Rubem Fonseca

Crimes of August

TO READERS OF crimes of august IN ENGLISH

THE NOVEL BLENDS historical fact (the assassination attempt against Carlos Lacerda, resulting in the death of Air Force Major Rubens Vaz; the political plot to depose President Getúlio Vargas) with a fictional murder (the death of entrepreneur Paulo Gomes Aguiar). It takes place in Rio de Janeiro, then the nation’s capital, during the period of August 1–25, 1954.

THE THREE POLITICAL PARTIES OF THE ERA WERE:

PSD (Social Democratic Party): Vargas supporters

PTB (Brazilian Workers Party): Vargas supporters

UDN (National Democratic Union): the major opposition party

HISTORICAL FIGURES

FICTIONAL CHARACTERS

Getúlio Vargas, president of Brazil

Carlos Lacerda (“the Crow”), Vargas’s archenemy

Gregório Fortunato (“the Black Angel”), head of the president’s personal guard

Alberto Mattos, a police inspector

Alice Lomagno, Mattos’s onetime girlfriend

Salete Rodrigues, Mattos’s current girlfriend

Pedro Lomagno, Alice’s husband

The political figures depicted are real, with the exception of Senator Vitor Freitas and Luiz Magalhães, who are composites. Cemtex, Brasfesa, and Corpax are fictional firms.

Crimes of August

one

THE NIGHT DOORMAN of the Deauville Building heard the sound of footsteps stealthily descending the stairs. It was one a.m. and the building was enveloped in silence.

“Well, Raimundo?”

“Let’s wait a little,” the doorman replied.

“Nobody else is coming. Everybody’s already asleep.”

“One more hour.”

“I gotta get up early tomorrow.”

The doorman went to the glass door and looked out at the empty, silent street.

“All right. But I can’t take very long.”

On the eighth floor.

The death took place in a discharge of pleasure and release, expelling excremental and glandular residue — sperm, saliva, urine, feces. He backed away in disgust from the lifeless body on the bed, sensing his own body polluted by the filth excreted from the other man’s dying flesh.

He went into the bathroom and carefully washed under the shower. A bite in his chest was bleeding a little. In the medicine cabinet on the wall were iodine and cotton, which he used to make a quick bandage.

He picked up his clothes from the chair and dressed without looking at the dead man, acutely aware of his presence on the bed.

No one was at the reception desk when he left.

THE MAN KNOWN TO HIS ENEMIES as the Black Angel entered the small elevator, which he filled completely with his voluminous body, and got out on the third floor of the presidential residence, the Catete Palace. He walked some ten steps in the dimly lit hallway and stopped in front of a door. Inside the modest bedroom, wearing striped pajamas, sitting on the bed, his shoulders bowed, his feet several inches from the floor, was the person he protected, an insomniac, pensive, fragile old man: Getúlio Vargas, president of the Republic.

The Black Angel, after listening to detect any sound coming from the bedroom, withdrew, resting against one of the Corinthian columns laid out symmetrically on the iron tetragonal balustrade that surrounded the central area of the palace hall, silent and dark at that hour. He must be sleeping, he thought.

After making sure there was nothing abnormal on the residential floor of the palace, Gregório Fortunato, the Black Angel, head of president Getúlio Vargas’s personal guard, descended the stairs toward the military advisers’ office on the ground floor, checking en route that the guards were at their posts and that all was peaceful in the palace.

Major Dornelles was chatting with Major Fitipaldi, another adviser, when Gregório entered the room.

After examining the security plan for the president’s visit to the Jockey Club on Sunday, the day of the Brazilian Grand Prix, with the two military advisers, the head of the personal guard went to his room.

He removed the revolver and dagger he always carried, placed them on the small table, and sat down on the bed, where several newspapers were strewn.

Apprehensively, he read the headlines. The year had begun badly. In February, eighty-two colonels, supported by the then secretary of war, General Ciro do Espírito Santo Cardoso, had issued a reactionary manifesto backing a coup, criticizing the workers’ strikes and speaking craftily about the cost of living. The president had fired the treacherous secretary, without having a trustworthy replacement. Gregório knew the president didn’t believe in the loyalty of anyone in the armed forces since General Cordeiro de Farias, who had always eaten out his hand like a puppy, had stabbed him in the back, figuratively, in 1945. But he had ended up having to appoint as secretary of war a man in whom he also had no confidence, General Zenóbio da Costa, accepted unconditionally by the military because he had been one of the commanders in the FEB, the Brazilian Expeditionary Force that fought beside the Americans in World War II. To appease the military, he had been obliged to remove his friend João Goulart as labor secretary. All of that had happened before the end of February. Yes, the year had begun badly, thought Gregório. In May the conspirators had tried to impeach the president, and the traitor João Neves had helped spread lies about a secret agreement between Perón and Getúlio. Gregório hadn’t forgotten what Neves, when he was still secretary of foreign affairs, had told him: “Don’t stick your nose in where you don’t belong, you dirty nigger”—all because he, Gregório, had attempted to establish a direct contact between the president and the emissary of the president of Argentina, Juan Perón. Still in May, the funeral of a journalist, beaten to death by a cop known as Mule Kick, had been used as a pretext for an anti-government demonstration by fanatic followers of the Crow, a band of conspirators who met at the so-called Lantern Club, supported by an association of hysterical women. In July, the rabble, always aiming at a coup, had fabricated a communist conspiracy. Behind everything loomed the sinister figure of the Crow.

On the bed was a copy of Última Hora, the only important newspaper that defended the president. On the front page, a caricature of Carlos Lacerda, the Crow. The artist, accentuating the journalist’s dark-framed glasses and aquiline nose, had drawn a sinister crow sitting on a perch. The Black Angel raised his arm and plunged his dagger into the drawing. The blade pierced the paper and the bedding, perforating the mattress and emitting a horrible sound when it scraped one of the steel springs.

Gregório returned the revolver to its holster at his waist and the dagger to its leather sheath. He put on his coat and left the bedroom.

EARLY IN THE MORNING OF AUGUST 1, 1954, police inspector Alberto Mattos, tired and feeling pain in his stomach, popped two antacid tablets in his mouth. As he chewed the tablets, he leafed through the book on civil law that lay on the desk. He had always been an awful student of civil law in college. He needed to put in a lot of study in that subject if he hoped to pass the judgeship examination in November. He turned on the small radio he always kept by his side. He stopped rotating the dial when he heard a voice saying: “I was denied access to television by Mr. Assis Chateaubriand, to whom the government is now allied with the same ease and cynicism with which they earlier branded him a traitor.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” said the inspector.

Investigator Rosalvo, who worked the same shift as Mattos, entered the office. The inspector believed Rosalvo wasn’t on the take from the bosses of the numbers game, a popular but illegal lottery, or from the Spaniards who ran the prostitution trade. Actually, however, Rosalvo was “under wraps,” in police slang, a cop whose corruption was unknown to his colleagues.

“Listening to Lacerda, sir? ‘The sea of mud grows more and more.’ Did you see the word the guy invented? Kakistocracy — government by the worst elements in society. The kakistocrats are going to lose the elections. Sarazate is going to win in Ceará, Meneghetti in Rio Grande do Sul, Pereira Pinto in Rio, Cordeiro de Farias in Pernambuco. People don’t trust Getúlio anymore. Did you see the scheme Etelvino set up for the presidential election? A Juarez-Juscelino ticket, a shoo-in.”

“What do you want?”

“The prisoners’ breakfast arrived,” Rosalvo said. “You wanted me to let you know.”

In the lockup, in two cells intended for eight prisoners, were thirty men. Cells in every precinct in the city were overcrowded with prisoners awaiting space in the penitentiaries, some still to be tried, others already found guilty.

Mattos considered the situation illegal and immoral and had tried to organize a strike in the Federal Department of Public Safety: the police would stop working until all those prisoners were transferred to penitentiaries. The inspector had gotten no support from his colleagues. The penitentiaries were also packed, and the strike proposed by Mattos would have no practical effect other than to cause negative repercussions. Mattos stated that this was the preliminary objective of the strike, to get the attention of public opinion and force the authorities to find a solution to the problem. “A wacky utopia,” Inspector Pádua had said. “You’re in the wrong profession.”

The counsels of the DPS had orders to find a legal way to get rid of Mattos, but the most they’d been able to do was to suspend him for thirty days. Commissioner Ramos, who headed the precinct where Mattos worked, had prevented, through his friendships with higher-ups, his being transferred to the remote Brás de Pina precinct as the dirty cops in the office wanted in order to punish him. Besides being remote, Brás de Pina had precarious facilities and a crime rate second only to the Second Precinct, Copacabana.

But Ramos didn’t wish to protect the inspector; he used Mattos’s name to cow banqueiros, the men financing the illegal lottery. On one occasion, Rosalvo, the investigator, had caught Ramos telling a banqueiro in an intimidating tone: “I’ll have Inspector Mattos shut down all your betting sites, you hear?!” When the banqueiro left, Rosalvo had told Ramos, “Alberto Mattos will kill you if he finds out you’re using his name.”

Ramos turned pale. “How’s he going to find out? The banqueiros aren’t crazy enough to tell him. It’d have to be you.”

“Me, sir? An old dog doesn’t stick his nose in a meat grinder.”

Every precinct had a cop who collected the money from the numbers bosses to distribute to his colleagues. That policeman was known as the “bagman.” The money collected — the boodle — varied in accordance with the business at betting sites and the greed of the commissioner. Rosalvo, discreet to a fault, wasn’t part of the split because he received his directly from the numbers bosses, who desired to stay in the good graces of Inspector Mattos’s assistant; the inspector’s honesty was considered by the lawbreakers as a threatening manifestation of hubris and dementia.

Policemen assigned to the chief’s office also participated in that venal conspiracy. Periodically, some numbers racket counting house, known as a “fortress,” was raided by the police, always provoking the same headline: POLICE BUST NUMBERS FORTRES. It was a way of satisfying the scruples of certain rarefied sectors of public opinion; the majority of the population openly practiced that modality of contravention. Journalists, judges, college graduates in the justice department, of which the Federal Department of Public Safety was part, were also bribed by the banqueiros. The vice squad, which had as one of its principal goals the suppression of illegal gambling, was the recipient of the largest number of bribes.

BEFORE DAWN ON AUGUST 1, Zaratini, the butler at the presidential palace, who customarily awoke early, opened a window facing the garden and saw Gregório sitting on a bench near the small marble fountain. The head of the guard, hearing the sound of the window being opened, looked up and saw the butler. Without acknowledging the greeting Zaratini gave by nodding, Gregório rose and walked toward the building housing the personal guard, next to the palace. It was five a.m.

Gregório knocked at the door of the room where the chef, Manuel, slept. Looking drowsy, he came to the door.

“Make me some mate tea, real hot.”

Gregório sat down at a table in the empty dining room. Manuel brought the tea. At that moment, Climerio Euribes de Almeida, a member of the president’s personal guard and a friend of Gregório’s, arrived. He had left his house, in a distant suburb, in the middle of the night to be able to get there at that hour.

“Any orders, chief?”

“Come to my room,” said Gregório, noticing the proximity of Manuel, who was setting a table beside him. He didn’t want to discuss the matter in the presence of others; Lacerdism was like a contagious disease, worse than gonorrhea or syphilis. It wouldn’t surprise him if there was infection among the guard.

Alone with Gregório, behind closed doors:

“What the hell? Where’s that reliable man of yours? We should’ve done the job in July and it’s already August.”

Gregório was tired of waiting for some victim of the Crow’s slanders to do something. They all claimed to be friends of the president, but other than cursing the Crow in futile rants, the most they did was foolishness like Oswaldo Aranha’s son, who with a gun in his hand had merely punched the defamer in the face; with the opportunity to kill the Crow he had been content to break his glasses. None of them wanted to sacrifice the comfortable life they enjoyed thanks to the president, drinking whiskey in nightclubs and chasing whores. Nothing much could be expected of those cowardly ass-kissers. They had all gotten rich in government, but few were grateful to the president.

Climerio, nervously: “Leave it to me, chief.”

Actually, Climerio had no such reliable man to do the job. Gregório didn’t want it to be anyone connected to the palace, much less the personal guard, and the only person Climerio had found, a guy named Alcino, an unemployed carpenter and friend of the snitch Soares, was certainly not qualified. Some days earlier, Climerio had gone with Soares and Alcino to a rally held by the Crow in Barra Mansa. Soares’s car had broken down and they got to the rally late. “That’s the man there,” Climerio had said, pointing to Lacerda, who was giving a speech. Alcino had hesitated when he saw that Lacerda was not some good-for-nothing like Naval, a guy Soares had asked him to kill because he suspected he was his wife’s lover. Naval was standing at the Pavuna train station; Alcino shot and killed a stranger near Naval, who wasn’t hit. Climerio was convinced that Alcino wasn’t right for that undertaking, but in order not to lose the confidence of his boss, he didn’t relate the fiasco at Barra Mansa when he returned to Rio. He had won Gregório’s confidence when he told him the names of Lacerda’s armed bodyguards, all or almost all of them majors in the air force: Fontenelle, Borges, Del Tedesco, Vaz. There was also one Carrera, who Climerio thought was in the army, and a Balthazar, in the navy. They were rabid Lacerdists and carried large-caliber weapons. Then the Black Angel had said that if Lacerda’s gunmen used.45s, the man chosen by Climerio would have to do the same. “Don’t worry, chief. Leave it to me,” Climerio had replied.

Now, rubbing the smallpox scars on his face, which he always did when nervous, he repeated the same phrase: “Leave it to me, chief.”

“But make it fast,” said Gregório.

“I’m going to see the man immediately.” Maybe Alcino, if instructed well, could do the job right.

IN THE LOCKUP, Inspector Mattos watched the prisoners having breakfast and listened to their complaints. That day was the Day of the Incarcerated. At the initiative of the Brazilian Prison Association a patron saint had been instituted for the prisoners. The choice of saint, at the suggestion of Cardinal Jaime de Barros Câmara, had been the apostle Peter, who, in the words of the prelate, had suffered in life the horrors of prison. The inspector thought about joking with the prisoners, “You’re all the time complaining on a full belly, you’ve even got a patron saint and you still want more,” but the disgust he felt upon entering the cells had changed his disposition. If he weren’t self-centered, a cowardly conformist, he would take advantage of the Day of the Incarcerated to set all those poor bastards free. But he merely jotted down the complaints and returned to his office.

At eleven o’clock he looked at his watch, anxious for the sixty minutes remaining in his shift to end. But at that instant a patrol car arrived. Central dispatch had received word of a homicide. Alberto Mattos called Rosalvo to accompany him to the scene.

“It’s after eleven already, why don’t you leave it for Inspector Maia?”

“It’s not noon yet.”

They got into the precinct’s old van, dirty from the prisoners’ breakfast that it had transported earlier that morning. When they passed by a bar, Mattos told the driver to stop, got out, and drank a glass of milk. The acidity went on gnawing at his stomach.

The patrol car was waiting for them at the door of the Deauville.

The two policemen went up to the eighth floor. A guard was in the hallway, along with the investigator in charge. The apartment door was open. Mattos and Rosalvo went into a small living room where two elegantly and expensively dressed men were. In a wall mirror, the inspector saw his face with a day-old beard, his wrinkled shirt, his crooked tie, the cheap suit he was wearing. Still in the mirror, he recognized one of the men, the shorter and stocky Galvão, the famous criminal lawyer. When he finished his law degree, before he joined the police force, Mattos had gone to work as an assistant public defender and had once represented a poor devil involved in a counterfeit ring. Galvão was the lawyer for the leader of the ring. Mattos’s client had been the only one acquitted.

Galvão and the other man addressed Rosalvo, who was better dressed than the inspector.

“I’m Investigator Rosalvo,” he said, realizing the mistake. “This is the inspector, Mr. Alberto Mattos.”

“Galvão,” said the lawyer, extending his hand. He showed no sign of having recognized Mattos. A heavy voice, polite but full of authority. “I’m here as a friend of the family. This is Mr. Claudio Aguiar, the victim’s cousin.”

“Who informed you?”

Mattos’s abruptness didn’t seem to bother Galvão. Without losing his composure as the great jurist, he replied that it had been the maid. She had called the police and then Claudio Aguiar.

“I thought the police would get here before us.”

“What’s the dead man’s name?”

“Paulo Machado Gomes Aguiar.”

“Profession?”

“Industrialist.”

“Single? Married?”

“Married.”

“Where’s his wife?”

“At the country home in Petropolis. She hasn’t been informed yet. .”

“She hasn’t been informed?”

“We wanted to spare her the horror of seeing her murdered husband, from the brutality of the criminal investigation. . She’s a very delicate person. . They were very close. .” answered Galvão.

“Where’s the body? I hope nothing’s been moved.”

“We haven’t even gone into the bedroom.”

“I believe you have nothing further to do here, Mr. Galvão. Or you, Mr. — ?”

“Aguiar,” said the dead man’s cousin, who had remained silent till then.

The lawyer and the cousin, however, remained in the middle of the vestibule. Mattos loosened his collar even more. He swallowed saliva. He sighed.

Galvão stuck his hand in his coat pocket. From a leather wallet he took out a business card.

“If you need anything. .”

The inspector put the card in his pocket. “Tell the victim’s wife I want to see her on Monday. At the precinct.”

“Wouldn’t it be better—” Galvão began.

“Monday,” repeated Mattos.

“Monday is tomorrow.”

“So it is.”

Galvão touched lightly the elbow of Aguiar, who retracted his arm. “Let’s go,” said the lawyer in his resonant voice.

“Another thing,” said Mattos, “before leaving, tell the maid who found the body to come talk with me.”

A forty-year-old woman, in a black uniform with white apron and a kind of coif on her head, appeared in the vestibule.

“What’s your name?”

“Nilda.”

“Where is the body?”

Mattos and Rosalvo followed the maid.

“Wait out here, Nilda.”

The dead man, about thirty years of age, large and muscular, lay on the bed, entirely nude. On his face, several hematomas. Marks on the neck. The sheets were stained with blood, fecal matter, and urine. The two policemen moved carefully about the room in order to avoid destroying possible clues. With his elbow, Mattos pushed the half-open bathroom door, not wanting to mix his fingerprints with any others that might exist. A large mirror occupied one entire wall, over a marble counter holding vials of perfume, brushes, soap, and other objects. Using his elbow, the inspector opened the curtain to the shower stall. While he examined, without touching it, a bar of soap with some short hairs, a gleam caught his attention. He kneeled. It was a large gold ring. He placed it in his pocket, without letting Rosalvo see it. The ring made a slight sound when it touched the gold tooth that Mattos always carried with him. Realizing that the ring had hit the tooth, a sensation of disgust overpowered him; impulsively, the inspector removed the gold tooth to his other pocket, nearly dropping it.

“Call Forensics and ask for a crime-scene team,” said Mattos, trying to hide his momentary confusion.

“The morgue too?” asked Rosalvo.

“Yes, that too.”

Rosalvo approached the night table, which held a telephone.

“Not that one. There may be fingerprints.”

Nilda was waiting at the bedroom door.

“Are there other employees in the house?”

“The cook and the pantryman. They’re in the pantry.”

The inspector, accompanied by Nilda, went to the pantry. A fat woman in an apron and a man wearing striped pants and a black vest, sitting at a table, stood up, startled.

“Wait out there. I’m going to talk to Nilda. Then I’ll call the two of you,” said the inspector, closing the door between the pantry and the kitchen.

“Was it you who called the police?”

“Yes.” Her voice tremulous. That was another unpleasant thing about being a cop: when people didn’t hate him, they feared him.

“How was it you discovered your master’s body? Take your time.”

“I went to take them breakfast and knocked on the door and nobody answered. .”

“Them who?”

“Mr. Paulo and Dona Luciana.”

“Wasn’t his wife traveling?”

“I didn’t know. She had left in the afternoon and I didn’t know.”

“Who told you that?”

“The master’s cousin, Mr. Claudio.”

“And then?”

“Mr. Paulo wakes up early and I thought he’d already left and that Dona Luciana was in the bathroom. That’s when I opened the door and. . saw that. . I ran out. .”

“And then?”

“I called the police. . and then Mr. Claudio.”

“What time was it?”

Silence. Rosalvo came into the pantry.

“Was it eleven?”

“Eleven? No. . I don’t remember.”

“You’re lying, Nilda.”

The maid started to cry.

“There’s no reason for you to cry. Calm down. I’m not going to do anything to you. All you have to do is stop lying. If you’ll stop lying, I have no quarrel with you. You said your master wakes up early. Let’s say you took him breakfast at eight o’clock. You found your master dead. You didn’t know what to do, and you remembered his cousin and called him, and he told you to wait, not to do anything, that he was on his way. Then the cousin arrived with the lawyer, that short guy with the deep voice, and the short guy told you to wait a little longer before calling the police, and you did as you were told. Isn’t that how it was?”

“Yes.”

“You can stop crying. I’m not mad at you.”

“The Inspector is a gentleman, not some kakistocrat,” said Rosalvo.

“Between the time you discovered the body and you called the police, more than three hours went by.”

“And there’s the crux,” said Rosalvo.

“I want you to tell me what your master’s cousin and the lawyer did during that time.”

Finally, Mattos managed to untangle Nilda’s thoughts and discover what had happened. Galvão and Aguiar had taken some time to get there. Meanwhile, Nilda told the cook and the pantryman what she had found, but neither had the courage to go see their dead master. When the visitors arrived, they went immediately to the bedroom but remained there only briefly. Nilda did not go in with them. Aguiar came out of the room very nervous, and Galvão told him several times to stay calm and asked Nilda to prepare a strong cup of coffee. When she brought the coffee, Aguiar was sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands, as if he were crying. Galvão had made several phone calls, mentioning Dona Luciana’s name a few times.

“I’m not going to be arrested?” asked Nilda, seeing the inspector jotting down her name in his notebook.

“No, you’re not. Maybe I won’t even need you. Relax, send in the cook.”

Neither the cook nor the pantryman knew anything useful.

“Get me a glass of milk, please,” Alberto Mattos told the cook.

“Would you like some cookies?”

“No, thanks. Just the milk.”

Mattos had just finished talking to the pantryman when the crime-scene team arrived. The forensic specialist was Antonio Carlos, a technician whom Mattos respected for his knowledge. The inspector told Antonio Carlos that Galvão and a cousin of the victim had entered the room and asked him to check whether some clue could have been destroyed.

“I can’t believe Galvão would do such a thing,” the technician said.

“Not even to protect a client?”

“Now that I think about it, I don’t know. . A lawyer is a lawyer. .”

The crime-scene team took photographs, lifted fingerprints and trace evidence from the statuette, the doors, the telephone, the night table. Together with the inspector they opened drawers and closets, bundled up the material to be taken away — the sheets, the dead man’s clothes hanging on the back of a chair, a small address book in glossy leather, and the bar of soap with hairs.

“This stays with me, for the time being,” said Mattos, putting the address book in his pocket.

The men from the meat wagon carried off the dead man in a dirty, battered metal box. The technicians left with them.

“Can I leave?” asked Rosalvo. “Today’s the wife’s birthday.”

“Go.”

The pantryman in the rear of the room cleared his throat.

“May we go?”

“I think you’d better wait for the lady of the house to get back from Petropolis.”

When he left, Mattos spoke with the daytime doorman. At six o’clock he had gotten off work and was replaced by Raimundo Noronha. But Raimundo had already left.

“Tell him to show up at the precinct as soon as he can, to talk to me.”

Arriving at the precinct, Mattos entered the occurrence in the blotter and handed over duties to Inspector Maia, who would relieve him. At that moment, Commissioner Ramos, who rarely appeared at the precinct on Sundays, came into the room.

“Everything okay on the shift, Mr. Mattos? Anything special?” asked Ramos.

“It’s all in the blotter,” replied Mattos drily.

Ramos picked up the book. “A homicide. . Ah, an important man. . A big shot. . Does the press know yet?”

Galvão must have called him, Mattos thought.

“By a person or persons unknown. .” continued Ramos. He laid the book back on the desk. As he always did when undecided or nervous, he fidgeted with his law school ring — gold, with a ruby center, and on the sides highrelief figures of the scale of justice and the tablets of the Ten Commandments.

“You have any clues?”

“I’m going home. When I discover anything, I’ll let you know.”

Mattos got the revolver he always kept in a drawer when he was on duty, placed it in the holster at his waist, and left.

GREGÓRIO WAS SUMMONED to the phone several times but answered only three calls, after lunch.

The first call: “It’s about the Cexim license. I need to talk to you no later than today.”

“I can’t today,” Gregório replied.

“It’s extremely important, Lieutenant. It’s better for us to meet. Mine isn’t the only interest at stake. Yours is too.”

“Don’t push it, Magalhães. I’m not in a good mood today.”

“I’m not pushing anything, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that something serious has happened. The CEO of Cemtex—”

“Today’s Sunday, I can’t do anything. In a little while I’m going to the Jockey Club with the president. Call me tomorrow,” said Gregório drily, hanging up.

The second call: “When’s the job going to get done?”

“One day soon,” answered Gregório. “Let’s take it easy, I don’t want to run any useless risks.”

“If something happens with you — which I don’t believe, because I know you act with the prudence necessary to avoid any complications — I’ll deposit the money abroad in your name. You’ll be a rich man. Very rich. Trust me, the way I’m trusting you.”

The third call: “When are you going to blast the man?”

“One day soon, Mr. Lodi.”

Euvaldo Lodi was a federal deputy and an important leader in the Federation of Industries.

At three in the afternoon, the head of the president’s military cabinet, General Caiado de Castro, arrived at the Catete Palace. A short time later the secretary of finance, Oswaldo Aranha, arrived. Both were shown into the president’s office. Shortly before four o’clock, the presidential entourage, made up, among others, of the general and the secretary, got into the automobiles waiting in the palace gardens. Major Dornelles sat beside the driver in the car carrying the president and his wife, Dona Darcy.

Gregório gave instructions to the special police escorts, then gestured to Dornelles that the motorcade could get under way. His car, occupied by three other members of the personal guard, was immediately behind the president’s. Preceded by the motorcycles of the escorts in their red berets, the entourage left through the palace gates onto Rua do Catete, heading for the hippodrome in Gávea.

As Gregório feared, the president was booed when the announcer at the Jockey Club, on the loudspeakers, made his arrival known. The president pretended not to hear the jeers coming from the special stands. From the regular seats came no applause, no support. So that’s how the people treat Mr. Getúlio? thought Gregório. After all the sacrifices he’s made and goes on making for the poor and humble?

During the wine reception hosted by the Jockey Club’s board of directors after the race, the Black Angel, his expression grim, posted himself behind the president, caressing under his coat the dagger in his belt.

MATTOS LIVED ON THE EIGHTH FLOOR of a building on Marquês de Abrantes, in the Flamengo district. A small apartment with a bedroom and living room, bathroom and kitchen, in the rear. The bathroom was its best feature, spacious with an enormous old tub whose metal feet mimicked the paws of an animal. The living room accommodated only a table and two chairs, a bookcase crammed with books, and a console containing a phonograph and partitions for records. On the console was an album of 78-rpm records, with La Traviata, another with La Bohème in long-play, and the scores of both operas in Italian. The bedroom was also tiny, with a sofa bed and a small table with a reading lamp.

The apartment was hot and stuffy that day, despite it being August. The bedroom window looked out over a small interior courtyard. The neighbor across the way was arguing with his wife. Mattos could see and hear the couple gesticulating and shouting. He closed the window, turning on the light and the radio, took off his coat and tie, placed his revolver on the table, opened the sofa bed and, still wearing pants and shoes, lay down. He was used to sleeping dressed.

He woke up to the ringing of the telephone. The announcer on the radio was saying, “The President of the Republic, Mr. Getúlio Vargas, has just arrived at the Gávea Hippodrome.” Mattos answered the phone.

“You want to see me today?”

It was Salete. He felt a brief surge of desire, which quickly passed. This wasn’t a good day. Besides everything else, his stomach was acting up.

“I’m tired.”

“You’re not thinking about me?”

“No, I’m not thinking about anything.”

“You police people are always thinking about something. Don’t be mean.”

“I’m very tired.”

“I’ll be there in a little while, and you’ll be fine.”

The policeman went back to listening to the radio. El Aragonés, ridden by L. Rigoni, won the Brazilian Grand Prix. Mattos would have bet on Joiosa, because of the mysterious name: joyeuse? Or the sword of El Cid and other illustrious knights? But the mare finished second. He had to find out who was behind a murder and here he was listening to a horse race. . He picked up the civil law book. As a cop, he threw guys in jail; as a judge, he would send them off to rot in some filthy precinct lockup. A great prospect. He felt like hurling the book against the wall. If he started throwing books against the wall, he really was crazy in the head. Go back to practicing law? His last client had given him a chicken as payment. That is, the client’s mother; the client was behind bars. An unhappy woman like the mothers of all the criminals who got caught. The poor woman had decided she needed to pay him in some way. He recalled the happy look on the woman’s face when she handed him the live hen, wrapped in newspaper, its feet tied with string.

He had told the story to Alice, his ex-girlfriend. It had upset her. Hers was a different world, with no place for chickens with their feet tied and wrapped in newspaper. Alice.

Alice.

He took off his shirt and went back to sleep.

He awoke to the ringing of the doorbell.

“I like you that way, without a shirt,” said Salete, hugging him.

Mattos freed himself from the embrace, went into the bedroom, followed by Salete, and put back on the dirty shirt from his shift.

“If you prefer, we can go to the São Luiz cinema.”

“I don’t want to put on a coat and tie.”

“Then let’s go to the Polyteama. In that fleabag you don’t need a coat and tie.”

“I don’t like film.”

“You used to like it.” Salete picked up the holster and revolver on the night table. “The movie is Beat the Devil. You’re possessed by him.” An uncertain smile.

“Please put down that weapon.”

“You know I love holding your revolver.”

“Do you mind?”

Salete placed the holster on the table.

“I won’t be good company today,” said Mattos.

“Every time you come from your shift you’re like that. Let’s go to bed, and I’ll make you feel better.”

“I need to take a bath.”

“You’ve got water?”

“It came on today. Now it’s every other day.”

“Let me do it for you.”

While Salete filled the bathtub, Mattos read his book on civil law.

“It’s ready, you can come,” shouted Salete.

“Why are you dressed all in black?”

“Don’t you know what’s in style? You’ve never heard of Juliette Greco, the muse of existentialism?”

“I’m going to bathe by myself.” Mattos took Salete by the arm and delicately pushed her out of the bathroom.

The inspector was enveloped in the bathtub’s warm water when Salete knocked on the door.

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

Salete opened the door. She saw Mattos’s clothes strewn on the floor.

“If there’s one good thing about this horrible old apartment, it’s the bathroom. I think I’m going to have a bath too. There’s easily room for two people in the tub, and my place didn’t get any water today,” said Salete. “But first I’m going to straighten up this mess.”

Salete picked up the clothes from the floor and took them into the bedroom, draping them over a chair. The undershorts, she put in her purse. Then she took off her dress and her slip, and, in only panties — she didn’t wear a bra — went into the bathroom.

Facing Mattos so he could see her movements, Salete removed her panties and got into the tub. She wrapped her legs around the waist and her arms around the shoulders of the inspector. Mattos felt her firm breasts against his back.

“Let me soap you up.”

“I’m really tired.”

Salete scrubbed Mattos’s back. His chest, his belly, his pubis. “Turn around and face me,” Salete said.

She seemed to have become more beautiful. She had undone the bun in which she wore her hair, now wet at the ends.

“How old are you, really?”

“You know perfectly well how old I am,” said Salete, lifting one of Mattos’s legs, causing him to fall backwards in the tub. “You need to cut your toenails.”

“You told me twenty-one, but I think you’re eighteen.”

“You think I’m younger, because you consider me dumb.”

“You’re both clever and intelligent.”

“The other day you called me stupid.”

“You’re illiterate, that’s what I said.”

“I know how to read very well. I’ll show you, when we get out of the tub.”

“Why don’t you show me your ID?”

“So you won’t see my photo; it’s very ugly.”

From the tub they went to the bed. For a time he forgot the wretched fucked-up criminals and the fucked-up victims and the fucked-up dirty cops and the fucked-up honest cops.

“Want me to read to you now? How about that book that you never put down?”

“Okay.”

“Article 544. The abandoned riverbed of a public or private river belongs to the riparians on the respective banks, without owners of the lands through which the waters may open new channels having the right of indemnification. It is understood that the—”

“Enough. You read like a grown-up.”

“You lawyers have a very odd way of talking to each other. I don’t know how you can stand reading that book.”

“I hate that shit.”

“Riparians. What’s that?”

“The dwellers on the banks of a river.”

Salete laughed. “Rivers can change their course?”

“Doubting is a sign of intelligence. Not finding answers is a sign of stupidity. That’s the way you are.”

“I may be stupid, but I don’t sleep on a cheap sofa bed.”

Realizing she had irritated the inspector, Salete said he needed to buy a decent bed. “They don’t cost that much. Know something? I’m going to give you a bed.”

“Did your sugar daddy stand you up today? Is that why you came here?”

“He’s not my sugar daddy.”

“Then what is he?”

“I don’t like that word.”

“Then what is he?”

“A person who helps me.”

“Room, food, clothes, money to spend at the hairdresser’s, in stores, in nightclubs.”

“If you want me to, I’ll dump him and come live here.”

“What about the evenings at the Night and Day, the Beguine, the Le Gourmet, the Vogue, at Ciro’s? You’re going to want to live with an honest cop instead of a rich crook?”

“Magalhães isn’t a crook.”

“Not a crook? Where does a government employee get all that money? He gave you an apartment by the beach and an automobile, took you to Europe, found an expensive dentist to fix your teeth.”

“It’s not my fault that your teeth are so bad they’re beyond repair.”

“The guy’s a rat.”

“I don’t like hearing you talk about him like that. Luiz is a good person.”

“Then leave. You’re here because you want to be.”

Salete got out of bed. She stood up, nude, beside the bed, not knowing what to say. She was in the habit of saying that she didn’t have on her hips the “two extra inches that cost Marta Rocha the Miss Universe title.” The beauty of Salete’s nude body made even more painful the displeasure that Alberto Mattos saw in her face.

The inspector closed his eyes. He heard Salete say “I’m leaving”; heard her getting dressed; heard her say “Why do you do this to me?”; heard the door slam.

He opened his eyes.

There was a dark stain on the ceiling of the bedroom, probably infiltration from the floor above. It had been there for a long time, but this was the first time he had noticed it.

He got out of the sofa bed. He looked for the notebook with telephone numbers that he had picked up at Gomes Aguiar’s apartment. He recognized some of the names. Under the letter G, Gregório Fortunato. The letter V, Vitor Freitas, followed by the word senator in parentheses. Mattos had heard of the influential senator of the PSD party. But what interested him most was under L, Luiz Magalhães. The name of the man who kept Salete.

He took out the gold ring he’d found in the dead man’s bathroom at the Deauville. He examined it carefully, for the first time. Inside was engraved the letter F.

two

THE FRONT PAGES OF THE NEWSPAPERS carried headlines about the death of the industrialist Gomes Aguiar. The police, according to Commissioner Ramos, had a clue to the “robbery” that couldn’t be revealed in order not to hinder the investigation. Several photos of Gomes Aguiar and one of Alberto Mattos, with the caption “Inspector leads the investigation.”

THE INSPECTOR ARRIVED at the precinct at 8:30 a.m. He wanted to get there early to be able to go by the lockup before the deposition by Luciana Gomes Aguiar, but he had been delayed by helping a guy push a black Citroën stalled in the street. He told the guy to get behind the wheel and by himself pushed the Citroën down a long stretch of road, in the middle of traffic, but the engine wouldn’t catch. The car was pushed to the curb and Mattos, along with the driver, tinkered with the motor, but all he succeeded in doing was to get grease on his hands and his shirt collar.

Inspector Maia, who was scheduled to relieve Mattos, had no problem with Mattos going to the lockup on days when he was on duty. Maia detested going to the cells. “I don’t like the smell,” he would say.

The prisoners’ breakfast had also been delayed, and the jailer was beginning to distribute the first aluminum mugs of coffee, along with bread. The prisoners were chatting loudly; some were laughing. People get used to everything, Mattos thought.

“Sir, sir, what about my injection?” said a swindler known as Fuinha, trying to stick his face between the bars.

“Didn’t I give you one yesterday?”

“Yes, sir, but I didn’t get well. Wanna see? If I squeeze it, a little drop comes out.” Fuinha started to unbutton the fly of his pants.

“I don’t need to see anything,” Mattos said. The inspector told the guard to bring the metal box with the syringe and needles, the bottle of alcohol, the two small containers of penicillin, one in powdered form, one in liquid, that he normally brought to his shift. Whenever he called a doctor to give an injection to a prisoner with gonorrhea, no one would show up. The guard brought the materials, placing them on a small table in the corridor. Mattos took the metal holder from the box, filled it with water until it covered the syringe and the needles, rested the box against the holder placed on the lid, poured alcohol into the lid, lit the alcohol, and waited for the water to boil. He stuck the needle into the rubber stopper of the liquid-filled vial, drew up the liquid, removed the needle, stuck it into the other vial, forced the liquid out of the syringe, picked up the syringe, leaving the needle stuck in the stopper, shook the small vial to mix the powder and liquid, inserted the needle into the glass end of the syringe, and aspirated the liquid. From the lockup, Fuinha watched these deliberate preparations. He stuck a naked arm outside, closing his eyes when the needle punctured his skin.

“Anyone else sick in there?” Mattos asked.

“Me, sir.” A prisoner approached the bars.

“That guy don’t have nothing, sir. He’s a con artist,” said Odorico, the boss of the lockup, a husky man with a crimson heart tattoo on his forearm that read “Mother,” sentenced to over three hundred years for robbery and murder.

“Let me decide that,” said the inspector.

Odorico shut up. Obeying an order from Mattos was not a humiliation.

The confidence man was a fat guy, a repeat offender, sentenced to five years for fraud.

“What are you feeling?”

“A pain in the chest. It’s very stuffy in here.” He coughed twice.

“It really is unbearable,” said Mattos. “You shouldn’t be here, none of you should be here. But there’s nothing I can do.” The world didn’t want to know about those outlaws, they could go fuck themselves one on top of the other like filthy worms. The police existed to hide that rottenness from the delicate eyes and noses of decent people.

“Wouldn’t it be good for a doctor to examine me?” Shrewd, the swindler. Maybe the doctor could be fooled. The police infirmary was much more comfortable than the lockup.

“Don’t try and bullshit the inspector,” threatened Odorico.

The prisoner looked at the boss. “To tell the truth, I’m feeling better already,” he said.

“Go have your breakfast,” said Mattos.

Rosalvo appeared, with a magazine, O Cruzeiro, and the Tribuna da Imprensa. “Just look, sir, want to see the latest infamy of Lutero Vargas, the parasite of the oligarchy?”

“No.”

“What about the whole story of the eleven thousand dollars stolen from Lutero Vargas in Venice?”

“No.”

“Here’s what it says: Armando Falcão denounces smuggling by Jereissati in Ceará. The president of the Workers Party in Ceará is part of the gang of thieves that has taken over the government. Do you know what’s the biggest contraband item? Irish linen. Those Northeasterners love to wear Irish linen.”

“I’m not interested.”

“There’s more: At the suggestion of Brandão Filho, head of Political and Social Order, appointed by Jango Goulart, General Ancora, chief of the DPS, has decided to put snitches on the payroll. Just look at the mess. Time was, the authorities used to feel repugnance about dealing with informants. Nowadays not even repugnance is left.” Pause. “Lacerda’s not easy.”

The inspector remained silent.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead,” answered the inspector.

“Are you a Lacerdist or a Getulist?”

“Do I have to be one kind of shit or another?”

“No, sir,” said Rosalvo, seeing the inspector’s expression. “To each his own.”

Luciana Gomes Aguiar, accompanied by her attorney Galvão, arrived at the precinct at ten o’clock. Mattos felt an instinctive hostility toward the woman, because of the composure of her face, because of the elegance of her black pantsuit. She’s nothing but a plutocrat with good manners, he thought. Like Alice.

“It goes without saying,” said the lawyer, “that Dona Luciana is willing to cooperate with the police in discovering the killer or killers of her husband. She would, however, like to be heard as quickly as possible.”

“Before formally taking Dona Luciana’s deposition, I’d like to ask her some questions.”

Luciana acceded with a gesture.

“Did your husband have any enemies?”

“No.”

“Did your husband normally sleep in the nude?”

Luciana didn’t reply. She looked at Galvão as if to ask, Do I have to put up with this?

“Mr. Gomes Aguiar wasn’t killed by an enemy. He was the victim of aggravated robbery, what laymen call armed robbery,” said Galvão persuasively.

“Did he normally sleep in the nude? The body was found naked in the bed.”

“Paulo wasn’t a man of rigid habits,” said Luciana.

“There are days when I sleep in pajamas, others when I don’t sleep in pajamas. I think most people are like that,” said Galvão.

“Has anything turned up missing?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t know.”

“I didn’t see any feminine clothing in the room where—”

“We slept in separate bedrooms. My suite is on the floor above.”

“It’s a two-level apartment, as you have no doubt verified,” said Galvão.

Luciana’s slender fingers displayed only a diamond wedding ring. The gold ring found in the dead man’s shower was too wide to belong to those fingers. Mattos stuck his hand in his pocket, his fingers touched the gold tooth. The ring was in the other pocket.

“Have you ever seen this ring before?”

“No.”

“It was in the shower.”

“It’s not my husband’s. He never wore a ring.”

“May I take a look at it?” Galvão asked. He put the ring on his finger. “A man with thick fingers.”

“Was your husband having problems with a partner? Or with some employee of — What’s the name of the firm?”

“Cemtex,” said Galvão. “No, he had no problems with either partners or employees.”

“Was Senator Vitor Freitas a friend of your husband’s?”

“My husband had many friends. Senator Vitor Freitas is one of them.”

“What about Luiz Magalhães?”

“I don’t know who that person is.”

“Did you have a good relationship with your husband?”

“They experienced a perfect matrimonial relationship of love and respect,” said Galvão in the tone of voice he used in court.

The inspector recalled a phrase that Mr. Emilio, the maestro of the claque, was in the habit of saying: the best thing in marriage is widowhood. Luciana’s pale countenance displayed no pain, just circumspection and dignity. What kind of person was she?

Mattos called the clerk, Oliveira, and began taking Luciana’s statement.

Luciana Gomes Aguiar and Galvão left. Mattos’s stomach was beginning to ache. The doctor had told him he had a duodenal ulcer, and there was the possibility of the ulcer bleeding at any time. He should eat every three hours, following the prescribed regimen: milk, gummy rice, boiled potato, boiled chicken. Avoid coffee, alcohol, carbonated soft drinks, cigarettes, and spicy foods. Not to worry. Check his stools. If they were dark like coffee grounds, it was a sign of bleeding, and he might have to be hospitalized for emergency surgery.

NOW, MATTOS WAS PRESIDING at the booking of a flagrante delicto crime of battery in which perpetrator and victim were, respectively, husband and wife. Jurisdiction to preside, order a written report, and sign the writ as well as sign the guilty finding, belonged to the commissioner, and the inspector had authority for such only in the former’s absence.

As Mattos was drafting the written report, the commissioner showed up.

“Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” Mattos told the defendant’s lawyer, who was present. He took Ramos by the arm and led him to the hallway.

“Pretend you haven’t gotten here yet. Let me finish this booking.”

“The lawyer saw me.”

“He’s a jailhouse shyster. Don’t worry.”

“What’s the statute?”

“Article 129. Husband and wife.”

“Husband and wife? You’re going to clap the guy in jail just because he cuffed his wife around?”

“Precisely because of that. To me, it being his wife is an aggravating factor.”

“But not to the law,” said Ramos, stifling his irritation. “I took a look at the woman and couldn’t see any signs of injury.”

“They’re under her dress. I’m going to order a corpus delicti exam done on her.”

“You’re being more Catholic than the pope. I can guarantee you the woman’s going to side against us. They’re always against us.”

“Everybody’s against us, always.”

“When it goes to trial, even that ambulance chaser will get the husband off. You know what’s going to happen at trial?”

“Yes. The woman is going to tell the judge that the bruises found in the corpus delicti exam were caused by me.”

“More or less that. Let it go. ‘When husband and wife fight, stay out of sight.’”

On a certain occasion, Rosalvo, who had just finished law school and was studying forensic psychology at the Police Academy, had described Ramos, using haphazardly theories of Bertillon, Kraeplin, and Kretschmer: trapezoidal cheeks, orthognathous profile, deviated parietals, square skull, squat composition, tenacious temperament. Tenacious, squat, orthognathous.

Mattos laughed scornfully.

“You’re laughing? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I know what I’m doing,” said the inspector, frowning again. “I’m going to finish the booking.”

Perpetrator, victim, lawyer, and clerk were waiting for the inspector.

“So then, sir, is everything resolved?” said the lawyer.

“Everything. We’re going ahead with the booking.”

“Sir, my client acted motivated by defense of his honor, immediately after being unjustly provoked by the victim.”

“Tell it to the judge.”

“Sir, even you, an educated individual, unlike my client who’s a stevedore at the docks, a coarse illiterate man, even you would lose patience if your wife told you what the wife of my client told him.”

“I already apologized,” murmured the woman humbly, from the back of the room.

“She’s sorry, she knows she made a mistake, she’s apologized. Didn’t you hear her?” said the lawyer.

“This is a crime calling for public action. I’m not interested in the victim’s opinion. We’re continuing with the booking.”

“Sir, she called my client a limp-dick. Is there a husband alive who can hear his own wife call him a limp-dick without losing his head? Well? Give me a break!”

“There’s no one with more authority to call a guy a limp-dick than his own wife,” said the inspector.

The accusation was written up and signed, and the woman sent for the corpus delicti examination. The husband paid a small bail as stipulated by law and was then released.

Mattos took an antacid from his pocket, stuck it in his mouth, chewed, mixed it with saliva, and swallowed. He had complied with the law. Had he made the world any better?

MEANWHILE, DOWNTOWN, Salete Rodrigues, wearing a wool two-piece jersey outfit that the magazine A Cigarra said had been launched by existentialists, took the elevator in a building on Avenida Treze de Maio and got out on the twelfth floor, the location of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation.

“May I help you?” asked a receptionist behind a counter.

Salete said she wanted to enroll in the secretarial training program. She was informed that the courses were Portuguese, mathematics, and typing. There were night classes and day classes. To enroll, the candidate had to have a middle-school diploma.

Salete’s face turned red when she heard this. She thanked the woman and left hurriedly.

She was nervous as she waited in the hall for the elevator. She felt sure the receptionist, seeing her flushed cheeks, had guessed everything, that she had only gone through elementary school and had no middle-school diploma to show. In July, she could have gotten a job in the Senate. She was with Magalhães at the Beguine nightclub, watching a show by the existentialist Serge Singer, when Magalhães had told her, “I’m going to get you a job in the Senate.” Magalhães had lots of buddies among the senators, and it would be easy to arrange a job. “You don’t even have to go there, just pick up your check at the end of the month.” She had told Magalhães that she “had little education,” and he had replied that the Senate was full of people who had “come in through the window” and boarded the happiness train, as it was called. She had become frightened and asked Magalhães not to do anything. Now, whenever she heard her favorite program on the radio, which was called The Happiness Train, she repented of not having accepted the offer. After all, she could have learned how to type; she had even gone to a typing school in a house on Rua da Carioca and seen a bunch of scrubby mulatto women banging away at keyboards. If those wretched women could learn to type, so could she.

When she got to the street, she felt great consolation in noting that men turned their heads to watch her go by. She killed some time in the downtown area in order to catch the two o’clock showing of The Robe, with Victor Mature, at the Palácio theater. She cried during the film.

It was still early to go to Mother Ingrácia’s spiritualist center, in the Rocha favela. In a pharmacy she bought a bottle of Vanadiol, which the radio claimed was good for the nerves. She walked down Gonçalves Dias, Ouvidor, and Uruguaiana, looking at the shop windows. She entered the A Moda clothes store and asked to try on a dress she saw in the window.

“The store doesn’t live up to its name,” she told the saleslady. “It’s very démodé.”

Since there was little movement in the store, Salete and the saleslady soon began trading confidences in hushed tones. The saleslady confessed she couldn’t take working in that place anymore; the manager was a shrew. Salete said that neither was her life anything great. She loved one man and was living with another; what saved her was having money to buy clothes. When she felt really unhappy, she explained, she would buy a new dress, one of those models that made people look at her on the street. She liked to have people look at her when she was well dressed. That helped her feel a bit more, a bit more, uh, free.

“Elegant clothes have helped me get ahead in life.”

Seeing that the woman was understanding, Salete spoke of her past, even knowing that it was mean to put ideas in the head of a woman with neither the face nor the body to advance in life.

If she weren’t always elegant, she’d still be in Dona Floripes’s house on Rua Mem de Sá, near the Red Cross hospital, fucking bank tellers and salesmen. She told how she’d had the strength to disdain bad advice and bad influences, like those of the madam Floripes, who told her to save her money for the lean years: “Whores have a short shelf life. The breasts can sag overnight. And then there’s cellulite. Stop spending everything on clothes and accessories.” If not for the clothes and accessories, she wouldn’t have been noticed by the important men she came to socialize with, politicians, people from high society, big shots in government, and today she would be wearing toilet water instead of French perfume.

“But you have to have a nicely formed body for clothes to fit well.”

Around 12:30 p.m. she went for lunch at the Colombo. Magalhães said the Colombo was no longer frequented by upper-class people like in the past, but she loved to enter that large dining room with its high mirror-covered walls, was moved by the small orchestra playing Strauss waltzes. She had seen such lovely things only in Europe, when she traveled with Magalhães.

After the movie, she took a taxi to the spiritualist center. She handed Mother Ingrácia the undershorts that she had taken from Mattos’s apartment for the old woman to work her magic.

When she got to her apartment, she called Magalhães and said she’d like to go to a nightclub that evening. Salete wanted to go to the Beguine, but Magalhães said he needed to meet someone at the Night and Day.

The nightclub was housed in the mezzanine of the Hotel Serrador, in Cinelândia on the corner of Rua Senador Dantas, between two movie theaters: the Odeon, on the left, and the Palácio, on the right. From the glassed-in window of the nightclub could be seen the eastern side of the congressional building, the Monroe Palace, deserted at that hour. Further to the right, the dark stain of the gardens of the Passeio Público stood out amidst the lights of the movie theater façades.

“Can you arrange for me to go to the tea at the Vogue, on Sundays? Yesterday I tried and wasn’t allowed in.”

“What do you want in that thé dansant?” Magalhães knew that only rich young men and women frequented Sunday afternoons at the Vogue. They would never let a whore in.

“I wanted to hear Fats Elpídio’s band.”

“There are a thousand other places where you can hear Fats Elpídio’s band. It doesn’t have to be in the middle of those shitty bourgeois canapé eaters.”

Shortly before the beginning of the midnight show, the maître d’ brought to Magalhães a man whose dark bookkeeper’s suit clashed with the tussahs, linens, and white Panamas of the other men present.

“Sit down,” Magalhães said.

The man sat down, after nodding in Salete’s direction in a small gesture of courtesy.

“Did the Japanese send the parcel?”

“Mr. Matsubara asked me to give you this,” said the man drily, taking an envelope from his pocket. Only then did Magalhães realize, in the dim light of the nightclub, that the recently arrived man was a Nisei.

“Did you come directly from Marília?” asked Magalhães, putting the envelope in his pocket? “Did you have a good trip?” he added, trying to be amiable.

The Nisei didn’t reply. He stood up. “Any message for Mr. Matsubara?”

“Tell him his contribution won’t be forgotten.”

The man turned his back, this time without acknowledging anyone, and left.

In the envelope was a check for five hundred thousand cruzeiros, a contribution to the campaign of Deputy Roberto Alves, private secretary of the president. Recently, Matsubara had obtained a loan of sixteen million from the Bank of Brazil.

Magalhães gestured to the maître d’, who came over.

“Champagne,” Magalhães said.

“Any preference? We have Veuve Cliquot, Taittinger, René Lamotte, Moët et Chandon, Krug, Pol Roger,” recited the maître d’ proudly.

GREGÓRIO FORTUNATO WAS SURPRISED that only a few politicians, like Gustavo Capanema, noticed the mood changes that were occurring lately in the president. He had heard Capanema, who had been Mr. Getúlio’s secretary of education during the time of the dictatorship and was now leader of the government party in the Chamber of Deputies, whisper at a gathering, “In the twenty years I’ve known Getúlio, he’s gone from a happy and outgoing man to sad and reserved.” Everyone thought the cause was age, which made people unhappy, but the president wasn’t old, he was Getúlio Vargas, one of those men who are ageless. Gregório knew the reasons for the president’s unhappiness: the hurt caused by all the betrayals he had suffered, the heartbreak over the cowardice of his allies. Major Fitipaldi, one of his military advisers, said that the friends of the president, who had been the beneficiaries of honors and rewards, were nothing but hypocrites and traitors. If there was a man in the world who deserved to be happy, because of all he had done for the poor and humble, that man was Getúlio.

Gregório’s thoughts were interrupted by a telephone call from his wife, Juracy. They had an unpleasant exchange. The head of the guard disliked hearing her complain that he was becoming a visitor in his own home and hung up the phone.

Immediately afterward, he received a call from Magalhães.

“I’ve got the Japanese money.”

“Don’t say anything to Roberto. Bring the check to me.”

“Won’t it bother him if he finds out?”

“I’ve known Roberto from the time he used to clean Mr. Getúlio’s latrine on his ranch in Itu, when we were in exile. Don’t worry about it.”

“Mr. Lodi wants a meeting with you.”

“I was with the deputy here in my room in the palace, I know what he wants.”

“About the Cemtex license—”

“The license has already been issued. It wasn’t easy. Fifty million dollars is a lot of money.”

“Good lord! Is there any way to change the license to another company? That’s what I wanted to talk to you about yesterday. The name of the other company is—”

“You think the government is some damn whorehouse? You think anything goes? Now you come to me with that? After all the problems I faced to get the license granted?”

“The president of Cemtex was murdered. That changes everything. You could say a few words to Souza Dantas—”

“It’s too late.”

“Please, lieutenant, for the love of God, the license has to be transferred to that other company, Brasfesa.”

“It’s too late.”

“Your part is at stake.”

“A cat doesn’t eat a man’s food. Tell your friends that.”

After he hung up, Gregório jotted down on a piece of paper his conversation with Magalhães. In his home he kept a file with confidential information that he deemed important to record; in a folder he would put what he had said to Magalhães about Cemtex and Brasfesa. He needed to arrange a safe place for that folder; his relationship with Juracy was getting worse by the day, because of the woman’s idiotic jealousy. “One of these days I’m going to do something crazy,” she had said, in the middle of an argument. A jealous woman was capable of anything.

three

IT WAS SIX IN THE MORNING when Mattos’s telephone rang.

“It’s me.”

Silence.

“Remember me?” Alice.

Only three years had gone by.

“I know you like to get up early, that’s why I called at this hour. .”

It was as if he were at the edge of an abyss, ready to fall. Three years earlier he had called Alice’s home, her mother had come to the phone and said that Alice didn’t want to talk to him and for him not to call again.

Alice had traveled abroad, spent six months in Europe. Upon her return she had married some society type whose name he didn’t remember. Three years.

On the edge of the abyss.

“I’d like to see you. Have tea. How about at the Cavé? They haven’t closed the Cavé, have they?”

“No. I passed by there the other day.”

“Can you? Today? At five?”

“All right.”

After he hung up, the inspector remembered he had an appointment with Mr. Emilio, the maestro, at 5:30 p.m. Since he had the time, as it was still early, he decided to honor Mr. Emilio by listening to La Traviata. The recording he owned, made at La Scala in Milan in 1935, wasn’t complete, running only 111 minutes, lacking the aria “No, non udrai rimproveri,” the Germont cabaletta at the end of Act 2, Scene 1. There were thirteen 78-rpm disks, which couldn’t be stacked on the record player. Every eight minutes the inspector had to change the record. Sometimes that irritated him. So, even before hearing all the disks, still in the second act, Mattos turned off the phonograph, put the disks back in the album, and left.

Mattos had asked Rosalvo to investigate the backgrounds of Paulo Gomes Aguiar, Claudio Aguiar, and Vitor Freitas. He hadn’t mentioned Luiz Magalhães.

“Paulo Machado Gomes Aguiar,” said Rosalvo, consulting a notepad in his hand, “Brazilian, white, born here in the Federal District on January 12, 1924. Father a doctor, mother a housewife, both deceased. Studied at the São Joaquim secondary school and the National Law School, where he graduated in 1947. Never practiced law. In 1950 he married Luciana Borges, a banker’s daughter. Seems he married for money. In 1951 he founded the Cemtex import-export firm, which quickly became one of the largest in the country. He has contacts with high-placed government officials. Appears to be the figurehead for foreign groups. I read in the Tribuna—”

“Leave the political intrigues till the end. First the facts.”

“Cemtex’s shady deals are a fact. For example, the firm obtained an import license from Cexim worth fifty million dollars. The Bank of Brazil never gave that much money to anyone; it’s plain as day that it’s one more underhanded trick by some bigwig at the top. Gomes Aguiar was a friend of senator Vitor Freitas, who’s probably one of those clearing the path for him.”

“Continue.”

“Gomes Aguiar had a very active social life. I went through a collection of old newspapers and saw photos of him with Vitor Freitas in the society columns. And also with his cousin and other upper-crust types, especially Pedro Lomagno, son of the late Lomagno, the coffee king.”

“Continue.”

“Claudio, the cousin, also studied at the São Joaquim. Then he left the country and stayed away for a long time; his father was a diplomat or some such thing. He studied economics in London. As for Senator Freitas, it’s possible that he frequents the ‘Senate Annex.’ Those playboy senators, when they get tired of making speeches, are in the habit of crossing the street for a relaxing lay. They say the girls at the annex are marvelous.”

“Where is that annex?”

“You don’t know?” Rosalvo was surprised, but he pretended to be very surprised. “It’s in the São Borja Building, 227 Avenida Rio Branco, right across from the Senate. Very handy. I feel like going there, but they say the madam is a tough old bird, and she’s not going to rat out guys with clout just like that. It’d be good for us to meet one of the whores the senator is screwing.”

“The senator’s sex life doesn’t interest me.”

“I don’t like to nose around in anybody’s sex life either. But the senator must be the type of john who gets off on bragging to girls in bed while drinking champagne. Lots of times we get useful information.”

“You don’t have the slightest notion of ethics, Rosalvo.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“What I’m interested in is finding out whether Gomes Aguiar had enemies, problems with partners, that sort of thing. I’m not interested in gossip, much less your ironies.”

“I don’t argue with you. You’re my boss, and I have the greatest respect for you.”

Actually, Rosalvo was afraid of the inspector. He was sure that Mattos wasn’t right in the head, the faces he made, that crazy strike he’d tried to promote, that business of going unarmed to investigations, and especially his habit of not taking numbers dough — shit, the guy rode the bus, didn’t even own a car, and yet he turned up his nose at the boodle from the bankrollers. You had to be careful with a man like that.

“You’re new in the police — not that I’m trying to give you lessons, who am I to do that? It’s just that I’m older, almost an old man of fifty-five, thirty of them in the police. The only thing I’ve learned in all those years is that in a homicide there are just two motives. Sex and power. That’s the crux. People kill only over money and pussy, excuse my French, or both of them together. That’s the way of the world.” Pause. “I have some business to take care of. Do you need me?”

“That case of the workshop? Did the boy’s father show up?”

“No, sir. The boy said the old man doesn’t have anybody to take care of the orange grove.”

