“How many pairs of panties does she own?” Peçanha asked.
“Three,” Pontecorvo replied without hesitation.
“What time does she make love?”
“At 9:30 p.m.,” Pontecorvo replied promptly.
“And how did you find all this out? Do you knock at Dona Aurora’s door in the housing project, she opens the door and you say, good morning, Dona Aurora, what time do you get it on? Look here, my friend, I’ve been in this business for twenty-five years, and I don’t need anybody to tell me what the Class C woman’s profile is. I know from personal experience. They buy my newspaper, understand? Three pairs of panties … Ha!”
“We use scientific research methods. We have sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, statisticians, and mathematicians on our staff,” said Pontecorvo, imperturbable.
“All to get money from the patsies,” said Peçanha with undisguised scorn.
“As a matter of fact, before coming here I put together some information about your newspaper which I believe may be of interest to you,” Pontecorvo said.
“And what does it cost?” said Peçanha sarcastically.
“This I’ll give you for free,” Pontecorvo said. The man seemed to be made of ice. “We did a miniresearch on your readers, and despite the small sample size I can assure you, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the great majority, almost the entirety, of your readers is made up of Class B men.”
“What?” screamed Peçanha.
“That’s right, Class B men.”
First Peçanha turned pale. Then he began to turn red, then purple, as if he were being strangled. His mouth open, his eyes bulging, he rose from his chair and, arms spread, staggered like a crazed gorilla in Pontecorvo’s direction. A shocking sight, even for a man of steel like Pontecorvo, even for an ex-police reporter. Pontecorvo retreated before Peçanha’s advance until, his back against the wall, he said, trying to maintain his calm and composure, “Maybe our technicians made a mistake.”
Peçanha, who was within a centimeter of Pontecorvo, underwent a violent tremor and, contrary to what I expected, did not pounce upon the other like a rabid dog. He seized his own hair forcefully and began tearing it out, as he screamed, “Con men, swindlers, thieves, exploiters, liars, scum of the earth.” Pontecorvo nimbly made his way toward the door, as Peçanha ran after him throwing the tufts of hair yanked from his own head, “Men! Men! Class B!” Peçanha snarled madly.
Later, after calming down—I think Pontecorvo escaped by the stairs—Peçanha, seated behind his desk again, told me, “That’s the kind of people Brazil’s fallen into the hands of—manipulators of statistics, falsifiers of information, con men with computers, all of them creating the Big Lie. But they won’t pull it off with me. I really put that wretch in his place, didn’t I?”
I said something or other in agreement. Peçanha took the box of El Ropos from the drawer and offered me one. We smoked and talked about the Big Lie. Afterwards he gave me Pedro Redgrave’s letter and my reply, with his okay, for me to take to the composing room.
On the way I saw that Pedro Redgrave’s letter wasn’t the one I had sent him. The text was different:
“Dear Nathanael, your letter was a balm for my afflicted heart. It has given me the strength to resist. I will not make any deranged gesture. I promise to—”
The letter ended there. It had been interrupted in the middle. Strange. I didn’t understand. Something was wrong.
I went to my desk, sat down, and began writing the answer to Odontos Silva:
He who has no teeth also has no toothache. And as the hero of the well-known play put it, “There’s never been a philosopher who could bear a toothache with patience.” Besides, teeth are also instruments of revenge, as Deuteronomy says: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for afoot. Dictators despise teeth. Remember what Hitler told Mussolini about another meeting with Franco?—I prefer having four teeth pulled. You’re in the situation of the hero of that play All’s Well If Nobody Gets Shafted—no teeth, no taste, nothing. ADVICE: put your teeth back in and bite. If biting doesn’t do the trick, try punching and kicking.
I was in the middle of Odontos Silva’s letter when I suddenly understood everything. Peçanha was Pedro Redgrave. Instead of returning the letter in which Pedro asked me to have a mass said for him and which I had given him together with my answer about Oscar Wilde, Peçanha had handed me a new letter, unfinished, surely by accident, and which was supposed to come into my hands by mail.
