The Mystery of Rio (16 page)

However, the song was truthful with regard to the content of its lyrics. At least since 1913, the police chief had known of the presence of a roulette wheel at Carioca Square. And that such a roulette wheel was located at the Hans Staden Bar—the popular nickname of a traditional German brewery, which never officially went by that name, and at its height served the best lager in the world at an address that today houses a cutlery store.

Whoever entered Hans's could not help but notice the round marble table where they displayed (for the use of the customers) playing cards, dice, boards, and the pieces of various games of chance. It was not exactly a den of gambling, but the bar had become famous for being one of the main centers of banned games in the city, even boasting of a secret room, where said roulette wheel was located.

For this reason, the patrons of Hans's felt uneasy when Baeta and the captain of the First District crossed the entire length of the bar, and sat at a small table in the back, and ordered draft beer, pickles, and assorted sausages.

The captain's invitation had come as a surprise to the expert. It must not have been work they had come to discuss; otherwise, they could just as well have talked back at the division. The matter, thus, must have been private, giving Baeta a unique opportunity to address his problem, the case of Rufino the sorcerer.

The expert imagined that the captain, a skeptical type, would not give any credence to the treasure story. So, without revealing his true reasons, he would ask that his colleague impose his authority and force his officers to lay off the old man. He would say it was arbitrary, he would use the police chief's name, perhaps even that of the minister of justice. What he did not know was how to do this without disclosing his personal stake in the matter.

So he was taken aback when the captain went straight to the subject, after the first sip:

“I know you were in Santa Teresa, at the sorcerer's house.”

So it really was true: Rufino was being kept under round-the-clock surveillance by officers of the First District. The movement in the bushes the expert had noticed, before entering the old man's hut, was a spy. Baeta simply could not have imagined that the captain himself was behind this hunt.

“Something big is going down in my district. I have a right to know what it is.”

This was a checkmate of sorts on the expert's plan. Baeta could not allow them to suspect that the secretary had been murdered (and therefore could not say that the case of Fortunata had occurred in São Cristovão and not in Mauá Square, which perhaps would have relieved tensions). He needed to maintain the same posture that he knew nothing, that he had gone to the old man as a forensics expert, in search of evidence for other cases of stolen corpses that he had begun to review. It was rot, and the captain saw right through it.

“You need to know something: the First District is a brotherhood.”

Baeta understood the implied threat. In the department, the sense of honor and loyalty of the Mauá Square gang was legend. Not that they were really a gang. They had no kickback scheme or anything of the sort. What existed between them—beyond the vanity of thinking they were the town's finest—was merely a pact of mutual defense and of unconditional support, like the Freemasons or other secret societies. There's no need to mention here the kind of punishment that befell traitors and enemies.

“And what were you looking for at the wharf two weeks ago?”

They must never know in the First District that Fortunata was the capoeira's sister. Baeta said dismissively that his problem with the scoundrel was of a personal nature. As soon as he gave this answer, though, he realized he was not lying, that he, Baeta, really did have a personal issue with Aniceto.

The captain, however, was a good cop. And he was in the habit of saying what was on his mind: that Baeta was conducting an investigation in his, the captain's, jurisdiction; that the capoeira had some link to Rufino; that Rufino had links to the woman named Fortunata; and that the woman was related to Aniceto, which closed the circle. And said circle certainly involved a very big story.

“Speaking of big stories, why were the earrings returned?”

Baeta read into the captain's smile a suspicion. And he responded with an accusation of his own, a frown. The captain, who knew how to read facial expressions, hastened to retort:

“No one steals at the First District.”

It took a while for the expert to understand what his colleague was thinking: at Mauá Square they thought Baeta had returned the earrings to serve as bait. Rufino—who everyone knew had a treasure—would not take long before visiting his hideout to add that piece, or any of the others he had received from his many clients.

So that was what they had against Baeta in the First Dis­trict.

