Crimes of August: A Novel: 5 (Brazilian Literature in Translation Series)

by Rubem Fonseca

  “I’m very tired.”

  “I’ll be there in a little while, and you’ll be fine.”

  The policeman went back to listening to the radio. El Aragonés, ridden by L. Rigoni, won the Brazilian Grand Prix. Mattos would have bet on Joiosa, because of the mysterious name: joyeuse? Or the sword of El Cid and other illustrious knights? But the mare finished second. He had to find out who was behind a murder and here he was listening to a horse race . . . He picked up the civil law book. As a cop, he threw guys in jail; as a judge, he would send them off to rot in some filthy precinct lockup. A great prospect. He felt like hurling the book against the wall. If he started throwing books against the wall, he really was crazy in the head. Go back to practicing law? His last client had given him a chicken as payment. That is, the client’s mother; the client was behind bars. An unhappy woman like the mothers of all the criminals who got caught. The poor woman had decided she needed to pay him in some way. He recalled the happy look on the woman’s face when she handed him the live hen, wrapped in newspaper, its feet tied with string.

  He had told the story to Alice, his ex-girlfriend. It had upset her. Hers was a different world, with no place for chickens with their feet tied and wrapped in newspaper. Alice.

  Alice.

  He took off his shirt and went back to sleep.

  He awoke to the ringing of the doorbell.

  “I like you that way, without a shirt,” said Salete, hugging him.

  Mattos freed himself from the embrace, went into the bedroom, followed by Salete, and put back on the dirty shirt from his shift.

  “If you prefer, we can go to the São Luiz cinema.”

  “I don’t want to put on a coat and tie.”

  “Then let’s go to the Polyteama. In that fleabag you don’t need a coat and tie.”

  “I don’t like film.”

  “You used to like it.” Salete picked up the holster and revolver on the night table. “The movie is Beat the Devil. You’re possessed by him.” An uncertain smile.

  “Please put down that weapon.”

  “You know I love holding your revolver.”

  “Do you mind?”

  Salete placed the holster on the table.

  “I won’t be good company today,” said Mattos.

  “Every time you come from your shift you’re like that. Let’s go to bed, and I’ll make you feel better.”

  “I need to take a bath.”

  “You’ve got water?”

  “It came on today. Now it’s every other day.”

  “Let me do it for you.”

  While Salete filled the bathtub, Mattos read his book on civil law.

  “It’s ready, you can come,” shouted Salete.

  “Why are you dressed all in black?”

  “Don’t you know what’s in style? You’ve never heard of Juliette Greco, the muse of existentialism?”

  “I’m going to bathe by myself.” Mattos took Salete by the arm and delicately pushed her out of the bathroom.

  The inspector was enveloped in the bathtub’s warm water when Salete knocked on the door.

  “Can I come in?”

  “No.”

  Salete opened the door. She saw Mattos’s clothes strewn on the floor.

  “If there’s one good thing about this horrible old apartment, it’s the bathroom. I think I’m going to have a bath too. There’s easily room for two people in the tub, and my place didn’t get any water today,” said Salete. “But first I’m going to straighten up this mess.”

  Salete picked up the clothes from the floor and took them into the bedroom, draping them over a chair. The undershorts, she put in her purse. Then she took off her dress and her slip, and, in only panties—she didn’t wear a bra—went into the bathroom.

  Facing Mattos so he could see her movements, Salete removed her panties and got into the tub. She wrapped her legs around the waist and her arms around the shoulders of the inspector. Mattos felt her firm breasts against his back.

  “Let me soap you up.”

  “I’m really tired.”

  Salete scrubbed Mattos’s back. His chest, his belly, his pubis. “Turn around and face me,” Salete said.

  She seemed to have become more beautiful. She had undone the bun in which she wore her hair, now wet at the ends.

  “How old are you, really?”

  “You know perfectly well how old I am,” said Salete, lifting one of Mattos’s legs, causing him to fall backwards in the tub. “You need to cut your toenails.”

  “You told me twenty-one, but I think you’re eighteen.”

  “You think I’m younger, because you consider me dumb.”

