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

by Rubem Fonseca

  twelve

  IT WAS SHORTLY PAST MIDNIGHT when Chicão asked his friend Zuleika for the keys to her car.

  “I don’t know when I’ll be back. Don’t wait up for me.”

  “You didn’t tell me what you’re gonna do.”

  “I’m taking a big shot to get his rocks off with a girl at the Hotel Colonial, on Avenida Niemeier. He tells his old lady he’s going to São Paulo and heads there to get some strange. I think he’s afraid to go to that neighborhood by himself. I don’t know if he’s planning to spend the night with the woman. If he does, I won’t be back till morning, I’ll be waiting in the car for him. Satisfied? Later, me and you’ll split the money the guy’s giving me. I’m taking the black suitcase. The barbells are for him.”

  “The guy needs barbells to screw the woman?”

  “The world’s full of rough people, love.”

  At the wheel of Zuleika’s old Armstrong, Chicão stopped in front of the Deauville. Raimundo was in the reception area. It was still too early to do the job. Chicão started the car and went to Machado Square, parking near the trolley stop.

  He walked to the Lamas restaurant, crossed the long room among tables almost entirely occupied, toward the rear where the pool tables were.

  No pool table was vacant. Kinda busy for late Wednesday night, thought Chicão. For a time he watched the players and the kibitzers. He liked watching people, they were so much alike and at the same time so different. During the war he had lived for a long time among men wearing the same olive drab uniform, using the same slang, cracking the same jokes, seeking the same pleasures, feeling the same fears, and yet he’d been able to perceive that the differences among them were greater than the similarities. He’d spoken with Lieutenant Lobão, but the lieutenant had replied that all men were basically the same. The lieutenant didn’t know anything. He was like Zuleika, who after listening, without understanding the first damned thing he said about it, had replied, “The habit doesn’t make the monk.”

  He asked one of the kibitzers loitering around one of the tables if he wanted to play.

  “I’m broke,” the guy said.

  “I’ll pay for the hour.”

  They played, without betting.

  “You play good,” said Chicão, who, his mind on the job he was going to do, had paid little attention to the game and even so had won one match.

  “I once beat Carne Frita. You know who Carne Frita is, don’t you?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “I swear, the same one. It came down to the seven ball. People crowded around to watch.”

  “Was that here, in the Lamas?”

  The guy hesitated.

  “Uh . . . No . . . Downtown . . . At the pool hall on Tiradentes Square.”

  Chicão placed his cue on the green felt of the table.

  “If you beat Carne Frita, I’m a monkey’s uncle.”

  Carne Frita’s phony opponent looked at Chicão as if about to say something, but then desisted. The black man was very large, and beneath that soft voice lurked something very bad. He lowered his eyes and chalked his cue.

  The clock on the wall read 1:15. It’s showtime, thought Chicão.

  He got in the car and returned to the street where the Deauville was located. He chose a spot distant from the lampposts. He took from the glove box a wide strip of cloth that he wrapped around his neck. He stuck his right arm inside the strip.

  He got out of the car. He knocked on the building’s glass door. Raimundo, the doorman, came to open the door, indicating that he had recognized him.

  “I’ve got a suitcase in the car for Dona Luciana. You could be a big help by grabbing the suitcase for me. I can’t take my arm out of the sling. I think it’s broken.” He grimaced. “It’s hurting like hell. I’m going from here to the emergency room for the doctors to take an x-ray.”

  Raimundo followed Chicão to the car.

  “It’s on the back seat.”

  Raimundo looked at the suitcase inside the car.

  “It’s better if you get inside to grab the suitcase.”

  Using his left hand, Chicão awkwardly opened the car door.

  “If I had to earn a living using my left hand, I’d have to be a beggar.”

  “You could be a doorman. To be a doorman all you need is more patience than a whore working a retirement home.”

  They both laughed. Raimundo felt like telling the black man that the police were after him, but why get involved?

  Raimundo bent over and got into the car. Chicão entered behind him.

