December Heat

by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza

  “Who was wrong?” she asked coming into the room wrapped up in a towel while she dried her hair with another one.

  “All the people were wrong. The kid who was burned to death was killed by mistake. I’m almost sure that I was attacked by mistake. Now all that’s missing is to find out that Magali was killed by mistake.”

  “Which wouldn’t bring her back.”

  “No.”

  “So why think about it?” She continued drying her hair but tossed the other towel onto the foot of the bed, standing there entirely nude. Vieira forgot what it was he’d been talking about.

  He had never doubted Espinosa’s friendship, at least up till now. What he didn’t know was whom the cop actually suspected. Was it just standard procedure, or did Espinosa have doubts as to whether he had done it? And what was this about his checking out Flor? Didn’t he have his own girl, damn it?

  “What girl, baby? Who are you talking about?”

  “Nothing, dear. I’m just thinking out loud.”

  Flor put on her panties and snapped on her bra. Vieira reflected on how similar these movements were to the ones he made to put on his belt, but she was infinitely more graceful and light and could pull them off without any effort. He wanted to use the rest of the afternoon to go to the Thirteenth Precinct to see if anything new had come up. Flor had finished dressing and was ready to go out.

  “Are you sure you have to work today?” Vieira asked.

  “Of course, sweetheart. It’s how I earn my bread.”

  “Damn it, Flor, why do you need to earn your bread? You don’t need that shit anymore.”

  “Of course I do, love. It’s the only thing I’ve got.”

  “Fucking hell, Flor! Didn’t I tell you to come live with me?”

  “But I have my own apartment.”

  “And they can kick you out and you can’t do anything about it.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Marry me.”

  “You’re overexcited. You like me as a woman, but getting married is something else.”

  “Fuck, women are complicated.”

  If they started talking now, he would get there too late, and he didn’t know the people on the next shift. They left at the same time and rode down in the elevator in silence, though Flor lovingly adjusted his collar and fixed his hair.

  “Tomorrow we’ll talk about this seriously,” Vieira declared on the street.

  Flor was still holding the money he’d given her to pay for the taxi. She liked taxis. She felt important. She always looked for the very newest ones, with four doors and air-conditioning, those that looked most like the ones she saw in movies. She sat in the back seat, on the side opposite the driver. She knew that whenever they could they checked out her legs. She only granted them a quick glance before concealing her legs behind the front passenger seat. The driver would have to content himself with looking at her face; if she was wearing something sleeveless, he might get a glimpse of her arms, maybe her cleavage. While the poor man was checking her out, she looked out the window, feigning fascination with the people walking down the sidewalk. One of her dreams was to have a chauffeured car. A real lady had her own driver. She would prefer him to have graying hair. A black guy with graying hair. She’d seen that in a TV movie. He would say, when he dropped her off somewhere, “Would madam like me to wait?” or “What time would madam like me to pick her up?” She could even hear his voice.

  “Where on Barata Ribeiro do you want to get off, ma’am?”

  “At the beginning … right at the beginning.”

  When she went shopping, the driver would get out and open the door for her. “Should I wait, madam?”

  “Thank you, George”—George, not Jorge—”but I’m going to walk a little to take some exercise.”

  “Is this all right for you here?”

  “Thank you…. Fine.”

  She responded mechanically to the doorman’s greeting and mechanically took the electric bill he held out for her, and in the elevator she was still pondering, for the umpteenth time, how she could manage it. Nothing would ever come of the old fart plantation owner; she’d fuck Junior and would still be fucking Junior’s own son, without getting her hands on anything more stable. The guy was terrified of his wife. Vieira was great, but he wasn’t adequately financed: he only had an apartment and a car that had been painted more times than her nails. Her one hope was to snare someone while her body was at its pinnacle; her purchasing power would decline with her beauty. The competition in Rio was fierce. Every summer there was a new crop on the market; plus, she still had to compete with rich people’s daughters. And just a few days ago she’d heard two girls who couldn’t have been more than fifteen splitting the proceeds of a trick at the mall. But they were just brats; they weren’t competition. The truth was, since her days in Recife she’d always known how to run her business. She couldn’t let down her guard now, however, right when her beauty was peaking.

