City of God (39 page)

The rooster ran into the middle of a grove of guava trees, a place even the sunlight didn't really penetrate, looking for a perfect hiding place, but Tiny's gang plunged in after him, firing at random. Unable to fly, he panicked, ran even faster over that rough terrain and hurt himself, but had no time to feel pain. After a few minutes, the shots ceased. He hid under some dry leaves and waited for his hunters to give up trying to catch him.

After an hour the rooster came out of hiding, headed for the grounds of an abandoned mansion, ran to the other side, came out on Edgar Werneck Avenue and disappeared forever.

Back at Almeida's house, everyone was talking about the rooster's cunning. They laughed, smoked joints and drank beer.

‘It was for the best, because rooster can be a bit tough,' said Almeida's wife.

Half an hour later there was a cry from Otávio:

‘Bread for sale! Bread for sale!'

Five policemen were approaching, holding guns. ‘Bread for sale' was their warning for when the police showed up. The gang was about to make a run for it when Tiny said:

‘No one run! Guns cocked. If I shoot everyone shoots, but to kill, to kill …'

The gang stood up. There were more than thirty men holding .38s, 9 mm and 7.65 mm pistols. Faced with this offence Sergeant Linivaldo squinted. Both he and the other policemen immediately understood that to tell them they were under arrest would be to sign their own death warrants. They pretended nothing had happened and sidled off as if they hadn't seen a thing.

On their way back to the police station, Sergeant Linivaldo told his men they'd have to keep working as they had been: without going out on the beat. They didn't have the men or the weapons to arrest the gangsters and, since there hadn't been any complaints of muggings, theft or rape, they had no reason to worry.

Three o'clock, an extremely blue sky and stifling heat in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Mango, Coca-Cola and Tião went into the building dressed as doctors, wearing sunglasses, prescription glasses around their necks, fancy wristwatches and well-ironed clothes. They greeted the doorman and the liftboy, and went to
the top floor, the thirteenth, because both the gold dealer and the exchange bureau were there.

The gold dealer had a bullet-proof glass door through which the whole inside corridor was visible. One of the security guards saw the three slowly approaching. Before any gesture from the trio, the door was opened.

‘Good afternoon, sirs,' said the guard to the three.

Inside the room, there was only one other security guard, an employee and the owner of the establishment. Coca-Cola asked how much they were paying per gram. On hearing the answer, he commented that the price was very low. He pretended to be thinking about it and coughed three times. Mango and Tião immediately drew their guns and said it was a stick-up.

After making the owner open the safe, they tied everyone up with telephone cord and hit them all over the head three times with the butts of their guns.

Everything went off without a hitch at the exchange bureau too.

‘Let's go!' said Mango in the corridor.

‘No way – now that we're here, we might as well do the rest.'

They held up offices and businesses all the way down to the sixth floor, where Mango looked out of the window and saw several police cars in front of the building and a crowd gathered on the pavement.

The police had been called by the exchange bureau's office boy, who'd arrived after the robbery.

Nervously, they checked whether it was possible to jump over onto the neighbouring buildings, but then decided to stick with their plan. They ran down to the second floor and took the lift, where they straightened themselves up, mopped their sweat with a hand-towel they'd stolen from the bathroom of the last shop
they'd held up, and walked out. Coca-Cola asked a police officer what was going on.

‘The building's being robbed, sir! Where are you comin' from?'

‘From the second floor … I didn't see anything strange.'

Three months later, Mango was back in the
favela
. Well dressed, a new car in his name, documents to show he was self-employed, a thick gold chain around his neck, two pistols. He'd become the official driver for one of the leaders of the organisation as well as a cocaine distributor in the
favelas
around Leopoldina.

‘You know them bank robberies that happened all at once?'

‘Yeah.'

‘I did three, man! We called it Operation Pinpoint,' bragged Mango in front of Jackfruit, Orange and Acerola. ‘If you wanna snort, if you wanna smoke, go over to Fogueteiro and I'll fix you up with whatever you want,' he went on.