I got Pedro Redgrave’s letter and went to Peçanha’s office.
“May I come in?” I asked.
“What is it? Come in,” Peçanha said.
I handed him Pedro Redgrave’s letter. Peçanha read the letter and, seeing the mistake he had committed, turned pale, as was his wont. Nervously, he shuffled the papers on his desk.
“It was all a joke,” he said, trying to light a cigar. “Are you angry?”
“For real or a joke, it’s all the same to me,” I said.
“My life would make a novel …” Peçanha said. “Let’s keep this between the two of us, okay?”
I wasn’t sure what he wanted to keep between the two of us, his life making a novel or his being Pedro Redgrave. But I replied: “Of course, just between the two of us.”
“Thanks,” said Peçanha. And he breathed a sigh that would have broken the heart of anyone who wasn’t an ex-police reporter.
mandrake
I WAS WHITE AND HAD FIANCHETTOED MY BISHOP. Berta was mounting a strong center pawn position.
“This is the office of Paulo Mendes,” my voice said on the answering machine, giving whoever had called thirty seconds to leave a message. The guy said his name was Cavalcante-Meier, as if there were a hyphen between the two names, and that they were trying to frame him for a crime but—click—his time ran out before he could say what he planned to do.
“Every time we’re in a close game some client calls,” Berta said. We were drinking Faísca wine.
The guy called back and asked me to call him at home. A number in the South Zone. An aged voice answered, its vocal cords reverential. It was the butler. He went to get the master.
“There’s a butler in the story. I already know whodunit.” Berta didn’t think it was funny. Besides being hooked on chess, she took everything seriously.
I recognized the voice from the answering machine: “What I have to say has to be in person. Can I come by your office?”
“I’m at home,” I explained, and gave the address.
“So much for the game, B.B. (Berta Bronstein),” I said, dialing.
“Hello, Dr. Medeiros, what’s the situation?”
Medeiros said the situation wasn’t serious but was no laughing matter either. Medeiros thought about nothing but politics. He’d held some position or other at the start of the revolution and, despite having the biggest office in town, had never shaken off the nostalgia of power. I asked if he knew a Cavalcante Meier.
“Everybody knows him.”
“I don’t. I even thought the name might be a phony.”
Medeiros said the man owned plantations in São Paulo and the North, exported coffee, sugar, and soybeans, and was an alternate senator for the state of Alagoas. A rich man.
“What else? Does he have any weaknesses, is he involved in any shady financial transactions, is he a sexual pervert as well as a landowner?”
“You think the whole world’s no good, don’t you? The senator is a very highly respected public figure, a business leader, a model citizen, unimpeachable.”
I reminded him that J. J. Santos, the banker, had also been unimpeachable and that I’d had to rescue him from the clutches of a crazed transvestite in a motel in the Barra.
“You got a Mercedes out of it. Is this how you show your gratitude?”
I hadn’t “got” the Mercedes, I had extorted it, the way bankers do with their interest rates and management fees.
Medeiros in a mellifluous voice: �
�What’s the problem with Cavalcante Meier?”
I said I didn’t know.
“Let’s finish the game,” Berta said.
“I can’t meet the guy naked, can I?” I said.
I was getting dressed when the bell rang, three times in ten seconds. An impatient man, accustomed to doors that opened quickly.
Cavalcante Meier was thin, elegant, fiftyish. His nose was slightly crooked. His eyes were deep-set, brownish green, and intense.
“I’m Rodolfo Cavalcante Meier. I don’t know if you know me.”
“I know you. I have your file.”
“My file?”
“Yes.” I saw him looking at the glass in my hand. “Care for some Faísca?”
“No thanks,” he said, evasively. “Wine gives me a headache. May I sit down?”
“Planter, exporter, alternate senator for Alagoas, services rendered to the revolution,” I said.
“Irrelevant,” he cut me off, sharply.
