Crimes of August: A Novel: 5 (Brazilian Literature in Translation Series) (24 page)

“You spoke with her yesterday, I believe, and she said something to that effect. I’m very sorry, Mr. Lomagno, but there’s nothing I can do.”

“I’d like to talk to her again.”

“I already told you she’s sleeping.”

“You’re not cooperating.”

“I’m very sorry. Good evening.”

As soon as Mattos hung up, the phone rang again.

“You been looking for me?”

“I wanted to talk about your crisis of conscience.”

“What crisis? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“If not remorse, what made you pay for the burial of Old Turk in Caxambu?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Pádua, I know you killed Old Turk. I can’t just do nothing, knowing what I do. I can’t be an accomplice.”

“You’re not being an accomplice. You’re gonna do nothing simply ’cause there’s nothing you can do.”

“Yes, I can.”

“No, you can’t. I know you’re a good cop, but not even Sherlock Holmes could prove I killed that guy. Mattos, Old Turk was a hired killer, he was going to kill you. You need to stop suffering over nonsense. That’s why you have the ulcer. When you come to relieve me, day after tomorrow, we’ll talk more about the matter if you want to.” Pause. Trying to change the subject: “Did you hear that Arlindo Pimenta is running for city council?”

“I’m not interested in that.”

“The numbers men are gonna take over the country yet. I know a very interesting story about Arlindo.”

“Not interested.” Mattos hung up the phone.

This was the story Mattos had refused to hear:

The numbers game bankroller Arlindo Pimenta, commonly called a gangster in the newspapers because of the flashy manner in which he conducted other criminal activities besides financing the numbers game, had been advised by his lawyer and his fellow lawbreakers to change his negative image. Heeding their counsel, Arlindo promised that he would continue exercising, with proper decorum, only the illegality of the numbers game; he sold the Cadillac in which he ostentatiously circulated in the outskirts of the city; stopped causing disturbances in bars; and, finally, became a candidate for alderman.

Arlindo launched his candidacy on his birthday. On Rua Leopoldina Rego, on the outskirts, an election party was held with speeches and fireworks. A large table of sweets and savories displayed in its center an outsized birthday cake representing a Chinese garden with an enormous pagoda, which provoked wonder, and even astonishment, among the guests. The cake maker, following the request of one of Arlindo’s thugs who wished to curry favor with his boss, placed in the middle of the Chinese garden a marzipan miniature of a .38 revolver. A small birthday candle was placed in the barrel of the revolver. Arlindo Pimenta, amid applause, blew it out with a single puff.

nineteen

THE BURN
that Salete had caused on Mattos’s hand with boiling water had healed, created a scab, and the inspector had removed the scab, but Salete knew nothing of that, because she hadn’t appeared at the inspector’s apartment since Alice had moved there. Alice had answered the phone the two times she called Mattos’s home. Salete had hung up without saying anything.

Days of suffering. She lacked the will to leave the house. She didn’t go to the benefit tea for the Maronites, at the Monte Líbano club, featuring a fashion show by Elsa Haouche, the designer whose dresses she most appreciated, and even knowing that Mário Mascarenhas, her favorite musician, accompanied by fifteen other accordionists, would be playing classical and folkloric music. She forewent seeing the film
Mogambo,
with Clark Gable and Ava Gardner, whom she adored. She felt so unhappy that she didn’t even have her toenails and fingernails done.

She cried in the corners, didn’t eat, lost weight, and her eyes looked even larger and her face bonier, which increased her anguish, because she thought it worsened her ugliness. Actually, her slimness made her face appear even prettier.

She was suffering from her irremediable misfortune when Luiz Magalhães telephoned. Lately Salete had refused to speak with him, telling the maid to say she was very ill. That Thursday she went to the phone. Magalhães said he needed her to do him a big favor. When Salete again refused to see him, Magalhães begged, in such a humble manner that it left her disturbed:

“I’m in a tight spot, I need you. For the love of God, help me.”

“I don’t have the strength to leave. I look very ugly, I don’t want anyone to see me.”

“It’s a quick thing. I’ll pick you up in a cab, we’ll go downtown and take care of everything in a few minutes.”

Magalhães arrived with a wide black briefcase, stuffed to the point of bulging. He seemed extremely worried, looking repeatedly through the car’s rearview mirror as if he were being followed. The entire time, he clutched the case against his body.

