by Frei Betto
“I imagine senhor flicks through magazines about guns and police stories. In much the same way, I’m familiar with this type of magazine. It’s part of my job. Almost all the meninas I represent pose for photos.”
“Sim, but don’t these particular publications belong to senhora?” he said. He handed Madame Larência a magazine.
She glanced at the cover, then placed the magazine back on the table.
“I don’t know where senhor is going with this,” she muttered uncomfortably. “But these magazines aren’t mine, my dear. I don’t collect magazines. I don’t collect anything, not even regrets.”
“And this?” Del Bosco produced his next exhibit. “Is this not senhora’s?”
Madame Larência recognized her own business card.
“Bem, obviously it is, senhor. Unless there’s someone else with the exact same name and address as me.”
“This card, senhora, was found inside one of these magazines,” said the detective. He raised the tone of his voice, attempting to intimidate her. “And these magazines were found inside Doutor Pacheco’s room.”
“Ora,” said Madame Larência, fighting back but unable to hide her nervousness, “what fault is it of mine, senhor, if Pacheco mixed my business card in with his dirty magazines? I gave him my card just like I give it to any man who asks me to find him companions.”
Del Bosco became animated.
“Does senhora mean to say she admits soliciting garotas for Pacheco?”
Madame Larência held her bag tightly to her chest in an act of comfort.
“As a delegado, I’m sure senhor knows very well how these things work. Pacheco moved in political circles. From time to time he asked me to find a girl to escort a deputado on a trip, or to keep a ministro company while he was in Rio. I found the girls; he passed them on.”
“And how did you split the grana?” asked Del Bosco.
“I don’t think he earned any money out of it. The client paid the girl, who in turn paid me a commission. Pacheco probably got some kind of job security out of knowing about the private lives of important people.”
“And how many women did senhora arrange for Seu Marçal?”
The colour drained from Madame Larência’s cheeks, highlighting her wrinkles. Her fingers tightened their grip on the straps of her handbag. They trembled slightly.
“I never arranged any girls for Marçal. He never asked me to and I never offered.”
“But senhora knew he was a pervert?”
“Pelo amor de Deus, Marçal was my friend, senhor! There was never a hint of sex between us.”
BODY AND SPIRIT
The pink three-piece suit Diamante Negro wore to the police station left Del Bosco in some doubt.
“Is that outfit supposed to be formal or provocative?” he asked.
“Oh, delegado, now is not the time to make fun of me. I’m scared half to death of becoming the next victim. I can even picture the headlines: ‘Transvestite decapitated in Lapa!’ Ai, meu Deus, these media types are so ignorant they don’t even know the difference between a tranny and a transformista.”
“It’s precisely so you don’t run the risk of being the next victim that we need to move this investigation along as quickly as possible,” the detective said.
“Senhor, I wish I could help, I really do,” said Diamante Negro, “but this whole business is turning my head upside down.”
“Careful,” said Del Bosco, “it might fall off.”
“Pelo amor de Deus, senhor! Stop teasing!”
“Do you think someone at the hotel is mixed up in this?” asked the detective.
“Não sei. There are eccentrics to suit all tastes at the hotel, senhor. But could any of them have attacked a big cabra like Seu Marçal and caused all that mayhem without anyone hearing a thing? Could any of them have set upon Pacheco without him… Now, how would he have put it? Ah, já sei… ‘categorically denying it’?” said Diamante Negro. He adopted a deep voice in imitation of the political aide.
“Nobody attacked or set upon anyone,” said the detective. “There were no signs of struggle between the killer and either of the victims.”
Diamante Negro held his hands up, the fingers spread wide.
“Senhor, I’ve already had cinco – um, dois, três, quatro, cinco – locks fitted on my door! It would take a bazooka and a tank to get in.”
“In your opinion,” said Del Bosco, “were Marçal and Pacheco perverts?”
