Rubem Fonseca - Crimes of August

Mattos looked up the Boqueirão do Passeio number in the phone book. The guy who answered said they didn’t have any teacher called Chicão, and that their boxing instructor was Kid Earthquake. Earthquake could be found at the club that Friday at the eight p.m. class.

The Boqueirão do Passeio was on Rua Santa Luzia, near Rua México. It was a boating club; boxing, as well as basketball and yoga, were secondary activities of the Boqueirão.

When Mattos arrived, there were half a dozen athletes in the gym. One was hitting a speed bag; two others were pounding the heavy bag. Others were skipping rope. In the ring, a pair, in protective headgear, were fighting, oriented by a potbellied old man with a broken nose. Mattos concluded, accurately, that he must be Kid Earthquake.

Mattos waited patiently for the activities to end, which took over two hours. Then he addressed Kid Earthquake.

“I’d like five minutes of your time. We could have a beer while we talk.”

“About what?”

“I’m from the police.”

“Having beer with a cop isn’t good for your health.”

“Sorry, Kid, but you’re going to have to talk to me one way or another. All I want is some information. It’s nothing to do with you.”

Kid Earthquake appeared to meditate about what Mattos had said.

“I’m going to change clothes.”

He returned soon, carrying an enormous bag. “I don’t leave my stuff here. They stole a new pair of gloves last week. There’s thieves everywhere these days. But you know that better than I do.”

They went to a bar in Lapa that stayed open late. On the round marble tabletop someone had written in pencil: “Marietta, I’m going to drink ant poison because of you.”

“Ant poison with guaraná is a sure thing,” said Kid Earthquake, who had read the words written on the marble. “I had a cousin killed himself that way, also a woman thing. She put horns on him.”

Mattos ordered a beer and a glass of milk.

“All we have is warm milk,” said the waiter.

“It’ll do.”

“You don’t drink beer?” asked Kid Earthquake.

“I have an ulcer in the duodenum.”

“That’s in the stomach, isn’t it? I’ve got a cousin with that problem.”

When Kid Earthquake finished his second bottle, Mattos asked him about Chicão.

“He doesn’t work with me anymore. He was a black man, strong as hell, but he didn’t have good technique. Just brute force. He served in the FEB. He learned to fight from the Americans in the war. Has he fucked up?”

“No, he hasn’t done anything. I’m looking for him so he can give me information about a guy who was a student of his at the Boqueirão. One Pedro Lomagno.”

“Then it was that guy who fucked up.”

“Nobody fucked up.”

“Then why’s the police interested?”

“Well, you I can tell. This Lomagno seduced a girl.” Whenever Mattos needed a pretext for an investigation he always used seduction. It had been that way at the Catete when he visited the quarters of the former personal guard of the president.

“Seduction. I never much understood that crime,” said Kid Earthquake.

The crime of seduction — unlike rape — didn’t evoke strong reactions from anyone who wasn’t directly involved, like the victim’s father and mother. Or the accused.

“The crime of seduction occurs when a man, taking advantage of the inexperience or the justifiable trust of a female older than fourteen and younger than eighteen, has carnal relations with her.”

“Carnal relations is the guy sticking his knob in the girl, right?”

“It’s necessary that she trusts him or is inexperienced.”

“How?”

“The guy’s engaged, and says they’re going to get married. The girl consents, believing the promise. Or else the girl doesn’t know what she’s doing, because she’s so naïve—”

“Sir, do you believe that? Women know what they’re doing from the day they’re born. It’s men who don’t know.”

Mattos ordered another beer.

“You’re a decent cop,” said Kid Earthquake, “I saw that right away in your face. I’m going to come across for you, because that Pedro Lomagno is a rich guy with a swelled head. I’m surprised at you telling me he did a girl wrong, ’cause I always took him to be a fag. I got my suspicions that he used to get it on with Chicão. He set up a boxing school for Chicão, but Chicão screwed up and from what I hear had to close down the school.”

“Do you know where that school is located?”

“Yeah. Chicão gave me the address and asked me to send him students. But you think I was going to send him students when I barely got enough to cover my expenses?”

“Does this Chicão wear a heavy gold ring?”

“Uh-huh. He liked to show off the ring. Never took it off his finger. Only when he put on the gloves or took a bath. He said soap was bad for the ring. He used to say a lot of dumb things.”

It was late at night, but even so Mattos got a cab and went to Rua Barão de Itapagibe, the address Kid Earthquake had given him. He got out of the cab and found himself in front of a large shed with whitewashed masonry and aluminum roof shingles. The door, of green-painted metal, was shut. There were no lights inside the building.

Mattos banged on the door. No one answered. He was about to leave when he heard the sound of the door opening.

A mulatto with missing teeth, wearing striped pajamas, asked, “What is it? What is it?”

“I’m looking for Chicão.”

“There’s no Chicão here.” The man tried to shut the door, but Mattos stopped him.

“I want to speak to the owner.”

“The owner is Francisco Albergaria.”

“Isn’t his nickname Chicão?”

“Maybe.”

“He’s the one I want to talk to.”

“He hasn’t been around. I’m the watchman.”

“What’s your name, please?”

“José.”

“Do you know how to read, José?”

“More or less. If you write with little letters on the paper, I don’t know. I can only read big letters.”

“Would you be able to give Mr. Francisco a message?”

“If it’s not very long.”

“Tell him Inspector Mattos, who’s investigating the crime at the Deauville Building, wants to talk to him.”

“That’s real long.”

“I think I’m going to write a note for you to give him. Can you get me a piece of paper?”

“I’ll check.”

José returned with a piece of brown cardboard.

Mattos wrote in large block letters: “Francisco Albergaria. I’d like to meet with you. All I need is some information from you. Nothing important. Please call me.”

AMONG THE PAPERS Colonel Adyl de Oliveira had found upon breaking into Gregório Fortunato’s drawers and files when he invaded the Catete Palace were documents relating to the crooked deals in the Cexim, brokered by Gregório along with Arquimedes Manhães and Luiz Magalhães, the lover of Salete Rodrigues, Inspector Mattos’s girlfriend. According to the documents, as intermediaries in those deals, Manhães and his associates earned more than fifty-two million cruzeiros.

Luiz Magalhães was not located by those in charge of the inquiry. Manhães, however, was arrested and taken to the Galeão air base when he made his statement.

Manhães declared that he had been a guest at the Catete at the beginning of the Vargas administration but had distanced himself from the palace following a deal for buying and selling cotton, made with financing from the Bank of Brazil, in partnership with Roberto Alves, ex-secretary of the president. Asked how much he had realized in that transaction, he answered that he couldn’t say exactly, since quite some time had gone by since the operation had occurred.