  “How are you, officer? Wounds healing nicely?”

  “On my body, almost all of them.”

  “I’ve got good news. I think we got your man. At least one of them. Want to have a look?”

  “Of course. How’d they get the son of a bitch?”

  “By chance. He tried to attack a cop during a getaway. From your description, and since he was so violent, we thought it might be the same guy. We’ve got him here.”

  One thing that had never changed since he’d entered the force was the condition of the cells. The apparent chaos disguised a rigorous internal order: domination and servitude on opposite sides. Reigning over this order, and independent of it, was a special brand of nastiness. The man was standing at the back of the cell, a space so cramped that he wouldn’t have been able to sit down if he’d wanted to (and if he’d been allowed to). The warden ordered him to come up to the front, which he did amid complaints, curses, and shoving. He looked at Vieira as if he’d never seen him. Vieira couldn’t identify him definitively. He was the same height, and the hands and arms looked familiar, but he couldn’t swear it was the same guy. Maybe neither of them could recognize the other. It had been dark, and it had all happened so fast. The difference was that Vieira was the victim and was on one side of the bars, while the other man was in that cell and would probably spend some time there, unless someone arranged a little “confusion” to finish him off.

  “Thanks, big guy. I’m sorry that I can’t identify him positively, but I’m not absolutely sure it was him.”

  “Maybe he’ll say something. In any case, he attacked a cop, so we’ll leave him in there to cool down for a few days.”

  Five-thirty in the afternoon. The station was three blocks from his building. He’d stop by the supermarket; he needed to pick up a few things. Magali used to go every week for him. On the way back, the street headed uphill slightly, but enough to leave him out of breath, especially because he was carrying a bag. He shifted it from hand to hand. He arrived home sweaty, his arms aching, his legs tired. He chalked it up to the heat and the attack. He’d be fine in a minute.

  He couldn’t understand why Flor was being so cautious. There was no doubt that she liked him: she had declared herself Magali’s estate and him the only beneficiary. He himself had given her proof of his love, even asking her to marry him. What was she waiting for? What the fuck was she talking about, rushing things? Every day that went by was a day spent without dedicating themselves entirely to each other; a day not lived to the fullest; a day when some asshole could make a date with her—and that she still had to arrange around her “job.” What the fuck was she talking about? He could support her perfectly, and she would become Mrs. Vieira Crisóstomo, just like the departed Maria Zilda.

  The elevator stopped on his floor. He got out, practically dragging the shopping bag, opened the door to his apartment, then rested awhile against the door, looking at the L-shaped living room, still decorated with the furniture Maria Zilda had picked out. A lone window pierced the shorter leg of
the L, while the bigger part received only a reflected, fragile light that made it look permanently abandoned. The bedroom was illuminated by a wide window that faced directly onto the street. He liked the apartment. It was small but comfortable—and above all it was his. He pictured Flor waiting for him as Mrs. Vieira Crisostomo. He’d never proposed such a thing to Magali, nor had she asked him to; they had a tacit agreement that she would be his companion for nights on the town and dinners but would never become his wife. He remembered coming home with her in the wee hours and her putting him in bed and taking off his clothes. The memory gave way to a still-fresh image of Flor completely naked, standing at the foot of the bed, drying her hair after her shower. Three women, two of whom were dead; and a worrying memory lapse. What would he do if suddenly he remembered that night in its entirety and discovered that he was a murderer? He tried to push the idea away, labeling it as absurd. It didn’t make sense. The fact that Magali’s legs were tied with his own belt was proof that it wasn’t him: he wouldn’t be stupid enough to sign a crime like that. He realized the door was still open and closed it. Maybe he wouldn’t remember anything because there wasn’t anything to remember.

