by Tim Wirkus
It took the elders over two hours to get from Parque Laranjeira back to Vila Barbosa. Normally the trip took only thirty minutes, but just after the missionaries boarded, their bus got a flat tire and the driver ordered everybody off. After radioing in to headquarters, he explained to his disgruntled passengers that another bus was on its way, and if they would just be patient, they’d get to wherever they needed to go in no time. The replacement bus didn’t arrive for half an hour, and after they boarded it, it didn’t take long for the passengers—including the now-apoplectic Elder Toronto—to notice that the bus was headed in the wrong direction.
Shouting to be heard over the angry din of her passengers, the new driver explained that the term “replacement bus” may have been misleading. There was a shortage of working buses, and this one was on its way to another assignment. It would drop the passengers off at a stop along the way, where a different bus would pick them all up—assuming there was enough room—and drop them off at another stop where yet another bus would pick them up, etc., etc. All this was in compliance with official policy.
“We would have been better off just waiting back there for the two-oh-five bus,” yelled an elderly woman with a scarf around her hair.
There were general shouts of agreement from the other passengers.
“It was a mistake to go to district meeting,” said Elder Toronto to Elder Schwartz. “Why did you let me go through with it?”
“We had to go,” said Elder Schwartz. “It’s like you said before. Plus, now we have a heads-up on President Madvig’s visit.”
“Maybe,” said Elder Toronto.
He fidgeted with a loose piece of plastic on the seat in front of him.
“What are we going to do about that, by the way?” said Elder Schwartz. “President Madvig, I mean.”
“There’s nothing we can do,” said Elder Toronto. “Now there’s just more of a ticking clock. We have until Wednesday morning to figure all of this out.”
“That’s only two days,” said Elder Schwartz.
“More like a day and a half,” said Elder Toronto.
“So what do we do?” said Elder Schwartz.
“Why don’t you sit there quietly and let me think,” said Elder Toronto, waving a dismissive hand at his companion.
So that’s what they did.
When they finally made it back to Vila Barbosa, it was already mid-afternoon.
“We shouldn’t have gone to district meeting,” said Elder Toronto again. “That was a stupid, stupid call.”
“I’m sorry,” said Elder Schwartz, apologizing by habit as they filed off the bus. “Where are we headed?”
“Just follow me.”
They stepped off the bus into the business district of Vila Barbosa. A hodgepodge of open-front electronics stores, papelarias, locksmiths, sundries shops, and record stores lined either side of the street.
“Come on,” snapped Elder Toronto, hurrying down the crowded sidewalk. “Don’t slow us down.”
They covered several blocks at this pace until they came to the lanchonete where Elder Schwartz had first met Marco Aurélio. Elder Toronto stopped and the two missionaries went inside.
The place was doing okay business for the middle of the afternoon. Three young Franciscans sat at the metal table in the corner sharing a single esfiha among them and having an urgent discussion in low, respectful voices. A well-scrubbed little man with the look of a recovering alcoholic about him sat at the counter nursing a caldo de mocotó. A fleshy woman holding a tiny dog in her arms stood at the cash register arguing with the owner—the same woman who had been there on the missionaries’ previous visit.
“You have no right to kick me out of this establishment,” said the woman with the dog. “I’m a paying customer.”
“Thanks for stopping here,” said Elder Schwartz to Elder Toronto. “I’m starving.”
They hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before.
“We’re not here to eat,” said Elder Toronto. “We’re here to ask some questions.”
“What?” said Elder Schwartz.
“Excuse me,” said Elder Toronto, approaching the counter. The owner stood with her hands on her hips, her wiry arms angled, staring down the woman with the tiny dog. “We need to ask you some questions.”
The owner turned and pointed an angry finger at Elder Toronto.
“You need to sit down and wait your turn,” she growled, and returned her attention to the woman with the dog.
After a moment’s hesitation, the missionaries sat down on two stools at the other end of the counter from the little man with the caldo de mocotó. At the cash register, the woman with the tiny dog declaimed in outraged tones that she had paid for her food, and she intended to eat it right here in the lanchonete.
“I don’t allow animals in here,” said the owner, “so either you put your little dog outside, or you take your food with you.”
“You should have told me that before you accepted my money,” said the woman.
“You should have read the sign on the wall. No Pets Allowed!” said the owner, pointing at the sign in question.
“I didn’t see it,” said the woman with the dog.
“Then why did you keep your dog hidden in your purse when you ordered?” said the owner.
The woman with the tiny dog launched into a noisy diatribe against the lanchonete, the food it served, and the people who staffed it.
“What are we doing here?” said Elder Schwartz.
“We’re going to ask the owner how she knows Marco Aurélio.”
“You think she knows Marco Aurélio?” said Elder Schwartz.
“Based on what we saw last time we were in here, yeah—I think it’s a pretty safe bet.”
At the cash register, the owner was countering the loud diatribe with a threat of her own to call the police if the woman with the tiny dog didn’t get out.
Elder Toronto leaned over and dropped his voice. “I don’t think Marco Aurélio killed Galvão.”
“What?” said Elder Schwartz.
“The detective,” said Elder Toronto. “I don’t think Marco Aurélio killed him.”
“Why would he?” said Elder Schwartz.
Elder Toronto looked around at the patrons of the diner. None of them seemed to be paying any attention to the missionaries. At the register, the tiny dog began yipping and its owner changed her strategy from belligerence to tears.
Elder Toronto said, “There are clearly plenty of things we don’t know about Marco Aurélio. But you saw what happened to that guy’s face. I suppose it’s possible that Marco Aurélio’s capable of killing a man, but I don’t think he could kill someone that way.”
