SOON AFTER CAPANEMA ENDED HIS SPEECH, Vitor Freitas met with his “group of independents” to relay the information he had received from his “friend in the palace.” What Freitas said was received with surprise and apprehension by the other legislators. According to his palace informant, an emissary from the president, Márcio Alves, had left that day for Minas Gerais, on a secret mission for Vargas, to enlist the support of governor Juscelino Kubitschek for imposition of a state of siege in the country.
Some members of the group doubted the veracity of the information.
“Why didn’t Getúlio choose Capanema or Tancredo for that mission?”
“It would be impossible for either of them to do it secretly,” answered Freitas. “Capanema spoke to General Dutra to get support for Getúlio and everybody knows about it. The choice of Márcio Alves was clever. He’s an intimate friend of Amaral Peixoto and his wife; he’s intelligent, discreet, and loyal to the government. The right person for a delicate mission like that.”
“Does Lacerda already know about it?”
“Certainly. He has the same informants as I do.”
“Then the UDN is going to try to pull a coup first.”
“They’ll have to convince the military.”
“The air force is already more than convinced.”
“But the army’s in charge, and the army is undecided. Zenóbio, Estillac, Denys—everything depends on them, and for now they don’t know what to do.”
“The UDN is trying to influence the military in several ways. One is by the pressure of public opinion. The large newspapers are playing the opposition’s game. Última Hora, which in the past strongly supported the president, strikes me as cowed lately.”
“Getúlio received Assis Chateaubriand this morning.”
“Let’s see how Chateau’s newspapers behave from now on. In any case, Getúlio has already lost the battle for public opinion.”
A SHORT TIME before finishing his shift, Inspector Mattos received some information from the clerk, Oliveira:
“Remember that Portuguese with the oranges? Mr. Adelino?”
“Of course. His son falsely confessed to a homicide. I charged the old man with physical assault resulting in death and made it clear that the circumstances demonstrated that the agent had not intended that fatal outcome.”
“Right, you felt sorry for him . . . But it didn’t do any good. The old man had a heart attack and died.”
Mattos had already handed over duty to Inspector Maia when the jailer came to say that the cell boss Odorico wanted to talk to him.
“Want to come with me?” asked Mattos.
“They want to talk to you,” Maia excused himself. “Make believe you haven’t relieved me yet.”
In the lockup the prisoners were arguing. When they saw Mattos they ran to the bars. Their simultaneous complaints were silenced by a gesture from Odorico, the boss of the cell.
“Sir, just a quick word. We know you’re about to end your shift, but we don’t have nobody else to ask.”
Mattos took an antacid from his pocket, placed it in his mouth, and chewed.
“Whenever you’re in charge of the precinct, you empty the lockup a little. But the situation keeps getting worse. This week five more arrived that not even you can let go, they’ve been convicted. There’s not even room in here to move. There’s barely space for everybody to sleep at the same time.”
Mattos approached the bars. The prisoners, pressed against the bars, seemed like a double wall of bodies.
“Open the door,” Mattos told the jailer.
Mattos entered the lockup. He walked about the cell. The prisoners pressed against one another to let him through. Even so, Mattos rubbed against the dirty bodies of the inmates, smelling their fetid breath.
“We can’t get any sun, or exercise. It’s horrible. Can’t you arrange for some of us to be transferred to the penitentiary?”
“I’ll see, Odorico, I’ll see.”
Mattos knew there were no vacancies in the penitentiaries. And that all the other precincts’ lockups were also beyond normal capacity.
“At least the food’s better, isn’t it?”
“It’s better, but food ain’t everything.”
“I’ll see, Odorico, I’ll see.”
Mattos left his shift, caught the streetcar, thinking about Odorico and the other prisoners in that filthy, stinking cell. He thought about Mr. Adelino. What was his orange grove like? Sweet oranges? He, Mattos, could only eat sweet oranges, which had less acidity. He thought about the son, Cosme, his pregnant wife. The world he lived in was shit. The entire world was shit. And now he was going to the home of a luxury procuress to do the work of a vulture, his heart heavy and his mind laden with problems. The black man who had killed Paulo Gomes Aguiar wasn’t Lieutenant Gregório, as his ingenuous hastiness had led him to suppose. Now he needed to find a black man who was big and strong—the macumba priest Miguel could also be eliminated from his deliberations. He needed to locate the doorman Raimundo. He needed to connect all the dots. He needed to investigate the murder of Old Turk even though the case was in a different jurisdiction and prospects were very unpleasant, since he suspected Pádua. He needed to pressure Ilídio. He needed to have a talk with Alice. He needed to have a talk with Salete. He needed to see the doctor. He needed to check his feces in the toilet bowl.
Almeidinha opened the door.
“Mr. Mattos, so nice to see you. Dona Laura is waiting for you.” Ingratiating, pandering: “You really must come here more often. . . Dona Laura was very taken with you . . .”
Laura was sitting on a sofa in the semidarkness of her red living room.
“You may go, Almeidinha.”
The two remained silent for a moment.
“Sit down, Inspector.”
Mattos sat in an armchair.