  Ever since she was a girl, she’d been accustomed to being admired and desired; her professional success was a direct result of her untarnished beauty and sensuality. She wouldn’t know how to live without this constant confirmation of her value as a woman, and what Vieira was proposing was precisely to trade those daily affirmations for the peace of a home. The thing she believed in least was a home; even less, in the peace of a home. The so-called attractions of home didn’t attract her. Kids? She didn’t have any and didn’t want any. Servants to command? Ridiculous in an apartment that size. Money? Vieira’s pension. On the other hand, there was security. Though she’d be restricted, she’d also have a life safeguarded against daily fluctuations. Besides, as Vieira’s eventual widow, she’d get her own pension and the apartment. Vieira was her retirement, without her having to put in the long years of work for it: it would be effective immediately. The uncomfortable detail was that she would be a “retiree” before hitting thirty. A formidable piece of war matériel scrapped by a greedy general.

  With every day that passed, she found it harder to tolerate her miserable apartment, with its single window opening not onto the street but onto hundreds of other similar windows. Hookers’ apartments were all the same; even hookers themselves ended up the same. She had begun to notice it when she’d realized that Magali’s apartment smelled exactly like hers. It was true that she’d moved up considerably in the world from the little shanty with its dirt floor she’d inhabited in Recife, but she was still a long way from her dream of a penthouse.

  The heat was insufferable, and the rain that at the end of the afternoon had seemed on its way hadn’t managed to fall. With the ceiling fan on, stretched out in bed wearing only her panties, Flor looked at her feet, which rested at the end of the bed; she savored the contrast of her dark skin with her pale, unpainted toenails. A quick evaluation confirmed what she repeated to herself several times a day: her body showed no sign of its countless encounters. She thought the same of her soul, which she wasn’t sure was as beautiful as her body, but she couldn’t complain: she’d fought the battles of ten years of life in Rio de Janeiro and emerged victorious. What she had to decide was whether to compete in the bush leagues or get ready for the World Series.

  In the last few years, she’d nearly stopped receiving clients at home, with the exception of her benefactor and Junior (who still couldn’t distinguish a woman from an ice-cream cone); her specialty was businessmen from other states visiting Rio for work. Her business sense had worked wonders for her with the managers of two hotels in Copacabana. When Vieira offered to marry her, with monogamy a condition of marriage, he didn’t realize he was proposing shutting her out of a scam more lucrative than the pension of a retired police officer.

  She tried, with her nails, to remove something tiny in the skin of her thigh. It was invisible to the eye but sensitive to the touch. In her line of work, both senses were equally important. And that night she had a date: a friendly, generous client from the interior of São Paulo. She sat in bed looking at the plastic bags that, together with a few stacked-up boxes, were piled in a corner of the room. Magali’s things, sent by Vieira; they had emptied her apartment, but Flor didn’t know what to do with all that stuff. The furniture, which in fact amounted to only one piece, had been sold to the first person who’d made an offer. Flor thought it would be a noble gesture to give her friend’s things to the kind of charity bazaar that crops up at Christmastime in empty commercial spaces.

  Some time ago, she’d reached a decision she characterized as stylistic. It had to do with her professional life. She knew that she could divide men into two large groups: those who want a prostitute who looks the stereotypical part—a low-cut, tight black dress, high heels, heavily made-up face, painted fingernails and toenails, and a few other details—and those who weren’t looking for a prostitute but a model middle-class girl they couldn’t get on their own and were willing to rent for the night. Flor had chosen the second category for strictly commercial reasons. That’s what made her different from Magali, and that was why Vieira was proposing to her without ever having made a similar proposal to his former lover. Vieira didn’t feel even a little uncomfortable being seen in a restaurant with a prostitute, but he wouldn’t want her to be mistaken for his wife. Wife and hooker. were two different species, incompatible beneath the same roof.

