The Silence of the Rain

by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza

  Espinosa took less than half an hour to get from Copacabana to Laranjeiras. He rang the doorbell three times and, when he felt someone looking through the peephole, said his name. Carmem was alone. Both mumbled a greeting, and she took the envelope out of a book.

  “It was right there the whole time. When we were looking through her drawers and files, it was on top of the desk with all the other mail. I think it must have been there for three or four days.”

  While Carmem spoke, Espinosa carefully opened the envelope with the help of a pocketknife. When he removed the second envelope he couldn’t contain his surprise.

  He sank into the nearest chair. He stared at the letter with wide eyes, mutely, without even reading it again. After a moment, he murmured:

  “So that was it?”

  Carmem, uncomprehending, looked at him blankly. “Inspector?”

  Nothing. No noticeable reaction, until he turned his body toward Carmem and said, almost in a whisper:

  “It wasn’t a murder. It was a suicide.”

  In spite of the laconic and almost inaudible communication, the girl was smart and immediately recognized its implication. “Ricardo Carvalho killed himself.”

  “Carmem, for your safety, it’s important that you not read this letter. You didn’t hear or understand the information I just revealed. Don’t mention to anybody what happened today. You never saw a letter.”

  He left praising her intelligence and persistence and promised her that when it was all over he would tell her the whole story.

  From Carmem’s building he headed up Rua das Laranjeiras toward the Rebouças Tunnel. By the time he exited at Lagoa, he’d recovered from half of his shock. He’d hidden the other half from Carmem. Which policemen had recovered the letter? It could only be the patrol crew that had made the first report in the parking garage. Two military police—for ten thousand dollars each they could have made anything disappear: the gun, the car, the body, even the parking garage. But if that was the case, how did Max end up with the gun? Only if, in their hurry to get rid of it, they’d tossed it somewhere and Max had accidentally stumbled across it. The other possibility was that Rose was the first one to arrive on the scene and, terrified by what she found, grabbed the gun and the letter and ran off, then was intercepted by Max, who figured everything out. She could have given Max the revolver and the money, but kept the envelope; there was no other explanation for how she got her hands on the letter. By the time he’d reached Peixoto he’d already come up with five or six versions of the story. But none explained the deaths of Dona Maura and Max. The only thing he knew for sure was that Max had gotten the gun and Rose had gotten the letter. He still had to find out why two people had been murdered on the heels of the executive’s suicide.

  8

  He didn’t turn on the lights when he walked in. The only things glowing in the darkness of his living room were the little red and green lights of the answering machine. Nobody had called while he was gone. The light from the street, reflected on the ceiling, indirectly lit up the furniture and other objects. Each one acquired its own density according to how its shadows transformed it into another object, even a person. An innocent chair in the corner of the room suggested a squatting man; the old floor lamp looked like a felt-hatted bandit from an old American movie. But Espinosa didn’t believe in ghosts; besides, he was entirely consumed by the confrontation that would take place in the next few hours. While he was waiting, he thought about the case in the light of the new discovery of the letter.

  The letter relieved him of the strange feeling he’d had whenever he’d wondered who’d killed Ricardo Carvalho. Nobody had fit the role of the murderer for the simple reason that there wasn’t a murderer, which didn’t necessarily mean elimination of the murder hypothesis. That letter could be forged, even though he didn’t consider it likely, and handwriting analysis could attest to its authenticity. But if it was a relief to lay that mystery to rest, the next two deaths moved from the background up to the front. They were definitely murders. That is, of course, if the burned and mutilated cadaver was Max’s, which, at this point, wasn’t certain. But nobody, no matter how cynical, could believe that Dona Maura would cut the fingers off one of her hands while hanging herself with the venetian-blind cord with the other. So there was for certain at least one murder. And if no one fit the role of Ricardo Carvalho’s murderer, there was surely no one he could imagine in the role of Rose’s mother’s torturer and murderer. The characters and the set had been transformed, just like the shadows in the living room. There was a little more than an hour left before he could expect to hear from the kidnapper.