“Sit over here by me,” said Laura, patting the sofa.
“I’m fine here.”
“But I’m not fine with you there. I don’t want to put on my pince-nez to see you, understand? I’m very nearsighted.”
Mattos didn’t move.
“Please, I don’t bite.”
“Put on the pince-nez.”
Laura got the pince-nez from a small table beside the sofa. She placed the silk cord around her neck and brought the pince-nez in front of her eyes, without supporting it on her nose.
“Have you stopped hitting your head against the wall?”
“For the time being. I’d like to get some information from you.”
“About Senator Freitas?”
“Exactly.”
“What do you want to know?”
“What kind of person the senator . . . uh—”
“Young men. Business employees, students—any clean, good-looking young man.”
“Does he like black men?”
“The senator?! He’s a racist. He hates blacks. He once fought with a friend, because the guy has a black boxing instructor.”
“Can you tell me the name of that friend?”
“One Pedro Lomagno.”
“Can you tell me what you know about this Lomagno?”
“He was here just once. He only had a few whiskeys with Freitas and left. They were going to meet another senator, who never showed up. I heard a bit of their argument. Freitas said Brazil was a backward country because of Negroes and the Catholic church. A cursed black heritage: the Jesuits’ robes and the skin of slaves. He may even be a little bit right.” Laura patted her red hair. “Of course, blacks aren’t to blame for being black, the poor things.”
Rosalvo, sadly, was right, Mattos had to admit. You can find out a lot of things in high-class bordellos.
“This . . . boxing instructor. Do you know him? Do you know anything about him?”
“I don’t have the faintest idea who he is. Let’s change the subject, Inspector . . . Let’s forget this unpleasant police work . . . I have a suggestion . . .”
“I don’t have anything else to discuss with you
.”
“But you don’t even know what my suggestion is.”
Mattos stood up. “I don’t want to know.”
“No man treats me like this, did you know that?”
“Like what?”
“With such disdain. You don’t like those who serve as intermediaries in amorous encounters, is that it?”
“It’s a crime. It’s called procuring. I didn’t make the law.”
“So you disdain me, because I’m a criminal?”
“I don’t disdain anyone.” He thought about Salete. He thought about Mr. Adelino. About Alice. Luciana. Lomagno. Ilídio. Old Turk. About the prostitutes in his childhood on Conde Lage. A whirlwind in his head.
“What does someone have to do to deserve a bit of, I don’t say affection, but a bit of your compassion?” asked Laura.
“Look, I already have two women, and I don’t know what to do with them. My hands and my heart are full.”
“Whoever has two can have three,” said Laura, seriously. “I like you. It doesn’t bother me that you’re a policeman, it doesn’t bother me that you have an ulcer in your stomach, it doesn’t bother me that you bang your head against the wall. It doesn’t bother me that you have as many women as you want.”
Mattos sat back down.
“Can you get me a glass of milk?”
“What?”
“My stomach is hurting.”
Laura stood up. She was wearing a long, tight satin dress.
Rua Conde Lage.
“I’ll get your milk.”
As she passed close to him, Mattos smelled the perfume emanating from Laura’s body. Rua Conde Lage.
IT WAS STILL DARK, at five a.m., when the troops employed in the hunt for Climerio began their execution of the plan laid out by their commanders. The dogs, after sniffing again Climerio’s clothing found in the home of his friend, became restless and were the first to move, restrained by the soldiers of the patrol.
As soon as the day brightened, the helicopters took flight.
At the top of the mountain, the sounds of the small creatures of the forest, who during the night had terrified Climerio and not let him sleep, began to be replaced by the distant barking of dogs. Soon afterward, a louder sound filled Climerio with fear. He lay curled up on the ground, and saw, through the crowns of the trees, a helicopter circling slowly. The ’copter was so near that Climerio could read the letters on its cabin: FAB.
The barking of the dogs increased.
Climerio was trembling from cold. His hand was so chilled that he had difficulty taking the revolver from his belt. He rested the barrel against his head. He didn’t have the courage to pull the trigger; they’re not going to kill me, he thought, they need me alive.
When he saw the first dogs and the men from the patrol, Climerio came out from behind the trees with his hands raised.
Three shots rang out. The agreed-upon signal that the hunt was over. It was eight a.m.
At eleven, Climerio was disembarking in handcuffs from a helicopter at the military base at Galeão, to the sound of cheers and jubilation. His wife, Elvira de Almeida, had been arrested that morning.
Brigadier Eduardo Gomes, the opposition military leader, was immediately informed of the fugitive’s capture. No thought was given to informing the secretary of the air force, Nero Moura, with the same rapidity. In any case, he was to be replaced that same day by a new secretary, Brigadier Epaminondas. But neither of them was respected by air force officialdom. The de facto secretary was Eduardo Gomes.
IN HIS FORTRESS IN BANGU, Eusébio de Andrade met with his fellow bankers Aniceto Moscoso and Ilídio.
“Did you get the summons yet?”
“Not yet. But the clerk told me it’s coming.”
“That inspector is going to give us trouble yet,” said Aniceto.