In a small automotive repair shop, in a fight, the mechanic Cosme, using a lug wrench, had hit in the head a guy who had left his car for work, killing him. The mechanic, a skinny guy, twenty-two years old, had a huge hematoma over his left eye. The shop belonged to him and his father, a Portuguese who was absent at the time of the fight, at the orange grove the family owned in Nova Iguaçu. A woman, called as a witness, had complicated matters by saying she had seen a guy in a gray shirt hit the victim in the head with something. Cosme, when arrested, was wearing a red shirt.

“Is the woman back from her trip?”

“No. I went to her apartment on Friday, and no one knows when she’ll return. She must have that thing you said about seeing everything in gray.”

“For us to be certain whether the woman is colorblind, it’s necessary to have her vision checked.”

“Sir, the boy confessed. The woman’s disappeared. The inquest period is ending.”

“Go to Nova Iguaçu and subpoena the old man to come to the precinct to talk with me. The mother comes here every day to see her son, so does his wife. It’s just the father who doesn’t appear.”

“He’s taking care of the oranges.”

“These Portuguese families are very close. For them, not all the oranges in the world matter more than a son.”

“The grove is, pardon the expression, in the middle of nowhere.”

“I want the old man here day after tomorrow.”

“I have to go to the Senate to talk to senator Freitas.”

“I’ll do that. You’re going to leave here directly for Nova Iguaçu. Now.”

Cosme had been brought from the holding area and taken to the room where he normally received visits from his wife. The two were sitting, silently holding hands, when the inspector entered. The woman wiped her face, swollen from crying and her eighth-month pregnancy. Beside the bench was a lunch pail with food that she brought daily for her husband. The woman knew she owed those meetings to the inspector and tried to smile but didn’t succeed.

“You brought some nice food for him?” said the inspector. “One of these days I’m going to try those delicacies.”

“Whenever you like, sir. Today it’s a cheese turnover,” said the young man, taking it from the lunch pail. The woman remained silent. The two were young and unattractive. Cosme’s ugliness had afforded Rosalvo the opportunity to repeat to the inspector other lessons learned in school: Cosme was a Lombrosian type with physical stigmas of criminality such as recessive forehead, prominence of the zygomas, sharpness of the facial angle, prognathism, plagiocephalism. “Sir, don’t laugh at me, that means an oblique, oval head, asymmetric, pressed between the two halves so that the right side, more developed in front, corresponds to a greater development of the left side in back.”

Looking at Cosme, the inspector saw none of that. Just a scared youth.

“I had your father summoned to come here to talk to me,” said Mattos.

Cosme jumped up from the bench.

“Don’t do that, sir, please, my father is a sick man.”

“I need to speak with him.”

“Please! Isn’t everything already decided? Everything decided? Please,” said Cosme, holding the cheese pastry.

Could the cause and effect relationship be essential to the nature of all the reasoning relevant to the facts? Mattos asked himself. What good were inferences resulting from a chain of suppositions? He knew that propositions allusive to the facts could only be contingent. The conclusion to which he was coming, observing the tremulous couple before him, resulted merely from the senses, from impressions of the moment, which might be false. Everything could be false. My God, my mind is becoming as bizarre as Rosalvo’s.

“I’m very sorry, but I need to question your father.”

The inspector left the room after saying this, not wishing to see the couple’s other reactions. He had no desire to further confuse his ideas and perceptions. For better understanding, he wanted to have more facts available — and more perceptions and more ideas. The attempt to understand things always led him to a frustrating vicious circle.

Mattos stopped beside one of the two lions flanking the stairway of the Monroe Palace. He turned to look at the imposing São Borja Building on the other side of Avenida Rio Branco. The senators had chosen a very convenient place for their dalliances.

The Senate was in session, but Senator Freitas wasn’t on the floor. His aide Clemente Mello Telles Neto, an elegantly dressed young man in a white three-piece linen suit, said the senator was busy at a meeting of the Foreign Relations Committee.

“What’s this about, Inspector?”

“I prefer to tell the senator himself what this is about.”

“It’s going to be difficult for you to speak with him. The senator is a very busy man. Is it anything personal?”

“No. It’s not personal.”

“Then you can speak with me.”

“I want to speak with him.”

“Then you’ll have to wait for the right time.” Pause. “Look, let’s agree on this: you leave me your phone number, and when the interview is possible, I’ll call and let you know.”

Mattos gave the precinct’s number to the aide. “Tell the senator it’s in his interest to speak with me.”

“I’ll tell him,” said the aide, formally.

The inspector took a small pad from his pocket.

“What’s the senator’s phone number, please?”

After hesitating, Clemente gave the inspector the number of the senator’s office.

Leaving the Senate, Mattos walked along Rio Branco to Rua Sete de Setembro. He turned to the left onto Rua Uruguaiana. The Cavé was on the corner.

He went into the tea room and sat down facing the door. It was ten minutes before five. For a few moments he thought of leaving. Why stay there and see the woman who had rejected him? What did Alice want from him? Help? He didn’t want to take revenge on her by refusing to help her, or take revenge by helping her, which would be even more petty. He sat there, staring at the art-nouveau drawings on the wall.

He stood up when Alice arrived and pulled out a chair for her to sit. They sat on opposite sides of the table, without looking at each other, silent.

The waiter approached.

“Tea and toast?” asked Mattos.

Alice nodded.

“Are you still in the, the Department?”

She doesn’t even want to say the word police, he thought. Federal Department of Public Safety is a bit less shameful.

“Yes.”

Alice opened her purse and took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, which she placed on the table. She tried to smile. “I smoke now.”

Mattos picked up the lighter and lit her cigarette.

The waiter brought the tea. Alice put out her cigarette in the ashtray.

“I have an appointment at 5:30. With the maestro. You remember the maestro?”

“Maestro?”

“The old man who ran the claque, Mr. Emilio. Remember?”

She vaguely recalled Mattos having said that as a student he’d been part of the claque at the Municipal Theater in order to attend operas free while making some pocket money.

“I haven’t seen him for some time. . The last time, I cut class to meet him by the Chopin statue. . That’s where the claqueurs gathered. . That day we were setting up the claque for Parsifal. .”

Alice stuck another cigarette in her mouth. Mattos picked up the lighter and lit the cigarette.

“Wagnerian operas were always a lot of work for the claqueurs. In Parsifal you’re never supposed to applaud at the end of the first act, and making the audience keep quiet was much harder than making them clap hands. I remember Mr. Emilio saying, ‘We’re not going to ask some second-rater for an encore.’”

“I saw Parsifal in—” Alice stopped. In London.

“I didn’t get to see it. It ended up not being staged. The claque was dissolved soon afterward. Finished. It went out of style. A thing of the past.”

Alice would have liked to be able to say something. She had lost the courage to speak about the matter that had led her to suggest that meeting. Why had Mattos told her that story? Because, like her, he didn’t know what to say? Or did he think she wanted to get back together, and he was telling her that like the claque she, too, was a thing of the past? He had always been very odd.

“Have you been going to the Municipal?”

Some time after the breakup with Alice he had gone to see La Bohème at the Municipal with Di Stefano and Tebaldi. He was used to sitting in the peanut gallery because it was cheaper and because it was where the claque stationed itself, and he was accustomed to the location. But on that occasion he had bought a ticket in the orchestra section, near the dress circle, where a man and a woman dozed the entire time. He also noticed that other people fell asleep in their boxes, even when Di Stefano hit a fabulous high C in the aria “Che gelida manina.” It irritated him greatly; at the time he was feeling the initial symptoms of his duodenal ulcer and his hatred of the rich. Going to the opera, to concerts, to museums pretending they read the classics, it was all part of a grand scheme of playacting by the rich, whose objective was to show that they — he thought mainly of Alice and her family — belonged to a special superior class that, unlike the ignorant rabble, knew how to see, hear, and eat with elegance and sensitivity, which justified their having money and every privilege they enjoyed.

“I’m not interested in opera anymore,” replied Mattos. He picked up his knife and read the word stainless engraved on the blade.

Alice looked at the teacup before her.

“My mother died.”

“I’m very sorry.”

“Why? She didn’t like you.”

Stainless.

“I got married.”

“I know.”

“Pedro is a good person. He knows about us.”

“Knows what? There’s nothing to know.”

“He knows there’s nothing to know.” Pause. “What about you? Did you marry?”

“No.”

Their gazes met for a few instants.

“Are you going to tell me what you wanted with me?”

“I think I’ll leave that for another day. . I don’t know how to say what I want to say. . Will you meet me again? Tomorrow? Tomorrow I’ll be braver. .”

“Tomorrow. . The fourth. . I can’t. I go on duty at noon. A 24-hour shift. I get off at noon on the fifth.”

“Then day after tomorrow. Thursday.”

The old man was waiting for him beside the Chopin statue. As always, he was wearing a Panama hat and a bowtie, but the hat was crumpled and the suit was of cheap material. The collar was dirty. The silver-handled cane that he held in his hand, instead of making him look elegant, as before, now gave him a fragile, sickly appearance.

“My young man,” said Emilio, embracing Mattos and biting his dentures, “I’m so pleased with your success.”

Success. There came to Mattos’s mind the precinct lockup full of smelly, sick men.

“And how are you, sir?”

“Don’t call me sir. You’re no longer that boy who asked me to teach him everything about opera.”

“How are things going?”

“Going. . When I saw your picture I said, That’s him, it’s that boy who worked with me in the claque. . He’s come up in life, I thought, now he’s traveling in high circles. . Then I said to myself, I’m going to call him. I never imagined you’d come. . I thought success had gone to your head. .”

Emilio took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his damp eyes.

“Want something to drink? A beer?” asked Mattos.

“Let’s go to that bar on Álvaro Alvim at the corner of Alcindo Guanabara.”

The man behind the counter greeted Emilio.

“Good afternoon, maestro.”

“This is Mr. Mattos, police inspector and an old friend of mine.”

The man cleaned his hands on a dirty cloth. “Pleased to meet you, sir.” Mattos shook the guy’s wet hand.

“Two beers. Would you care for something to eat?” asked Mattos.

“I’m thinking about the roast pork sandwich they serve here. The best pork sandwich in the whole city. Isn’t it, Robledo?”

“All modesty aside, it really is the best. One for you too, sir?”

“I’m not hungry. Just one.”

“A beer with a head of foam and a Steinhager, to raise the spirits,” said Emilio. He was suddenly happy and was biting his dentures less.

The sandwich was placed on the counter. Emilio took off his hat, put his cane on the counter, and dedicated himself to the difficult task of chewing the enormous quantity of roast pork that Robledo had put between two pieces of French bread. Meanwhile, he drank several beers, accompanied by glasses of Steinhager.

Finally, Emilio finished eating. He picked up the beer glass and rubbed its cold surface against his temples. “They all died,” he said. “This country is going badly. These days, Gigli wouldn’t set foot here. Remember Gigli? It was in ’45, you were part of the claque. .”

“I remember.”

“Neither Gigli nor Scotti set foot here anymore. . No, no, my head isn’t working right, Scotti died a long time ago, you never got to see him, but I saw him, with these eyes that the earth will yet consume, singing Falstaff at the Teatro Lírico, which was torn down, a beautiful theater with better acoustics than La Scala in Milan. It was the twenty-ninth of July, 1893, I remember it as if it were today, I was nineteen years old and was very happy. . The ‘Sir John’ that night never was and never will be equaled. . Pay attention to what I’m saying, Scotti was more than just a great singer, he was a great artist! Another beer, Robledo, and another Steinhager. Do you know how old Verdi was when he composed that masterpiece, when he turned the history of opera upside down with his Falstaff? Eighty, my age, boy. But in Brazil anything eighty years old has to be destroyed, thrown in the trash. That’s why in the past all the great singers would come to Brazil, and now no one comes here, not even a Del Monaco, not even a Pinza, who doesn’t know how to read a single note of music, no one!”

Emilio wiped his damp eyes. “I don’t have a friend left in the world. They’ve all died.” Pause. “Tutto nel mondo è burla.” Pause. “But let’s not lose heart.”

The old man began to sing, ignoring the others in the bar. “Tutto nel mondo è burla, l’uom è nato burlone, nel suo cervello ciurla sempre la sua ragione. Tutti gabbati! Irride l’un altro ogni mortal. Ma ride ben chi ride la risata final.”

Mattos detected something of the astuteness of Sir John in the tearful gaze the old man directed at him while singing.

“Do you need anything?” he asked when the old man finished singing.

“It’s not much, my young man, my good friend, my son, just enough to pay the room rent, which is overdue.”

“How much is it?” said Mattos, taking his checkbook from his pocket.

“Two hundred eighty cruzeiros,” Emilio said quickly.

Mattos filled out the check. Then he asked for the bill. He noticed that Emilio made a stealthy gesture to Robledo.

“Mr. Emilio has a tab. Can I include it in the bill?” said Robledo.

“Yes,” Mattos said.

four

“IS THE MONEY GUARANTEED? What about the house?” asked Alcino.

“Yes, yes, didn’t I tell you that already?” replied Climerio. “And the job, too. Investigator. Besides that, if I go to Vice, like they promised, I’ll take you with me. Getting a spot in Vice is better than winning the lottery.”

“I got a wife and five kids to support,” said Alcino.

They were at Climerio’s house, 32 Rua Sicupira, in Cachambi, where Alcino had gone to settle on the details of his undertaking. Climerio picked up a leather briefcase, and they left.

They walked down the dusty unpaved street. In the middle of the street a group of urchins were playing marbles. Climerio was fat; Alcino, short and skinny.

“When I was a kid, I was real good at that,” said Climerio, looking at the boys. “How about you? Were you good at marbles, too?”

“I used to like building carts with ball bearings for wheels. Ever since I was a kid, I liked doing carpentry stuff. I don’t know why I liked that profession,” Alcino lamented.

“Your life as unemployed carpenter is over,” said Climerio, clapping Alcino on the back.

Climerio’s words failed to assuage Alcino. The obligation he had taken on of killing that journalist had become endless agony for him. But it had been the way he had found of satisfying his lifelong dream, to have a house of his own, for he was constantly late in paying his monthly rent of five hundred and fifty cruzeiros for the house where he lived. Since May Climerio had been advancing him the rent money. As well as money for groceries. His wife Abigail, on one occasion, had gone to Climerio’s house to receive a thousand cruzeiros; other times she had received two hundred.

They took a bus to Méier. In Méier they took a taxi.

“Rua Barão de Mesquita,” Climerio told the driver. Their final destination was the São José school, where the journalist Lacerda was to make a speech.

They got off at a bus stop on Barão de Mesquita.

“Wait here,” said Climerio.

Climerio went into a bar and asked to use the phone. He dialed.

“Is Nelson there?”

He wasn’t. Climerio made several phone calls trying to locate Nelson Raimundo de Souza, the driver of the taxi in which they planned to flee after Alcino killed Lacerda. He finally left a message for Nelson to come find him on Barão de Mesquita, at the bar whose address he left with the person taking the message.

Climerio went to the bus stop to look for Alcino. The pair, now back at the bar, drank beer as they waited for the cab driver to arrive.

“Is this Nelson guy reliable?” asked Alcino.

“I’ve known him a long time. He stations his cab on Silveira Martins, that street beside the palace. I see him practically every day.”

Night fell.

“The Crow is gonna leave, and that son of a bitch Nelson doesn’t show up,” said Climerio. If he failed again, Gregório would skin him alive.

Nelson arrived shortly before ten that evening.

“Goddammit! Where the hell have you been?”

“I got your message an hour ago,” said the cabbie.

The three got into Nelson’s Studebaker taxi. First, Alcino noted the license plate, 5-60-21. “Tomorrow I’m gonna play those numbers.”

They stopped on a cross-street with Barão de Mesquita, near the São José school. Climerio opened the leather briefcase and took out a.45 revolver. The weapon, a Smith & Wesson, had been stolen in 1949 from the Second Infantry Regiment in the military compound, by the sergeant who was head of the regimental arsenal. That sergeant had sold it to another sergeant. It had been bought and sold several times, until it was acquired by José Antonio Soares.

Alcino’s hands trembled when he held the gun. He’d never had a.45 in his hands. The steel was cold, and the weapon seemed to possess enormous weight.

“All you have to do is pull the trigger, and this cannon will do the job for you.”

Climerio gave Alcino six more bullets, which Alcino put in his pocket after sticking the revolver in his belt.

They got out of the car. Alcino remained close to the entrance to the school. Climerio posted himself at the door. The plan was to kill Lacerda as soon as he appeared. The pair would take advantage of the confusion to flee.

INSPECTOR PÁDUA TOOK OFF HIS COAT; his short-sleeve shirt displayed his white, muscular arms. In a holster under his arm, a snub-nosed revolver with a two-inch barrel. He had just made the entries for his shift in the blotter. Mattos, who would relieve him, sat down beside him.

“You planning to release the bums I caught on my shift?”

“If I think I should release them, I’ll release them.”

Pádua had the tic of repeatedly contracting his voluminous arm muscles when nervous. His muscles began to shudder and jump. Pádua had thought about killing this idiot Mattos the first time he had released the criminals he had caught, but he had checked himself upon learning that the guy wasn’t on the take from anyone, something rare in the department, a perfect white-hat.

“Let’s imagine a situation, Mattos. You’re walking down a street here in our jurisdiction at two in the morning and see a suspicious-looking guy standing on a corner.”

“What’s suspicious-looking?”

“Shit, Mattos, a guy standing on a corner in the middle of the night is always suspicious.”

“Especially if he’s black.”

“Shit, damn right. You’re walking down a street in our district at two in the morning and see a black guy standing on a corner. What can a black guy be doing at that hour? Or even some shitheel white? I’ll tell you what he’s doing: waiting for somebody to mug or looking for a house to rob. I’m gonna arrest the son of a bitch. A cautionary measure pure and simple. Then I’ll send for his record. If he’s clean, I’ll cut the fucker loose.”

This topic had been debated between the two of them before. Whenever Mattos relieved Pádua, they had a similar discussion. Pádua believed he would one day convince Mattos that his point of view was correct in every aspect.

“That stuff of St. Thomas Aquinas that it’s preferable to acquit a hundred guilty men rather than convict one innocent man is bullshit. Pure fairy tale. It’s not by that kind of thinking that we’re gonna protect decent people. What is it you’re afraid of? The shitty, corrupt, illiterate press? That cocksucker of a con man who’s our superintendent? The city’s been handed over to the criminals, and cowardly philosophies like that are nothing but the excuses of self-serving cops who wanna run away from their responsibilities.”

In earlier days, Mattos would get irritated with Pádua, and the two would argue heatedly. Now, he was just bored.

“Changing the subject, did you meet the madam at the Senate Annex?”

“Why?”

“I need to know if a certain guy frequented her trysting place.”

“A senator?”

“Yes.”

“Some of the guys I hauled in yesterday have a record, I guarantee you,” said Pádua craftily.

“I’m very sorry, if you want to help me, I’m grateful, but I’m not going to bargain with you. Anyone brought in just for questioning I send home. Shit, Pádua, the lockup is full of poor devils, and you want to throw more wretches in there.”

“Wretches? Fucking hell, you’re one stubborn guy.”

“So are you.”

Pádua’s muscles twitched convulsively, as if an electric current had coursed through them. He put on his coat.

“Shit. Holy fuck, Mattos, you’re gonna drive me crazy. I’m gonna end up as batty as you.” Pause. “We’re going to the Senate Annex this afternoon.”

THE PORTUGUESE ADELINO, father of Cosme, a short, stocky man with gray hair, arrived at the precinct around three in the afternoon. He was taken to Mattos.

They were alone in the inspector’s office.

“Have a seat.”

Adelino sat on the edge of the chair. He avoided making eye contact with the inspector, who stood beside him.

“Your son is in a bad situation. . He was caught in the act. . When the police got there, the guy was dying. . You were there, weren’t you, in the workshop?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t hear you. Louder.”

“Yes, I was.”

“You saw everything, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What? I didn’t hear you.”

“I saw it.”

“How did it happen?”

“That individual was a very rude person, he insulted and hit my son. . The boy lost his head. .”

“Speak louder. What did the boy do?”

“My son was much weaker. . And the other man hitting him, hitting him mercilessly. . Then he picked up the lug wrench to defend himself. . Just one blow and the man fell. .”

“Cosme and his wife are expecting a child, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Speak louder.”

“Yes.”

“It’ll be your first grandchild?”

“Yes.”

“Louder.”

“Yes.”

“Louder.”

“Yes. Yes. Yes.”

“The first grandchild. .” said Mattos.

Adelino lowered his eyes.

“Why are you crying?”

“I’m not crying,” said Adelino, wiping his eyes.

They remained silent for several moments.

“Where are you from?”

“From Sabrosa. .”

“Sabrosa. . Where’s that near?”

“Vila Real.”

“Trás-os-Montes?”

Adelino nodded.

“The land of Camilo Castelo Branco.”

Adelino didn’t react to the writer’s name.

“Your son is going to be in prison for twenty years.”

Again, Adelino wiped his eyes.

“I know why you’re crying.”

Adelino’s body shook.

“Because you’re ashamed of accusing your own son of a crime you yourself committed.”

Adelino nodded, his head hanging forward, as if he were about to say something. His body shook again.

“Tell me how it was. The truth.” Mattos placed his hand lightly on Adelino’s shoulder.

“No, it wasn’t me. I should have defended my son, but it wasn’t me.”

“Tell the truth. We know it was you. You’ll serve a shorter term than your son. . You’re an old man. .”

Adelino wiped his eyes. Pensive, he took some time before he spoke.

“It was me, yes,” he finally confessed. “I lost my head when I saw the boy being beaten by that animal. Then I grabbed the lug wrench. .”

The Portuguese went on to say he had struck the man in the head, the man fell and lay still, his eyes open. Horrified, Adelino and his son saw that the man was dead. The family, called together, had decided that Cosme should take the blame, as the old man, who had a heart condition, would never survive being in prison.

“Are you willing to repeat that to the clerk and sign a paper with your confession?”

“I don’t know how to read or write,” said Adelino, who appeared relieved.

“No matter. We’ll call two witnesses.”

Mattos went with Adelino to the clerk’s room. On the way he bumped into Biriba, the trusty, and asked him to buy a box of antacids at the pharmacy.

Adelino’s confession was signed by the two witnesses who had been rounded up in the neighborhood, an attendant at a school and the counterman at a hardware store.

“You can return to your orange grove. For now.”

“I can leave?”

“Yes. You weren’t arrested within twenty-four hours of the offense. We’re not even going to ask for preventive custody. You’re going to await trial in freedom. A good lawyer can get you acquitted.”

“What about my son?”

“He’ll be released after a few formalities.”

“Jesus heard my prayers!”

The inspector went to the lockup. Cosme was eating a codfish ball from the lunch pail.

“Want one, inspector?”

Mattos took the codfish ball. “Come with me,” he told Cosme.

The youth followed the inspector, pallid, as if knowing what he was about to hear. They went to the area where Cosme usually saw his wife.

“Your father confessed that he killed that guy in your workshop.”

“It was me, it was me! Papa doesn’t know what he’s saying!”

“He confessed in the presence of two witnesses.”

“You can’t do this to my father. He’s a sick man. Don’t you see he’s sacrificing himself for me?”

“I’m very sorry.”

“My father doesn’t know what he’s saying. He’s a sick man. It was me who killed that guy.”

“Your father killed him.”

“I swear it was me! He’s a sick man.”

“Get him a good lawyer.”

There was a knock on the door. “Can the boy’s father come in?” asked the guard.

Mattos left as soon as the old man entered the room. He walked down the corridor. His stomach ached. He saw that he still had the codfish ball in his hand. He crushed it against the wall until it crumbled into small pieces that fell to the floor. He wiped his hand on his pants. Then he banged his head twice against the wall, cursing.

Still on Wednesday afternoon, Pádua returned to the precinct to see Mattos. Rosalvo was there, with the inspector.

“What happened to your head?” asked Pádua.

“I banged it against a wall. I’m thinking of taking Rosalvo with us.”

“Better not to,” said Pádua.

In the taxi, heading downtown.

“That Rosalvo, besides being a Lacerdist and a Jesus freak, is a thief. He’s gonna want to put the squeeze on the madam who runs the Senate Annex. He wouldn’t get anywhere, but it’d stir up a real shitstorm.”

“He’s not a thief. Maybe he doesn’t even take numbers money,” answered Mattos.

“Thieves start with game money, then go on to take from everybody. When it comes to honesty, once the guy pops his cherry, he never stops. Careful, one of these days that scumbag will end up taking payoffs in your name.”

“He doesn’t have the courage to do that,” said Mattos, putting an antacid tablet in his mouth.

“Did you let those dirtbags I arrested go?”

“Yes. They didn’t have a record.”

“Did you already get the records?”

“Not yet. But I cut the red tape and called headquarters, and they gave me the information on the phone.”

“Holy shit! That’s illegal, don’t you know that? You put yourself at risk for a bunch of scumbags. You expecting some kind of medal for that? One of these days you’re gonna get fucked — they’ll open up an internal investigation and kick your ass out. Fired for the public good. HQ has had its eye on you ever since that crazy strike you tried to organize.”

They got out on Avenida Rio Branco, at the door of the São Borja Building. The building, eighteen stories, was relatively new, having been built during the war. Across from it, the Senate palace.

“After all, exactly what is it you’re after? Let’s not rattle Laura’s cage unnecessarily.”

“I want information about Senator Vitor Freitas. You think she’ll come across?”

“She does for me.” Pause. “Look, I’ve never had anything with her.” Pause. “Or with any whore.”

“But she’s a friend of yours.”

“Friend, my ass. She’s my informant.”

The São Borja had an ample entrance, a long corridor with several businesses, a tobacco shop, a café, a barbershop, and a record store — the Casa Carlos Wehrs. Mattos remembered then that in that store, some months earlier, he had bought the scores for La Traviata and La Bohème. If he were alone, he would use the opportunity to ask what the long-play of La Traviata cost.

The cops walked down the corridor where the elevators were, three on each side. The São Borja was a mixed-occupancy building, residential and commercial. In a large glassed-in panel Mattos noted some names, followed by room numbers: Brazilian Workers Party, Radiobrás, Odeon Records, Rádio Copacabana. A Workers Party poster read: “Vote for the candidates of the Workers Party and participate in the gigantic struggle for the transformation of Brazil into a great nation. Social Justice. Economic Emancipation. Nationalistic Policy. Defense of Petroleum. Respect for the Minimum Wage. Democratic Enfranchisement. Union Freedom. Agrarian Reform. A Workers Party government is a government of the people.”

“Those guys are a pack of demagogues,” said Pádua.

There was another entrance, in the rear, near the elevators. It faced a courtyard where several automobiles were parked, opening onto Rua México.

“That’s where the senators come in, so as not to be seen,” said Pádua.

They returned to the lobby and waited for the elevator. On the tenth floor a single room had its door open. They heard the sound of a typewriter. A woman, sitting in front of an Underwood, didn’t notice the two cops as they passed by silently. LOTTUFO REPRESENTATION read a small plaque. Pádua turned to the right, in the hallway. The sound of the typewriter keys was no longer heard. All the doors were closed.

“Here it is,” said Pádua, ringing a doorbell.

A middle-aged woman in a maid’s uniform opened the door.

“I’m here to speak with Dona Laura. I’m Inspector Pádua.”

The woman made a gesture for them to come inside. Pádua paced from side to side in the small vestibule. From the movement of his arms, Mattos concluded that his colleague’s biceps and triceps must be flexing furiously.

A thin man with a small mustache and slicked-down hair appeared.

“Ah, Inspector Pádua. . What a pleasure! How nice!”

“I’m not here for small talk, Almeida. I want to speak to Dona Laura.”

“She’s very busy at the moment. Can’t it be with me?”

“No, it can’t be with you. Get in there and call Laura right now.”

“I’m going to have them get you some nice whiskey.”

“We don’t want any nice whiskey. Call the woman.”

“She’s in the other apartment, on the sixteenth floor. We’ll go up by the stairs. Please follow me.”

Laura was waiting for them in a large room full of overstuffed red velvet furniture. The curtains were also red. The room was illuminated by soft light coming from two lamps whose shades were mosaics of colored glass.

Laura was dressed discreetly. Her hair, dyed red, gave her face a look of insolence. A gold pince-nez, held by a black silk ribbon, swayed on her chest.

“You may go, Almeida dear,” she said. Her voice is as dark as the room, thought Mattos.

“This is my colleague, Inspector Mattos.”

“Would you like something to drink? Whiskey? Champagne?”

“He has a stomach ulcer. Can’t drink.”

“But you can.”

“Not today.”

Laura put on her pince-nez and looked at Mattos. “Are you a nervous man?”

“More or less.”

“What happened to your head?”

“Banged it against a wall.”

“Inspector Mattos wants information about a client of yours.”

“We don’t give out information about our clients. You know that.”

“Confidential. Anything you say will be strictly between us.”

“The police can shut down your house,” said Mattos.

“Can. But don’t want to.” Pause. “Have a little whiskey, Pádua.”

“Mattos, can you give us a moment? I want to say a few words to Laura in private, inside there.”

The two left the room.

I can shut down this whorehouse, thought Mattos. It was a crime to maintain, for personal gain, a house of prostitution or place designated for libidinous encounters, whether or not with the intent of monetary gain or direct mediation on the part of the owner or manager. But was there any harm in a bordello? Even for corrupt, crooked senators and important government officials? In Solon’s Athens prostitution was free, and prostitutes were considered a public utility, subject to taxation by the state, a source of revenue for the exchequer, while procuring for pay or acting as go-between by pimps was rigorously punished. Pádua, who enjoyed citing the thinkers of the church, was probably familiar with St. Augustine’s phrase: “Aufer meretrices de rebus humanis, turbaveris omnia libidinus.”

Alberto Mattos remembered the debates in his criminal law classes about the idiotic phrases dealing with prostitution, which had inflamed discussions among the students. Since childhood he had felt an attraction to prostitutes, although he had never frequented a bordello. There came to his mind phrases: from Weininger, “the prostitute is the safeguard of my mother”; from Lecky, “the prostitute is the custodian of virtue, the eternal priestess of humanity”; from Jeannel, “the prostitutes in a city are as necessary as sewers and trash bins.” An inextirpable but necessary evil — who was it said that? In an association of ideas he recalled the melody of the aria “Ah, fors è lui,” but his claqueur’s reverie was interrupted by the return of Pádua and Laura to the room.

Pádua sat down in an armchair. Laura put on her pince-nez and looked at Mattos for a long moment. Then: “What is it you want to know?”

“Senator Vitor Freitas.”

“What?”

“Does he always come here?”

A long pause before replying: “Sometimes.”

“Does he always go with the same girl?”

“No.”

Pádua guffawed.

“Drop the subterfuge, Laura. The senator’s queer, my dear colleague.”

“SIR, I HAVE GOOD NEWS,” said Rosalvo, entering Mattos’s office.

After leaving Dona Laura’s house, the inspector had left Pádua and gone to a bookstore in the Cruzeiro Gallery, where he’d drunk half a liter of watery milk. Then he had caught a bus for the precinct.

“We have to find out everything about the victim’s life to be able to arrive at the killer, isn’t that right?” said Rosalvo.

“Go on.”

“I went to the São Joaquim school to look at Gomes Aguiar’s transcripts. Obviously the priests didn’t show me anything; those guys are murder. But I have a brother-in-law who’s a beadle at the São Joaquim, and he let the cat out of the bag. . As a matter of fact, that brother-in-law of mine wants to enroll in the police academy’s investigator course.”

“What’s the problem? Have him apply and take the tests.”

“But if he has a recommendation, it’ll be a lot easier.”

“I can’t recommend someone I don’t know.”

Then fuck you, thought Rosalvo. Indecisive, he said nothing.

“What’s the good news?”

“My brother-in-law nosed around in the school files. He was risking his job, which is a shit job but at least it’s a job. .”

Mattos could sense the taste of milk in his mouth, but the acidity had yet to pass completely. He filled his mouth with saliva and swallowed.

He’s started making faces, thought Rosalvo. Fuck him. No way, José. He doesn’t want to help my brother-in-law but wants to suck his blood. Fuck him. I’m not afraid of faces.

“If what you have to tell me isn’t urgent, leave it for afterward. I’ll call you later.”

“Whatever you say.”

Rosalvo opened the door.

Mattos began to read the papers the clerk had put on his desk.

“But it’s important,” said Rosalvo, grasping the doorknob.

The inspector continued his reading.

This cop’s soul of mine is what fucks me, thought Rosalvo. “It’s very important.”

“If it’s all that important, out with it, right away.”

Rosalvo closed the door and sat down in the chair beside the inspector’s desk.

He leaned forward conspiratorially.

“Paulo Gomes Aguiar was expelled from the São Joaquim in high school. I mean, he wasn’t expelled, the priests are scared shitless of confronting the powerful, and Gomes Aguiar’s family was very important, so the priests merely invited him to leave the school. Know what happened?”

“Go on.”

“Paulo Aguiar and two classmates grabbed a kid from the elementary school in an empty room and cornholed him by force. A beadle heard the boy’s moans and caught the bastards in the act. Know who the beadle was?”

“Your brother-in-law.”

“The boy was kinda gay, but he was like the Chinaman in the joke. His family found out about the incident and made a federal case out of it, and there was no way to keep Paulo Aguiar’s name out of it.”

“Chinaman?”

“A guy was at a lumber camp in the middle of the jungle, and he went to the foreman and asked how he could find a woman to dip his wick. The foreman said there weren’t any women, but there was a Chinaman. The guy didn’t go for it, what he wanted was a woman. A few months later he went back to the foreman and said: Look, fix me with up with that Chinaman, but nobody can know about it. He didn’t wanna get known as a fairy. That’s not gonna be easy, the foreman said, I’m gonna know, the Chinaman’s gonna know, and the four guys holding him down so you can cornhole him are gonna know. . You didn’t know that joke?”

“I remember now. If the boy was the Chinese, there was someone holding him down.”

“There was. Claudio Aguiar, the cousin of Paulo, who was murdered, and one Pedro Lomagno. The three took turns cornholing him.”

“What was the boy’s name?”

“It’s incredible, but the name of the boy was José Silva, page after page in the telephone book. It won’t be easy to find his whereabouts now.”

After Rosalvo left, Mattos took Gomes Aguiar’s address book from his pocket. He looked for the name of Pedro Lomagno and the telephone number.

A feminine voice answered.

Mattos remained silent.

“Hello,” the woman repeated.

The inspector hung up the phone. That one short word had been enough for Mattos to identify the person who had answered the phone.

It was Alice.

five

COMPACT GROUPS OF PEOPLE began coming out of the São José school. Neither Climerio nor Alcino, who carefully scrutinized everyone’s face, succeeded in spotting the journalist Lacerda. Finally, the school’s doors were shut.

Climerio gestured to Alcino, and the pair returned to Nelson’s taxi.

“Goddamn! The man had already left. See what you did?”

“I didn’t get the message till nine o’clock.”

“Let’s go to Rua Tonelero, in Copacabana. That’s where the Crow lives. Let’s see if we get lucky this time and catch up with the son of a bitch,” said Climerio. He couldn’t go back to Gregório and confess another mistake; he feared his boss’s reaction.

“That’s the man’s building there,” said Climerio when they arrived at Rua Tonelero.

Alcino got out. Climerio told Nelson to park nearby, on Paula Freitas, near the corner of Tonelero. “Wait here. Keep your eyes open.” He got out and went to meet Alcino.

“The fucker maybe already got here,” said Climerio, “but anyway we’re gonna wait a while.”

Climerio and Alcino talked for some fifteen minutes. They were about to give up when a car stopped at the door of the journalist’s building, at forty minutes after midnight. Three people got out: Lacerda, his fifteen-year-old son Sergio, and Air Force Major Rubens Vaz.

“It’s him — you see him?” said Climerio.

“The one in glasses?”

“Shit, of course the one in glasses! The other one’s his bodyguard.”

Lacerda said good night to the major and walked with his son toward the garage door of the building. Vaz headed toward the car. Alcino crossed the street and fired on Lacerda, who ran into the garage. The report of the revolver when it discharged surprised Alcino, who for some instants didn’t know what to do. He saw then that the major was approaching and grabbing his weapon. Alcino pulled the trigger again. The major continued grasping the barrel of the gun until Alcino wrenched it free from the fingers grasping it, falling down from the force he had exerted. He saw that the major had fallen also, toward the other side. Alcino got to his feet and fired again, without aiming. He heard the crack of gunfire and fled to Nelson’s taxi. A cop appeared, running and shouting, “Stop! Police!” Alcino shot at the cop, who fell. He got into the car, its motor already running.

“What about Climerio? Where’s Climerio?” asked Nelson.

“I thought he was here. Let’s go!”

Nelson accelerated rapidly. They heard another shot and the sound of the automobile being hit. It was the cop, who despite lying wounded on the ground, had fired.

Inside Nelson’s taxi, which followed Avenida Copacabana at high speed, Alcino wrapped the revolver and the six bullets in a yellow flannel cloth. Arriving in Flamengo, Alcino told Nelson to take Avenida Beira Mar; Climerio had instructed him to get rid of the gun by throwing it into the sea. He intended to do so without leaving the car.

When they came to Rua México, Alcino stuck out his arm holding the parcel with the gun, preparing to hurl it into the water, over the low seawall paralleling the sidewalk. He didn’t want to have that weapon in his possession any longer than necessary. Suddenly, Nelson swerved to avoid a car coming toward him on the wrong side of the street, startling Alcino, who dropped the cloth with the revolver.

“I dropped the gun,” shouted Alcino.

Nelson stopped the car. “Go get it.”

Alcino stuck his head out the window and looked back at the dark pavement of the avenue. Car lights shone in the distance.

“Anybody finds that piece of shit isn’t gonna turn it in to the police. A.45 is worth a lot of money.”

Tense, they waited for the car to pass.

“Better you get out. The cop at Tonelero saw the license plate. If they catch me, I’ll say it was an unknown customer who got out in Botafogo.”

“You’re gonna turn yourself in?”

“Of course not. I’ll only tell that story if they catch me. Don’t worry.”

“They’ll beat you to a pulp, and you’ll end up spilling your guts.”

“You’re forgetting I’m a cop too?”

“You’re a supplementary investigator for the state of Rio. That doesn’t mean shit.”

“I worked with Colonel Agenor Feio. It was him who hired me.”

“Anybody can be a cop in the state of Rio. Real police work for the DPS.”

Alcino got out of the taxi. He was near the American embassy. He wandered about, not knowing what to do. He leaned against a tree and urinated. Meanwhile, unseen by Alcino, a beggar who collected scrap paper picked up the parcel in the middle of the street and disappeared into the darkness.

On a small bus, Alcino went to Bandeira Square. He got out at the door of a restaurant and then took a cab to Rua Sicupira. Climerio, in addition to procuring him a job as investigator for the Department of Public Safety, had promised him ten thousand cruzeiros. The sooner he received the money, the better. He knocked at the door.

Elvira, Climerio’s wife, opened the door. Adão, one of her sons, was at her side. The two were listening to the radio.

“Where’s Mr. Climerio?”

“I thought he was with you,” said Elvira, turning her attention to the radio. “Carlos Lacerda and an air force officer have been wounded. An awful confusion.”

Shortly afterward, Alcino heard a car motor and went to the window. He saw it was Nelson’s Studebaker. Nelson and Climerio got out and examined the mark the bullet had made on the body of the car. Climerio, seeing Alcino at the window, gestured for him to come outside.

“I’ll give you the money day after tomorrow, Friday. Stay calm, we’ve got protection from higher up.”

AT THE MIGUEL COUTO HOSPITAL, after the wound in his foot from the assassination attempt was bandaged, Carlos Lacerda was transported to his apartment at 180 Rua Tonelero. In a short time the journalist was surrounded by people who showed up to offer support, among them the auxiliary bishop of Rio de Janeiro, Dom José Távora, former president Eurico Gaspar Dutra, and dozens of air force officers.

“I hold the president of the Republic responsible for the attack,” Lacerda told the air force officers, who listened in silence. “It was the impunity of the government that armed the criminal hand.”

Describing the attack, Lacerda said there were three gunmen. They had set up a perfect ambush.

“I escaped death by a miracle, because I had gone to communion just hours before the attack.”

RADIO STATIONS BROADCAST NONSTOP the news of the Rua Tonelero assassination attempt, but Mattos paid no attention to what he was hearing. He was reliving the pain and the hope he had felt seeing Alice again at the Cavé, and also the mortifying shock at hearing her voice when he had called the home of Pedro Lomagno.

Mattos received a call from Commissioner Pastor, head of the Second Precinct, whose jurisdiction included Rua Tonelero.

Pastor spoke about the attack. Sávio, the cop who had traded fire with the gunman, even though wounded had noted the taxi’s license plate. The driver, Nelson Raimundo de Souza, had appeared at the Fourth Precinct telling an unlikely story. According to a reporter, Armando Nogueira of the Diário Carioca, who said he had witnessed the crime, the individual who had shot the major was thin, dark-skinned, of medium height, and was wearing a gray suit.

“The journalist said the assassin squatted and fired at the major. If anything happens in your jurisdiction, connected in any way to the attack, please let me know immediately. Talk to your chief and the other police in the precinct, tell them to be on the lookout. I’m making the same request in all precincts. We want to close this case right away. General Ancora is worried. Air force officers are trying to meddle in the investigation. The secretary of aeronautics, Nero Moura, named a colonel to monitor the police inquiry. I told the general I found that strange, but Ancora said he’d been persuaded by Tancredo to accept the colonel’s intervention.”

Ancora was the head of the Federal Department of Public Safety. Mattos had met him at headquarters, shortly after the general was appointed. That was the only time he’d seen him: a thin man with a worried and indecisive expression, in glasses and a dark suit.

At the precinct were only the inspector, a cop, and the jailer in charge of the lockup. Mattos told them of Pastor’s request and returned to his office.

When they were alone, the cop commented to the jailer that he’d been transferred to the precinct recently and that this was his first time on the same shift as Mattos. “He’s not playing with a full deck,” the cop told the jailer. “That business of kicking Mr. Ilídio in the tail means trouble. The man bankrolls the numbers game in this jurisdiction, and he’s the partner of Aniceto Moscoso in Madureira. .”

“I was inside there and didn’t see what happened. Why would the inspector do something like that?” asked the jailer, shocked. After all, the money that Mr. Ilídio distributed monthly in the precinct supplemented the meager salary the cops received.

“A bookkeeper of Mr. Ilídio’s was arrested, and he came here to get the man released. But Mr. Ilídio tried giving orders to Inspector Mattos; I think he didn’t know who he was dealing with. The inspector’s a straight arrow, he’s not involved in the split of the numbers money. That was Mr. Ilídio’s bad luck. He got kicked in the butt and wound up in a cell.”

“I was embarrassed to lock up Mr. Ilídio, but what could I do? The inspector is goddamn tough,” said the jailer.

“He’s like a soul in torment, pacing from side to side all night and making faces,” added the cop.

The morning newspapers ran large headlines about the attack. Students had gone on strike in “protest against criminality. Our soul is awash in opprobrium. A grave has opened, and the people will not forget.” In Congress, repercussions of the attack had been enormous. Galleries in the Chamber of Deputies and Senate were packed when sessions opened in the two houses of the legislature. According to opposition congressmen, “blood ran in the streets of the capital, and there was no more tranquility in homes.” Representatives of every political party had given speeches condemning the attack. Deputy Armando Falcão had introduced a bill providing aid to Major Vaz’s widow. Responding to Lacerda’s statements, published in newspapers, that “the sources of the crime lie in the Catete Palace, Lutero Vargas is one of those behind the crime,” the government leader in the Chamber, Deputy Gustavo Capanema, had taken the floor to denounce as groundless the accusations against the president’s son. The crowd in the galleries had loudly booed Capanema.

After visiting the prisoners in lockup — those he hadn’t been able to set free upon beginning his shift because they were awaiting trial — Mattos made entries in the blotter, signed documents attesting to residence and poverty, and did the paperwork to send to the morgue a body found in the street.

Rosalvo came into the office.

“Is it true you assaulted Mr. Ilídio?”

“You mean Ilídio the numbers boss?”

“And then threw him in the clink?”

“I don’t feel well today, Rosalvo. Best not to irritate me.”

“Sorry. The chief wants to speak to you about it.”

Mattos entered the superintendent’s office without knocking.

“You want to talk to me?”

“Sit down, Mr. Mattos. It’s about the incident with Mr. Ilídio.”

The inspector sat down, uneasy. Someone had told the chief what had happened. But he didn’t care who it was. What was certain was that the news had gotten around.

“Well,” said Mattos, “he came here to ask us to release one of his employees who’d been arrested for involvement in a scuffle. I didn’t know he was a numbers racketeer. By phone I requested the record of the prisoner and the two others involved in the dustup. Since all of them were first-time offenders and fighting is nothing, shouldn’t even be part of the penal code, and since the lockup was full, I decided to let everyone go. Soon after freeing the employee, who, I repeat, I didn’t know until then was a lawbreaker, he stuck his finger in my face and said, ‘I don’t want this to happen again, you hear?’ I asked the guard: ‘Do you know this gentleman?’ The guard answered in a respectful tone, ‘He’s Mr. Ilídio.’ That’s when I realized the guy was a bankroller for the numbers game. At that moment he turned to the guard and pointed to me and said: ‘That young guy has a lot to learn.’ I got irritated and kicked him and threw him in the holding pen. But he wasn’t there for long. I let him go early in the morning. I released his employee first.”

“You acknowledge assaulting Mr. Ilídio?”

“Yes. It was a mistake. I could charge him with a 231, disrespect of authority. I lost my head.”

“You know, then, that you committed the crime of unprovoked violence? Article 322, practicing violence in the exercise of office or the pretext of exercising it.”

“Yes.”

“Headquarters has established that suppression of the numbers game should be handled by Vice. You’re aware of that, aren’t you?”

For the first time, Chief Ramos had the inspector in a situation of inferiority. The pleasure he felt showed on his face.

“You also violated Article 319, failure to perform an official act to satisfy personal interest or feeling. The term for that is malfeasance. As this is your first infraction,” continued the superintendent, “I’m inclined to overlook it. But I require more obedience on your part.”

“Malfeasance? Unprovoked violence? Look here, Ramos, do whatever you want. But spare me the sermons. You don’t have the moral standing for it.”

“I’m your superior. I won’t allow you to talk to me like that.”

“I’ll talk however I like. You protect the numbers people, you’re in cahoots with them.”

“I have orders from HQ to leave suppression of the numbers game to Vice,” shouted Ramos.

“Everybody’s been bought by numbers money. Not just you. Vice is a den of thieves,” said the inspector.

“You can’t—” Ramos began. The inspector turned his back and left the superintendent talking to himself.

Later, Rosalvo returned to the inspector’s office.

“Mr. Ramos is pissed off. He said you’ll get what’s coming to you.”

“What that guy says doesn’t matter to me. You can tell him that.”

“How can you say that, sir?”

“At the next Marian Congregation meeting you can tell him.”

“Sir, I haven’t entered the Congregation yet. I’m still thinking about it. I went to a meeting last Tuesday, at the Liceu Literário Português, to see what it was like. There were over four hundred congregants. The president of the Catholic Archdiocese Confederation, Eurípedes Cardoso de Meneses, gave a speech against Samuel Wainer’s magazine Flan.”

“Rosalvo, I’ve got other things to do.”

“Those Jews who run Flan published an article that’s offensive to our Catholic pride. Eurípedes had come from a meeting with Cardinal Dom Jaime de Barros Câmara, at the Palácio São Joaquim, where it was decided that priests would say in their sermons that Catholics shouldn’t read newspapers that support corruption. The congregants were pissed off at the article. Eurípedes asked people to send protest telegrams and letters to Flan and Última Hora with two phrases: ‘Long live the Pope!’ and ‘Down with Última Hora and Flan!’”

“Long live the Pope. . Changing the subject, what did you find out about Pedro Lomagno?”

“Just let me finish the story. Suddenly everyone at the Liceu Literário Português was yelling ‘Long live the Pope! Down with Última Hora and Flan!’ Mr. Ramos told me that normally they ended the meeting by reciting a Salve Regina, but Tuesday there was nothing but vivas and down withs. As soon as the meeting was over, we went out into the street shouting ‘Long live the Pope!’ and ‘Down with Última Hora and Flan!’ Suddenly we were ripping up copies of Última Hora on newsstands in the neighborhood. You know that I’m Catholic and a Lacerdist, but I’m not a fanatic like those congregants. I think I’ll tell Mr. Morais that I’m not going to enter the Congregation.”

“I’m not interested in that. Talk about Pedro Lomagno.”

Rosalvo took a small notepad from his pocket.

“Lomagno’s father was a well known fascist who financed the Brazilian Integralist Party until 1938, when the ‘green hens’ attempted that putsch that failed. Then Lomagno’s old man changed sides and backed Getúlio, who had wiped out his party. The son was never interested in the Integralists, but it’s also true that he was a young child when Plínio Salgado ran the party. In any case, the boy’s thing is to make money. He was Gomes Aguiar’s partner in Cemtex but never performed any function in the firm. Cemtex, according to the Tribuna da Imprensa, obtained a scandalous import license from the Bank of Brazil, through the skullduggery of a fast-buck operator named Luiz Magalhães.”

Luiz Magalhães again. Mattos’s stomach burned.

“Claudio is also a Cemtex partner. The way things look, our friends have been up to their necks in the same schemes from an early age. I think that’s the crux of it.”

“Enough of crux. Proceed.”

“Lomagno plays polo at the Itanhangá Club. High-class guy. A polo player uses four thoroughbreds during the match.” Pause. “One good thing about being a cop is that you’re always learning things.”

“What about José Silva?”

“It’s hard finding the boy, I mean, the thirty-year-old fag he must be by now. I got hold of his old address — my brother-in-law the beadle arranged it. I don’t do anything for him, but even so—”

“Proceed,” Mattos interrupted.

“He lived in a house on Avenida Atlântica. I went there, and you know what I discovered? An enormous building where the house used to be. And the houses on each side had also been demolished. It won’t be long before all the houses on Avenida Atlântica are turned into skyscrapers.”

“Proceed.”

“There’s no neighborhood left where I can ask questions. I’m back at square one.”

“Stop in bakeries, grocery stores, businesses on nearby streets.”

“Good idea.” Pause. “Did the madam come through?”

“No.”

“She didn’t say anything?”

“Nothing. Move ahead.”

Rosalvo left. Mattos called Antonio Carlos at Forensics.

“Got anything for me?”

“We’re running a complete examination of everything found at the scene. You know how long that takes. And we found a lot of stuff, trace evidence, blood, mucus, saliva, sperm, feces, urine, hair samples. All I can give you is some preliminary information.”

“Start with the blood.”

“The blood on the sheet isn’t the same as the victim’s. The victim’s is AB, Rh negative. The blood on the sheet is A, Rh positive. Probably the criminal’s. The victim had blood in his mouth that wasn’t his. He must have taken a good bite out of his killer.”

“Hair?”

“There were two hairs on the soap we found in the shower. From examining the medulla and the pigmentation of the cortex, we concluded they’re not the dead man’s.”

“Are they from a man or a woman?”

“We don’t even know for sure what part of the body they’re from. We know they didn’t come from the head of either a man or a woman. Or from the armpit, leg, or nostril. And they’re not an eyelash or eyebrow.”

“That leaves beard and mustache.”

“And the scrotum, anus, and vagina. God made man an animal covered with characteristic hairs, just to make it hard for forensics specialists.” Pause. “But I’m using a new technique in my examinations. Maybe I’ll discover something.”

“What about the sperm?”

“I think it’s the victim’s. In a couple of days you’ll know everything. I’ll call you.”

Next, Mattos called the morgue and spoke with the medical examiner who’d conducted the autopsy.

“The bruises and hematomas of the soft parts of the neck, the muscular tearing, the lesions of the carotids, and the fracturing of the hyoid bone indicate that the guy died from strangulation. But I can’t get the report to you till next week.”

Shortly before Mattos ended his shift, Salete phoned to say that she’d stop by his place. She was anxious to see if Mother Ingrácia’s sorcery had worked. She hoped that through the old macumba woman’s black magic, as soon as she entered Mattos’s apartment the inspector would take her in his arms and, after a passionate kiss, ask her to marry him.

“THIS EXCESSIVE HYDROCHLORIC ACID will be the end of me,” said Mattos, opening the door to let Salete in.

“Drink a glass of milk,” the girl said, disconsolate after standing with arms spread for several seconds, hoping for a show of affection from the inspector.

“I already did.”

“Drink another one.”

Salete opened the refrigerator. On the shelves was nothing but some bottles of milk and lots of eggs, some of them hollow. Salete, who felt repugnance toward eggs and had never eaten one in her entire life, had watched in disgust as Mattos made two small holes in the end of an egg and sucked it, “like he was a possum.” Someone had told her that possums sucked eggs that way.

“I don’t want milk.”

“Then suck an egg. It doesn’t bother me. I just won’t watch.”

“I’m going to chew another antacid.”

Salete watched Mattos chew the antacid tablet.

“You don’t. . don’t feel like it?”

“I will. In a little while.”

“I’m not bothering you, am I?”

“You never bother me.”

“I went to the Getúlio Vargas Foundation and enrolled in the secretarial course.”

“Congratulations. That makes me. . feel like it.” It was a lie.

“Let me see.” Salete reached toward the inspector’s pubis. He backed away.

“In a little while. In a commentary on the Talmud, a scholar known as Raba said that the erection of the male member can only occur with ‘the aid of reason.’”

“You read that in that book?” Salete pointed to the book the inspector had just picked up.

“A different one.”

“I think you read too much. Dona Floripes said that a man who frequented her house went crazy from so much reading. He wanted the girls to pee on him.”

“If I go crazy, I promise not to ask you to urinate on me.”

“You should do other things. You should dance. Dancing is good for the head.”

“On top of everything else, the doorman told me the water is going to be out until six o’clock. Let’s wait.”

The doorbell rang.

“Who can that be?” said Salete.

Mattos opened the door.

“Did I give you my address?” asked the inspector, surprised to see Alice in the hallway.

“I saw it in the phone book.” Pause. “Colette died, did you know. On the third. She’s going to be buried day after tomorrow, in the Père Lachaise.”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“You said you liked her books.” Alice tried to identify the book the inspector had in his hand, unsuccessfully.

“Right now I have my own cadavers to worry about. I’m a cop, or did you forget?”

“Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

“I have a visitor.”

Alice raised her gaze past Mattos’s shoulder and saw Salete.

“I’m sorry. . I came by to — I’ll phone you later. . Is it all right if I call you later?”

“Yes. Call, if you want to.”

The inspector closed the door.

“Who was that woman?”

“A friend.”

“Pretty.” Pause. “I’m going to see if the water’s come,” said Salete, without moving from her position. “Are you mad because she left when she saw me?”

“No.”

“She’s a lady. . I saw that right away. Is she your other girlfriend? The real one?”

“It’s nothing like that. Let’s change the subject.”

“You’re mad.” Pause. “I didn’t know you liked blondes. .” Pause. “If you’d asked, I would’ve gone away and left you here with her, without getting upset.”

In Dona Floripes’s house she had been taught that men existed to be pleased, that men existed to be deceived and exploited, and therefore it was necessary to know how to dissimulate.

But she didn’t want to deceive or exploit this man. “It’s not true. I was jealous of her. I would’ve been very unhappy if you had sent me away.”

Mattos gave Salete a kiss on the cheek.

“I’ll go see if the water’s come,” said Salete.

When she entered the bathroom she saw her face in the mirror of the medicine cabinet. However small, a mirror always attracted her gaze.

She brought her face close to the mirror. She would like very much to be blonde and have blue eyes, like that woman, and like that woman know how to look directly at others, as the blonde woman had done when looking at her from the door. Now, from up close, she contemplated her face in the mirror. The eyes were very round; everyone said it was almond-shaped eyes that were pretty. The eyebrows were thick and dark, the nose too long, the mouth too large. Why had God made her so ugly? What saved her was her body.

She removed her clothes and tried to see her body in the small mirror. She would have liked at that moment to see herself nude in a large mirror in order to forget the blonde lady. At home she would dance naked in front of an enormous wall mirror, and the sight of her nude body in motion always caused her immense happiness. But in Mattos’s apartment there was only that crummy mirror that let her see only her horrible face.

The pipes in the bathroom began to rumble. The water was back. Salete filled the bathtub, taking care to see that the temperature was right. Then she stood beside the tub. She didn’t need to strike a pose; she wasn’t like many of the girls she’d met at Dona Floripes’s, who would try to appeal to johns by hiding their breasts and butt behind cloths, sucking in their belly, contorting themselves by placing one leg over the other to conceal the curved opening between their thighs. She shouted: “You can come in.”

Mattos entered the bathroom.

“Get rid of that book.”

Salete watched the inspector put the book in a corner, on the clothes hamper. Where was the look of surprise at her nudity, or that other look, that of desire? She took Mattos’s hand and placed it on her breast.

“Can you hear my heart?”

She had seen that in a film. It wasn’t one of the clever whore’s tricks that she’d learned in Dona Floripes’s house; whenever she was nude in front of Mattos, her heart would pound, and he must be able to feel that with his fingers. Her body trembled.

“Yes, I can hear your heart beat.” He turned his back to her, picked up the book, and left the bathroom.

Salete retrieved her clothes from the floor and dressed sadly. She went back to the living room. Mattos, his elbows supported on the table, was deeply absorbed in reading the book in front of him. Salete left in silence, without the inspector noticing.

IN THE SENATE GARAGE, Senator Vitor Freitas, accompanied by his aide Clemente, got into the official car at his disposal and ordered the driver to take them to the Aeronautics Club. The club, on Marechal Ancora Square, wasn’t far from the Senate; normally the car would arrive in less than ten minutes, but that day, after half an hour stuck on Avenida Presidente Antonio Carlos, the senator got out of the car and, along with his adviser, walked the rest of the way.

A crowd was at the door of the club, and several times Vitor Freitas had to invoke his status as senator to finally be allowed to enter.

The coffin with the body of Major Vaz had just been sealed and was being covered with the Brazilian flag.

“We’re late,” Clemente said.

“Where’s the brigadier, Eduardo Gomes? I need for him to see me here,” said Vitor Freitas. The brigadier had been the UDN presidential candidate in 1946 and 1950. In the first election, he had lost to General Gaspar Dutra, who had been Vargas’s secretary of war during the dictatorship. In the second, he had lost to Vargas himself, an unexpected victory for the ex-dictator, who thus avenged himself on one of the military officers who had led the movement that deposed him in 1945. Despite being twice defeated, the brigadier maintained in the eyes of the middle class the romantic aura as a revolutionary hero acquired during the episode of the Eighteen of the Fort, on July 5, 1922: seventeen officers and soldiers and one civilian left Copacabana Fort and headed for the Catete Palace, where the commander of the fort had been taken prisoner for insubordination, ready to fight an unequal battle. They were marching along Avenida Atlântica when they were attacked by forces loyal to the government of President Epitácio Pessoa. The civilian and a lieutenant died. Three officers, among them Eduardo Gomes, were seriously wounded.

Clemente spotted the brigadier in the middle of a group of air force officers and civilians. But Freitas was unsuccessful in offering his desired condolences to Brigadier Eduardo Gomes. The senator managed to say, “Brigadier, the martyrdom of Major Vaz shall not be in vain.” But the brigadier, whose leadership among younger air force officers, though himself in the reserves, was indisputable, didn’t hear what Freitas was saying, for at that instant he shouted in irritation, “I’ve already said the cortege will not go past the door of the Catete. It will go along the beach. This is not the moment for provocation.”

Clemente whispered in Freitas’s ear, “Take advantage of the chance to speak with General Caiado. It’s not a bad idea to stay on the good side of both Greeks and Trojans.”