“Perverts?!” Diamante said, surprised. “Ora, who knows?” He stroked his beardless chin with his thin fingers. “Seu Marçal loved meninas, and Pacheco wasn’t exactly backward in coming forward – just ask Rosaura. But to go from that to crowning them perverts, senhor, is to take a leap as big as the one between my male body and my female spirit.”
TEMPERAMENTS
“So, Del Bosco, who’s next to have a confession beaten out of them?” said Marcelo, as he entered the detective’s room.
“Rest assured, it won’t be you,” replied the delegado with a sense of discomfort he couldn’t quite hide. “But I do aim to clear the murders up very soon. Aren’t you scared your head might be next?”
“I get off my head every night,” said Marcelo. He plucked a cigarette out of a packet in his shirt pocket. “The way things are going, the next head to roll will be yours. I interviewed the Secretário de Segurança yesterday. He told me, off the record, that if you don’t catch the ‘Lapa Decapa’ in the next few days, he’s taking you off the case and putting a new team in place.”
Del Bosco adjusted his collar, as if checking his neck was still intact.
“Do you think Madame Larência could have plotted these murders?”
“Madame Larência?!” said Marcelo, astonished.
The detective sought to capitalize on his confusion.
“And Rosaura?”
“Larência and Rosaura? Now if you’d told me you suspected Diamante Negro, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised: gays can be very temperamental, mood swings over the slightest thing. But, Larência and Rosaura…” said Marcelo. “I know you’d rather not hear it, but my newspaper is planning a probe into whether the police are mixed up in this. They usually are in crimes with no suspects.”
The detective gave a strained smile.
“Marcelo, I won’t lie to you; not all policemen are saints. I know colleagues who practise extortion and pimping, others who run protection rackets for drug-traffickers and jogo do bicho chiefs. But playing at serial killers is not our game. This is the work of a maluco.”
UNDER SUSPICION
After questioning all the Hotel Brasil residents, Delegado Del Bosco ordered that two suspects be remanded in custody: Rosaura Dorotéia dos Santos and Madame Larência. The former, the police report stated, because she’d quarrelled with the victim and could conceivably have plotted the murder to avenge his trying to rape her. The latter because the police had uncovered a large collection of pornographic material in Doutor Pacheco’s room and the cafetina’s business card had been found in among it.
Yet something still nagged at the detective: was it definitely the same killer, or could the same method have been used to mislead the police?
COVER
“Does senhor know what he’s let himself in for with this girl?” said Del Bosco, welcoming Cândido back to the police station. “She has a bounty on her head.”
“What does senhor suggest I do?” said Cândido. “Hand her back in to a young offenders’ institute?”
“That would resolve senhor’s situation but rather complicate hers,” the detective admitted. “If she falls into police hands, sooner or later someone’s going to settle a score with her. It makes more sense to keep her out of circulation.”
“Why is senhor suddenly so interested in her welfare?” said Cândido, starting to get worried.
“I could tell she wasn’t the typical drug-addict moleque, born to be a bandido. She’s very fond of senhor, and I think it would be best for all concerned if she
remained under senhor’s care. If I hear of any specific threat, I’ll let senhor know,” said Del Bosco.
Cândido explained the situation to Mônica, who agreed to help until he found somewhere else for Beatriz to go.
INTERLUDE
“Odid, this torch in my heart grows bigger by the day. Soon it will be a giant bonfire. Even worrying about Bia doesn’t provide any respite from my fixation with Mônica.”
“Is it stronger than what you felt for Cibele?”
“With Cibele perhaps I experienced the awakening of love, for I did feel a great warmth inside me. But it was like eating chocolate: a warm feeling that soon turned to thirst.”
“Not like with ngela, then?”
“With ngela I sampled the glorification of the flesh, dizzy attraction, ecstasy exploding.”
“What’s so different this time?”
“This time I’m savouring the bittersweet taste of love. I’m going round and round in circles, powerlessly, confusingly, revolving around someone whose face is the door to a world that is real and yet woven from dreams.”