  Even in his sleep, Welber was mumbling incomprehensibly and shifting in his bed. The sleeping drug they’d put in his IV was enough to take him out of commission at least until the next day, when the nurses and the doctor on duty would be replaced. They were a little concerned that his story might be true. It was lucky that his fall hadn’t torn out any of his stitches. They didn’t know if he’d been injured internally. A nurse was placed by his side all night, with orders to report any change in his condition and to stop him from trying to get up again.

  Espinosa was wondering how Welber was doing just then and thinking how nice it would be to be able to count on him. Espinosa could have been the one hit; all he would have had to do was get to the door before his partner. He could have died, just like he could be killed during the meeting tonight. If he’d been hit a few centimeters higher or to the side, Welber could have been killed or paralyzed. Life would have escaped through the little bullet hole like gas leaving a balloon.

  Rose had decided to cooperate with the kidnapper. She never let on that she knew that he had tortured and murdered her mother. The more she thought about the severed fingers described by the newspapers, the more coldly she analyzed how to kill the man. She preferred to make him suffer as he’d made her mother suffer. She didn’t speak; she didn’t resist; she didn’t try useless attacks, physical or verbal; she simply waited for the moment he’d trip up. She didn’t know precisely what she would do. It couldn’t be anything requiring a physical confrontation—he was very strong and could take her out easily, even if she had a knife or another weapon. She didn’t know how, but she was going to kill him.

  Around eight o’clock, the man put a handcuff on his own wrist and the other around hers, lying down on his chest on top of the cushion, forcing her to do the same.

  “Try to sleep a little—it’s gonna be a long night.”

  He closed his eyes and soon was snoring. His arm looked like an anchor. All she could do was lie next to him awake while he slept. So this was the decisive night. The inspector couldn’t know where the letter was, and no matter how thoroughly he searched the room he wouldn’t find it. Rose knew the kidnapper wouldn’t kill her before finding the letter, but she also knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to cut off her fingers to put pressure on Espinosa. The man had a gun he carried inside a bag; it was in the corner of the room, ten feet away. To get there, she’d have to drag him while he slept, and she could barely move his arm a single centimeter.

  With half an hour remaining before his deadline, Espinosa rose from the sofa, turned on the lamp, and picked up the brown envelope he’d left on the table. He removed the white paper and the other envelope and copied the letter and the address as best he could, closing both the envelopes, replacing the smaller one in the bigger one, and putting it in his jacket pocket. He hid the originals inside a Dickens novel he was reading. Waiting was more dream than reality, but Espinosa did his best to get his ideas into the most realistic form possible. He tried to piece the story back together, starting with the suicide note and including all the fragmented images, stray conversations, and loose ideas. The letter itself wasn’t from a suicide: it was from a businessman. It was hard to believe that someone wanting to kill himself would do so in such a cold and calculating manner. Yet no one except Ricardo Carvalho himself was responsible for his death. There was no murderer to find unless he could
be considered to have murdered himself. The motive of the other two murders became clear with the other piece of the mosaic, the million-dollar life insurance policy. That explained the suicide note and Dona Maura’s death, and probably Max’s as well. All that was left to figure out was who’d done it. He was nervous.

  Perhaps the reason Rose had the letter was that she was the first person to reach Ricardo Carvalho’s car after his suicide. She would have been in the garage because she was meeting him there at the usual time, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If that was the case, Ricardo killed himself believing that Rose would find the body, the letter, and the gun, and knew that she would do what he asked. The money was just in case someone else, or the police, got there first. That would mean that Rose didn’t know that Ricardo was going to kill himself: she surely would have made a scene, tried to stop him—a situation he no doubt wanted to avoid.