The head of the president’s military cabinet, visibly uneasy, remained in a corner, accompanied by an adjutant. Caiado de Castro was there as the personal representative of President Vargas. The general had come directly from the Catete, where the Vargas family had gathered.

Freitas greeted Caiado, who recognized him.

“The president is deeply shocked by this barbarous crime. He has given strict orders to find those responsible, whomever it may hurt,” said Caiado.

“Vargas is facing this situation like the great statesman he is,” said Freitas, quickly taking his leave of the general. It was best not to commit to anyone. The situation was very fluid.

A throng of five thousand people accompanied the casket on foot to the São João Batista cemetery. Senator Vitor Freitas and his adviser had finally succeeded in insinuating themselves among the military and civilians surrounding Eduardo Gomes. Upon recognizing the brigadier, bystanders along the cortege route shouted to him, “Brigadier, keep democracy alive!” and “We’re going to sweep the criminals out of the palace!” The brigadier maintained a solemn and concentrated bearing.

It was 6:30 p.m. when they finally arrived at the cemetery. A canopy, with a lantern burning at its top, covered the tomb where Major Vaz was to be buried. When the body was lowered into the sepulcher, Vitor Freitas had managed to place himself between Tancredo Neves, the secretary of justice, and Cardinal Dom Jaime de Barros Câmara. “The police will do everything possible to bring to justice those responsible for this crime,” said the secretary in a weary voice when he recognized the senator beside him. Tancredo Neves had uttered that phrase dozens of times in the last twenty-four hours.

Before leaving the cemetery Vitor Freitas suddenly found himself beside Eduardo Gomes. For a few instants he didn’t know what to say, but his indecision was brief: “The death of this hero will be the birth of decency in Brazil,” he said, recalling a phrase he had read on a wreath back at the Aeronautics Club. He saw that the phrase had an effect on the brigadier. “I’m Senator Vitor Freitas, of the PSD,” he added. “Thank you, Senator,” replied Eduardo Gomes, in a voice heavy with emotion.

From the cemetery, Freitas and Clemente went to the home of the journalist Carlos Lacerda. The apartment was crowded with people, many of them uniformed military. Lacerda was leaning back on a sofa, his foot in a cast, elevated. Freitas approached the journalist. “A monstrosity,” he said. “This administration is one of lawlessness and insanity,” answered Lacerda. The senator spoke with various people to mark his presence, among them Generals Canrobert and Etchgoyen, Brigadier Trompowski, the lawyer Sobral Pinto, and the deputy Prado Kelly. He even spoke with Dona Olga, the journalist’s mother.

From Lacerda’s home, the senator and Clemente went to Ciro’s, a nightclub.

“What a day,” Freitas said after the waiter served him a double whiskey.

“You think the cruzeiro will be devaluated? It’s 18.82 to the dollar, official rate, and 64.30 in the black market,” said Clemente.

“You’re speculating in dollars?”

“I have to look out for myself. What you pay me in the Senate isn’t much. I have expensive habits. Let’s hear it, Vitor, answer.”

“Souza Dantas said the cruzeiro isn’t going to be devaluated. It’s going to be maintained at the official rate of 18.82.”

“I don’t believe anything coming from those fuckers in the government. If you find out anything, you’ll let me know immediately?”

“Of course I will, my angel. What a day! I think I deserve a rest.”

“I know what you need,” said Clemente, with a devious smile.

“Get me a good-looking boy this time.”

“I’ll see what I can do. But don’t forget, I deserve a rest myself.”

IT WAS ALREADY NIGHT when Salete arrived at the macumba site of Mother Ingrácia.

She related everything that had happened. Mother Ingrácia, smoking a pipe, her head turned because she was a little deaf, listened attentively.

“What was the blonde woman’s voice like? Did it sound hoarse?”

“I didn’t hear her voice. But she must have a pretty voice. The wretched woman is beautiful.”

“When the man’s undershorts don’t work, there’s just one thing that does,” said Mother Ingrácia after several puffs.

“What’s that, Mother?”

“The scab from an injury. You have to bring me a scab from an injury of his.”

“A scab? How am I supposed to get a scab?”

“Who doesn’t have a small injury of some kind? Everybody gets injured from time to time. And every injury creates a scab. Look here.”

Mother Ingrácia showed her arm, where there was a lesion covered by a scab.

“Can’t it be something else?”

“No. It’s got to be a scab. One of those little brown ones.”

Mother Ingrácia carefully removed the scab, placed it in the palm of her hand and showed it to Salete.

six

ON FRIDAY, AROUND SEVEN A.M., carrying an empty suitcase, Climerio returned to the home of the gunman Alcino.

“The shit’s hit the fan,” said Climerio. “That fucker Nelson turned himself in to the police yesterday. Today they took him to the Military Police barracks, and the bastard spilled his guts. I shouldn’t have trusted the son of a bitch. You’d better go into hiding.”

He handed Alcino the suitcase. “Put some clothes in it. It’s best for you to leave immediately.”

“What about my money? You promised it by today.”

Climerio took from his pocket a wad of money and handed it to Alcino. Ten thousand cruzeiro notes.

Alcino threw into the suitcase a sweater, two pairs of undershorts, two shorts, a knit woolen cap, a rosary with a metal cross at its tip, and a pair of clogs.

FIRST TO ARRIVE AT THE A MINHOTA, on São José, downtown, not very far from the Chamber of Deputies, was Lomagno. It was almost one o’clock. The restaurant, normally frequented by many senators and deputies, was empty.

Lomagno sat down, uncommunicative. He asked the waiter for a whiskey on the rocks. After serving Lomagno, the waiter left on the table a bucket of ice and a half-full bottle of White Horse onto which was attached a vertical strip of paper marking the number of drinks consumed.

A short time later, Claudio Aguiar arrived. They had spoken several times by telephone, but that was the first time they had seen each other since the death of Gomes Aguiar. Claudio gestured to the waiter, indicating Lomagno’s whiskey.

“Claudio, you’re a son of a bitch. Magalhães told me you tried to transfer the Cemtex financing to Brasfesa.”

Claudio stammered. “He. . he said that?”

“Why did you do it?”

“Luciana is going to get control of Cemtex now. I don’t trust her. Luciana is going to cheat us.”

At that moment, Vitor Freitas arrived, accompanied by his aide Clemente and Deputy Orestes Cravalheira, of the PSD. Claudio greeted the three dryly and left the table, heading for the bathroom. Lomagno followed him.

“Take it easy,” Lomagno said inside the bathroom.

“Did he have to bring his catamite?”

“Easy, easy,” Lomagno repeated.

“He can’t do this to me. I’m going to tell him I don’t want that fag at our table. The scoundrel! The scoundrel!”

Lomagno slapped Claudio forcefully. The latter drew back, startled.

“Why did you do that?”

“You’re not going to say anything. When you’re over this attack of hysteria, come back to the table and keep quiet.”

“What’s with Claudio?” asked Freitas when Lomagno returned from the bathroom.

“He’s not feeling well.”

“Is he having a tizzy?” asked Clemente with a sarcastic smile.

Lomagno ignored the question.

“Cravalheira’s going to have a whiskey with us while he waits for some friends who’re having lunch with him,” Freitas said.

The waiter brought glasses and another bottle of whiskey. They drank. They spoke about the assassination attempt that had claimed Major Vaz’s life and talked about generalities. Cravalheira commented that Judge Murta Ribeiro had been chosen by lot to draft the report on the appeal of Lieutenant Bandeira, sentenced to fifteen years in prison for the death of the banker Afrânio Arsênio de Lemos, a crime of passion that still held the city’s attention. The water shortage, as always, was mentioned, but only briefly. Freitas mentioned the issuing of money by the government. “You know how much Oswaldo Aranha has issued in the last twelve months, from August first ’53 to August first ’54? Over eight billion cruzeiros. There’s not even time for the employees to authenticate the notes manufactured by the presses at the Mint, American Bank Note, and Thomas de la Rue.”

Lomagno remained silent. Claudio returned to the table.

“Feeling better, dear boy?” Clemente asked. “You look as if you might have a touch of fever.”

Cravalheira returned to the subject of the assassination attempt.

“Until yesterday, or rather, until last night, the fourth, or the early hours of the fifth, when the attempt took place on Rua Tonelero, the climate in this country recalled that of 1937. But now Getúlio no longer has any chance of pulling a coup.”

“He wasn’t going to pull any coup,” said Cravalheira.

“Why do you think Getúlio canceled his trip to Bolivia for the inauguration of the Santa Cruz de la Sierra-Corumbá highway?” said Freitas, pouring himself another whiskey. He answered his own question, labeling as lies the reasons stated, that the Santa Cruz airport, in Bolivia, provided no security. Actually, Getúlio didn’t want Vice President Café Filho to assume the presidency.

“Like every coup-maker, he’s always thinking that others are trying to pull a coup on him,” said Clemente.

Cravalheira took a clipping from his pocket.

“Let me show you who this Café Filho is. Look at what he said.”

The deputy read aloud: “My life has been one long participation in revolutions and conspiracies. I’ve suffered a lot; I have bullets in my body.”

“Poor thing,” said Clemente.

“Listen to the rest. He says that the most dramatic moment in his life occurred not long ago. He was flying to Chile and the air force plane in which he was traveling had to make a forced landing among the Andean peaks. Immediately, the governments of Chile and Argentina sent planes so they could continue the trip. But Café patriotically reflected that this was a Brazilian Air Force plane and that changing planes in those circumstances would show lack of confidence in the technical skills of the valiant officers of the air force. He sensed, as he made this decision, the full extent of his responsibility as vice president of the Republic. When the plane was repaired, brave Café said he dismissed those accompanying him and embarked on the plane to die, for he was fulfilling the duty of rendering prestige to our aviation and our pilots.”

Clemente sang the refrain from a well known Carnival song: “And the band of brownnosers grows and grows.”

“Café ended the interview with these words: ‘That was how I experienced my most dramatic moment, because of my mandate as vice president of the Republic. I had never imagined that such a thing would happen to me, not even during the most arduous campaigns and the most inflamed revolutions.’ To think this poseur may become president.”

“It’s the flyboys who give the orders. . Café knows which way the wind is blowing.”

“Did you go the major’s funeral?”

“Yes. You’d have to be crazy not to go,” said Freitas.

“A public prosecutor and an air force officer were named as observers to the inquiry. There’s talk that Commissioner Pastor, who’s heading the police inquiry, is a Getulist.”

“Speaking of police, I need to talk to you about an inspector—” Clemente stopped mid-sentence.

“What inspector?” Freitas asked.

“No, nothing. We’ll talk about it later.”

“Getúlio’s days are numbered,” Freitas said.

“Getúlio usually has an ace up his sleeve,” said Cravalheira.

“The man’s senile. Did you see the photo of him having his hair combed by Gregório in public? He looked like an orderly at the Santa Casa da Misericórdia hospital taking care of one of those geezers who pee in their pants.”

Cravalheira answered that underestimating Getúlio was a mistake. “Remember the lunch-pail campaign the old man put together?”

“Borghi was the one who planned it all.”

Cravalheira gave a long commentary on the opportunism and cowardice of Brazilian politicians. “Pila is an exception; he had the integrity to say that it’s necessary to meet force with force. When the impeachment attempt came up, and that’s only just over a month ago, only thirty-five deputies had the courage to face the Catete Palace. The only reason Getúlio didn’t close down Congress was because he didn’t want to.”

“Why didn’t he want to?”

“He preferred to first divide the opposition, preparing the way for a coup. Oswaldo Aranha’s waiting room at Treasury was packed with people from the UDN until yesterday. But I agree that the assassination attempt changed everything. Getúlio’s been put on the defensive.”

“This chickenshit political stuff bores me,” said Clemente.

“He made a mistake for the first time in his life. He didn’t need to waste time dividing a party like the UDN. The army would have gone along with the coup, before the assassination attempt. Now that the aviator was killed it’s more difficult.”

Lomagno and Claudio took no part in the conversation, maintaining an aggressive silence that finally bothered Cravalheira. The deputy, even before his lunch companions arrived, said goodbye and went to sit at another table.

“A total cretin,” said Clemente. “I don’t know why you waste your time on an idiot like him.”

“What’s the urgent problem you wanted to talk to me about?” Freitas asked.

“It’s a private matter,” Claudio said, looking pointedly at Clemente.

“Clemente is in on everything.”

“I don’t trust the guy,” said Lomagno.

“Dear boy, as Vitor said, I’m in on everything. When push comes to shove, it doesn’t matter in the least whether you trust me or not.”

“If you call me dear boy one more time, I’ll knock the daylights out of you right here,” said Lomagno.

“Shut up, Clemente,” said Vitor, sighing. “So, what’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem? What’s the problem? The murder of Paulo!” exclaimed Claudio. “The largest shareholder in Cemtex now is Luciana.”

“That nymphomaniacal harpy?” said Freitas.

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Lomagno, with a violence that took Freitas by surprise. “You don’t know Luciana,” Lomagno added, controlling his unexpected rage.

“Maybe I don’t, actually. . I was just repeating—”

“Let’s change the subject,” Lomagno said dryly.

“I asked Magalhães to speak with Gregório to see if he could transfer the import license to Brasfesa,” Claudio said, looking timidly at Lomagno. “The Negro refused to talk to him. Magalhães is scared to death of him.”

“Since Gregório received the Maria Quitéria Medal, he’s gotten even more arrogant. Absurd, giving the army’s highest decoration to that guy.”

“You could speak directly with Souza Dantas,” Claudio said. “As president of the Bank of Brazil he gives the orders in the Cexim.”

“The situation is very serious,” said the senator, taking another swallow of whiskey, choosing his words with care. “The country has entered a crisis that can have grave consequences.”

“The death of that aviator? It’ll soon be forgotten.”

“Lacerda won’t let anyone forget.”

“You’re avoiding the subject,” said Claudio, annoyed. “I asked if you’d speak with the president of the Bank of Brazil. Will you speak to him or not?”

“The attempt changed everything,” Freitas said. “The military is furious over Major Vaz’s death. Today there’s an assembly at the Aeronautics Club, with clear-cut coup objectives. Also today, in both chambers of Congress addresses will be given condemning the attempt. Deputy Aliomar Baleeiro, who’s coordinating this joint action and will be one of the deputies to speak, asked me to talk also.”

“He’s not going to speak to Souza Dantas. Let it go, Claudio,” said Lomagno. His irritation appeared under control.

“My friend,” Freitas said, “I’m from the Northeast. You know what that means? That I’m a survivor. I foresee anything bad that’s going to happen. Nero Moura, the secretary of the air force, and the secretary of war, Zenóbio da Costa, said there would be no assembly of military men at the Aeronautics Club. But Zenóbio put elite units like the Guard Battalion and the Military Police Battalion on stand-by alert. Truth is, the military secretaries no longer have control over the younger officer corps. When generals can only command other generals, things are bad. Very bad.”

“Are you or aren’t you going to speak to Souza Dantas?”

“He’s not going to. Let’s drop the subject,” said Lomagno brusquely.

“The opposition is going to take advantage of the situation. Souza Dantas was already a target before, just imagine now. . I’ll be frank with you: I don’t want to be involved in this business anymore. I can’t. I have to hunker down and see what’s going to happen,” Freitas said.

“You’re in this business up to your neck,” Claudio said.

“Don’t let yourself be coerced, dear man,” said Clemente.

Freitas stood up.

“Claudio,” said the senator in an obliging tone, “in my thirty years in politics I’ve never made a wrong move. It won’t be you, who besides everything else are my friend, and I hope you’ll continue to be despite this unpleasant episode, who’ll succeed in blackmailing me. You’re going to have to get out of this mess on your own.”

“You’re nothing but a corrupt son of a bitch,” said Lomagno.

“We’re all corrupt sons of bitches at this table. In this country. Let’s go, Clemente.”

Freitas and Clemente walked down São José toward Avenida Rio Branco.

“Lomagno and Claudio are a couple of bastards. You ought to break it off with them.”

“When the time comes. What’s this story about some inspector?”

“He showed up at the Senate wanting to talk to you. He didn’t say about what.”

“You should have told me.”

“I forgot. The guy’s a low-rent piece of shit. You can tell by looking at his clothes.”

“You should have told me.”

“Do I have to remember everything?! And just where were you that Thursday afternoon?”

“What’s the name of the policeman?”

“You think I remember the name of some cop who wears off-the-rack clothes?” Clemente laughed. “Two things I wouldn’t be caught dead in: cheap clothes and ready-made suits.” Changing tone: “I wrote his name down somewhere.”

“Go look for Teodoro, Senate security. He’s hoping to get a job for his wife. You can promise it to him. Tell Teodoro to find out who that cop is and what he wants with me. The whole rundown. We mustn’t leave anything hanging.”

The two entered the Senate together. Clemente went to look for Teodoro. Vitor Freitas, in his office, put the finishing touches on the speech he was to make condemning the Rua Tonelero attack.

THAT AFTERNOON, AT THE SAME TIME Vitor Freitas was speaking in the Senate—“The nation can never forget, nor ever pardon this ignominious act”—Inspector Mattos was receiving a phone call from Antonio Carlos, of Forensics.

“The hairs on the bar of soap aren’t the victim’s.”

“Are they a woman’s?”

“A man’s. A Negro.”

“A Negro? Is it possible to discover that? I have the latest edition of Soderman, from 1952, and he doesn’t mention that.”

“Soderman is out-of-date. The tests I did are based on a study published in the latest issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. I ran all the tests. A Negro used that bar of soap and probably took a bath in that tub.”

A Negro. The Aguiars’ pantryman was white.

“Thank you, Antonio Carlos,” said the inspector. He took from his pocket the gold ring he had found in the bathroom shower. A Negro with thick fingers.

As Mattos was about to leave, Rosalvo asked to speak with him. “Only if it’s urgent,” the inspector replied. He was in a hurry to get to the Deauville, where Gomes Aguiar had been murdered.

“I was here Sunday,” the inspector told the doorman.

“Yes, sir. I remember.”

“You were going to tell the night doorman to see me at the precinct.”

“I spoke to Raimundo, sir. He didn’t go?”

“You said he lives in a room in the rear. Go tell him to come here.”

Raimundo appeared, looking sleepy. He was a thin man from Pernambuco, with a small brow; his hair seemed to begin just above his nose.

“Let’s go to your room.”

They entered a windowless cubicle with a narrow bed and a small doorless closet, inside which were piled cheap faded clothes.

“I’d like to ask you some more questions about the murder of Mr. Gomes Aguiar.”

“I don’t know anything. I didn’t see anything, sir.”

“You spent all Saturday night in the lobby?”

Raimundo scratched his head nervously. “Saturday, Saturday. .”

“Saturday night.”

“Yes.”

“Why are you so nervous?”

“This police business, sir. I’m not used to it.”

“I’m certain you didn’t spend the entire night in the lobby. You either went off or slept. Which was it?”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

“It’s no good lying, Raimundo. I’ll find out, and you’ll be charged.”

“What is it you wanna know?”

“Just talk.”

“I did leave the desk for a moment.”

“What for?”

“A friend of mine came here. . A maid here in the building. . Well. . We went to my room. .”

“At what time?”

“One in the morning.”

“How long did you stay here?”

“Two hours, sir. If the manager finds out, he’ll fire me. .”

“You said that on Saturday the residents on the eighth floor had no visitors.”

“They did have one. A black guy.”

“Do you know his name?”

“No, sir.”

“Describe him.”

“A large Negro, bossy. A mean face.”

“Bossy?”

“He came through and gave me a dirty look.”

“Describe him.”

“He was wearing a coat and tie.”

“His face.”

“A wide face, frowning.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about that black guy before?”

“Dona Luciana told me not to say anything to anybody.”

“Did anyone else visit the apartment that night?’

“Maybe someone came and left while I was, I was—”

“How was it that Dona Luciana asked you not to mention the black guy?”

“She said he was there to do a job in the apartment and that she didn’t want anyone to know about it.”

“What job?”

“I think it’s some kind of macumba business, a votive offering, that sort of thing. I don’t understand any of that, sir, I don’t believe in those things. Sir, if Dona Luciana—”

“She won’t know anything about our conversation. At least not for now.”

“I’m shafted, sir, I’m gonna lose my job. The chain always breaks at the weakest link.”

“Keep your mouth shut. Don’t tell anyone about our talk.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you change addresses or leave Rio, let me know beforehand. I’m going to need to speak with you again. Understand?”

“I don’t know anything else, sir.”

“I repeat: I want to know where you go, where you are. All the time. Don’t try to run away from me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mattos returned to the hallway. The elevator was stopped on the ground floor. The cop got in, pushed the button for the eighth floor.

Nilda opened the door.

“Is Dona Luciana in?”

Nilda hesitated. “No, sir.”

The inspector went in, pushing Nilda aside.

“Tell your mistress I want to talk to her.”

Nilda returned, accompanied by the pantryman.

“Dona Luciana told me to say she can’t see you. She’s sick in bed.”

“Can you give her a message?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell Dona Luciana I’ll be back another time, to talk with her about the Negro.”

THAT NIGHT, AT EIGHT O’CLOCK, as Vitor Freitas had predicted, more than four hundred officers from the air force, army, and navy gathered in the Aeronautics Club to “keep alive the indignation at the death of Major Vaz and to manifest the decision to proceed further with the inquiry into the slaughter of Major Vaz than the police have the courage to venture.” There were few high-ranking officers. One of them, Brigadier Fontenelle, declared: “Despite the barbarities, I am proud of Brazil.” During the meeting, Air Force Major Gustavo Borges, speaking in the name of the “commission of air force officers investigating the assassination of Major Vaz,” said that he and his comrades were ready to follow to their conclusion clues the police had not investigated, because they would lead to high-placed authorities. “We ourselves will do what the police lack the courage to do!” exclaimed Borges. The audience rose to applaud him. Then Major Helder expressed the solidarity of younger army officers with their air force counterparts: “It is necessary to pursue to the end the examination of this heinous crime, which has transformed our country from a civilized nation into a domain of criminals.” After the meeting, the military men distributed to the press a note in which they stated having requested the directors of the Aeronautics Club to convoke an extraordinary assembly to deal with the posthumous homage to be paid to the major and the care of his family.

SALETE AND MATTOS met for dinner at the Recreio, a barbecue restaurant on the street where the inspector lived. Salete had suggested the spot. Luiz Magalhães didn’t go to barbecue restaurants.

“What’s that on your forehead?” asked Salete.

“I banged it against a wall.”

“Is it going to make a scab?”

“No, it’s just a lump.”

“Oh. .”

Salete ordered a barbecue platter with manioc flour and a soft drink. The inspector ordered spaghetti with salt, no sauce, and a glass of milk. The restaurant had no milk.

During the meal Salete said she missed him so much it was killing her.

“We were together yesterday,” Mattos said.

“But we didn’t do anything. . You had a stomach ache.”

“I still do.”

Salete felt a constriction in her heart. She got up abruptly, wiping her eyes. “I’m going to the bathroom,” she said.

There was a mirror in the bathroom. Salete, seeing her face in the mirror, started to cry. A woman came in and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t cry, dear, men aren’t worth our tears,” the unknown woman said.

The woman was fat and ugly, poorly dressed. Even so, Salete threw herself into her arms to cry.

seven

“I’M NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO SEE YOU TODAY. I’m going on a trip,” said Luiz Magalhães.

“Where are you going?”

“Uruguay. Business. But I’ll be back on Tuesday. What’re you going to do this weekend?”

“Don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You’d better not do anything foolish.”

Could he suspect something? thought Salete. Luiz was very jealous. He had once told her he’d kill her if she betrayed him with another man.

“I think I’m going to go see that American dancer, Katherine Dunham. Or Carmelia Alves. The Queen of the Baião.”

“You’re too influenced by what you read in those idiotic magazines. The baião is for hicks.”

“It’s good for dancing.”

“What?!”

“I’m not going to dance with anybody, don’t worry.”

“You need any money?”

“I still haven’t spent what you gave me last month.”

“Behave, you hear?” said Luiz, hanging up the phone.

Salete took off her clothes, put a Carmelia Alves record on the turntable, and danced the baião in front of the mirror, her arms raised, the right arm a bit higher, as if embracing a partner. In mid-dance she started to cry; her face damp with tears, reflected in the mirror, seemed less vulgar to her, more romantic — but was still ugly. She sighed, pensive: all she did in life was cry.

She was interrupted by the maid knocking at the door. The pedicurist had arrived. She wrapped a towel around herself and opened the door.

“I’m going to do the pedicure in the bedroom, Cida. Come on in. Bring the ottoman, Maria de Lourdes.”

The maid brought a small cushioned stool and placed it in front of a large armchair near the window.

Cida did Salete’s feet every week. There wasn’t that much to do, and the pedicurist quickly finished her work. Cida hadn’t brought nail polish that matched that of Salete’s fingernails; that was that problem. The pedicurist had used one shade and the manicurist another, and the two professionals did not always have the same shades in their kits. Cida removed the polish from Salete’s hands and painted all the nails, both feet and hands, with a polish exactly the same color, bright red.

Afterward they drank coffee that Maria de Lourdes had made.

“And Malvino? How’s he doing?”

“Three days ago he showed up with a big bottle of wine, saying he’s not drinking hard liquor anymore. He said that from now on he’s drinking wine, which is the blood of Christ. But he hasn’t changed at all. I even think getting drunk on the blood of Christ is worse.”

“He’s a drunk but he’s yours, isn’t he? He lives at your house, he’s there when you need him. And me, with two men, one married and the other who doesn’t care about me? There’s a time at night when I look beside me in bed, and there’s no one there; I get up and the apartment is empty. My apartment, like you can see, has the best furniture there is, in the living room and the bedroom, it’s full of things, refrigerator, floor polisher, vacuum cleaner, blender, coffeemaker, a china set, I’ve even got pictures on the wall, sculptures, silver things, but a good man — zero.”

“I’d like to have the things you have. I love the old black man smoking a pipe, on the living room wall.”

“The one who did that is a famous painter, I forget his name. That porcelain ballerina is French, authentic. It was Luiz who gave it to me. But what good does it do?”

“Maybe someday he’ll leave his wife.”

“But I don’t want Luiz, I want the other one. He’s sick, has an ulcer in his stomach. If he came to live with me, I’d cure him.”

“Does he drink?”

“No. He’s just got an ulcer.”

“A sick man usually wants a woman to take care of him.”

“Not Alberto. When he gets sick, he hides and doesn’t want to see me.”

“Strange. .”

“He’s a policeman.”

“That explains it. But look, don’t get involved with a policeman. Stay with that rich guy who gives you everything.”

“I think Alberto likes another woman, a high-class hussy.”

“That’s better for you. Let her have him.”

“I’m going to tell you something. I’ve never told this to anybody. I was born and raised in the Tuiuti favela, there close to São Cristóvão. My mother worked, and I took care of my two younger brothers. We went hungry. Sometimes I would go with them, without my mother knowing, to walk in the Quinta da Boa Vista. We would swim in the lake, run on the lawns. It’s the only good memory I have of that time. I stayed in the favela till I was thirteen, when my mother died, and I went to be a nanny in the home of a family in Botafogo.”

“What did your mother die of?”

“Booze. She drank a lot.”

“And your brothers?”

“They went to live with an aunt. I never saw either of them again.”

In reality, she wasn’t sure whether her mother had died or not. At thirteen, Salete had run away from home. She didn’t have the slightest idea what had happened to her mother and her brothers. But she liked to think she was dead. Her mother was a dark-skinned mulatto, almost black, fat, ugly, and ignorant. She feared that one day she would turn out to be alive and show up, like a ghost.

“What about your father? Don’t you have a father?”

“I never knew my father. All I know is that he was a lowlife Portuguese.”

She had been working for two years as a nanny in a house in Copacabana when she met Dona Floripes. She was pushing the baby carriage down the street when a woman came up to her and, after a great deal of conversation, said that if Salete came to work in her house, she could earn much more. But Salete didn’t mention that to the pedicurist.

“The time in the favela was a horror. I suffered a lot before managing to get ahead in life and become what I am today, a fashion model.”

“It’s good to be well-off, isn’t it? After having it so rough, like you.”

“Magalhães is an important man, and he gives me everything. Still, I’d trade it all to live with Alberto. But like I said, he doesn’t love me.”

The pedicurist felt sorry for her client.

“You shouldn’t just give up like that. We have to fight for the man we love. Even if he is a policeman.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“They’ve got women all over the place and can get killed from one day to the next.”

Before the pedicurist left, Salete gave her, as she always did, the Cinelândia, Grande Hotel and Revista do Rádio magazines that she had already read.

Salete sat on the sofa, thinking, while leafing absentmindedly through the new Cigarra, without seeing even the fashion designs. She thought about what the pedicurist had told her. We have to fight for the man we love.

AT THAT MOMENT, Mattos was lying on his sofa bed listening to La Bohème. He had just seen a photo on the front page of the Tribuna da Imprensa that had greatly disturbed him. The amorous misfortunes of Rodolpho and Mimi, even though continuing to be expressed with emotion by Tebaldi and Di Stefano, had yielded to his cogitations about the Deauville Building murder.

Mattos, though recognizing that he was excessively emotional and impulsive, felt he possessed sufficient clearheadedness and perspicacity to escape the classic traps of the criminal investigator, especially the “snare of logic.” To him, logic was the policeman’s ally, a critical instrument that, in the analysis of disputed situations, allowed one to arrive at knowledge of the truth. Still, just as there was one logic adapted to mathematics and another to metaphysics, one adapted to speculative philosophy and another to empirical research, there was a logic adapted to criminology, which, however, had nothing to do with premises and syllogistic deductions à la Arthur Conan Doyle. In his logic, knowledge of the truth and the understanding of reality could only be achieved by doubting logic itself, and even reality. He admired Hume’s skepticism and regretted that the reading he had done at the university, not only of the Scottish philosopher but also of Berkeley and Hegel, had been so superficial.

He looked again at the large photo of Gregório Fortunato on the front page, with the caption underneath: “Gregório is the patent symbol of the thugs with whom Getúlio Vargas in his fear of the people attempts to surround himself. He represents the primacy of the methods of stilling the voices that disturb the sleep of the great oligarch, who wishes to sleep without nightmares despite his crimes.”

In the photo, Gregório, in a hat, coat, and tie, a white handkerchief in his coat pocket, had his hands around Vargas’s head, as if smoothing the president’s hair. What caught the inspector’s attention, however, was not that public demonstration of the affection of a hired gun for the man he was protecting. It was the bodyguard’s left hand.

The inspector took from his pocket the ring he had found in Gomes Aguiar’s bathroom and the gold tooth. Inexplicably, to him, they were in the same pocket. He hastily placed the gold tooth on the floor, beside the sofa bed. With the ring in his hand, he again looked at the photo in the newspaper, at what truly interested him, the ring finger of Gregório’s left hand, on which could be seen a ring resembling the one he held at that instant. He recalled the conversation he’d had with the doorman Raimundo about a Negro visiting Gomes Aguiar’s apartment the day of the murder. He put this information together with that of the medical examiner Antonio Carlos, according to which the hairs found on the soap from the dead man’s bathroom were from a Negro. The inspector fought the excitement of the hunt that he was experiencing, which resulted as much from the possible discovery and contingent arrest of the one responsible for the crime as from the identity of the suspect. He had to maintain his clearheadedness and confront such indications coldly: they were merely a clue, a lead to be followed like any other.

He picked up the gold tooth and went into the bathroom. Standing before the mirror, he peeled back his lips and put the gold tooth in front of where it had been previously, now occupied by a porcelain incisor. No one remembered anymore, or perhaps no one even knew, for the dentist who did the work had died, that he once had a gold tooth in his mouth. But he didn’t forget.

The music had stopped. Mattos flipped the LP on the turntable. His stomach was hurting. He needed to eat something. As he was opening the refrigerator, the doorbell rang.

“May I come in?” Alice asked.

“Come in.”

The two stood there, in the living room.

“What opera is that?”

“La Bohème.”

Alice paced from side to side in the small living room.

“Tell me right off what you want to say to me.”

“My husband is Luciana Gomes Aguiar’s lover.”

Alice spoke rapidly, never stopping her pacing.

“That’s what I wanted to tell you that day when we had tea at the Cavé. I had read in the paper that you were investigating her husband’s death.”

“Does your husband know you’re here?”

“No. He went to São Paulo to a boxing match.”

Lomagno had left the night before to attend the fights on Saturday, at the Pacaembu Gymnasium, of two Brazilian pugilists, Ralph Zumbano and Pedro Galasso, against Argentine opponents.

“Sit down, please. Why are you telling me this story of your husband and Luciana Aguiar?”

“I had to get it off my chest with someone.”

Mattos remained silent, avoiding looking his former girlfriend’s face.

“Do you still like me?” Alice asked.

“I don’t know.” A pause. “Get what off your chest?” Now Mattos looked directly at the woman’s face, seeking signs of guile or treachery.

The doorbell rang again.

“Let it ring,” Alice said.

The inspector opened the door.

It was Emilio, the maestro. He removed his Panama hat, passing it to his left hand, which was already holding his cane, and extended his hand to the inspector.

“Forgive me for bothering you at home, but—”

He stopped when he noticed Alice’s presence. “Good afternoon, Miss. I’m an old and humble friend of the gentleman.”

“Come in,” said the inspector.

“May I have a word with you in private?”

Mattos led Emilio to the bedroom.

“Yes, Mr. Emilio. .”

The old man, surprised and disappointed at the modesty of the inspector’s apartment, didn’t know what to say. He chewed his dentures nervously.

“I’m embarrassed to make another request of you. . After all, it hasn’t even been a week. . But I’ll pay it all back to you. . Something unforeseen came up. .”

“I’m broke, Mr. Emilio. I just bought the Encyclopedia Britannica and a collection of classic books. . More than fifty volumes. .”

“Why didn’t you buy them on credit?”

“I bought them at a used bookstore. They don’t sell on credit.” The sounds of Emilio’s dentures touched the inspector.

“What about your girlfriend?. . Could she maybe. .”

“That young woman is not my girlfriend.”

“She’s not? Well, sir, these eyes that the earth will yet consume can spot passion in a woman’s face. .”

“I can’t ask her for money.”

Emilio took an enormous dirty handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes.

“I’m sorry. We old people cry over nothing.”

The inspector put his arms around Emilio’s shoulders. He felt pity at the old man’s fragility and repugnance at the smell of cheap lavender that emanated from his body.

“Wait here.”

The inspector returned to the living room.

“Do you have any money you can lend me?”

“How much do you want?”

“Five hundred cruzeiros.”

“Two hundred, it can be two hundred,” Emilio shouted from the bedroom.

Alice took a checkbook from her purse and signed a check. The inspector took the check and went back to the bedroom. He found Emilio hiding near the door, his mouth open, attentive, trying to hear better. He was starting to go deaf.

The old man took the check. He looked at the amount.

“I’ll be eternally grateful, I won’t forget—”

“Yes, yes. It’s time to leave,” Mattos interrupted, taking Emilio by the arm and leading him to the living room.

In the living room, the old man stopped. He made a sweeping gesture with his hat in Alice’s direction, like a nobleman hailing a queen. Then, at the door, he looked at the man and woman standing gravely in the middle of the living room and said grandiloquently, “The potion that Brangane gave you to drink is not fatal.” This said, he withdrew, dramatically.

“What did he mean?”

“He was doing justice to the five hundred cruzeiros that you gave him.” Mattos flipped the record again. La Bohème in the background gave him a certain feeling of security.

“Who is Brangane? Do you have any matches?”

“A character in an opera. Isolde asks her chambermaid Brangane to prepare a lethal poison for her and Tristan. But the maid prepares a different potion. When they drink it, they rediscover that they love each other.”

“Light my cigarette.”

Mattos lit Alice’s cigarette.

Alice moved closer to the inspector.

“You said rediscover. Did they love each other before?”

“Yes.”

“And after the rediscovery of love, what did they, the lovers, do?”

“Nothing.”

Alice looked closely at the inspector’s face. He had always been hard to understand. At first Alice had thought that her boyfriend’s awareness of his own poverty and an exaggerated pride were the cause of his problems. Later, agreeing with her mother’s opinion, she came to believe that the young man suffered from some kind of psychological morbidity. But who didn’t?

“Why?”

“As a Wagnerian would say, the pathos in the story is that Tristan’s honor prevents their love from being consummated.”

They fell silent.

“Is your husband a Negro?”

“A Negro? My husband?”

“Whoever killed Paulo Machado Gomes Aguiar was a Negro. If your husband isn’t a Negro, he’s not the murderer.”

“I didn’t say my husband killed Paulo.”

“But you suspect he might have killed Gomes Aguiar.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. You’re making me nervous!”

“Is there some Negro who comes to your house often?”

“Of course not!”

“There are millions of Negroes in this city. One of them might frequent your house.” Pause. “You came here and told me your husband is Luciana Gomes Aguiar’s lover. And then what?”

“Why are you talking to me like that?” The hardness in the inspector’s voice and the stain from water infiltration that she had just noticed on the ceiling made her feel a sudden anxiety. Her hands were trembling.

“You make me nervous talking to me like that.” Alice picked up her purse, took a mirror from it, and went into the bathroom.

Mattos opened the refrigerator, took out a bottle of milk, and drank from the bottle. The music had ended, but now he preferred silence. He needed to take a look at his feces; he was always forgetting to do that. He picked up the book on civil law and threw it violently against the wall.

“What was that noise?” asked Alice, startled, coming out of the bathroom.

“Nothing. I threw a book against the wall.”

“Oh. .” Alice said. “I’m late, I have to go.”

“Is that what you wanted? For me to suspect your husband?”

“I’m quite nervous.”

“You do want me to suspect your husband.”

Hurriedly, Alice opened the door and ran out.

When the inspector went after her, Alice had already descended the stairs and disappeared.

At the door to the building on Rua Marquês de Abrantes, holding a package with spaghetti, tomatoes, garlic, and onions, Salete paced back and forth, waiting for Alice to leave. Salete had gone there to visit the cop and arrived at the moment Alice got out of the taxi. She had thought about going in also but lacked the courage. Besides which, Alice’s presence had spoiled her plans. Salete put on dark glasses and cried several times, standing in the street, as she imagined what Alice and the inspector were doing in bed. The displeasure engendered by wounded pride had the effect of dissipating the scruples she had felt at making plans for that visit to the inspector. Now she would go ahead to the end.

When Alice appeared at the building’s door, Salete hid in the bakery on the ground floor, from which she saw the other woman get into a cab.

Salete went up in the elevator with her heart aching. She rang the inspector’s doorbell several times in a row. Mattos opened the door.

“Are you in a hurry?”

The lump on Mattos’s forehead, as she feared would happen, had almost disappeared completely and left no scab. He was holding an egg in his hand.

Salete went in and attempted to take the egg from the inspector’s hand but only managed to break it.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Mattos, trying with his other hand to prevent the egg from sliding to the floor.

“You’re not going to eat an egg. I’m going to make spaghetti for you. Spaghetti is good for your ulcer.”

In the bathroom, Mattos threw the remains of the egg in the toilet. He washed his hands and returned to Salete in the kitchen.

“Do you have a pot?”

The inspector had a single pot, of aluminum.

“That’ll do,” said Salete, her heart beating anxiously.

Salete filled the pot with water, placed it on the stove, and turned the gas to maximum.

“I saw that woman leaving here. The blonde from the other day.”

Mattos remained silent.

“Did you screw her?”

“No.”

The water was slow to boil, increasing Salete’s nervousness. She arranged the tomatoes, the garlic, and the two onions on the counter beside the stove.

“What do you mean, no? She was here with you a long time.”

“Don’t hassle me, Salete,” said Mattos, leaving the kitchen.

Finally, small bubbles began rising to the surface of the water in the pot.

“Alberto, come here, please!” shouted Salete.

The inspector entered the kitchen and saw the pot boiling on the stove.

“Do me a favor, love. Peel those tomatoes. Look at my hand, I can’t do it.”

Several fingers on Salete’s left hand were covered with adhesive bandages.

“How do you peel tomatoes?”

Salete didn’t know how to peel tomatoes either, or any other plant. Nor did she know how to make spaghetti.

“Oh. . with the knife. . take off the skin. .”

The inspector had great difficulty doing what Salete had asked. He stained his shirt; the counter was littered with pieces of tomato.

“There, I’m done.”

“Now grab all that. . with your hands and throw it here,” said Salete, gripping the handle of the steaming pot.

The inspector filled his hands with shredded tomatoes. As he was about to toss them into the pot, everything happened fast. The pot slipped and boiling water poured over his hand.

“Oh my God,” screamed Salete. “Does it hurt bad?”

“Don’t worry about it,” said the inspector.

“My God, my God!”

“It’s nothing.”

“Does it hurt a lot? Tell the truth.”

“It hurt at first. Now it’s just burning.”

“Is it going to leave a wound? And a scab?”

“It’s enough to wrap it in gauze.”

“I have some gauze in my purse,” Salete said.

Salete took from her purse a roll of gauze, adhesive bandages, and a pair of scissors. She wrapped the inspector’s hand and secured the gauze with a piece of the bandage. While she did this, she held back to keep from crying.

“You burned me on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Me—?” She began to cry.

“I’m not going to fight with you. I just want to know why. A stupid act like that must have its reasons.”

“I adore you.” Sobs.

“Answer me.”

“I’d give my life for you.”

“Yet you burned me with boiling water. Why?”

“Kill me, I deserve to die,” said Salete.

“Stop talking nonsense. Tell me right now why you threw boiling water on my hand.”

Salete kneeled and hugged the inspector’s legs.

“Hit me, at least that.”

The inspector made Salete stand up.

“Tell me, goddammit.”

“Do you forgive me?”

“You’re forgiven. Now then. Why did you burn me?”

“I need a scab from an injury of yours.”

“A scab from an injury?”

Salete told the story of Mother Ingrácia.

“I like you, you don’t need any macumba for that. And how is it you can believe in such idiocy?”

“Everybody believes it. Teachers, lawyers, doctors, politicians, big industrialists, everybody goes to Mother Ingrácia’s macumba site. If you go there, I’ll arrange a way for you to be cured of your ulcer.” Pause. “Does your hand hurt a lot?”

Salete’s face was like that of a prisoner after a nightlong interrogation.

“If this injury creates a scab, I’ll give it to you. But you have to promise me you’ll never see that Mother Ingrácia or any other macumba practitioner.”

“I promise. I swear by everything sacred.”

Mattos’s stomach ached. He went to the refrigerator and got an egg.

“You need to eat something, going around on an empty stomach isn’t good for you. I’m going to make the spaghetti.”

“I’ve lost my appetite for spaghetti.”

She loved that man. She needed to show him that: “Then eat that egg.”

Salete watch the inspector suck the egg, after making a small hole in each end. She always found that repulsive. She watched bravely without averting her eyes as the inspector sucked a second egg. When Mattos finished, Salete hugged him and kissed him, sticking her tongue in his mouth, discerning the taste of the egg.

They went to the sofa bed and fucked until the inspector’s gauze was entirely torn away.

“This is going to make a good scab,” said Mattos, looking at the condition of the burn on his hand.

PRESIDENT VARGAS received the visit of his son, Deputy Lutero Vargas, on the second floor, in his office.

When Lutero entered, Vargas told his aide, Major Dornelles, that he didn’t want to be interrupted.

Lutero was surprised by his father’s exhausted and worried appearance.

“That shot that killed Major Vaz also hit me in the back,” said Vargas.

Lutero, who unlike his sister Alzira had never felt at ease in the presence of his father, remained silent. His recent talks had been less than pleasant. His father had been hard on him at the time of the episode, widely exploited by the press, of the robbery of eleven thousand dollars he had suffered in Venice, on a recent trip to Europe, criticizing him for making himself vulnerable to attacks by the family’s enemies.

Now, his father’s prostration mortified him. Accustomed to seeing his father as a man of great power and strength, he was surprised to see him so discouraged. He wasn’t the same man who, furious at Lacerda for having called his son debauched, shameless, degenerate, a scoundrel and a thief, had forced Lutero to file a lawsuit against the defamer. Where was the outrage, the indignation, the will to fight, now?

“You’re being accused of ordering the crime,” said Vargas. “I want to hear it from you that you’re innocent.”

“I swear I’m innocent,” said Lutero.

Vargas looked for a long time at the face of his son. Lutero had never lived up to the expectations Getúlio placed on him. Darcy, his mother, had inculcated in her son a horror of politics, helping him to dedicate himself to the profession of medicine, thus distancing himself even further from his father, who having no son to carry on the family tradition, had transferred to his son-in-law Hernani do Amaral Peixoto, a naval officer, his political sponsorship. Only upon Vargas’s return of to the presidency in 1950, not as dictator but elected in a democratic election, had Lutero decided to “go into politics.” But it would have been preferable, both for him and for the entire family, if he had continued practicing medicine. As a politician, Lutero had given no cause for pride to his father, who in reality was more interested in the political future of his son-in-law, then governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro.

Without knowing whether or not his father believed his oath, Lutero said goodbye to him ceremoniously and left the palace.

eight

ILÍDIO, THE NUMBERS GAME BANKROLLER assaulted by Inspector Mattos, was a proud man. He had started his life as lawbreaker by working for Mr. Aniceto Moscoso, the great numbers game financier in Madureira. With extreme efficiency he provided security for Mr. Aniceto’s betting sites. He avoided the use of violence but, when necessary, hadn’t hesitated to kill the usurper of a site or anyone else who was creating serious problems for Mr. Aniceto’s business. His industriousness had led to several promotions within the rigid hierarchy of the numbers game command. Finally, with the help and protection of his patron, and the acquiescence of the other large-scale bankrollers, Ilídio came to control several gambling sites in the city. He became a small-scale bankroller. His businesses, like those of all the others, large or small, prospered endlessly. Ilídio’s ambition was to one day become a major bankroller, like Mr. Aniceto.

The humiliation he had suffered at the hands — or rather, the feet — of that inspector had become unbearable for him. He believed that in the world of lawbreaking, and especially among his subordinates, there was no one who didn’t know and talk about what had happened. The only way to put an end to his shame and recover the prestige he assumed he was losing was to kill the inspector. This was something he couldn’t do personally: killing a person with his own hands was a violation of the rules established and followed by bankrollers, and he planned to obey them. So he ordered the summoning of a trustworthy assassin known as Old Turk.

Old Turk owed that nickname to his white hair. He was only forty-two and was younger than another gunman called Young Turk, a guy who couldn’t be trusted, not only because he dyed his hair and mustache but also because he was a coward and a liar. Old Turk, on the other hand, a reserved man, mysterious, dedicated to his family and his work, was respected for his discretion and feared for his efficiency. No one had ever seen him boast, and yet in the performance of his activities he had already killed more than twenty people — all of them men.

“I want the old one, you hear?” The message was spread among the annotators and other subordinates of Ilídio.

Old Turk was tracked down in Caxambu, Minas Gerais, where he had gone over the weekend to visit his mother.

“Mr. Ilídio, day after tomorrow I’ll be in Rio to do the job,” he said after hearing the proposal.

Aniceto Moscoso also learned of the summoning of Old Turk. Concerned, he called a meeting with Ilídio, at a barbecue restaurant in Saenz Pena Square.

“We don’t kill policemen,” said Aniceto, “we buy them.”

“The fucker isn’t for sale.”

“They all have their price. I speak from experience. I’ve been in this business a lot longer than you.”

“The bastard humiliated me. The whole city’s laughing at me. He’s gotta die, so I can look my children in the eye again.”

“The best revenge is to buy the guy.”

“That son of a bitch doesn’t have a price; he’s crazy. Everybody knows that.”

Aniceto Moscoso tried to convince him that it was a mistake to go forward with his plan, but Ilídio wouldn’t yield and left without promising anything. It was the first time in the relationship between the two that a request of Moscoso’s was not quickly heeded by his former employee.

That same day, Moscoso went to see his friend Eusébio de Andrade, the big bankroller in the West Zone and a mentor to whom the other bankers would go for advice. The two men had in common a passion for football. Andrade was a benefactor of the Bangu Athletic Club and Aniceto Moscoso was the honored patron of the Madureira Athletic Club, whose football stadium had been built with his money. In general, the numbers racket was viewed as criminal, but Andrade’s and Moscoso’s sports activities gained them favorable publicity in the media and in society, despite both clubs being small groups in the outskirts. Andrade and Moscoso urged the other numbers bosses to sponsor activities that interested the public, without, however, encountering much receptivity. “The problem is that our colleagues are very ignorant,” said Andrade. “They can’t see six inches in front of their nose.”

After hearing what Aniceto had told him, Eusébio de Andrade agreed that they would go together to talk to Ilídio, to convince him to give up his plan.

“What would you do if a cop kicked you in the ass?” Ilídio asked.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” replied Eusébio de Andrade. “You know I’m a person who tries to be well informed before making a decision, even if it’s something simple. I’ve gotten some information about that inspector. His colleagues don’t like him, his bosses don’t like him.”

“We don’t like him,” joked Aniceto.

“Nobody likes him. But if we kill the guy, he becomes a hero. Haven’t you seen what happened with that Major Vaz? They killed the guy and caused that shitstorm we read about every day in the papers. Killing the major was stupid. In the same way, if Old Turk kills the inspector, he’s going to stop being considered a son of a bitch by his colleagues. And the cops’ll get you.”

“How? Old Turk is like the tomb. Nothing comes out of there, you know that,” said Ilídio.

“Naturally Old Turk would never open his trap. But the cops will have an easy time figuring out it was you who ordered the inspector killed.”

“That doesn’t bother me.”

“It bothers us. Aniceto and I are here representing the other colleagues, too. And we want to offer you compensation. Zé do Carmo when he died left no heirs, and his sites will be redistributed. The ones that border on your sites will go to you.”

Ilídio’s response was slow in coming. Aniceto was right, every man has his price, and his was Zé do Carmo’s sites.

“I’ll do what you want. But that son of a bitch cop is gonna stay in my sights. He’ll get what’s coming to him,” said Ilídio, aware the others knew he was only bluffing with those threats.

“Let Old Turk know immediately, before he takes action,” warned Eusébio de Andrade as he left.

After almost two hours Ilídio managed to get the long-distance call through to Caxambu.

“He’s gone to Rio de Janeiro,” Old Turk’s mother said.

Ilídio sent an emissary to look for him where Old Turk normally stayed, a two-story house on Rua Salvador de Sá. The emissary returned saying that Old Turk hadn’t shown up there for a long time.

Ilídio thought about the betting sites he would inherit from the estate of Zé do Carmo and how much that would represent in his daily take. He yelled to Maneco, his second in command, “I have to find that man!”

Maneco reminded Ilídio that it was Sunday, and the betting sites weren’t in operation. But the next day, with every site in the city alerted, it would be “a piece of cake to find Old Turk.”

AT NOON THAT SUNDAY, Inspector Mattos went on duty. He needed to put his turbulent thoughts in order. He straightened the gauze swathing his hand. He thought about Alice’s visit, about the photo of Lieutenant Gregório with the ring. Alice and Gregório were always linked in his musings. The two things were somehow connected.

He read the note on his desk, from headquarters, signed by General Ancora. The note had resulted, apparently, from the meeting of military officers at the Aeronautics Club the Friday before, and had as its purpose calming in some way the indignation shown by those present at that assembly.

“From the first moments in which the deplorable episode of August 5 became known,” said the note, “the Federal Department of Public Safety has made every effort to shed light on the criminal action, by initiating measures to apprehend the individual responsible for the grievous occurrence in which one of the most illustrious officers of the air force, Major Rubens Florentino Vaz, lost his life and the journalist Carlos Lacerda, publisher of the Tribuna da Imprensa, was wounded. In the Second Police District, a task force was immediately established at the same time that the collaboration of the criminal investigation section of the Division of Technical Police was requested.”

The note was long, and Mattos scanned it, looking for the relevant points and skipping what were obvious attempts at persuasion aimed at the military. The cops had succeeded quickly in finding out the identity of the driver Nelson Raimundo de Souza. Commissioner Pastor had gone immediately to Miguel Couto Hospital, where he had entered in contact with the survivor of the assassination attempt, the journalist Carlos Lacerda, to find out in summary form how the attack had occurred. (And Lacerda’s son, young Sérgio, why hadn’t Pastor spoken with him? Pastor was a good police officer.) At approximately three a.m. the cab driver Nelson Raimundo de Souza had appeared at the Fourth Precinct, in Catete, from which he had been remanded to the Second and submitted to the initial questioning. Nelson Raimundo had said he could recognize the person he’d driven in his car, and that as he passed the corner of Avenida Calógeras and Avenida Beira Mar, he had heard an odd noise that may have been an object being thrown out by his passenger. An airline worker had seen a beggar pick up the object. On Friday, the sixth, Nelson Raimundo had been taken to the Military Police. There, questioned by Colonel Adyl, whom the air force secretary had chosen to monitor the inquiry, as Pastor had said in the telephone call he had made late on the night of the fifth, Nelson Raimundo had reiterated what he had told the cops earlier. On Saturday, while he, Mattos, was in bed with Salete, Nelson Raimundo had been questioned by Captain João Ferreira Neves, of the Military Police, with the acquiescence of Commissioner Pastor, with whom he’d been a classmate in a course at the Police Academy. (They were sparing Pastor, a proud man who must be suffering because of all that, from embarrassment.) Then Nelson Raimundo had changed his story (had he been subjected to violence?) and confessed that he had taken two men to the locale, one of them Climerio Euribes de Almeida, who the note said was a police investigator. Afterwards Nelson Raimundo had confirmed these statements in the presence of Colonel Adyl, the prosecutor Cordeiro Guerra, and Commissioner Pastor. To show that the high authorities were truly dedicated to unearthing the facts of the attack, the note mentioned those who had come to the Military Police barracks to hear Nelson Raimundo’s confession: the head of the Department of Public Safety, General Ancora; the secretary of the air force, Nero Moura; and the secretary of justice, Tancredo Neves. The two secretaries had then gone to the Catete Palace, where General Caiado de Castro was waiting for them. According to the head of the Military Cabinet, the president of the Republic had given orders for a full investigation and had charged the special commissioner of surveillance and apprehension, Hermes Machado, with the arrest of Climerio. Hermes Machado was a competent and respected commissioner. He was vain about the elegance of his attire and the articulation of his speech. One day, in his zeal to understand why people, including himself, went into police work, Mattos had asked Hermes what his reasons were. “I’m with the police because of vanity,” Hermes had replied, “vanity is man’s great motivator.” In Hermes’s case it was the vanity of power. “I can make arrests, something that no judge, no Supreme Court justice, no president of the Republic can do.” Hermes, however, used police power with moderation and refinement. His appointment had been accepted with displeasure by Pastor, even though they had been friends since the time they were both inspectors, and Pastor had served under Machado when he was chief commissioner at the Second Precinct. The note from headquarters ended by advising that Hermes Machado was taking measures to catch Climerio, aided by air force officers named by Colonel Adyl.

Mattos thought about calling Pastor and saying, “Tell those soldiers, the prosecutor, the head of DPS, Tancredo, the whole bunch, to go to hell.” Pastor was surrounded by people who were shit-scared or confused or both. He had all but been removed from the case. What did he have to lose? A shitty job as commissioner? In reality, that day, the superintendent of police, Colonel Paulo Torres, had held a secret meeting with his principal advisers to examine a move that would totally remove Pastor from the case: shifting the Tonelero inquiry to his department and naming Commissioner Silvio Terra, director of the Technical Police, to head the investigations. Considering, however, that the action could be seen, within the government itself, as surrendering to pressure from Lacerda and his group, Silvio Terra’s appointment had not yet been effected.

While Mattos was reading the note from headquarters, Rosalvo had come into the room. From the expression of the inspector’s face, the investigator concluded it was going to be a rough day.

WHENEVER HE VISITED HIS MOTHER in Caxambu, a city famous for its medicinal waters, Old Turk would take advantage of the opportunity to do a twenty-one-day treatment. Three times a day, with rigorous punctuality, he would drink water from different springs “to clear the liver,” as recommended by the old doctor in the city. With the call from Ilídio, Old Turk had to suspend the treatment, much to his displeasure.

After ending his brief telephone conversation with Ilídio, Old Turk had headed to the Rede Mineira de Viação train station, in Caxambu, and purchased a ticket for Rio. In Cruzeiro he would switch to a train on the Central Railroad. On the train he made his plans. Normally he enjoyed contemplating the landscape, especially during the descent from the mountains. But, thinking about Ilídio’s proposal, that day he didn’t look out the window at the trees and mountains and valleys and rivers whose sight gave him such pleasure. “I want to get a cop out of my hair,” the numbers boss had said. “No problem,” Old Turk had answered, “he won’t be the first.” “But he’s an honest inspector.” “No problem,” Old Turk had repeated. Now, on the train, he tried to remember if any inspector had ever been eliminated under similar circumstances. He recalled an inspector who had been murdered and the confusion that resulted, but the cop had been killed by his wife’s lover, merely a crime of passion. This thing had to be done using great caution.

Old Turk preferred working alone. Before acting, he liked to concentrate, in solitude. When he got to Rio, instead of going to his house, he began looking for a room to rent somewhere far away from the districts he normally frequented. He therefore avoided Santo Cristo, Saúde, and Estácio. He found a room on Rua das Marrecas, downtown, in the home of an old retired procuress. His immediate problem was to find out the address of the inspector’s residence. The weapon he would use had already been selected. A Belgian FN 7.65 that Old Turk zealously guarded and had never before used. He was going to break in the pistol by killing an important guy. The FN deserved no less.

“IS THERE A PROBLEM?” asked Rosalvo.

“Did you release that prisoner being held for questioning?”

“As soon as you gave the order. Mr. Pádua had requested his record from HQ—”

“Not interested. Any news on José Silva? The boy brutalized by Lomagno and the others in high school?”

“I think I’m close. The manager of a bakery on Santa Clara said he remembered the tenants of a house on Avenida Atlântica. He used to deliver bread there.”

“Go on.”

“I used up a lot of shoe leather finding that baker.”

“Go on. Later I’ll put you in for a commendation for meritorious service.”

“Bakers in Copacabana don’t make deliveries anymore. They don’t know where the residents of the house on Avenida Atlântica are now. But a woman who used to live in the house sometimes shows up at the bakery to shop. Finding José Silva is just a matter of time.”

“For us, time isn’t ‘just.’ Stay at the bakery all day, all week if necessary, till you find the woman.”

“Yes, sir.”

After Rosalvo left, Mattos looked up Senator Vitor Freitas’s telephone number on his pad, which his aide Clemente had given him when Mattos had visited the Senate.

“Who wishes to speak with him?”

“Police Inspector Mattos.”

He waited.

“The senator can’t speak with you.”

“I’d like for him to make an appointment, at a time of his convenience, to see me.”

“We’re going through a very unsettled moment politically, as you must be aware, and the senator is extremely busy with matters of the greatest import. I don’t think he can spare the time to see you.”

“He’ll have to talk to me sooner or later. It’s better that it be sooner.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Take it however you like.”

“I’m taking it as a threat. Don’t forget, inspector, that we’re not in a dictatorship, a minor-level policeman can no longer threaten a federal senator protected by constitutional immunities without suffering the grave consequences of that criminal and arbitrary act. Your superiors will be informed of what’s going on and take—”

Mattos hung up. He looked through his pockets for an antacid tablet. Black bile, excess stomach acid, tattered nerves.

The telephone on his desk rang.

“Inspector Mattos, please.”

“Speaking.”

“I’d like to register a complaint. When can I do that?”

“The police never close, sir. Whatever time you like. My shift goes till noon tomorrow.”

AT SEVEN THAT NIGHT, Rosalvo returned to the precinct with the information that he had located José Silva.

“The address is 60 Avenida Rainha Elizabeth. Want me to go there and talk to him?”

“I’ll do it.”

“Phone call for you, Rosalvo,” said the guard, coming into the inspector’s office. “In Surveillance.”