“Why don’t you tell her this?”
“I fear she already knows and that my dizzy feelings are not reciprocated. I’ve never seen her looking at me the way I look at her. Though we do worry about Bia in much the same way… I see Mônica even when we’re apart, I can guess her movements. I’d give anything to know once and for all what she thinks of me.”
CLARIFICATION
Dear Cândido,
Your presence within me, so tender and endearing, assumes proportions that make me sure I’m in love. I don’t want to upset you, put you in an uncomfortable position or prey upon your deepest emotions. Above all else, I can’t stand the thought of losing you as a friend. But I feel drunk at the mere mention of your name. Just knowing you exist activates my most vital energies.
I love you!
Mônica
9Taco
There was a birthday cake the size of a Ferris wheel in the middle of an open field. It had a chocolate coating and was covered in small yellow-and-green candles. The day was very hot and the sun was melting the chocolate, sending it dribbling down the cake, over layers of nuts and cream, to the ground, where it made furrows in the earth and formed sweet rivers of vanilla-scented lava that set off for the sea.
The dream dissolved as Cândido heard a broom handle tapping against his door. He tried to recover the scene. All he could recall was that it was some sort of commemoration, for whom or for what he could not say. Fragments of memory remained like dark silhouettes, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.
He put his dressing gown on and opened the door. Dona Dinó stood there with a look of concern on her face.
“Senhor Chico Lima just called. He said senhor is to phone him right away.”
Cândido splashed some water on his face, got dressed and went out to the phone in the dining room. Dona Dinó was sitting at the table by the window, broom pressed to her chest, Osíris asleep at her feet. Her eyes fixed themselves on the phone while he spoke. She directed a strange energy at the mouthpiece, as if she could see the person at the other end of the line.
Chico Lima told Cândido that Taco was being taken to a juvenile correction facility on a fazenda somewhere in the Rio state interior. But the police had ordered that he first take part in a crime scene reconstruction before the juvenile court judge.
“It’s scheduled for midday today,” said Chico Lima. “I think we should be there.”
PREMONITION
Cândido bid Dona Dinó farewell, but found his path blocked by the broom: she’d let it slip from her hands and fall at his feet. She swooped down and picked it up, in one swift motion.
“Senhor should think twice about going to certain places today,” she said in a premonitory tone. “May God protect senhor.”
The warning intrigued him.
“How so, Dona Dinó?”
“Forgive me,” she said. “I have no right to interfere in senhor’s affairs.”
“Don’t say that! Senhora is like a second mother to me,” he said, leaving her visibly touched. “But don’t worry, my santo is strong.”
THE ANGRY MOB
When he got to the favela, Cândido saw that a number of onlookers had already gathered, attracted by the presence of police and press vehicles. A green-and-yellow rope cordoned off the area around the barraco where the old lady had been killed by her drugged-up grandson. There was no sign of Taco yet. The crowd behind the rope was starting to get agitated.
The police authorities knew Chico Lima, and he and Cândido were allowed inside the segregated area. They took a quick look inside the barraco, a one-room hut made of clapboard, cardboard and corrugated iron. It had been built precariously close to a cesspit, Taco and his grandma sharing the space with rats and cockroaches from a sewage pipe. The walls inside the hut were adorned with photos of actors and actresses cut out from magazines, as well as a print of São Jorge on his white horse, sticking a spear into the flaming jaws of a dragon.
Taco arrived when the sun was at its apex. He came in a police car, accompanied by the Juiz de Menores and the delegado in charge of the case. The boy’s white reformatory uniform and yellow plastic flip-flops contrasted with the blackness of his skin.
His look of fear subsided as he recognized a few faces in the crowd, but as he was led over to the barraco by the judge and the detective, someone shouted:
“Lynch him!”
