David Levien - Where the dead lay

Behr steeled himself and moved through a maze of folding chairs and a din of English, broken English, and Portuguese, toward the family in its place of honor.

“Mr. and Mrs. Santos? Frank Behr. I was a student. My condolences.” He wasn’t sure if they spoke English, and after they nodded their thanks, he still wasn’t. He moved past them to two men in their late twenties or early thirties. Curly haired, heavy featured, and fit, they were clearly Aurelio’s brothers. They flanked a dark-haired, grief-stricken young woman with red-rimmed eyes whom Behr pegged as a sister.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Behr said to them, shaking their hands between both of his.

“You train with my brother?” the older one asked. “I’m Alberto.”

“Yeah, Frank Behr. I was taking private-”

“Oh, sure, ’Elio told us about you. He say you will be a pain in the ass to submit one day soon. He say you forget you only training.”

“I’m stupid like that,” Behr said. He glanced over at the other brother, who seemed to be listening.

“Rory don’t speak English,” Alberto said. Then Alberto spoke Portuguese and Behr heard his name. Then Rory said a few words including “detetive.”

Alberto turned to him. “You are a detective?”

Behr nodded.

“The police say there is nothing so far. You can maybe find something about what happened?” he asked. The desperation Behr saw in such a strong man’s eyes made it all the more unbearable.

“I’ll try. I am trying,” Behr said.

Rory, who’d been following the exchange in silence, stood up. He crossed to a table where perhaps a dozen Brazilian flags were folded. Rory took one and handed it to Behr and then spoke in Portuguese.

“These are the flags he wear into the ring,” Alberto translated. Behr knew that Aurelio’s practice was to drape one around his shoulders when entering, and he waved them and held them aloft to the crowd after a win. “We want to give them to the special students. To remember.”

Behr felt the green flag, smooth and shiny under his fingers, and stood there for a moment unable to speak. He finally nodded his thanks and scratched out an “Obrigado… obrigado.” He looked up and saw that Alberto’s eyes were moist, but he wore a smile so close to Aurelio’s they might have shared the one.

“Your accent is good,” he said. “So tell me, I don’t see the new girl. You know her?”

“Girl…?” Behr began.

“The one he start with maybe six weeks ago,” Alberto said. “I don’t speak to him much in these days, he so busy. So busy with her. He don’t tell me her name, just that there is a new girl.”

Five hours a week alone with the guy, and he didn’t know something as basic as his new girlfriend. Behr marveled at his own anti-people skills, his ability to not connect. Before the conversation could continue, Aurelio’s father stood and cleared his throat.

“We talk again after, I translate for my father now,” Alberto said. Behr nodded and moved toward the door where there were still one or two empty seats.

Aurelio’s father began in halting, emotional Portuguese for a time and then allowed his son to speak his words to the room. “My son Aurelio love the jiu-jitsu. My father taught me. I teach Aurelio. And even though he don’t have a son, he love the people he teach. He do it from when he was five year old and it is his life…” The father spoke again for a few moments and Behr’s mind ran back over some of the many things Aurelio had taught him, and taught him the hard way-by using them on him. The guillotine, the reverse guillotine, front headlock choke, omaplata, gogoplata, knee bar, ankle lock, the Western, the stocks, kimura, jujigitame-arm bar-of all stripes, triangle choke, arm triangle, bolt cutter, a nasty one called the crucifix. The list went on and on. The variety and combination of the moves was an endless and fluid stream from Aurelio, but then it had stopped in the abrupt, graceless way that only death could bring.

Behr had a reason for choosing his seat near the door: as inappropriate as it was to walk out on a friend’s memorial, Behr knew it was his last best chance to get into Aurelio’s house. The family, if they were staying at his place, as he assumed they were, would all be at the school for the next little while. When the ceremony was over it was likely they would go back and begin packing his personal effects, and Behr would lose the chance for good. He only hoped the police wouldn’t still be sitting on the house, or that he’d have the good judgment not to go in anyway.

The father paused in his words and then Alberto took over once more. “My son have a special way with the people. He always compete with the most respect,” he said. “He never try to make someone feel small, he always try to lift up when he teach,” Behr raised his eyes and scanned the room. Several of the fighters were nodding. “Even the many that he beat, many become his friends after. And some of them here today…”

But some of them aren’t, Behr thought, as the words bore into his gut, and it’s not just because they don’t live nearby. He glanced toward the door, about six steps away. He hoped his taking French leave wouldn’t be too conspicuous. He made his move.

Luck was raining down on him. There was no cop posted on Aurelio’s house. Behr had parked around the corner and was approaching from the rear, in case anyone on the street happened to be watching. And now he had an open window. As he cut across the backyard he saw it right away. He could’ve beaten the locks- which were bargain basement Schlages he remembered from his last visit-but he wasn’t the type to look a gift horse in the mouth. He figured he had forty-five minutes before anyone would be back from the memorial, so there was no time to waste, and he had the blade on his Leatherman tool out by the time he reached the house. He slid it quickly behind the frame of the screen, which came out of its track with a pop. The other side went even easier, and he raised the window and slid through.

The inside of the house smelled delicious. He had entered in the kitchen, and he saw a large pot of meat and rice on the stove that he imagined Aurelio’s mother had cooked for the group. The aroma made him hungry, but he moved on into the living room. There were a few open suitcases on the floor, as well as two large half-packed duffel bags. A sheet, blanket, and pillow were on the couch, which was likely being used as a bed by one of the brothers. He saw that the wires of Aurelio’s stereo had been disconnected, and the components were ready to be boxed up, the same with a forty-two-inch flat-screen television. The cable box and remote rested on the coffee table bundled up in the power cord. Behr checked along the bookshelves for any photos or loose papers but didn’t find any. He feathered the pages of several likely hardback books, but found nothing stashed. He considered continuing on through the hundred-plus paperbacks but abandoned the idea as too time-consuming with too little expectation of reward. As he walked toward the bedroom he hoped he wasn’t mistakenly leaving a lead undisturbed.

The moment he entered, he saw that the bedroom was a problem. There were four large cardboard boxes, three of them already sealed with tape. Damn, Behr breathed and crossed to the closet. He pulled a string, lighting the bare bulb. All he saw were wire hangers and dust balls. The family had been thorough and quick with the packing. He opened the only box that wasn’t closed up and found it full of shoes-dressy ones, sneakers, flip-flops, and a pair of low rubber winter boots that Aurelio must’ve despised. Behr closed the flaps and scanned around the room. It was not heavily or particularly well furnished. Aurelio wasn’t the kind to care. Behr dropped to his hands and knees and looked under the bed. He found nothing there but a yoga mat and a massage stick for breaking up fibrous tissue.