In the Surveillance office, Rosalvo picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“It’s Teodoro. We worked together in Robbery and Theft. Remember me?”

“I never forget anything, Teodoro, and besides—”

“Don’t say my name, goddammit.”

nine

THE MORGUE’S AUTOPSY REPORTS on Paulo Gomes Aguiar and the findings by Forensics of evidence of the Deauville crime were handed over to Inspector Mattos that morning as he was leaving for the Catete Palace. He quickly skimmed the two procedural documents. Nothing beyond what the examiners had told him informally over the phone. He put them in his desk drawer. Later he would read both documents more carefully.

Arriving at the palace, Mattos identified himself at the entrance and filled out a form in which he stated that the objective of his visit was an official interview with Lieutenant Gregório. An old man wearing an attendant’s uniform — navy blue pants and coat, white shirt, and a black tie — took the form and disappeared with it through a door at the rear of the entrance hall, to the right.

While he waited, the inspector contemplated, behind the reception desk, a bronze life-size statue of an Indian holding a spear and grimacing in rage.

“Who’s this a statue of?”

“Don’t know. I’ve been working at the palace for over twenty years, and when I came Ubirajara was already right there,” replied the doorman.

“May I see?” Mattos drew closer to read what was written on the base of the statue: Chaves Pinheiro, 1920.

On the other side of the reception area was another bronze statue, also life-size, by the same sculptor. Perseus freeing Andromeda, one hand on a sword, the other bearing the serpent-covered head of Medusa.

Mattos was beginning to feel irritated by the wait when the attendant reappeared, accompanied by a man wearing white linen, two-tone shoes, a pearl pin in his red tie. He seemed nervous and worried.

“I’m Inspector Valente, deputy chief of the presidential guard. At your service.”

“It’s not with you that I want to speak. It’s with your boss.”

“Unfortunately, he can’t see you at the moment. What is the topic, please?”

“It’s only with him.”

“Then that’s difficult.”

“I don’t think you understand. I’m conducting a police investigation and any failure to cooperate will be considered obstruction of justice.”

Noting the irritation in the inspector’s voice, which had caught the attention of others in the reception area, Valente explained that Lieutenant Gregório had been summoned by General Caiado de Castro and was at that moment in the Military Cabinet of the presidency. He asked the inspector to follow him.

They went to the canteen in the building that housed the personal guard.

“Everyone who works here is in the DPS. . We’re colleagues, we want to cooperate,” said Valente.

“I know, I know.”

“Inspector Pastor was already here.”

“I’m working on a different investigation. I’m not interested in the Tonelero attack. I need some information from Lieutenant Gregório.”

“The chief hasn’t even been staying here,” Valente said confidentially.

Mattos noticed that a man in a white apron was furtively gesturing at him.

“The situation isn’t good,” continued Valente, “we don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Is there any place here where I can do an interrogation?”

“Here?”

“You said you want to cooperate.”

“Well, you can use my office.”

Mattos looked around and lowered his voice, as if about to tell a secret. “A woman in the neighborhood said that a member of the personal guard seduced her daughter. The description she gave me matches that man over there.”

“Manuel? He’s not a member of the guard,” protested Valente. “He’s a cook.”

“Better still. I want to interrogate the guy. Tell him to go with us to your office.”

“Manuel,” Valente called.

The cook approached.

“This here is Mr. Mattos, a police inspector. He wants to talk to you. Come with us.”

“What did I do?” asked Manuel, confused.

“I don’t know. You’ll have to discuss it with the inspector.”

When they entered Valente’s office, the inspector said that he wanted to speak to Manuel alone. Before leaving the room, Valente heard Mattos’s first question: “Do you know a girl named Ernestina who lives on Rua Silveira Martins?”

The inspector and the cook were now alone.

“Ernestina?”

“Her mother told me you seduced the girl,” said Mattos, almost shouting as he walked to the door, where he stopped, listening for sounds from outside.

“I don’t know anybody by that name.” Manuel’s confusion had increased.

“Don’t lie to me, or it’ll go worse for you,” shouted Mattos, his face turned toward the door. “Sit there.”

Mattos leaned his ear against the door. Then he went to where Manuel was sitting.

“All of that’s a pretext so no one will know the subject of our conversation,” said Mattos in a soft voice.

“You scared me,” said Manuel.

“You gave me a sign that you wanted to speak to me.”

“Yes, I did,” murmured Manuel. “They can’t know what I’m about to say; they’ll kill me if they find out.”

“Don’t worry, for all intents and purposes you’re a suspect in a statutory rape case, and that’s what my questions were about. The girl’s name is Ernestina.”

“I belong to the Lantern Club, but nobody here knows it. Gregório is involved in the death of Major Vaz. I saw him several times planning the crime with Climerio.”

“Why are you telling me these confidences?”

“Valente was here in the canteen when you arrived. I heard him say that you must be a Lacerda spy. And that the police force was infiltrated with Lacerda supporters.”

“After all, just what was it you wanted to tell me?” Mattos concealed his disappointment.

“They, Gregório and Climerio were whispering, but I could hear the words crow, get rid of him, and others. Gregório, Getúlio, they all hate Lacerda, because Lacerda is going to put an end to the sea of mud. It seems like Gregório is being held captive at Galeão airport.”

“Did you see Gregório the night of July 31?”

“What day of the week was the 31st?”

“Saturday.”

“I saw him on Sunday, conspiring with Climerio. Real early. It must’ve been around six in the morning. The man woke up early that day. The butler, Mr. Zaratini, said he saw Gregório in the garden at five in the morning.”

“Maybe he didn’t even sleep at all. Did Gregório have any visible injuries?”

“Injuries?”

“On his hand or anywhere else.”

“No, I didn’t see any injury on him.”

“He wears a large ring on his right hand. Did you see whether he had on the ring that Sunday morning?”

Manuel had noticed the ring before but couldn’t say whether or not Gregório was wearing the ring that day.

“You may go, but I’m going to want to question you again. I’m going to set up a confrontation with the girl’s mother,” Mattos shouted, opening the door.

Valente was standing in the hallway, near the door. He retreated.

“Thanks for your cooperation,” Mattos said. As he walked toward the door leading to the palace garden, he heard Valente say cynically, “Screwing little girls, eh, Manuel? Getting mixed up with jailbait?”

WHEN MATTOS RETURNED to the precinct, the guard at the door came to speak with him.

“Some guy wanted me to tell you that somebody is gonna shoot you. .”

“Thank you.”

It was common for people to call the precinct with information of that kind. Neither the guard nor the inspector attributed any importance to the telephone message. The inspector might have paid more attention if he’d known it came from the numbers bankroller Ilídio. Not having been able to locate Old Turk to cancel the mission, and knowing that the inspector’s death would prevent his receiving Zé do Carmo’s sites, in addition to leaving him in bad straits with the numbers bosses, Ilídio had decided to protect the cop he earlier had wanted to assassinate.

But the inspector’s mind was tuned to other things. He called the home of Luciana Gomes Aguiar. She didn’t come to the phone.

“Madam said for you to speak with Mr. Galvão, her attorney.”

Mattos called Galvão.

“I’m going to lay my cards on the table for you, Mr. Galvão.”

Mattos related to Galvão the information he had been given by the doorman Raimundo, that a Negro had been in Gomes Aguiar’s apartment the night of the murder.

“He must be the killer, the thief—”

“Let me finish, counselor. Dona Luciana asked the doorman not to speak to anyone about that Negro.”

“The doorman must be lying. .”

“I have other proof that a Negro was in the apartment that night. I want your client to receive me or come here to the precinct to speak with me.”

“I don’t know if she would be willing to—”

“Mr. Galvão, I’m trying to save you from an unpleasant confrontation.”

“I’ll speak with her.”

“I can’t wait much longer, understand? I want to see her tomorrow at the latest.”

At noon the inspector’s shift ended. As always, he had signed the poverty papers and proofs of residence that the other inspectors had failed to expedite.

After turning over duty to Inspector Maia, who relieved him, Mattos took his Smith & Wesson from the drawer, placed it in his shoulder holster, and left.

A tall, dark-complexioned man with a mustache curling around the corners of his mouth followed the inspector to the bus stop. When Mattos caught the bus, the man did the same and sat two rows behind.

Mattos was followed to the door of his home, without noticing the tall man tailing him. In reality, spying on a policeman wasn’t a demanding task. In the days when he tried to organize the strike against overcrowding in the jails, members of the reserve from headquarters had shadowed him for weeks without his being aware of it.

When he entered his apartment, the phone was ringing.

A man with a hoarse voice, perhaps disguised behind a handkerchief, said slowly:

“Listen, sir, this isn’t a joke. There’s a guy trying to kill you. Keep your eyes open. He’s tall, dark, and has a mustache. A dangerous hired gun.”

Mattos heard the sound of the connection being cut. Immediately afterward, the doorbell rang.

The inspector unlocked the small peephole in the door. The face of a man, dark-complexioned, with a mustache, appeared.

“Sir, I’m here to report a crime.”

“Look for me at the precinct.”

“It’s about crimes committed by policemen in your precinct. I’m afraid to go there. I phoned you yesterday.”

The inspector closed the peephole. He opened the door.

“What’s all this, sir? You’re confusing me,” said the man when he saw the revolver in Mattos’s hand.

“Enter,” said Mattos.

“There must be some mistake.”

Mattos closed the door with his foot.

“I don’t understand,” said the visitor. “My name is Ibrahim Assad. I’m a commercial representative.”

“Turkish?”

“Lebanese. Second generation. I was born in Minas. Want to see my ID?” The man gestured with his left hand toward his inside coat pocket.

“Not just yet.”

There was a pair of handcuffs in the bookcase. Without taking his eyes off Assad, he got them. Mattos had never used the handcuffs and had lost his key. But that was a problem that could wait.

“Sit, on the floor.”

Assad sat.

“Take these cuffs.” Mattos threw the handcuffs to Assad, who caught them in the air using his left hand.

“Put one of them on your left wrist.”

“You can’t do this to me. I’m not a criminal,” protested Assad.

“If this is an arbitrary act on my part, I apologize in advance. Put on the handcuff the way I ordered. Close it. Now put the other ring around the ankle of your right leg. I said the right leg. Close it. Cross your legs and you’ll be more comfortable.”

Assad crossed his legs.

Mattos placed the revolver on the table. He took an antacid from his pocket and as he chewed it, observed the man sitting on the floor. The guy was calm and alert; he was also observing the inspector.

Mattos searched Assad. He took his ID card. The green wallet bore a silver design of the Brazilian coat of arms and the words, also silver: United States of Brazil. Federal District Police. Félix Pacheco Institute. Identification Card.

Mattos opened the small wallet. On one side: Register 749468. This wallet belongs to Ibrahim Assad Filho, born in Minas Gerais on August 12, 1912, the son of Ibrahim Assad and Farida Assad, Brazilian nationality, Rio de Janeiro, December 21, 1943. Over two stamps, a green one for three hundred réis and a red one for two hundred réis, was the signature José M. Carvalho, Director. On the other side of the card, a photo of Ibrahim Assad, next to the words Photograph invalid without Institute stamp; an impression of his right thumbprint, and the fingerprint file number: Series V.4333, Section V.2222; and Assad’s signature.

The FN pistol of shining black metal was under Assad’s right arm, in a white leather holster. Mattos examined the weapon. He ejected the bullet that was in the chamber.

“Did you come here to kill me?”

“No, sir. That’s absurd.”

“Then why did you invade my house?”

“Invade your house? Sir, you pointed a gun in my face and ordered me inside. I came to register a complaint.”

“What was the complaint?”

“Now I’m afraid to say anything. After the way you received me.”

“Your pistol had a bullet in the chamber.”

“A pistol always has to be like that, doesn’t it, sir?”

“That’s true.” Another antacid.

“Why do you go around armed? Since when does a commercial representative need to carry a weapon?”

“There’s a lot of outlaws running around the city. And I travel a lot. It’s a beauty, don’t you agree?”

“Who gave the order to kill me?”

“That’s absurd. I’m not here to kill you.”

“Who told you to come here. . to visit me?”

“No one. The idea just came into my head, sir. I wanted to lodge a complaint against the corrupt cops in your precinct who take numbers money.”

“In general, people have nothing against the numbers game. Why’d you come here to make that accusation?”

“You misunderstood, sir. I’m not against the numbers game. I’m against corrupt policemen. Since they told me you’re an honest man, I decided to lodge my accusation with you.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that?”

“The judge will.”

Mattos’s stomach began to ache. He put the gun against Old Turk’s head.

“I can put a bullet in your head right now and toss your carcass in the Sapucaia landfill.”

“You’re not the kind of man who does such an awful thing.”

Mattos sat down in the chair in the living room.

“Could you get me a glass of water, please?”

Mattos called the precinct and asked for a patrol car.

He filled a glass with water from the filter and gave it to the handcuffed man.

ROSALVO HAD SET UP THE MEETING with his former colleague from Robbery and Theft at the Avenida dance hall, downtown.

Rosalvo, who liked dancing with the taxi-girls, arrived early. He bought a punch-card for the dances, sat down, ordered a gin and tonic, and watched the girls sitting along a row of chairs on one side of the room. He was especially interested in a mulatto woman, slim but not overly so, the protuberance of her rear end showed that she was well padded with flesh in the right place. Rosalvo liked mulatto women and justified that preference by claiming he was the “grandson of a Portuguese.”

He took the girl to dance a bolero.

“I’d like to take you home later,” said Rosalvo. He was a practical man and didn’t like to waste time on small talk.

“We’ll see about that later,” said Cleyde, the dancer. She was practical as well and sensed that she had latched onto an old sucker good for several punches on her card that night. The more punches, the more she earned.

When Teodoro arrived, Cleyde’s card had been punched six times, three boleros, two sambas, one fox trot. “I’ll be right back,” Rosalvo told the dancer at the end of the dance.

Rosalvo and Teodoro sat down at a special table chosen by the former. Teodoro apologized for being late.

His eye on Cleyde, who was now dancing with a fat bald man who had a diamond ring on his finger, Rosalvo said, “Let’s get right to it.”

“What’s that Inspector Mattos like?”

“A crazy troublemaker. Intelligent but naïve. A straight arrow, you know the type.”

“What’s your relationship with him?”

“He eats out of my hand.”

“Explain that.”

“He doesn’t trust anybody at the precinct but me.”

“What’s his interest in Senator Freitas?”

“What’s in it for me if I spill the beans?”

“A transfer to Vice.”

“He’s investigating the senator’s backroom deals.”

“The senator doesn’t make backroom deals.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Teodoro. Let’s skip the bullshit. You and me go back a long way.”

“Which backroom deals?”

“The Cemtex import license.”

“That by itself isn’t worth a transfer to Vice.”

“Mattos is also investigating more serious stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Article 121.”

“Article 121?” said Teodoro, surprised. “The senator isn’t the type to kill anybody. You’re sure? What homicide is it?”

Rosalvo hesitated. It was better not to talk about the murder of Paulo Gomes Aguiar just yet, hold on to a few trump cards.

“I still don’t know what the homicide is. But I’m sure that man’s investigating a 121 involving the senator.”

“Didn’t you say he eats out of your hand? How can you not know?”

“I’m being frank with you, I don’t know yet. But the man is going to have to call on me for help in the investigation. Like I said, Mattos doesn’t trust anyone else. Tell the senator that if it’s in his interest, and I think it is, I can ball up the investigation so bad that not a goddamn thing’ll come out of it.”

“But you haven’t said which 121 it is.”

“I don’t know yet. Yet. The senator must know, doesn’t he? Have you forgotten what you learned at the academy, Sherlock?”

The fat man with the diamond ring had sat down at one of the tables with Cleyde. They were drinking champagne. She had found a better sucker.

Rosalvo looked at his watch.

“Go talk to the senator. I want guarantees. The transfer to Vice has got to be published first, in the daily bulletin from HQ. I get a month for the transfer. That’ll give me the time to fuck up the inquiry.” As he was saying this, he thought regretfully that he had done something stupid by running to Mattos with the news that he had located José Silva. But for everything in life there was a remedy.

“Now get lost. I’ve got other things to take care of.”

Teodoro left. Rosalvo went to the table where Cleyde and the fat guy were.

“Beat it,” said Rosalvo, sitting down beside the fat man and showing his ID with the word POLICE in red letters.

The fat man rose, startled.

“You shouldn’t be up this late. . Pay your bill and go home. Your old lady’s waiting for you.”

Rosalvo took Cleyde by the arm. The orchestra was playing a bolero; he liked boleros.

As they danced: “Is that fat guy a butcher?”

“He said he’s an accountant.”

“An accountant of sirloins and T-bones.”

“I didn’t know you were a policeman.”

“Now you know. The face doesn’t always match the heart. That’s the crux of it.”

“My boyfriend is coming to pick me up at the end of the evening.”

“Give him his walking papers. Like a good pimp, he knows better than to eat off someone else’s plate; he’ll pull in his horns.”

IN THE EARLY HOURS THAT NIGHT, General Zenóbio da Costa had arrived at the Catete Palace to confer with President Vargas in his office on the second floor. Also present was General Caiado de Castro. Zenóbio had come to bring the president word of the extraordinary meeting of the Army High Command.

“The High Command asked me to reiterate to Your Excellence the army’s firm commitment to safeguard and defend our institutions,” said Zenóbio.

Vargas found the High Command’s guarantees ambiguous. “The office of president of the Republic is a democratic institution. Does the High Command have that in mind when it speaks of safeguarding and defending institutions?”

Zenóbio hesitated before answering.

“The High Command didn’t go into specifics.”

“Was the attack on Major Vaz discussed at the meeting? And the unjust attacks I’ve been receiving from the opposition?”

Zenóbio continued to vacillate. “No, not during the meeting. It was discussed informally earlier, before the meeting began. Fleeting comments.”

“Such as?”

“About the uneasiness among the personnel in the air force.”

“The army has never given any importance to uneasiness in the air force,” replied Vargas. “Or in the navy, which is the oldest and most traditional armed service. The army is the army!”

“Beyond a doubt, Mr. President.”

“Can we count on all the generals in the High Command?” asked Vargas.

“Yes, Mr. President.” Zenóbio’s broad, expressive face pathetically betrayed his nervousness.

“General Caiado?”

“Uh, I didn’t take part in the meeting of the High Command, but I share the secretary’s point of view,” Caiado replied.

As he said goodbye, before leaving in the company of Caiado de Castro, General Zenóbio added:

“Your Excellence’s measure of dissolving the personal guard was well received.”

Vargas didn’t answer. The general left and the president remained seated at the small desk on the second floor, looking out into the darkness through the windows of his office. That same day he had received, in the afternoon, the visit of Vice President Café Filho; the secretary of justice and internal affairs, Tancredo Neves; the secretary of education, Edgard Santos; the secretary of health, Mário Pinotti; the secretary of labor, Hugo de Faria; and Governor Amaral Peixoto. With the exception of the expression of Peixoto, who was his son-in-law, and that of Tancredo, in which he noticed primarily nervousness, in the face of all the others he had detected the same thing he had seen in Zenóbio’s: indecision.

TEODORO TELEPHONED Senator Vitor Freitas.

“You told me to call you at home if I had any important and urgent information.”

“I’m listening.”

“I don’t think it’s good to talk on the phone.”

“Come by the house, 88 Praia do Flamengo, corner of Ferreira Viana. Seabra Building.”

Teodoro knew where the Seabra was located, one of the best known residential buildings in the city. One of his dreams was to live in that building of black granite. It’s a funny world, he thought.

“Want something to drink, Teodoro?”

“No, thank you, sir.”

“I’m going to have some scotch; don’t you want to join me? I called my adviser Clemente to hear your story, and while we wait for him—”

“Well, if you insist. .”

In the spacious living room was a bar, with a carved wood counter on which stood countless bottles. While Freitas prepared the drinks, Teodoro contemplated the room’s décor. He had never seen anything like it.

“Do you like the decoration?” asked the senator, extending the whiskey on the rocks to Teodoro.

“Very pretty,” said Teodoro.

“The motifs are Tunisian. Do you know Tunisia?”

“I’ve never been out of Brazil, Senator.”

“The fashion these days is to decorate in the American style, a thing of unbearably bad taste. Ah, the Brazilian bourgeoisie! First it was everything French, now it’s everything American. Americans are the most vulgar people in the world. They have no history, no culture, nothing but money. But Tunisia. . You’ve no doubt heard speak of Carthage, an empire founded by the Phoenicians thousands of years ago. .”

“Ah. . Yes, sir. .”

“Unfortunately, today it’s a French colony. And the French, like all colonizers, have done nothing but try to destroy the cul—”

The doorbell cut short the senator’s digression. It was Clemente.

“I waited for you to get here,” said Freitas. “As yet I don’t know what Teodoro has to tell us.”

Clemente made himself a drink. They sat on one of the sectional sofas in the living room.

“You may speak, Teodoro,” said Freitas. He and his adviser were in a good mood.

Teodoro cleared his throat. He didn’t know where to begin.

“Go ahead, Teodoro. What are you waiting for?”

Awkwardly, Teodoro related the conversation he’d had with Rosalvo.

As he spoke, his listeners began to display signs of growing nervousness. Clemente went to the bar and brought back a bottle of whiskey. He and the senator served themselves several times. The senator’s expression turned gloomy. Drops of sweat covered his forehead.

“Can we believe what that Rosalvo says, his promises?” asked Clemente.

“I think he’d do anything, anything, to get transferred to Vice,” replied Teodoro.

“But first he’ll have to hand over the merchandise. Tell the cop those are my conditions. He’s the one who’s got to trust me, not the other way around.”

The senator’s voice sounded slurred. Saliva had accumulated at the corner of his mouth, which he wiped as it began running down his chin. “Did the cop by any chance mention my involvement in the corruption of minors?”

“No, sir,” said Teodoro vehemently.

Clemente noticed that the senator’s intoxication might lead him to commit other imprudent acts. Whenever he drank a bit too much, Freitas lost control.

“You may go, Teodoro. We’ll talk later,” said Clemente, taking Teodoro by the arm and leading him out of the room.

Freitas was pouring himself another shot of whiskey when Clemente returned.

“I don’t give a shit about the Cemtex case,” said the senator. “My worry is that murder investigation. Could it be the thing with the super?”

“I don’t know. It might be. . and it might not be. It might be the death of Paulo Gomes Aguiar. Inspector Ready-to-Wear is investigating that case.”

“What the shit is this Inspector Ready-to-Wear business?”

“It’s because he buys his clothes off the rack.”

“You made that idiotic comment before. You have the habit of underestimating people. It would be ideal if the murder Teodoro mentioned were that of Paulo. I wasn’t even in Rio that day; I was in the North making political contacts. It would be ideal, ideal.” Freitas filled his glass nervously, without putting ice in the drink.

“The inquiry into the super was shelved,” said Clemente.

“But not closed. One of these days someone will reopen it. .”

“They’re looking for a robber.”

“It was a blunder to kill that old fool.”

“It was your idea, dear man.”

“Mine? You’re crazy!” shouted Freitas.

“Want me to remind you how it all happened, Vickie?”

“Don’t be sarcastic. Who are you to be sarcastic with me?”

“You came home drunk late one night from your garçonnière in Copacabana with a friend, and in a burst of passion, inside the elevator, knelt to venerate Priapus.”

“Bastard!” Freitas tried to strike Clemente, who pushed him away violently, causing him to fall onto the sofa. Freitas sat there, gazing stupidly at his shirt wet from whiskey spilling from his glass.

The incident to which Clemente referred had occurred more than a year earlier. The superintendent of the building had entered the elevator and caught Freitas in his libidinous act. Disgusted, he said he was going to call a meeting of the owners and ask that Freitas be expelled from the building for indecent behavior.

“The son of a bitch was watching me,” lamented Freitas as he tried to dry his shirt with a handkerchief he took from his pocket.

Freitas had telephoned Clemente saying he was ruined politically and that they had to do something. Clemente had gone to the superintendent’s apartment, saying that he worked with the senator, asking that nothing be done; he guaranteed that Freitas would move out the next day. The superintendent had replied that Freitas was scum, a disgusting pederast whose sinful behavior had transformed a family building into Sodom. Clemente had offered him money to forget what he’d seen. The old man had indignantly refused Clemente’s “filthy proposal,” saying he was a Protestant pastor and that Freitas had to pay for his sins. As soon as the superintendent said he was a preacher, Clemente had killed him, strangling him.

“I never told you to kill the guy.”

“You faggot, I did the dirty work you didn’t have the courage to do, and now you want to wash your hands of it and toss me into the fire? I’ll take you down with me.”

“I don’t want to hear it. Shut up.”

The old man lived alone. After killing him Clemente had turned the place upside down so that the police would think the crime had been committed by a robber. He had taken the man’s Bible with him, filled with notes in the margins. When he got home he had urinated on the book’s pages, for several days, until the ink of the words scribbled by the pastor had become illegible blots. Clemente’s father, whom he hated in life and went on hating after he was dead, had also been a Protestant pastor.

“I still have the super’s Bible, all shitty. I’m going to bring it here and rub your nose in it.”

“You’re a blasphemer, a nihilist, a monster.”

“That’s not what you said that day. You took my hands and said I had strong hands, and then you kissed and licked my hands like a bitch. I let you do it in spite of the disgust I felt: the pleasure of witnessing your debasement was greater than my repugnance.”

“That’s enough, Clemente, please, I’m going to end up fighting with you.”

Along with the spilled drink, sweat was soaking Freitas’s shirt. His flushed face had taken on a grayish pallor. “We have to kill that inspector. You can do that, I know you can.”

“The super was an old man of eighty. It was easy. That son of a bitch, besides being a cop, is probably younger than I am.”

“Younger? Then he’s still a boy. .”

“Suck-up.”

“You look like a teenager. . I swear it! You don’t have a wrinkle in your face.”

Clemente went to the bar, served himself a liqueur of pitanga, a specialty sent from the North by a rancher, boss of the senator’s largest bloc of voters. He took a small mirror from his pocket and looked at his face, enraptured.

“Don’t exaggerate. . Teenager is overdoing it. .”

Freitas rose from the sofa with difficulty, walked unsteadily to the bar. He tried to hug Clemente, who with a movement of his body evaded his embrace, causing Freitas to fall.

The senator rolled on the floor, his eyes closed, seeking a less uncomfortable position. In a short time he was snoring with his mouth open, before the disapproving gaze of his adviser.

AT EXACTLY THAT HOUR, 2:15 a.m., when Senator Vitor Freitas was starting his alcoholic sleep on the floor of his residence, the journalist Carlos Lacerda was arriving at the Cavalry Regiment of the Military Police, on Rua Salvador da Sá, accompanied by an enormous retinue that included lawyers, reporters, the chief of police, Inspector Pastor, and various army, naval, and air force officers. Army Colonel Florêncio Lessa, commanding officer of the regiment, was waiting for Lacerda and his group.

Lacerda was there to identity his attacker from among the members of the personal guard. Or attackers, as he stated, contradicting Inspector Pastor’s conclusions. Lacerda disliked Pastor and had written in his newspaper that the police, and the inspector himself, who headed the investigation, had floated the hypothesis that it had been he, Lacerda, who killed Major Vaz. One of the questions the inspector had asked the garage man at the building was whether there had been an argument between Major Vaz and Lacerda. To the journalist, the authority leading the inquiry was duty-bound to examine all hypotheses, but given the evidence of the crime having been perpetrated by third parties, with witnesses and strong clues, such “monstrous speculation” was unnecessary and the inspector’s suspicion was incomprehensible.

Pastor also disliked Lacerda. The tense relationship between the two was ceremonious but hostile.

At 2:30 a.m., forty-six members of the presidential personal guard arrived at the barracks.

“The full complement of the guard is eighty-three men,” said Major Enio Garcez dos Reis, chief of the Catete Palace police, who accompanied the president’s personal guards. “But given the sudden call-up asked of me, I was only able to locate forty-seven men.”

Someone questioned whether the number making up the personal guard was two hundred and not eighty-three, as Major Enio claimed.

Faced with these affirmations, the major explained that the number of effectives was eighty-three, but admitted the existence of a supplementary contingent of an additional one hundred and seventeen men.

In groups of five, the guards paraded in front of Lacerda and the authorities who had accompanied him.

It was four a.m. when the inspection ended. Two guards had been called aside by Lacerda.

“I recognized in Antonio Fortes Filho,” said the journalist, “the physical type that most resembled the short, fat individual who was posted at the corner of Paula Freitas and Tonelero. And in José Pombo Pereira, known as Pombo Manso, the individual most resembling the one who shot the major.”

THE BEGGAR RUSSO, arrested by officers of the air force, indicated the person who had bought the revolver he had found on Avenida Beira Mar on the day of the assassination, an employee of Standard Esso. He and the beggar were brought face to face in the offices of the national aviation authority. The weapon was confiscated.

ten

DAY WAS BEGINNING TO BREAK when Climerio abandoned his small place in the country, Happy Refuge, carrying a small suitcase with clothes, a few papers, a revolver with six bullets, and the fifty-three thousand cruzeiros Soares had given him two days earlier when he met with him in Republic Square downtown, beside the Campo de Santana. The money had been picked up by Valente from Gregório’s drawer in the Catete Palace, following the orders of the head of the personal guard himself. Valente had charged Soares with getting the money to the fugitive.

Before leaving, he watered his fruit trees and the small garden where he grew kale, tomatoes, pumpkins, and manioc. Whenever he visited the farm, he watered the plantings daily, even on days when atmospheric conditions presaged rain.

He fed the three hogs.

He arrived, exhausted, at nightfall, at the farm of his friend Oscar Barbosa, on Taboleiro Hill, in the Tinguá mountain range.

Oscar and his wife Honorina were sitting at the table, having dinner, when they were surprised by the arrival of Climerio.

Climerio said he’d got into some trouble in the capital and needed a place to hide.

Oscar didn’t ask what his friend’s troubles were and invited him to sit and share with them the corn mush and beef they were eating.

After eating, Oscar told Climerio that the following day he would take him to hide out in a shack in the middle of a banana grove in the mountains. In the shack was only an old mattress, but he would be safe there and no one would find him. Daily, either Oscar or Honorina would take food to him.

FREITAS WOKE UP ON THE FLOOR to a light touch on his shoulders. The pantryman, bending over, asked: “Are you all right, sir?”

The senator looked at his wristwatch. Half past noon.

“I’m fine. Go run my bath.”

The pantryman, whose name was Severino, a poor young man of twenty-two, accepted the senator’s rude treatment without complaining. His salary and the tips he got when the senator was in a good mood helped to support his widowed mother and his eight younger brothers and sisters back in Caruaru, Pernambuco.

He ran the hot bath, dipping his elbow in the water in the tub to check that the temperature was as the senator demanded. He placed two large fluffy towels and the newspapers on a small bench next to the bathtub.

The senator himself sprinkled aromatic bath salts into the water. “If there are any calls, tell them I left for the Senate.”

The hot water enveloping his body gave him a feeling of well-being. He clutched between his fingers the rolls of fat of his belly. He had to do something to get rid of those undesirable accumulations of adipose. Exercise, diet, anything. He would like to have a belly like Lomagno’s, hard-muscled and well defined. Clemente, his adviser, had once had such a belly, but the sedentary life he was leading had left his body more and more flaccid. He made a mental note that he needed to get rid of Clemente. The adviser had gone from merely impertinent and inopportune to dangerous. But it was necessary to carry out the operation with great skill in order to avoid irritating him and provoking an unreasonable reaction.

He picked up the newspapers. No confirmation of the rumors circulating in the Senate, that Getúlio Vargas, in an effort to divide the armed forces, had named General Zenóbio da Costa to replace Air Force Secretary Nero Moura, who had waffled on the open insubordination of those under his command. Secretary Nero Moura had emphatically denied the phrase attributed to him in Última Hora that Major Vaz had not been killed as an officer of the air force. The secretary was obliged to deny this, whether he had said it or not, and could not repeat what supporters of Getúlio were spreading around the city, that Vaz was a kind of hired gun for Lacerda and had been killed as such. In the Chamber, Deputy Ivete Vargas, grandniece of the president, had asked, “Why are those guarding the president called gunmen and those guarding Lacerda called friends?”

Cardinal Jaime de Barros Câmara had sent a message to Brigadier Eduardo Gomes. It said: “With the thought of the generous traditions of the Brazilian people, formed by the stimulus of Christian civilization, it is directed to priests of all Brazil, through their most excellent bishops, the request that on the same day and hour they unite in prayer for the soul of the sacrificed aviator, a sincere Catholic, raising prayers to God for the conciliation and peace of the Brazilian family.”

The senator was convinced there was a well organized campaign under way to discredit Vargas, in which participated the church, sectors of the armed forces, elements of the business community, opposition parties, and the press. The more mud thrown onto Vargas, the better. Earlier, it was shady dealings of members of the administration that were denounced. Now, it was crimes. In January 1920, according to newspaper reports, Getúlio Vargas, with his accomplice Soriano Serra, were said to have killed Tibúrcio Fongue, chief of the Inhacorá Indian tribe. The inquiry had been quashed. Facsimiles of pages from the various inquiries were reproduced in newspapers. In 1923, Vargas, still with the complicity of Soriano Serra, was alleged to have murdered the engineer Ildefonso Soares Pinto, the secretary of public works of the then governor, Borges de Medeiros. “Soriano was arrested, but the other assassin, Getúlio Vargas, remains free to this day.”

“Vargas’s past is marked by monstrous crimes. Still a boy, he had already committed homicide,” said the Tribuna da Imprensa. In Ouro Preto, in Rio Grande do Sul, three were said to have been “slaughtered by the Vargas men and their hired guns”: the student Almeida Prado, the medical doctor Benjamim Torres Filho, and Major Aureliano Morais Coutinho. “All were killed under conditions of treachery similar to the ambush on Rua Tonelero.” The Vargas gunmen, it was alleged, “ripped Major Coutinho apart in the middle of the street after a savage mutilation of his body.” All these accusations were corroborated by a mass of documents reproduced in the newspapers.

Ripped apart. Treacherous ambush. Savage mutilation. Lacerda knew the power of words, thought Freitas; he had a good schooling in the Communist Party, where he’d been the young leader of a group known as Red Aid. An interesting path from exalted sectarian communist to reactionary Host-eating UDN leader, even more fire-breathing. In both factions he had proven unequaled in the creation of incendiary slogans. Such as “the Rat Fiúza,” which had destroyed the aspirations of the Communist Party candidate in the 1946 presidential elections, and now the “sea of mud” catch phrase that had discredited the Vargas administration.

As always, Freitas read carefully what Lacerda wrote in his paper. General Ancora, previously accused by the journalist of trying to impede the uncovering of the facts of the attack, had been fired by Getúlio and was now seen by Lacerda as a man of honor. Ancora was characterized, in Lacerda’s version, as one sacrificed because of his righteous conduct. Ancora’s removal was deemed as one more example of the “monstrous deception commanded by Vargas to shield criminals.” Lacerda insinuated, between the lines, that those behind the assassination could be the president’s brother, Benjamim Vargas; his son, deputy Lutero Vergas; the all-powerful industrialist Euvaldo Lodi; and Vargas himself — the latter, in the best-case hypothesis, being an accessory after the fact.

At the same time it was now useful for him to praise General Ancora, in another part of the newspaper Lacerda praised the new head of the DPS. Lacerda was a master of intrigue, thought Freitas, he managed to conceal with the brilliance of his oratory the enormous, sometimes cynical, contradictions of his political opportunism. The journalist was running for federal deputy in the October elections; if his election was assured before, the attack would surely make him the biggest vote-getter in Rio, maybe in the entire country. Giving power, however little, to a man with that terrible eloquence was very dangerous. It would have been better if Lacerda was killed rather than his bodyguard. Getúlio Vargas, with his old-school, monotonous, and prudent oratory, had succeed in dominating the country for a long time; what wouldn’t Lacerda do with his incendiary intelligence and his ability to use words, like no other politician in Brazilian history, to persuade, deceive, excite, mobilize people? His newspaper articles and his radio talks in recent days had led the government to place thirty thousand soldiers on ready alert just in Rio de Janeiro.

In the paper was a picture of Colonel Paulo Torres, the new chief of police. Torres had commanded, till then, the Third Infantry Regiment, quartered in the São Gonçalo district. He was forty-two, had served with Zenóbio in the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in Italy during the Second World War, and had been awarded a metal for bravery. He had been a military attaché in Rome, Paris, and London. He also had a law degree. In Brazil, everybody has a law degree, thought Freitas, including himself.

Freitas was friends with the brothers of the new head of the DPS, Acúrcio Torres, majority leader in the Chamber of Deputies in the Dutra administration, and Alberto Torres, current leader of the UDN in the legislature of the state of Rio de Janeiro. Could appointing a chief of police with family ties to the UDN be a fainthearted concession by Getúlio? Or evidence that Capanema, when he said “the president of the Republic has no desire to see this crime go unpunished,” was speaking the truth? Or both? Getúlio both innocent and fearful? It would be interesting if true.

The senator liked Capanema, an ingenuous sort who had been discredited by accepting the role of government leader in the Chamber. A man of integrity, cultured, unjustly accused of graft and stupidity: of stupidity because he had been secretary of education under the Vargas dictatorship. Every education secretary in Brazil, however intelligent, ended up being called stupid; it was a kind of curse. He, Freitas, would never accept that cabinet position.

One news item was read by Freitas with irony. The publishers of the newspapers — Elmano Cardim, of the Jornal do Comércio; Roberto Marinho, of O Globo; João Portela Ribeiro Dantas, of the Diário de Notícias; Carlos Rizzini, of Diários Associados; Chagas Freitas, of A Notícia; Othon Paulino, of O Dia; Paulo Bittencourt, of Correio da Manhã; Macedo Soares, Horácio de Carvalho Júnior, Danton Jobim and Pompeu de Souza, of the Diário Carioca—had obtained the right to have an accredited representative participate in the Rua Tonelero inquiry. Those scoundrels actually believed in the advantageous myth, which they themselves had invented, that the press was the fourth branch of government. Shrewd, the Crow — Freitas rarely referred to Lacerda by the nickname used by Vargas partisans, but that news item had turned him against all journalists — the Crow, even being the publisher of a newspaper, had refrained from signing the petition. But he didn’t need to do so; the military who now were in control of the police investigation of Rua Tonelero were all Lacerdists. Lacerda was running the inquiry. The name of Samuel Wainer, publisher of Última Hora, was also missing from the list. Perhaps he hadn’t been invited by his peers. As if the signers of the document were attempting to demonstrate by the exclusion of Wainer and Lacerda the independence of their proposal. Two factious, antagonistic currents were clashing, and the press had chosen its side.

Freitas imagined the success of Lacerda’s inflammatory phrases at the Lantern Club meeting scheduled for that evening at the Brazilian Press Association: “Only dictators and despots protect themselves with hoodlums and thugs; Vargas’s personal guard is an affront to legal order, a disrespect for our people; Vargas will be deposed for the blood he has shed.”

The newspapers said further that José Antonio Soares, the railroad worker and friend of the personal guard Climerio Euribes de Almeida, had disappeared from his residence at 29 Padre Nóbrega, in the Cascadura district, after receiving a package from his lover Nelly Gama. In fleeing, Soares, whom the police believed to be the gunman who had shot Major Vaz, had left behind nine thousand cruzeiros, which indicated his haste. The police, under the command of Commissioner Hermes Machado, had invaded Soares’s dwelling and found only his mother and the children, terrified at the police paraphernalia. The inspector had seized Soares’s correspondence with the famous Barreto, a notorious swindler locked up in the penitentiary. In one letter, Barreto authorized Soares to receive fifty percent as an advance on the sale of fifty jeeps.

Suddenly an item, almost at the end of Lacerda’s article, sent a tremor of cold and fear through Freitas and made him turn on the hot water faucet: “I called Inspector Pastor three times without having the honor of his visit.” Lacerda, alleging that his attackers were three rather than just one, as Pastor said, wanted to confront the inspector with his testimony. Pastor’s name brought to Freitas’s mind once again, in a disturbing association, another pastor, the nosy fundamentalist that had caught him in a vexing situation, and another cop, Inspector Mattos. He left the bathroom, feeling chilled. He was in danger and needed to do something. He dressed quickly and got into the official car awaiting him at the door of the Seabra Building.

He entered the Senate chamber at the moment the Brazilian Workers Party leader, Senator Carlos Gomes de Oliveira, was defending the government. What was lamentable in the Tonelero episode, the PTB leader said, was the desire of certain extreme elements, who, mixed with communist exploitation, sought to involve the armed forces in an attempt to have them depose the president of the Republic. It was an unfolding of events whose outcome no one could predict.

Getúlio was ill served by leaders like the PTB senator, Freitas thought. That same day he began to make contacts with the PSD congressional bloc with the objective of probing the opportunity and the advisability of a change of direction. Supporting a corrupt and weak government had yielded him much good business. But now it was time to jump ship.

A PANTRYMAN OPENED THE DOOR to Luciana Gomes Aguiar’s apartment.

“I’m Inspector Mattos. Dona Luciana is expecting me.”

Mattos didn’t remember seeing the pantryman when he was at the apartment the day of the crime.

“Are you new here?”

“Yes. All the help is new. Except the cook. I’ll let Dona Luciana know.”

It took Luciana almost ten minutes to appear. She was dressed as if ready to go out, carefully made up, wearing jewels. She had a folded paper in her hand.

“Counselor Galvão told me you had some questions to ask me. Please have a seat.”

“I thought he would be present.”

“I didn’t consider it necessary.”

As soon as the inspector sat down, a pantry maid appeared, carrying a tray with coffee and sweets.

“You may leave it on the table, Mirtes.”

The maid placed the tray on a table and left. Luciana put the paper she was holding beside the tray.

“Sugar?”

“Yes.” He shouldn’t drink coffee; it would increase his hypochlorhydria. He stared at Luciana’s lovely hand stirring the cups.

“Dona Luciana, did Mr. Galvão speak to you about what the doorman Raimundo told me? That you had instructed him not to mention the visit to your apartment, the night of the crime, by a black man?”

Luciana lightly raised the cup to her lips. “I was trying to protect my husband. Foolishness on my part.”

“Protect him how?”

A resigned sigh. “From ridicule. Paulo was a very superstitious man. . At times he would receive a. . visitor. . who would come to the apartment to do some macumba work. . Since I don’t believe in those things, I asked Paulo to receive that individual when I was at our country home in Petropolis. That’s what happened that day. That, that—”

“Macumbeiro.”

“—macumbeiro, had known Paulo for many years. He wasn’t the one who killed my husband, I’m sure of that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I didn’t want it coming out in the papers that my husband was given to such vulgar practices.”

“He may be your husband’s killer. You’ve made us waste many days of investigation.”

“Why would he do something like that? My husband gave him all the money he asked for. Mr. Galvão said a thief killed my husband.”

“You said nothing was missing.”

“When I saw you, I hadn’t done an inventory of things that disappeared. There was a lot of jewelry. I have a list of it here.”

She handed the inspector the paper beside the tray.

“The only jewels left are these I’m wearing, which I had taken with me to Petropolis.” Mattos put the paper in his pocket.

“Do you know where I can find that macumba priest?”

“All I know is that he lives near Caxias, where he has a macumba site.”

“Do you know his name?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t.”

AT THE MEETING of Aeronautics Club members held that Tuesday, instead of the four hundred officers at the August 6 meeting, there were more than two thousand, from every branch of the armed services. The attendance of higher-ranking officers — generals, brigadiers, admirals — had surprised everyone present.

Brigadier Eduardo Gomes spoke and received a standing ovation. His words were moderated compared to those of other military men who spoke. “In the sacrifice of this fearless life is symbolized the devotion of the military to the truths most dear to our civilization. It honors the glorious memory of Major Vaz. Let us pray that God will receive him in the peace of the just.”

Maritain was quoted by Major Jarbas Passarinho: “When authority loses its character of legality, it is not he who rises up against it who is illegal, but rather he who bows down to it.”

The military man has a single commitment, that of maintaining and defending the Constitution at the sacrifice of his own life, stated Brigadier Godofredo de Faria, who accused the executive power of extremism, the legislative power of sitting on its hands, and the judicial power of absenting itself. “We do not want to be mercenaries for a perverse and traitorous government. We generals are not complying with our duty. Let us be worthy of the uniforms we wear.”

The division of the country into forces that defended corruption, robbery, and assassination and forces that defended dignity and the fatherland was denounced by Colonel José Vaz da Silva, who appealed for unity among the armed forces to “crush the rattlesnake that has bitten the country for twenty-five years. We shall not hide behind some vague principle of indiscipline. Indiscipline was the movements of the Seventh of September, the Fifteenth of November, and the Twenty-ninth of October in our nation.” October 29 marked the day Vargas was forced to resign, in 1945, in a military coup led by the then secretary of war, General Góes Monteiro. Vaz da Silva concluded his words with an entreaty to Brigadier Eduardo Gomes to once again feel the youthful ecstasy that had impelled him to march from Copacabana Fort in 1922.

Colonel Adyl, who had solicited the secretary of justice to confer police power on the air force men who were taking part in the Tonelero investigation, listened ill at ease to Air Force Colonel Ubirajara Alvim declare, in a fantastic and unlikely account, that he had dressed as a tramp to investigate on his own and had arrested Tomé de Souza, brother of Nelson Raimundo de Souza, who drove the car of the killer. Tomé, it was alleged, had told him that the crime had been ordered by Deputy Lutero Vargas. “It is essential to arrest that music-hall deputy.” His testimony created a sensation among those present.

The only voice raised in defense of the government, received with cold hostility, was that of Air Force Colonel Hélio Costa. The death of Major Vaz, according to the colonel, had provoked spurious demonstrations; when he was killed, Major Vaz was not carrying out an official mission, nor was he in uniform; the offense of the murder hadn’t been directed at the air force; adventurers were trying to lead the armed forces to disorder and indiscipline.

The grumbles following Hélio Costa’s words were replaced by applause when an army captain, after terming as unquestioned leaders Brigadier Eduardo Gomes and General Juarez Távora, exclaimed: “Let us leave to our chiefs the hour of decision!”

Finally, the assembly resolved to invite the lawyer Evandro Lins e Silva to lend legal assistance, as part of the prosecution, to Major Vaz’s family.

AROUND MIDNIGHT, Senator Freitas received a phone call from a “palace friend,” saying that President Vargas was rumored to have met secretly that night with his family and some close friends, among them his son-in-law Amaral Peixoto and Secretary Oswaldo Aranha, in his daughter Alzira’s apartment on Avenida Rui Barbosa. The objective of the meeting was to discuss the political situation in the country. The meetings held that morning between the secretaries and the Army High Command were discussed. Vargas was thought to have said that he considered the situation grave and added that he would resign, if necessary, to avoid a civil war in the country. The consensus among those present had been that the president shouldn’t give in to the government’s political enemies pushing for a coup.

“Thank you, Lourival,” said Freitas, hanging up the phone.

eleven

ALICE AND PEDRO LOMAGNO lived in a spacious mansion on Avenida Oswaldo Cruz that had belonged to his father.

Alice was first to arrive at the breakfast area. The pantryman, as always, had set the table for two and was serving Alice when Lomagno entered. He was dressed for tennis and had a racket in his hand. He greeted Alice, kissing her affectionately on the cheek, put the racket away on the buffet, and sat down on the opposite side of the table.

“Has the Correio da Manhã arrived yet?”

“Yes, sir,” answered the pantryman. “I’ll bring it right away.”

The pantryman brought the newspaper. Lomagno picked up the silver coffeepot and placed it in front of him. He folded the paper and rested it against the coffeepot. He read as he spread jam on a piece of toast.

From the other side of the table, Alice saw only her husband’s forehead and carefully combed hair. Lomagno folded and unfolded the paper several times as he ate, looking for items that interested him, without even once glancing at his wife. When he finished, he rose from the table, picked up the tennis racket.

“I may have to make a trip abroad.”

“May I ask where you’re going?”

“Europe.”

“Europe has lots of countries.”

“France. Any more questions?”

“Are you taking that woman?”

“What woman?”

“You know very well what woman.”

“I’m going by myself.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Have you been to the doctor this week? Are you taking your medicines?”

“I’m fine.” Pause. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

“What is it, dear?”

“I told that police inspector friend of mine that you were Luciana Gomes Aguiar’s lover.” Alice’s voice quivered.

Lomagno spun the handle of the racket in his hand, as tennis players do. But his expression remained impassive.

“I didn’t know you had police inspector friends,” said Lomagno calmly.

“Alberto Mattos. He was my boyfriend.”

“Ah, yes, I know.” Lomagno knew that Mattos was investigating the murder of Paulo Gomes Aguiar. He looked at Alice, interested in seeing the reactions on her face.

“Where did you two meet?”

“At his apartment.” The tremor in her voice had subsided, now that she was taking revenge against her husband, and she felt pleasure in it. She would feel even greater pleasure if he lost that disturbing tranquility.

“What did he say? The policeman? Did he ask any questions?”

“No.”

“Are you going to see him again?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re an idiot. Why’d you do such a thing?”

“He asked if a Negro frequented our house,” exclaimed Alice, hoping without reason to destroy the control displayed by her husband.

Lomagno turned his back on Alice and left without looking back.

LUCIANA GOMES AGUIAR was waiting for Lomagno at the Country Club, in Ipanema, seated at one of the tables around the pool, dressed for tennis. Luciana was nervous, as they had agreed after Gomes Aguiar’s death to go a few days without seeing each other and had merely spoken by phone.

“I paid the doorman not to say anything, but the fool couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”

“Love, I had told you we could use the macumba priest as cover.”

“Can he be trusted?”

“The rabble can’t ever be trusted. There’s only one type of people worse than the rich: the poor.” Many nouveaux riches were emerging in society, and Pedro and Luciana detested the vulgarity of those arrivistes.

“It so happens that the macumba priest is a blunderer incapable of keeping dates straight. Remember, he was in your apartment the night before, on the 30th. It’s easy to confuse things; I’ll take care of that. I’m going to see the inspector. I think the time has come to face him. I’ll confirm to him the story of the macumba priest. If necessary, I’ll speak of Alice’s health problems. .”

“But we have to get rid of that doorman. Chicão can handle that. He adores you, he does anything you ask. .”

“I’m going to call him now,” said Lomagno. “We can’t waste any time.”

Lomagno returned after a few moments.

“Everything’s taken care of. Now let’s play our match.”

“Today I’m going to beat you,” said Luciana.

“No doubt. You’re getting better all the time. But don’t think for a minute that I’m going to throw the match.”

Having found a solution to the problem, they turned their attention to the center tennis court, which had been reserved for them.

EVERY TUESDAY Salete would go downtown to look at the displays in the high-fashion shops. Though some of the dresses in the A Imperial and A Moda caught her attention, she only tried on a little jersey dress she saw in the window of A Capital. But she felt the dress looked better on the mannequin than on her body.

“I know my face is ugly, but I have a perfect body. If this dress looks bad on me, just imagine the average woman.”

“Your face is also very pretty,” replied the saleswoman.

“I have a mirror at home, dearie, so don’t think that by flattering me you’re going to sell this dress with a defect in the sleeve. As a saleswoman you should’ve seen that.”

“It looks very nice on you,” said the woman, ignoring Salete’s aggressive tone.

“You really think so?”

“It’s wonderful on you.”

Salete tried several poses in front of the mirror before deciding to buy the dress. Happily carrying the brightly wrapped package from the shop, taking care to avoid wrinkling its contents, she walked to the minibus stop in Carioca Square, a short distance from A Capital. She boarded the first one for Copacabana. While the vehicle remained at the stop, waiting for passengers, Salete looked out the window. Across from her was a low-end fabric shop. A woman was coming out of the shop. When she saw her, Salete, frightened, ducked down in the seat, her head almost touching her knees. She felt dizzy, as if about to faint. It can’t be her, she thought.

She cautiously raised her head and took another look. The woman was standing there, as if she didn’t know where to go. It was her, all right, the wretched woman hadn’t died! My God, she’s blacker and uglier than ever!

Finding out that her mother was still alive made Salete’s heart ache with unhappiness. What if Luiz saw her? Worse yet, what if the black woman were to show up someday in front of Alberto and say, “I’m Salete’s mother”? She crouched down again in the seat, afraid her mother would look toward the bus and see her inside.

The bus finally pulled away, heading for Rua Senador Dantas. When it stopped at the corner of Evaristo da Veiga, Salete kneeled on the seat and looked back. Relieved, she saw that the ghost of her mother had disappeared. A tall, muscular black man carrying a package crossed the street, signaling to the bus driver. He got on and took the only empty seat, in the rear, having to bend over to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling.

Until a few minutes earlier that man had been in the Cassio Muniz store, where he had bought, on the installment plan, a.32-caliber Smith & Wesson, for 520 cruzeiros a month, and a French MAB pistol, 7.65, with a ten-bullet clip, for only 220 a month. The total price didn’t matter; credit accounts were invented precisely so no one would have that type of concern. He had thought of also buying a Winchester.22 carbine but decided against it. He already owned a 12-gauge shotgun, a veritable lethal jewel with silver engraving on the butt and the breech housing.

Chicão — that was the Negro’s name — had been contracted by Pedro Lomagno to kill Raimundo, the doorman at the Deauville Building. He planned to do so that evening. But first he would take the firearms he had bought for temporary storage in the home of a woman he slept with from time to time, on Rua Almirante Tamandaré, not far from the Deauville.

CHICÃO HAD MET PEDRO LOMAGNO in January 1946, at the Boqueirão do Passeio club on Santa Luzia. Two years earlier he had been drafted into military service and incorporated into the Ninth Engineering Battalion, one of the first units of the FEB, the Brazilian Expeditionary Forces, to go to Italy, in July 1944, and one of the last to return, on October 3, 1945. He had risen to the rank of corporal. Chicão had enjoyed the war. He’d never eaten so well in his life; the Brazilian soldiers had access to the abundant resources and services of the American Fourth Army. The rations, the cigarettes, and everything else he received facilitated his relationship with the Italian ragazze. For a pack of cigarettes or a chocolate bar he had gotten some good pieces of ass. The possibility of dying didn’t worry him, and after seeing two comrades die beside him, one hit by mortar fire from the tedeschi and the other blown apart by a booby trap, without anything happening to him, Chicão had come to the conclusion that he was invulnerable. His athletic build had led to his being called to serve as sparring partner for American colleagues and take part in boxing exhibitions. He had fucked and boxed and disarmed landmines and not caught gonorrhea like everyone else and all that without breaking his delicate white man’s nose and without getting blown apart: yes, the war had been a good thing. People died suddenly in war, but didn’t they also die that way in São João de Meriti, where he lived?

Demobilization and the return to Brazil had been the worst thing ever to happen to him. He soon spent the money he had saved and needed to find a job. Before being drafted, Chicão had worked in construction. But now he considered that service unworthy of a man with his experience. A former private, a comrade from his regiment, told him the Boqueirão do Passeio club was looking for a boxing instructor.

He appeared at the club wearing a wool-lined American military jacket and black ankle-high boots with thick laces and soles of hard rubber that he called batbut, the combat boot of the field uniform worn by enlisted men. Along with a German steel helmet and a Walther pistol, the boots and the jacket were his trophies of war. After a quick interview with Kid Earthquake, a former Rio de Janeiro middleweight champion who ran the Boqueirão do Passeio boxing school, Chicão was hired. Two days later, he and Pedro Lomagno became acquainted. Lomagno had decided to learn to box, and the club was conveniently near the office of his father’s coffee exporting firm, on Avenida Graça Aranha, where Pedro was doing an internship in preparation for one day taking over the businesses of the elder Lomagno.

Pedro and Chicão were the same age, twenty-two. Each immediately felt an attraction to the other. Lomagno, who was a taciturn and introverted youth, admired Chicão’s enthusiasm and joie de vivre. Chicão respected the education, wealth, and whiteness of the other man.

For a year, they saw each other three times a week at the gym. Despite the intimate relationship established between them, they never socialized. Pedro’s parents would not have accepted a friendship with a Negro, and his friends would have thought it quite strange if he showed up with Chicão at the elegant parties he frequented. With the death of his father, Pedro Lomagno assumed the family business and stopped going to the Boqueirão. But that didn’t mean he abandoned his friend. He hired Chicão to oversee the coffee warehouse in his firm, on Avenida Rodrigues Alves. But Chicão lacked the necessary qualities for that job. Lomagno gave him the money to open his own boxing school. After some months of loss, and feeling uncomfortable asking his sponsor for more money, Chicão decided to close down the school. Pedro Lomagno, who missed the boxing matches because his body was starting to acquire an undesirable flaccidity around the waist, appeared at the gymnasium in the Rio Comprido district the day that Chicão was removing from the façade the plaque bearing the name Brazilian Boxing Academy.

“What happened?”

“I failed. I’m not even making enough to pay the rent on this damned place.”

“You should’ve talked to me.”

“I was too embarrassed.”

Lomagno went into the gymnasium. It was six p.m., and the space was dark. A single lightbulb, at the entrance to the dressing room, was burning.

“Turn on all the lights,” Lomagno said.

The ring, official size, stood out in the middle of the gym.

“You got trunks and gloves for me?”

“Here there’s everything you need. Even helmets.”

“Let’s fight without helmets.”

They fought vigorously, until Lomagno tired. It had been a long time since Lomagno had felt that sensation of well-being.

“I was missing that.” The two were naked, in the dressing room. The nudity of the sweating muscular bodies imparted a sense of confidence, partnership, complicity. They went into the shower. The water made Chicão’s body even blacker. In contrast, Lomagno’s skin, even after the violent exercise, continued pale, as if his powerful muscles were made of marble.

“Ask the owner of the gym how much he wants for it. I’m going to buy it for you.”

“It won’t do any good to buy it. Know how many students I had? Two.”

“How many would you like to have?”

“At least twenty.”

“You’ve got the twenty.”

“I do?”

“I’ll be your twenty students.”

Chicão bought the gymnasium, with money lent by Lomagno. They made an agreement: Chicão would have no other students. Twice a week, Lomagno would leave his office in the afternoon, without telling anyone where he was going, to train at the gym, now deserted and closed, on Rua Barão Itapagibe, in Rio Comprido.

NOW, IN THE BUS, Chicão was thinking of the phone call from Lomagno and making his plans for that night. What Lomagno had asked of him was a piece of cake; anybody could do it with one hand tied behind his back.

He let the bus pass Rua Almirante Tamandaré and got out at Rua Tucumã. He walked past the seat where Salete was sitting, without looking at her; immersed in her concerns, she in turn failed to notice him.

He went up Tucumã to Rua Senador Vergueiro, from which he continued to Machado Square. He knew no one was following him, but he acted as if that might happen. From Machado Square he went to Almirante Tamandaré.

His friend Zuleika was at home. He asked her to store the package.

“What’s in it?”

Chicão opened the package.

“What you want those weapons for?”

“I like looking at them. I think everybody who was in a war ends up liking guns.”

“I get the creeps just looking at them. Wrap them up again.”

Chicão asked Zuleika if he could borrow her car that night.

“What you gonna do with the car? Some woman?”

“You’re my woman,” said Chicão, picking up his friend and carrying her to the bed.

“What’s that mark on your chest? It looks like a bite.”

“It is a bite. I was fighting, in a clinch, and the other guy bit me.”

“Weird. .”

In bed, Zuleika forgot about the bite. Chicão could stray once in a while as long as he was in love with her as he was that day.

Chicão went out to do some shopping, and when he returned, with a small suitcase, it was already night.

“What do you have in there?” asked Zuleika, who was a curious woman.

“They’re barbells,” said Chicão, sticking his hand in the suitcase and taking out two ten-pound weights.

Zuleika took one of the weights in both hands. “What a heavy thing. What are they for?”

Chicão picked up a barbell in each hand and began to open and close his extended arms, exhibiting his strength. Then he grabbed both weights in one hand and easily raised them over his head.