“Where are we going?” Salete asked.

“I’ll explain later,” said Magalhães, looking suspiciously at the driver.

They got out on Avenida Rio Branco, near Rua do Ouvidor.

The two of them, with Magalhães always hugging the briefcase to his chest, walked quickly along Ouvidor to the corner of Rua da Quitanda.

“Here it is,” said Magalhães. They went into a building. On the door Salete could read
Sul América—Securities and Capitalization
.

Magalhães stopped in the building’s ample lobby. He explained in a low voice, looking fearfully to all sides, that he was renting a safe-deposit box in Salete’s name. In the box he would keep some very valuable things, which she would later return to him when he came back from the trip he was taking the next day.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to Uruguay. When things get better, I’ll come back. But that doesn’t matter,” said Magalhães impatiently.

“Why don’t you rent a box in your name?”

Magalhães explained that he had many powerful enemies who could break into the strongbox and take out the things in it. Those enemies would not be looking for a box in her name.

“Thank you for trusting me,” Salete said.

Magalhães couldn’t rent a box in the name of his wife or any other relative. It was too risky. Salete was the only possible option. But in any case, he had total trust in the girl.

A Sul América clerk filled out forms with Salete’s identity information. The girl signed the papers. Then, in a secure room, they put Magalhães’s briefcase in a lockbox. A key, with a number, was handed to Salete.

“You mustn’t lose this key,” said the clerk.

“That’s right,” said Magalhães. “Where are you going to keep the key?”

“Leave it to me. I’ll hide it in a place where no one will find it no matter how hard they look.”

As they left, still in the lobby, Salete took Magalhães by the arm.

“But there’s something you need to know.”

“What is it? Tell me now. I’m in a big hurry.”

“I like another man.”

“Right. But don’t tell him about what we did here today.”

“You said you’d kill me if I liked another man.”

“When I get back, we’ll talk about it. You can’t lose that key, you hear?” Seeing the disappointment on Salete’s face, Magalhães added, joking, nervously, “I still like you a lot. When I return, I’ll kill you.”

“You don’t like me at all. It was all a lie.”

“I have to go. I deposited a lot of money in your bank account.” Magalhães kissed the girl on the cheek and withdrew, almost running, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor of the lobby.

Salete stood there, the key in her hand.

“It was all a lie,” she murmured.

THE PRINCIPALS INVOLVED
in the Tonelero attack were exhibited to the press, at Galeão air base, at ten a.m. During the presentation certain information was provided by the military officers. The statements by the accused, although requested, were not furnished to the press, and the journalists had to be content with the sparse information given them during the presentation.

The first marched past the journalists was Lieutenant Gregório. In coat and tie, as always, he remained silent, his brow furrowed. His participation in the attack was known to all. The high decoration he had received from the army, the Maria Quitéria Medal, had been rescinded. His confession, according to the military, had been complete, claiming responsibility as the mastermind. It wouldn’t be until two days later, in another interrogation, that Gregório would say Deputy Euvaldo Lodi had visited him in his room at the Catete Palace and proposed “bombarding” Lacerda, so the military men did not mention the deputy’s name in the presentation. Nor did they mention, for the same reason—they were still unaware of the fact—that on the eve of the dissolution of the personal guard on August 8, upon learning that the president had told his adjutant Major Accioly to summon to the palace his brother Benjamim from Petropolis, Gregório had jumped the gun and had met Benjamim in that city; and that upon his return to Rio, traveling in the same car, Gregório had confessed to Benjamim that he had given orders to murder Lacerda. (This last item of information would come to serve as fundamental to the conviction on the part of the military officers of the
PMI
that the president, since August 8—in other words, three days before the attack—already knew that the head of his personal guard was behind the assassination, for surely Benjamim would have told his brother of Gregório’s confession.)

Next to be presented was João Valente, the former second in command of the guard. On Gregório’s orders he had given fifty thousand cruzeiros to José Antonio Soares to deliver to Climerio for his escape. Valente praised the treatment he was receiving at Galeão; he joked with the officers who accompanied him; stated that he was eating “turkey and sleeping on a spring mattress.”