  Throwing his heavy body on top of the undernourished, fragile skeleton of the Northeasterner and grabbing him forcefully by the neck, Chicão immobilized him. If anyone had passed by at the moment, they would not have heard even a moan or noticed any movement of dark shadows thrashing about in the car. The only sound heard seemed to be that of a popsicle stick snapping. It was Raimundo’s neck bones being broken in the hands of Chicão.

  The street was empty. The windows in the buildings, dark. Chicão had killed Raimundo in less than two minutes.

  Leaving the dead man’s body in the rear seat of the car, Chicão leaped into the front seat and set out on the journey he had planned for that night. Part of the trip could be made more quickly on a stretch of the Rio-São Paulo highway, but he didn’t want to risk being stopped by a routine highway patrol inspection.

  So he chose a route that was more roundabout but safer. He filled the gas tank at a gas station on Avenida Brasil. The station attendant saw the dead man lying on the back seat and thought he was sleeping. Chicão drove through São João de Meriti, a city where he had lived for so many years, then to Nilópolis, and from there to Mesquita.

  In Mesquita the car stalled and was slow to restart. In Nova Iguaçu a tire blew and changing it with the motor running took enormous effort. When he arrived in Queimados, Chicão stopped outside a tire repair shop with the intention of fixing the blowout but preferred to go on; it was better if his presence were not noticed in those areas.

  He arrived in Engenheiro Pedreira and at once saw the river. It was four a.m. He stopped the car in a vast deserted plain, partially covered by low scrub vegetation. He turned off the lights, leaving the motor running. When his vision adapted to the darkness, he took the body from the car, tossing it onto a pile of grass. He got the suitcase and placed it on the ground beside the corpse. From inside the suitcase he removed a long flashlight, turned it on, and stuck it in his mouth, clutching it between his teeth; he needed his hands free for the work he was about to do. From the suitcase he removed a small hatchet, a canvas bag reinforced with metal eyelets, a rope, and a small cloth sack.

  He stripped the body and examined it to see if it had any birthmarks or scars. Discovering nothing, he used the hatchet to cut off all the dead man’s fingers, without feeling the slightest pity, for the son of a bitch was causing a lot of problems. He placed the fingers, counting them one by one, in the small cloth sack. He prudently counted the fingers again, having no wish to lose one of them at that spot. With all ten fingers secured in the sack, Chicão stashed them in his pants pocket. He took off his shirt, placed the canvas bag around his neck like a gigantic napkin, and kneeled beside the cadaver.

  He aimed the beam from the flashlight in his teeth at Raimundo’s bony face. With a face like that, the guy was never going anywhere in life. Where was the best place to start? He turned the body face down on the ground and with the hatchet began to strike the part of the neck directly below the hair.

  Chicão had never beheaded anyone and didn’t expect so much work for something so simple.

  The bastard, besides puncturing a tire and running down the battery, had a neck like ironwood. The rage he felt toward the dead man amplified the violence of the blows. An especially fierce stroke, at the same time it severed the head, made it turn around, and Chicão saw for the last time, illuminated by the flashlight beam, Raimundo’s dirty face, separated from his trunk.

  “No-good fucker,”
Chicão tried to say, but his tongue, pinned by the flashlight in his mouth, emitted an unintelligible sound that seemed the growl of a dog.

  He removed the bag he had used as a bib to avoid covering himself in blood. He grabbed Raimundo’s head, stuck it into the bag. He took the corpse by the legs and, dragging it to the riverbank, pushed it into the water. The corpse floated for a few seconds and then sank. But Chicão knew that, with the gases forming in the intestines, the body would return to the surface somewhere.

  He took the barbells and the rope from the trunk. He put the barbells in the canvas bag, along with the severed head.

  The beam from the flashlight was beginning to weaken. He strung the rope through the eyelets, closing it with a tight knot.

  Not even the devil’s going to untie that knot, he thought, swinging the bag over his head and hurling it into the river.

  Simultaneous with the sound of the bag hitting the water, the flashlight went out for good. He removed it from his mouth and tossed it into the river.