“Don’t you think there’s better ways of working off energy?”

“Aren’t you the little devil, eh, Zuleika?”

Chicão placed the barbells back in the suitcase, carefully closing it. He didn’t feel like fucking again, but he needed the car, and when Zuleika took off her clothes the desire came.

AT ALMOST ELEVEN P.M., Marshal Mascarenhas de Morais, chairman of the armed forces Joint Chiefs of Staff, received a telephone call from a member of the general staff, Brigadier Neto dos Reis, asking permission to come to his house accompanied by Deputy Amaral Peixoto and General Juarez Távora, superintendent of the Superior War College and a member of the Joint Chiefs, to discuss a matter of the utmost importance, relating to the political crisis the country was experiencing. Marshal Mascarenhas agreed to the request. He then phoned General Humberto Castello Branco, also a member of the general staff, who had been part of the general staff in Italy, relating the call he had received and asking that he, Castello Branco, come to the house to witness the meeting Brigadier Neto dos Reis had requested.

Upon returning from Italy in July 1945, where he had commanded the Brazilian Expeditionary Force, Mascarenhas had suffered various setbacks. On October 29 of that year, his friend Vargas was deposed; General Gaspar Dutra, who had been Vargas’s secretary of war and with whom Mascarenhas did not have a good relationship, was elected president in the elections of December 3 and took office on January 31, 1946. On top of that, Góes Monteiro, his enemy, was appointed secretary of war. No command was offered him, which obliged him to retire. Thus, on August 27, 1946, his transfer to the reserves was published in the Diário Oficial.

After seven years in the reserves, the marshal had been appointed by Vargas as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In that capacity he conferred weekly with the president, as well as presiding at the meetings of the JCS.

At the meeting requested by Neto dos Reis, the marshal was told that Vargas was said to be thinking of handing over the reins of government to General Zenóbio, according to information leaked from the palace.

The one who answered the deputy and the generals there to sound out the marshal was General Castello Branco, a short man who, like his superior Mascarenhas, seemed to lack the minimum height demanded by military regulations to serve in the army. Castello Branco said, and none of his interlocutors had the courage to disagree, that if the president resigned, it would not be a general who should assume the office but the legal replacement, the vice president.

twelve

IT WAS SHORTLY PAST MIDNIGHT when Chicão asked his friend Zuleika for the keys to her car.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back. Don’t wait up for me.”

“You didn’t tell me what you’re gonna do.”

“I’m taking a big shot to get his rocks off with a girl at the Hotel Colonial, on Avenida Niemeier. He tells his old lady he’s going to São Paulo and heads there to get some strange. I think he’s afraid to go to that neighborhood by himself. I don’t know if he’s planning to spend the night with the woman. If he does, I won’t be back till morning, I’ll be waiting in the car for him. Satisfied? Later, me and you’ll split the money the guy’s giving me. I’m taking the black suitcase. The barbells are for him.”

“The guy needs barbells to screw the woman?”

“The world’s full of rough people, love.”

At the wheel of Zuleika’s old Armstrong, Chicão stopped in front of the Deauville. Raimundo was in the reception area. It was still too early to do the job. Chicão started the car and went to Machado Square, parking near the trolley stop.

He walked to the Lamas restaurant, crossed the long room among tables almost entirely occupied, toward the rear where the pool tables were.

No pool table was vacant. Kinda busy for late Wednesday night, thought Chicão. For a time he watched the players and the kibitzers. He liked watching people, they were so much alike and at the same time so different. During the war he had lived for a long time among men wearing the same olive drab uniform, using the same slang, cracking the same jokes, seeking the same pleasures, feeling the same fears, and yet he’d been able to perceive that the differences among them were greater than the similarities. He’d spoken with Lieutenant Lobão, but the lieutenant had replied that all men were basically the same. The lieutenant didn’t know anything. He was like Zuleika, who after listening, without understanding the first damned thing he said about it, had replied, “The habit doesn’t make the monk.”

He asked one of the kibitzers loitering around one of the tables if he wanted to play.

“I’m broke,” the guy said.

“I’ll pay for the hour.”

They played, without betting.

“You play good,” said Chicão, who, his mind on the job he was going to do, had paid little attention to the game and even so had won one match.

“I once beat Carne Frita. You know who Carne Frita is, don’t you?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“I swear, the same one. It came down to the seven ball. People crowded around to watch.”

“Was that here, in the Lamas?”

The guy hesitated.

“Uh. . No. . Downtown. . At the pool hall on Tiradentes Square.”

Chicão placed his cue on the green felt of the table.

“If you beat Carne Frita, I’m a monkey’s uncle.”

Carne Frita’s phony opponent looked at Chicão as if about to say something, but then desisted. The black man was very large, and beneath that soft voice lurked something very bad. He lowered his eyes and chalked his cue.

The clock on the wall read 1:15. It’s showtime, thought Chicão.

He got in the car and returned to the street where the Deauville was located. He chose a spot distant from the lampposts. He took from the glove box a wide strip of cloth that he wrapped around his neck. He stuck his right arm inside the strip.

He got out of the car. He knocked on the building’s glass door. Raimundo, the doorman, came to open the door, indicating that he had recognized him.

“I’ve got a suitcase in the car for Dona Luciana. You could be a big help by grabbing the suitcase for me. I can’t take my arm out of the sling. I think it’s broken.” He grimaced. “It’s hurting like hell. I’m going from here to the emergency room for the doctors to take an x-ray.”

Raimundo followed Chicão to the car.

“It’s on the back seat.”

Raimundo looked at the suitcase inside the car.

“It’s better if you get inside to grab the suitcase.”

Using his left hand, Chicão awkwardly opened the car door.

“If I had to earn a living using my left hand, I’d have to be a beggar.”

“You could be a doorman. To be a doorman all you need is more patience than a whore working a retirement home.”

They both laughed. Raimundo felt like telling the black man that the police were after him, but why get involved?

Raimundo bent over and got into the car. Chicão entered behind him.

Throwing his heavy body on top of the undernourished, fragile skeleton of the Northeasterner and grabbing him forcefully by the neck, Chicão immobilized him. If anyone had passed by at the moment, they would not have heard even a moan or noticed any movement of dark shadows thrashing about in the car. The only sound heard seemed to be that of a popsicle stick snapping. It was Raimundo’s neck bones being broken in the hands of Chicão.

The street was empty. The windows in the buildings, dark. Chicão had killed Raimundo in less than two minutes.

Leaving the dead man’s body in the rear seat of the car, Chicão leaped into the front seat and set out on the journey he had planned for that night. Part of the trip could be made more quickly on a stretch of the Rio-São Paulo highway, but he didn’t want to risk being stopped by a routine highway patrol inspection.

So he chose a route that was more roundabout but safer. He filled the gas tank at a gas station on Avenida Brasil. The station attendant saw the dead man lying on the back seat and thought he was sleeping. Chicão drove through São João de Meriti, a city where he had lived for so many years, then to Nilópolis, and from there to Mesquita.

In Mesquita the car stalled and was slow to restart. In Nova Iguaçu a tire blew and changing it with the motor running took enormous effort. When he arrived in Queimados, Chicão stopped outside a tire repair shop with the intention of fixing the blowout but preferred to go on; it was better if his presence were not noticed in those areas.

He arrived in Engenheiro Pedreira and at once saw the river. It was four a.m. He stopped the car in a vast deserted plain, partially covered by low scrub vegetation. He turned off the lights, leaving the motor running. When his vision adapted to the darkness, he took the body from the car, tossing it onto a pile of grass. He got the suitcase and placed it on the ground beside the corpse. From inside the suitcase he removed a long flashlight, turned it on, and stuck it in his mouth, clutching it between his teeth; he needed his hands free for the work he was about to do. From the suitcase he removed a small hatchet, a canvas bag reinforced with metal eyelets, a rope, and a small cloth sack.

He stripped the body and examined it to see if it had any birthmarks or scars. Discovering nothing, he used the hatchet to cut off all the dead man’s fingers, without feeling the slightest pity, for the son of a bitch was causing a lot of problems. He placed the fingers, counting them one by one, in the small cloth sack. He prudently counted the fingers again, having no wish to lose one of them at that spot. With all ten fingers secured in the sack, Chicão stashed them in his pants pocket. He took off his shirt, placed the canvas bag around his neck like a gigantic napkin, and kneeled beside the cadaver.

He aimed the beam from the flashlight in his teeth at Raimundo’s bony face. With a face like that, the guy was never going anywhere in life. Where was the best place to start? He turned the body face down on the ground and with the hatchet began to strike the part of the neck directly below the hair.

Chicão had never beheaded anyone and didn’t expect so much work for something so simple.

The bastard, besides puncturing a tire and running down the battery, had a neck like ironwood. The rage he felt toward the dead man amplified the violence of the blows. An especially fierce stroke, at the same time it severed the head, made it turn around, and Chicão saw for the last time, illuminated by the flashlight beam, Raimundo’s dirty face, separated from his trunk.

“No-good fucker,” Chicão tried to say, but his tongue, pinned by the flashlight in his mouth, emitted an unintelligible sound that seemed the growl of a dog.

He removed the bag he had used as a bib to avoid covering himself in blood. He grabbed Raimundo’s head, stuck it into the bag. He took the corpse by the legs and, dragging it to the riverbank, pushed it into the water. The corpse floated for a few seconds and then sank. But Chicão knew that, with the gases forming in the intestines, the body would return to the surface somewhere.

He took the barbells and the rope from the trunk. He put the barbells in the canvas bag, along with the severed head.

The beam from the flashlight was beginning to weaken. He strung the rope through the eyelets, closing it with a tight knot.

Not even the devil’s going to untie that knot, he thought, swinging the bag over his head and hurling it into the river.

Simultaneous with the sound of the bag hitting the water, the flashlight went out for good. He removed it from his mouth and tossed it into the river.

On the return he thought about spreading the fingers along the streets, at intervals of five kilometers, but he remembered the story of Hansel and Gretel throwing bread crumbs in their path and, without knowing exactly why, decided to keep Raimundo’s fingers in his pocket.

After Queimados he took the Rio-São Paulo highway. He no longer feared running into the highway patrol. The day was beginning to dawn. He liked seeing the sunrise. In Italy he had seen beautiful dawns, but none as lovely as those of his country, none as beautiful as that day.

CHICÃO STOPPED at an automotive repair shop on the highway and told a mechanic to fix the car. He arrived in Rio after eleven a.m. He got stuck in traffic downtown, in front of Candelária church.

A crowd was surrounding the church.

“What’s going on, officer?” Chicão asked a policeman who was trying to organize traffic.

“The seventh-day Mass for the soul of Major Rubens Vaz,” the cop said.

The Mass was being celebrated by the Bishops Hélder Câmara, Jorge Marcos de Oliveira, and José Távora. From the number of official cars, Chicão concluded that the church must be packed with high authorities.

The Mass ended. The crowd around the church increased.

A taxi, with an enormous loudspeaker on its hood, positioned itself in front of the crowd, on Avenida Rio Branco. A voice from inside the vehicle blared: “As happens with all Brazilians, my heart is filled with sadness and revolt. Brazilians, democracy is impossible in our country as long as that aged dictator occupies the presidency. Getúlio’s hands are stained with blood. Only a revolution can bring back decency, dignity, and honor to Brazil. Only a revolution can end this sea of mud. For alderman, vote for Wilson Leite Passos. For federal deputy, Carlos Lacerda!” In the car, giving the speech, was the alderman candidate himself.

Chicão, in his car, surrounded by a crowd that swelled by the minute, followed the taxi with the loudspeaker, which moved ahead slowly. The shouts from the crowd drowned out the discourse coming from inside the taxi.

At Marechal Floriano Square, in front of a building housing a campaign office of the UDN, the crowd stopped, yelling even louder.

Suddenly, the clamor from the crowd ceased. Its attention, now silent, had turned to the window of the second floor, the site of Wilson Leite Passos’s campaign headquarters. At the window was a man they all knew.

“Lacerda!” someone screamed, a bellow that seemed to pierce the square from end to end.

The crowd immediately began shouting the name of Lacerda, who gestured with both hands for silence.

“I ask all of you to go home,” Lacerda shouted through a loudspeaker. “Disorder in the streets helps only the murderous oligarchs who are in power.”

The shouts from the crowd drowned out his words. The national anthem was played through the loudspeakers, replacing Lacerda’s inaudible words, but the crowd’s wrath did not subside. In a rage, it surrounded a PTB propaganda car, yanking from the wheel a man who said he was Aires de Castro, president of the Metalworkers Union. In a few moments, the car was set on fire.

The popping sound of teargas grenades was heard. The square was quickly invaded by shock troops from the special forces, who stood out in their red berets; they began dispersing the crowd with blows from their batons. A tank, from the Military Police barracks on Evaristo da Veiga, entered the square, hitting the demonstrators with powerful jets of water. People running, protecting their eyes from the teargas bombs, fell and were trampled; the police violently dispersed anyone within reach. Cries of terror were heard. Demonstrators were dragged to patrol wagons parked on Rua Treze de Março. When the police action ceased, the now empty square held the wounded, lying on the ground or being helped by frightened individuals. All that could be heard were moans and brusque orders from the police.

Chicão watched it all from his car parked on Avenida Rio Branco, undisturbed. He’d seen worse things in the war. What was happening neither interested nor moved him. All politicians were corrupt, and those who weren’t thieves, if such existed, were liars. And the imbeciles who went into the streets to cheer on politicians deserved just what they were getting, whacks on the head.

He amused himself during the scrambling of demonstrators and policemen by throwing Raimundo’s severed fingers out the window; pieces of finger were supported on Chicão’s index finger, then propelled by his thumb as if he were shooting marbles.

After taking a shower at Zuleika’s, Chicão called Lomagno’s office, as they had agreed.

“All done, sir. I followed the plan.”

“Where are you?”

“At a friend’s place.”

“Where?”

“Almirante Tamandaré.”

“Leave. Get out of the South Zone. When I can, I’ll look for you at the gym.”

PRESIDENT VARGAS, accompanied by Deputy Danton Coelho, left Rio at 8:45 a.m., on a Brazilian Air Force plane, headed to Belo Horizonte to inaugurate the new Mannesmann steel mill.

“Everything’s calm,” declared Secretary Tancredo Neves to the press, at the airport.

After the inauguration of the mill, at a luncheon at the Palace of Liberty with Juscelino Kubitschek, governor of Minas Gerais, Vargas stated that he would not permit the agents of mendacity to lead the country into chaos. While he was installing factories for the economic emancipation of Brazil, his adversaries were trying to install disorder in the streets to enslave the people to their hidden interests. He wasn’t thinking, had never thought, of resigning. He was the legally elected president and planned to serve out his term to the end and not a minute longer.

A slip of the tongue from someone who had always been accused of not wanting to relinquish power. Vargas should have said, under the circumstances, that he intended to serve out his term to the end and not a minute less.

“I’ll preside over the elections,” said the president in his speech, “assuring the free manifestation of the right to vote, offering broad guarantees to the people to choose their representatives. Contrary to what the agitators and rumormongers disseminate, I do not consider the regime threatened. Men pass on, Brazil goes on.”

TAKING ADVANTAGE of the Marechal Floriano incidents, UDN deputies took the floor in the Chamber to accuse the government.

Maurício Joppert: “The people are in the streets seeking punishment of the criminals, demanding justice. We have now, more than ever, to demand the resignation of the president of the Republic from the office he has failed to honor.”

Herbert Levy: “The conclusion is unmistakable and obligatory: no further sifting of facts is needed. The moral responsibility of the president of the Republic is definitive.”

Bilac Pinto: “The president of the Republic can and must resign as the coauthor of the homicide of Major Vaz.”

Tristão da Cunha: “The president of the Republic is rendered morally impossible of presiding at this inquiry, given the suspicions that fall on his excellency and persons of his family. In conditions far less grave than these, Pedro I abdicated and Deodoro resigned.”

Afonso Arinos: “Resignation is the solution that will fend off the possibility of subversion, anarchy, and a coup.”

IN COMMISSIONER RAMOS’S OFFICE, this conversation took place between Inspectors Mattos and Pádua:

“All we have to do is lean on the fucker, and he’ll spill his guts,” said Pádua.

“We’re not going to do that,” said Mattos.

“The guy shows up at your home to kill you, and you come up with these idiotic scruples? It’s not only your life that was threatened. It was the life of every one of us. We have to make an example of him. These fuckers have got to learn that anybody who lays a finger on us dies like a mad dog.”

“Stop talking nonsense, Pádua.”

“See how he talks to me!” The muscles in Pádua’s arms were pulsing.

Ramos furrowed his brow as if concerned about the harsh discussion between Mattos and Pádua. Actually, he was quite happy; he detested both inspectors and would have loved to see them, like in a cowboy movie, kill each other simultaneously. But, unfortunately, Mattos would doubtlessly not be carrying his gun. So then, let Pádua kill Mattos, mused Ramos.

“Pádua, I don’t want to fight with you. I really don’t.”

“You’re an idiot,” sighed Pádua. “I don’t know how you’re still alive.”

“We’re going to have to let the man go,” said Ramos.

The commissioner had waited a long time for such a situation, one in which he could make the correct decision that infuriated Pádua and harmed Mattos, at least in theory, for the outlaw that Mattos had caught was obviously dangerous.

“He’s been held since day before yesterday,” continued Ramos, “without being charged. In fact, the guy isn’t guilty of anything. There wasn’t, strictly speaking, a home invasion, according to the report Mr. Mattos himself made. The most we can charge him with is carrying a weapon and send him away.”

“If it goes to trial he’ll get off or be fined two hundred cruzeiros, which is more probable,” said Pádua.

“The law is meant to be obeyed,” said Mattos.

“All right. Whatever you two want,” agreed Pádua. “I don’t want to fight with you either, Mattos.” Pause. “On second thought, you’re right. Us cops have to follow the law.”

Pádua patted Mattos’s arm. “You forgive me?”

“I apologize too,” said Mattos.

“Associating with you is going to end up making me into a bleeding heart,” said Pádua.

“Phone call for you, Mr. Mattos,” said the guard, entering the room.

“Who is it?” asked the inspector.

“Somebody named Lomagno.”

The inspector took the call in the reception area.

“Mattos speaking.”

“My name is Pedro Lomagno.”

“Go on.”

“I’d like to talk to you.”

“Come by the precinct tomorrow. I go on duty at noon.”

“It’s urgent.”

“Then come now.”

Mattos sensed a slight hesitation at the other end. “I. . uh. . have problems here at the firm, I don’t know what time I’ll be free. Could you maybe come to my office? It’s a matter that concerns you. That concerns us.”

Mattos embraced Pádua as he said goodbye. “I have to go out.”

“Keep your eyes open, man,” said Pádua affectionately.

Thirty minutes later, the inspector arrived at the offices of Lomagno & Company, on Avenida Graça Aranha.

The city was calm, the only abnormality was the presence, on almost every downtown corner, of open vehicles of the special forces, full of men in khaki uniforms and red berets.

A secretary showed the inspector to Pedro Lomagno’s office.

The two men were seeing each other for the first time. Mattos, who as a cop had acquired the habit of looking people directly in the eye, examined the face, the clothes, the abundant slicked-down hair, the athletic built that his elegant suit didn’t conceal, the powerful hand with long pale fingers of the man who had married his old girlfriend. He only didn’t see the eyes, for Lomagno pretended to arrange some papers on his desk.

“Please sit down,” said Lomagno, still arranging the papers.

He’s taller than me. Has all his teeth. Good health, thought Mattos.

“I don’t know where to begin,” said Lomagno, sitting on the other side of the desk.

Lomagno had rehearsed with Luciana the conversation he would have with the inspector, but he had become dominated by a sudden nervousness that he couldn’t control and that the other man must surely be noting. He felt hatred and fear of the policeman sitting in front of him. His opening sentence struck him as good justification for his uncertainty.

“I don’t know where to begin,” Lomagno repeated.

Mattos remained silent, observing the other man. Elusive green eyes, no wedding band, he’s uncomfortable in my presence. He doesn’t know where to begin, because he’s going to lie? Or because he’s going to tell the truth?

“It’s about my wife.”

Silence from Mattos.

“About Alice.”

Silence.

“She told me to get in touch with you.”

Silence.

“What did she say to you?”

“I’m here to listen.”

“It’s very hard for me to say what I have to say.”

Silence. Alice when she was with him used to say similar things, thought Mattos.

“Alice isn’t well, she’s sick, undergoing psychiatric treatment.”

Silence.

“She told me she contacted you, told you that I. . uh. .”

Silence.

“. . that I was Luciana Gomes Aguiar’s lover.”

Silence.

“That’s nothing but a morbid hallucination on the part of my wife. Paulo was my best friend, and I hope that you, who are investigating his murder, find the guilty person soon.”

Silence.

“She was already interned in Dr. Eiras’s hospital.”

Silence.

“I didn’t want to commit her, but the doctor said it was necessary.”

“Can you give me the doctor’s name and address?”

“I have his card here.” Lomagno picked up a card from the desk and handed it to Mattos, who put it in his pocket unread.

“Do you know Lieutenant Gregório?”

“What?”

“Lieutenant Gregório, head of the president’s personal guard.”

“No.”

Well, well, thought Lomagno, relieved, the cop thinks the Negro referred to by Alice and the doorman is this Gregório. He had to check himself in order not to show his satisfaction.

Mattos’s misconception gave Lomagno the courage to observe, openly, the policeman who was interrogating him. What could a refined and elegant woman from a good family, like Alice, have seen in the guy? Actually, Alice had never been a person with a lot of good sense.

“I don’t know that gentleman personally, only by name. The one who knew him well was Paulo. It seems that Lieutenant Gregório helped him obtain — overcome certain, uh, bureaucratic difficulties. You know how it is. .”

“Be more specific.”

“You know what Brazil is like.”

“I don’t know. Tell me.”

“If you had an import-export business you’d know.”

“But I don’t.”

“To import or export anything you need a license from Cexim. It’s not easy to get. Often the cooperation of an influential friend is necessary. Lieutenant Gregório helped Paulo get an. . important. . license for his firm, Cemtex, in which I also am a partner. For Brazil to grow, businessmen need to humble themselves by asking favors.”

“Did Gregório frequent the home of Paulo Gomes Aguiar?”

“I can’t say. I do know that they met a few times. . They had a good relationship. . I wouldn’t call it a friendship. . Yes, I believe that gentleman did go to Paulo’s house, sporadically. .”

“Dona Luciana told me her husband was in the habit of using the services of a macumba priest. That individual would have been in their home the day Gomes Aguiar was killed.”

“It’s true. Paulo often consulted him. I thought it strange that an intelligent person like Paulo would believe in such a fraud, a confidence man who exploits people’s superstition. I don’t think he’d be capable of committing violence.”

“Do you know him?”

“I went to his macumba site in Caxias once, with Paulo. Strictly out of curiosity.”

“Could you give me the address of that site?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t know it. I don’t even know how to give you correct information about the locale. But I can take you there. I think that by going to Caxias, I can end up finding the place. I remember a bar, things like that can orient me.”

“Would it be possible tomorrow?”

“I believe so.”

WHEN HE LEFT LOMAGNO’S OFFICE, Mattos’s stomach ached terribly. He had a doctor’s appointment for that afternoon. From the Mineira milk bar, on Rua São José facing the Cruzeiro Gallery, he phoned the doctor and canceled the appointment. He drank half a liter of milk and left to catch the streetcar at the Tabuleiro da Baiana; it had been years since streetcars went to the Gallery.

In the streetcar, on his way to the Dr. Eiras clinic, the inspector thought about the interview he had conducted moments earlier.

Lomagno was very uneasy at first; by the end, very calm. Was he getting used to the lie he was telling, or to the truth? The story about the macumba priest might be true. And also what Lomagno had told him about Alice. That thought made his stomach and his heart ache, hindered his reasoning, prevented the cop from thinking clearly about the role of — not Gregório yet, it was still too soon! — of the mysterious black man. Alice mentally ill. He hadn’t perceived that when they had been together. How could such a beautiful woman be ill? No, he would not allow his lucidity to be compromised by irrelevant doubts: the Negro was Gregório, he was more and more certain of it. The F for Fortuna engraved in the gold ring. Then why was he, who liked repeating Diderot’s maxim that skepticism was the first step toward truth, now full of certainty? Alice’s illness again. Alice. He remembered his mother’s sister, who wasn’t right in the head, telling him — just when was it? — that she’d seen sputum on the sidewalk and had stood there mentally repeating to herself, “Do I lick it or not?” Knowing there were several crazy people in his own family, he considered it possible he himself might suffer a psychotic episode. Possible, but not probable. In any case, he hoped never to come to having an irresistible urge to lick someone’s spit off the sidewalk.

Arnoldo Coelho, Alice’s psychiatrist, had worked for a time at the Asylum for the Criminally Insane and received the inspector graciously. Nevertheless, he only agreed to speak about his client when Mattos, after explaining he was investigating a homicide, guaranteed that the information he provided would remain confidential.

“She suffers from manic-depressive psychosis.”

“Can you give me more details about the illness?”

“Falret called it circular insanity; Baillarger, biform psychosis; Delay, alternating-type madness; Magnan, intermittent psychosis; Kahlbaum, typical circular vesania; Kraepelin was the first to use the terminology manic-depressive psychosis. Kretschmer—”

“Doctor, I can’t take anymore hearing about those Germans whose names all begin with K. In the police academy I studied judiciary psychology, legal psychiatry, forensic medicine, criminal anthropology. It nearly killed me.”

They laughed.

“Was your professor Alves Garcia?”

“I wish. I wasn’t that lucky.” Pause. “Doctor, tell me about Alice.”

“When she’s in her manic phase, she has an irresistible need for movement. She’s ironic, really biting. She has frenzied ideas, with vertical rapid associations. She compulsively writes page after page in her diary. She behaves prodigally. On one occasion she gave me a gold watch. A Vaucheron Constantin. Of course, I returned the watch.”

“She keeps a diary?”

“Yes. But I didn’t read it. In her depressive phase she becomes very apathetic. She once went into a stupor. That was when we had to hospitalize her.”

“Are there any medicines?”

“Yes, medicines exist. Manic-depressive psychosis is curable, but not all patients have the same positive response. Alice’s is, shall we say, a more difficult case. She’s very intelligent, as occurs in fact with many of these psychotics, and she’s cooperating rather well. Whenever she comes to the hospital — Alice knows when she’s having an episode — I tell her, ‘Stick out your tongue.’ If she does, I know she’s in her manic phase; if she doesn’t, she’s in the depressive phase.”

“Does she hallucinate?”

“No. Let’s say she has illusions, at the height of the episodes. Hallucination is perception without an object. Illusion, the deformed perception of the object.”

“What kind of illusions?”

“Some ideas of persecution, transitory and epiphenomenal.”

IN THE MORNING, while the president was in Belo Horizonte, General Zenóbio conferred at length with General Caiado de Castro at the Catete Palace. The main topics aired were the disturbances in Marechal Floriano Square, the gathering of military officers at the Aeronautics Club, and the interrogation of Lieutenant Gregório in the barracks of the Second Military Police Battalion.

In the afternoon, Zenóbio, the secretary of war, called a meeting of seventy-three generals serving in the capital, among them General Estillac Leal, who had come from São Paulo especially for that purpose.

No general was willing to make a statement to the press following the meeting.

Later, at about seven that night, a note would be distributed: “At the meeting today, at which were present all the general officers serving in this capital, along with the army general in command of the Central Military Zone, Estillac Leal and his Chief of Staff General Floriano Keller, the following position, arrived at yesterday by high-ranking officials of the three armed forces, was reaffirmed: to persevere in the goal of investigating the criminal action that culminated in the assassination of Major Rubens Florentino Vaz, to effect the trial of the criminals by the justice system, and, furthermore, to remain, under any circumstance that may occur, within provisions imposed by the Federal Constitution.”

GREGÓRIO HAD BEEN INTERROGATED at Galeão air base for eight hours. The main interrogators had been Inspector Pastor, Prosecutor Cordeiro Guerra, and Colonel Adyl. Several air force officers were also present.

Gregório had said that he had eighty men under him in the personal guard, each of whom earned five thousand cruzeiros a month. He earned ten thousand. The monthly outlay of the personal guard came to five hundred thousand cruzeiros. He was sleeping when they called to inform him of the attack. He didn’t attribute the slightest importance to it and went back to sleep. The next day he learned greater details. He had assumed it was a personal matter and not political. It had never crossed his mind that one of his men might be involved, which is why he didn’t bring the fact to the attention of the head of state or General Caiado de Castro. Later, he had been surprised to learn that Climerio had been involved in the attack.

At the end of the interrogation, Gregório had felt ill. He was taken under escort to the Galeão hospital, where military doctors confirmed that his health was good.

THAT NIGHT, when he arrived at the Deauville Building, Pedro Lomagno had the street door opened by a new doorman.

“Please, sir, who are you visiting?”

“You’re new here?”

“I work in the garage. I’m sitting in for Raimundo.”

“Dona Luciana Gomes Aguiar is expecting me. I’m Pedro Lomagno.”

Luciana opened the door with a champagne glass in her hand. She embraced Lomagno tightly, biting his ear.

Lomagno moved his head away. “How long have you been drinking?”

“I feel so happy, so happy. I think the last time I felt this happy was when I was six years old. Remember I told you about it? The time my mother gave me that doll? Didn’t I tell you about that? I didn’t want to wear braces.”

“You told me. How long have you been drinking?”

“Since the time you called me to say the cop thought the Negro — but it wasn’t because of that. I’m happy because I love you. .”

Luciana picked up the bottle and filled two glasses. They were in the spacious living room of the Deauville apartment.

“It’s better if you stop for a while.”

“Everything’s turning out right, my love. Don’t you feel freer? Freer than ever? Oh. . I was forgetting Alice. You poor thing, having to carry all that weight.”

Lomagno took the glass from Luciana’s hand. “Stop for a while.”

“Let’s get Alice out of our way too. In any case, a crazy woman like her won’t be missed. You deserve to be happy, we deserve to be happy. I want to be happy!”

“Don’t cry, Luciana.”

“My father didn’t love me, my mother didn’t love me.”

“No child loves its parents.”

“That’s what I meant to say.”

“Give me that bottle.”

Luciana clutched the bottle tightly. Her face was contorted.

“Crazy people throw themselves under trains, jump out of windows, drink ant poison, set fire to their clothes, slash their wrists, put a bullet in their head. Why doesn’t Alice do any of those things? Do you still love me? Then prove it, go on, fuck me, kill Alice, fuck me first, now.”

The bottle slipped out of Luciana’s hands, shattering on the floor.

Lomagno picked her up in his arms and carried her, moving slowly, carefully climbing the stairs to the bedroom on the upstairs floor.

Before arriving at the bedroom, Luciana had fallen asleep. Lomagno laid her down on the bed. He stood there for several moments, looking at his lover as if she were a stranger.

Leaving the lamp on, he left the bedroom and walked, curious, through the ample apartment. The quarters formerly occupied by servants were empty. None of the help any longer slept at the apartment. “I don’t want anyone watching me,” Luciana had said.

Finally Lomagno stopped, pensive, in a room that had originally been planned as a nursery and now served as a storage area. He opened the window and let in fresh air from the sea.

A good place for a punching bag, he thought.

LATE AT NIGHT, Inspector Pádua entered the precinct lockup.

“Ibrahim Assad,” he shouted.

Assad approached the bars.

“You’re being let go,” said Pádua.

“At this time of night?”

“Your habeas corpus just came down.”

The only ones on duty in the precinct at that moment were Pádua, Detective Murilo, who had worked with Pádua for years, and the lockup guard.

Pádua, accompanied by Murilo, took Assad to the empty Robbery and Theft office.

“Where’s my lawyer?”

“There isn’t any lawyer, no fucking habeas corpus. I’m going to waste you,” said Pádua. “But if you tell me why you wanted to kill Inspector Mattos, I might spare you.”

“You’ll forgive me, but I can’t say, Mr. Pádua.”

The prisoner’s calmness impressed the inspector.

“Why can’t you say?”

“I’d be discredited, sir. I have a name to defend.”

“Ibrahim? That’s a name to defend?” Murilo laughed.

But Pádua remained serious. This guy wasn’t just some two-bit loser.

“Exactly. You understand these things. I’m better known by the nickname Old Turk.”

“The Old Turk?” said Murilo, admiringly.

“No wonder I suspected something when I saw your ID card. .” said Pádua. “Old Turk. . I’ve always wanted to meet you, Old Turk.”

“Good thing you’ve heard of me. Then you know it’s not possible for me to do what you ask, sir. I can’t, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t rat — and I don’t want to. Please, don’t waste your time.”

“You understand that you’ve got to die, to serve as an example?”

“I do understand, sir. I know how life is,” said Old Turk stoically. “It was written the day I was born that I would die.”

“You killed a lot of people. What’s the fastest and most painless way?”

“In the back of the neck. Holding the barrel steady. What in the old days they called the coup de grace.”

“Good. Shall we have some coffee?”

“Can you do me one favor?”

“Yes, what is it?”

“To call my mother and tell her to pick up a deed I left at the public registry in Caxambu. I bought a small house for her and the dear old lady doesn’t know it yet. It was for her birthday, day after tomorrow.”

“Give me the phone number, and I’ll call her.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Old Turk knew that Pádua would honor his word. The three of them drank coffee from a thermos. Afterward, they left by car.

thirteen

PÁDUA SPENT THE RAINY MORNING in his office, flexing his arm muscles and thinking. He phoned Old Turk’s mother as agreed. A promise was a promise, even when made to an outlaw.

“You worried, boss?” asked Murilo, who rarely saw Pádua so somber.

“No,” replied Pádua.

However, Pádua was very worried. He regretted having killed Old Turk. In the past he had regretted not having killed someone. But for having killed, it was the first time. It had been a mistake to liquidate Old Turk. Old Turk was an expensive gunman who usually worked for politicians, plantation owners, and others with financial resources. Now it was impossible to find out who had hired him to kill Mattos. There was some bastard in the city with the balls to order a police inspector killed; the fucker had to be identified. How? How? On top of everything, now he couldn’t warn that idiot Mattos, saying “Know who Ibrahim Assad was? The famous Old Turk, the biggest hired gun in the country. Somebody with a lot of green wants you dead.” Mattos was nuts; if he knew that he, Pádua, had killed Old Turk, he’d immediately open an inquiry, saying in that damned way of his, “Very sorry, Pádua, but you broke the law.” What important interests could Mattos be bucking, who had Mattos gotten riled up to cause such a strong reaction? Pádua, mistakenly, lost no time thinking about the arrest of Ilídio. Numbers bigwigs don’t have policemen killed. Someone else was behind it.

Mattos arrived at the precinct shortly after eleven in the morning.

Pádua turned over the blotter to Mattos.

“Anything important?”

“Nothing. Just routine.”

“Are you feeling all right?”

“I’ve got a slight headache. Oh yeah, I was forgetting. I released that itinerant peddler that you arrested.”

“What peddler?”

“That guy that entered your apartment. A third-rate burglar who got the wrong address. I think he learned his lesson.”

“He wasn’t some shitass burglar. I’d like to know more about him. Did you ask HQ for his record?”

“I asked for the information by phone, like you do. The guy was, is clean.”

“Did you draw up the concealed weapons charge?”

“No. You’ve done the same thing with me. Releasing crooks I arrest. See how annoying it is?”

“This case was different. He was caught in the act.”

“But I let the guy go. It’s too late now.” Pause. “Too late now.”

Mattos perceived lies and bitterness in his colleague’s voice.

“How are things going?” asked Pádua.

“What things?”

“Work.”

“Nothing new.”

“You never told me why you want info on Senator Vitor Freitas. Anything I can help with?”

“No. Thanks.”

“If you need help, you can count on me, okay?”

After Pádua left, Mattos went to the lockup. He told the jailer to open the cell.

“Odorico, come to my office.”

The cell boss followed Mattos to his room.

“Remember that tall guy who was arrested two days ago?”

“I remember him, sir. A guy with the face of a Syrian. I didn’t like him. He kept to himself in a corner, without speaking to nobody. I figured I’d have problems with him. He got out.”

“Who let him out?”

“Inspector Pádua.”

“Did you see it?”

“Uh-huh. At night Inspector Pádua showed up at the cell and called the guy. Said he was getting out.”

“Anything else?”

Odorico thought it very strange for Pádua to release a prisoner. But a cell boss’s job was to maintain order in lockup. Anybody who talked a lot was a gossip.

“After the man was let go, I went back to sleep, sir. Everything in order.”

Mattos summoned Rosalvo.

“Call all the precincts and tell them we’re looking for a dark-skinned man with a mustache, named Ibrahim Assad. Born in Caxambu, Minas Gerais, in 1912. Call the morgue and ask them to notify me if a corpse matching that description shows up.”

Mattos remained in his office listening to the radio while he signed poverty papers and proofs of residence.

Brigadier Eduardo Gomes had denied that an uprising had taken place at the air base at Santa Cruz, where the Brazilian Air Force fighter planes were housed. There was an atmosphere of apprehension in the city, according to the newscast. Families were taking their children out of schools.

Radio Globo spoke of a second attack on Lacerda, kept secret till then. On Sunday, August 8, Lacerda was arriving by boat to the island of Paquetá for a rally, accompanied by a Radio Globo reporter, Raul Brunini, and other persons when, amid the popping of fireworks launched by voters in welcome, they heard a loud blast underfoot. It was a stick of dynamite that had exploded near the hull. No one had been hurt. The vessel had begun taking on water, without, however, sinking. Lacerda’s party attempted to downplay the fact and returned to the mainland on a different boat.

Downplay the fact? Did anyone believe that? thought Mattos. A cherry bomb had probably gone off near the launch, and some joker must have suggested, “Why don’t we say we were under attack?”

News from everywhere in Brazil was transmitted by the radio, emphasizing the atmosphere of agitation among students, politicians, the manufacturing class, and professionals, because of the assassination of Major Vaz.

The ASA agency distributed statements by Federal Deputy Otávio Mangabeira, offered at the Hotel Bahia, in Salvador. Mangabeira said the nation was exhausted from so much humiliation and suffering. However, everything had limits. Only the armed forces could come to the aid of the country. “Let us unite around them as one, placing in them our complete confidence, obeying their command as if we were at war.”

What could be expected of a guy, thought Mattos, who as a sitting federal deputy had subserviently kissed Eisenhower’s hand in Congress when the American general had visited Brazil after the war? What could be expected from an old enemy of Vargas? From one of the founders of the UDN?

Mangabeira said he had no doubts about the responsibility of the government and of the president himself for the monstrous attack that was having such an effect on public opinion in the nation. Until then, it was the unprecedented levels of embezzlement, the immorality that corrupted with incredible insolence. The people, driven to hunger by the cost of living resulting in great part from acts of the government, were clearly and calculatingly being led toward anarchy, to the benefit of the administration itself. But now came the effort to eliminate the unvanquished denouncer of the scandals, who had escaped only by a miracle. But the bullets intended for him had killed an officer of the air force, an exemplar of devotion to his kind, who was accompanying the intrepid Lacerda. What was operating in the country under the name of legality was the negation of legal order, even greater now that it had stooped to murder. The wretch who had committed the crime was, in this case, the least responsible. The one most responsible, the one truly responsible occupied the Catete Palace, though ready, if necessary, to shed tears. Mangabeira preferred to see Brazil attacked and bravely expelling the foreign aggressor than to see what he said he was seeing: the country sapped, undermined, and corrupted by the enemy within, ensconced in power.

At seven p.m. Mattos told Rosalvo he was going out. “I won’t be long. If anyone comes looking for me, I’ll be back around nine.”

“Can I ask where you’re going?”

“No. It’s official.”

He took a cab. “Sixty Rainha Elizabeth,” Mattos told the driver. Had Rosalvo been lying or mistaken José Silva’s address? Number sixty was a luxury apartment building.

“Which is Mr. José Silva’s apartment?” Mattos asked the doorman.

“Five-oh-one,” the doorman said.

Mattos took the elevator. One apartment per floor.

He rang the bell. A little girl, with her hair in two long braids, opened the door.

“Daddy,” the girl shouted, “it’s for you.”

The man who came forth appeared to be about forty-five, with light brown hair, beginning to go bald. He was holding a newspaper.

“I’m looking for Mr. José Silva.”

“That’s me.”

Mattos identified himself. “I’m investigating the murder of Paulo Gomes Aguiar.”

“I don’t know how I can be of any help.”

“May I come in?”

“Uh. . Yes. . Please.”

The girl was still in the living room, staring at the cop with curiosity.

“Go inside there, with Mommy,” said José Silva.

José Silva folded, then unfolded the newspaper. He put it on a table.

“Please have a seat.”

“I have information that you knew Paulo Gomes Aguiar.”

“Yes. But I haven’t seen him for many years.”

“Could you be more precise?”

“We were classmates in the first years of high school, at the São Joaquim. I never saw him after that.”

“What about Pedro Lomagno? Were you also a classmate of his?”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen Pedro Lomagno?”

“Also no. They weren’t friends of mine. Just classmates. In fact, they left the school before graduating.”

The girl appeared at the door and stared at the policeman.

“What is it, Aninha?”

“Mommy wants to speak to you.”

“One moment, please.”

Mattos and the girl were alone in the room.

“Are you from the police?” she asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“Are you going to arrest Daddy?”

“No.”

“Mommy?”

“I’m not here to arrest anyone.”

“Oh. .” exclaimed the girl, disappointed.

José Silva returned.

“My wife isn’t feeling well.” A smile. “We’re expecting another child, you know? It’ll be our second.”

Mattos noticed the small drops of sweat forming on José Silva’s brow.

“May I ask your profession?”

“I’m a dentist.”

“A good profession,” said Mattos.

“I like my work,” said José Silva.

Mattos stood up. “Well, Dr. Silva, I don’t think you have much to tell me. Sorry to have taken up your time.”

José Silva opened the door.

“One thing more. If another policeman shows up here, tell him you already spoke with me. Say: Inspector Mattos left orders for me to speak with no one but him about the death of Paulo Gomes Aguiar.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to understand. Just say that to any policeman who appears.”

“Can I offer you some coffee?”

Mattos would like to have a glass of milk.

“No, thank you very much.”

Before nine, Mattos was back at the precinct. Rosalvo came to talk to him.

“I saw the reports. A Negro. Is Antonio Carlos making this up?”

“He’s competent and diligent.”

“You want me to start looking for that Negro?”

“No need. I already know who he is.”

“And was it him who killed Paulo Gomes Aguiar?”

“Very likely.”

“When are you going to arrest him?”

“At the right moment.”

The inspector was being very laconic. Maybe it was good to irritate him a bit. He always talked a lot when angry.

“Did you see the president is going to pardon more criminals? In July thirty murderers, twenty-two thieves, three swindlers, a macumba priest, and a fence were the beneficiaries. What do you think of that, sir? Sixty some-odd criminals let loose in the streets.”

“They should never even have been arrested.”

“Are you speaking seriously? I think our problem is there’s too many criminals in the streets.”

“Arresting a macumba priest or a fence is stupid. A prisoner costs society money, he spends some time in jail, and comes out worse than when he went in.”

“Then you think not even thieves or killers should be arrested? What about a rapist pervert like Febrônio?”

“If the guy is a major risk to society, a criminal psychopath, that sort of thing, then he just needs to get treatment.”

“And the victim’s family?”

“Fuck the victim’s family. You talk as if we were in the eighteenth century, before Feuerbach. Punishment as revenge. You should’ve studied that shit more carefully in college.”

“I’m not a cultured man like you, but please tell me: isn’t the number of criminals larger and larger? In the whole world? What’s the reason for that? Please enlighten me. Too many people, or too few in jail?”

“I’m not going to waste time arguing with you.”

This time it hadn’t worked. The man was hiding something. Rosalvo firmly believed that obsessives like Mattos shouldn’t be policemen or have any type of authority. He, Rosalvo, didn’t have any type of obsession other than living well, which meant sleeping well, eating well, and fucking well. He thought about Teodoro’s promise. When he transferred to Vice, his simple obsessions could be more easily satisfied. The problem was how to convince Senator Freitas that he’d done something to merit that prize. A Negro. He didn’t see how a Negro could be involved with the senator. In any case, now he had something to offer.

AS THEY HAD AGREED, Lomagno arrived at the precinct to pick up Inspector Mattos, to look for the macumba priest in Caxias. He arrived in a new Buick, driven by a uniformed chauffeur from Lomagno & Co.

“Wait for my return,” Mattos told Rosalvo.

“Where are you going? Wouldn’t it be better for me to go with you?”

“No. Stay here.”

Mattos and Lomagno, sitting in the back seat of the car, did not talk until they got to the city of Caxias, in the Baixada Fluminense.

After driving around for a time in the city center, the car continued toward one of the neighborhoods on the outskirts. At a certain point, Lomagno told the driver to turn onto a dirt road. They stopped in front of a stonework house, with blue windows, beside which was a worship site with a compacted earth floor, surrounded by trees.

“This is it,” said Lomagno.

The two men got out of the car.

A gray-haired mulatto woman wearing clogs, who had come to the door when she noticed the car arriving, greeted the visitors.

“We’re looking for the priest,” said Lomagno.

“Please be so kind as to enter,” said the woman.

The living room was modestly furnished: a table, some chairs, a worn sofa, an old china cabinet.

“I’ll call Father Miguel,” the woman said.

The macumba priest, a thin black man of indefinite age, dressed in white, received the visitors with deference.

“Welcome to my home.”

“Do you remember me, Father Miguel?”

The priest hesitated.

“I was here with Paulo Gomes Aguiar.”

“Oh. . yes.”

“This is Police Inspector Alberto Mattos.”

“Police?”

The man drew back in fright. He turned to flee. Mattos grabbed him by the shirt.

“Sir, I closed down the worship site. Please don’t arrest me!”

“I’m not here to arrest you. Stay calm.”

The policeman’s tone calmed the macumba priest somewhat.

“I’m not interested in your activities. I think people like you should be left in peace. I came only to ask a few questions, and then I’ll leave. Do you know that Paulo Gomes Aguiar was murdered?”

“Yes. One of my acolytes told me. I was very sad. He was a good man.”

“Were you in the habit of going to Gomes Aguiar’s home?”

“I went three or four times. I was working on sealing his body. Much envy, many enemies, bad spirits on him. But Mr. Paulo’s wife didn’t like me, and I couldn’t do a proper job. I knew something bad was going to happen, a spirit had descended here in the site and told me. There were people doing bad things against him.”

“When was the last time you were with Paulo Gomes Aguiar?”

“A short time before he died. I think it was a Friday.”

“Do you recall the date?”

“The date I can’t remember.”

“You’re sure it was a Friday?”

“I’m not sure. But there are certain kinds of work I like to do on Friday. What was the date of Friday a week ago?”

“The thirtieth.”

“The thirtieth, the thirtieth. .”

“Could it have been Saturday, the thirty-first?” asked Lomagno.

“Let me ask the questions,” said Mattos.

“Sorry,” said Lomagno.

“One moment, please,” said Miguel.

He went to speak with the mulatto woman, who was a certain distance away. They talked for some time.

“She doesn’t remember either. It was so long ago. .”

“Only thirteen days,” said the inspector. “You don’t make notes of your work?”

“I’m illiterate, sir. But Cremilda here thinks it may have been on Saturday, after midnight. The work of exorcising bad spirits can also be done in the early hours of the month of August. The month of August is a good month for the spirits to descend.”

“Did you leave Gomes Aguiar’s apartment after midnight?”

“Yes. I think it was Saturday, yes. . I performed the service when it was starting to be Sunday, in August. .”

“Gomes Aguiar was murdered in the early hours of Sunday, the first hours of the first day of August, when the spirits were descending, as you say.”

“What? When I left there the man was still alive, I swear it. . I must have gone there on Friday.”

Mattos took the ring from his pocket.

“Is this ring yours?”

“No, sir.”

“Please put the ring on your finger.”

Miguel placed the ring on his finger. Very loose.

Mattos put the ring back in his pocket and got an antacid. He chewed the tablet pensively. The ring had an F engraved on it; the doorman had mentioned a powerfully built and angry-looking black man who seemed to be Gregório Fortunato. Miguel didn’t begin with F and was far from a strong black man.

“What’s your full name?”

“Miguel Francisco dos Santos, sir.”

Francisco. F. Two Black men whose names have an F. Coincidences. . No jumping to conclusions. . He would need to arrange a confrontation between the macumba priest and the doorman to clarify that episode.

“I’d like you to go with me to the precinct, in Rio.”

“You said you weren’t going to arrest me,” lamented Miguel.

“I’m not arresting you. It’s an invitation.”

“It’d be better for you to go with the inspector,” said Lomagno menacingly.

“Keep your mouth shut or go back to the car,” said Mattos, irritated.

Lomagno gulped. His face went pale with rage.

“I’m not going to be arrested?”

“No, you’re not going to be arrested.”

They got into the car. Lomagno sat in front with the driver. Miguel complained during the trip, protesting his innocence. Despite the antacid he’d chewed, Mattos’s stomach ached.

When they got to the precinct, Lomagno said, “I hope I was of some help.”

“You helped a lot. Thank you. You may go.”

Rosalvo, curious, observed Mattos take Miguel to his office. Through the open door he saw the inspector say something to the black man, who was seated, downcast, in a chair.

“Did you find the man?” Rosalvo asked from the door.

“I don’t know. We’re going to the Deauville. Get the van.”

When they got to the Deauville, accompanied by Miguel, they were met by a doorman who wasn’t Raimundo.

“Where’s Raimundo? I’m Inspector Mattos.”

“He didn’t show up. Left without saying a word, leaving the reception empty all night. The super says he’s gonna fire him.”

Mattos went to the doorman’s quarters, in the rear.

“Are these his clothes?”

“Yes. He must be planning on coming back, ’cause he left everything here.”

“If he does, tell him I want to speak to him. Tell him if he doesn’t show up at the precinct, he’ll be arrested.”

“Sir, I’m confused, at a loss. What’s going on?” asked Rosalvo, back in the van.

“I don’t know yet.” To Miguel: “I may need to talk to you sometime in the future. No need for you to worry.”

Mattos was certain Miguel wasn’t the black man he was looking for, despite the coincidences. “Excuse the inconvenience. I’m going to drop you off at the train station.”

There was no train at that hour. But Miguel said nothing. He preferred spending the night at the station to continuing with the cops.

There were few occurrences during the remainder of Mattos’s shift.

Late that night the guard came into the inspector’s office, accompanied by Rosalvo.

“What is it?”

“The radio patrol caught a man and woman doing the dirty on a dark street. What should I do?” asked Rosalvo.

“Who are they?”

“Man’s a construction worker. Woman’s a maid.”

“Let them go,” said Mattos.

“The detective in charge of the garrison’s a hard-ass. Says they were caught in the act.”

A man and a woman were sitting on a wooden bench in the waiting room. They stood up when they saw the inspector.

“Bring the people from the garrison to my office,” Mattos told Rosalvo.

The detective and the two patrol cops entered the office.

“What happened?”

The detective explained that they were on patrol when they saw the man and woman in a clinch.

“In a clinch? Doing what?”

One of the cops laughed.

“It was real dark, but we had a flashlight, and we could see what they were doing. When they saw us, the woman pulled her skirt back down and ran, but it was too late. We grabbed her panties off the ground as proof.”

“Proof?” Mattos tasted the bitterness of acid in his mouth. “Don’t bring me any more cases of a couple of poor devils fucking in a dark spot. There’s no such thing as invisible indecent exposure; someone has to see it. Without using a flashlight.”

Doubtless the cops had tried to extort money from the hapless couple.

“You may leave. The next time you bring me a couple under such circumstances, I’ll charge you with arbitrary use of force.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“Or else extortion and abuse of power. You may go.”

The cops left, and Mattos thought about what made a guy want to be a policeman. In his case, it had been simply the inability to find a better job. After three years as a defense lawyer for poor criminals, not earning enough to pay the rent on his office, without the money to get married, the chance had come along to work twenty-four straight hours and have seventy-two hours off, time he planned to use studying for the test for a judgeship. A guaranteed and dignified job. One more year and he would have had the five years since graduation required to qualify. But Alice hadn’t had the patience to wait.

The couple continued to sit on the bench in the waiting room, silent and frightened.

“You can leave now,” the inspector said.

“I don’t have no money with me. . I explained that to the policemen. . I haven’t got paid yet. .”

Mattos was too tired to make another speech.

“You can go.”

It was past four in the morning when he picked up the book on civil law, the radio, and went upstairs to the inspectors’ break room. During his first shifts, Mattos would spend the twenty-four hours in his office or on paperwork. Lately, he would go to the break room, but he didn’t take a clean sheet and pillowcase like the others. He would lie down on the smelly mattress, removing only his coat and tie.

During the night, the cook Geraldo Barbosa, twenty-six, was run over in front of his residence by an unidentified automobile and taken to the emergency room. Bernardo Lemgruber, thirty-two, was mugged in the street by two individuals. Mattos duly registered the occurrences in the blotter. A drunk was arrested for disturbance of the peace. The inspector had the man sit in the waiting room, and then he sent him away, without the lecture that good policemen are wont to administer to harmless drunks.

He was becoming more and more tired. His stomach was beginning to ache, and he chewed two antacid tablets.

He went into the bathroom. His feces were dark. The doctor had talked about the color of coffee grounds. There was no toilet paper in the precinct bathroom. But the inspector had brought a newspaper, full of important news about Brazil and the world. It wasn’t the first time he’d cleaned himself with newsprint. In his youth he had been very poor. He merely avoided cleaning himself with someone’s photograph. A scruple he’d had since childhood.

fourteen

VITOR FREITAS, in a secret meeting with several members of his party, the PSD, called his colleagues’ attention to the UDN campaign to take advantage of the dissatisfaction of the military and of the unsettled political atmosphere resulting from the Tonelero attack.

“The UDN has mobilized its best orators to demand the furlough or resignation or deposing of Vargas. If any of these things happens—”

“Getúlio will never resign,” interrupted Deputy Azevedo Pascoal.

“Let me finish. If it’s resignation, or deposition—”

“Deposition? The army is with Getúlio.”

“You forget yesterday’s meeting at the Aeronautics Club,” Freitas continued, “where hundreds of army officers sided with their air force colleagues. Zenóbio declared: ‘Let us unite in defense of peace and the happiness of the Brazilian family.’ And Estillac added: ‘The army is unified against any attempt at a coup and ready to defend the Constitution.’ A coup by whom? What coup is General Estillac referring to? It’s not a coup originating in and inspired by the military. It’s a coup by him who so far has succeeded in every coup, the president of the Republic. In reality the military is warning Getúlio himself. It’s necessary to read between the lines, my friends, to understand the metaphors. The army won’t stand for a pro-Getúlio coup. But the opposite, yes.”

“No need to give us a class, Freitas. No one here was born yesterday.”

“As I was saying — let me continue my reasoning — if Getúlio resigns or is deposed, the UDN will take power, whether by installing its college-boy/military dictatorship or by filling the political vacuum left by Vargas to sweep the October elections. Some sectors of the UDN favor resignation, which will discredit Vargas and undermine the parties that support him, namely us and the PTB. Brazilians don’t like anyone who resigns. But a considerable part of the UDN, led by Lacerda, wants deposition, pure and simple. Few here, I’m sorry to say, heard Afonso Arinos’s speech attacking Getúlio, heard Arinos state that the suspicions of the nation converge on the president, or on persons intimately linked to him — Arinos tactfully refrained from mentioning his son Lutero or his brother Benjamim — and concluded his j’accuse by demanding the removal of Vargas so the crime of Rua Tonelero can be clarified once and for all under conditions of absolute impartiality and security. Arinos speaks of the disintegration of public authority, crisis of morality, those tired — but nevertheless effective — clichés of UDN rhetoric. Arinos’s speech, however, wasn’t violent. He wants the voluntary removal of the president. He belongs to those more intelligent sectors that I mentioned. It’s possible that the procoup faction, which isn’t bothered that the military may take power as long as Getúlio is deposed, will end up prevailing in the UDN. In any case, it seems to me that if Getúlio asks for a leave, they won’t allow him to resume, and it’ll be the same as resignation.”

“Lutero waived his parliamentary immunity so that the whole truth can come out. He swore before God and the nation that he had no involvement in the events, and that the plot using his name is aimed at his father,” said Deputy Azevedo Pascoal.

“Lutero Vargas swore! Does anyone here believe the sworn word of Lutero Vargas? If so, let that innocent raise his hand, I want to see his face.”

Azevedo Pascoal took the floor again. “I was present when Arinos gave his speech, and I thought it indecisive, mediocre, unworthy of the intelligence you mentioned. When he said he suspected the police inquiry, Arinos declared that the police are trying to eliminate the validity of the proofs by a process of ‘enfeeblization.’ That vulgarity doesn’t appear in any dictionary. It strikes me that the abasement of the language, confirmed in the deputy’s speech, reflects his disdain, perhaps unconscious, for our institutions. I believe that Arinos himself wouldn’t mind a coup as long as it brought the UDN to power. They know how to guide and manipulate the military.”

“There’s also José Bonifácio’s speech,” continued Freitas. “You all know the line of the political clan that Zé Bonifácio belongs to — they’re synonymous with provincial shrewdness. To Zé, Getúlio’s government disappeared from the earth along with his personal guard. He believes, or pretends to believe, that the government survives off favors from the armed forces, the love of sergeants, the indifference of the lower ranks, and the hope of truth emerging from this inquiry. The government’s days are numbered, and Zé asks of Getúlio a gesture of pride from a true son of Rio Grande do Sul, asks the president to take the advice that João Neves de Fontoura, in one of his rare moments of political lucidity, gave him: when everything falls apart, Getúlio should display the elegance of the vanquished, look Brazil in the eye, salute, and fall. But fall, says Zé, wrapped in the cloak of dignity and honor, by resigning.”

“UDN politicians, in any situation, always want people to salute,” one deputy joked.

“Zé Bonifácio proposes what he calls the excision of one of the most unspeakable, one of the most abject and purulent abscesses that has ever corrupted the body politic of any nation. We witness, according to the astute deputy from Minas, blood and tears; witness unblemished reputations disintegrate in the common pit of greed; witness the terror of the weak, the cry of victory from the powerful; witness the black market, the delights of inflation causing an air force major not to have the money for a phone while his assassin owned a country home.”

“We can’t turn back the tide. The sea of mud exists,” commented a deputy.

“That country home, few people know,” continued Freitas, “is nothing but a miserable shack between Belford Roxo and Nova Iguaçu. A place the outlaw Climerio calls Happy Repose, with no sewer, no running water, where a handful of pigs wallow in the mud and chickens scratch and peck inside the house. An air force sergeant would be ashamed to live there. Zé Bonifácio knows that, but it’s necessary to arouse outrage, revolt, regardless of the methods used.”

“What’s your point, Freitas?”

“Public opinion is being manipulated shamelessly. But effectively. We need to define ourselves. We can’t hide our heads like ostriches and pretend nothing is happening. There wasn’t a single leader of the majority present at Arinos’s speech and Baleeiro’s, to reply defending the president.”

“Defending the institutions,” said Azevedo Pascoal.

“In the final analysis, defending our party, because defense of the fate of the PSD is intertwined with defense of the institutions. My friends, there are less than two months until the election. We know that Getúlio is innocent of the crime against Major Vaz. Everyone knows that. However senile he may be, Getúlio would never order Lacerda killed, for one simple reason: he and the government would have nothing to gain from the death of the journalist; they would merely create a martyr for the UDN. The assassination was the work of stupid subordinates like the Negro, Gregório, instigated by persons whose interests were being hurt by Lacerda. But the campaign in the press is making people believe Getúlio is guilty. The gunman Alcino was arrested, Gregório was arrested, and they’ll probably say whatever they want them to say. Climerio’s arrest is only a matter of time. A veritable operation of war is being organized to realize that arrest. The scene is set, my friends. Getúlio has no way out. If he remains in power, the loss of prestige will grow by the day. If he resigns, he’ll be abominated, execrated by the people. The fate of the PSD cannot be slavishly tied to that of a president whose days are numbered and who in addition is remiss and negligent.”

