Rubem Fonseca - Crimes of August

“I’ll talk however I like. You protect the numbers people, you’re in cahoots with them.”

“I have orders from HQ to leave suppression of the numbers game to Vice,” shouted Ramos.

“Everybody’s been bought by numbers money. Not just you. Vice is a den of thieves,” said the inspector.

“You can’t—” Ramos began. The inspector turned his back and left the superintendent talking to himself.

Later, Rosalvo returned to the inspector’s office.

“Mr. Ramos is pissed off. He said you’ll get what’s coming to you.”

“What that guy says doesn’t matter to me. You can tell him that.”

“How can you say that, sir?”

“At the next Marian Congregation meeting you can tell him.”

“Sir, I haven’t entered the Congregation yet. I’m still thinking about it. I went to a meeting last Tuesday, at the Liceu Literário Português, to see what it was like. There were over four hundred congregants. The president of the Catholic Archdiocese Confederation, Eurípedes Cardoso de Meneses, gave a speech against Samuel Wainer’s magazine Flan .”

“Rosalvo, I’ve got other things to do.”

“Those Jews who run Flan published an article that’s offensive to our Catholic pride. Eurípedes had come from a meeting with Cardinal Dom Jaime de Barros Câmara, at the Palácio São Joaquim, where it was decided that priests would say in their sermons that Catholics shouldn’t read newspapers that support corruption. The congregants were pissed off at the article. Eurípedes asked people to send protest telegrams and letters to Flan and Última Hora with two phrases: ‘Long live the Pope!’ and ‘Down with Última Hora and Flan !’”

“Long live the Pope. . Changing the subject, what did you find out about Pedro Lomagno?”

“Just let me finish the story. Suddenly everyone at the Liceu Literário Português was yelling ‘Long live the Pope! Down with Última Hora and Flan !’ Mr. Ramos told me that normally they ended the meeting by reciting a Salve Regina, but Tuesday there was nothing but vivas and down withs. As soon as the meeting was over, we went out into the street shouting ‘Long live the Pope!’ and ‘Down with Última Hora and Flan !’ Suddenly we were ripping up copies of Última Hora on newsstands in the neighborhood. You know that I’m Catholic and a Lacerdist, but I’m not a fanatic like those congregants. I think I’ll tell Mr. Morais that I’m not going to enter the Congregation.”

“I’m not interested in that. Talk about Pedro Lomagno.”

Rosalvo took a small notepad from his pocket.

“Lomagno’s father was a well known fascist who financed the Brazilian Integralist Party until 1938, when the ‘green hens’ attempted that putsch that failed. Then Lomagno’s old man changed sides and backed Getúlio, who had wiped out his party. The son was never interested in the Integralists, but it’s also true that he was a young child when Plínio Salgado ran the party. In any case, the boy’s thing is to make money. He was Gomes Aguiar’s partner in Cemtex but never performed any function in the firm. Cemtex, according to the Tribuna da Imprensa , obtained a scandalous import license from the Bank of Brazil, through the skullduggery of a fast-buck operator named Luiz Magalhães.”

Luiz Magalhães again. Mattos’s stomach burned.

“Claudio is also a Cemtex partner. The way things look, our friends have been up to their necks in the same schemes from an early age. I think that’s the crux of it.”

“Enough of crux. Proceed.”

“Lomagno plays polo at the Itanhangá Club. High-class guy. A polo player uses four thoroughbreds during the match.” Pause. “One good thing about being a cop is that you’re always learning things.”

“What about José Silva?”

“It’s hard finding the boy, I mean, the thirty-year-old fag he must be by now. I got hold of his old address — my brother-in-law the beadle arranged it. I don’t do anything for him, but even so—”

“Proceed,” Mattos interrupted.

“He lived in a house on Avenida Atlântica. I went there, and you know what I discovered? An enormous building where the house used to be. And the houses on each side had also been demolished. It won’t be long before all the houses on Avenida Atlântica are turned into skyscrapers.”

“Proceed.”

“There’s no neighborhood left where I can ask questions. I’m back at square one.”

“Stop in bakeries, grocery stores, businesses on nearby streets.”

“Good idea.” Pause. “Did the madam come through?”

“No.”

“She didn’t say anything?”

“Nothing. Move ahead.”

Rosalvo left. Mattos called Antonio Carlos at Forensics.

“Got anything for me?”

“We’re running a complete examination of everything found at the scene. You know how long that takes. And we found a lot of stuff, trace evidence, blood, mucus, saliva, sperm, feces, urine, hair samples. All I can give you is some preliminary information.”

“Start with the blood.”

“The blood on the sheet isn’t the same as the victim’s. The victim’s is AB, Rh negative. The blood on the sheet is A, Rh positive. Probably the criminal’s. The victim had blood in his mouth that wasn’t his. He must have taken a good bite out of his killer.”

“Hair?”

“There were two hairs on the soap we found in the shower. From examining the medulla and the pigmentation of the cortex, we concluded they’re not the dead man’s.”

“Are they from a man or a woman?”

“We don’t even know for sure what part of the body they’re from. We know they didn’t come from the head of either a man or a woman. Or from the armpit, leg, or nostril. And they’re not an eyelash or eyebrow.”

“That leaves beard and mustache.”

“And the scrotum, anus, and vagina. God made man an animal covered with characteristic hairs, just to make it hard for forensics specialists.” Pause. “But I’m using a new technique in my examinations. Maybe I’ll discover something.”

“What about the sperm?”

“I think it’s the victim’s. In a couple of days you’ll know everything. I’ll call you.”

Next, Mattos called the morgue and spoke with the medical examiner who’d conducted the autopsy.

“The bruises and hematomas of the soft parts of the neck, the muscular tearing, the lesions of the carotids, and the fracturing of the hyoid bone indicate that the guy died from strangulation. But I can’t get the report to you till next week.”

Shortly before Mattos ended his shift, Salete phoned to say that she’d stop by his place. She was anxious to see if Mother Ingrácia’s sorcery had worked. She hoped that through the old macumba woman’s black magic, as soon as she entered Mattos’s apartment the inspector would take her in his arms and, after a passionate kiss, ask her to marry him.

“THIS EXCESSIVE HYDROCHLORIC ACID will be the end of me,” said Mattos, opening the door to let Salete in.

“Drink a glass of milk,” the girl said, disconsolate after standing with arms spread for several seconds, hoping for a show of affection from the inspector.

“I already did.”

“Drink another one.”

Salete opened the refrigerator. On the shelves was nothing but some bottles of milk and lots of eggs, some of them hollow. Salete, who felt repugnance toward eggs and had never eaten one in her entire life, had watched in disgust as Mattos made two small holes in the end of an egg and sucked it, “like he was a possum.” Someone had told her that possums sucked eggs that way.

“I don’t want milk.”

“Then suck an egg. It doesn’t bother me. I just won’t watch.”