copyright © 2012 by Keith Alan Deutsch. Licensed by written permission.
PASSPORT TO CRIME
PASSPORT TO CRIME
BEAUTY
by Rubem Fonseca
EQMM has published several short stories by Rubem Fonseca over the years. As we have noted on past occasions, the author is one of Brazil's best-known literary figures, a writer whose work is...
BLACK MASK
DEPARTMENT OF FIRST STORIES
DEPARTMENT OF FIRST STORIES
PASSPORT TO CRIME
BEAUTY
by Rubem Fonseca
EQMM has published several short stories by Rubem Fonseca over the years. As we have noted on past occasions, the author is one of Brazil's best-known literary figures, a writer whose work is considered groundbreaking for its gritty and realistic depiction of life in the cities of his native country. What we have not mentioned before is that the author was once a policeman in Rio de Janeiro, where he rose to the rank of police commissioner.
Translated from the Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers
Then Elza told me: "When I see myself in the mirror I feel like dying. I look at photographs of when I was twenty, you remember me when I was twenty, don't you? And I think, how did this happen? I forget that, like someone said, time is the worst poison of all. I should have died when I was twenty, it doesn't matter how, run over, murdered, a brick falling on my head. If I'd known I was going to end up like this, look at me, just look at me, go ahead and look at me, if I'd known I was going to end up like this, I would've killed myself. But would it do any good? Do you believe in the soul?"
"Soul?"
"Anima, in Latin. In theology, the incorporeal, nonmaterial, invisible substance created by God in his image; the source and engine of every human act."
"Of course."
"And the soul also ages, doesn't it?"
"I don't know. If there's life after death, it's a noncorporeal existence . . ."
"I read in a book by a philosopher that the soul ages too."
"Ages?"
"Yes. But I don't know what he meant by that. When I saw myself in the mirror I thought, When I die is my soul going to have this decadent, horrible look?"
"If the soul has a noncorporeal existence—" I began to say, but Elza interrupted, crying convulsively, saying between sobs, "I should have killed myself when I was twenty, when I was twenty . . ."
I remembered her at twenty. A beautiful woman. Now, sitting with me at the bar, was an ugly, fat woman, aged and depressed. Yes, Elza should have killed herself, or else someone should have had the kindness to do it for her, an unequaled gesture of generosity and nobility.
I went home and got two slices of moldy bread from the refrigerator and placed them in a small toaster oven, planning to make a sandwich. But then I realized I didn't have anything to put between the slices of toast. Go out and buy something at the corner supermarket? I didn't feel like eating; those slices of toasted bread were enough. I wanted to think. A human being's beauty is a joy that's short-lived; its enchantment and quality don't increase, they disappear. Elza was right: For a woman as beautiful as she was at twenty, old age is worse than death.
Elza is my patient. I'm a doctor, a general practitioner. Before getting my medical degree I studied chemistry, but I changed majors a year before graduating. I wanted a profession in which I could help people, so I chose medicine. If patients call me late at night to complain about a problem, I respond completely willingly and if necessary go to their home. But for a long time now I've been contemplating a gesture of generosity, a truly transcendental kindness, something sublime never before achieved. I lie awake nights thinking about it. I needed to show my generosity in a different way, not merely by attending to people who can't pay for the consultation, or by giving alms, but by something quite different . . . uniquely sublime.
I live alone and when I leave the office I go straight home. For dinner I have some soup that the maid leaves for me. I like being alone; by the time I arrive, the maid has already been gone for a long time, and when I leave early for the office she hasn't gotten in yet. I can't even recall what she looks like, don't know if she's white, black, or biracial, or Chinese, or a dwarf. I do know I pay her a good salary and make no demands.
Now I'm at home, thinking. What if Elza is right and the soul also ages? It's better to die young. I remembered my nieces. They're three very pretty young women. Lisete, eighteen years old. Norma, the same age, and Sabrina, nineteen. It would be better for them to die while they're still beautiful. And I could help them. Yes, I could.
