Rubem Fonseca - Crimes of August

At the same time, newspapers published the opinion sent to the Chamber by the attorney general of the Republic, Carlos Medeiros Silva, about the congressional inquiry into loans, in an amount in excess of two hundred and twenty million cruzeiros, made by the Bank of Brazil to “firms and individuals lacking financial qualifications,” in this case the newspaper Última Hora and Samuel Wainer and L. F. Bocaiúva Cunha, among others. The attorney general had read the 2,979 pages of the five volumes of the inquiry and finally issued his opinion, which had been forwarded to the Chamber of Deputies through the secretary of justice in response to a request from two deputies, Armando Falcão and Frota Aguiar. According to the attorney general’s opinion, the congressional inquiry had shown the arbitrary and abusive manner in which the president of the Bank of Brazil, at the time Ricardo Jafet, had conducted the business of the society. No law, no regulation, no social statute had constituted effective barriers against the ill-advised objectives of the Bank’s top-level administrators to protect hidden interests. The president of the Bank of Brazil had ignored information from experts about the inadvisability and impropriety of such transactions, effected without reference to standard banking safeguards.

The text of the attorney general’s opinion was made public by Deputy Armando Falcão through a request to the Chamber’s presiding officer.

One of the few voices dissenting from the chorus of anti-Vargas invective was that of the leader of the dock workers, Duque de Assis. In his view the sole objective of the movement calling for Vargas’s resignation was to hinder the country’s progress and block the march of the workers’ struggle. “Our adversaries, adversaries of the government and the proletariat, are in the pay of hidden forces,” he said.

INSPECTOR PÁDUA handed over to the Robbery and Theft division the jewels stolen from the Esmeralda jewelry store: a gold ring with a diamond solitaire; an eighteen-karat gold Swiss watch with diamond insets; a six-facet gold ring, eighteen karats, with three diamonds set in platinum; a six-facet bracelet, eighteen-karat gold, with nine diamonds set in platinum; and other jewels. The apprehension had come about through a tip. The thief hadn’t been found, according to Pádua, but since all the jewels had been recovered, the matter was shelved.

LEARNING FROM MATTOS that Lomagno wanted to call her, Alice stopped answering the phone that day. The doorbell rang futilely countless times. Alice left the phone on the hook. Thus it was Mattos once again who answered Lomagno’s telephone call.

“I wanted to speak with Alice.”

“She’s here beside me and said she doesn’t want to speak with you.”

Silence.

“Mr. Mattos, I’m convinced that you’re keeping me from speaking to my wife. I want to warn you that I’ve consulted an attorney, who after hearing the facts that I told him stated that I can report you for the crime of kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment. According to the lawyer, your crime has an aggravating factor, namely, given her state of health it has probably caused Alice serious physical and psychological suffering.”

“Do whatever you like. But I advise you to look for a different lawyer. The one you consulted is an idiot. Good night.”

SHORTLY BEFORE NOON, Mattos arrived at the precinct to relieve Pádua. Normally he would get there earlier, to inform himself in detail about the incidents of the evening before with the inspector of the previous shift. But that day he was inclined to have the least possible contact with Pádua.

Pádua was waiting for him. “I want to talk to you.”

“It’s enough to give me the blotter.”

Pádua picked up the book from the desk and placed it under his arm.

“Five minutes. I’ve got a question to ask you. Not the policeman, the top student in law school.”

“I wasn’t the top student.”

“But you were one of the top students. Everybody knows that. Your nickname was Brain.”

“What is it you want to know?”

“Morally, we’re obligated to sacrifice our lives, if necessary, to carry out our duty, which is to prevent the commission of crimes. Isn’t that right? Why can’t we, also to carry out our duty, kill an outlaw to prevent him from committing a crime?”

“I’m going to answer in a simple manner your simplistic question. Because the law doesn’t give us that right. And the law applies to everyone, especially those who have some form of power, like us. A policeman can die in the exercise of his duty, but he can’t disobey the law.”

“You say my question is simplistic. Your answer is sanctimonious. You chose the wrong profession.”

“I think it’s you who chose the wrong profession.”

Pádua tossed the book on the table, flexed his arm muscles, and left the inspector’s office.

Ipojucan Salustiano, Ilídio’s peg-leg lawyer, appeared at the precinct with a medical statement attesting to his client’s inability to honor the summons he had received. The statement was handed to the recording clerk in the presence of Inspector Mattos.

Ipojucan liked to talk about his mechanical leg. It was a way of not feeling awkward about his stiff and unsure manner of walking. Now that he was the lawyer of a numbers game banker and made more money, he planned to order a mechanical leg from the United States.

“I have a mechanical leg,” Salustiano told Inspector Mattos.

“It doesn’t seem like it,” said Mattos politely.

“If I may ask, what is the reason for this summons? Has my client committed some crime?”

“For now, I only want to question him, in keeping with the law. You’re aware, counselor, that it’s a punishable offense to refuse law enforcement demands, solicited with proper legal authority, for data or information concerning identity, marital status, profession, domicile, and place of residence.”

“Of course, sir. I know the law.”

“Tell your client that he can’t stay hidden for long in the clinic, and if he doesn’t get well by Tuesday, I’m going to prove that that medical certificate is phony, which is a crime punishable by law. You don’t want to make things worse for your client, do you?”

Salustiano consulted a small calendar taken from his pocket. “Tuesday, the twenty-fourth. That’s just four days from now. I don’t know if he’ll get well in such a short time.”

“If he doesn’t, a police doctor will go to the clinic to examine him.”

IN THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES, the deputy and jurist Bilac Pinto spoke affirming that Vargas would have to sit in the defendant’s chair beside his gunmen. Citing Article 25 of the Penal Code — whoever in any way colludes in the commission of a crime is subject to the penalties imposed thereto — Bilac Pinto said that Vargas, by organizing a band of criminals, killers, thieves, and perjurers as his personal guard, had assumed the risks stemming from his action and choice. His preventive custody must be decreed, and Vargas must be taken into custody and subsequently tried by the Federal Supreme Court. There was no need for the Chamber to agree to a leave of absence, for it was a matter of common, rather than political, crime.

THE PROCURESS LAURA had told Mattos that Lomagno had a boxing instructor who was black. There were lots of black boxers, and that was the problem. Mattos was looking for one whose name started with F . Many fighters were known only by their nicknames; most were constantly on the move, fighting in arenas in the country’s hinterlands.

Mattos had asked for the help of the Surveillance division to search the city’s boxing schools for black men who taught boxing. For days no useful information came to his attention. But soon after the lawyer Salustiano left the precinct, an investigator from Surveillance came to tell him that at the Boqueirão do Passeio club there was a black boxing instructor called Chicão.