The expert, however, had an essentially mathematical spirit. For him, it was more difficult to believe in concrete wonders (such as Rufino's treasure) than in abstract entities such as points, lines, circles, and other geometric figures nonexistent in nature that make up the fantastic universe created by Euclid.

That, more or less, was what he hinted at to the captain: he was not hunting for any treasures because he could not imagine a more pointless idea.

It is amazing the affect treasures have on people. The captain did not accept the expert's explanation, because those who believe in treasures simply cannot admit that others might not believe.

“And why exactly did you pay the old man a visit?”

It was an answer Baeta would not give. And such insistence, at that moment, infuriated him. Perhaps the captain had not noticed that the expert did not like to be intimidated. Baeta was a man. He had been born a man. Being afraid was not in his makeup; he did not care if he were going against the entire Brotherhood.

He was faster than the captain, and he angrily stabbed the last sausage, leaving the other with his toothpick hanging in the air.

“You invite, you pay,” he said, standing to leave.

He had just declared war.

 

One of the stories recorded by Dr. Zmuda, and brought to life by Madame Brigitte, illustrates how the House of Swaps proceeded in cases of the sort. It began when Brigitte received an anonymous letter in which the female sender (because it was surely a woman) described a fantasy she needed fulfilled, but stated that she would only let her identity be known if the House administrator first consented to make it a reality.

Madame Brigitte wrote yes and set the price and also gave instructions regarding certain arrangements necessary for the implementation of the plan, particularly the delivery of the money—to be made on a certain date and time, to a certain individual who would be dressed in a certain manner, at a predetermined spot on Machado Square.

A few days later, the following scene unfolded: on a dark street by Flamengo Beach, near Catete, a horse-drawn coupe pulled up beside a woman in a muslin dress with a tight corset and feather hat, walking in well-measured steps, so that the driver, very politely, could ask a question.

The woman's anxiety was visible. Approached in such a cordial manner, though, she seemed to relax, and as she was about to answer, suddenly, from a nearby alley, a man grabbed the lady's arm and shoved her into the carriage.

And the coupe drove on, from Catete downtown—not to a public place like Central Avenue, but to the worst part of Alfândega Street, where the old Quitanda do Marisco used to be, and there it stopped. The woman—who had suffered verbal insults and some physical abuse during the trip—was dragged to an old two-story apartment building and taken upstairs. There she would be handed over to another man, who would then unceremoniously have his way with her.

But we will leave that story for later. Let us now examine the first man, the abductor, actually a young man of twenty-two. He was a kind of an external arm, an advance guard, so to speak, for the House of Swaps, there to perform the risky and somewhat more unusual services.

I do not know if I made clear that, though there were men for hire, unlike the nurses they were not on call at the House. Madame Brigitte would summon them when needed, and depending on the circumstances, they could even render their services at the old Imperador Street (always with great discretion, following strict security procedures). But it was more common to go instead to rented quarters in the old downtown area.

Hermínio, the male prostitute who took the woman from Catete to Alfandêga Street, was not from a wealthy family, but still he could have been a journalist or employed in trade instead, like his father and brothers. He had chosen this line of work because it gave him pleasure, because he enjoyed the risk, and because he did not understand the concept of work.

Though he had participated in his share of melees at America matches (he enjoyed soccer precisely for that reason), what he really loved were the regattas, and he had even rowed for São Cristovão. As for his money, he preferred spending it at Hans Staden's secret back room, or playing the lottery at the Central Station.

It was also not unusual to see him near Mauá Square playing monte, English monte, heads or tails, or
chapinha
—games not frequented exclusively by
malandros
.

It was his ability to move in all of these circles—the secret roulette wheels of Carioca Square and the wooden stools of the Gamboa—that made him an ideal candidate for the major missions of the House of Swaps. Hermínio was well-spoken, dressed finely, and, with his ex-rower's size 18 neck, he cut a good figure. But he also could mix just as easily with the down-and-out crowd, though he was not a capoeira and did not frequent drumming jams.