I thought about what poison to use. I'm not going to use guns or knives, poison is the best option. I first thought about strychnine, a very quickly absorbed drug. As soon as it enters the bloodstream, strychnine immediately affects the central nervous system. The problem is that it causes convulsions, spasms, and the facial distortion known as risus sardonicus. Cyanide? Cyanide blocks the blood's oxygenation ability, paralyzing the respiratory center in the brain and provoking a rapid loss of consciousness. The problem is that cyanide also causes convulsions and unpleasant symptoms like dilation of the pupils. So I also ruled out cyanide. Poisoning by bacteria? But it would have to be typhoid, anthrax, diphtheria, the difficulty of which would be the inoculation. I know there was a murderer who used bacteria in a nasal spray, but the victim was his wife. It's easy to get the woman we live with to use a nasal spray. Bacteria were also ruled out. Arsenic? How was it I only now thought of a poison known since antiquity, much used in Imperial Rome, the poison the Borgias used in the Renaissance? The problem is that it produces vomiting and diarrhea in the victim, something quite unseemly. So I ruled out arsenic. Aconite? Aconite is a vegetable alkaloid obtained from the root and purple leaves of the aconitum, a genre of poisonous plants of the ranunculus family, found in temperate regions. Aconite can be introduced through the skin and is highly toxic. It causes
nausea and vomiting, another poison with unpleasant side effects.
How is it I know about so many poisons? Don't forget, I studied chemistry and I practice medicine.
There's nothing better for killing a person than a strong dose of some narcotic. But how to administer it?
Then I remembered ricin, a toxic alkaloid extracted from the seeds and leaves of the castor oil bean. In the right dose, a needle prick with a small portion of the substance is enough for the victim to present symptoms of a cold the following day and quickly succumb. But I needed a good lab with a high-temperature oven, as well as a specialist, a chemist with knowledge of advanced technology.
I had such a person, a friend of mine by the name of Gustavo. Perhaps the most sophisticated chemist in the country. I looked him up and told him what I needed.
"But it's illegal to manufacture that substance," Gustavo said. "I could go to jail, or lose my license."
"I'll pay anything you want."
"What are you going to do with it?"
"An experiment," I said. "Afterwards, when you give me the material, I'll tell you everything."
Gustavo took a month to prepare the ricin.
It was a weekend when I arrived at his laboratory. Luck was on my side.
The first thing Gustavo told me was how much money he wanted. An absurd sum. I gave him a check for that amount.
"Here it is," he told me, handing me a box inside which were small ampoules and a hypodermic needle. "One light scratch from the needle and the person will die within twenty-four hours. And no one will ever discover the cause."
I took the needle, inserted it into one of the ampoules and, when Gustavo was distracted, stuck his arm with it. He was startled. I pulled from my pocket the .45 I'd brought with me and hit him over the head, hard, causing him to lose consciousness. Then I tied and gagged him with duct tape. I took my check and Gustavo's wallet, along with a few objects, so that when his helpers showed up on Monday they would suspect robbery.
I returned home radiant. I was going to be able to exercise generosi
ty in its sublime fullness, which would make me into a different person.
The papers carried news of Gustavo's death, saying that he had been robbed. The coroner said he had probably died of heart failure after being tied and gagged with duct table.
Lisete came to my office. She's extremely careful about her health and has periodic, unnecessary examinations. I think she's a bit of a hypochondriac.
I imagine her aged, a wrinkled, ugly old woman, senile. Every woman nowadays is going to live long years until turning into a repugnant dotard. I couldn't allow that to happen. Without her noticing, that's how light the needle prick was, I inoculated her with ricin.
"You're in excellent health, Lisete. You don't need any kind of examination."
"Not even a blood test?" she asked.
"Not even a blood test. You can go home with your mind at ease."
The next day, in the morning, they called to say that Lisete had passed away in her sleep.