Others picked up on the cry and the refrain quickly spread, moving through the throng like a ripple on a lake. Taco became increasingly frightened. He huddled close to the judge for protection.
“Lynch him! Lynch him!” roared the mob, rocking back and forth behind the cordon.
Cândido and Chico Lima urged everyone to calm down and not compromise the judge’s work, but their words reached only a handful of people at the front. The police started to worry about the level of unrest and tried to reinforce the barrier they’d formed around Taco and the two officials. The detective suggested they get back in the car.
Three young men broke through the cordon and advanced aggressively on Taco. The police raised their truncheons. One of the young men was struck across the back. Another officer pulled out a gun and pointed it at the three aggressors. A circle of police tried to escort the judge and Taco back to the car, the judge wrapping his arms around the boy, who was now crying convulsively. Women grabbed at the policemen’s clothes, tearing fabric and scratching skin. Reporters wavered between registering the facts and helping to contain the crowd’s temper, until their cameras were snatched off them and thrown through the air, then fought over as booty on the ground.
The three interlopers lunged at Taco. One of them got hold of an arm. Panic-stricken, Taco begged the judge and detective not to abandon him. Truncheons swung freely. The angry mob grew in size and rage, possessed by a rabid fury.
Pressed up against the barraco, Cândido and Chico Lima continued to appeal for calm. Their calls fell on deaf ears. The delegado took out his gun and fired two shots in the air. Taco’s attackers let go of him and the delegado told the juiz to take the boy inside the barraco and wait until backup came.
The judge, Taco and a police guard waded through the crowd, as if in slow motion, pushing and shoving to open a path to the barraco. The atmosphere turned hostile again: a hail of punches, spit and stones rained down on them.
Cândido watched, trapped in a corner, wincing every time their progress was halted and they were forced backwards. He said a silent prayer, hoped for a miracle. Unless police reinforcements arrived soon, a tragedy would be inevitable.
Men armed with iron bars suddenly appeared, fighting their way through to Taco.
“Kill him! Kill him!” the crowd chanted in unison.
The men seized Taco. His screaming ceased as a metal bar split his skull. Blood flew everywhere, splattering the face of a boy tying the rope cordon round Taco’s neck. Taco fell. A cavalcade of stamping feet passed over his body.
Sirens were heard and the mob quickly dispersed, like ants surprised by a gush of water in a sugar bowl.
Taco’s remains lay mixed in with the mud and slops. All that could really be distinguished was the green-and-yellow chord he’d been strangled with.
10Revelation
INTERLUDE
“Odid, last night I dreamed of Mônica.”
“There you go, man: proof she inhabits your subconscious. What was the dream like?”
“There was a lake. The side of the lake fell into a crystal waterfall. She was swimming at the bottom, naked. I approached from the side of a mountain, wearing crampons and dressed as an alpine hiker. When she saw me, she tried to protect her modesty by hiding behind the veil of water. But it was hopeless. The closer I got, the more she laughed. I moved towards her, and, as the water poured down on me, my clothes came off, too, until I was naked except for my boots, wet and heavy on my feet.”
“And then you embraced?” said Odidnac.
“That was my intention. But when I opened my arms, she laughed and her body started moving up the sheet of water, pulled by an invisible hand. She went higher and higher, further and further away from me, and then disappeared over the top of the waterfall.”
“How do you feel now, man?”
“Full of longing. Longing for the future.”
GALLANTRY
Rosaura and Madame Larência were released due to lack of evidence. While they were in jail together, the cafetina tried to lure the housemaid into her fold.
“You don’t even actually have to go into battle, my dear,” said Madame Larência. “Get paid up front, distract the client with idle chit-chat and get him drunk. Then when H-hour comes, let slip that you had some tests last month because you were worried you’d got a venereal disease. They’re all terrified of Aids.”
But Rosaura seemed more interested in Olinto Del Bosco’s gallantry. He regularly came to fetch her from the cells and let her sit in his office watching police films.