  On the return he thought about spreading the fingers along the streets, at intervals of five kilometers, but he remembered the story of Hansel and Gretel throwing bread crumbs in their path and, without knowing exactly why, decided to keep Raimundo’s fingers in his pocket.

  After Queimados he took the Rio-São Paulo highway. He no longer feared running into the highway patrol. The day was beginning to dawn. He liked seeing the sunrise. In Italy he had seen beautiful dawns, but none as lovely as those of his country, none as beautiful as that day.

  CHICÃO STOPPED at an automotive repair shop on the highway and told a mechanic to fix the car. He arrived in Rio after eleven a.m. He got stuck in traffic downtown, in front of Candelária church.

  A crowd was surrounding the church.

  “What’s going on, officer?” Chicão asked a policeman who was trying to organize traffic.

  “The seventh-day Mass for the soul of Major Rubens Vaz,” the cop said.

  The Mass was being celebrated by the Bishops Hélder Câmara, Jorge Marcos de Oliveira, and José Távora. From the number of official cars, Chicão concluded that the church must be packed with high authorities.

  The Mass ended. The crowd around the church increased.

  A taxi, with an enormous loudspeaker on its hood, positioned itself in front of the crowd, on Avenida Rio Branco. A voice from inside the vehicle blared: “As happens with all Brazilians, my heart is filled with sadness and revolt. Brazilians, democracy is impossible in our country as long as that aged dictator occupies the presidency. Getúlio’s hands are stained with blood. Only a revolution can bring back decency, dignity, and honor to Brazil. Only a revolution can end this sea of mud. For alderman, vote for Wilson Leite Passos. For federal deputy, Carlos Lacerda!” In the car, giving the speech, was the alderman candidate himself.

  Chicão, in his car, surrounded by a crowd that swelled by the minute, followed the taxi with the loudspeaker, which moved ahead slowly. The shouts from the crowd drowned out the discourse coming from inside the taxi.

  At Marechal Floriano Square, in front of a building housing a campaign office of the UDN, the crowd stopped, yelling even louder.

  Suddenly, the clamor from the crowd ceased. Its attention, now silent, had turned to the window of the second floor, the site of Wilson Leite Passos’s campaign headquarters. At the window was a man they all knew.

  “Lacerda!” someone screamed, a bellow that seemed to pierce the square from end to end.

  The crowd immediately began shouting the name of Lacerda, who gestured with both hands for silence.

  “I ask all of you to go home,” Lacerda shouted through a loudspeaker. “Disorder in the streets helps only the murderous oligarchs who are in power.”

  The shouts from the crowd drowned out his words. The national anthem was played through the loudspeakers, replacing Lacerda’s inaudible words, but the crowd’s wrath did not subside. In a rage, it surrounded a PTB propaganda car, yanking from the wheel a man who said he was Aires de Castro, president of the Metalworkers Union. In a few moments, the car was set on fire.

  The popping sound of teargas grenades was heard. The square was quickly invaded by shock troops from the special forces, who stood out in their red berets; they began dispersing the crowd with blows from their batons. A tank, from the Military Police barracks on Evaristo da Veiga, entered the square, hitting the demonstrators with powerful jets of water. People running, protecting their eyes from the teargas bombs, fell and were trampled; the police violently dispersed anyone within reach. Cries of terror were heard. Demonstrators were dragged to patrol wagons parked on Rua Treze de Março. When the police action ceased, the now empty square held the wounded, lying on the ground or being helped by frightened individuals. All that could be heard were moans and brusque orders from the police.

  Chicão watched it all from his car parked on Avenida Rio Branco, undisturbed. He’d seen worse things in the war. What was happening neither interested nor moved him. All politicians were corrupt, and those who weren’t thieves, if such existed, were liars. And the imbeciles who went into the streets to cheer on politicians deserved just what they were getting, whacks on the head.

  He amused himself during the scrambling of demonstrators and policemen by throwing Raimundo’s severed fingers out the window; pieces of finger were supported on Chicão’s index finger, then propelled by his thumb as if he were shooting marbles.

