Rubem Fonseca - Crimes of August

“Those guys are a pack of demagogues,” said Pádua.

There was another entrance, in the rear, near the elevators. It faced a courtyard where several automobiles were parked, opening onto Rua México.

“That’s where the senators come in, so as not to be seen,” said Pádua.

They returned to the lobby and waited for the elevator. On the tenth floor a single room had its door open. They heard the sound of a typewriter. A woman, sitting in front of an Underwood, didn’t notice the two cops as they passed by silently. LOTTUFO REPRESENTATION read a small plaque. Pádua turned to the right, in the hallway. The sound of the typewriter keys was no longer heard. All the doors were closed.

“Here it is,” said Pádua, ringing a doorbell.

A middle-aged woman in a maid’s uniform opened the door.

“I’m here to speak with Dona Laura. I’m Inspector Pádua.”

The woman made a gesture for them to come inside. Pádua paced from side to side in the small vestibule. From the movement of his arms, Mattos concluded that his colleague’s biceps and triceps must be flexing furiously.

A thin man with a small mustache and slicked-down hair appeared.

“Ah, Inspector Pádua. . What a pleasure! How nice!”

“I’m not here for small talk, Almeida. I want to speak to Dona Laura.”

“She’s very busy at the moment. Can’t it be with me?”

“No, it can’t be with you. Get in there and call Laura right now.”

“I’m going to have them get you some nice whiskey.”

“We don’t want any nice whiskey. Call the woman.”

“She’s in the other apartment, on the sixteenth floor. We’ll go up by the stairs. Please follow me.”

Laura was waiting for them in a large room full of overstuffed red velvet furniture. The curtains were also red. The room was illuminated by soft light coming from two lamps whose shades were mosaics of colored glass.

Laura was dressed discreetly. Her hair, dyed red, gave her face a look of insolence. A gold pince-nez, held by a black silk ribbon, swayed on her chest.

“You may go, Almeida dear,” she said. Her voice is as dark as the room, thought Mattos.

“This is my colleague, Inspector Mattos.”

“Would you like something to drink? Whiskey? Champagne?”

“He has a stomach ulcer. Can’t drink.”

“But you can.”

“Not today.”

Laura put on her pince-nez and looked at Mattos. “Are you a nervous man?”

“More or less.”

“What happened to your head?”

“Banged it against a wall.”

“Inspector Mattos wants information about a client of yours.”

“We don’t give out information about our clients. You know that.”

“Confidential. Anything you say will be strictly between us.”

“The police can shut down your house,” said Mattos.

“Can. But don’t want to.” Pause. “Have a little whiskey, Pádua.”

“Mattos, can you give us a moment? I want to say a few words to Laura in private, inside there.”

The two left the room.

I can shut down this whorehouse, thought Mattos. It was a crime to maintain, for personal gain, a house of prostitution or place designated for libidinous encounters, whether or not with the intent of monetary gain or direct mediation on the part of the owner or manager. But was there any harm in a bordello? Even for corrupt, crooked senators and important government officials? In Solon’s Athens prostitution was free, and prostitutes were considered a public utility, subject to taxation by the state, a source of revenue for the exchequer, while procuring for pay or acting as go-between by pimps was rigorously punished. Pádua, who enjoyed citing the thinkers of the church, was probably familiar with St. Augustine’s phrase: “ Aufer meretrices de rebus humanis, turbaveris omnia libidinus .”

Alberto Mattos remembered the debates in his criminal law classes about the idiotic phrases dealing with prostitution, which had inflamed discussions among the students. Since childhood he had felt an attraction to prostitutes, although he had never frequented a bordello. There came to his mind phrases: from Weininger, “the prostitute is the safeguard of my mother”; from Lecky, “the prostitute is the custodian of virtue, the eternal priestess of humanity”; from Jeannel, “the prostitutes in a city are as necessary as sewers and trash bins.” An inextirpable but necessary evil — who was it said that? In an association of ideas he recalled the melody of the aria “Ah, fors è lui,” but his claqueur’s reverie was interrupted by the return of Pádua and Laura to the room.

Pádua sat down in an armchair. Laura put on her pince-nez and looked at Mattos for a long moment. Then: “What is it you want to know?”

“Senator Vitor Freitas.”

“What?”

“Does he always come here?”

A long pause before replying: “Sometimes.”

“Does he always go with the same girl?”

“No.”

Pádua guffawed.

“Drop the subterfuge, Laura. The senator’s queer, my dear colleague.”

“SIR, I HAVE GOOD NEWS,” said Rosalvo, entering Mattos’s office.

After leaving Dona Laura’s house, the inspector had left Pádua and gone to a bookstore in the Cruzeiro Gallery, where he’d drunk half a liter of watery milk. Then he had caught a bus for the precinct.

“We have to find out everything about the victim’s life to be able to arrive at the killer, isn’t that right?” said Rosalvo.

“Go on.”

“I went to the São Joaquim school to look at Gomes Aguiar’s transcripts. Obviously the priests didn’t show me anything; those guys are murder. But I have a brother-in-law who’s a beadle at the São Joaquim, and he let the cat out of the bag. . As a matter of fact, that brother-in-law of mine wants to enroll in the police academy’s investigator course.”

“What’s the problem? Have him apply and take the tests.”

“But if he has a recommendation, it’ll be a lot easier.”

“I can’t recommend someone I don’t know.”

Then fuck you, thought Rosalvo. Indecisive, he said nothing.

“What’s the good news?”

“My brother-in-law nosed around in the school files. He was risking his job, which is a shit job but at least it’s a job. .”

Mattos could sense the taste of milk in his mouth, but the acidity had yet to pass completely. He filled his mouth with saliva and swallowed.

He’s started making faces, thought Rosalvo. Fuck him. No way, José. He doesn’t want to help my brother-in-law but wants to suck his blood. Fuck him. I’m not afraid of faces.

“If what you have to tell me isn’t urgent, leave it for afterward. I’ll call you later.”

“Whatever you say.”

Rosalvo opened the door.

Mattos began to read the papers the clerk had put on his desk.

“But it’s important,” said Rosalvo, grasping the doorknob.

The inspector continued his reading.

This cop’s soul of mine is what fucks me, thought Rosalvo. “It’s very important.”

“If it’s all that important, out with it, right away.”

Rosalvo closed the door and sat down in the chair beside the inspector’s desk.

He leaned forward conspiratorially.

“Paulo Gomes Aguiar was expelled from the São Joaquim in high school. I mean, he wasn’t expelled, the priests are scared shitless of confronting the powerful, and Gomes Aguiar’s family was very important, so the priests merely invited him to leave the school. Know what happened?”

“Go on.”

“Paulo Aguiar and two classmates grabbed a kid from the elementary school in an empty room and cornholed him by force. A beadle heard the boy’s moans and caught the bastards in the act. Know who the beadle was?”

“Your brother-in-law.”