"But she was here yesterday. Her health was perfect," I said, concealing my exaltation. "I'm going to stop by her house."
I hung up the phone. My delight, my joy, my happiness at having done good was so great that I began to cry. But I quickly regained my composure. I had to plan my actions very carefully. Norma would have to be benefitted later; two of my nieces dying mysteriously could create suspicion. I would have to choose the places where I would act. And also choose other beautiful young women. There are so many, the poor things.
I had to plan, plan, plan. Doing good is harder and more laborious than doing evil.
Copyright © 2012 by Rubem Fonseca;
translation Copyright © 2012 by Clifford E. Landers
DEPARTMENT OF FIRST STORIES
DEPARTMENT OF FIRST STORIES
THE CLOSET
by Jenny Milchman
This is New Jersey suspense writer Jenny Milchman's first paid professional publication, but it will be quickly followed up (in February of 2013) by the release of her debut novel, Cover of Snow...
PASSPORT TO CRIME
REVIEWS
REVIEWS
DEPARTMENT OF FIRST STORIES
THE CLOSET
by Jenny Milchman
This is New Jersey suspense writer Jenny Milchman's first paid professional publication, but it will be quickly followed up (in February of 2013) by the release of her debut novel, Cover of Snow (Ballantine). The author currently serves as chair of the International Thriller Writers' Debut Authors Program, and she is also the founder of Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day, which was celebrated, in 2011, in more than 350 bookstores in all 50 U.S. states and four foreign countries.
It seemed to be darkest in the closet at midday. Ellie didn't know why. Maybe because of how light it was outside, noonday sun glaring, just before she got locked in. The floor of the closet was carpeted, and the door sill shushed against it. Not even one crack of light could enter.
Ellie hated the dark more than anything else. More than the mixed-up jumble of hidden things her mom threw in here, everything that didn't have a place anywhere else. More than the smell, which reminded her of her grandmother. Or the feel of the hot, wooly coats that sometimes brushed against her. The worst was the pure, unblinking dark.
"David!" she screamed. "Lemme out!"
She could scream until her throat was raw, and had. Till she coughed blood, and couldn't make one sound more. It didn't matter. David never let her out till he was ready.
In the bright, safe rest of the house, he was wrestling with his best friend. A loud boy who lived next door, bigger than David. She never heard David make a single grunt when they wrestled, though. He was silent, action only, whipping his body around, freeing himself from an arm or a chest, before flipping Brad onto the ground and pinning him there. Ellie had seen him do it, his eyes both fiery and satisfied, as he lay heaving on top of Brad. It was after David caught Ellie watching that he started locking her in the closet for real.
Turning the latch. Leaving her there for hours at a time. Ellie didn't have a watch—and she couldn't have seen it in the dark anyway—but she knew by how low the sun was in the sky when he finally let her out.
When she was very young, as little as five, it hadn't gone on for as long, and David had stayed close by, keeping watch outside the door. That was three years ago, and their mom didn't leave them alone in the house yet. All Ellie had to do was start screaming—and she began screaming the second she went in there anyway, so horrible were the back reaches of that closet—and her mom would come and get her out.
"David!" she'd exclaim. "Why was your little sister in the closet?"
Ellie would be hidden in the folds of her mother's skirt, tears pouring soundlessly out of her. The dark still clutched at her throat, like a glove.
"I dunno," he always muttered. "We were playing hide-n'-go-seek!" Or sardines. Or Jack and the Beanstalk. It was never true, any of it. David didn't play games with Ellie.
"Not in the closet," their mom would reply briskly. "I don't know what all is in there now. And it could scare her. You know Ellie only stopped having nightmares last year."
Actually, Ellie hadn't stopped having them. She'd just stopped calling for her mother after one. She could remember the latest now, some kind of huge winged animal—not a bird—pressing down on her. She woke up smothered, fighting her blankets.
"Okay," David would say, every time, head hanging. "I'll tell her to play somewhere else."
