Rubem Fonseca: Winning the Game and Other Stories

“No. What’s this about?” The False Perpétuo spoke quietly, in a soft voice, apathetic, indifferent.

Anísio told him about the bets he and his friends made every month in the game of Dead Men. The visitor listened in silence, erect in his chair, his hands resting on his legs; at times it seemed to Anísio that the False Perpétuo ran the edge of his jacket through his fingers the way the true one did, but he must have been mistaken.

Anísio began to regret the man’s gentleness; maybe he was nothing more than a bureaucratic functionary. God, Anísio thought, 200,000 down the drain; he’d have to sell the lunch counter in Caxias. Unexpectedly he thought about his young wife, her round, tepid body.

“The squad has to kill a young girl and a businessman this month for me to get out of the hole,” Anísio said.

“And what does that have to do with me?” Smoothly.

Anísio summoned up his courage. He had drunk a lot of beer; he was on the verge of ruin and felt awful, as if he couldn’t breathe properly. “I think you belong to the death squad.”

The False Perpétuo remained inscrutable.

“What’s the deal?”

“Ten thousand if you kill a young girl and a businessman. You or your colleagues, it’s all the same to me.”

Anísio sighed unhappily. Now that he saw his plan close to realization, his body was overcome by a feeling of weakness.

“You got the money here? I can do the job right now.”

“It’s at home.”

“Where do I start?”

“Both at once.”

“Anybody special?”

“Gonçalves, the owner of the grocery, and his daughter.”

“That Portuguese friend of yours?”

“He’s not my friend.” Another sigh.

“How old’s his daughter?”

“Twelve.” The image of the girl having a soft drink in his bar flashed through his head, like a twinge of pain.

“All right,” said the False Perpétuo, “show me his house.” That was when Anísio noticed that above his waist he also wore a wide cartridge belt.

They got into the False Perpétuo’s car and headed for Gonçalves’s house. At that hour the city was deserted. They stopped fifty yards from the house. The False Perpétuo took two pieces of paper from the glove compartment and drew two crude death’s-heads with the initials D.S. below.

“It’ll be quick,” the False Perpétuo said, getting out of the car.

Anísio put his hands over his ears, closed his eyes, and curled up on the seat until his face touched the plastic seat cover, which gave off an unpleasant odor that reminded him of his childhood. There was a buzzing in his ears. A long time went by, until he heard three shots.

The False Perpétuo returned and got into the car.

“Let’s get my money. I took care of them both. I threw in the old woman for free.”

They stopped at the door to Anísio’s house. He went in. His wife was in bed, her naked back facing the bedroom door. She usually slept on her side, and the view of her body seen from behind was prettier. Anísio got the money and left.

“You know, I don’t know your name,” Anísio said in the car, while the False Perpétuo counted the money.

“It’s better that way.”

“I gave you a nickname.”

“What?”

“The False Perpétuo.” Anísio tried to laugh, but his heart was heavy and sad.

Could it have been an illusion? The other man’s expression had suddenly become alert and he was delicately fingering the edge of his jacket. The two looked at each other in the half shadow of the car. As he realized what was about to happen, Anísio felt a kind of relief.

The False Perpétuo took an enormous weapon from his waist, pointed it at Anísio’s chest, and fired. Anísio heard the roar and then an immense silence. Forgive me, he tried to say, tasting the blood in his mouth and attempting to remember a prayer, while at his side the bony face of Christ, illuminated by the streetlight, faded rapidly.

1.

Detective Miro brought the woman to see me.

“It was her husband,” Miro said, uninterested. In that precinct in the outskirts, husband-and-wife squabbles were common.

Two of her front teeth were broken, her lips injured, her face swollen. Marks on the arms and neck.

“Did your husband do this?” I asked.

“He didn’t mean to, sir, I don’t want to file a complaint.”

“Then why are you here?”

“At the time I was angry, but not now. Can I go?”

“No.”

Miro sighed. “Let the woman leave,” he said between his teeth.

“You’ve suffered bodily harm; that’s a prosecutable crime independent of your lodging a complaint. I’m going to send you for questioning to see if a crime has been committed,” I said.

“Ubiratan is high-strung but he’s not a bad person,” she said. “Please, don’t do anything to him.”

They lived nearby. I decided to go have a talk with Ubiratan. Once, in Madureira, I had convinced a guy to stop beating his wife; two others, when I worked in the Jacarepaguá precinct, had also been persuaded to treat their wives decently.

A tall, muscular man opened the door. He was in shorts, shirtless. In one corner of the room was a steel bar with heavy iron rings and two weights painted red. He must have been doing exercises when I arrived. His muscles were swollen and covered with a thick layer of sweat. He exuded the spiritual strength and pride that good health and a muscle-packed body give certain men.

“I’m from the precinct,” I said.

“Ah, so she did file a complaint, the stupid bitch,” Ubiratan grumbled. He went to the refrigerator, took out a can of beer, opened it, and started drinking.

“Go tell her to come home right now or there’s gonna be trouble.”

“I don’t think you understand why I’m here. I came to ask you to make a statement at the precinct.”

Ubiratan threw the empty can out the window, grabbed the barbell and hoisted it overhead ten times, breathing noisily through his mouth as if he were a locomotive.

“You think I’m afraid of the police?” he asked, looking admiringly and affectionately at the muscles in his chest and arms.

“There’s no need to be afraid. You’re just going there to make a statement.”

Ubiratan grabbed my arm and shook me.

“Get the hell outta here, you lousy cop, you’re starting to get on my nerves.”

I took my revolver from its holster. “I could arrest you for insulting an officer of the law, but I’m not going to do that. Don’t make things worse; come down to the precinct with me, you’ll be out of there in half an hour,” I said, calmly and politely.

Ubiratan laughed. “How tall are you, midget?”

“Five-eight. Let’s go.”

“I’m going to take that piece of shit outta your hand and piss down the barrel, midget.” Ubiratan contracted every muscle in his body, like an animal making itself bigger to frighten the other, and extended his arm, his hand open to grab my gun. I shot him in the thigh. He looked at me, astonished.

“Look what you did to my sartorius!” Ubiratan screamed, pointing to his own thigh, “you’re crazy, my sartorius!”

“I’m very sorry,” I said, “now let’s go or I’ll shoot the other leg.”

“Where you taking me, midget?”

“First to the hospital, then to the precinct.”

“This isn’t the last of it, midget, I got influential friends.”

Blood was running down his leg, dripping onto the floor of the car.

“You bastard, my sartorius!” His voice was more piercing than the siren that opened a path for us through the streets.

2.

A warm summer morning on São Clemente Street. A bus struck down a ten-year-old boy. The vehicle’s wheels ran over his head, leaving a trail of brain matter several yards long. Beside the body was a new bicycle, without a scratch on it.