The presentation of Alcino was preceded by more detailed information. Before apprehending Alcino, the air force officers had detained his wife Abigail Rabelo, who when taken to the offices of the national aviation authority under orders from Air Force Major Borges, had there confessed her husband’s role in the attack. Air force officers and civilian police had hidden in Alcino’s house at 192 Rua Gil Queiroz, in São João de Meriti, waiting for him to come for his wife and five children as he had promised to do, according to information provided in Abigail’s interrogation. When he showed up to take his family with him in his flight, Alcino was arrested, offering no resistance.

Alcino stated, in the presentation, that he was being treated well and also praised the high quality of the spring mattress on which he slept in the prison.

The driver Nelson Raimundo de Souza stated that he desired to remain imprisoned at Galeão, as he feared reprisals.

The last of the prisoners to be presented was Climerio. The spectacular actions of the war operation leading to his arrest on Tinguá mountain were recalled. Climerio appeared frightened but, when asked by a reporter, said he was being treated well and that, like the others, he also slept on a spring mattress.

Those charged with the military inquiry stated that José Antonio Soares had not yet been arrested, something they hoped to accomplish in a few days. (In reality, at that moment Soares had just been detained by the police in Muriaé, in the company of his wife and father, with a .38 revolver and thirty thousand cruzeiros in new bills, money that he declared had come from the son of the president of the Republic, Lutero Vargas.)

Next exhibited at the Galeão base were
PTB
political propaganda materials found on the prisoners. They were handheld fans bearing the picture of a smiling Vargas with a kerchief around his neck, on which was written the phrase: “The
PTB
is revolution on the march.” On the fans was also the flag of the
PTB
, the emblem of the party—an anvil—and the words “Worker, join the Brazilian Workers Party to guarantee your rights.”

The principal information that the military men in the
PMI
chose to withhold from the press, on orders from Colonel Adyl, head of the military inquiry, was the accusations made in statements by Climerio and Alcino that it was Lutero Vargas who ordered the assassination. Adyl was convinced that such an assertion was false, a “diversionary tactic” still mysterious in nature and having as its objective the disruption of the investigations.

AT THE MEETING
held at the Military Club, a motion had been made demanding the president’s resignation, but General Canrobert and General Juarez Távora expressed the view that the crime should first be investigated, and then they could discuss the resignation of the president. The suggestion by the two opposition generals prevailed, as everyone believed the results of the inquiry would demonstrate unequivocally the president’s responsibility for the attack. At that same moment, the secretary of war, Zenóbio, had said, backed by seventy-three generals who met with him in Rio, that resignation was a very touchy issue that had to be resolved in an atmosphere of harmony and patriotism. “We are only interested in lawful solutions, to avoid plunging the country into anarchy,” Zenóbio had said. “In defense of the Constitution, I shall act with speed and vigor. This is my role, and I shall fulfill it to the end.”

Meanwhile, manifestations of protests were increasing against the president of the Republic. The legislatures of almost every state in Brazil were demanding Vargas’s resignation. The Brazilian Bar Association approved a motion, by a vote of 43 to 6, stating that it considered the country leaderless and asking the armed forces to remove Vargas from the Catete Palace and guarantee the swearing in of Vice President Café Filho so that legality could be restored. In military circles, rejection of the president grew continuously. The officer corps of the navy, which until then had maintained a less radical stance than the air force, reacted with outrage to the detaining of Admiral Muniz Freire for having criticized the government in a ceremony aboard the cruiser
Barroso
. The admiralty, pressured by the younger officers, obliged the secretary of the navy to rescind the punishment. Among the high command of the armed forces, only Marshal Mascarenhas de Morais held a favorable view of the president; but the marshal, though he headed the general staff of the armed forces and was respected for his illustrious past, in reality lacked any real power in that situation of widespread hierarchical subversion.

Throughout Brazil, candidates of the Lantern Club were registered for the October elections. Student associations from all over the country issued manifestos demanding that Vargas resign. The governmental accounting office, approving a motion by counselor Silvestre Péricles de Góis Monteiro, made public a declaration stating that it could not remain silent in the face of the Tonelero attack, in which the valiant Major Vaz had lost his life, victim of the perversity of murderers and criminals, a fact that had deeply wounded Brazilian society and appalled the national soul. The note further referred to the atmosphere of violence and corruption that dominated the country.

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.