  “You’re both clever and intelligent.”

  “The other day you called me stupid.”

  “You’re illiterate, that’s what I said.”

  “I know how to read very well. I’ll show you, when we get out of the tub.”

  “Why don’t you show me your ID?”

  “So you won’t see my photo; it’s very ugly.”

  From the tub they went to the bed. For a time he forgot the wretched fucked-up criminals and the fucked-up victims and the fucked-up dirty cops and the fucked-up honest cops.

  “Want me to read to you now? How about that book that you never put down?”

  “Okay.”

  “Article 544. The abandoned riverbed of a public or private river belongs to the riparians on the respective banks, without owners of the lands through which the waters may open new channels having the right of indemnification. It is understood that the—”

  “Enough. You read like a grown-up.”

  “You lawyers have a very odd way of talking to each other. I don’t know how you can stand reading that book.”

  “I hate that shit.”

  “Riparians. What’s that?”

  “The dwellers on the banks of a river.”

  Salete laughed. “Rivers can change their course?”

  “Doubting is a sign of intelligence. Not finding answers is a sign of stupidity. That’s the way you are.”

  “I may be stupid, but I don’t sleep on a cheap sofa bed.”

  Realizing she had irritated the inspector, Salete said he needed to buy a decent bed. “They don’t cost that much. Know something? I’m going to give you a bed.”

  “Did your sugar daddy stand you up today? Is that why you came here?”

  “He’s not my sugar daddy.”

  “Then what is he?”

  “I don’t like that word.”

  “Then what is he?”

  “A person who helps me.”

  “Room, food, clothes, money to spend at the hairdresser’s, in stores, in nightclubs.”

  “If you want me to, I’ll dump him and come live here.”

  “What about the evenings at the Night and Day, the Beguine, the Le Gourmet, the Vogue, at Ciro’s? You’re going to want to live with an honest cop instead of a rich crook?”

  “Magalhães isn’t a crook.”

  “Not a crook? Where does a government employee get all that money? He gave you an apartment by the beach and an automobile, took you to Europe, found an expensive dentist to fix your teeth.”

  “It’s not my fault that your teeth are so bad they’re beyond repair.”

  “The guy’s a rat.”

  “I don’t like hearing you talk about him like that. Luiz is a good person.”

  “Then leave. You’re here because you want to be.”

  Salete got out of bed. She stood up, nude, beside the bed, not knowing what to say. She was in the habit of saying that she didn’t have on her hips the “two extra inches that cost Marta Rocha the Miss Universe title.” The beauty of Salete’s nude body made even more painful the displeasure that Alberto Mattos saw in her face.

  The inspector closed his eyes. He heard Salete say “I’m leaving”; heard her getting dressed; heard her say “Why do you do this to me?”; heard the door slam.

  He opened his eyes.

  There was a dar
k stain on the ceiling of the bedroom, probably infiltration from the floor above. It had been there for a long time, but this was the first time he had noticed it.

  He got out of the sofa bed. He looked for the notebook with telephone numbers that he had picked up at Gomes Aguiar’s apartment. He recognized some of the names. Under the letter G, Gregório Fortunato. The letter V, Vitor Freitas, followed by the word senator in parentheses. Mattos had heard of the influential senator of the PSD party. But what interested him most was under L, Luiz Magalhães. The name of the man who kept Salete.

  He took out the gold ring he’d found in the dead man’s bathroom at the Deauville. He examined it carefully, for the first time. Inside was engraved the letter F.

  two

  THE FRONT PAGES OF THE NEWSPAPERS carried headlines about the death of the industrialist Gomes Aguiar. The police, according to Commissioner Ramos, had a clue to the “robbery” that couldn’t be revealed in order not to hinder the investigation. Several photos of Gomes Aguiar and one of Alberto Mattos, with the caption “Inspector leads the investigation.”