  Ideas and images came tumbling out. He wasn’t sure why Rose had the letter and Max had the gun. Unless Max’s story was true: Rose arrived immediately after the suicide, saw the note, grabbed the gun, the letter, and the briefcase and ran downstairs. When she reached the street, she looked around for the first place she could get rid of the gun—which is when Max encountered her. That explained the story of the businessman’s death, but didn’t quite account for the murder of Rose’s mother and the probable murder of Max. The element that tied the two stories together was Rose, and just then Rose was in the hands of the murderer. The other possibility: Max killed the executive in an attempted robbery; Rose saw him; Max started stalking her and she had to hide. So Max tortured her mother to find out where she was. The letter had been forged, but needed to be seen by somebody, preferably the police, to give the impression that it was a suicide. Later, the letter would have to be recovered and destroyed so that the handwriting couldn’t be examined. So he was now trying desperately to get it back. A third hypothesis, even weaker, was that Max and Rose were accomplices—not in the death of the executive but in the use of the letter. But that wouldn’t explain a lot of facts, such as Dona Maura, the hotel shootout, the attack in Ipanema, and the fact that both of them were now fighting for control of the letter.

  Ten-twenty. No call. Maybe it would be better to get help. It was pretty pretentious to think he could solve a kidnapping case all by himself. True, it wasn’t your average kidnapping. There were no vast, or even small, sums being demanded. All the kidnapper wanted was a letter. The problem was that it wasn’t a simple matter: the girl for the letter. Espinosa knew this as well as the kidnapper. Once he’d handed over the letter, Rose would live just as long as it took to verify its authenticity. Espinosa was inclined to take the risk. Asking for help from the Anti-Kidnapping Division could mean delivering both himself and the letter to the enemy. They’d find a way to make sure he died “in a shootout with the gang of kidnappers.” There was no other way: he had to save Rose at the moment of the meeting or, at the very latest, during the amount of time the kidnapper needed to confirm it was the right letter. If that was what the kidnapper planned to do.

  Ten-forty. The ring of the phone startled Espinosa. It was Alba.

  “Espinosa, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing, why?”

  “Why, damn it? You mysteriously pack me off in the middle of the night and that’s the last I hear of you … obviously something’s going on.”

  “I can’t explain it now…. I have to hang up…. I have to leave the line open…. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  He hung up before she could say anything.

  At eleven-fifteen, he chose a book to read. He gave up after a few minutes. He was afraid to go to sleep and miss the phone. He couldn’t listen to music. The emptiness of the wait could only be filled by his own imagination. Every time he tried to focus on reason he was immediately invaded by fantasy. At two in the morning, he couldn’t tell the difference.

  9

  Rose didn’t move while the man slept beside her. She wanted to know who this man was who could sleep so soundly at a time like this. Was he her mother’s murderer? Up until now, he hadn’t mistreated her, except for holding her prisoner. The physical restrictions he imposed were understandable security measures. It was the second time he had slept handcuffed to her. The first time, she’d considered trying to seduce him. The situation was right. But she’d given up the idea. Trying to seduce him was like trying to seduce a fish. His wedding ring indicated some interest in women, but in the present circumstances, it was clear, he was so blindly obsessed with something else that he couldn’t possibly see her as a sexual object, in spite of the intimacy provoked by their physical proximity. He hardly spoke; when he did, it was to transmit precise instructions. He’d never tried to have a conversation. Not only was he not interested in her sexually, he wasn’t interested in her as a human being. Maybe this was because he himself didn’t seem very human.

  She didn’t know what she would get out of seducing him anyway. Would he suddenly fall in love with her and let her go? Grateful for the terrific fuck, would he remove her handcuffs and send her home? The idea was ridiculous—the gorilla wouldn’t have set up this whole thing only to end up ceding to the victim’s charms. A few girlishly modest gazes wouldn’t be enough for him; he was no Max. But even if she didn’t have any hope of freedom, she could at least buy herself some time. Everything indicated that this was the decisive night; no matter how it ended, he wouldn’t leave her alive as a witness. The idea repulsed her, but it could mean her survival.