They hung about talking until around midday, when Mango went to Aristóteles' house. He'd known Aristóteles since he was a child, but they'd only become friends when they were older. They'd become such good friends that Mango was like one of the family; so much so that ever since he'd been disowned by his own family, he ate at his friend's house every day, slept there, borrowed his car and took various other liberties that only the best of friends can take. Aristóteles welcomed him with the same smile as always, went to buy beer and told his wife to serve dinner.

That night, the two of them snorted cocaine on the slopes of the
favela
with some friends, and when they were alone, completely drunk, Aristóteles looked Mango straight in the eye and said:

‘Man, I gotta talk to you about somethin' serious, OK? Look,
I'm unemployed and my girl needs to have an operation on a lump they've found in her stomach. She doesn't wanna have it done through the public system 'cos you know what it's like, don't ya?'

‘Want some money?'

‘No! I want you to rustle me up some stuff to sell on the quiet, know what I'm sayin'? I don't wanna sell my car and I wanna fix up the house a bit. I need to make some good money. I've got these pals over in Vila Sapê. If you get me the stuff, I'll sell it really fast.'

‘Look, I can do business with you, but you gotta wise up – we can't afford to have any cock-ups.'

‘What day?'

‘I'll give you an answer next week.'

Coca-Cola did everything he could to stop Mango from giving his friend the five pounds of dope to resell, but in the face of so much insistence, he gave him the green light to sell two and a half pounds, with a long list of conditions and warnings.

Aristóteles sold everything, earning enough credit to get another seven and a half pounds, which he also sold quickly.

After a few months, he was receiving fifteen pounds of dope a week. Even when he hadn't sold the last batch, he had enough money to pay up front with the cash earned selling dope to his friends and small dens in neighbouring areas. His wife was operated on in a clinic for the rich; he built extensions to his house, bought a new car, a motor scooter for his son, and beers for the cool guys. After a time, he started frittering away money and then, one awful day, he received some old dope; because it was old, it was weak. He managed to resell it, but the guys who smoked it didn't feel a thing.

‘This fuckin' grass only makes you hungry, thirsty and sleepy.
You couldn't get off your face on it even if you smoked five big ones,' they said.

When Aristóteles had tracked down Mango near Batman's Bar, he complained about the quality of the weed. His friend told him that that's how things were between crops, and that he had to keep selling, especially now that Tião had been arrested.

‘Pal, the pigs are chargin' a fortune to let the guy go. I'm gonna have to give his wife something today to take down to the station so he won't have to sign a confession. And next week we'll have to send more so they'll let him go, otherwise he'll be charged and slapped in the slammer. I wasn't even comin' down here today 'cos I've got heaps of problems to sort out, but I wanted to ask you to lend us some dough, know what I'm sayin'? I'll pay you back on the tenth.'

‘How much?'

‘Fifty thousand.'

‘Fuck! I've got a shitload of bills to pay. I don't reckon I'll be able to …'

‘See! When you were up shit creek, we gave you a hand, but now that we're a bit tight, this is how you return the favour.'

‘OK, OK! I'll help you.'

That same day, the owner of the den in Vila Sapê sent an errand boy for Aristóteles.

‘Hey, man, the weed you sold us was really weak shit. I'm gonna have to get rid of a shitload of the stuff so I don't run the risk of gettin' caught for nothin'. Know what I'm sayin'? But hey – reckon you can get us some good shit so we can get things movin' again?'

‘No problems!'

‘Don't get me wrong, man. And don't tell your pals I'm bein' difficult. I'm askin' you to do me this favour, 'cos I'm really skint, OK?' said the Vila Sapê den owner, thinking Aristóteles was involved with big-time dealers.

Two weeks later Tião was back from the lock-up. It was time to get finances back in order even though they only had stale weed to sell.

Aristóteles believed that the only thing he could do to be given good weed on Thursday afternoon was to think positively. It was the only way it would sell and the only thing he could do to get out of that situation. He should have taken his wife's advice: pay for everything up front and stop selling that damn dope. He'd been stupid, really stupid. The reason he'd bought things in instalments was so he'd always have money in his pocket and could give everyone freebies. Now he was kicking himself.