“Member of the Rotary Club,” I said, to rattle his cage.
“Just the Country Club.”
“A leader, a man of integrity, a patriot.”
He looked at me and said firmly, “Don’t joke with me.”
“I’m not joking. I’m a patriot too. In a different way. For example, I don’t want to declare war on Argentina.”
“I have your file too,” he said, imitating me. “Cynical, unscrupulous, competent. A specialist in extortion and fraud cases.”
He spoke like a recording; he reminded me of a laugh-box that you wind up and it makes a sound that’s neither animal nor human. Cavalcante Meier had wound himself up, his voice that of a plantation owner talking to a sharecropper.
“Competent yes, unscrupulous and cynical no. Just a man who lost his innocence,” I said.
He rewound the laugh-box. “Have you seen the papers?”
I answered that I never read newspapers, and he told me that a young woman had been found dead in the Barra, in her car. It had been in all the papers.
“That girl was, uh, my, er, connected to me, do you know what I mean?”
“Your lover?”
Cavalcante Meier said nothing.
“It was already over. I thought Marly should find someone her own age, get married, have children.”
We lapsed into silence. The telephone rang. “Hello, Mandrake?” I turned off the sound.
“Yes, and then?”
“Our relationship was very discreet, I’d even say secret. No one knew anything. She was found dead on Friday. Saturday I got a phone call, a man, threatening me, saying I had killed her and that he had proof we were lovers. Letters. I don’t know what letters they could be.”
Cavalcante Meier said he hadn’t gone to the police because he had political enemies who would take advantage of the scandal. Besides, he knew nothing that could help clear up the crime. And his only daughter was getting married that month.
“My going to the police would be a socially and ethically useless gesture. I’d like you to find that person for me, see what he wants, defend my interests in the best way possible. I’m willing to pay to avoid scandal.”
“What’s the guy’s name?”
“Márcio was the name he gave. He wants me to meet him tonight at ten at a place called Gordon’s, in Ipanema. He’ll be on a motorcycle, wearing a black shirt with ‘Jesus’ on the back.”
We agreed I’d keep the appointment with Márcio and negotiate the price of his silence. It could be worth a lot or worth nothing.
I asked where he’d heard about me.
“Dr. Medeiros,” he said, getting up. He left without shaking hands, with just a nod of his head.
I went to look for the laugh-box. I rummaged through the closet, the bookshelf, the drawers, until I found it in the kitchen. The maid loved to listen to the laughter.
I took it to the bedroom, lay down, and turned it on. A convulsive and disturbing guffaw, stuck in the glottis, purple, as of someone with a funnel stuck up his anus whose deadly laughter had gone through his body to come out his mouth, clogging lungs and brain. This called for a bit more Faísca. When I was a boy, a man sitting in front of me in the movie theater had a laughing fit so severe that he died. From time to time I remember that guy.
“Why’re you listening to that awful noise? You look like you’re crazy,” Berta said. “Shall we continue the game?”
“I’m going to read the papers now,” I said.
“Shit,” Berta said, knocking the chessboard and pieces to the floor. An impulsive woman.
All the newspapers were on the night table. Young secretary killed in her car in the Barra. A bullet in the head. The victim still had her jewelry and documents. The police ruled out robbery. The victim was in the habit of going straight to work from her house and returning early. She didn’t go out much at night. No boyfriend. The neighbors said she was friendly and shy. Her parents said she would go to her room to read after coming home from work. She read a lot, her mother said, she liked poetry and novels, she was gentle and obedient, without her our life is empty, meaningless. The papers ran several photos of Marly, tall and thin, with long hair. Her expression seemed sad, or was that my imagination? I’m an incurable romantic.
Finally I went back to play with Berta. Playing Black, I opened with king’s pawn. Berta copied my move. I moved my knights, Berta following me, creating symmetrical positions that would bring victory to the more patient player, the one who made fewer mistakes, in other words Berta. I’m very nervous. I play chess to irritate myself, to blow up in camera; on the outside it’s too dangerous, I have to stay calm.