  After taking a shower at Zuleika’s, Chicão called Lomagno’s office, as they had agreed.

  “All done, sir. I followed the plan.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At a friend’s place.”

  “Where?”

  “Almirante Tamandaré.”

  “Leave. Get out of the South Zone. When I can, I’ll look for you at the gym.”

  PRESIDENT VARGAS, accompanied by Deputy Danton Coelho, left Rio at 8:45 a.m., on a Brazilian Air Force plane, headed to Belo Horizonte to inaugurate the new Mannesmann steel mill.

  “Everything’s calm,” declared Secretary Tancredo Neves to the press, at the airport.

  After the inauguration of the mill, at a luncheon at the Palace of Liberty with Juscelino Kubitschek, governor of Minas Gerais, Vargas stated that he would not permit the agents of mendacity to lead the country into chaos. While he was installing factories for the economic emancipation of Brazil, his adversaries were trying to install disorder in the streets to enslave the people to their hidden interests. He wasn’t thinking, had never thought, of resigning. He was the legally elected president and planned to serve out his term to the end and not a minute longer.

  A slip of the tongue from someone who had always been accused of not wanting to relinquish power. Vargas should have said, under the circumstances, that he intended to serve out his term to the end and not a minute less.

  “I’ll preside over the elections,” said the president in his speech, “assuring the free manifestation of the right to vote, offering broad guarantees to the people to choose their representatives. Contrary to what the agitators and rumormongers disseminate, I do not consider the regime threatened. Men pass on, Brazil goes on.”

  TAKING ADVANTAGE of the Marechal Floriano incidents, UDN deputies took the floor in the Chamber to accuse the government.

  Maurício Joppert: “The people are in the streets seeking punishment of the criminals, demanding justice. We have now, more than ever, to demand the resignation of the president of the Republic from the office he has failed to honor.”

  Herbert Levy: “The conclusion is unmistakable and obligatory: no further sifting of facts is needed. The moral responsibility of the president of the Republic is definitive.”

  Bilac Pinto: “The president of the Republic can and must resign as the coauthor of the homicide of Major Vaz.”

  Tristão da Cunha: “The president of the Republic is rendered morally impossible of presiding at this inquiry, given the suspicions that fall on his excellency and persons of his family. In conditions far les
s grave than these, Pedro I abdicated and Deodoro resigned.”

  Afonso Arinos: “Resignation is the solution that will fend off the possibility of subversion, anarchy, and a coup.”

  IN COMMISSIONER RAMOS’S OFFICE, this conversation took place between Inspectors Mattos and Pádua:

  “All we have to do is lean on the fucker, and he’ll spill his guts,” said Pádua.

  “We’re not going to do that,” said Mattos.

  “The guy shows up at your home to kill you, and you come up with these idiotic scruples? It’s not only your life that was threatened. It was the life of every one of us. We have to make an example of him. These fuckers have got to learn that anybody who lays a finger on us dies like a mad dog.”

  “Stop talking nonsense, Pádua.”

  “See how he talks to me!” The muscles in Pádua’s arms were pulsing.

  Ramos furrowed his brow as if concerned about the harsh discussion between Mattos and Pádua. Actually, he was quite happy; he detested both inspectors and would have loved to see them, like in a cowboy movie, kill each other simultaneously. But, unfortunately, Mattos would doubtlessly not be carrying his gun. So then, let Pádua kill Mattos, mused Ramos.

  “Pádua, I don’t want to fight with you. I really don’t.”

  “You’re an idiot,” sighed Pádua. “I don’t know how you’re still alive.”

  “We’re going to have to let the man go,” said Ramos.

  The commissioner had waited a long time for such a situation, one in which he could make the correct decision that infuriated Pádua and harmed Mattos, at least in theory, for the outlaw that Mattos had caught was obviously dangerous.

  “He’s been held since day before yesterday,” continued Ramos, “without being charged. In fact, the guy isn’t guilty of anything. There wasn’t, strictly speaking, a home invasion, according to the report Mr. Mattos himself made. The most we can charge him with is carrying a weapon and send him away.”