“What’s your point?” repeated the deputy.

“When politicians from Minas forsake prudence and stop straddling the fence, it’s a sign there’s no balance of forces and the scale has dipped to one side. I’m convinced the PSD must adopt a stance of independence in this delicate situation.”

“We’re the government. Many of our fellow party members have also abused their power and taken advantage of the situation,” said Azevedo Pascoal, looking pointedly at Freitas, who everyone knew had gotten rich during Vargas’s administration. “Capanema would never accept a cynical and opportunistic posture like this.”

After saying this, Azevedo Pascoal left the meeting.

Those who stayed — sixteen deputies and four senators — continued discussing the political alternatives presented by Vitor Freitas.

After the meeting ended, Freitas sat in the solitude of his office, meditating. If the military and the UDN took power, as was certain to happen, there would follow a wave of moralism, which would be hypocritical and shortlived but in the short run would need scapegoats. But the possibility of his role in the Cemtex scheme being discovered was remote. And the suspicions of that idiot inspector also shouldn’t be taken into account. So there was no need for action, of any sort whatever, in relation to that policeman. Clemente didn’t share his thinking, but his adviser liked to display his usefulness, to become indispensable, to create complications. He needed to clip Clemente’s wings — more than that, get him out of his life.

Freitas phoned Clemente and asked him to come to his office.

“Clemente, look up Teodoro and tell him I’m no longer interested in what that inspector — what’s his name again?”

“Mattos.”

“What Inspector Mattos is investigating concerning me. I don’t want to know what he’s doing or not doing. To tell the truth, I don’t even want to hear the name of that individual. Say that to Teodoro.”

“Teodoro is already on the field, doing that job.”

Freitas laughed, without great conviction. “Then get him off the field. End the game.”

Clemente left Freitas’s room, pensive. It didn’t take long for him to form his plan. He telephoned Teodoro.

“What’s up, Teodoro? The senator wants news. You’re very slow.”

“I’m moving, sir, I’m moving. You can tell the senator that.”

FOR A DAY AND A NIGHT, Salete thought about nothing but her mother. If she had found out, something she had never undertaken to do, that she had died, Salete would have been very sad and wept with pain. But the wretched woman hadn’t died. So for twenty-four hours Salete felt only hatred toward her mother for still being alive, for her mother being even uglier, older, blacker.

At the end of that period of rancor, a feeling of regret started to overcome her. This began when she saw in her closet a piece of silk that she had bought to make a dress. She had seen her mother, in a print dress of faded calico, coming out of a store in Carioca Square. Surely she had bought some remnants to make another horrible dress.

Salete thought about that as she smoothed the piece of French silk against her breast. Her mother had never had a silk dress, never had the pleasure of feeling the softness of silk on her skin, the poor woman.

An idea began taking shape in her mind. She put on the simplest skirt and blouse in her wardrobe, removed her jewels. Carrying a package with the cut of silk, she took a taxi and told the driver to take her to São Cristóvão.

“Where in São Cristóvão?”

“Favel — uh, Rua São Luiz Gonzaga.”

When they arrived at the street, Salete asked the driver if he knew where Elisa Cylleno Square was.

The driver didn’t know.

“I’ll show you.”

They drove through a series of alleyways without finding the square.

“Just where exactly do you want to go?” asked the driver.

“The Tuiuti favela.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t go into favelas, ma’am. Very dangerous. Not even the police go there.”

They drove around a bit more. Salete spotted Rua Curuzu.

“You can drop me off here,” she said.

From Rua Curuzu she remembered how to get to the favela.

She arrived at the foot of the hill. She started climbing, passing by shacks in whose doors she saw the same women from her childhood, hanging clothes on lines to dry, carrying undernourished children, some of them pregnant, urchins playing marbles in the dirt, men in undershirts drinking at an openair bar. They all looked at her, finding her presence strange.

“Who you looking for, dear?” asked an old woman with a child in her arms.

“Dona Sebastiana’s house.”

“It’s up there.”

“I know where it is.”

The door to the wooden shack, covered with zinc sheets, was closed. Salete knocked.

Her mother opened the door. She didn’t recognize her daughter.

“It’s me. . mother.”

“Salete? Salete?”

They stood there silent for several seconds, her mother wiping her hands on her dirty skirt, shifting her feet in clogs.

“I brought you a gift.”

“Don’t you want to come in. .?”

Salete entered. She remembered those odors impregnating the house: body smells, mold, rancid food, the stench of poverty. The few pieces of furniture, old and broken, appeared to be the same ones from her time.

“What about my brothers?”

“Joãozinho is in prison. He fell in with some bad company. Tião disappeared one day and never came back. Like you.”

“I came back, mommy. Open your gift.”

Sebastiana opened the package.

“What am I going to do with something like this?”

“Make a dress.”

“A dress? Me, walking around in a silk dress here in the favela?”

“You’re going to leave the favela,” said Salete impulsively. “I’ve come to take you to live with me.”

Sebastiana covered her face with her hands and began to cry.

Salete approached her mother. Affectionately, she caressed that swollen body racked by sobs.

“Forgive me, mommy.”

They both cried, hugging. Along with the pain and repentance she felt, Salete also thought her mother needed a bath.

“I’D LIKE to talk to you.”

“Yes.”

“May I come by your place?”

“Alice, forgive me for the way I—”

“May I come by your place?”

“My shift ends at noon.”

As soon as he hung up the phone, Mattos received another call.

“Why don’t you come by here?” the inspector asked, after the other party had spoken.

“Think I’m crazy? I can’t be seen with you.”

“Why don’t you tell me by phone?”

“Don’t you want to see the letter?”

“Where, then?”

“At your apartment, right away.”

“I’m receiving a visitor today. Can it be tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow my wife has to hand the letter over to Bolão.”

“All right. At my place. Write down the address. Is seven o’clock okay?”

When they entered the apartment on Avenida Atlântica, Salete’s mother asked, “The apartment yours, Sassá?”

Sassá was Salete’s nickname when she was a child.

“I live with a man. He gave it to me. We’re getting married. We’re just waiting for his separation to come through, it’s very complicated.”

“Is he very old?”

“No, he’s still young. Look, here’s the bathroom. It’s got everything, soap, talcum powder, towels. Take a bath while I get some clothes for you.”

Salete opened her closets and after much searching found a large dressing gown that was out of fashion but which she hadn’t thrown out. She never got rid of her disused clothes, and because of that her closets were packed with clothing.

The gown was a bit tight on her mother, but it would do. Sebastiana looked like a different person.

“We’re going to the city to buy you some clothes.”

Salete knew that at Casa Santa Branca, on Rua Ouvidor, they were having a big sale of batistes, woolens, organdies, cashmere, silks, alpacas, cottons. They would buy some cloth and then go to a seamstress.

MATTOS OPENED the door for Alice. She handed the LP to him.

“A friend brought me this from her trip to Europe.”

Tristan und Isolde.

“With Lauritz Melchior and Kirsten Flagstad. It’s for you. I hope you like it.”

“Thank you very much.”

As he looked at Alice, the inspector thought about the psychiatrist’s words. . circular insanity. . biform psychosis. . alternating-type madness. . intermittent psychosis. . typical circular vesania. . manic-depressive psychosis. .

“I’m very nervous. . Could you get me a glass of water?”

“Cold?”

“No, it’s to take a pill.”

Alice took a pill from a small container in her purse.

“I’m going to separate from Pedro.”

“May I play the record?” asked Mattos.

“I can’t bear living with Pedro any longer.”

Mattos put the disk on the Victrola. Music from the overture flooded the small room. He identified the melody of one and the other: love and hate, Isolde and Tristan, Alice and Alberto, paradox and madness.

“My mother died, did I tell you? I don’t have anywhere to go, I think I’ll go to a hotel. Or maybe come here.”

Typical circular vesania.

(Stick out your tongue, Alice?)

“There’s no comfort here.”

“Who said I need comfort?” replied Alice.

“I only have two other operas. One of them is a 78.” Mattos laughed.

“I know. Turn up the sound, and we’ll listen to it in bed.”

“A guy’s coming here. An informant, a rat.”

“If he shows up, we won’t let him gnaw on anything.”

“He’s a police informant. He’ll be here soon.”

They fell silent.

The doorbell rang.

“Must be him.”

Alice went into the bedroom and closed the door.

Anastácio Santos, a.k.a. Squinty, came in. He had small eyes that were even smaller when he wanted to see sharply and squinted his eyelids to correct for his myopia.

He looked suspiciously at the closed bedroom door. “Is somebody in there?” he asked.

“A woman, sleeping,” said Mattos.

“With that music on?”

“Music helps her sleep.”

“Leave the music playing,” said Anastácio, taking an envelope from his pocket.

Mattos read the letter with some difficulty.

“Who’s this Genivaldo?” he asked, handing back the letter.

“He’s a dip, a friend of Bolão’s.”

“Is Bolão a pickpocket too?”

“Yeah. The two of them work for Mr. Ilídio when the pickpocket business is slow.”

“How much do you want for the information?”

“They told me you got an in with Mr. Pádua. I wanna make a deal with Mr. Pádua, but he ain’t having any.”

“I don’t make deals either.”

“Sir, I think the info I gave you is worth something.”

“That’s true.”

“I pulled the Esmeralda job. Mr. Pádua found out, and now he’s after me. I wanna return the jewels and save my ass.”

“All right. I’ll talk to Mr. Pádua. Today’s Friday. Pádua goes on duty on Sunday. I’ll speak with him on Monday when I relieve him. I can’t guarantee anything more. I don’t have any influence over Mr. Pádua.”

Indecisive, Anastácio stuck his hand out to Mattos. After hesitating a second, Mattos shook the jewel thief’s hand.

The letter that Genivaldo had written Bolão, along with family news, said that Ilídio had paid Old Turk to kill Inspector Mattos. “But Old Turk screwed up and the inspector killed him.”

Mattos went into the bedroom. Turned on the light.

Alice was lying on the sofa bed, completely dressed. “Leave the light off. Lie down beside me.”

Mattos lay down beside Alice. The sofa was narrow, their bodies touched. The window was shut, the blinds drawn, and the darkness in the room was very intense.

Alice embraced Mattos tightly. “I can’t see your face. I’m trying to remember what your face is like, but I’ve forgotten.”

The inspector also didn’t know what her face was like, there on the sofa bed. All that came to mind was Alice’s face from the time they were going together.

Mattos felt Alice’s fingers lightly brushing his face. “Your nose is large. . A man should have a large nose. . What are you thinking of me? At this moment?”

“Nothing.”

“If I ask you to take off your clothes, what will you think of me?”

“Nothing.”

Alice got up from the sofa. Mattos saw her in outline, undressing. Accustomed to the darkness, he could make out the whiteness of Alice’s nude body, standing motionless.

They sat down on the sofa. For some time they held hands. Mattos heard Alice’s ragged breathing. He kissed her cheeks and caressed her fine hair. Alice lay back and pulled Mattos’s body onto her.

CLIMERIO SPENT TWO DAYS HIDDEN in the shack in the middle of the banana grove, most of the time lying on the mattress from which tufts of straw poked out of holes. Oscar and Honorina took turns bringing him food and a bottle of water. Afterward Oscar built a rudimentary woodstove in the shack for Climerio to cook and make coffee. He would have liked to have a hot maté tea, but his comrade had been unable to arrange the herb. In any case, he lacked the appropriate gourd for the drink.

Being alone in that place became unbearable. At one point Climerio picked up the revolver and thought about putting a bullet in his head. That day Climerio told Oscar that he’d go crazy if he didn’t get out for a walk. “Nobody’s going to come looking for me in this place.”

“Did you kill somebody, my friend?”

For the first time, Climerio told Oscar what had happened. Oscar didn’t attach much importance to what he heard; he didn’t know who Carlos Lacerda was, or Gregório, or any of the others involved in the Tonelero crime, which he’d heard spoken about vaguely when he went to Simplício Rodrigues’s general store in the village. He had no radio in his house and spent the day tending his banana plantation on Taboleiro hill. The only thing Oscar knew about politics was that the president was Getúlio.

At the end of the afternoon, Oscar and Climerio got into a wagon, pulled by a skinny horse, and went to the village. After buying fertilizer, Oscar went with Climerio to Simplício’s store, where they bought cigarettes and drank booze. Oscar explained that his friend Almeida, who lived in Rio de Janeiro, was spending a few days at his house.

In the store was a woman, Dona Maria.

“I live in Rio too,” the woman said. “Fifty-seven Rua Santa Isabel, in Vilar dos Teles.”

“Vilar dos Teles,” said Climerio, “I know where that is, it’s in the sticks.”

“And where do you live, in Copacabana?” asked Dona Maria.

“No need to get mad. I was just kidding,” said Climerio.

Inspector Mattos awoke when the first light of day filtered through the blinds in his bedroom.

He looked at Alice sleeping at his side but quickly averted his gaze from the woman’s face. Seeing Alice asleep struck him as an indignity, a gross invasion of the privacy of a defenseless person. He would never allow anyone to watch him sleep; since he was a boy, when he lived with his parents, he was the first to get up; he detested being caught sleeping, even by his mother.

Whenever he slept with a woman, he always awoke before her.

Carefully, he got out of the sofa bed. He took his clothes to the living room and dressed.

That weekend he was off. He could use the time to do some investigating.

He heard Alice’s voice. “Alberto?”

He went into the bedroom.

“What time is it?” Alice had covered her body with the sheet, up to the neck.

“Eight o’clock.”

“I have to get up. A lot to do today.”

She wanted Mattos to leave the bedroom so she could get dressed. She felt embarrassed to be naked in front of him.

Mattos left the room.

Afterward they talked, in the living room. Mattos gave Alice two keys, one to the street door of the building, the other to the door of his apartment.

“We could have lunch together,” said Alice.

“By lunchtime I don’t think I’ll have completed my work. We can have dinner.”

They left the building together. Alice caught a taxi.

“Want a ride to the city?”

“I’m not going to the city. Thanks.”

IN A HOUSE ON RUA OLIVEIRA DA SILVA, a small street near Xavier de Brito Square, in Tijuca, a committee made up of Army Colonel Alberico, Air Force Colonel Arruda, and Navy Commodore Osório met that morning to evaluate the task they called “the mission.” The three military men were well known and respected by their comrades in uniform, subordinates as well as superiors, which was the reason they were chosen to serve on that informal commission, whose objective was to visit military units to demonstrate to the troops the bankruptcy of the government and foment repudiation of Vargas. The death of Major Vaz was the driving force of the “missionaries” and the principal accusation of the committee. Next came the corruption and degradation of the administration, which in addition to the sea of mud included the assassination of opposition leaders who clamored for a moral basis for the country. Finally, there was demonstrated to the members of the military — privates and corporals were excluded — the administrative calamity that was leading the country to ruin.

The same denunciations could be read daily in the articles and editorials published in the nation’s large newspapers.

WHEN SHE MOVED OUT, Alice had left Lomagno a note saying she no longer wanted to live with him. She asked her husband to find a lawyer to deal with the legal separation. She had concluded by saying her health was good and for Lomagno not to worry or to look for her, as she would get in touch with him when the time was right.

Lomagno had found the note just before leaving for the extraordinary meeting of Cemtex stockholders. He had asked the maid what time Dona Alice had gone out. The two slept in separate bedrooms. The maid replied that madam had arisen and had left immediately, without even having breakfast, around nine a.m. No, she hadn’t taken a suitcase or package with her when she left.

In addition to Pedro Lomagno, present at the Cemtex meeting had been Claudio Aguiar and half a dozen stockholders. Luciana Gomes Aguiar had presided. The chief legal officer of Cemtex, Rafael Fagundes, had directed the procedures. Luciana Gomes Aguiar had been elected president of the firm.

Claudio Aguiar had remained silent, sighing occasionally.

After the meeting, Luciana and Lomagno met at Lomagno’s garçonnière, an apartment on Avenida Beira Mar near the intersection with Avenida Antonio Carlos. Shortly after they became lovers, Luciana had replaced all the furniture, carpets, paintings, china, and kitchen utensils in the apartment. Towels, sheets, and dishes were thrown in the trash. “I don’t want anything that recalls the cheap women who came here,” Luciana had said.

They were known to the doorman as Mr. José Paulo and Dona Luiza.

As soon as they arrived, Luciana embraced Lomagno, kissing him.

Her husband’s death had increased the desire she felt for her lover. The same thing, however, wasn’t happening with Lomagno. He moved his body away so that Luciana wouldn’t realize that his sex showed no sign of life after the passionate kiss.

In the past, in the first times when they met there, as soon as Luciana entered the garçonnière, Lomagno would exhibit the erect manifestation of his amorous ardor, throwing himself impetuously onto her, ripping her clothes, biting her, raping her, amazing her. Part of that furor was pure playacting. But the pleasure was real that he felt in those early encounters: carrying Luciana to the bedroom, turning the woman over and over in bed, making her feel like a fragile doll in the hands of a powerful male; it was true, at first, the swaggering pleasure he felt in exhausting her and finally receiving Luciana’s gesture of submission: her hands clasped in a mute entreaty of devotion and surrender.

It was something he couldn’t succeed in fantasizing with Alice.

Now, pretending with Luciana was becoming more and more painful.

“I’m going into the bathroom for a moment,” said Lomagno.

“Don’t take long, love, I’m dying. .”

In the bathroom, Lomagno took off his clothes and contemplated himself in the mirror. The sight of his own naked body managed to bring some blood to his limp penis. While he gazed at the powerful muscles of his chest, his arms, his thighs, Lomagno stroked his penis until the shaft and head began to swell. Watching his penis harden excited him and increased the flow of blood to the labyrinths and caverns of the member. The more tumescent the image in the mirror, the larger and more rigid grew the penis in his hand. When he felt the moment was right, Lomagno ran to the bedroom, threw himself onto Luciana, who was lying on her back mouthing obscenities. He bit his lover’s breasts, neck, arms; he grasped violently the flesh of Luciana’s legs and buttocks, making her roll over in bed. Movement and force were the mechanism of sex. He possessed the woman.

“We need to talk about our situation,” said Luciana, sitting up, exhausted, after arranging the pillows against the headboard to support their backs. “Now you’re going to dump that woman, aren’t you?”

“Take it easy, Luciana. We have to wait a little, you know that as well as I do.”

“Her father and mother left Alice a lot of money. Who handles business for her?”

“I do. I put most of it in real estate.”

“Are you married under community property or separation of assets?”

“Separation. My old man thought it was better that way. But these days Alice probably has more money than I do.”

“But she doesn’t have more money than me, and isn’t prettier than me,” said Luciana.

“I don’t know how much you have, but I imagine not.”

Luciana caressed Lomagno’s body. Lomagno took her hand, moving it away from his sex. Sweat on his face. He remembered Freitas, at the A Minhota restaurant, calling Luciana a nymphomaniacal harpy. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his hand. He joked: “Empress Messalina, I have to make a phone call.”

“Wait. . you can call afterwards,” whispered Luciana.

“It’s urgent. Important business.”

INSPECTOR MATTOS spent most of the day trying to obtain information about Anastácio, known as Squinty, and about the prisoner Bolão. A reporter from O Radical, who received money from Ilídio, owner of the betting sites near the newspaper’s downtown headquarters, ended up providing the reliable information he needed.

“I take a bit of scratch from that son of a bitch, because the paper doesn’t pay me anything and my wife, you know about it, is hospitalized in Belo Horizonte with TB.”

“I know, I know.”

“Mattos, you’re not on the take, I know, but you’re one of the few exceptions, everybody’s in their pocket. Politicians, judges, people who if I told you their name you wouldn’t believe me. It would be one fucking exposé. The problem is that no one would publish it. And I’m not crazy enough to put that in the paper.”

“Does Squinty work for Ilídio? Are you sure?”

“Not the slightest doubt. Bolão too.”

Before taking his leave, Mattos listened patiently, his stomach burning, to the reporter recount his vicissitudes and suffering.

When he got to his apartment, two surprises were awaiting him.

In the living room, sitting in silence around the table, Alice, Salete, and an old black woman.

They all stood up when the inspector entered. He sensed that his arrival relieved to a degree the tension among them.

“I asked Salete to wait for you. She wanted to leave, and I wouldn’t let her,” said Alice. “She came here to introduce you to her mother.”

“This is my mother,” said Salete.

The woman stood and extended her hand to Mattos.

“My daughter says you’ve been very good to her.”

Mattos shook the hand of Salete’s mother. “Pleased to meet you. I have the greatest respect and admiration for your daughter.”

“Thank you very much. My name is Sebastiana. I’m very happy to be here. . I had lost my daughter. Can you imagine, losing a daughter and then finding her again?”

“Alice was very nice,” said Salete.

“Very nice,” her mother repeated.

“Salete is the one who was nice,” said Alice.

The second surprise: a console with a new record player, a pile of LPs, wrapped packages of various sizes scattered on the floor, a new double bed.

“What’s all this?” asked Mattos, pointing to the packages on the floor.

Alice, looking at Salete: “We’ll talk about it later. . We used to go together, we almost got married, didn’t we, Alberto?”

“But now he’s my boyfriend,” said Salete.

“I won’t argue,” said Alice.

Mattos also wasn’t about to argue with anyone. “I’m going to have a glass of milk,” he said. He got the milk from the refrigerator and went into the bedroom. He felt the springs of the new bed yield under the weight of his body as he drank the milk. Dr. Arnoldo: She behaves prodigally. One on occasion she gave me a gold watch.

The two younger women remained in the living room, staring at opposite walls.

Sebastiana, respectfully: “Do you still have your mother, dear?”

“My mother died.”

“From what? Poor thing.”

“Cancer.”

“That’s a very bad disease.”

“Don’t let’s talk about sad things, Mommy.”

“I was just trying to break the silence.”

“Is he going to want to be with both of us?” asked Salete.

“That’s impossible,” said Alice.

“Salete’s father had ten at the same time.”

“Being with ten is less complicated than being with two,” said Alice.

“He was a butterfly. Said that women were flowers. A handsome and sly Portuguese man,” said Salete.

“Salete looks a lot like him. The spit and image of her father.”

“I’m not pretty.”

Mattos came back into the room.

Salete and Alice looked at him apprehensively.

“Your mother is a very nice lady. I’d enjoy having another opportunity to chat with her. . I, I—”

“Would you like us to leave?” Salete placed both hands on her chest. She thought her heart would burst.

“It’s not that. I just need to have a private conversation with Alice. Please. I’ll call you later.”

“Let’s go, daughter. The young man is asking.”

Salete felt like crying but contained herself. She wasn’t going to make a scene in front of that blonde hussy.

As she left, she averted her face so Mattos couldn’t kiss her. And also so he wouldn’t see her damp eyes. She ran to the door, followed by her mother.

Mattos and Alice alone.

“Where did my sofa bed go?”

“I told the men to get rid of it.”

“Are you taking your medications?”

“I don’t need medications. I feel perfectly fine. Don’t believe what others say.”

“Why’d you buy all that?”

“For you. Want to listen to an opera on the new record player? L’Elisir d’Amore. It has that aria, ‘Una furtiva lagrima,’ that made you cry when you were a child.”

“No, I don’t want to hear it. Put down that record and come sit next to me. Please.”

Alice sat down in a chair beside Mattos.

“Alice, pay attention. I can’t accept this. I’m going to have to return it, I’m very sorry.”

“It’s all paid for. The store won’t take it back.”

“Then I’ll give it to an old folks’ asylum.”

“Old people are deaf and don’t like opera.”

“I’m not joking, Alice.”

“Want to know what old people in asylums like? Candy and visits, to talk. The women also like cologne, lipstick, and face powder.”

“I’m not joking, Alice.”

“I know because my governess was institutionalized—”

“All of this has to go out of here.”

Alice began to cry. “Then leave the bed, the operas, the china, the glasses, and the silverware.”

Mattos looked for another antacid in his pocket. Nothing. The neighbors in the next apartment began arguing loudly. He closed the window. Turned on the light.

“All right. Let’s listen to L’Elisir d’Amore.”

“Your cups are very ugly, and all of them are chipped,” said Alice, laughing, as she put the LP on the new record player.

fifteen

DONA MARIA LEFT TINGUÁ very early Sunday morning, taking advantage of a ride from Onofre Braga, who was going to Rio to visit a sick relative.

Arriving at Vilar dos Teles, Dona Maria phoned an acquaintance of hers, Lieutenant Niemeier, of the air force.

Some time later, two private automobiles stopped in front of 57 Santa Isabel. The cars were marked with two white crosses, one in the back windshield, the other on the rear window. Twenty-six private cars, identified by white crosses, carrying officers of the three armed forces, were helping in the search for those involved in the crime of Rua Tonelero.

“Done Maria, this is Colonel Aquino,” said Lieutenant Niemeier. “Tell him what you said to me on the phone.”

Dona Maria was listened to attentively by the military men.

“You’re sure the man is Climerio?”

“Mr. Oscar said his name was Almeida.”

“Who’s Mr. Oscar?”

“His friend. The two of them were together at Mr. Simplício’s store. Like I said, that man is staying at Mr. Oscar’s farm.”

“What does he look like? Can you describe him?”

“He’s more or less your height. He’s got a pockmarked face. Talks like he’s from Rio Grande do Sul.”

“Exactly where is the farm located?”

“It’s near Tinguá, on a hill. I’ve never been there.”

“Tinguá is in the Baixada Fluminense,” explained Niemeier.

After hearing Dona Maria’s account several times and asking her not to speak about it with anyone, as it could hurt the measures they were going to take to catch the killer, the military men got in their cars and left.

Before the cars pulled away, Dona Maria said to Colonel Aquino loudly so the others in uniform could hear, “For Mr. Carlos Lacerda I’d do anything.”

LUCIANA phoned Lomagno.

“Know what I’d like to do today? Have lunch at the Jockey Club and watch the horse races.”

“So would I, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“What if we meet there on Beira Mar?”

“I’m expecting a phone call.”

“Who from?”

“Chicão.”

“Chicão? What does he want?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t in when he called.”

“We could take a trip.”

“Let’s wait a bit.”

“My life is so tedious. . Sundays are such a bore. . Has Alice come back from São Paulo yet?”

Lomagno hesitated. “Not yet. I discovered she took the diary she was writing.”

“Diary?! That’s so childish. I kept a diary when I was twelve. What the devil does she write about in the diary? Her fits of insanity?”

“She doesn’t have fits of insanity.”

“Now you’re defending your sweet little wife?”

“It’s not like that at all. I just don’t like for you to speak ill of her. You know that.”

“What does she write about in that little diary of hers? Eh?”

“I don’t know. I never read it.”

“You were never curious?”

“No.”

“Afraid of discovering she has a lover? Every woman has a lover, didn’t you know? And they tell the truth in their diary. Dear Diary, I’m madly in love, my husband is a boring brute, and I’ve found this sensitive man who sends me red roses. The sly ones like Alice are the worst.”

“What about you? Do you have a diary?”

“Not yet, for now all I have is a lover. Who doesn’t send me red roses.”

“What’s with you?”

“Sundays are so boring! And this thing is still in its beginning!”

“You’re nervous. Calm down.”

“You’re not expecting a call from Chicão. That’s just an excuse not to see me. I’m finding you indifferent.”

“That’s silly.”

“Don’t try to fool me. I’m not Alice. I’m warning you. My insanity isn’t the tame kind.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“A glass of champagne doesn’t get anybody drunk.”

“Early in the morning?”

“It’s eleven o’clock. Let’s meet at Beira Mar, my love. Please. I’m begging you.”

Had she set down the champagne glass and joined her hands in a gesture of prayer as she did after fucking? Lomagno wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“I have to call Chicão.”

“Isn’t he supposed to call you?”

“Yes, but if Chicão doesn’t call, I have to try to find out what he wants.”

“You said you didn’t know where Chicão was. You said he had orders to disappear. How are you going to call him? Pedro Lomagno, I didn’t do what I did so afterward you could make a fool out of me!”

Nymphomaniacal harpy. Because of her, two people had been killed. How had things ever gotten to that point?

“Did you hear what I said?!”

“I heard, Luciana. .”

“Then we going to meet at Beira Mar. Now! Chicão can go to hell.”

“It’s impossible, dear. Be reasonable.”

Luciana’s tone changed. Now, sarcastic and bitter. “Did that Negro ever play the woman for you? Or did you play the woman for him?”

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

“Paulo did. Why not you?”

“Your husband was different from me.”

“You’re a bi just like he was.”

Lomagno hung up. Perplexed, stunned, he analyzed what he was feeling. A month earlier he was overwhelmed by a permanent and irresistible desire to be with that woman, to eat and drink with her, to go to bed with her. He remembered the pleasantry of falsely casual public encounters, carefully planned, of attending a ballet where he, from the back of his box, would spend the night watching her through opera glasses while Luciana, knowing she was being observed, sent him subtle hidden signals, running her tongue over her lips, or biting them, or secretly caressing her own breasts almost bared by the low-cut evening gown. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he had tired of her; the way he tired of everything, it was true, but never in that manner. He couldn’t understand what had caused that sudden, so powerful, feeling of aversion. Paulo’s death, which she had planned? He disdained Paulo. And Paulo had to be killed, or he would have driven Cemtex into bankruptcy. Then what was it? Now, he wanted Alice by his side. Did he love Alice?

Maybe he wasn’t asking the right questions, maybe he wasn’t giving the right answers to the right questions or to the wrong questions he was asking himself. Maybe there was no question to ask, or no answer to the confusion, the turmoil he was feeling at that moment.

AS ALWAYS, Mattos awoke before Alice, who had slept with him in the new bed.

But neither had slept well.

Both remained immobile in the darkness, eyes shut. Alice amused herself for a time with the dark images that formed under her closed eyelids: black gases, expanding like stormy clouds of carbon in an endless opaque vault, assumed almost indistinct shapes in continuous mutation — a face with no eyes, a black butterfly, a hunchback, her own face. .

“Are you sleeping?”

“No,” said Mattos. “It always takes a long time for me to fall asleep.” (When he slept with a woman.)

“I think I’m going to take another pill,” said Alice.

Mattos got up, turned on the light, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

Alice was wearing a short-sleeved nightgown closed up to the neckline. Mattos was in undershorts and a long-sleeved shirt that he had rolled up to the elbows. Neither of them wanted to sleep naked in front of the other.

“Better to take a sleeping pill than lie awake, don’t you think?”

“Wouldn’t you like a glass of warm milk?” asked Mattos, worried about the woman’s thin, pallid face and the dark circles around her eyes.

“All right. If that doesn’t work, I’ll take a pill.”

They sat on the edge of the bed, drinking milk.

“Are you having trouble getting used to the new bed?” asked Alice.

“I’m not sleepy.”

“You slept better on that sofa?”

“I always sleep badly.”

“Are you angry with me because of the sofa bed?”

“No. Lie down. Let’s see if you can get to sleep now.”

Again in darkness. “May I hug you?”

“Yes.”

Alice hugged Mattos.

Sleeping embraced by a woman was tiring and disagreeable to Mattos. A woman up against his body kept him from thinking straight.

Now in the living room, Mattos, who had gotten dressed as if leaving for work, thought about the woman sleeping in his bedroom. If he had a friend, he would ask what he should do in such a situation. His pride had been badly hurt when she left him. It did no good for Alice to return now, humble, crazy, prodigal. He no longer wanted to live with her. He didn’t want to live with any woman.

Alice appeared in the room.

“Are you going out?”

“I always get dressed when I wake up. I take a bath and get dressed. But I haven’t put on my tie.”

“That’s true. You haven’t put on your tie.”

“I don’t know how to say this. .”

“Say what?”

Alice seemed to have become emaciated during the night. The dark circles around her eyes hadn’t disappeared, despite a night’s sleep, and they stood out against her pale skin.

“It’s nothing important. We can talk later.”

“How nice. I wake up completely foggy. I don’t wake up right until — How to say what? What is it you don’t know how to tell me? Something unpleasant?”

“No. . It’s not — I already told you, it’s not important.”

“I want to know. Please. .”

“This isn’t a good place for you to stay. That’s what it is.”

“Why?”

“Several reasons. The other day a man came here to kill me.”

“Were you afraid?”

“No.”

“Then I’m not afraid either.”

“This place isn’t comfortable. . It’s very small. .”

“Are you sending me away?”

“No, it’s not that. . You could rent an apartment, a larger place, more comfortable. . That wouldn’t be a problem for you.”

“Will you come live with me?”

“We’ll see about that later.”

“Later when?”

“You’re a married woman. .”

“Separated.”

“Later we’ll see.”

The telephone rang.

“Mr. Mattos, this is Leonídio, from Forensics. Today’s Sunday, but I thought you might want to come here anyway. A cadaver showed up with the characteristics of the guy you were looking for.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Where are you going?” asked Alice.

“Duty.”

“Where?”

“Rua dos Inválidos.”

“Rua dos Inválidos? To do what, on Rua dos Inválidos? What’s on Rua dos Inválidos?”

“A government department.”

“Will you be long?”

“I don’t know. Think about what I told you.”

“Don’t be long. I’ll wait for you to get back so we can have lunch together. Or would you rather I made lunch for you? I can go out and buy whatever’s needed. You like meat, don’t you?”

“Don’t wait for me, please. I seldom eat lunch. I’ve got a bad stomach.”

“I’ll wait anyway.”

Leonídio lifted the faded blue sheet, displaying the cadaver on the metal table. When the sheet was raised, the smell of the body diffused into the room.

“Is it him?”

“Yes. His name is Ibrahim Assad. Where was he found?”

“In the Tijuca Forest. He was killed by a bullet to the base of the skull.”

“When?”

“What’s today’s date?”

“The fifteenth.”

“The eleventh or twelfth.”

“What are those marks on his mouth and face?”

“Ants. He was being eaten by ants.”

There was little difference between the various noxious odors given off by a dead man and a dead rat. There were cadavers, of animals and men, that smelled like spoiled cheese; others, like rotten broccoli; others, like rancid pork; still others, like deteriorated beans; et cetera. That repulsive catalog of the stench of putrefaction gathered by Mattos’s sensitive nose gained new entries as he encountered additional pestilential cadavers in his work.

The inspector descended Rua do Riachuelo toward Lapa, smelling in the air the rotten-cabbage odor of Ibrahim Assad’s corpse. He crossed the Arches, passed the door of the Colonial movie theater, and continued walking along Rua Joaquim Silva to Rua Conde Lage.

The street of the elegant high-priced prostitutes of his youth. He would go there in the evening to see them, when he cut classes from night school. The women moved sumptuously under the light of candelabras in their long, elegant satin dresses, their faces an unreal alabaster, scarlet mouths and shining eyes, distributing smiles to their clients. Standing in the dark street, watching them from afar, through the windows of the large old houses, he perceived in the women’s smiles something beyond the desire to seduce, something secret that showed when one of them looked at the other; something he now knew was disdain and scorn.

He had never been on that street in the light of day.

All those years later, the street seemed insipid and melancholy. The trees were less imposing. The great boardinghouses — as they were euphemistically called — had become flophouses with ruined facades, broken windows and gates. The only woman he saw was a laundress with a bundle of clothes on her head.

He walked to the gardens of Paris Square, in the Glória neighborhood, and sat on a bench. A boy was staring at the crown of an almond tree, looking for nuts. That species of almond bore a bitter nut that only a poor kid could manage to eat. He himself, at that boy’s age, used to go there and throw stones at the riper fruits, to eat the nuts from those dark-yellow trees with reddish spots.

“This time of year there aren’t any almonds,” Mattos shouted at the boy. “No point in looking.”

“Not in any tree?”

“Not any.”

Since he already had stones in his hand, the boy threw them at the tree and left.

Mattos went along Flamengo beach to Rua Machado de Assis, from which he arrived at Machado Square and from there to his home on Rua Marquês de Abrantes.

Alice was listening to L’Elisir d’Amore.

“Do you want to hear ‘Una furtiva lagrima’?”

“No, please, no.”

“Want me to turn off the record player?”

“Yes, please.”

“Are you sad? What happened on Rua dos Inválidos?”

“It wasn’t on Rua dos Inválidos.”

“I called Pedro. I told him I was here.”

“What did he say?”

“For me to come home. I said I wasn’t returning. He said he loved me. That he’d broken it off with that woman. I think he really does love me, just that he’s very selfish. He ordered me to see Dr. Arnoldo. I answered that I’m fine and don’t need any Dr. Arnoldo. I said I love you and all I need is you.”

DESPITE IT BEING SUNDAY, a group of PSD senators met at the Seabra Building to discuss the country’s political situation and hear the information that Freitas usually obtained from his various sources.

Freitas had an influential friend in the palace, the head of the Civilian Cabinet, Lourival Fontes, who was playing both sides against the middle by making secret contact with allies and enemies of the government, a process Fontes had employed since the time he was the all-powerful head of the Department of Press and Propaganda in the era of the dictatorship — a tactic he’d learned from Filinto Müller, then chief of Vargas’s political police. Freitas also had his spies among the Lacerdists and knew that someone inside the Catete, perhaps the head of the Civilian Cabinet himself, was secretly leaking confidential information to the archenemy Lacerda about what went on at private meetings in the governmental palace. Betrayal was part of the political game. Now more than ever, when the major newspapers, the military, politicians, students, the manufacturing classes, the Church, were all contributing with fervent ardor to the tumult that was beginning to dominate the country.

That group had come to be known as “the Vitor Freitas independents,” thanks to notes planted in the press by a reporter from O Jornal whose beat was the Senate and who owed to Freitas his appointment as administrator of the Commercial Employees Retirement and Pensions Institute. It was common for journalists who covered the chambers of Congress or the executive branch to arrange public positions that ended up being for a lifetime. The various pensions and retirement institutes in the Department of Labor were the favorite of journalists for several reasons, one of them being that they were not obligated to show up regularly for work.

Severino served drinks and hors d’oeuvres while the Freitas independents analyzed the situation.

“What do you think about Lutero voluntarily going to the Republic of Galeão”—an ironic reference to the power of the Air Force High Command—“to be interrogated? Lodi refused to accept the writ and invoked his congressional immunities.”

“Getúlio told Lutero to go,” said Freitas. “Lutero voluntarily waived his immunities, temporarily, and went to Galeão accompanied by Adroaldo Mesquita da Costa, vice president of the Chamber of Deputies. Adroaldo told me, in confidence, what happened. Colonel Adyl de Oliveira did not deign to receive the deputy. He sent a subordinate, a major or colonel named Toledo, to interrogate him. When they got there, Toledo handed Lutero a sheet of paper, saying, ‘Read this, deputy.’ It was Gregório’s statement from the interrogation he underwent. Dumbstruck — that was the term he used later with Adroaldo — Lutero read what was written. Gregório said, dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s, that the brains behind the Tonelero crime was he, Lutero. In the deposition Gregório made inelegant references to Getúlio. Lutero protested, claiming that the statements were nothing but vile slander, a plot to involve his name and thus harm his father, that the attack merited the strongest possible repudiation from the president, and that no one was more committed than he to the complete uncovering of the events and the severest punishment of those responsible. Adroaldo says that Lutero was quite eloquent, but knowing as we do that Lutero was never capable of improvising even slightly bearable oratorical flights, everything indicates that he was speaking a text written by someone else.”

“Probably by Tancredo Neves. It’s known that Lutero consulted that sly fox before agreeing to the deposition.”

Severino served more drinks and hors d’oeuvres.

“What else did Adroaldo say?”

“‘Do you want to see Gregório?’ Toledo supposedly asked. It seems Lutero hesitated. It was obvious that Toledo wanted a confrontation to put Lutero in a discrediting situation. He thought he held the trump cards. Toledo took Lutero by the arm: ‘Come along, deputy, I’ll take you to where he is.’ They went down a long corridor, Lutero, Adroaldo, and some military men, among them Toledo, who was hanging onto Lutero’s arm. They opened a door, and there, sitting on a bed, was the Black Angel. Gregório looked at the arrivals with a vague gaze and went back to the gloomy meditation in which he seemed immersed. Everyone was frustrated by Gregório’s behavior. Toledo no doubt hoped that Gregório, obeying some agreement made with his captors, would attack Lutero directly. Lutero hoped that Gregório would stand up, with the deference he had always shown him, and ask forgiveness in some way for the words in his deposition. Toledo, appearing surprised by Gregório’s indifference and alienation, repeated several times, without breaking the Black Angel’s silence, ‘Gregório, Deputy Lutero Vargas is here.’”

“So Gregório accused Lutero! I never thought he’d do that, whether Lutero was behind it or not.”

“According to Adroaldo, Lutero believes that Gregório must have been interrogated under the influence of some drug, scopolamine or some such thing, to force him to say what he said. Lutero also says that they put Gregório on an air force plane and threatened to throw him into the ocean if he didn’t sign that confession.”

A heated discussion ensued among the “independents.” To some, Lutero was innocent; to others, he was foolish enough to commit such a stupid act. All agreed that the political situation was worsening by the hour. When he was caught, some said, Climerio was going to make statements that would cause even greater agitation. If they let Climerio live, others replied.

All the legislators agreed that great interests were at stake. Including their own.

The political machinations in which Freitas had been involved in recent days had pushed his concern with Inspector Mattos into the background. Politics, to Freitas, was a kind of aphrodisiac. The contingency plans he elaborated, by weaving the threads of an intricate tapestry whose objective was to obtain the maximum advantage from the country’s complex and chaotic political situation, left him in a state of euphoria in which sexual desire merged with ambitious dreams of even greater power. The night before, he had satisfied that imperious necessity with a partner who had given him great pleasure and joy, and in so doing had increased his motivation to proceed in the complex schemes he had planned.

That day, the senator had awoken thinking about the problem represented by his adviser Clemente and phoned him to come by the Seabra Building as soon as the meeting of the “independents” ended.

Seeking to be persuasive, Freitas told Clemente that he was going to have to reorganize his staff. A nephew, a young and brilliant lawyer, was about to move to Rio de Janeiro. Freitas couldn’t ignore his sister’s request to find a place for him on his staff.

“Despite his youth, he’s an assistant professor in the School of Law. A young man with several degrees, highly qualified. I can’t help but make him my chief adviser.”

Clemente listened in silence, his face unreadable.

“As I know you wouldn’t enjoy being the subordinate of a younger man — I’m very familiar with your dignity, your pride, my dear — I’m thinking of getting you an appointment as a lawyer for the Bank of Brazil. I’ve already spoken with Souza Dantas about it.”

“I’ll think it over,” said Clemente.

“Help me solve this problem. He’s my only nephew. We’ll go on being friends. . Nothing’s going to change between the two of us. .”

Clemente repeated that he’d think it over. And without another word, withdrew.

sixteen

THE EXCHANGE AND COFFEE MARKETS opened in an air of anticipation; the majority of players were still unsure as to the interpretation of Resolution 99 by Sumoc, the money and credit oversight board, which set the floating rate of the currency.

Prices in dollars for coffee and other merchandise had come to vary in accordance with the free-exchange rates, whose average would be calculated by the Exchange Division of the Bank of Brazil.

As a result of Resolution 99, coffee dropped to sixty-five U.S. cents a pound. Pedro Lomagno had been informed by Luiz Magalhães that the resolution would be forthcoming. Thus, before the new Sumoc provision was published, Lomagno & Co. and other exporters associated with him succeeded in closing sales contracts for 300,000 bags of coffee at the old price of eight-seven cents a pound.

These sales came to the attention of other coffee merchants, who accused the government of protectionism and alleged they had incurred the loss of a billion cruzeiros because of the resolution, for the secretary of the treasury, Oswaldo Aranha, and the president of the Bank of Brazil, Souza Dantas, had guaranteed that the minimum price of coffee would remain unchanged.

The National Confederation of Commerce distributed a note supporting the measure adopted by the government.

The free exchange market proved cautious. The dollar was quoted at sixty cruzeiros.

THE OLD POLICE VAN took Inspector Mattos along Avenida Brasil, spewing black smoke from its tailpipe. He had gone to the precinct very early, picked up the van, and spoken rapidly with Pádua, whom he would replace on duty at noon, about his conversation with Anastácio.

“The fucker wants cover, because he’s afraid to die,” said Pádua. “So, Mr. Ilídio, huh?. .” Pádua gave a short guffaw of scorn while he flexed his arm muscles.

“When I get back from Galeão, we’ll talk more about it,” said Mattos.

At the bridge to Governor’s Island the first air force patrols appeared, heavily armed. The inspector’s van was stopped three times for identification of its occupants before it was allowed to enter Galeão airport, where the air force base was located, site of the Police/Military Inquiry into the assassination of Major Rubens Vaz. At the beginning of the PMI, the base was mockingly dubbed the Republic of Galeão by supporters of Getúlio. A government within the government. But in the last few days no more jokes were heard about the air force investigation.

At the entrance to the base the van was ordered to stop once more, at a barricade. The officer of the day was called and Mattos said he wanted to speak with Colonel Adyl.

The inspector waited for a long time, in the van, under the watchful eye of a soldier armed with a machine gun standing next to the vehicle. The officer of the day returned, instructed the driver where to park the van, and told the inspector to come with him.

The base had been transformed into a frenetic war zone. Bell military helicopters and P-40 fighter planes, Tomahawks, were waiting on the runway, their pilots at ready. Trucks and jeeps occupied by army and air force soldiers and naval marines, heavily armed, awaited orders to go into action. Cars with searchlights used by army antiaircraft batteries were evident.

“We’ve put together a military operation to catch that outlaw. We know he’s hiding in the Tinguá woods,” said the officer of the day. “He won’t get away now.”

The inspector followed the officer to a room where an air force captain sat, in field uniform and with a.45 pistol in his holster.

“I’m Captain Ranildo. Colonel Adyl asked me to see you.”

The inspector spoke of his suspicions about Gregório Fortunato’s involvement in the killing of Gomes Aguiar. He said it was perhaps a case of a homosexual crime of passion. The captain heard the inspector in silence, controlling his excitement as best he could. While the inspector was speaking, Ranildo had gotten up from his chair behind a desk and picked up the telephone in front of him, without, however, placing any call.

“I’d like to be able to interrogate Gregório Fortunato,” the inspector said.

“Wait here a moment,” said the captain.

Ranildo went to the office of his immediate superior, Major Fraga, and related what he had heard from the inspector.

“That damned Negro is perfectly capable of having done that; it wouldn’t surprise me,” said Ranildo.

“I don’t like this,” said Fraga. “Gregório involved in a homosexual crime? I don’t trust the police; so far they haven’t managed to catch Climerio. Remember Inspector Pastor trying to demonstrate that Rubens Vaz’s fatal wounds could’ve been caused by the shots that Lacerda fired at the gunman?”

“Do you want to talk to the inspector?”

“You said you’ve got a buddy in the DPS. Try to get the inspector’s dossier from him. All on the q.t. Meanwhile I’ll have a talk with him. Advise Colonel Adyl of what’s happening.”

Fraga, who was unarmed, took from a drawer a belt with a.45 pistol, which he buckled around his waist.

The inspector rose when Fraga entered the room.

“Good afternoon, Inspector. Captain Ranildo told me about your investigation. The problem is that authorization to interrogate Gregório Fortunato can only be given by Colonel Adyl, who’s in charge of the PMI, and he’s not in at the moment.”

“I’ll wait,” said the inspector. “My interrogation will take place in the presence of a military officer, if that’s your wish.”

Fraga took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and extended it to the inspector.

“Thanks, I don’t smoke.”

Fraga was slow to light his cigarette and replace the pack in his pocket. “You understand that we’re going through a very delicate moment. A political situation of the utmost gravity. After all, persons intimately linked to the president of the Republic are involved in the most heinous political crimes ever committed in this country.”

Mattos said nothing.

“Gregório is one of those involved,” Fraga continued, “but there are others, above him. We already know, from the confession of the gunman Alcino, that Lutero Vargas, son of the president, is one of the masterminds. We want to discover the whole truth, however horrible and shocking it may be for the Brazilian people. Gregório Fortunato still has a lot to tell about this repugnant crime. You do agree with me that it was a repugnant crime, don’t you?”

“To me all crimes are the same. I’m a policeman.”

“But even for a policeman there are crimes more atrocious than others.”

“It’s not the policeman’s job to make a value judgment about the illicit act.” Pause. “The best policeman would maybe be an automaton who knew the law well and obeyed it blindly.”

Fraga thought about what Mattos had said.

“All authority contains, in a way, the responsibility to judge,” Fraga said.

“All authority contains, in a way, something corrupt and immoral,” said the inspector.

Fraga looked at Mattos in surprise, not knowing what to say. He preferred to let the cop’s observation pass.

“I’m not talking about judging like a magistrate. Judging like a man of integrity,” said Fraga.

“Those who consider themselves men of integrity aren’t always good policemen.”

“But you’re a man of integrity, aren’t you, inspector? You’re not going to tell me that the turpitude, the corruption, the sea of mud that covers our Brazil doesn’t worry you?”

“Colonel—”

“Major.”

“Major, the only thing that worries me is doing my job well.” The inspector’s stomach began to ache.

Captain Ranildo entered the room.

“May I have a word with you, Major?”

“One moment, I’ll be right back,” said Fraga, leaving the room with Ranildo. In the corridor.

“I’ve got the guy’s dossier. When he was in law school, he was arrested twice. First in 1944, during the dictatorship. Then he was arrested again in ’45, after Getúlio was deposed, during the we-want-Getúlio campaign, when the commies went over to the ex-dictator’s side, that disgusting business of Prestes supporting the man who’d been his torturer and the executioner of his wife. It seems that our inspector follows the communist party line.”

“I spoke with him,” said Fraga. “He has some. . strange ideas. He’s not stupid.”

“How do they let a guy with his background into the police?” continued Ranildo. “When all this is over we’re going to have to clean house in the police.”

“The guy may really be investigating Gregório’s possible participation in the murder of a civilian.”

“The story that inspector tells is too fantastic to be true. Do you think Gregório is a homosexual? He’s a cynic, a thief, a killer, but not a homosexual. The information we have is that he’s a womanizer,” said Ranildo.

“Then what’s the inspector’s motive?”

“To stir up the Police/Military Inquiry. I think the police want us to board a leaky canoe. They accuse Gregório falsely, with our collaboration, of having committed a crime, then they declare the black guy innocent, involving us one way or another. Then Última Hora screams in banner headlines that just as Gregório was wrongly accused of that crime invented by the inspector, he also had nothing to do with the assassination of Major Vaz, et cetera, et cetera,” said Ranildo.

“That strikes me as very. . far-fetched,” said Fraga.

“My theory or his?”

“Both.”

“Major, the inspector may even be here in good faith, which I don’t believe. It wouldn’t be good for our investigation, now, to accuse Gregório of anything not linked to the crime of Rua Tonelero. It can get in the way. We haven’t even had time to interrogate the man properly. The important thing is to prove that Gregório ordered Lacerda killed under orders from a group that includes Benjamim, Lutero, Lodi, and Getúlio himself.”

“And what if Gregório committed the murder mentioned by the cop?”

“I understand your scruples, Major, but that can wait till later.”

“Later may be too late.”

“What’s the problem? In any case, Gregório’s going to spend the rest of his life in prison.”

“I think it best for us to speak to Colonel Adyl.”

The two men stopped in front of the door to Colonel Adyl’s office.

“Wait out here,” Fraga said, entering the room.

Fraga didn’t take long.

“Ranildo, go tell the inspector that for now Gregório can’t be interrogated. Colonel Adyl is going to start the military operation to catch Climerio and instructed me to personally speak to the superintendent of police about that inspector.”

“Does Colonel Adyl trust Paulo Torres?” the captain asked.

“Torres isn’t some crooked cop. He’s an army colonel, a hero of the Italian campaign.”

Ranildo returned to speak with Mattos.

“The colonel said that at the moment, Gregório Fortunato cannot be interrogated by the police. He’s incommunicado.”

“Can I ask a favor of you, Captain?”

“You can ask. I don’t know if I can do it.”

“It’s a simple thing: could you tell me if Lieutenant Gregório is wearing a gold ring on his left hand?”

Ranildo, surprised, looked at the inspector. “A gold ring?”

“Yes. It’s very important to the investigation I’m undertaking.”

Ranildo went to the window and looked pensively at the troops outside at the ready.

“I’m going to do what you ask, but then I’ll ask you to leave. I have many problems that need to be resolved.”

Ranildo left the room. An armed corporal, in battle gear, entered and stood stiffly by the door.

Ranildo returned.

“Yes, he’s wearing a ring.”

“Gold?”

Ranildo held out his hand. “This one.”

“May I see it?”

Ranildo handed the ring to the inspector. A gold ring, similar to the one the inspector had in his pocket, a bit wider, without any letter engraved inside.

The inspector returned the ring to Ranildo.

“Thank you, Captain. We can go now.”

Ranildo escorted the inspector back to the van and stood watching as the police vehicle left the base.

Ten minutes later, the sound of growling motors of trucks and jeeps, the metallic whir of helicopters and Tomahawks was heard. The war operation to apprehend Climerio had begun.

Back at the precinct to relieve Pádua, Inspector Mattos asked his colleague if he would come to an agreement with Anastácio.

“It’s not enough for that son of a bitch to return the jewels. He’s got to testify against the guy.”

“That he won’t do.”

“We’ll put the squeeze on him.”

“I don’t want you to use violence on him. The guy’s sorry about what he did.”

“He’s scared. Are you going to let Ilídio off the hook?”

“No. But I’m in no hurry. Old Turk turned up dead in Tijuca Forest.”

“Oh yeah? When?”

“Yesterday.”

“I didn’t know. How about that, I did him a favor by letting the bastard go, and somebody capped him.”

Mattos stared at Pádua, who held his colleague’s gaze.

“I think you killed Old Turk.”

“I don’t want to argue with you, Mattos.”

“It was a stupid crime.”

“We’re not going to burn a candle over some cheap loser.”

“I’m very sorry, but I’m going to have to pursue this to the end.”

“Do whatever you like.”

When Pádua left, Mattos ordered the jailor to release the prisoners in lockup for questioning. There were two. Then he called the clerk Oliveira, to whom he gave instructions to summon the numbers boss Ilídio to appear at the precinct for clarification.

AT THE MOMENT the military troops were beginning their hunt for Climerio, the superintendent of the Federal Department of Public Safety, Colonel Paulo Torres, was declaring to the press that the former head of the president’s personal guard, Gregório Fortunato, was not being held prisoner but was merely at the disposal of air force authorities. The superintendent of police added that only the former second in command of the personal guard, Valente, was under arrest, and that the driver Nelson Raimundo was in voluntary custody, evincing no desire to accept any habeas corpus on his behalf.

Colonel Paulo Torres stated further that his office had taken over the police inquiry of the Rua Tonelero affair with the objective of making the process more efficient and that every resource would be made available to Sílvio Terra, director of the Technical Police, chosen to head the new investigations.

“This measure in no way diminishes the work done till now by Inspector Pastor, about whom I have the most positive references.”

Pastor had been removed because of pressure from the military and from UDN leaders stemming from Lacerda’s accusations of bias on the part of Pastor, a Vargas supporter, in conducting the investigation of the attack. Sílvio Terra enjoyed the confidence of Lacerda, the military, and UDN politicians, and nothing could shake that confidence. By all indications, however, none of them had read the book he had written in 1939, coauthored by Pedro Mac Cord, a hefty 464-page volume entitled Politics, Law, and Culture. In that book, which featured immediately after the title page a full-page official portrait of Vargas in profile, in tailcoat and wearing the presidential sash, was an interesting chapter on the New State, on page 103.

“The legislative branch, represented by the Federal Congress, that is, the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate, did not constitute a legal safeguard of the interests of the people,” said Terra. “For these reasons, President Getúlio Vargas, on December 10, 1937, excised in timely fashion the cyst forming in our national democratic system. With the New State was born a strong democracy. President Vargas bestowed upon the nation a new constitutional charter. In reinforcing central power, he extended his democratic prophylaxis to the system, impracticable among us, of universal suffrage. The constitutional charter of November 10, 1937, is a document of great historical value. It will be for posterity a symbol of national grandeur.”

THE UDN HAD ORGANIZED in order not to let a day go by without offering anti-Vargas speeches in the Chamber and Senate.

Deputy Herbert Levy began his speech by saying the country was witnessing at that moment the final act of a tragedy initiated in 1930. “Honest men, impeccable citizens like the incorruptible Carlos Lacerda, the symbol of what Brazil could offer as the best of moral resistance, were threatened by assassins protected by the holders of power. It mattered little that those directly or indirectly responsible who had pulled the strings of the killer puppets were individuals linked more or less intimately to the president of the Republic; it was already definitively known that the moral climate making possible an attack that had outraged public opinion had been created by the president of the Republic.”

THE SHACK where Climerio Euribes de Almeida was hiding was used by his friend Oscar only to store wood that he gathered in the forest. The best wood was used by Oscar to make posts, which he sold to neighbors to repair their barbed-wire fences. The poor-quality wood went into the wood-burning stove in his house. The Tinguá forest had lots of good timber.

That day, Climerio left his hideout and descended the hill to have lunch with his friends. After lunch Climerio and Oscar went to the banana grove, leading two mules with yokes, to haul back the stalks of bananas that Oscar had cut that morning. They had just finished loading the mules when Oscar heard a noise coming from the sky.

“What’s that noise, my friend?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Listen careful. . Over there, what’s that?”

Oscar had never seen a helicopter.

“What’s what?”

“Something strange, way over there. It’s gone.”

As they had only a machete and a sickle with them, Oscar suggested that Climerio take the mules to unload while he stayed behind to cut more bananas.

Climerio took the mules and unloaded the banana stalks in a bin in the rear of Oscar’s house. After this labor, Climerio was very tired and asked Honorina for a cup of coffee.

“It looks like it’s going to be cold today,” Honorina said.

Oscar would cut stalks of green bananas and leave them beside the banana trees. He worked quickly, as he wanted to cut the largest number of stalks possible before nightfall. When the day began to darken, he picked up the sickle and the machete and headed home.

He was walking along a dirt road when he was suddenly surrounded by armed soldiers, some of whom were leading dogs on leashes. Startled, Oscar dropped the sickle and the machete.

“What’s your name?” asked an officer who detached himself from a group of soldiers.

“Oscar, yessir, at your service.”

“Is there a man living in your house?”

“No, sir.”

“Simplício Rodrigues, who runs a store in the village, said your brother-in-law Climerio is staying at your house.”

“Oh, my friend Climerio. Yes, he was here, sir.”

“Your friend is a wanted killer,” said the officer. Two soldiers grabbed Oscar by the arms, one on each side, and the officer ordered the farmer to show where his house was.

Honorina watched the soldiers search her house without saying a word.

“Where’s the man?”

“He ran away,” said Honorina. She said that Climerio had fled half an hour earlier, when he sensed the arrival of the soldiers.

The officer, on his radio, mobilized the remaining groups taking part in the operation.

All the highways in the region were closed off. No vehicle crossed the barriers without being searched, its passengers identified and searched.

Night fell. More and more soldiers and equipment poured into the command post set up in Tinguá.

At ten o’clock that night, operations were suspended and scheduled to resume at five a.m. the following day.

In his flight through the woods toward the cabin on the hillside, Climerio had ripped the blue pants he wore and destroyed his shoes. In the cabin, he took off the torn pants and donned another pair. In place of the destroyed shoes, he put on a pair of clogs. He ate spaghetti and beans heated in the cabin’s wooden stove. Before plunging into the woods he grabbed the.38 revolver, loaded with six bullets, and the fifty thousand cruzeiros delivered to him by Soares at Gregório’s orders.