"Don't look so upset," their mother replied, chucking David under the chin as she began to walk out. "Little girls do all sorts of silly things. That's why you have to be the big brother."
David would look up at their mom, giving her that sunny grin that always made her take a step back and, whatever she might be doing—and their mom was always doing something—stop and smile back.
"Go on, let her out. I can't stand that noise anymore."
It was Brad's voice. Ellie hadn't realized she'd been screaming, but she must've been because her throat was doing that dead thing again. If she tried now, no sound would come out.
Then her brother spoke.
"No," David said. "This time she isn't getting out."
Ellie never moved when she was in the closet. Not an inch. She sat in exactly one spot, the carpet like burrs under her palms.
She didn't know what she'd find if she moved.
Or, what would find her.
Her mom had lived in this house forever—before David had been born and their dad had left even—and she'd always shoved everything they didn't need anymore in the closet. On the shelf high above Ellie, boxes and clumped-up things threatened to topple down, which was why she always ducked, trying to protect her head, so that when she was finally let out, her neck would ache for hours.
"Why are you holding your head like that, Elizabeth?" her mom once asked.
"Because David—" Ellie had begun.
"David what?" her mother replied, in a patient, jokey tone, ready to smile at Ellie's response. But her gaze had already lit on her son, and Ellie knew if she spoke now, her mother wouldn't even hear.
Behind her in the closet loomed shapes Ellie couldn't see so much as feel. Ellie never even knew if her eyes were open or shut unless she reached up and felt the lids. The darkness was so solid it filled up her mouth, like dirt.
Once something had roared in the closet, a loud, blustery roar that emitted an actual gust of wind. Ellie had screamed and catapulted herself forward into the door so hard she needed stitches. She didn't get them—her mom was a nurse and did up the cut on her forehead with a butterfly—but Ellie figured that really hadn't been enough from the way the cut still seeped for days afterwards.
It turned out that Ellie had fallen—there were times she dozed off while in the closet, which astonished her, but her mind did do this funny splintering thing, stopping only after she'd jerked to with a start—into the Dustbuster. David had hauled her out that time—there was a crack in the door he'd taken pains to repair—laughing at her.
/> "Scared of a vacuum cleaner," he'd scoffed.
The Dustbuster was just one of the things that caused Ellie to stay stock still now until her imprisonment was over. The thought of that roar, the feel of its hot, dusty breath on her again made her shudder. But this time David had said it would never be over. He wasn't going to let her out. Ellie didn't think she could stay in the dark for much longer. It felt like it already had been hours—long past the longest sentence he'd ever inflicted upon her—and everything outside the closet was quiet. No Brad thumping and huffing, no final thud signaling David's victory. If Ellie started to scream again, would they even hear her? Her throat was still too raw to produce much of a sound anyway. Ellie opened her mouth and tested it, feeling panic when only a dry whisper came out.
Terror-stricken, Ellie suddenly scampered forward, carpet rasping under her fists. She got onto her knees and began scrabbling around for the closet door, finding the softer streak of putty right at forehead height where she'd hit it that time, and which her mom never detected under the new layer of paint David had added.
She began beating with her fists. She could make noise with her hands even if her voice was dead—maybe she'd be able to break through the patched spot and at least let in a saving bolt of light. Even if David really wouldn't let her out, even if she was trapped in here forever, died in here, she could stand that if she could just have a little light—
The soft spot in the door didn't give, but a piece broke off and punctured the tender skin on her wrist.
Ellie let out a soundless scream. She looked instantly away, unwilling to see whatever could be making her wrist hurt this much. Her whole arm was hot. But Ellie couldn't see even if she had wanted to; she just knew something was in there that didn't belong. Shit. A curse word that she sometimes heard David say, but which she'd never dared use herself, erupted in her mind. She forced her other hand down to try and find whatever was sticking out of her skin.
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 11/01/12 Page 16