  THE INSPECTOR ARRIVED at the precinct at 8:30 a.m. He wanted to get there early to be able to go by the lockup before the deposition by Luciana Gomes Aguiar, but he had been delayed by helping a guy push a black Citroën stalled in the street. He told the guy to get behind the wheel and by himself pushed the Citroën down a long stretch of road, in the middle of traffic, but the engine wouldn’t catch. The car was pushed to the curb and Mattos, along with the driver, tinkered with the motor, but all he succeeded in doing was to get grease on his hands and his shirt collar.

  Inspector Maia, who was scheduled to relieve Mattos, had no problem with Mattos going to the lockup on days when he was on duty. Maia detested going to the cells. “I don’t like the smell,” he would say.

  The prisoners’ breakfast had also been delayed, and the jailer was beginning to distribute the first aluminum mugs of coffee, along with bread. The prisoners were chatting loudly; some were laughing. People get used to everything, Mattos thought.

  “Sir, sir, what about my injection?” said a swindler known as Fuinha, trying to stick his face between the bars.

  “Didn’t I give you one yesterday?”

  “Yes, sir, but I didn’t get well. Wanna see? If I squeeze it, a little drop comes out.” Fuinha started to unbutton the fly of his pants.

  “I don’t need to see anything,” Mattos said. The inspector told the guard to bring the metal box with the syringe and needles, the bottle of alcohol, the two small containers of penicillin, one in powdered form, one in liquid, that he normally brought to his shift. Whenever he called a doctor to give an injection to a prisoner with gonorrhea, no one would show up. The guard brought the materials, placing them on a small table in the corridor. Mattos took the metal holder from the box, filled it with water until it covered the syringe and the needles, rested the box against the holder placed on the lid, poured alcohol into the lid, lit the alcohol, and waited for the water to boil. He stuck the needle into the rubber stopper of the liquid-filled vial, drew up the liquid, removed the needle, stuck it into the other vial, forced the liquid out of the syringe, picked up the syringe, leaving the needle stuck in the stopper, shook the small vial to mix the powder and liquid, inserted the needle into the glass end of the syringe, and aspirated the liquid. From the lockup, Fuinha watched these deliberate preparations. He stuck a naked arm outside, closing his eyes when the needle punctured his skin.

  “Anyone else sick in there?” Mattos asked.

  “Me, sir.” A prisoner approached the bars.

  “That guy don’t have nothing, sir. He’s a con artist,” said Odorico, the boss of the lockup, a husky man with a crimson heart tattoo on his forearm that read “Mother,” sentenced to over three hundred years for robbery and murder.

  “Let me decide that,” said the inspector.

  Odorico shut up. Obeying an order from Mattos was not a humiliation.

  The confidence man was a fat guy, a repeat offender, sentenced to five years for fraud.

  “What are you feeling?”

  “A pain in the chest. It’s very stuffy in here.” He coughed twice.

  “It really is unbearable,” said Mattos. “You shouldn’t be here, none of you should be here. But there’s nothing I can do.” The world didn’t want to know about those outlaws, they could go fuck themselves one on top of the other like filthy worms. The police existed to hide that rottenness from the delicate eyes and noses of decent people.

  “Wouldn’t it be good for a doctor to examine me?” Shrewd, the swindler. Maybe the doctor could be fooled. The police infirmary was much more comfortable than the lockup.

  “Don’t try and bullshit the inspector,” threatened Odorico.

  The prisoner looked at the boss. “To tell the truth, I’m feeling better already,” he said.

  “Go have your breakfast,” said Mattos.

  Rosalvo appeared, with a magazine, O Cruzeiro, and the Tribuna da Imprensa. “Just look, sir, want to see the latest infamy of Lutero Vargas, the parasite of the oligarchy?”

  “No.”

  “What about the whole story of the eleven thousand dollars stolen from Lutero Vargas in Venice?”

  “No.”

  “Here’s what it says: Armando Falcão denounces smuggling by Jereissati in Ceará. The president of the Workers Party in Ceará is part of the gang of thieves that has taken over the government. Do you know what’s the biggest contraband item? Irish linen. Those Northeasterners love to wear Irish linen.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “There’s more: At the suggestion of Brandão Filho, head of Political and Social Order, appointed by Jango Goulart, General Ancora, chief of the DPS, has decided to put snitches on the payroll. Just look at the mess. Time was, the authorities used to feel repugnance about dealing with informants. Nowadays not even repugnance is left.” Pause. “Lacerda’s not easy.”