“He’s already giving us trouble,” said Ilídio.
“I’m not talking about this. This is something you created,” said Aniceto.
“I already spoke to my lawyer,” said Ilídio.
“You need to change lawyers. That peg leg can’t get it up.” Aniceto and Moscoso laughed; Ilídio’s attorney actually did have a mechanical leg.
“He fell off the streetcar when he was a student,” Ilídio said.
“We can’t have lawyers who fall off the streetcar,” said Eusébio. “Go into a sanatorium this very day, one of those that specialize in rest cures. There’s a very good one at Alto da Gávea. Spend a week there. When the summons arrives, send the peg leg with a medical certificate to say you’re sick. In the meantime, we’re going to act on another front, aren’t we, Aniceto?”
“We’ll find a way. It’ll cost money, your money, Ilídio, but we’ll get out of this jam.”
“Is it going to be a lot?”
“Whatever it takes. That’ll teach you to go off half-cocked.”
eighteen
“I’VE GOT TO GIVE Senator Freitas some information. He’s pressuring me.”
Rosalvo remained silent, meditating.
“You told me the inspector is investigating a homicide in which the senator may be involved. Just what crime are we talking about?”
Teodoro, the Senate security officer, and Rosalvo, aide to Inspector Mattos, were conversing in a restaurant on General Osório Square, in Ipanema.
“Remember that rich guy who turned up dead in the Deauville Building?”
“Is that the case?”
“The high roller was involved in under-the-table business with the senator, import licenses obtained fraudulently from the Cexim, along with other backroom deals. He knew too much, and he got killed.”
“And the inspector thinks it was the senator who killed the guy?”
“His conclusion is that the senator ordered the killing, to hide his role in the larceny.”
“Does the inspector have proof or is it all supposition, a hunch?”
“I don’t know.”
The waiter brought pork loin with manioc flour.
“There’s a rumor that the senator’s a fruit,” said Rosalvo.
“How can you say that! Some people have the habit of calling any fellow who’s not married a pansy. The senator’s a man.”
“Could be a bull dyke.”
“Impossible. If he were, I’d know.”
“Don’t go telling the senator what I said.”
“No way! The senator will get rid of me if I say something like that to him.”
“Inspector Mattos is crazy. Real crazy, the kind who talks to himself and tears up money. Tell the senator that. He has to be careful with him.”
TEODORO LOST NO TIME telling Clemente what Rosalvo had said. The part referring to the senator’s possible homosexuality was omitted.
“I’ll talk to the senator about this . . .”
Clemente stared at Teodoro for a long time, until he detected nervousness in his expression. “Can we trust you?”
“But of course, sir.”
“Can the senator trust you? Blindly?”
Teodoro paled.
“The senator will know how to reward that trust,” continued Clemente.
“Whatever the senator asks, not asks, orders, I’ll do.”
Ordering the killing of political adversaries, Clemente said, was common in the interior of Brazil, even more so in Pernambuco, the senator’s home state, but in Rio de Janeiro, capital of the Republic, it was rarer, for one simple reason: it was difficult to find a killer “of faith.” A killer so reliable that if caught he would never reveal who hired him. After this long buildup, Clemente stared at Teodoro and said:
“The senator wants to get rid of that inspector. Could you do it?”
“Me?!”
“The senator has confidence in you.”
“Mr. Clemente, I know someone better than me.”
“Our man can’t be some asshole like that Alcino of the Rua Tonelero business. Who’s the man?”
“My brother.”
“Your brother? I didn’t know you had a
brother.”
“He’s the black sheep of the family. He’s been in and out of trouble since he was a boy. He can do what the senator wants. He’s a tough guy from Pernambuco. If he gets caught, he won’t open his mouth; he’ll kill himself first. But that won’t happen. My brother has already killed over twenty people, and they’ve never laid a finger on him. You know who killed the mayor of Caruaru? The chief of police in Maceió? It was him. He’s killed politicians, soldiers, priests. He’s very good.”
“What’s his name?”
“Genésio.”
“Does he live in Rio?”
“Recife. But just call him and he comes, does the job, and takes it on the lam the same day.”
“Then tell him to come right away. By plane. The senator’s in a hurry. As soon as—Genésio, isn’t it?—gets here, let me know. If everything goes well, that appointment for your wife will go through right away. You have a nineteen-year-old son, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The senator can arrange something for him, too.”
Meanwhile, in his office, Senator Freitas was receiving his main electoral supporter, a plantation owner known as “Colonel” Linhares. The “colonel” informed him that he was buying false voting papers for the October election for five cruzeiros apiece.
“Here in the State of Rio the same papers can be bought for two, three cruzeiros at most,” protested Freitas. “You think I have a printing press to manufacture money like Oswaldo Aranha?”
“I brought you a bottle of your cherry liqueur,” said Linhares.
“Don’t change the subject. You’ve got to get the voting papers for less. I doubt if my opponents are paying all that.”
“I’ll see what I can do, senator. Now try the liqueur. Try it, it’s really very good.”
THE INSPECTOR BEGAN THE DAY by going to have an x-ray done of his stomach.
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