  She, Flor, belonged to a third species. She wasn’t a hooker and she wasn’t a wife: she was in transition. That’s why she needed to maintain her style, satisfying Vieira’s desire, and sense of morality, while still fueling the fantasies of businessmen who called their homes in some other state on Friday night to tell their wives that the deal still hadn’t closed. Men like that didn’t want to be spotted by people they knew having a drink with a whore, but they would be proud to be seen with a pretty business or law student. If that student happened to be Flor, the man wouldn’t mind if his fellow out-of-towner spread the news back home, even at the risk of word getting back to his wife.

  Flor had learned all these things with time. With time and with men. She didn’t want to have to throw them all away to satisfy Vieira. Of course, even if she were married, men would still ogle and desire her; that didn’t worry her. But another thing she’d learned with time and with men was that being ogled and desired was not a purely passive condition. She had to do more than simply allow herself to be seen. A combination of passivity and activity—the exact proportion was hard to describe—took her to the next level: not only being captured by the male gaze, but capturing it herself. The balance wasn’t easy; it was attained only by training and constant practice. Such practice could disappear with marriage. That was the part that would vanish in the transition from woman to wife. Flor had already lost a lot of things in her life. She didn’t want to lose that.

  From far off, crossing the square, Espinosa focused on the living room window. He could make out the colonial green of the Venetian blinds, but he couldn’t tell if they were completely closed. When he arrived in front of the building he confirmed that they were closed. Unsatisfied, he took the stairs two at a time, opened the door, not bothering to close it, and ran to the French windows, which looked onto the square. They were closed and locked, just as he’d left them. He automatically glanced at the answering machine: neither light was blinking. He examined the rest of the apartment and found nothing out of place (well, lots of things were out of place, but not out of the places he’d left them). In his bedroom, he opened the drawer of his bedside table to see if the extra gun he kept at home was there. It wasn’t. When he went back into the living room, wondering where else he could have left the weapon, he ran into a man pointing it at his chest. He was standing next to the door, tall and strong enough not to need any gun at all, though he seemed perfectly comfortable with it in his hand.

  “Who are
you? What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve got the gun. You shut up.”

  The voice, unexpectedly high for a man of his size, was ice-cold. The fact that he was unconcerned about hiding his face was disconcerting: either he wasn’t worried about being recognized afterward or he was sure that no one would be left to recognize him. The man was less than three meters from Espinosa, and the firmness with which he held the revolver suggested beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he wanted to he’d hit his target. He closed the door to the hallway, crossed the living room in two strides, and stuck the gun under Espinosa’s chin while removing, with his free hand, the gun Espinosa carried in a holster on his belt. He stuck it in his pocket and pushed Espinosa toward the bathroom.

  The man removed a roll of nylon cord from the inside pocket of his jacket, ordered Espinosa to lie on the bathroom floor, tied his hands and feet behind his back, and, without cutting the cord, wrapped the rest of it around his body, from his neck to his ankles; finally, he gagged him with duct tape. He made sure it was good and tight, testing the resistance of the knots, and, once he was satisfied with the job, started dragging Espinosa like a heavy sack, depositing him inside the shower before closing the curtain. That calmed Espinosa a little; if he was taking those measures it was because he didn’t mean to kill him, at least not immediately. Then Espinosa heard the noise of the bathroom door being closed and the stereo in the living room turned on, the same CD Espinosa had left in there, but the volume louder than usual.

  The cord held his arms and legs tightly, but the most irritating thing was the tape over his mouth. He normally breathed a little through both his nose and his mouth; with his mouth covered he was worried about suffocating. The CD ended and started up again. He couldn’t make out any other sound in the apartment. When the CD was about halfway through for the second time, Espinosa started to try to squirm out of the shower. He managed, but only with great effort. Now he was stuck between the sink and the toilet. As he was lying on his side, he could move only by pushing his knee against something and twisting his torso. The space he was caught in made such a movement nearly impossible. When he managed to reach the door, he put his ear to it to try to hear something besides the music. He figured he’d been tied up for more than an hour. He pulled himself up to a kneeling position by the door and on the third try managed to budge the knob with his jaw. The door opened toward the inside, so as he was opening it he had to move away and lower himself down the wall, prying it open first with his forehead and then with his whole body.