After running and walking, disoriented, in the darkness that quickly enveloped the forest, lashed and at times injured by tree branches, Climerio, a fat man, sat down, fatigued, by a tree, resting his back against it. He was trembling from fear and cold; he ran his chilled hand over his pockmarked face.

The night was thick, without even moonlight to dissipate, however slightly, the absolute darkness that enveloped him.

seventeen

THAT TUESDAY MORNING, as troops of the army, air force, and navy, supported by planes, helicopters, and military vehicles, closed the circle around Climerio, on the Tinguá mountainside, Colonel Adyl, accompanied by a heavily armed escort, taking prisoner João Valente, second-in-command of the now-defunct personal guard of president Vargas, invaded the Catete Palace and headed for the guards’ former lodgings, where they broke open desk drawers and filing cabinets and apprehended all the private correspondence and other papers of Lieutenant Gregório Fortunato, along with close to three hundred thousand cruzeiros in cash. The mission was fast, lasting only about ten minutes. The invasion would be made public in the Chamber and the Senate, by the opposition, as proof that “the government no longer governed.”

A short time later, the secretary of war was honored by the commander and other officers of the First Cavalry Regiment of the Dragoons of Independence, in the São Cristóvão barracks.

In addition to that homage to Zenóbio, one more was scheduled for that Tuesday. Beginning at 2:30 p.m., black cars carrying high-ranking army chiefs and the upper ranks of officers of the Rio de Janeiro garrison, led by General Odilio Denys, commandant of the Eastern Military Zone, began arriving at the War Office. They were to demonstrate to General Zenóbio his comrades’ solidarity for his decisive action in maintaining the elevated prestige of the army and the nation. Responding to the greeting of General Denys, General Zenóbio said, “Comrades! Trust me, as I trust you!”

IN THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES, the majority leader, Capanema, constantly interrupted by asides and clamors of protest from the minority deputies, said that Getúlio’s resignation was not a demand from the people; it was a demand from a political party, the same political party that had tried to prevent his taking office with the celebrated argument of the absolute majority, that had recently attempted to remove him from the Catete by a groundless impeachment. That episode, that exploitation of the death of Major Vaz, was one more step in the struggle begun almost four years ago to remove the president in any way possible, whether by instigating the people, instigating the press, or instigating the armed forces.

From the floor came shouts of “murderer, dictator, criminal,” pronounced against Vargas. Led by members of the UDN, opposition deputies began a chant that echoed loudly in the Chamber: “Res-ig-na-tion! Res-ig-na-tion! Res-ig-na-tion!”

The president of the Republic, Capanema continued amid the hubbub from the floor, could not resign because he needed to defend, for the good of the people, the essential works of his administration and constitutional stability. Capanema reiterated an argument he had used repeatedly. Now he responded to Deputy Bilac Pinto to tell him not to hypothesize the peaceful succession of Vice President Café Filho, not because Capanema lacked confidence in the serene and correct expectation of the armed forces but from fearing and foreseeing that resignation as demanded by a passionate minority against the majority of the people, thrown in the face of the poor, the workers, the laborers, the soldiers, would subvert public order, and be so upsetting to tranquility and order, that the nation from one moment to the next might face a conflagration of disastrous and unpredictable consequences; because, once the spark of revolution was struck, who could any longer assure the preservation of institutions?

SOON AFTER CAPANEMA ENDED HIS SPEECH, Vitor Freitas met with his “group of independents” to relay the information he had received from his “friend in the palace.” What Freitas said was received with surprise and apprehension by the other legislators. According to his palace informant, an emissary from the president, Márcio Alves, had left that day for Minas Gerais, on a secret mission for Vargas, to enlist the support of governor Juscelino Kubitschek for imposition of a state of siege in the country.

Some members of the group doubted the veracity of the information.

“Why didn’t Getúlio choose Capanema or Tancredo for that mission?”

“It would be impossible for either of them to do it secretly,” answered Freitas. “Capanema spoke to General Dutra to get support for Getúlio and everybody knows about it. The choice of Márcio Alves was clever. He’s an intimate friend of Amaral Peixoto and his wife; he’s intelligent, discreet, and loyal to the government. The right person for a delicate mission like that.”

“Does Lacerda already know about it?”

“Certainly. He has the same informants as I do.”

“Then the UDN is going to try to pull a coup first.”

“They’ll have to convince the military.”

“The air force is already more than convinced.”

“But the army’s in charge, and the army is undecided. Zenóbio, Estillac, Denys — everything depends on them, and for now they don’t know what to do.”

“The UDN is trying to influence the military in several ways. One is by the pressure of public opinion. The large newspapers are playing the opposition’s game. Última Hora, which in the past strongly supported the president, strikes me as cowed lately.”

“Getúlio received Assis Chateaubriand this morning.”

“Let’s see how Chateau’s newspapers behave from now on. In any case, Getúlio has already lost the battle for public opinion.”

A SHORT TIME before finishing his shift, Inspector Mattos received some information from the clerk, Oliveira:

“Remember that Portuguese with the oranges? Mr. Adelino?”

“Of course. His son falsely confessed to a homicide. I charged the old man with physical assault resulting in death and made it clear that the circumstances demonstrated that the agent had not intended that fatal outcome.”

“Right, you felt sorry for him. . But it didn’t do any good. The old man had a heart attack and died.”

Mattos had already handed over duty to Inspector Maia when the jailer came to say that the cell boss Odorico wanted to talk to him.

“Want to come with me?” asked Mattos.

“They want to talk to you,” Maia excused himself. “Make believe you haven’t relieved me yet.”

In the lockup the prisoners were arguing. When they saw Mattos they ran to the bars. Their simultaneous complaints were silenced by a gesture from Odorico, the boss of the cell.

“Sir, just a quick word. We know you’re about to end your shift, but we don’t have nobody else to ask.”

Mattos took an antacid from his pocket, placed it in his mouth, and chewed.

“Whenever you’re in charge of the precinct, you empty the lockup a little. But the situation keeps getting worse. This week five more arrived that not even you can let go, they’ve been convicted. There’s not even room in here to move. There’s barely space for everybody to sleep at the same time.”

Mattos approached the bars. The prisoners, pressed against the bars, seemed like a double wall of bodies.

“Open the door,” Mattos told the jailer.

Mattos entered the lockup. He walked about the cell. The prisoners pressed against one another to let him through. Even so, Mattos rubbed against the dirty bodies of the inmates, smelling their fetid breath.

“We can’t get any sun, or exercise. It’s horrible. Can’t you arrange for some of us to be transferred to the penitentiary?”

“I’ll see, Odorico, I’ll see.”

Mattos knew there were no vacancies in the penitentiaries. And that all the other precincts’ lockups were also beyond normal capacity.

“At least the food’s better, isn’t it?”

“It’s better, but food ain’t everything.”

“I’ll see, Odorico, I’ll see.”

Mattos left his shift, caught the streetcar, thinking about Odorico and the other prisoners in that filthy, stinking cell. He thought about Mr. Adelino. What was his orange grove like? Sweet oranges? He, Mattos, could only eat sweet oranges, which had less acidity. He thought about the son, Cosme, his pregnant wife. The world he lived in was shit. The entire world was shit. And now he was going to the home of a luxury procuress to do the work of a vulture, his heart heavy and his mind laden with problems. The black man who had killed Paulo Gomes Aguiar wasn’t Lieutenant Gregório, as his ingenuous hastiness had led him to suppose. Now he needed to find a black man who was big and strong — the macumba priest Miguel could also be eliminated from his deliberations. He needed to locate the doorman Raimundo. He needed to connect all the dots. He needed to investigate the murder of Old Turk even though the case was in a different jurisdiction and prospects were very unpleasant, since he suspected Pádua. He needed to pressure Ilídio. He needed to have a talk with Alice. He needed to have a talk with Salete. He needed to see the doctor. He needed to check his feces in the toilet bowl.

Almeidinha opened the door.

“Mr. Mattos, so nice to see you. Dona Laura is waiting for you.” Ingratiating, pandering: “You really must come here more often. . Dona Laura was very taken with you. .”

Laura was sitting on a sofa in the semidarkness of her red living room.

“You may go, Almeidinha.”

The two remained silent for a moment.

“Sit down, Inspector.”

Mattos sat in an armchair.

“Sit over here by me,” said Laura, patting the sofa.

“I’m fine here.”

“But I’m not fine with you there. I don’t want to put on my pince-nez to see you, understand? I’m very nearsighted.”

Mattos didn’t move.

“Please, I don’t bite.”

“Put on the pince-nez.”

Laura got the pince-nez from a small table beside the sofa. She placed the silk cord around her neck and brought the pince-nez in front of her eyes, without supporting it on her nose.

“Have you stopped hitting your head against the wall?”

“For the time being. I’d like to get some information from you.”

“About Senator Freitas?”

“Exactly.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What kind of person the senator. . uh—”

“Young men. Business employees, students — any clean, good-looking young man.”

“Does he like black men?”

“The senator?! He’s a racist. He hates blacks. He once fought with a friend, because the guy has a black boxing instructor.”

“Can you tell me the name of that friend?”

“One Pedro Lomagno.”

“Can you tell me what you know about this Lomagno?”

“He was here just once. He only had a few whiskeys with Freitas and left. They were going to meet another senator, who never showed up. I heard a bit of their argument. Freitas said Brazil was a backward country because of Negroes and the Catholic church. A cursed black heritage: the Jesuits’ robes and the skin of slaves. He may even be a little bit right.” Laura patted her red hair. “Of course, blacks aren’t to blame for being black, the poor things.”

Rosalvo, sadly, was right, Mattos had to admit. You can find out a lot of things in high-class bordellos.

“This. . boxing instructor. Do you know him? Do you know anything about him?”

“I don’t have the faintest idea who he is. Let’s change the subject, Inspector. . Let’s forget this unpleasant police work. . I have a suggestion. .”

“I don’t have anything else to discuss with you.”

“But you don’t even know what my suggestion is.”

Mattos stood up. “I don’t want to know.”

“No man treats me like this, did you know that?”

“Like what?”

“With such disdain. You don’t like those who serve as intermediaries in amorous encounters, is that it?”

“It’s a crime. It’s called procuring. I didn’t make the law.”

“So you disdain me, because I’m a criminal?”

“I don’t disdain anyone.” He thought about Salete. He thought about Mr. Adelino. About Alice. Luciana. Lomagno. Ilídio. Old Turk. About the prostitutes in his childhood on Conde Lage. A whirlwind in his head.

“What does someone have to do to deserve a bit of, I don’t say affection, but a bit of your compassion?” asked Laura.

“Look, I already have two women, and I don’t know what to do with them. My hands and my heart are full.”

“Whoever has two can have three,” said Laura, seriously. “I like you. It doesn’t bother me that you’re a policeman, it doesn’t bother me that you have an ulcer in your stomach, it doesn’t bother me that you bang your head against the wall. It doesn’t bother me that you have as many women as you want.”

Mattos sat back down.

“Can you get me a glass of milk?”

“What?”

“My stomach is hurting.”

Laura stood up. She was wearing a long, tight satin dress.

Rua Conde Lage.

“I’ll get your milk.”

As she passed close to him, Mattos smelled the perfume emanating from Laura’s body. Rua Conde Lage.

IT WAS STILL DARK, at five a.m., when the troops employed in the hunt for Climerio began their execution of the plan laid out by their commanders. The dogs, after sniffing again Climerio’s clothing found in the home of his friend, became restless and were the first to move, restrained by the soldiers of the patrol.

As soon as the day brightened, the helicopters took flight.

At the top of the mountain, the sounds of the small creatures of the forest, who during the night had terrified Climerio and not let him sleep, began to be replaced by the distant barking of dogs. Soon afterward, a louder sound filled Climerio with fear. He lay curled up on the ground, and saw, through the crowns of the trees, a helicopter circling slowly. The ’copter was so near that Climerio could read the letters on its cabin: FAB.

The barking of the dogs increased.

Climerio was trembling from cold. His hand was so chilled that he had difficulty taking the revolver from his belt. He rested the barrel against his head. He didn’t have the courage to pull the trigger; they’re not going to kill me, he thought, they need me alive.

When he saw the first dogs and the men from the patrol, Climerio came out from behind the trees with his hands raised.

Three shots rang out. The agreed-upon signal that the hunt was over. It was eight a.m.

At eleven, Climerio was disembarking in handcuffs from a helicopter at the military base at Galeão, to the sound of cheers and jubilation. His wife, Elvira de Almeida, had been arrested that morning.

Brigadier Eduardo Gomes, the opposition military leader, was immediately informed of the fugitive’s capture. No thought was given to informing the secretary of the air force, Nero Moura, with the same rapidity. In any case, he was to be replaced that same day by a new secretary, Brigadier Epaminondas. But neither of them was respected by air force officialdom. The de facto secretary was Eduardo Gomes.

IN HIS FORTRESS IN BANGU, Eusébio de Andrade met with his fellow bankers Aniceto Moscoso and Ilídio.

“Did you get the summons yet?”

“Not yet. But the clerk told me it’s coming.”

“That inspector is going to give us trouble yet,” said Aniceto.

“He’s already giving us trouble,” said Ilídio.

“I’m not talking about this. This is something you created,” said Aniceto.

“I already spoke to my lawyer,” said Ilídio.

“You need to change lawyers. That peg leg can’t get it up.” Aniceto and Moscoso laughed; Ilídio’s attorney actually did have a mechanical leg.

“He fell off the streetcar when he was a student,” Ilídio said.

“We can’t have lawyers who fall off the streetcar,” said Eusébio. “Go into a sanatorium this very day, one of those that specialize in rest cures. There’s a very good one at Alto da Gávea. Spend a week there. When the summons arrives, send the peg leg with a medical certificate to say you’re sick. In the meantime, we’re going to act on another front, aren’t we, Aniceto?”

“We’ll find a way. It’ll cost money, your money, Ilídio, but we’ll get out of this jam.”

“Is it going to be a lot?”

“Whatever it takes. That’ll teach you to go off half-cocked.”

eighteen

“I’VE GOT TO GIVE Senator Freitas some information. He’s pressuring me.”

Rosalvo remained silent, meditating.

“You told me the inspector is investigating a homicide in which the senator may be involved. Just what crime are we talking about?”

Teodoro, the Senate security officer, and Rosalvo, aide to Inspector Mattos, were conversing in a restaurant on General Osório Square, in Ipanema.

“Remember that rich guy who turned up dead in the Deauville Building?”

“Is that the case?”

“The high roller was involved in under-the-table business with the senator, import licenses obtained fraudulently from the Cexim, along with other backroom deals. He knew too much, and he got killed.”

“And the inspector thinks it was the senator who killed the guy?”

“His conclusion is that the senator ordered the killing, to hide his role in the larceny.”

“Does the inspector have proof or is it all supposition, a hunch?”

“I don’t know.”

The waiter brought pork loin with manioc flour.

“There’s a rumor that the senator’s a fruit,” said Rosalvo.

“How can you say that! Some people have the habit of calling any fellow who’s not married a pansy. The senator’s a man.”

“Could be a bull dyke.”

“Impossible. If he were, I’d know.”

“Don’t go telling the senator what I said.”

“No way! The senator will get rid of me if I say something like that to him.”

“Inspector Mattos is crazy. Real crazy, the kind who talks to himself and tears up money. Tell the senator that. He has to be careful with him.”

TEODORO LOST NO TIME telling Clemente what Rosalvo had said. The part referring to the senator’s possible homosexuality was omitted.

“I’ll talk to the senator about this. .”

Clemente stared at Teodoro for a long time, until he detected nervousness in his expression. “Can we trust you?”

“But of course, sir.”

“Can the senator trust you? Blindly?”

Teodoro paled.

“The senator will know how to reward that trust,” continued Clemente.

“Whatever the senator asks, not asks, orders, I’ll do.”

Ordering the killing of political adversaries, Clemente said, was common in the interior of Brazil, even more so in Pernambuco, the senator’s home state, but in Rio de Janeiro, capital of the Republic, it was rarer, for one simple reason: it was difficult to find a killer “of faith.” A killer so reliable that if caught he would never reveal who hired him. After this long buildup, Clemente stared at Teodoro and said:

“The senator wants to get rid of that inspector. Could you do it?”

“Me?!”

“The senator has confidence in you.”

“Mr. Clemente, I know someone better than me.”

“Our man can’t be some asshole like that Alcino of the Rua Tonelero business. Who’s the man?”

“My brother.”

“Your brother? I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“He’s the black sheep of the family. He’s been in and out of trouble since he was a boy. He can do what the senator wants. He’s a tough guy from Pernambuco. If he gets caught, he won’t open his mouth; he’ll kill himself first. But that won’t happen. My brother has already killed over twenty people, and they’ve never laid a finger on him. You know who killed the mayor of Caruaru? The chief of police in Maceió? It was him. He’s killed politicians, soldiers, priests. He’s very good.”

“What’s his name?”

“Genésio.”

“Does he live in Rio?”

“Recife. But just call him and he comes, does the job, and takes it on the lam the same day.”

“Then tell him to come right away. By plane. The senator’s in a hurry. As soon as — Genésio, isn’t it? — gets here, let me know. If everything goes well, that appointment for your wife will go through right away. You have a nineteen-year-old son, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The senator can arrange something for him, too.”

Meanwhile, in his office, Senator Freitas was receiving his main electoral supporter, a plantation owner known as “Colonel” Linhares. The “colonel” informed him that he was buying false voting papers for the October election for five cruzeiros apiece.

“Here in the State of Rio the same papers can be bought for two, three cruzeiros at most,” protested Freitas. “You think I have a printing press to manufacture money like Oswaldo Aranha?”

“I brought you a bottle of your cherry liqueur,” said Linhares.

“Don’t change the subject. You’ve got to get the voting papers for less. I doubt if my opponents are paying all that.”

“I’ll see what I can do, senator. Now try the liqueur. Try it, it’s really very good.”

THE INSPECTOR BEGAN THE DAY by going to have an x-ray done of his stomach.

The doctor’s office was in Copacabana, on Rua Barata Ribeiro. The inspector saw in the street many women carrying on their heads and in their hands cans, buckets, pots, and teakettles filled with water.

“I don’t even have water to wash my hands,” was the first thing the radiologist told him. “My wife went out this morning with the maid. It’s absurd. She didn’t even make breakfast. Yesterday it was the same thing. My children’s school closed for lack of water, and there haven’t been any classes for three days. I’m washing my hands with bottled water. Meanwhile, the politicians make speeches, everybody makes speeches, but nobody solves the problem of lack of water.”

With dramatic gestures, as if to demonstrate the gravity of the situation, the doctor opened a bottle of São Lourenço water and used it to wash his hands in the small sink in the consultation room.

“How are your stools? Very dark?”

“I always forget to check.”

“You have to take care of your health. The hemoglobin count from your blood test indicates that you’re having gastric hemorrhaging. We’ll see what the x-ray has to say.”

“I take care of my health. I always carry antacids in my pocket and drink milk all the time.”

The radiologist handed him a glass with a thick beige-colored liquid.

“What’s this concoction that I’m drinking?” The taste of dirt mixed with chalk, similar to the taste of the whitewash on walls he sometimes ate when he was a child.

“Barium. For the contrast.”

Mattos took off his clothes, put on a gown, and lay down on the x-ray table.

The x-rays were taken.

“You may suffer some constipation because of the barium,” the radiologist said.

A CHECK OF FINGERPRINTS with the Félix Pacheco Institute confirmed that the corpse identified by Mattos at the morgue was Ibrahim Assad.

Mattos had asked Leonídio to record the name of whoever came to the morgue to claim the body and provide him with the information at once. For three days the cadaver had remained in the refrigerator, without receiving a single visitor. Administrative measures were being taken for Assad to be buried as an indigent when an employee of the Santa Clara mortuary showed up to embalm the body.

“The remains are going to be transported to Caxambu, in Minas, to be buried,” Leonídio said. “The body snatcher says he doesn’t know who paid the expenses.”

In the office of the Santa Clara funeral home, an employee received Mattos and explained that the person who had paid the costs of embalming and transport of the body had asked for his act of charity to be anonymous.

“That person knows the mother of the deceased, a lady without resources. . There are still good people in this world capable of a disinterested act of kindness. .”

Mattos, who until then had not said he was from the police, showed his ID. His stomach felt heavy because of the barium he’d taken for the x-ray, but at the same time he believed the test had improved his health, and that he was cured.

“I’m investigating a murder. Tell me who paid the costs.”

“You put me in a difficult position.”

“Out with it. I’ve got a lot ahead of me today.”

“A difficult situation. .”

“Do you prefer to go the precinct with me?”

“It was a police officer, like you.”

“His name.”

The employee wiped sweat from his forehead with a purple handkerchief he took from his pocket. “Mr. Ubaldo Pádua.”

THE MAYOR OF NEW ORLEANS, Lesseps S. Morrison, received by President Vargas, said that Rio de Janeiro was still, despite a degree of pessimism among some of its people, one of the most pleasant cities, and certainly the most beautiful city, on earth.

Morrison, visiting Rio for the third time, accompanied Henry Kaiser, one of the kings of the American automotive industry.

In the audience with the president of the Republic, Kaiser assured that his firm was ready to transport immediately to Brazil a factory with an annual production capacity of fifty thousand automobiles intended for the domestic market and for export.

Also present at the meeting were Secretary Oswaldo Aranha, the American Ambassador James Kemper, and Mr. Herbert Moses.

When the Americans left the interview, Kaiser commented in the car taking them from the Catete to the Hotel Copacabana Palace that from the photos of Vargas he’d seen in the United States, always smiling and with a cigar in his mouth, he expected him to be a happy and good-natured person; he had been surprised by the president’s melancholy and somber appearance.

“He must be sick,” said Kemper, who had also noticed Vargas’s sadness. “It’s the only explanation for his depression.”

Morrison ventured the hypothesis, quickly accepted by the others, that the president might have the same flu virus that he had caught upon arriving in Brazil. “It was very kind of him to receive us in that condition.”

MATTOS TRIED ALL DAY to locate Pádua.

When he got home, Alice was sitting in the living room writing in a thick notebook with a leather cover.

“My diary. But it’s not really a diary, it’s more a book of thoughts. I was writing about the death of Colette, what it means to me. I wrote down what you said to me that day: I have other deaths to worry about.”

“I said that?”

“Yes.”

“May I read it?”

Alice closed the notebook. “No one has ever read my diary. I’ve never shown it to anyone in this world. Especially you. One day, when we were seeing each other, I gave you a poem I had written, and you laughed, saying it was funny.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“You don’t like poetry.”

“I never told you I don’t like poetry.”

“You only like opera. Because when you were a little boy your mother would play ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ on the Victrola, and you would cry.”

“You’re making that up.”

“It was you who told me.”

“Making up that business about me not liking poetry.”

“A policeman can’t like poetry. He has other deaths to worry about.”

“Did you look for an apartment to rent?”

“I didn’t have time. Know what I’d have liked to do these days? I’d have liked to go to São Paulo to the International Writers Conference, but you didn’t even think about taking me.”

“You didn’t mention it to me. In any case, I couldn’t leave Rio. I’m in the middle of a very difficult investigation.”

“Please don’t yell at me.”

“I’m not yelling.”

“Try to control your aggressiveness for a minute and listen to what I’m going to read to you now.” Alice displayed a sheet of paper in her hand. “Can you do that? One minute?”

“All right.”

“Let’s go sit in the bedroom.”

Mattos took of his coat. Now, owing to the present of Alice in the apartment, he left his revolver at the station.

They sat on the bed. “May I read?”

“Go ahead.”

“Declaration of Principles of the Conference on Poetry. Are you paying attention?”

“Yes, yes.”

“See how it is? You can’t hide your impatience.”

“Please, read, I’m paying total attention.”

“The poetry section of the International Writers Conference, meeting in São Paulo, during ceremonies commemorating the quadricentennial of the city in whose foundation collaborated the poet-priest José de Anchieta, recognizes the considerable technical progress that has characterized poetry, both international and Brazilian, systematized by critics of the most diverse conceptions; proclaims the broad right of the poet to aesthetic search and the necessity that he dominate his instrument in order to enrich creation; and manifests not only the conviction that conquests of form will be directed toward expressing great collective aspirations, belief in human beings and in individual rights, as well as confidence that there will be found in all its fullness the way to reach the sensitivity of the man of today — that’s directed straight at you, Alberto — the man of today unattuned to the poetry of high quality that is being published.”

“Interesting.”

“Interesting? Do you know who’s in São Paulo at this very moment? Robert Frost, William Faulkner, Miguel Torga, João Cabral de Melo Neto. And all you can say is ‘interesting.’”

“Wonderful.”

Alice tore up the paper she was holding. With closed fists she beat against Mattos’s chest, saying that he couldn’t treat her so cruelly. Her blows were weak; Mattos let her go on striking him until she tired.

Leaving Alice lying on the bed, now immobile as if dead, Mattos went back to the living room. His stomach hurt, but there was no milk in the refrigerator, and he had run out of antacids.

The telephone rang.

“This is Pedro Lomagno. Is my wife there?”

“She’s sleeping.”

“I want to talk to her.”

“She’s sleeping.”

“You’re aware that my wife. . uh. . has problems. . I spoke to the doctor and he told me it would be best for Alice to come home. . She feels more protected in familiar surroundings. . I’d like to have your help for that. .”

“Mr. Lomagno, I don’t feel good about this situation either. But Alice is here because she wants to be. She told me she’s separated from you. She asked to stay here, because she doesn’t have a family member to stay with. I don’t think it’s a good solution either, but I can’t throw her out. .”

“I’d like to hear her say that.”

“You spoke with her yesterday, I believe, and she said something to that effect. I’m very sorry, Mr. Lomagno, but there’s nothing I can do.”

“I’d like to talk to her again.”

“I already told you she’s sleeping.”

“You’re not cooperating.”

“I’m very sorry. Good evening.”

As soon as Mattos hung up, the phone rang again.

“You been looking for me?”

“I wanted to talk about your crisis of conscience.”

“What crisis? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“If not remorse, what made you pay for the burial of Old Turk in Caxambu?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Pádua, I know you killed Old Turk. I can’t just do nothing, knowing what I do. I can’t be an accomplice.”

“You’re not being an accomplice. You’re gonna do nothing simply ’cause there’s nothing you can do.”

“Yes, I can.”

“No, you can’t. I know you’re a good cop, but not even Sherlock Holmes could prove I killed that guy. Mattos, Old Turk was a hired killer, he was going to kill you. You need to stop suffering over nonsense. That’s why you have the ulcer. When you come to relieve me, day after tomorrow, we’ll talk more about the matter if you want to.” Pause. Trying to change the subject: “Did you hear that Arlindo Pimenta is running for city council?”

“I’m not interested in that.”

“The numbers men are gonna take over the country yet. I know a very interesting story about Arlindo.”

“Not interested.” Mattos hung up the phone.

This was the story Mattos had refused to hear:

The numbers game bankroller Arlindo Pimenta, commonly called a gangster in the newspapers because of the flashy manner in which he conducted other criminal activities besides financing the numbers game, had been advised by his lawyer and his fellow lawbreakers to change his negative image. Heeding their counsel, Arlindo promised that he would continue exercising, with proper decorum, only the illegality of the numbers game; he sold the Cadillac in which he ostentatiously circulated in the outskirts of the city; stopped causing disturbances in bars; and, finally, became a candidate for alderman.

Arlindo launched his candidacy on his birthday. On Rua Leopoldina Rego, on the outskirts, an election party was held with speeches and fireworks. A large table of sweets and savories displayed in its center an outsized birthday cake representing a Chinese garden with an enormous pagoda, which provoked wonder, and even astonishment, among the guests. The cake maker, following the request of one of Arlindo’s thugs who wished to curry favor with his boss, placed in the middle of the Chinese garden a marzipan miniature of a.38 revolver. A small birthday candle was placed in the barrel of the revolver. Arlindo Pimenta, amid applause, blew it out with a single puff.

nineteen

THE BURN that Salete had caused on Mattos’s hand with boiling water had healed, created a scab, and the inspector had removed the scab, but Salete knew nothing of that, because she hadn’t appeared at the inspector’s apartment since Alice had moved there. Alice had answered the phone the two times she called Mattos’s home. Salete had hung up without saying anything.

Days of suffering. She lacked the will to leave the house. She didn’t go to the benefit tea for the Maronites, at the Monte Líbano club, featuring a fashion show by Elsa Haouche, the designer whose dresses she most appreciated, and even knowing that Mário Mascarenhas, her favorite musician, accompanied by fifteen other accordionists, would be playing classical and folkloric music. She forewent seeing the film Mogambo, with Clark Gable and Ava Gardner, whom she adored. She felt so unhappy that she didn’t even have her toenails and fingernails done.

She cried in the corners, didn’t eat, lost weight, and her eyes looked even larger and her face bonier, which increased her anguish, because she thought it worsened her ugliness. Actually, her slimness made her face appear even prettier.

She was suffering from her irremediable misfortune when Luiz Magalhães telephoned. Lately Salete had refused to speak with him, telling the maid to say she was very ill. That Thursday she went to the phone. Magalhães said he needed her to do him a big favor. When Salete again refused to see him, Magalhães begged, in such a humble manner that it left her disturbed:

“I’m in a tight spot, I need you. For the love of God, help me.”

“I don’t have the strength to leave. I look very ugly, I don’t want anyone to see me.”

“It’s a quick thing. I’ll pick you up in a cab, we’ll go downtown and take care of everything in a few minutes.”

Magalhães arrived with a wide black briefcase, stuffed to the point of bulging. He seemed extremely worried, looking repeatedly through the car’s rearview mirror as if he were being followed. The entire time, he clutched the case against his body.

“Where are we going?” Salete asked.

“I’ll explain later,” said Magalhães, looking suspiciously at the driver.

They got out on Avenida Rio Branco, near Rua do Ouvidor.

The two of them, with Magalhães always hugging the briefcase to his chest, walked quickly along Ouvidor to the corner of Rua da Quitanda.

“Here it is,” said Magalhães. They went into a building. On the door Salete could read Sul América — Securities and Capitalization.

Magalhães stopped in the building’s ample lobby. He explained in a low voice, looking fearfully to all sides, that he was renting a safe-deposit box in Salete’s name. In the box he would keep some very valuable things, which she would later return to him when he came back from the trip he was taking the next day.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to Uruguay. When things get better, I’ll come back. But that doesn’t matter,” said Magalhães impatiently.

“Why don’t you rent a box in your name?”

Magalhães explained that he had many powerful enemies who could break into the strongbox and take out the things in it. Those enemies would not be looking for a box in her name.

“Thank you for trusting me,” Salete said.

Magalhães couldn’t rent a box in the name of his wife or any other relative. It was too risky. Salete was the only possible option. But in any case, he had total trust in the girl.

A Sul América clerk filled out forms with Salete’s identity information. The girl signed the papers. Then, in a secure room, they put Magalhães’s briefcase in a lockbox. A key, with a number, was handed to Salete.

“You mustn’t lose this key,” said the clerk.

“That’s right,” said Magalhães. “Where are you going to keep the key?”

“Leave it to me. I’ll hide it in a place where no one will find it no matter how hard they look.”

As they left, still in the lobby, Salete took Magalhães by the arm.

“But there’s something you need to know.”

“What is it? Tell me now. I’m in a big hurry.”

“I like another man.”

“Right. But don’t tell him about what we did here today.”

“You said you’d kill me if I liked another man.”

“When I get back, we’ll talk about it. You can’t lose that key, you hear?” Seeing the disappointment on Salete’s face, Magalhães added, joking, nervously, “I still like you a lot. When I return, I’ll kill you.”

“You don’t like me at all. It was all a lie.”

“I have to go. I deposited a lot of money in your bank account.” Magalhães kissed the girl on the cheek and withdrew, almost running, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor of the lobby.

Salete stood there, the key in her hand.

“It was all a lie,” she murmured.

THE PRINCIPALS INVOLVED in the Tonelero attack were exhibited to the press, at Galeão air base, at ten a.m. During the presentation certain information was provided by the military officers. The statements by the accused, although requested, were not furnished to the press, and the journalists had to be content with the sparse information given them during the presentation.

The first marched past the journalists was Lieutenant Gregório. In coat and tie, as always, he remained silent, his brow furrowed. His participation in the attack was known to all. The high decoration he had received from the army, the Maria Quitéria Medal, had been rescinded. His confession, according to the military, had been complete, claiming responsibility as the mastermind. It wouldn’t be until two days later, in another interrogation, that Gregório would say Deputy Euvaldo Lodi had visited him in his room at the Catete Palace and proposed “bombarding” Lacerda, so the military men did not mention the deputy’s name in the presentation. Nor did they mention, for the same reason — they were still unaware of the fact — that on the eve of the dissolution of the personal guard on August 8, upon learning that the president had told his adjutant Major Accioly to summon to the palace his brother Benjamim from Petropolis, Gregório had jumped the gun and had met Benjamim in that city; and that upon his return to Rio, traveling in the same car, Gregório had confessed to Benjamim that he had given orders to murder Lacerda. (This last item of information would come to serve as fundamental to the conviction on the part of the military officers of the PMI that the president, since August 8—in other words, three days before the attack — already knew that the head of his personal guard was behind the assassination, for surely Benjamim would have told his brother of Gregório’s confession.)

Next to be presented was João Valente, the former second in command of the guard. On Gregório’s orders he had given fifty thousand cruzeiros to José Antonio Soares to deliver to Climerio for his escape. Valente praised the treatment he was receiving at Galeão; he joked with the officers who accompanied him; stated that he was eating “turkey and sleeping on a spring mattress.”

The presentation of Alcino was preceded by more detailed information. Before apprehending Alcino, the air force officers had detained his wife Abigail Rabelo, who when taken to the offices of the national aviation authority under orders from Air Force Major Borges, had there confessed her husband’s role in the attack. Air force officers and civilian police had hidden in Alcino’s house at 192 Rua Gil Queiroz, in São João de Meriti, waiting for him to come for his wife and five children as he had promised to do, according to information provided in Abigail’s interrogation. When he showed up to take his family with him in his flight, Alcino was arrested, offering no resistance.

Alcino stated, in the presentation, that he was being treated well and also praised the high quality of the spring mattress on which he slept in the prison.

The driver Nelson Raimundo de Souza stated that he desired to remain imprisoned at Galeão, as he feared reprisals.

The last of the prisoners to be presented was Climerio. The spectacular actions of the war operation leading to his arrest on Tinguá mountain were recalled. Climerio appeared frightened but, when asked by a reporter, said he was being treated well and that, like the others, he also slept on a spring mattress.

Those charged with the military inquiry stated that José Antonio Soares had not yet been arrested, something they hoped to accomplish in a few days. (In reality, at that moment Soares had just been detained by the police in Muriaé, in the company of his wife and father, with a.38 revolver and thirty thousand cruzeiros in new bills, money that he declared had come from the son of the president of the Republic, Lutero Vargas.)

Next exhibited at the Galeão base were PTB political propaganda materials found on the prisoners. They were handheld fans bearing the picture of a smiling Vargas with a kerchief around his neck, on which was written the phrase: “The PTB is revolution on the march.” On the fans was also the flag of the PTB, the emblem of the party — an anvil — and the words “Worker, join the Brazilian Workers Party to guarantee your rights.”

The principal information that the military men in the PMI chose to withhold from the press, on orders from Colonel Adyl, head of the military inquiry, was the accusations made in statements by Climerio and Alcino that it was Lutero Vargas who ordered the assassination. Adyl was convinced that such an assertion was false, a “diversionary tactic” still mysterious in nature and having as its objective the disruption of the investigations.

AT THE MEETING held at the Military Club, a motion had been made demanding the president’s resignation, but General Canrobert and General Juarez Távora expressed the view that the crime should first be investigated, and then they could discuss the resignation of the president. The suggestion by the two opposition generals prevailed, as everyone believed the results of the inquiry would demonstrate unequivocally the president’s responsibility for the attack. At that same moment, the secretary of war, Zenóbio, had said, backed by seventy-three generals who met with him in Rio, that resignation was a very touchy issue that had to be resolved in an atmosphere of harmony and patriotism. “We are only interested in lawful solutions, to avoid plunging the country into anarchy,” Zenóbio had said. “In defense of the Constitution, I shall act with speed and vigor. This is my role, and I shall fulfill it to the end.”

Meanwhile, manifestations of protests were increasing against the president of the Republic. The legislatures of almost every state in Brazil were demanding Vargas’s resignation. The Brazilian Bar Association approved a motion, by a vote of 43 to 6, stating that it considered the country leaderless and asking the armed forces to remove Vargas from the Catete Palace and guarantee the swearing in of Vice President Café Filho so that legality could be restored. In military circles, rejection of the president grew continuously. The officer corps of the navy, which until then had maintained a less radical stance than the air force, reacted with outrage to the detaining of Admiral Muniz Freire for having criticized the government in a ceremony aboard the cruiser Barroso. The admiralty, pressured by the younger officers, obliged the secretary of the navy to rescind the punishment. Among the high command of the armed forces, only Marshal Mascarenhas de Morais held a favorable view of the president; but the marshal, though he headed the general staff of the armed forces and was respected for his illustrious past, in reality lacked any real power in that situation of widespread hierarchical subversion.

Throughout Brazil, candidates of the Lantern Club were registered for the October elections. Student associations from all over the country issued manifestos demanding that Vargas resign. The governmental accounting office, approving a motion by counselor Silvestre Péricles de Góis Monteiro, made public a declaration stating that it could not remain silent in the face of the Tonelero attack, in which the valiant Major Vaz had lost his life, victim of the perversity of murderers and criminals, a fact that had deeply wounded Brazilian society and appalled the national soul. The note further referred to the atmosphere of violence and corruption that dominated the country.

At the same time, newspapers published the opinion sent to the Chamber by the attorney general of the Republic, Carlos Medeiros Silva, about the congressional inquiry into loans, in an amount in excess of two hundred and twenty million cruzeiros, made by the Bank of Brazil to “firms and individuals lacking financial qualifications,” in this case the newspaper Última Hora and Samuel Wainer and L. F. Bocaiúva Cunha, among others. The attorney general had read the 2,979 pages of the five volumes of the inquiry and finally issued his opinion, which had been forwarded to the Chamber of Deputies through the secretary of justice in response to a request from two deputies, Armando Falcão and Frota Aguiar. According to the attorney general’s opinion, the congressional inquiry had shown the arbitrary and abusive manner in which the president of the Bank of Brazil, at the time Ricardo Jafet, had conducted the business of the society. No law, no regulation, no social statute had constituted effective barriers against the ill-advised objectives of the Bank’s top-level administrators to protect hidden interests. The president of the Bank of Brazil had ignored information from experts about the inadvisability and impropriety of such transactions, effected without reference to standard banking safeguards.

The text of the attorney general’s opinion was made public by Deputy Armando Falcão through a request to the Chamber’s presiding officer.

One of the few voices dissenting from the chorus of anti-Vargas invective was that of the leader of the dock workers, Duque de Assis. In his view the sole objective of the movement calling for Vargas’s resignation was to hinder the country’s progress and block the march of the workers’ struggle. “Our adversaries, adversaries of the government and the proletariat, are in the pay of hidden forces,” he said.

INSPECTOR PÁDUA handed over to the Robbery and Theft division the jewels stolen from the Esmeralda jewelry store: a gold ring with a diamond solitaire; an eighteen-karat gold Swiss watch with diamond insets; a six-facet gold ring, eighteen karats, with three diamonds set in platinum; a six-facet bracelet, eighteen-karat gold, with nine diamonds set in platinum; and other jewels. The apprehension had come about through a tip. The thief hadn’t been found, according to Pádua, but since all the jewels had been recovered, the matter was shelved.

LEARNING FROM MATTOS that Lomagno wanted to call her, Alice stopped answering the phone that day. The doorbell rang futilely countless times. Alice left the phone on the hook. Thus it was Mattos once again who answered Lomagno’s telephone call.

“I wanted to speak with Alice.”

“She’s here beside me and said she doesn’t want to speak with you.”

Silence.

“Mr. Mattos, I’m convinced that you’re keeping me from speaking to my wife. I want to warn you that I’ve consulted an attorney, who after hearing the facts that I told him stated that I can report you for the crime of kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment. According to the lawyer, your crime has an aggravating factor, namely, given her state of health it has probably caused Alice serious physical and psychological suffering.”

“Do whatever you like. But I advise you to look for a different lawyer. The one you consulted is an idiot. Good night.”

twenty

SHORTLY BEFORE NOON, Mattos arrived at the precinct to relieve Pádua. Normally he would get there earlier, to inform himself in detail about the incidents of the evening before with the inspector of the previous shift. But that day he was inclined to have the least possible contact with Pádua.

Pádua was waiting for him. “I want to talk to you.”

“It’s enough to give me the blotter.”

Pádua picked up the book from the desk and placed it under his arm.

“Five minutes. I’ve got a question to ask you. Not the policeman, the top student in law school.”

“I wasn’t the top student.”

“But you were one of the top students. Everybody knows that. Your nickname was Brain.”

“What is it you want to know?”

“Morally, we’re obligated to sacrifice our lives, if necessary, to carry out our duty, which is to prevent the commission of crimes. Isn’t that right? Why can’t we, also to carry out our duty, kill an outlaw to prevent him from committing a crime?”

“I’m going to answer in a simple manner your simplistic question. Because the law doesn’t give us that right. And the law applies to everyone, especially those who have some form of power, like us. A policeman can die in the exercise of his duty, but he can’t disobey the law.”

“You say my question is simplistic. Your answer is sanctimonious. You chose the wrong profession.”

“I think it’s you who chose the wrong profession.”

Pádua tossed the book on the table, flexed his arm muscles, and left the inspector’s office.

Ipojucan Salustiano, Ilídio’s peg-leg lawyer, appeared at the precinct with a medical statement attesting to his client’s inability to honor the summons he had received. The statement was handed to the recording clerk in the presence of Inspector Mattos.

Ipojucan liked to talk about his mechanical leg. It was a way of not feeling awkward about his stiff and unsure manner of walking. Now that he was the lawyer of a numbers game banker and made more money, he planned to order a mechanical leg from the United States.

“I have a mechanical leg,” Salustiano told Inspector Mattos.

“It doesn’t seem like it,” said Mattos politely.

“If I may ask, what is the reason for this summons? Has my client committed some crime?”

“For now, I only want to question him, in keeping with the law. You’re aware, counselor, that it’s a punishable offense to refuse law enforcement demands, solicited with proper legal authority, for data or information concerning identity, marital status, profession, domicile, and place of residence.”

“Of course, sir. I know the law.”

“Tell your client that he can’t stay hidden for long in the clinic, and if he doesn’t get well by Tuesday, I’m going to prove that that medical certificate is phony, which is a crime punishable by law. You don’t want to make things worse for your client, do you?”

Salustiano consulted a small calendar taken from his pocket. “Tuesday, the twenty-fourth. That’s just four days from now. I don’t know if he’ll get well in such a short time.”

“If he doesn’t, a police doctor will go to the clinic to examine him.”

IN THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES, the deputy and jurist Bilac Pinto spoke affirming that Vargas would have to sit in the defendant’s chair beside his gunmen. Citing Article 25 of the Penal Code — whoever in any way colludes in the commission of a crime is subject to the penalties imposed thereto — Bilac Pinto said that Vargas, by organizing a band of criminals, killers, thieves, and perjurers as his personal guard, had assumed the risks stemming from his action and choice. His preventive custody must be decreed, and Vargas must be taken into custody and subsequently tried by the Federal Supreme Court. There was no need for the Chamber to agree to a leave of absence, for it was a matter of common, rather than political, crime.

THE PROCURESS LAURA had told Mattos that Lomagno had a boxing instructor who was black. There were lots of black boxers, and that was the problem. Mattos was looking for one whose name started with F. Many fighters were known only by their nicknames; most were constantly on the move, fighting in arenas in the country’s hinterlands.

Mattos had asked for the help of the Surveillance division to search the city’s boxing schools for black men who taught boxing. For days no useful information came to his attention. But soon after the lawyer Salustiano left the precinct, an investigator from Surveillance came to tell him that at the Boqueirão do Passeio club there was a black boxing instructor called Chicão.

Mattos looked up the Boqueirão do Passeio number in the phone book. The guy who answered said they didn’t have any teacher called Chicão, and that their boxing instructor was Kid Earthquake. Earthquake could be found at the club that Friday at the eight p.m. class.

The Boqueirão do Passeio was on Rua Santa Luzia, near Rua México. It was a boating club; boxing, as well as basketball and yoga, were secondary activities of the Boqueirão.

When Mattos arrived, there were half a dozen athletes in the gym. One was hitting a speed bag; two others were pounding the heavy bag. Others were skipping rope. In the ring, a pair, in protective headgear, were fighting, oriented by a potbellied old man with a broken nose. Mattos concluded, accurately, that he must be Kid Earthquake.

Mattos waited patiently for the activities to end, which took over two hours. Then he addressed Kid Earthquake.

“I’d like five minutes of your time. We could have a beer while we talk.”

“About what?”

“I’m from the police.”

“Having beer with a cop isn’t good for your health.”

“Sorry, Kid, but you’re going to have to talk to me one way or another. All I want is some information. It’s nothing to do with you.”

Kid Earthquake appeared to meditate about what Mattos had said.

“I’m going to change clothes.”

He returned soon, carrying an enormous bag. “I don’t leave my stuff here. They stole a new pair of gloves last week. There’s thieves everywhere these days. But you know that better than I do.”

They went to a bar in Lapa that stayed open late. On the round marble tabletop someone had written in pencil: “Marietta, I’m going to drink ant poison because of you.”

“Ant poison with guaraná is a sure thing,” said Kid Earthquake, who had read the words written on the marble. “I had a cousin killed himself that way, also a woman thing. She put horns on him.”

Mattos ordered a beer and a glass of milk.

“All we have is warm milk,” said the waiter.

“It’ll do.”

“You don’t drink beer?” asked Kid Earthquake.

“I have an ulcer in the duodenum.”

“That’s in the stomach, isn’t it? I’ve got a cousin with that problem.”

When Kid Earthquake finished his second bottle, Mattos asked him about Chicão.

“He doesn’t work with me anymore. He was a black man, strong as hell, but he didn’t have good technique. Just brute force. He served in the FEB. He learned to fight from the Americans in the war. Has he fucked up?”

“No, he hasn’t done anything. I’m looking for him so he can give me information about a guy who was a student of his at the Boqueirão. One Pedro Lomagno.”

“Then it was that guy who fucked up.”

“Nobody fucked up.”

“Then why’s the police interested?”

“Well, you I can tell. This Lomagno seduced a girl.” Whenever Mattos needed a pretext for an investigation he always used seduction. It had been that way at the Catete when he visited the quarters of the former personal guard of the president.

“Seduction. I never much understood that crime,” said Kid Earthquake.

The crime of seduction — unlike rape — didn’t evoke strong reactions from anyone who wasn’t directly involved, like the victim’s father and mother. Or the accused.

“The crime of seduction occurs when a man, taking advantage of the inexperience or the justifiable trust of a female older than fourteen and younger than eighteen, has carnal relations with her.”

“Carnal relations is the guy sticking his knob in the girl, right?”

“It’s necessary that she trusts him or is inexperienced.”

“How?”

“The guy’s engaged, and says they’re going to get married. The girl consents, believing the promise. Or else the girl doesn’t know what she’s doing, because she’s so naïve—”

“Sir, do you believe that? Women know what they’re doing from the day they’re born. It’s men who don’t know.”

Mattos ordered another beer.

“You’re a decent cop,” said Kid Earthquake, “I saw that right away in your face. I’m going to come across for you, because that Pedro Lomagno is a rich guy with a swelled head. I’m surprised at you telling me he did a girl wrong, ’cause I always took him to be a fag. I got my suspicions that he used to get it on with Chicão. He set up a boxing school for Chicão, but Chicão screwed up and from what I hear had to close down the school.”

“Do you know where that school is located?”

“Yeah. Chicão gave me the address and asked me to send him students. But you think I was going to send him students when I barely got enough to cover my expenses?”

“Does this Chicão wear a heavy gold ring?”

“Uh-huh. He liked to show off the ring. Never took it off his finger. Only when he put on the gloves or took a bath. He said soap was bad for the ring. He used to say a lot of dumb things.”

It was late at night, but even so Mattos got a cab and went to Rua Barão de Itapagibe, the address Kid Earthquake had given him. He got out of the cab and found himself in front of a large shed with whitewashed masonry and aluminum roof shingles. The door, of green-painted metal, was shut. There were no lights inside the building.

Mattos banged on the door. No one answered. He was about to leave when he heard the sound of the door opening.

A mulatto with missing teeth, wearing striped pajamas, asked, “What is it? What is it?”

“I’m looking for Chicão.”

“There’s no Chicão here.” The man tried to shut the door, but Mattos stopped him.

“I want to speak to the owner.”

“The owner is Francisco Albergaria.”

“Isn’t his nickname Chicão?”

“Maybe.”

“He’s the one I want to talk to.”

“He hasn’t been around. I’m the watchman.”

“What’s your name, please?”

“José.”

“Do you know how to read, José?”

“More or less. If you write with little letters on the paper, I don’t know. I can only read big letters.”

“Would you be able to give Mr. Francisco a message?”

“If it’s not very long.”

“Tell him Inspector Mattos, who’s investigating the crime at the Deauville Building, wants to talk to him.”

“That’s real long.”

“I think I’m going to write a note for you to give him. Can you get me a piece of paper?”

“I’ll check.”

José returned with a piece of brown cardboard.

Mattos wrote in large block letters: “Francisco Albergaria. I’d like to meet with you. All I need is some information from you. Nothing important. Please call me.”

twenty-one

AMONG THE PAPERS Colonel Adyl de Oliveira had found upon breaking into Gregório Fortunato’s drawers and files when he invaded the Catete Palace were documents relating to the crooked deals in the Cexim, brokered by Gregório along with Arquimedes Manhães and Luiz Magalhães, the lover of Salete Rodrigues, Inspector Mattos’s girlfriend. According to the documents, as intermediaries in those deals, Manhães and his associates earned more than fifty-two million cruzeiros.

Luiz Magalhães was not located by those in charge of the inquiry. Manhães, however, was arrested and taken to the Galeão air base when he made his statement.

Manhães declared that he had been a guest at the Catete at the beginning of the Vargas administration but had distanced himself from the palace following a deal for buying and selling cotton, made with financing from the Bank of Brazil, in partnership with Roberto Alves, ex-secretary of the president. Asked how much he had realized in that transaction, he answered that he couldn’t say exactly, since quite some time had gone by since the operation had occurred.

To the good fortune of the investigators, the man with whom Manhães worked in Marília, São Paulo, went to Galeão, accompanied by a lawyer, to try to effect the prisoner’s release. Manhães’s patron, the Japanese Iassuro Matsubara, was immediately arrested by the military men.

Manhães stated that Matsubara had financed the campaigns of candidates to the Chamber and Senate. Matsubara had contributed half a million cruzeiros to the campaign of Roberto Alves for federal senator from São Paulo. That money had been diverted by Gregório to deliver to Climerio for his escape. In exchange for his contributions, Matsubara received financing and special privileges from the Bank of Brazil and other public entities, as well as favorable treatment from state government for the purchase of land in São Paulo and Mato Grosso.

ALL DAY LONG, wherever he went Lomagno heard the rumors that were flying around the city. There was talk of a military coup deposing the president; of the scabrous scandals discovered in Gregório’s secret files — Vargas’s cellar was said to be like the Borgias’; all the military garrisons were supposedly at the ready, the tanks at the military compound were prepared to go into action; it was claimed that Café Filho had been called to the Catete Palace to take the oath of office. To Lomagno the comments he heard from rumormongers seemed little different, in mood and confusion, from those generated months earlier by the lubricious details of the murder, out of jealousy, of the bank teller Arsênio by Air Force Lieutenant Bandeira. To him, the prestige of President Vargas and his government had for months been suffering a continuous process of attrition and had, in that month of August, hit its lowest level of popular approval. And Getúlio Vargas being deposed by the armed forces was not exactly anything new.

Lomagno had reasons to worry. In the secret files taken from the Catete, on the list of import firms that bribed Gregório with twenty percent of the value of the import licenses obtained from the Cexim without providing the hard currency reserves required by law, was the name of Lomagno & Co., along with that of other firms, like Brasfesa, Cemtex, and Corpax. The news was in all the papers. Only the Diário Carioca mentioned the circumstance of the president of Cemtex, Paulo Gomes Aguiar, having been murdered at the start of the month, saying that the police seemed to have given up finding the killer. Lomagno had reasons to worry about revelations that involved his firm, but he didn’t. Lomagno had reasons to worry in case a military coup deposed the president. But he didn’t. His father, in a hospital bed days before his death, probably recalling the failures he had suffered thinking he could change the country by working as a militant in the fascist Integralist Party, had told him: “Son, don’t think you can change Brazil. The French, an intelligent people, invented the perfect maxim, which becomes more true the older it gets: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”

But his lack of concern with developments resulted mainly from the fact that a greater anxiety occupied his mind. It included a plan for which he would need the aid of Chicão.

“Zuleika gave me your message. I also needed to talk to you. The inspector was with Kid Earthquake, at the Boqueirão, looking for me. I don’t know how he managed to find me. Fingerprints, maybe. But I wore a glove. The ring I forgot there—”

“You left your ring in Paulo’s apartment?”

“I forgot it somewhere, when I took a bath. The fucker bit me in the chest, got his filth all over me, even my hands were dirty, I had to take a bath. But it was a ring like any other, without any identification. . It has an F engraved on the inside. I made a lot of sacrifices to buy it, as soon as I got back from the FEB. I was really pissed when I lost the ring.”

“That cop already knew it was a black man who killed Paulo. He was here and told me that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was going to. But he was following a red herring thinking that the Negro was Gregório, Getúlio’s bodyguard.”

“But now he knows it was me, Francisco Albergaria.”

Lomagno heard with satisfaction what Chicão told him, despite the grave personal risks that Mattos’s investigations could cause him. Chicão was being cornered. It would be easier to convince him to defend himself.

“What did you want with me?”

“I want you to kill that son of a bitch.”

“Not me, sir. I’m going to leave for Bahia. I’ve always wanted to get to know that good land.”

“I know that cop. He’ll go after you even in hell. He’s obsessive, crazy.”

“Bahia’s a big place and full of black people like me. It’ll be hard for him to find me.”

“I’m telling you: he’ll end up finding you. You’re going to live terrified, hounded, afraid to let anyone know you’re from Rio, afraid to say you were a soldier, those things he already knows about you. One day you drop your guard, and he catches you. Do you want to live in a hole, hiding like a rat?”

“Is that inspector a queer like Mr. Paulo?”

“No.” Pause. “It’s going to be a more difficult job.” Pause. “Alice—”

Lomagno was about to say that Alice had abandoned him to live with the cop but stopped. He didn’t want to humiliate himself before Chicão.

“If you kill that dog, which will be even more useful to you than to me, I’ll give you whatever you want. Money to buy a beachfront house in Bahia. A stipend every month, for expenses, for the rest of your life.”

“You’ve already given me a lot. I’ll do this for you for free.”

“By killing that bastard you’ll give me such great pleasure that I insist on those gifts.”

“Can I ask a question?”

“Sure.”

“Does Dona Luciana know about this?”

“No. I don’t have anything more to do with Dona Luciana. We fought.”

SALETE CALLED MATTOS. Alice, irritated, stopped writing in her diary to answer the phone.

“Alberto isn’t in.”

“Do you know where he went?”

“He’s working.”

“Didn’t his shift end at noon today? I called the station, and he wasn’t there.”

“What do you want, Salete? I’m very busy.”

“I wanted to know if Alberto wanted to go to São Paulo with me. I’ve already bought two plane tickets. There’s going to be in São Paulo, in Ibirapuera Park, it’s here in the paper, a glorious fireworks festival to inaugurate the exposition of the city’s four hundredth anniversary.”

“The celebration’s going to be postponed. Everything’s being postponed.”

“It’s here in the paper that Governor Garcez of São Paulo said that only an earthquake will stop the festival.”

“Alberto telephoned to say he’d be arriving late. It’s better for you to go by yourself.”

“Oh. . What a shame. . Wouldn’t you like to go with me?”

“Me?!”

“You.”

“No, thank you very much. I’m very busy. Excuse me, I’m going to hang up. I’m very busy.”

twenty-two

ALZIRA VARGAS DO AMARAL PEIXOTO discovered her father, as she herself said, the day she lost him for the first time. It was the year 1923, and her father had left for a revolution that never seemed to end, the first among many others in his life. He seemed very tall, and powerful, in his blue colonel’s uniform of the Provisional Auxiliary of the Military Brigade with black boots and baldric, a black revolver in a holster attached to his belt, his head of thick dark-brown wavy hair covered by a wide-brimmed hat. Alzira would never forget the light caress of her father’s mustache brushing against her cheek in a goodbye kiss. Since that time, she had come to see him, always, as the central figure in great deeds. The moments of simple happiness, as when he had taught her how to play billiards in the game room of the governor’s palace in Porto Alegre, were less significant, though still pleasant to remember. The memories that dominated her mind and filled her dreams were of the moments of tension and heroism they had experienced together. Such as in May of 1938 when Integralists invaded the Catete to arrest the president, with the collusion of the commander of the guard, the Marine Lieutenant Júlio Nascimento. The invaders were beardless and inexperienced youths; attackers and defenders were matched in their grotesque and fatal ineptitude, she could see today, coolly. But Alzira remembered, without that memory having been deformed by time, the epic figure of her father remaining calm amid the general commotion. Earlier, in 1930, on that railroad platform, she had listened emotionally to her father, no longer a colonel but just a soldier dressed in khaki leading the revolution that would place in his hands, for many years, the destiny of a people and a country, utter his unforgettable command: “Rio Grande! Arise, for Brazil!” In 1932, on July 9, she was at a dinner dance at the country club in Rio de Janeiro, the first truly elegant party she had ever attended, when they came to take her back to the palace because an insurrection had broken out in São Paulo. Her heart pounded with excitement as her father said that the constitutional allegations of the Paulistas were a simple pretext for an uprising, for over a month earlier he had named a commission to draw up the proposal for the new Brazilian constitution. These reminiscences came, sometimes, mixed with the sweet aroma of the cigars her father smoked. Oh, how she had suffered that twenty-fifth of November in 1935, away from Brazil and unable to be at her father’s side as he commanded the resistance to the rebels at Campo dos Afonsos or in the Third Infantry Regiment when the communists with their revolt engendered a senseless and bloody comedy of errors identical to what the Integralists would repeat three years later. She had sworn she would never again leave her father. In the treason of ’45, she was at his side; defeated, he had maintained his courage; an exile in his own country, he had comported himself with exemplary dignity.

Alzira had thought that history had redeemed her father in 1950 when he became president in a democratic election. Now, in that painful August of 1954, when for the first time she saw her father as a disenchanted old man, a small man, a man without hope, without desire, without the will to fight, victim of the sordid betrayals of his enemies, the ambiguous judgments of his friends — now she became aware of history as a stupid succession of random events, an inept and incomprehensible confusion of falsity, fictitious inferences, illusions populated by ghosts. Now she wondered, has that other man whose memory she had kept in her heart for so many years ceased to exist? Was he another ghost, had he never existed? That idea was so painful and unbearable that she thought she would not resist and would die of pain, there in the Ingá Palace, in Niterói.

AFTER RETURNING FROM HIS TIME OFF, Mattos was at the precinct that Sunday when Cosme, the son of the Portuguese Adelino, asked to speak to him.

“Did you know my father died?”

“I did. I’m very sorry.”

“Since I was a little boy, I’ve always been afraid of the police. When I was still very young, I would ask my father why an awful thing like that existed, that caught and mistreated people.”