  The inspector remained silent.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Go ahead,” answered the inspector.

  “Are you a Lacerdist or a Getulist?”

  “Do I have to be one kind of shit or another?”

  “No, sir,” said Rosalvo, seeing the inspector’s expression. “To each his own.”

  Luciana Gomes Aguiar, accompanied by her attorney Galvão, arrived at the precinct at ten o’clock. Mattos felt an instinctive hostility toward the woman, because of the composure of her face, because of the elegance of her black pantsuit. She’s nothing but a plutocrat with good manners, he thought. Like Alice.

  “It goes without saying,” said the lawyer, “that Dona Luciana is willing to cooperate with the police in discovering the killer or killers of her husband. She would, however, like to be heard as quickly as possible.”

  “Before formally taking Dona Luciana’s deposition, I’d like to ask her some questions.”

  Luciana acceded with a gesture.

  “Did your husband have any enemies?”

  “No.”

  “Did your husband normally sleep in the nude?”

  Luciana didn’t reply. She looked at Galvão as if to ask, Do I have to put up with this?

  “Mr. Gomes Aguiar wasn’t killed by an enemy. He was the victim of aggravated robbery, what laymen call armed robbery,” said Galvão persuasively.

  “Did he normally sleep in the nude? The body was found naked in the bed.”

  “Paulo wasn’t a man of rigid habits,” said Luciana.

  “There are days when I sleep in pajamas, others when I don’t sleep in pajamas. I think most people are like that,” said Galvão.

  “Has anything turned up missing?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t see any feminine clothing in the room where—”

  “We slept in separate bedrooms. My suite is on the floor above.”

  “It’s a two-level apartment,
as you have no doubt verified,” said Galvão.

  Luciana’s slender fingers displayed only a diamond wedding ring. The gold ring found in the dead man’s shower was too wide to belong to those fingers. Mattos stuck his hand in his pocket, his fingers touched the gold tooth. The ring was in the other pocket.

  “Have you ever seen this ring before?”

  “No.”

  “It was in the shower.”

  “It’s not my husband’s. He never wore a ring.”

  “May I take a look at it?” Galvão asked. He put the ring on his finger. “A man with thick fingers.”

  “Was your husband having problems with a partner? Or with some employee of—What’s the name of the firm?”

  “Cemtex,” said Galvão. “No, he had no problems with either partners or employees.”

  “Was Senator Vitor Freitas a friend of your husband’s?”

  “My husband had many friends. Senator Vitor Freitas is one of them.”

  “What about Luiz Magalhães?”

  “I don’t know who that person is.”

  “Did you have a good relationship with your husband?”

  “They experienced a perfect matrimonial relationship of love and respect,” said Galvão in the tone of voice he used in court.

  The inspector recalled a phrase that Mr. Emilio, the maestro of the claque, was in the habit of saying: the best thing in marriage is widowhood. Luciana’s pale countenance displayed no pain, just circumspection and dignity. What kind of person was she?

  Mattos called the clerk, Oliveira, and began taking Luciana’s statement.

  Luciana Gomes Aguiar and Galvão left. Mattos’s stomach was beginning to ache. The doctor had told him he had a duodenal ulcer, and there was the possibility of the ulcer bleeding at any time. He should eat every three hours, following the prescribed regimen: milk, gummy rice, boiled potato, boiled chicken. Avoid coffee, alcohol, carbonated soft drinks, cigarettes, and spicy foods. Not to worry. Check his stools. If they were dark like coffee grounds, it was a sign of bleeding, and he might have to be hospitalized for emergency surgery.

  NOW, MATTOS WAS PRESIDING at the booking of a flagrante delicto crime of battery in which perpetrator and victim were, respectively, husband and wife. Jurisdiction to preside, order a written report, and sign the writ as well as sign the guilty finding, belonged to the commissioner, and the inspector had authority for such only in the former’s absence.