Tony Bellotto - Rio Noir

“How did you discover all this?”

“It’s impressive how much people open up when they see a badge.”

“And?”

“And one day Nogueira has a major stroke and is at death’s door. And the suspicion emerges that the old man had made a will leaving everything, including the butcher shops, or a large part of his fortune, to Laranjeira.”

“So?”

“So right now it’s all conjecture. It’s my hypothesis. Which might be wrong, but I think it’s correct.” Friedrich took a dramatic pause, ordered another beer, and continued: “Here’s the hypothesis: this story is like Snow White .”

“ Snow White ?!”

“Remember the story? The evil queen is jealous of Snow White’s beauty. She asks the magic mirror who’s the fairest in the land, and the mirror, with the frankness that characterizes all mirrors, says, It’s not you, it’s Snow White . The evil queen then hires someone to kill Snow White. A woodsman.”

“A nobody.”

“Right. The woodsman is supposed to take Snow White to the forest, kill her, and bring her heart to the queen, as proof that he killed her. The woodsman takes Snow White to the forest, and what happens? He falls in love with her. He’s dazzled by her beauty. He decides that instead of killing her he’s going to let her go. Or, in the case of our woodsman, stay with her. Get it? The woodsman is a minor character in the story of Snow White. A mere detail, a supporting actor. But without him and without his decision to spare Snow White there would be no story. The woodsman ends up being the most important character of all. A simple woodsman.”

“How does he prove to the queen that he eliminated Snow White?”

“He takes her the heart of some animal or other, as if it were Snow White’s. In the case of our Tadeu, he could even buy a heart from one of Nogueira’s butcher shops; it’d be an ironic touch. Although Dona Santa, who had helped her husband in the butcher shop in the difficult early days, would inevitably recognize a cow’s heart. But our Tadeu doesn’t do any of that. He simply disappears with Laranjeira. Or with Snow White. And hides out in Bangu.”

“According to your hypothesis, then—”

“The evil queen is Dona Santa, who has nothing saintly about her. Snow White is Cristina. The woodsman is Tadeu, who brings Cristina to Bangu and keeps her locked in an apartment, certain they’ll never be discovered, until they are discovered. And executed, at the order of the evil queen. That will be the line of our investigation. I don’t foresee any difficulty in finding the killer. Or killers. Nogueira’s sons do whatever their mother orders. They’re terrified at the prospect of being left out of the will. And they had access to sharp knives. In short: for this story to match Snow White’s, all that’s missing are the dwarfs.”

“Did old Nogueira die after all?”

“Not yet. He’s in a coma. No one knows what’s in his will. He may have left everything to Laranjeira. Even the butcher shops.”

Several beers later Friedrich was relating what his father told him about Bangu, in the days when a famous textile factory and a soccer team that didn’t do badly in the Rio championships were there, where Zizinho, Parada, and even the great Domingos da Guia had played.

“Today people only come to Bangu to disappear,” said Friedrich. “Like me, who disappeared here six years ago and was never seen again.”

Mosquito had warned me that after a few beers Friedrich would start getting maudlin. I considered asking if he’d been the one who fingered the couple’s hideout to Dona Santa. Perhaps as a form of revenge, I don’t know. But I thought it best not to say anything.

I went back to the office, carrying the manuscript. Maybe there was something there I could use in my story. Something about impossible loves or the like. Readers like a bit of poetry with their bloodshed. I thought about Tadeu, the nobody, the mere woodsman, who one day finds himself the owner of the most beautiful woman in the world, who owes him her life but whom he must lock inside the house. I imagined how the break-in of the apartment by the butchers must have gone down. Perhaps they arrived in late afternoon, the time of long shadows. Perhaps Tadeu feared the time of long shadows every day, and what they could bring. Later I thought about what I would tell Mosquito.

“You were right, it did lead somewhere. It’s basically the story of Snow White. Minus the dwarfs.”

Tony Bellottois author of the best-selling Bellini mystery novels, which have been released as major feature films and translated widely, establishing him as the preeminent writer of Brazilian detective fiction. He is also a guitarist and songwriter for the famed Brazilian rock band Titãs (The Titans), which has released twenty albums and sold over six million albums. Bellotto also writes for the newspaper Globo and hosts a television show.

MV Bill(a.k.a. Alex Pereira Barbosa) is a rapper, writer, and activist. In 2005, with his coauthor Celso Athayde, he launched Cabeça de Porco . The following year he published a best-selling nonfiction work, Falcão: meninos do tráfico , which inspired a documentary. In collaboration with Celso Athayde, he created the NGO Unified Central of Favelas (CUFA). He is host of the programs Aglomerado on Brazilian TV and A voz das periferias and O som das ruas on FM radio in Rio.

Arnaldo Bloch, a journalist and writer, was born in 1965 in Rio, where he still resides. He began his career with the magazine Manchete and since 1993 has been a reporter for the newspaper O Globo , where he has a weekly column. He published the novels Amanhã a loucura and Talk Show and a biography of Fernando Sabino for the series Perfis do Rio. In 2008 he launched, through the publisher Companhia das Letras, the family saga Os irmãos Karamabloch .

Flávio Carneirowas born in Goiânia and lives in Rio. He writes short stories, essays, children’s fiction, and novels, in addition to a pair of film scripts. He wrote the Rio de Janeiro Trilogy, comprising the novels A Confissão, O Campeonato , and A Ilha . His stories and essays have been published in the US, Germany, France, Portugal, and Mexico, among other countries. In the crime genre his most recent novel is O livro roubado , set in Rio.

Arthur Dapievewas born in Rio in 1963. He is a journalist, writer, and professor at the Catholic University (PUC) in Rio. Since 1993 he has authored a weekly column on culture for the daily newspaper O Globo . He also worked for the Jornal do Brasil , the magazine Veja Rio , and the website NoPonto/NoMínimo . In addition to books of nonfiction, mostly about music, he has written the novels De cada amor tu herderás só o cinismo and Black Music .