Crimes Of August Part 25

"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 Sat.u.r.day, 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 Sat.u.r.day, 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 Sat.u.r.day, 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 Gregrio 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 mac.u.mba 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 s.h.i.+ft.

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-a.s.s. 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 f.u.c.king 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 judges.h.i.+p. 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 s.h.i.+fts, 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-"

"Getlio will never resign," interrupted Deputy Azevedo Pascoal.

"Let me finish. If it's resignation, or deposition-"

"Deposition? The army is with Getlio."

"You forget yesterday's meeting at the Aeronautics Club," Freitas continued, "where hundreds of army officers sided with their air force colleagues. Zenbio 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 Const.i.tution.' 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 Getlio himself. It's necessary to read between the lines, my friends, to understand the metaphors. The army won't stand for a pro-Getlio coup. But the opposite, yes."

"No need to give us a cla.s.s, Freitas. No one here was born yesterday."

"As I was saying-let me continue my reasoning-if Getlio resigns or is deposed, the UDN will take power, whether by installing its college-boy/military dictators.h.i.+p 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 Getlio, 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-cliches 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 Getlio is deposed, will end up prevailing in the UDN. In any case, it seems to me that if Getlio 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 G.o.d 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 abas.e.m.e.nt of the language, confirmed in the deputy's speech, reflects his disdain, perhaps unconscious, for our inst.i.tutions. 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 Jose Bonifacio's speech," continued Freitas. "You all know the line of the political clan that Ze Bonifacio belongs to-they're synonymous with provincial shrewdness. To Ze, Getlio'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 Ze asks of Getlio a gesture of pride from a true son of Rio Grande do Sul, asks the president to take the advice that Joo Neves de Fontoura, in one of his rare moments of political lucidity, gave him: when everything falls apart, Getlio should display the elegance of the vanquished, look Brazil in the eye, salute, and fall. But fall, says Ze, wrapped in the cloak of dignity and honor, by resigning."

"UDN politicians, in any situation, always want people to salute," one deputy joked.

"Ze Bonifacio 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 a.s.sa.s.sin owned a country home."

"We can't turn back the tide. The sea of mud exists," commented a deputy.