  She slowly turned her body toward the man, keeping her handcuffed hand still. She wanted it to seem as if she were turning in her sleep. She closed her eyes, moved her body toward his, and put her free hand on him. Then she lay motionless, too afraid to open her eyes to see if his were still closed. She was lying on top of her left arm, head pressed to her shoulder, hand beneath her stomach. The handcuffed arms, stretched along the bodies, seemed like tree trunks. She felt the huge hand between her legs. She tried to continue breathing evenly, as if she were asleep, and waited. Nothing; he didn’t move. She smelled him. It was nice. Not the smell of perfume, but the smell of a man. She was getting turned on. Revolting, but true. After a while, she decided to keep going. Her eyes were still closed, but she was sure that his were open. She let the hand on his belly move down to his crotch. She simply left it there, no pressure besides the weight of her hand. Any change in volume would give her the courage to press on. The volume still seemed normal, but perhaps slightly changed. She pressed lightly with her hand. He didn’t react badly; he held her hand as if they were lovers. It was impossible to breathe normally; his breathing changed too, but his body remained motionless, except the part beneath her hand. Rose waited a little while longer. The smells grew more intense and the area inside his pants seemed to have swelled. Slowly, as if still afraid to wake him, she moved her hand up a little bit, undid his belt, opened his zipper, and put her hand inside his pants. She was incredibly excited and yet oddly detached. Up until then he hadn’t moved at all. She had the feeling that his whole muscular mass was growing, without his voluntarily moving a single muscle. Suddenly, she felt the shackled hand between her legs move, looking for the button on her jeans, dragging his own arm between her legs. His hand discovered that she was wet, and she saw herself being lifted into the air and being seated on top of him. Only then did she look into his eyes.

  With his free hand, he pulled her shirt over her head and free arm and left it hanging off the handcuffed one. He used the hand between her legs to force her to her feet, in spite of the handcuffs, and pulled down her jeans and underwear as she did so. Then he got rid of his pants and boxers. When Rose squatted over his cock, feeling it enter, she let it slide in slowly. They fucked handcuffed together, shirts caught on their shackled arms. Rose moved up and down; the two looked like a well lubricated piston. She came, shot through by pleasure and rage. She remained seated, motionless, torso erect, head up, rejecting the man’s gaze. She didn’t want to move; she couldn’t let the blood flow
out because then he’d slip out of her. She kept contracting rhythmically for a long time, until she felt the man come inside her. At no point did they embrace or kiss; all their energy was concentrated. When they started again, the man’s body was bathed in sweat; each took their turn wiping the sweat from their faces with the T-shirts knotted around the handcuffs. Neither had said a word. It would have been impossible to mingle the pleasure of speaking with the pleasure of fucking. Instead they moaned, snorted, screamed, gagged. They took it slower the second time. The man sweated from all his pores; his hair was soaked and he puffed and panted. When they were done, Rose let her body relax, reluctant to unglue herself from him. She didn’t get off, but sat on his chest, near his neck, as if he were a saddle, pressing his face between her thighs. She stayed in that position for a while, letting him take in the acid smell of her sex. She started again slowly, rubbing herself along his whole body, greased by their sweat. She couldn’t say how long she stayed like that, or how long afterward it was that she felt him grow hard again, but not enough to penetrate her. She kept rubbing him. Now both of them were sweating profusely. The man tried to get an erection, but the effort was futile. On her knees, with his head between her thighs, Rose lubricated his face vaginally, letting his nose penetrate her until he couldn’t breathe. Without moving from where she was, she turned around, slid her head between his legs, licking and sucking, until she could once again sit on him. She had to keep up the rhythmic motion, slowly, so as not to lose her position. Time stopped. There was only a circular movement accompanying the measured movement of her body. The man’s muscles were stiff; the veins in his neck popped out; he squeezed himself like a fruit offering up its juice. The cushion was completely soaked. They came amid groans and panting. Rose fell back onto the floor. Her cushion had slid quite a ways. She felt the pleasant coolness of the wood underneath her body. She sat staring at the ceiling for a few minutes; the man was still by her side. The sweat had already completely dried when she turned to him; she needed to go to the bathroom. Kneeling at his side, she saw that his face was blue. She checked to see if he was breathing; he was dead.