Leighton Gage - Every Bitter Thing

“Should be by now.”

“Send him over to that bar.”

The Bardoelias was a shabby establishment with a sign in the front window offering beer for two reais.

Haraldo Goncalves wasn’t about to miss out on a deal like that. He bellied up to the bar and rapped his knuckles on the wood.

“A Cerpa,” he said.

“Beer’s only for folks old enough to drink.” The bartender grinned.

His attempt at humor failed miserably. “Take a good fucking look,” Goncalves said, flourishing his warrant card in the bartender’s face.

“Brahma or Antarctica?” the bartender said.

“I told you. Cerpa.”

“No Cerpa. We only got Brahma and Antarctica.”

“Antarctica, then.”

The bartender reached into a cooler, pulled out a cold bottle, and poured half of the contents into a glass. He set the glass and the bottle on the bar between them.

“You look too young to be a cop,” he said.

“No shit. Elias around?”

“Elias sold me this place back in 1997. I never got around to changing the name.”

“And yours is?”

“Renato Cymbalista, but nobody calls me that. They call me Gordo.” The word meant fatty, and it was appropriate.

“Gordo, huh?” Goncalves said, eying Cymbalista’s vast midriff. “I can’t imagine why.”

He was still miffed about the fat man’s attempt at humor.

“You in my place on business, or pleasure?” Gordo asked.

Goncalves looked around him with distaste and curled his lip. “What do you think?” he said. “Were you working the night Joao Girotti was murdered?”

“Yeah.”

“How well did you know him?”

“I didn’t know him at all. Why he chose my place to drink in, and the alley out in back to get killed in, I couldn’t say.”

“Did you talk with him?”

“Just to take his orders.”

“What was he drinking?”

“Beer with Dreher chasers.”

Goncalves wrinkled his nose. Conhaque Dreher, cachaca flavored with ginger, was just about the cheapest distilled spirit you could buy.

“Got pretty drunk, did he?”

“He got wasted.”

“Think back. Did he talk to anyone else?”

“I don’t have to think back, on account of I already told the story twice. By now, I got it memorized. First, I told it to the uniformed guys who showed up just after Graca found the body. Then I-”

“Who’s Graca?”

“One of the girls.”

“She works for you?”

“None of them work for me. We got an arrangement. They use the place to pick up customers, and the customers buy them drinks. Like that, see?”

“How did Graca find the body?”

“The women’s toilet is out there.” Gordo shot a thumb in the direction of the rear door. “She walked out to use it, and she stumbled over him.”

“This was how long after he left?”

“Ten minutes? Fifteen? Not long.”

“Back to my question: did he talk to anyone else?”

“Just the girl who was sitting at his table, the one he left with.”

“And that would be?”

Gordo shrugged. “Some blond,” he said. “I never saw her before. She shoulda come over and talked to me first, but she didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you talk to her?”

“The guy was buying anyway, and I was busy.”

“Seen her since?”

Gordo shook his head.

His eyes now accustomed to the dim light, Goncalves checked out his surroundings. Standing at the bar, just a few meters away, an old man with bleary eyes was staring straight ahead and nursing a drink.

The other male patrons, seven in number, were distributed between two tables, three at one, four at the other. All of them had given him the once-over when he came in.

Since then, they’d lost interest.

The women, on the other hand, were looking at him expectantly. It was still early in the day, and there were only three of them. One, a would-be blond, winked.

Goncalves turned back to the bartender. “This Graca, is she here?”

The bartender stretched his neck to look over Goncalves’s shoulder.

“No,” he said.

“Is there anyone else here now who was here then?”

“Leonardo was.” Gordo pointed along the bar. “He almost never leaves.”

The old man with the bleary eyes didn’t react, even though he was close enough to hear every word.

“But I wouldn’t waste your time with him if I was you,” Gordo said, not lowering his voice, speaking as if Leonardo wasn’t there. “He doesn’t recognize his own wife half the time.”

“You’re exaggerating, right?”

“I’m not. She comes in three or four times a week to drag him home, and he honest-to-God doesn’t recognize her. I don’t think it’s just the booze. Something is screwed up in his head.” He pointed at his temple and made a circular motion. Maybe it’s that… that…”

Goncalves helped him out. “Alzheimer’s?”

“Yeah, that. I figure there’s a bright side, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Think about it. Every time he takes her to bed, it’s like he’s fucking a different woman. You married?”

“No.”

“Then you have no idea what I’m talking about.”

“I think I do. There are happy marriages, you know.”

“So I hear. Never seen one myself. Want another beer?”

“Not yet. So Leonardo was here, but he really wasn’t. Who else?”

“None of the guys over there, maybe one of the girls. They’re coming and going all the time. It’s tough to keep track.”

“All right. One more question. After this guy Girotti went outside, did you hear a shot?”

Gordo shook his head.

“No,” he said. “And, before you ask, the answer is yes.”

“Yes to what?”

“Yes, I know what a shot sounds like. We hear them all the time around here.”

Goncalves picked up his glass and went over to where the women were clustered around a table. Gordo had called them girls, but they were hardly that. They hadn’t been girls for a long, long time.

They made for a colorful group: one was a mulata, one was black, and one was white.

“Mind if I sit down?” Goncalves said.

“Your mother let you play with big girls?” the mulata said, sizing him up.

“She lets.”

“Then sit,” the black woman said. “I’m Dorothy. This is Amalia”-she indicated the youngest-“and this is Ruby.”

“Haraldo,” Goncalves said.

Amalia was the one who’d winked at him. She reached out and fingered his necktie.

“Nice,” she said. “You a cop?”

“Yeah, I’m a cop.”

“I like cops,” she said. “Want to go somewhere and show me your gun?”

“Not today, thanks. I’m working.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”

She took a cigarette from the pack on the table and held it to her mouth, waiting for him to light it.

“Sorry,” Goncalves said. “I don’t smoke.”

Amalia reached into her purse, produced a cheap plastic lighter, and handed it to him. He held the flame to the tip of her cigarette. She put a hand around his, as if she needed to steady it, which she didn’t. When he doused the flame, she released him and took a long drag.

“I hate to break up this little scene,” the black woman said, “but you can do me with handcuffs if you want.”

Goncalves shook his head. “I just want some information,” he said.

“ Caralho, you’re no fun at all,” Amalia said, tipping off some ash.

The white one didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at him. It occurred to Goncalves that she might have been pretty once.

“The least you could do is to buy us some drinks,” Amalia said.

“What are you having?”

She inclined her head in the direction of the bar. “He knows,” she said.