Thus, while he worked almost exclusively for sophisticated clientele—capitalists, military, high-level civil servants—he also acted behind the scenes, organizing elaborate fantasies, hiring carriages, renting rooms, bribing authorities, taking precautions to guarantee secrecy, and other measures of the sort.

It had been Hermínio, for example, who had managed to convince three unemployed men to accompany him to that same flat on Alfanêga Street, where they found a masked woman, whose identity only remained unknown due to Hermínio's diligence (such was the eagerness with which all three fell on her). It was he, too, who had succeeded in persuading a bankrupt woman to give over her daughter for two
contos
. It was also Hermínio who discovered an immense and evil woman on Cachoeirinha Hill who truly had giant paws for feet, and who became all the rage with the foot fetishists of the House of Swaps.

Accustomed to tasks such as these, it was with regret that Hermínio finished reading a letter from Madame Brigitte, dated October 1st, containing a strange request. In this letter, the house administrator asked that he ascertain as much information as possible about a certain sorcerer named Rufino, who was said to be very well known in the Lapa area. She did not take time to explain the reasons—a courtesy he believed he was entitled to. She only said that it was private, and it that had to do with the security of the House of Swaps.

This was a world Hermínio rarely entered: the
casa de santos
of the
macumbeiros
. He also never knelt in church or sought out priests. He believed that the randomness of life was incompatible with the idea of God. He was disgusted by any reasoning that resorted to superstition, and he never gambled on an animal because of a dream, but rather according to logical principles he thought existed in every game.

But the letter was indeed signed by Madame Brigitte. Still, instead of scouring Lapa for this obscure character, trying not to attract attention, he preferred remaining in his own element. So, on an illegal card game night, in a hole-in-the-wall bar on a Liceu side street where plenty of whiskey was being downed and the main victims were officers of the British Navy, Hermínio thought that one of those players, because of his profession, most likely knew something about this Rufino, and he was imprudent enough to inquire.

“And what exactly is your interest in this man?”

The man who answered Hermínio with another question was a member of the Mauá Square Brotherhood. He was one of the police officers assigned to the First District.

 

There was a third predicate crime which deserves the title
The Treachery of the Manilha of Clubs
. This crime was at once unfortunate and essential, because if on the one hand it ruined the city, leading to its only military defeat, on the other hand, it allowed for the rescue of perhaps its most valuable document hitherto held in foreign hands: the missing map of Lourenço Cão.

Let us tell the story, then, as it really happened. The earliest decks of playing cards found in Rio de Janeiro date back to the Philippine Dynasty. The decks, in and of themselves, perhaps might not have excited the mood of the citizenry much. However, because gambling establishments were outlawed, the pleasures of chance began to grow.

It was after 1655, when the first wave of Gypsies flooded the city, that the lure of cards became definitive and irresistible. They were so suited to Rio de Janeiro, and Rio de Janeiro was so suited to them, that here they abandoned millennia of nomadic existence and settled down.

Disdained because they sometimes served as hangmen or slave traders (a disdain which was unfair, because they were not the only ones), Gypsies had a deep impact in several areas: the domestication of horses, the counterfeiting of coins, the dissemination of playing cards and dice, and the expansion of our arts of magic and prophecy.

The greatest contribution of the Gypsies, however, was to have fortified in the city the oriental notion of chance. So much so that chess became unthinkable among us, for it is a game that is won by very tedious calculations. Snooker is also not so welcome, since the talents and techniques needed make it more suitable to the city of São Paulo.

The notion of chance is so inherent in Rio de Janeiro that the two main games native to the city are the
jogo do bicho
and the Carioca version of monte (the
ronda
being a simplified version). They are forbidden, and thus they are popular, as is the case with the
pernada
Carioca, although that is linked to another tradition altogether.