I tried to recall Capablanca’s game with Tarrash, St. Petersburg, 1914, which featured a four-knight opening and the springing of a terrible trap, but what trap was it? I couldn’t remember; my head was full of the biker at Gordon’s.
“It’s no use giving me that victorious gloating look,” I said, “I’m going to have to leave now.”
“Now? In the middle of the game? Again? You’re a coward, you know you’re going to lose so you run away.”
“That’s true. But besides that I have to see a client.”
Berta raised her arms and began to pin back her hair. A woman’s armpit is a masterpiece, especially when she’s thin and muscular like Berta. Her armpit also smells very nice, when she doesn’t use deodorant, that is. A sweet-and-sour odor that turns me on. She knows it.
“I’m meeting a motorcyclist at Gordon’s.”
“Ah, a motorcyclist.”
“There’s a Hitchcock at eleven on TV.”
“I don’t like television; I detest dubbed films,” Berta said in ill humor.
“Then study the Nimzovitch opening; it offers some good positional traps. I’ll be back soon.”
Berta said she’d wait for me, adding that I had no consideration for her, no respect.
When I stopped in front of Gordon’s, still in the car, I saw the biker. He was a short, husky young man with dark brown hair. He was arguing, insolently, with a girl. Her hair was so dark it looked dyed. Her face was very pale, unlike the suntanned girls who hung out at Gordon’s. Perhaps her pallor made her hair look darker and her hair in turn made her face look paler, which in turn—
While I amused myself with this proposition, thinking about the Quaker Oats I used to eat when I was a child—a Quaker holding a box of oatmeal that showed another Quaker holding a box of oatmeal, etc., ad infinitum—the girl got on the back of the motorcycle and they left quickly down Visconde de Pirajá. I couldn’t follow them; my car was blocked. I got out, went to the counter in Gordon’s, and ordered a coke and sandwich. I ate—slowly. I waited an hour. They didn’t return.
Berta was in bed asleep, the television on.
I called Cavalcante Meier.
“The apostle didn’t show up,” I said. There was no point telling what had happened.
“What are you going to do?” He spoke in a low voice, his mouth close to the phone. My clients always talk that way. It bothers me.
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“Nothing. I’m going to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow.” I hung up.
I kissed Berta lightly on the lips. She woke up.
“Tell me you love me,” Berta said.
I woke up in the morning with an urge to have some Faísca. Berta didn’t like me to drink so early, but Portuguese wine does no harm at any time of day or night. I turned on the answering machine and found a message from Cavalcante Meier.
I called.
“Have you seen the papers?” Cavalcante Meier asked.
“I just got up,” I lied. “What time is it?”
“Noon. Have you read the papers? No, of course you haven’t yet. The police say they have a suspect.”
“They always have a suspect, who’s usually innocent.”
“Since I’m innocent, I may be the suspect, following your logic. Another thing. That guy Márcio called. He says he’s coming to my house this afternoon.”
“I’ll be there. Introduce me as your personal secretary.”
“What time did you start in on the wine?” Berta asked, coming into the living room.
I explained to her that Churchill used to get out of bed, have some champagne, smoke a few cigars, and win the war.
I read the papers, smoking a dark Suerdieck panatela. Marly’s death got a lot of space, but there was nothing new. No mention of a suspect.
I called Raul.
“That crime with the girl in the Barra. What’s the word on it?”
“Which girl? The one who was strangled, the one who got run over, the one shot in the head, the one—”
“Shot in the head.”
“Marly Moreira, the secretary at Cordovil Meier. My boys are on the case.”
“They say there’s a suspect. Know anything about it?”
“I’ll check it out.”
Cavalcante Meier lived in Gávea Pequena. I stopped the car at the gate and blew the horn. A private guard came out of the gatehouse. He wore a pistol in his belt and the look of someone who didn’t know how to use it. He opened the gate.
Winning the Game and Other Stories Page 7