Like Mango, both Coca-Cola and Tião believed Aristóteles had money stashed away; all his worrying was just greed, money-grubbing. In spite of their suspicion, they didn't hesitate to give their bad shit on a sale-or-return basis to Aristóteles, who claimed to be broke.

But when he smelled the dope, the owner of the den in Vila Sapê said he wouldn't be taking it. He rolled a joint, took a toke, and repeated that he wasn't going to buy it.

In spite of his problems, Aristóteles found a way to pay his friend back. Thinking he was in the clear, he got sloshed, then bought and snorted an excessive amount of coke even before paying his outstanding bills. He'd had enough money left over to clear his past debts and, God willing, he'd rustle up the money to pay off the following months' debts too. He also believed he could hold off paying for the dope he'd had on sale-or-return. But Mango was tough on him.

‘Look pal, the guys want the money by Saturday, OK? The guys've gotta help in a breakout. And we've gotta buy shit too, so think of somethin'.'

* * *

At around eleven o'clock on Saturday, Mango clapped his hands at Aristóteles' front gate. Aristóteles hid and told his wife to say he'd gone out early. Mango thought the wife was acting strange and left feeling suspicious. He stopped at Batman's Bar, where he asked everyone who passed if they'd seen his friend. He went to his girlfriend's house, had dinner and slept until six o'clock in the evening, when he decided to go to his friend's house again.

‘You came earlier, didn't you?'

‘Yeah …'

‘I went over to Vila Sapê to try and rustle up some money, but the guys there didn't have any.'

‘But is our deal still on?'

‘Fuck, man! I'm really skint …'

Mango stood there for a while in silence, ran his hand over his head and said:

‘Look, I'll try and talk to the guys, OK, but keep tryin' to get it together.'

‘You goin' over to Mangueira?'

‘No, I'm goin' to Fogueteiro, 'cos I've gotta pick up some money there. But I reckon the guys'll be there.'

‘Hey, put in a good word for me, man!'

‘I will, don't worry.'

When Mango got to Fogueteiro, an errand boy told him that both Tião and Coca-Cola were in Morro do Alemão in a meeting that had been hastily called by the leaders of the organisation. Mango turned around and headed for Morro do Alemão. He wanted to know what was going on. He liked hanging around the big bosses; he hoped to throw in some ideas, move up in their good books.

‘Where's the money?' asked Coca-Cola as soon as Mango arrived, looking concerned.

‘The guy's skint. He didn't manage to sell …' argued Mango.

‘Kill ‘im, kill ‘im!' ordered one of the leaders.

Mango didn't have to go to his friend's house, because he found him in Main Square.

‘Hey, the guys wanna have a talk with you, OK?'

‘OK, I'll nip over to Fogueteiro tomorrow …'

‘It's gotta be now, man. Go get your car. I'll wait for you here.'

Mango drove the car in silence, his friend next to him making small talk, but after a while he also fell silent. Mango thought about Aristóteles' family – after killing him he wouldn't be able to look any of his relatives in the eye. He remembered the days when they spent the afternoons together listening to rock ‘n' roll, drinking wine and smoking dope, the mornings on the beach, the dances, the drag races up in Alto da Boa Vista. He remembered the times Aristóteles had stuck his bum out of the car window and told him to beep the horn, Aristóteles imitating Raul Seixas singing, certain that the Devil was the father of rock ‘n' roll. He was going to kill his friend, but far from there and without anyone knowing about it.

The night was hot and Mango drove at a high speed. When they passed through Mato Alto, a secluded place, he thought about stopping the car, ordering his friend out and shooting him in the back, but he decided to take him to Morro do Alemão, believing that with some persuasion the leaders might spare him. Cautiously, Mango started to talk again, secretly hoping the car could be sold to pay off the debt.

Mango told Aristóteles to wait for him on a corner, and climbed another five hundred metres to the shack where the leaders were still gathered.

* * *