“That’s a hard question to answer,” said Mattos.

“Not that you mistreated me when I was held here.”

Silence.

“And your wife’s birth? Did everything go well?”

“Yes, yes. More or less. The boy has a problem with asthma, but the doctor said it’ll go away with time.”

Silence.

“Is there something you need? The matter of your father is finished.”

“I came to tell you something. I don’t know if it can be bad for me, maybe it will, but I don’t care.”

“Say what you have to say.”

“You convinced my father to confess he killed that guy in the workshop. You convinced the prosecutor to charge him. You convinced everybody. You’re an intelligent man.”

“I did what had to be done. To look for the truth. I’m very sorry about the death of your father.”

“The truth. You want to know the truth?”

Mattos put an antacid into his mouth. Chewed.

“Yes, I want to know the truth.”

“It was me who killed the guy.”

“Your father confessed.”

“You forced him to confess. And me, my mother, my wife, all of us in our selfishness ended up believing it was better for my father to say he was the guilty one, because being old he would be acquitted easier than me. We believed that, because it was better for us. I could be near my son and my wife, I could take care of the workshop and the orange grove better than him. My father was an old man and us young ones thought old people don’t need anything, they’ve already lived all they’re supposed to live. So we decided to let my father sacrifice himself for me.”

Silence.

“You killed my father. I killed my father. My wife, my mother killed my father. He was an old Portuguese who didn’t know how to pretend he was something he wasn’t, a murderer, even to protect his son.”

“It’s too late now. Things are never the way they are, that’s life.”

“I want you to arrest me.”

“The case is closed.”

“Arrest me.”

Mattos grabbed Cosme by the arm and dragged him like a rag doll into his office. The inspector’s stomach burned. He threw the fragile youth’s body against the wall.

“Listen, you fool. I cannot and will not arrest you for that crime. I can’t salve your conscience, or your wife’s, or your mother’s. Don’t be stupid. There’s nothing more can be done. Get out of here and don’t come back. I don’t want to see your face ever again, live with that horrible memory for the rest of your life, just as I’ll have to live with it.”

“Sir—”

“Out! Out!”

Mattos, taking Cosme by the arms, led him to the office door, pushing him violently into the corridor and from there to the door opening onto the street.

AT A MEETING that lasted twelve hours, all the air force brigadiers present in the capital decided unanimously that only the resignation of President Vargas could restore calm to the country. The meeting was interrupted twice: for Brigadier Eduardo Gomes to communicate to the other military secretaries the assembly’s decision to issue a proclamation demanding Vargas’s resignation; for Eduardo Gomes to try to obtain the support of Marshal Mascarenhas de Morais, whose loyalty to Vargas was well known.

The meeting was held in an atmosphere of frenzy created by the lower-ranking officers. Editing the communiqué had been extremely difficult. On one side, the younger officers demanded in angry terms that the note directly accuse the president of the death of Major Vaz and demand his resignation. If he didn’t resign, he should be deposed by force of arms. On the other side, the brigadiers, more prudent and possessing a sharper sense of discipline and hierarchy, had no desire for the note to be characterized as subversive. If not for the presence of Brigadier Eduardo Gomes, the younger officers would have breached subordination and imposed their point of view. Brigadier Eduardo Gomes reflected that a struggle among comrades at that moment would only benefit the common enemy; he asked the younger officers to trust their chiefs, the chiefs present there, among whom was Air Force Secretary Epaminondas.

To go to the residence of Marshal Mascarenhas de Morais to communicate the decision of the assembled military men, in permanent session at the Aeronautics Club awaiting the outcome of the efforts of their leader, Eduardo Gomes was accompanied by Brigadier Ivã Carpenter and Generals Juarez Távora, Fiuza de Castro, and Canrobert. Eduardo Gomes had attempted, by taking with him important army generals, to obtain the support of the chief of the general staff of the armed forces. Once again the marshal called upon General Castello Branco as adviser. After hearing the visitors, the marshal stated that, although he deemed resignation a worthy solution, under no circumstance would he countenance its being imposed on the president of the Republic.

The marshal’s attitude disappointed the generals and brigadiers. However, given that the marshal’s reaction had not been one of violent repudiation of the subversive probe of his feelings, the would-be enticers left the marshal’s home believing that in case of a military coup the marshal would not fight against his colleagues in uniform.

As an assiduous follower of regulations, Mascarenhas de Morais related to Secretary Zenóbio, when he succeeded in finding him, what had happened. “The situation is serious, very serious,” Zenóbio had said. At seven that evening, the chief of the general staff went to Catete Palace, where he repeated to the president the meeting that had taken place at his residence.

“I will not resign. I was elected by the people and cannot leave expelled by the armed forces. I will only leave here dead,” said the president. Worried, the marshal noticed in his friend’s voice, more than challenge, sadness and regret.

Eduardo Gomes encountered difficulty in meeting with the secretary of war.

Zenóbio had gone to a luncheon and to watch horse races at the Jockey Club, in the Gávea district. The brigadier only managed to see him in his residence, at five p.m.

“The army will not permit subversion of order,” said Zenóbio curtly.

“Mr. Secretary, I’m not talking about subversion of order. I’ve come to advise you that if the president does not resign, there will be civil war,” answered Eduardo Gomes. “Consult your generals and you’ll find out, if you don’t know already, that our comrades in the army, as well as those in the navy, share the same sentiments of rebellion as their air force comrades.”

That same day, at his residence, which had been transformed into his general headquarters, Zenóbio conferred with Brigadier Epaminondas, secretary of the air force, who had been informed by Eduardo Gomes of the stance taken by the meeting at the Aeronautics Club. Present at the meeting of the two secretaries were General Odilio Denys, commander of the Eastern Military Zone, and Police Chief Colonel Paulo Torres.

Around ten o’clock that night, Zenóbio headed to the military compound, where the main army units in the capital were concentrated. He returned after midnight and went directly to the War Department, where almost all the generals on active duty in the Federal District were waiting for him. A communiqué was issued saying that the armed forces were united in defense of the law and the Constitution and that every measure had been taken to prevent subversion of order, from wherever the call for violation of the regime might come.

LATE THAT NIGHT, the home of Café Filho, vice president of the Republic, was packed with friends and fellow party members. Café Filho demonstrated good humor, giving vent to a characteristic of his personality that his friends called “blagueur spirit.” He refused to make any statement to the press.

THE WARSHIPS anchored in the Bay of Guanabara kept their engines running all night.

twenty-three

MATTOS READ in Monday’s newspapers the brigadiers’ communiqué about the Sunday meeting at the Aeronautics Club. To the inspector, the note, sketchy and obscure, would through its veiled threats increase the rumors flying in the city. “The general officers of the Brazilian Air Force, identifying with the feelings of the corps stemming from the criminal facts brought to light in the Police/Military Inquiry, once again express their gratitude for the solidarity received from the army and the navy, and the assurance that the armed forces, within the framework of order and discipline, and faithful to the Constitution, will not betray the confidence vested in them, in order that the current crisis may have a definitive and worthy conclusion. They also agreed that Brigadier Eduardo Gomes, the highest officer present at the meeting, should communicate to the secretaries of the military departments and to the chief of the general staff of the armed forces the unanimous decision taken there, as being one capable of restoring peace to the country.”

To Mattos, the note left an open field for speculation. But the secret word that Eduardo Gomes had taken to the secretaries wasn’t hard to imagine; the air force was demanding the removal of Vargas.

“In the War Palace, General Zenóbio, hero of the FEB and secretary of war, expressed complete satisfaction with the conduct of the troops at the military compound, who have remained at the ready for the safeguarding of the regime and the Constitution,” said Radio Globo. An identical announcement, also referring to Zenóbio as the hero of FEB, had been published that day by Última Hora. The government had decided to stop the “spreading of alarmist news.” The radio stations announced events, under police control. But by now censorship is useless, thought the inspector. At that juncture public opinion was no longer worth anything.

While Mattos was absorbed in these thoughts, Alice was writing in her diary, sitting at the table in the living room. Lately she remained silent, staring at the wall, or writing for hours on end in the thick hardcover notebook.

She raised her eyes for an instant from the diary and noted the look of absorption on Mattos’s face.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Getúlio Vargas.” Pause. “And you?”

“I have more important things to think about. I have my life.”

“Getúlio Vargas is part of my life.”

“He arrested you when you were a student.”

“It wasn’t him. It was some flunky of his. I feel sorry for Getúlio. I know that sounds absurd; I’m surprised myself.”

“You told me that when you were arrested they put you in something called the Polish corridor, where you were hit and kicked when you were forced to walk through. You were only seventeen.”

“Everything lasted two minutes at most.”

Mattos stood up and got a briefcase with papers and photos from the bedroom.

“See this photo here? As a high school student I’m parading on the Seventh of September, 1937, at the height of the dictatorship. I liked parading on the Seventh of September. I liked marching to the beat of the drums. See this other photo? I’m singing patriotic anthems with thousands of other children in the Vasco stadium, a chorus directed by Villa-Lobos. In this one here I’m speaking at a pro-Vargas queremist rally in 1944, when I was already in law school.”

“Queremists. . I have a vague recollection. . Who were they actually?”

“Pressured by the military in ’44, Getúlio had to schedule elections for president of the Republic and launched the candidacy of his secretary of war, Gaspar Dutra. But at the same time he organized a movement to keep him in power, whose motto was ‘Queremos Getúlio’—We Want Getúlio — and defended convoking a constituent assembly with Getúlio in power.”

“And were you a queremist?” Pause. “Or a masochist?”

“I was very confused in those days.”

“And these days, too.”

“These days too.” Pause. “Getúlio ended up being deposed, in ’45. Know what he liked doing, when he returned, like an outcast, to his ranch in the South? Plant trees.” Pause. “He enjoyed planting trees.”

“I like flowers. Why are you so unhappy? That’s irritating me. You are unhappy, aren’t you?”

“How do you want me to answer?”

“That you’re happy.”

“I’m happy.”

“Promise me you’re not going to see that girl again, that Salete.”

“I can’t promise that. I can only promise that I’m happy.”

“She’s not a woman from your world.”

Mattos felt like telling Alice that neither was she a woman from his world; that he himself didn’t know what his world was; that he felt like a stranger in his nebulous world and in the world of others, too.

“I have to go out,” he said.

“It’s good for me to be alone. I have lots of things to write in my diary.”

Before going to the precinct, Mattos went to the Senate Annex, in the São Borja Building, to look for Laura, but Almeidinha said she wasn’t in.

“Tell her I’ll be back soon to talk to her.”

When he got to the precinct, he called his doctor.

“Your x-ray isn’t good. You may have to have an operation. Remember that new technique I mentioned? Antrectomy and vagotomy?”

“I remember.” Mattos put an antacid in his mouth. “You remove the antrum from my stomach and cut the nerves that govern secretion of stomach acid. You put an end to my ulcer and my excessive hydrochloric acid. Doctor, I’m a little bit of a physician and a little bit crazy, like everybody. Will I still be the same man or will I be a different person afterwards?”

“It’s not good to play around with your health. This is something we have to resolve right away. You’re running the risk of a serious hemorrhage. Can you come here today?”

“What time?”

“As soon as you can. Don’t fail to come.”

Rosalvo entered the office.

“Any orders, sir?”

Mattos was awaiting the arrival of Detective Celso, head of surveillance and apprehension, with whom he had established a plan for the arrest of Francisco Albergaria. He had not yet spoken with anyone about the information he had obtained from Kid Earthquake at the Boqueirão do Passeio or revealed to his colleagues the name of the suspect.

“When Celso from Surveillance shows up, let me know.”

But the alert that Rosalvo gave him, shortly afterward, was that the doorman from Mattos’s building had just called, saying there was a small fire in his apartment and that Alice was all right.

“Who’s Alice?” asked Rosalvo.

Mattos didn’t answer. He rushed out in search of a taxi.

The building’s doorman went up with Mattos in the elevator.

“Did anything happen to Dona Alice?”

“No. . I mean, she was a little upset. . But it wasn’t necessary to call the fire department. I put out the fire myself with the extinguisher. Annoying, isn’t it, sir?”

“How did it happen?”

They got to the floor where the inspector lived. The burnt smell was evident from the corridor. The apartment door was shut.

The doorman took the inspector’s arm.

“Look, sir, it was the girl who set the apartment on fire. I think she had an attack. . I wanted to have my wife stay with Dona Alice until you arrived, but she threw my wife out.”

“Thank you. I’ll take care of everything.”

The table and chairs were partially burned. The books on the shelves, the records and the player were singed by the flames. Mattos saw all this at a glance as he went toward the bedroom.

Alice was sitting on the bed. Her head was covered with black residue from burnt paper, which was spread about her face.

Mattos sat down beside her. He delicately took her ash-stained hands.

“I burned my diary,” Alice said. She seemed sleepy.

“It doesn’t matter. You can write another.”

“I don’t want to write another. I want to forget.”

Mattos picked up the pill bottle, open on the bed. It was almost full.

Mattos put the bottle in his pocket. “How many pills did you take?”

“Two. . Three. . Two. .”

“All right if I call Dr. Arnoldo?”

“I want to be with you.”

“You’re going to be with me. I just want to call Dr. Arnoldo. Stay there while I call him.”

Dr. Arnoldo asked Mattos to take Alice to the Dr. Eiras Clinic on Rua Assunção, in Botafogo and ask for Dr. Feitosa. He, Dr. Arnoldo, would leave at once for the clinic.

“If she resists leaving, it’s best not to force her. Call me back.”

Mattos got a damp towel and cleaned Alice’s hair and hands. She sleepily allowed Mattos to exchange her dress for a clean one. Before they left, the inspector put Alice’s toothbrush in his pocket.

AT THE SUGGESTION of General Humberto Castello Branco, the chief of the general staff of the armed forces, Marshal Mascarenhas, held a meeting of the Joint Chiefs. Mascarenhas listened apprehensively as the chiefs of the three armed forces — army, navy, and air force — said only the resignation of President Vargas could end the crisis.

“THE BEST THING is to let her sleep,” said Dr. Arnoldo. “Alice isn’t well. She’s deeply depressed. I’m going to call her husband.”

“She’s separated from her husband,” Mattos said.

“Legally?”

“Not yet.”

“I always take the precaution of communicating with the family, in case of certain treatments—”

“What treatments?”

“Electroshock. This isn’t the first time it’s been considered in Alice’s case.”

“But can’t electroshock cause harmful effects, like loss of memory?”

“You just told me she said she wanted to forget, and that’s why she burned the diary she was writing. Don’t you find that significant?” Pause. “In any case, any amnesia provoked by the treatment is always transitory.”

“Don’t do it, doctor, I’m begging you, please. When she wakes up, maybe she’ll be better.”

“This state of depression and melancholia only tends to get worse.”

“She wasn’t depressed this morning when I left. Please, promise me you’ll wait a few days.”

“All right. I’ll wait a bit. In fact, as a rule that’s the procedure I adopt. In any event, I’m going to have to advise the husband. They’re still not legally separated. She doesn’t have any relatives, understand?”

“Can’t I be responsible for her?”

“You’re not anything to her — you’re a good friend, I know — but she has a husband.”

“I’ll come back later.”

“Come tomorrow. She’s going to sleep all afternoon and all night. She’ll be well taken care of, don’t worry.”

“No shock treatment, please.”

“That’s a layman’s prejudice, sir. Historically, every medical advance meets hostile objections based on ignorance and superstition. There are people who for religious reasons refuse to accept blood transfusions. Others, out of ignorance, refuse to take allopathic medicines. Et cetera.”

“Doctor, I go on duty tomorrow at noon. But I’ll stop by here first.”

IT WAS ELEVEN AT NIGHT when General Zenóbio asked Marshal Mascarenhas to come to the War Department.

“The situation has gotten worse,” said Zenóbio. “More than forty army generals signed the brigadiers’ manifesto. I’ve asked Mendes de Morais to go to the Catete to speak with Alzira. I’m waiting for the general to return.”

The two sat, downcast, in the brown leather armchairs in the secretary’s office. They had served together in the FEB. Mascarenhas, then a three-star general, had commanded the 25,162 men of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force sent to Italy in 1944. Zenóbio, then a two-star general, had commanded one of the five echelons into which the Force was divided.

“In Italy it was easier to make decisions,” said Zenóbio, rising impatiently. “I think we’d better go to the Catete and speak with the president. I’m going to ask Denys to go with us.”

It was past midnight when they arrived at Catete Palace. The children and other relatives of the president were at the palace. Vargas received Mascarenhas and Zenóbio in the presence of Secretary Oswaldo Aranha. In silence, he heard Zenóbio say that he, the president, had lost the support of the military.

“Tomorrow I’ll call a cabinet meeting,” said Vargas.

Mascarenhas proposed calling the meeting immediately, and the suggestion was accepted by the president.

A little after two a.m., all the cabinet secretaries were in the meeting room of the palace. Only the secretary of foreign affairs was absent.

Vargas sat in the dark, straw-bottom chair at the head of the table in the meeting room. The secretaries were in their places, silent. All the lights were on, but at meetings held at night the room was always dark, gloomy. Vargas contemplated, for moments, the painting by Antonio Parreiras on the opposite wall, an oil in tones of gray that the artist had titled “A Day of Sadness.”

In a tired voice, the president, after recounting the information given him by his military secretaries, asked those present for their opinions. The military secretaries confirmed that the navy and air force were united in wanting the president’s resignation; the army was divided. The military secretaries advised resignation.

While they were speaking, Alzira Vargas came into the room, along with Deputy Danton Coelho, the president’s son-in-law Amaral Peixoto, and others.

The president then asked the civilian secretaries for their opinion. The acting labor secretary, Hugo de Faria, said that the Constitution must be respected and maintained, and that the president should not resign. Oswaldo Aranha and José Américo shared the opinion of the military secretaries, favorable to resignation. The rest were hesitant, none of them offering an objective view.

At that instant, Alzira came from the back of the room and stood beside the president’s chair.

“What about you, General Caiado? I want your opinion,” said Vargas.

“Mr. President. Don’t accept any imposition. I favor armed resistance. The army, even divided, as the secretary claims, will prevent any subversion.”

“If you give me the name of the regiment that’s going to resist, I, with due authorization from the president, will issue the command,” said Zenóbio.

“So be it,” said Caiado.

“General Zenóbio,” shouted Deputy Danton Coelho from the back of the room, “it’s your fault if the army is divided.”

“I reject your false and rude assertion. I will not permit anyone to address me like that,” Zenóbio responded.

“General,” Alzira said, “I was surprised and disappointed when you suggested that the president resign. I ask you: why can’t we resist? I think the only thing missing is the will to fight.”

“Resistance will lead to bloodshed. We will be defeated,” said Zenóbio.

“Then let us be defeated, but fighting,” said Alzira.

There were two alternatives on the table: armed resistance or resignation. Amaral Peixoto added a third: a furlough. The president would take a leave of absence until the PMI investigating the Tonelero crime was concluded.

Several of those present, both the cabinet members and those who had intruded into the meeting, began to talk at once. Lourival Fontes, head of the Civilian Cabinet, seated beside Mascarenhas, turned to him and said, “This is becoming a circus.”

In the middle of the tumult, Vargas looked at the J.B. Deletrezz grandfather’s clock standing between the gray-and-scarlet curtains of the large doors opening onto the garden, totally dark. The hands on the white porcelain dial showed 4:15 a.m. Vargas felt spent. From the beginning he had not expected solid support for a fight; he knew human nature. He had participated, in his political career, in intrigues, revolts, conspiracies, coups, revolutions. Thus the cautious faces of the majority of the cabinet members, and their evasive words, cloaked in abdicative metaphors — José Américo had suggested a “grand gesture” on his part, almost an echo of the “elegant gesture of the vanquished” proposed by José Bonifácio of the UDN — had not come as a surprise but merely added to his weariness.

With one final effort he spoke, silencing the voices, bringing an end to the uproar. “If the military members of the cabinet guarantee that the institutions will be maintained, I will take a leave of absence.”

After saying this, accompanied by his daughter, Vargas withdrew from the room, to applause. On the third floor, before entering the bedroom where he slept alone — his wife, Dona Darcy, slept in another room in the palace — his daughter embraced and kissed him.

Tancredo Neves, the secretary of justice, was charged with drafting the note expressing the presidential decision to take a leave of absence and hand over the reins of government to his lawful replacement. Seeking to preserve the president’s dignity, it would state that this was a spontaneous decision that had received the full support of his cabinet. Tancredo would further say that the president had demanded that order and respect for the Constitution be maintained and the commitments solemnly assumed before the nation by the generals of the armed forces be honored. The note would end by saying that if such were not the case, the president would persevere in his unshakable objective to defend his constitutional prerogatives by the sacrifice of his very life. Tancredo, Oswaldo Aranha, Mascarenhas, and the other friends of the president believed that this compromise solution, in the declaration to be promulgated immediately, would avoid resignation, civil war, the humiliation of the president.

CAFÉ FILHO received the first compliments as new president of the Republic while still in pajamas, at 4:30 that morning in his residence. Radio stations, defying police censorship, had just broadcast that president Vargas had resigned. The president of the Lantern Club, the journalist Amaral Neto, was the first to congratulate Café Filho. Surrounded by opposition leaders, Café Filho declared that he planned to calm spirits and preside over a government of national unity. “My personal guard will be my wife,” he affirmed.

When, at 5:20, the chief of police stated on the radio that it was not actually a case of a resignation and that President Vargas had merely left the position temporarily, the enthusiasm of those present at Café Filho’s home was replaced by an atmosphere of tense expectation.

At seven a.m., Café Filho isolated himself from the others in his home to confer with Afonso Arinos and Bilac Pinto, who had just arrived.

twenty-four

ALONE IN HIS BEDROOM, Vargas slowly removed his clothes and put on the striped pajamas lying on the pillow.

Fresh in Vargas’s memory was the humiliated face of his daughter when they left the meeting, arm in arm. Alzira had gone with him to his bedroom to tell him that the cowards had left; those loyal to him were ready to do battle.

He had refused to fight. He had asked his daughter to let him go to sleep. Would Alzira one day forgive him for the cowardice of that moment?

He finished putting on the pajamas. He deliberately avoided looking at his image reflected in the two large mirrors on the room’s antique armoires. The picture of Christ in one corner, a Sacred Heart by the painter Décio Villares, brought back the fleeting memory of a conversation he had had about the painting with Cardinal Pacelli when he spent two days in the palace, in 1934, a few years before he became Pope Pius XII.

He turned out the light and lay down.

Morning was slow to arrive. Benjamim came to his room to tell him he had been summoned to testify at Galeão and that Zenóbio had met with the other generals at the War Department to affirm that in reality the president had not taken a leave of absence but had been deposed. This, too, he had expected.

He remembered once again the suffering he had seen on his daughter’s face, thought about his own refusal to fight. Thought about death. He began to cry. Benjamim, who had never seen him weep, not even when they were children, was moved. His hand on his brother’s shoulder, he asked him not to give his enemies that satisfaction. “You’ve gotten out of worse situations.” Benjamim withdrew, and Getúlio lay back down. He thought about Capanema’s speech in the Chamber defending him against the unjust attacks directed at him. He remembered what he had told his parliamentary leader: he, Getúlio Vargas, president of the Republic, could not abandon his post, could not leave, whether from fear, vanity, or self-interest. He had to stay, in face of the exigencies of the political majority that supported him. But he had, further, a duty to his name. The name of the president was a sacred name. The president was like a king, like a prince. He governed in the name of the monarch of the world, as Bossuet said. And that monarch of the world established that the name of the president had something of the sacred to it. Whoever exercised the presidency of the Republic had the duty, and not merely the right, to defend his name, because that name was not only that of Getúlio Vargas, it was the name of the president of the Republic. The president of the Republic had to honor the dignity inherent in his function, in his office, in his power. He had the duty to defend his name and, in defense of his name, could not resign, because resignation would be to confirm the suspicions.

VERY EARLY, Inspector Mattos went to the Dr. Eiras Clinic to find out about Alice.

“She can’t have visitors,” said an employee at the reception area.

“But is she all right?”

“Dona Alice is sleeping. Dr. Arnoldo was here today, and she was medicated. Maybe she’ll be able to have visitors soon.”

“Is Dr. Arnoldo in the clinic?”

“No, he left. He must be seeing other patients.”

LYING IN BED, his eyes open but not seeing, Vargas imagined how his death would be received by his enemies. His letter, which had been written as a farewell to government and not to life, a rough draft done days before at the request of Maciel Filho, his friend and assistant since the 1930s, could also serve, even better, as a definitive goodbye. The letter, poorly typed, was on the marble top of the bedroom’s small chest of drawers, beside the bathroom door.

When the steward Barbosa entered the room to shave him, Vargas was standing, immobile, in the middle of the room, wearing his striped pajamas. The steward asked him to put on a robe, as it was cold. “It doesn’t matter,” he replied. He added that he didn’t want to shave.

Barbosa left, and Vargas was once again alone.

He would do what must be done. Requital and redemption. A euphoric sense of pride and dignity engulfed him. Yes, his daughter would now forgive him.

He took the revolver from the dresser drawer and lay down in the bed. He rested the barrel of the gun against the left side of his chest and pulled the trigger.

MAJOR DORNELLES was speaking with Barbosa, in the hallway.

“Did the president say anything?”

“He said it didn’t matter.”

“What didn’t matter?”

“I asked him to put on his robe because it’s cold, and he said it didn’t matter.”

They heard a shot. Dornelles ran to the bedroom, followed by Barbosa. They opened the door and saw the president, in bed, his eyes shut, and a large bloodstain on the left side of his chest.

“Mr. President!” Dornelles shouted.

Barbosa looked in astonishment at the short white hairs appearing on Vargas’s pallid face. I should have shaved the president, thought the steward.

Dornelles touched Vargas’s arm. “Mr. President! Mr. President!”

“I should’ve shaved him,” Barbosa murmured.

Dornelles ran from the room and returned with Sarmanho, Vargas’s brother-in-law.

“My God!” exclaimed Sarmanho. “Is he dead?”

“I don’t know,” said Dornelles. “We have to telephone Medical Emergency.”

The telephone in the bedroom, a black device on the night table, wasn’t working.

“Call General Caiado!” shouted Sarmanho from the door to the room. His yell was so loud that it was heard by those on the ground floor, causing them to peer upward through the great open space of the stairs.

The chief of the military cabinet entered the room accompanied by Arísio Viana, president of the Diários Associados of São Paulo. Viana had heard on the radio news of Vargas’s leave of absence and gone to the palace to obtain further information.

Seeing the president wounded, his chest covered in blood, General Caiado fainted and was taken from the room.

Zaratini, the butler, ran to inform the president’s wife and children.

THE INSPECTOR ARRIVED at the precinct, and Pádua told him:

“Getúlio killed himself. Vilanova, of the GEP, just left for Catete Palace to do the forensic tests. Jessé de Paiva and Nilton Salles are going to perform the autopsy. Direct orders from the superintendent of police.”

“I’m going to the Catete,” Mattos said.

He had to see Getúlio’s dead body.

“Turn the shift over to Rosalvo,” Mattos said.

“I can’t.”

“Then I’ll take over ahead of time. Regulations allow that.”

“Only if you promise me something.”

“What is it?”

“Not to let the bums I arrested go.”

“I promise.”

As soon as he received the blotter and Pádua left, Mattos called Rosalvo’s house and ordered him to come immediately to the precinct.

Rosalvo arrived quickly.

“I’m going out on an assignment. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Take care of things here.”

ALZIRA VARGAS, in the suicide’s room, was searching through the pockets of the navy-blue suit her father had worn at the cabinet meeting the night before, when she was told the forensic experts had arrived.

“Let them wait,” said Alzira, now nervously searching the pajama pockets of the body lying on the bed.

What she was looking for was finally discovered under the president’s cadaver: a key to the Fichet safe in the bedroom.

Alzira opened the safe and rapidly placed the contents from its drawers into a briefcase she had brought from the governmental palace of the State of Rio, in Niterói, and which till then contained only a revolver.

THE CONFUSION at the Catete Palace was so great that Inspector Mattos had no difficulty in entering; he didn’t even have to show his police ID. The reception area was deserted. Behind the doorman’s counter was only the bronze statue of the Indian Ubirajara grimacing in rage.

The furniture was being removed from the office of General Caiado de Castro, on the ground floor. Someone told the inspector that this was where the body of Vargas would lie in state. The inspector climbed the twenty red-carpeted steps of the first flight of stairs, flanked by the handrails of decorative wrought iron and gilded cherubs. He stopped on the first landing. Where would the president’s body be? His stomach ached. He put three antacid tablets in his mouth. He needed to see Getúlio’s body.

People were hurriedly going up and down the stairs. The inspector climbed another seventeen steps and arrived on the second floor. He had the habit of counting the steps of stairs he ascended.

In the large formal salon, whose windows opened onto Rua Catete, he encountered an attendant wearing a navy-blue suit.

Mattos displayed his police ID.

“Police. Where’s the president’s body?”

“You should’ve taken the elevator,” the attendant said.

“Where is it?”

“From here it’s better to take the stairs, in the rear, to the right.”

A door concealed the stairs leading to the residential area of the palace. The inspector climbed three flights of stairs, each with nine narrow marble steps, and came to the residential floor. In front of the president’s bedroom was a group of people, among them an army captain with the gilded braid loop worn by aides-de-camp. The inspector showed the captain his police ID.

“I’m from the office of the superintendent of police. Have the forensic people arrived yet?”

“They’re inside. Is there anything?” The captain held the doorknob. “You want to go in?”

“I’ll talk with them when they come out.”

The inspector descended the stairs to the ground floor, where the confusion had increased. The number of people moving to and fro, yelling incomprehensible orders, was greater. In the gardens could be seen hurriedly placed light machine gun nests. There were no soldiers behind the few haphazardly piled sandbags, which imparted a melancholy and fragile appearance to that improvised war apparatus.

The inspector noticed at the third-floor windows a woman wearing dark glasses, who seemed to be crying. It was the wife of the president, Darcy Vargas. She had married Vargas when she was fifteen years old.

Mattos contemplated the pair of bronze birds on the platbands of the rear of the palace roof, leaning forward as if about to take flight. In the shade of the enormous trees in the garden, the silence was broken only by the soft gush of water from a small fountain of white marble.

A man whom Mattos recognized as Lourival Fontes, head of the civilian cabinet, was placing a pile of papers in the trunk of a car. Fontes closed the trunk and looked around stealthily to see if he was being observed. When he saw the inspector, he walked quickly back into the palace. Mattos followed him.

In the midst of the confusion on the ground floor, the inspector lost sight of Fontes. He ran up the stairs, counting the thirty-seven steps to the third floor. He approached the president’s bedroom. Through the half-open door, Mattos saw what he was looking for. There he was, Getúlio Vargas. Dead, sitting on the bed, held up by his wife and others who were trying to removed the bloodstained pajama jacket. Beside them, someone was holding a dark suit on a hanger. The movement of the people prevented Mattos from seeing the president’s face.

A visibly uncomfortable man who was taking notes put away in his pocket the pad on which he was writing. Seeing the inspector’s inquisitive gaze, he said: “My name is Arlindo Silva. I’m a journalist. This scene will never vanish from my mind.”

The reporter, obviously ill at ease, moved away from the door and disappeared.

The forensics team finished its work and stored instruments and papers in small black cases. The first to come out was Vilanova.

Normally good-humored, Vilanova was frowning and worried. He knew the inspector and considered his presence at the scene natural.

“I confirmed a large blackened area around the orifice made by the projectile in the pajama, and also nitrite on the hand. There can be no doubt that the president killed himself. Jessé and Nilton agree with me,” said Vilanova.

The medical examiners Jessé and Nilton had undertaken only a superficial examination of the corpse. The superintendent of police had given orders to the experts of the GEP and the morgue to hand over the body; there was no way, in that location, to perform an autopsy as the law required. The two medical examiners had merely removed the bullet lodged in the thorax and injected formaldehyde into the veins of the cadaver. This was related to Mattos by Nilton Salles.

The inspector descended to the ground floor, where countless persons had gathered, lamenting and clamoring. In a corner, under the large statue of Perseus, a colonel in uniform was saying that General Zenóbio had expressed the desire to go to the palace, but Vargas’s family had forbidden him to enter. “They didn’t take into account the fact that in 1950 Zenóbio had opposed another coup attempt by the UDN when Eduardo Gomes was defeated by Vargas in the presidential elections,” the colonel kept repeating.

Genolino Amado and Lourival Fontes distributed to the journalists arriving at the Catete an official note about the death of Vargas. Along with the note, they handed over two documents “found in the president’s bedroom”: the text of the letter, badly typed, which they called Vargas’s testament, and the text of a note that Major Fitipaldi said was found in the president’s bedroom, despite Lourival Fontes having verified that it was not in Vargas’s handwriting.

Major Fitipaldi, upon learning of Vargas’s suicide, had locked himself in the military advisers’ room, on the ground floor, and hastily written a note at the end of which he signed the name of Getúlio Vargas.

Now, Fitipaldi, Genolino, and Fontes read the note to the journalists arriving at the palace as having come from the president.

“I leave to the ire of my enemies the legacy of my death,” began the note, which ended by saying: “The answer from the people will come later. .”

Mattos left the palace. He made his way through the crowd gathered in front of the palace. He needed to get back to the precinct.

AT THE FINAL STOP of the streetcar line at Carioca Square, the inspector caught a streetcar and went to the precinct.

Automatically, he began signing the certificates of poverty on his desk. Rosalvo came into the office.

“Those military guys are really stupid. That’s the crux of it. If they’d left Getúlio alone, the senile old man would’ve died in disgrace, having his hair combed in public by the Black Angel, drowned in the sea of mud. But the military backed him up against the wall, without giving him a chance to save face. They played Lacerda’s game; he’s a maniac who doesn’t know when to stop. The people had already taken the old man’s picture down from the wall, now everything’s going to start all over. The old man’s become a saint, like every politician who dies in office in this shithole of a country.”

“Weren’t you a Lacerdist? Against Getúlio?”

“I’ve changed sides.”

Rosalvo began singing a song from the 1951 Carnival: “Put the old man’s picture back up, put it in the same spot, the old man’s smile makes us work.”

“Shut up,” said the inspector.

“The UDN is through,” said Rosalvo. “It’ll never be the government in this country. That boat has sailed.”

“Call the jailer and the guard on duty.”

Rosalvo and the policemen on duty, the investigator who was serving as jailer and the guard, came into the inspector’s office. Mattos ordered them go with him to the Robbery and Theft section.

“Put your weapons on top of this table,” the inspector said.

“I don’t understand, sir,” said Rosalvo.

Mattos took his revolver from his belt and pointed it at Rosalvo’s head.

“You don’t need to understand. Do it.”

“We’re going to do what the man’s ordering,” said Rosalvo.

The policemen placed their guns on the table. Rosalvo shook his head as if to say: “This time the guy has really gone crazy.”

“The keys to the lockup.”

The jailer put the ring of keys on the table.

Mattos left, locking the door. The Robbery and Theft section had only a narrow transom that opened onto a ventilation area.

The prisoners pressed against the wall when Mattos entered the cell. The repugnant smell of poverty, dirt, and disease strengthened even further the inspector’s resolve.

“Everyone out.”

The prisoners didn’t understand the inspector’s order and remained motionless inside the lockup.

“Out!” shouted the inspector. His stomach burned.

The prisoners went out and formed into a group at the far end of the corridor.

Mattos called over Odorico, the cell boss. “Look, they’re going out one at a time, spaced a minute apart. You’re responsible.”

One by one, in silence, the prisoners began leaving. They seemed like fleeing rats.

Mattos located Pádua after several phone calls.

“Pádua, listen carefully. I let all the prisoners out of lockup. All of them, even the convicted ones.”

“You’ve gone crazy, Mattos! They’re going to hold an administrative and a departmental inquiry. This time they’re going to kick you off the force. Know what the outcome of this is going to be?”

“Fuck the outcome.”

“I’m going to have to arrest you.”

“Don’t try it, Pádua. I’m calling you just so you can come here and take control of this shit. I locked up the people on my shift.”

“You’re finished!”

“I’m waiting for you.”

“I can call headquarters and tell them to go there and collar you.”

“You’re not going to do that.”

“The fuck I’m not!” shouted Pádua. “You son of a bitch!”

Mattos hung up.

He thought then that he hadn’t had a chance to talk with Detective Celso about Francisco Albergaria. When Pádua gets here, I’m going to give him all the information about my investigations. Pádua will like arresting the killer of Paulo Gomes Aguiar and solving the mystery of the Deauville.

However, Mattos would forget to give his colleague that information. Pádua arrived by himself. Mattos was sitting behind his desk, on it the ring of keys and the revolvers.

The two looked at each other silently.

“Tell them I threatened you.”

Pádua sighed. “Everybody knows I’m not afraid of threats. And you’re not capable of using those shitty guns.”

“Say whatever you like. Say you felt sorry for me.”

“That’s just what I’m feeling. One of the few honest cops in this precinct, and you go and do something like that. Look, I can order Rosalvo and the other two to say the prisoners sawed through the bars and ran off. We’ll make up something like that. The country’s in the middle of a convulsion, headquarters isn’t even going to start an inquiry, everybody’s going to be replaced, they’re going to give the superintendent of police the boot. Runaway prisoners won’t matter to anyone.”

“It matters to me. I want it to be that way.”

Mattos placed his police ID next to the revolvers.

“Hand this over to the proper person.”

“What proper person? There is no proper person. Hang on to that shit until they open an inquiry and kick your ass out into the street.”

Mattos put his wallet in his pocket and walked toward the door.

“What are going to do now? Something else crazy?”

“Outcome. I liked that word. Forgive me for giving you a double shift.”

As he was leaving he heard Pádua say, “Did you know today is St. Bartholomew’s Day?”

twenty-five

LATE THAT NIGHT, Mattos walked amid the crowd of people forming immense lines near the Catete Palace to see the dead president; he was looking for a bar open at that hour to drink a glass of milk. But they were all closed.

Many people were crying and shouting; one group was singing the national anthem off-key and with faulty lyrics.

Using his police ID, Mattos entered the palace. He wanted to see the dead Getúlio again.

The bier with Vargas’s body was placed in the room of the head of the military cabinet. Mattos stood beside the casket; from there he could see the tranquil face of the dead man. Across from the inspector, on the other side of the coffin, were the president’s children and brother. Alzira, her face puffy, held back tears.

Mattos’s stomach ached fiercely, but he didn’t want to leave there to see if some bar had opened its doors.

Since 5:30 of the previous afternoon — when the body had come down from the third floor to lie in state, and the people filling the salon had received him by singing the national anthem — the mourners filed endlessly past the casket; they placed small slips of paper bearing requests in the dead man’s hand, plucked the flowers to take away as remembrance, prayed. Many fainted and were carried outside. One man, his hand on the coffin, managed to make a short speech before he was escorted away: “The people will avenge Getúlio!” Apolonio Salles, the secretary of agriculture, placed a rosary between Vargas’s waxy fingers.

At 8:30 a.m., Lutero Vargas, João Goulart, and General Caiado de Castro closed the coffin.

Soon afterward, the bier was removed and placed on a cart, at the side entrance to the palace, on Rua Silveira Martins.

Mattos joined the multitude that, shouting Getúlio’s name and waving white handkerchiefs, pushed the cart along Flamengo beach. By the time it arrived at the Glória gardens, the cortege had increased to thousands of people.

Near the Calabouço, on Avenida Beira Mar, soldiers of the air force opened fire on the crowd. Hundreds fled in panic for the buildings along the avenue. Others resisted furiously, throwing whatever they could, shoes and clogs, at the soldiers who fired. Many were wounded.

The inspector tried to remain with the bulk of the crowd that held its ground around the coffin, without dispersing, obsessively pushing the car amid the sharp crack of machine-gun fire.

They finally arrived at Santos Dumont airport. A Cruzeiro do Sul plane was waiting on the runway. A man, lifted by two others, explained with clenched fists that the president’s family had refused the offer of a FAB plane to transport the body, and the crowd erupted with shouts of hatred, curses, roars, and howls of fury and despair.

The coffin, accompanied by Darcy Vargas and the president’s two children, Alzira and Lutero, was lifted onto the plane. A sudden, eerie silence fell over the crowd, broken abruptly by the sound of the plane’s propellers put in motion.

Amidst the waving of handkerchiefs, the plane slipped down the runway in the direction of the sea, took flight, and passed above the cruiser Barroso, so motionless in the water that it looked like a toy.

Mattos remained in the middle of the compact mass of people who continued on the tarmac and in the vicinity of the airport.

Getúlio died, he kept thinking at every moment.

Gradually, people began coming out of the short-lived stupor that had dominated them when the plane disappeared into the sky. Now, men and women were starting to become furious, to shout and mill about chaotically, spreading into neighborhoods near the airport.

Somebody pointed to a building on Avenida Marechal Câmara, saying it was a government office. Mosaic stones from the sidewalk were ripped up and the windows of the structure’s façade were destroyed in a matter of seconds, while another group invaded the building.

Two squads of soldiers, one from the army and one from the navy, with fixed bayonets, attacked the protesters from different positions, tossing stun grenades and teargas bombs.

Close to five hundred people gathered in front of the air force building on Avenida General Justo, shouting Getúlio’s name, but were quickly repulsed. Dozens of the protesters were injured.

Mattos walked toward Avenida Rio Branco.

A group attempting to invade the American embassy, on Avenida Presidente Wilson, was repelled by machine-gun fire from the soldiers protecting the embassy. The protesters then crossed the street, carrying their wounded, determined to ravage and burn the Standard Esso building. But they were again dispersed by a squad of army soldiers with fixed bayonets.

In the small square in front of the Standard Esso building, now empty, there remained only Mattos and a man lying on the ground. Mattos kneeled beside the wounded man, who tried to say something but died before he could speak. The inspector looked through the man’s pockets for something that could identify him but found nothing. A corpse in the streets is the responsibility of the police, and he had not yet been expelled from the force. He needed to find a telephone and request removal of the body to the morgue. He walked along the avenue, past the Senate, which was surrounded by army troops, and stopped at the door of the São Borja Building. He thought about going up and phoning from Laura’s rendezvous. But he preferred making the call from the reception area. When he left, he saw that further ahead, at the corner of Santa Luzia and Rio Branco, the same group that had attacked the American embassy and the Standard Esso building had reassembled.

A man had climbed a lamppost and was yelling: “We’re not going to run away, we’re not going to run away!”

The crowd, driven by the inflammatory language, advanced in a cohesive bloc down Santa Luzia toward the American embassy. Now, besides stones, many carried clubs and iron ripped from benches in the gardens. The man who had climbed the lamppost had a revolver in his hand.

This second assault was repelled violently by the soldiers. A machine gun opened fire on the attackers, wounding the majority of those in the forefront. The crowd pulled back, pursued by the soldiers, until they were in front of the Federal Supreme Court, on Rio Branco, where a lieutenant ordered his troops to return to the American embassy. The crowd quickly regrouped in Cinelândia and moved down Treze de Março toward Carioca Square. Those in front shouted that they were going to set fire to the O Globo newspaper.

The paper, housed in a two-story structure over the Freitas Bastos bookstore, had just closed its gate when the first protesters arrived, running ahead of the crowd. Two of the newspaper’s vans were set on fire. “Break it down! Break it down!” screamed the people amassed at the gate of the journal. At the building’s windows a few frightened faces appeared fleetingly.

The metal gate resisted efforts from its would-be invaders. Posters of UDN candidates, ripped from trees and lampposts, were used to build a fire at the newspaper’s door. Nearby newsstands were ravaged and the newspapers and magazines, with the exception of Última Hora, were thrown onto the blaze. The flames were beginning to ignite the building when the strident sirens of fire trucks were heard.

Along with the firemen, three police cars arrived, but the police made no effort to stop the riot. A policeman recognized the inspector and told him buildings on Avenida Presidente Vargas were being sacked. The Tribuna da Imprensa was being stoned by an infuriated mass that filled Rua do Lavradio.

“The people are going to start a revolution,” said the policeman.

THE ELEVATORS in Mattos’s building weren’t working. With difficulty, he climbed the eight floors, without counting the steps. He felt very tired. “I must be having that hemorrhage.”

As soon as he got home, he opened the refrigerator. He drank the milk he found, straight from the bottle.

On the radio he heard the news that calm had returned to the city. As his first act upon taking office, President Café Filho had named Brigadier Eduardo Gomes as secretary of the air force. General Juarez Távora had been appointed head of the president’s military cabinet. The government had stationed twelve thousand troops, hundreds of tanks, and other military vehicles at strategic points throughout the city. The authorities affirmed that the agitation, quickly put down, had followed a leftist scheme: the communists wanted to foment a civil war and install a soviet-style dictatorship. Luiz Carlos Prestes, leader of the Brazilian Communist Party, was said to have stated that he was ready to assume command of the revolution and that a general strike of workers had been scheduled for September 2. Lieutenant Gregório had told Colonel Adyl de Oliveira of his desire to say farewell to Vargas, but his request was not granted. “The ills visited upon the president by the Black Angel, by the abuser of power, had prompted the Vargas family to refuse to permit his presence at the scene,” said the announcer. Gregório was said to have gone into an “intense emotional crisis,” and air force authorities, fearing he would make an attempt on his own life, had placed him under the permanent watch of two sentinels.

Mattos called the Dr. Eiras Clinic. He succeeded in speaking with Dr. Arnoldo.

“Alice is much better. I think she can be released in two days. She refuses to have any contact with her husband.”

“Tell her that’s all right. For her to come to my house. I’ll be waiting for her.”

Then he called Salete.

“Listen, Salete. That woman, Alice, is sick. When she gets out of the hospital, she’s going to have to stay here for a time. I’m calling to say that I like you very much. That you’re my true girlfriend. Later we’ll handle the problem with Alice. She needs me, understand?”

“I’ll help you take care of her. Can I come by your apartment now?”

“Come, I miss you.”

If I lie down, this feeling will go away, he thought.

He left the apartment door open, so Salete could enter without his having to get up. He went to the bedroom and lay down. He slept.

He awoke to Salete’s voice:

“Mattos, are you there? What happened here? A fire?”

“I’m in the bedroom.”

“My god, you’re so pale,” said the girl.

Mattos tried to get up from the bed but couldn’t. His clothes and hair were soaked with sweat.

“Who set fire to the place?”

“I did. But call someone to take care of it, please.”

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Sorry. I wasn’t expecting my ulcer to play a trick on me right now. I called you here. . I wanted to — But that can wait. I think I need to go to the hospital now.”

“Are you going to have to be operated on?”

“I think so.”

“Are you going to die?”

“No. Get that little package wrapped in silk paper on the night table. It’s for you. Careful opening it.”

Salete opened the paper.

“Good heavens! I can’t believe it. Is it what I think I’m seeing?”

“Yes.”

“A scab from your injury. .”

“I kept it all these days for you to take to that macumba woman.”

“She’s not a macumba woman.”

“Whatever. But first you’re going to help me get to the hospital. Here’s the address; my doctor said I should go there if I started feeling really bad. Afterwards I’ll come back here to wait for Alice. She should arrive tomorrow or the next day. Explain everything to her. Treat her well.”

Salete sat down beside Mattos on the bed. She pressed the inspector’s head to her breast.

“Open your eyes, my love, just a little.”

Mattos opened his eyes.

“You see this?” Salete showed him the paper Mattos had given her. “Look what I’m doing with the scab.”

Salete wadded up the paper and threw it on the floor, as if throwing a stone.

“I’ll put it in the trash later,” she said.

In reality the paper no longer contained the scab, which Salete had placed in the compact in her purse.

Mattos closed his eyes again. He was still sweating profusely. But his stomach didn’t ache. He didn’t even feel heartburn.

“Get the disk on top of the record player, please, and put it on. It says Elixir of Love on the cover. I feel like listening to a bit of it before we leave for the hospital.”

Salete went to the living room and did as Mattos had requested. She turned the volume up to a level that the inspector could hear in the bedroom.

At that instant the front door opened and a tall, powerfully built black man entered the room.

“Is Inspector Mattos in?”

“He’s back there. Who are you?”

“He doesn’t know me,” said the black man, closing the door.

Salete ran to the bedroom, followed by the black.

“Alberto,” shouted Salete, “there’s a man here looking for you.”

Mattos opened his eyes.

“Are you Inspector Mattos?” the black man asked softly.

“Yes,” said Mattos, sitting up with difficulty. He felt, along with strong vertigo, a sensation of euphoria. He had finally found the Negro.

“Inspector Alberto Mattos?” the other man insisted.

“I have something that belongs to you,” said the inspector.

Mattos, with great effort and closely watched by the black man, stuck his hand in his pocket and took out the gold ring.

“Take it. It’s your ring.”

Chicão took the ring, checked the letter F engraved on its inside. He put the ring on his finger.

“I’d lost this ring. I know where you found it.”

“In the bathroom of the guy you killed at the Deauville Building.”

Mattos got up, leaning on Salete.

“You’re under arrest for the murder of Paulo Machado Gomes Aguiar on the first of August.”

Chicão calmly fingered the ring.

“Are you sick?”

“He has a stomach ulcer,” said Salete.

“I had an uncle die from a perforated ulcer,” said Chicão.

Supported by Salete, Mattos left the bedroom and went to the living room table where the telephone was. He picked up the phone. Hesitated. I’m not a cop anymore, he thought. I’m going to go back to being a lawyer, when I get out of the mess I’m in. I should tell this guy, Go away, Francisco Albergaria, and if you need a lawyer look me up.

Suddenly the volume of the record player increased powerfully.

Mattos turned and saw Chicão beside the record player pointing a revolver at him.

“Say goodbye to your girl,” shouted Chicão, to be heard above the sound of the record.

Mattos looked at Salete. She was the last thing he saw. He fell to the floor, killed by Chicão’s shot.

“Alberto, Alberto!” Salete kneeled beside Mattos’s body.

“I hate killing a beautiful woman,” said Chicão.

Salete looked at the assassin, surprised. “Do you think I’m beautiful? Really?”

Both spoke loudly in order to be heard over the music and singing coming from the record player.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life. Don’t worry, I won’t do anything to your face.”

“Thank you,” said Salete, closing her eyes.

Chicão placed the gun barrel over Salete’s left breast and pulled the trigger.

He turned down the sound on the record player. He identified the singers’ Italian words. He recalled the songs he’d learned during the war. He hummed “mamma son’ tanto felice” for a few seconds; then he stopped and listened to the opera. Music, any music, always moved him. There were times during the war when he cried listening to Neapolitan songs.

It was a pity, but he had to leave; he couldn’t stay for the record to finish.

Without looking back at the dead bodies, he left, leaving the music playing.

A FEW MINUTES LATER, the gunman Genésio, brother of Teodoro of Senate security, arrived at Mattos’s apartment.

The door was ajar, and from inside came the sound of singing, which made Genésio hesitate, not knowing what to do. Then the music suddenly stopped. Genésio took his old but reliable Parabellum from his belt, and cautiously opened the door.

Seeing the bodies on the living room floor, the first thing he did was to shut the door. Then he verified that both the man and the woman were dead.

He searched the coat hanging on a chair and found the police ID of Inspector Alberto Mattos. He checked the photo on the ID against the features of the dead man. He put the ID back in the coat.

Genésio left the apartment, shutting the door.

He caught a taxi and went to the Hotel OK on Rua Senador Dantas, downtown.

Teodoro and Senator Vitor Freitas’s aide Clemente were waiting for him in the hotel bar, drinking.

“Did you do the job?” Teodoro asked.

“Alberto Mattos is dead. I checked his identity card. I also had to kill a girl who was with him. But I’m not gonna charge for that.”

“Want a whiskey?” asked Clemente.

Genésio looked around. “I don’t drink that crap. Does this place have a good cane rum?”

“I don’t know. I can ask.”

“Let it go. I want my money. I’m gonna hit the road.”

Clemente handed Genésio a bundle wrapped in brown paper.

“A hundred thousand. You can check it.”

“No need. Goodbye, brother.”

“The senator’s going to be happy, isn’t he?” said Teodoro after Genésio left.

“Of course. And you’re going to call him now and give him the good news. He must be at this telephone.” Clemente gave Teodoro a piece of paper with the number.

“Me?”

“Tell him you saw me hand over the hundred thousand to your brother for the job. I don’t want him to think I kept the money. There’s a phone booth over in the corner. Tell the senator that I’ll stop by the Seabra later to give him the details.”

twenty-six

IN THE GÁVEA CLINIC, Ilídio received the visit from an emissary of Eusébio de Andrade. The numbers game high command wanted to know whether he was involved in the death of the inspector. The emissary added that the peg-leg lawyer had been let go and that Eusébio de Andrade’s personal lawyer, Mr. Silva Monteiro, a member of the Brazilian Bar Association and professor at the National Law School, was taking over the case and had met with Commissioner Ramos that morning, who had assured him that with the death of Inspector Mattos the investigations would be suspended. Ilídio could relax.

Ilídio thanked Andrade’s emissary. He ordered his bodyguard Alcebíades to phone his driver to come for him. The clinic was situated at the top of a hill, in a beautiful isolated location surrounded by trees. In the days that Ilídio had been in the clinic, Alcebíades had slept in his room, which was permissible under the hospital’s rules.

Alcebíades had been recommended by Moscoso, who had told Ilídio that it was time for him to have a bodyguard “from the first team.”

Ilídio felt protected with Alcebíades at his side. Unlike his old bodyguard, Miro Pereira, a lair and a braggart who talked too much, Alcebíades was a quiet man, attentive and polite, as the best bodyguards are. He never uttered a swear word. He could frequent Ilídio’s home without offending his wife and children with vulgarisms and gutter language.

“We should leave here in two cars,” Alcebíades said. “You would go in the second one.”

“It’s not necessary. That goddamn cop who was after me already bit the dust. All the other cops are on my payroll. All of them. Uniforms, detectives, investigators, commissioners. If it wasn’t for me, the wives and daughters of most of them couldn’t buy a new dress for their birthday.”

“Sorry, Mr. Ilídio, caution and chicken soup never hurt anybody.”

“Believe me, Alcebíades. There’s no danger.”

Ilídio’s driver arrived with his boss’s Packard.

Ilídio had taken to the clinic only a small bag with some undershorts. He didn’t mind wearing the same shirt or pants for several days, but shorts he had to change at least twice a day. He felt repugnance at the smell of what he called the pudenda.

The three men got into the Packard. In front, the driver and Alcebíades. Alcebíades had said, “I should go in back with you.” But Ilídio believed that an important numbers man shouldn’t ride in his Packard with his bodyguard in the same seat.

In the middle of the highway, a Chevrolet sideswiped Ilídio’s Packard. Alcebíades managed to take out his revolver and fire at the occupants of the Chevrolet before he was killed by a bullet to the head. The same man who killed the bodyguard shot and killed the driver. The attackers’ actions had been very fast. No car had passed them on the road during the slaughter.

Ilídio had crouched down on the floor of the car as soon as the shooting began.

He felt himself being grabbed by the collar and yanked from the car. A man put handcuffs on him.

“Murilo, take their car to that valley near the brook. I’ll follow you.”

Murilo grabbed the two dead men from the Packard and put them in the back seat. He got behind the wheel, turned on the ignition, and left.

Ilídio was dragged inside the Chevrolet by the man who had handcuffed him.

The Chevrolet followed the Packard.

“Know where I was this morning? The morgue. I went to visit my friend Mattos and his girl, who you ordered killed,” said the man driving the Chevrolet.

“It wasn’t me. I swear it wasn’t me, by the light of my eyes.”

“Having Mattos killed because he gave you a kick in the ass, that I can understand. But why did the girl have to be eliminated?”

“May I see my mother dead if it was me. Listen, sir, I’ll give you anything you want if you let me go.”

“Do you know me?”

“You’re Inspector Pádua.”

“Then you ought to know, I don’t take numbers money.”

“I’m innocent, I swear it.”

“What about Old Turk?”

“I canceled the order. Mr. Andrade and Mr. Moscoso commanded me to cancel the order, and I did. But I couldn’t locate Old Turk in time. Ask them.”

“I don’t talk to numbers kingpins.”

“Nothing happened to the inspector.”

“So you hired another guy. Who did the job? We know it was a black man, he was seen by a neighbor of Mattos’s leaving his apartment. I want his name.”

“How should I know? It wasn’t me.”

The two cars were now in a deserted wooded area near the brook.

Murilo came to the Chevrolet. The three men sat in the back seat.

“I don’t like hurting people, isn’t that right, Murilo? But I’m going to break all your teeth, one by one, starting with the front ones, of course, until you tell me who did the job on Mattos and the girl.”

Pádua got a flannel cloth from the car’s glove box, wrapped it around his knuckles and, after flexing his muscles, began to pound Ilídio in the mouth.

Ilídio moaned so loudly that it seemed to reverberate through the forest.

Pádua took a handkerchief from his pocket. “You got a handkerchief, Murilo?”

Murilo took the handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to Pádua.

“Later I’ll buy you a new one. Now stuff them both in the fucker’s mouth,” said Pádua.

Murilo stuffed the two handkerchiefs into Ilídio’s bloody mouth.

Pádua hit him again.

Now the moan emerged hoarse and muffled.

Ilídio desperately tried to remember the name of a black man to give Pádua, but in his panic he couldn’t recall even one, despite knowing many. When he took another traumatic punch to the mouth, he remembered a name. He nodded his head frantically.

Pádua took the bloody cloths from Ilídio’s mouth.

“What’s the name?”

It took Ilídio a moment to regain his breath. He first spat out the broken teeth. “Sebastião Mendes, nicknamed Feijoada Completa.”

“You know the guy, Murilo?”

“There’s a Feijoada Completa who works for the smugglers at the docks.”

“Is it him?”

Ilídio moaned that it was, while he spat blood.

“You could’ve given me the guy’s name right away. You didn’t need to cause us all that work. You’re a stubborn man, Ilídio. But your suffering is over.”

Pádua removed the revolver from its holster. He rested the barrel against the back of Ilídio’s neck. “You’re lucky, Our Lady of Good Death is protecting you.”

Ilídio shuddered, a brief convulsion, when Pádua’s weapon fired.

Pádua grabbed the body by the legs, Murilo by the arms, and they carried it to the Packard, placing it next to the other corpses.

“Isn’t it better to take off the cuffs?” Murilo asked.

“Leave the cuffs. So the son of a bitch’s friends’ll know it was a police job. To teach them they can’t kill a cop just like that.”

They went back to the Chevrolet. On the trip back Murilo asked when they would pick up Feijoada Completa.

“Day after tomorrow, Saturday. The day for feijoada.”

THE CITY EXPERIENCED A DAY OF CALM. Business was considered very good by the Federal District Shopkeepers Union. Government offices, banks, factories, and commercial offices also functioned normally. Movie theaters enjoyed a great influx of customers, more than usual for a Thursday.

The one thousand and seven hundred tourists who had disembarked from the ship Santa Maria visited the main touristic spots of the city and all enthusiastically agreed that Rio deserved its title of Wonderful City.

The fifth group of participants in the cultural excursion to Europe, organized by the Touring Club of Brazil, was preparing to embark the first days of September. The tourists would travel on the ship Augustus and visit the principal cities of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Switzerland. Everyone was quite excited about the trip.

In the São José maternity hospital, in Rio de Janeiro — as well as in other maternity wards in the country and in residences attended by midwives — that day more girls than boys were born. The males received blue clothing and the females pink. The majority of the parents had already chosen names for the newborn. José was the name preferred for boys, Maria for girls.

It was a sunny, pleasant day. At night the temperature dropped slightly. The high was 87 degrees, the low 63. Moderate winds from the southeast.

Content

Rubem Fonseca
Crimes of August

TO READERS OF crimes of august IN ENGLISH

Crimes of August

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