver, who had known Rat as long as her brother. The third was she herself, Rita, who lived with and slept with Rat but to whom Rat was still a mystery. And, finally, the two female friends who introduced her to Rat and were protected by him and knew where he lived. Those were the five people who could have set a trap for Rat or acted as informers for the police.
The first of the five to be eliminated was she herself, unless she was insane, and if she were insane she wouldn’t be able to set a trap for an intelligent and shrewd guy like Rat, besides which she wouldn’t be wasting her time trying to figure out who had set the trap. Rat’s two friends and protégées could be at most snitches, but even so would lose out, plus were lacking the brains to set up a betrayal scheme with the police. That left Japa and his sister, the two closest both physically and historically. But Japa also would lose out; he lived on and supported his sister on the division of the income obtained through the scheme organized and maintained through Rat’s activities; furthermore, the two had been close friends since adolescence, plus the fact that Japa was rarely sober, spending most of his days and nights inebriated. That meant it had to be Zilda. Caregiver for her alcoholic brother, resentful and angry, but she too had little to gain . . . unless the booty, which she had been the only one to mention, was a significant amount of money.
Disappearance and death were the same thing, according to Zilda. And she could know of Rat’s disappearance by the simple fact of him not being seen in the district, but how could she know he had died? And if there was booty or money, who had the right to it? Finally, how could Zilda say, when she answered the door, that she knew who Rita was, if Rita had only come into his life two months after he’d left Cinelândia?
The train arrived at the Siqueira Campos station. The slope up Tabajaras was a bit steep, but Rita was so deep in her thoughts that she began the ascent as if walking on level ground. The fact is, she had already raised a few questions for which she’d found no answers, and before completing the climb she had decided to go back to Zilda’s apartment to settle her remaining questions. Among them, Rat’s money being withdrawn from the bank, the booty that Zilda had asked whether she had come for. And also, how did Zilda know who she was?
The next morning she left before dawn, hoping to catch Zilda still sleeping.
She had already lost Rat. She had nothing left to lose.
The Return
by MV Bill
Cidade de Deus
By walkie-talkie Bolha passed the order along to his managers: “Look alive there! It’s one bundle for Sergeant Gonçalves’s squad, two for Corporal Tenório, and the fireworks only if you don’t recognize the vehicle, understand?”
He found it funny for the people down below to refer to a raid as something positive. In the favela it was different. A raid had never saved anybody’s life. A police raid only sank the guy even deeper. And sinking wasn’t in Bolha’s plans. He’d gotten into trafficking through the front door, at the age of fourteen, as successor to his older brother after seeing him fall, never to rise again, his rifle clutched to his chest.
Since the time he was a kid, the older traffickers had watched him carefully, as if seeing some potential in him. They appreciated his fervor in kite battles and his ability with guns. Years later, by then manager of a drug cartel, he was cruel to adversaries and very good at bookkeeping. At eighteen, he was already setting out to conquer other areas, always of course within Cidade de Deus, his community of origin.
Bolha’s charisma and courage reflected positively on the dealings of the traffickers. Because of these talents there was no opposition when he was nominated to assume the role of head of the Cidade de Deus drug traffic. And the community fell in line. No one would dare object because Bolha gave large amounts of money to the church, brought the beer to funk parties, underwrote medicine for the neediest families, and was generous in handing out Christmas presents. His motto was, Take good care of the child of today, ’cause he’ll be the soldier of tomorrow. He
assumed a regal posture, a benefactor of the favela. The dependable welfare-providing that he had learned so well from the old-time traffickers.
That Friday evening, things looked promising. The packaging was proceeding at full steam. Dozens of people were engaged in the task of cleaning and weighing the drugs on scales so they would be ready for retail sale during the late-night hours.
Friday nights in Cidade de Deus were famous the world over!
And as the hours went by, the favela boiled. To the sound of funk, half-naked women, playboys from street level, and junkies mingled in the narrow passageways, high on drugs, alcohol, and a permanent state of tension as if at any moment it could all fall apart.
In the face of such success, only one thing bothered Bolha: the decision of the Special Battalion to change the troops responsible for patrolling the favela, because the new cops, led by Sergeant Gonçalves, weren’t into bribery and raids were becoming more and more frequent. And with them, the bloody gunfights and the losses represented by captured weapons and drugs.
To complicate matters, sources had dried up. His contacts in the barracks had been removed, so he was no longer getting advance word of which garrison was going to strike. Without that information it was impossible to make plans.
Bolha was lucky to be able to count on Representative Saci. Not only Bolha, but the country’s entire trafficking circuit. Representative Saci had connections in Colombia and acted as middleman for a supply network of weapons and drugs. He said the guns came from FARC, the rebel army, but no one knew if that shit was true.
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