“I would hope not,” said Elder Schwartz.
“Right,” said Elder Toronto.
The scene at the cash register seemed to be wrapping up.
“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” said the woman with the tiny dog. She picked up her food and stormed out of the lanchonete, dog in hand. The owner watched her leave with a slight smile. She made a note on a pad next to the cash register, and then walked over to where the missionaries sat.
“What’ll it be?” she said. Her long, dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a red apron, a simple gray polo shirt, and black slacks. The expression on her face suggested the missionaries better be quick about it.
“We actually just have a few questions,” said Elder Toronto.
“Nope,” said the woman. “You order something or you leave.”
Elder Toronto looked up at the menu.
“All right,” he said. “A limeade.”
“And for you?” she said to Elder Schwartz.
“He’s fine,” said Elder Toronto.
“No,” she said. “I don’t have much patience for groups of people who come in and share some tiny order between them while they sit and talk for hours.”
She said this loudly enough that the brown-robed Franciscans in the corner could hear. They looked up sheepishly and b
egan to gather their things.
“I’d like a limeade and four coxinhas,” said Elder Schwartz.
“Come again?” said the woman.
Elder Schwartz repeated his order.
“I still didn’t understand that,” said the woman.
Elder Schwartz repeated himself again, pointing at the menu on the wall and indicating quantities with his fingers.
“Got it,” said the woman, writing it down on her notebook.
The Franciscans stood up to leave.
“Thank you,” they said, as they exited the lanchonete. The owner didn’t acknowledge them.
“I’ve got two limeades and four coxinhas,” she said.
“Right,” said Elder Toronto.
She gave him his total, and he paid for both orders. The woman pulled four coxinhas from under their heat lamp by the cash register and handed them on a plate to Elder Schwartz. He thanked her and began eating immediately. Then the owner grabbed a handful of limes from a plastic basket.
“You boys have been in here before,” she said as she quartered the limes with a paring knife. “But last time you were here with a friend.”
“That’s right,” said Elder Toronto. “He must have made an impression.”
She shook her head.
“Nope. I just have a good memory for faces. Especially customers’ faces. Like that one,” she jerked her thumb in the direction of the entrance. “That lady with the dog? I won’t be serving her again.”
“But you do remember the man who was here with us before?” said Elder Toronto.
“Sure,” said the owner, quartering another lime. “I could pick him out of a lineup, anyway. Like I said, I’ve got a good memory for faces.”
“But you two know each other, right?” said Elder Toronto.
“What?” she said, dropping the quartered limes into a blender. “No.”
“Then why did you ask about him?” said Elder Toronto.
She added a scoop of sugar to the blender from a jar under the counter.
“I didn’t,” she said. “I was just making conversation.”
“Really?” said Elder Toronto.
The owner turned around with a glare.
“What’s this about?” she said.
“Just tell me how you know Marco Aurélio,” he said.
“Excuse me?” she said.
“Our friend,” he said. “The man we came in with last time.”
“No, I got that,” she said, “I’m just not sure where you get off taking that tone with me in my own establishment.”
“Look,” said Elder Toronto, “I saw you two talking after my companion and I left. What did he say to you?”
She shook her head and turned around, adding water, ice, and a dollop of sweetened condensed milk to the blender as Elder Toronto repeated the question. She turned on the blender, silencing him with the noise. She let it run for a minute before turning it off and removing the pitcher.
“Here you go,” she said, pouring the juice through a strainer into two chilled glasses. The missionaries drank their limeades in silence as the woman washed the blender in the sink behind the counter.
“Please,” said Elder Toronto, “I really need to know what he said to you.”
“I am this close to kicking you out,” said the woman. “Maybe you’d like to join the lady with the dog?”
“Please,” said Elder Toronto.
“Does your friend not understand Portuguese?” said the woman to Elder Schwartz, who had already eaten three of the four coxinhas and downed half the glass of limeade.
“It was obvious you two knew each other,” said Elder Toronto.
“Do you have any idea where he’s getting this?” she said, still addressing Elder Schwartz.
Elder Schwartz pointed to his full mouth.
“He said something to you and you got really upset,” said Elder Toronto. “We saw it.”
The woman turned to Elder Toronto.
“Really upset like I am right now?” said the woman. “Listen. I don’t know what he said to me. Chances are, he was trying to pick me up and I wasn’t interested. I’m not as young as I used to be, but it still happens, believe it or not.”
“I don’t think that’s what it was,” said Elder Toronto.
The woman slapped the countertop with her hand.
“We can talk about something else, or I can throw you out,” she said.
Elder Toronto looked at her. He opened his mouth and she raised a threatening eyebrow. Elder Toronto closed his mouth and nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “How about a tall, thin man in a brown suit? Scars under his eyes? Have you seen anyone like that?”
“What, do you think you’re a cop or something?” she said. “What’s with the questions?”
“I’m just asking,” said Elder Toronto.
She shook her head.
“This conversation is over,” said the owner. “Finish your food and get out of here.”
THE ARGENTINE
They say the career change from criminal administrator to taxonomist revitalized the Argentine, imbuing him with the energy and enthusiasm of a much younger man. Not only did he find the process of collection and classification to be deeply satisfying in itself, he also thrilled at his role in pioneering a new field of study. As far as he could tell, this project of collecting, naming, and categorizing discrete acts of human cruelty had never been undertaken, especially with this level of rigor. Pen and notebook in hand, he quietly observed and recorded every specimen he could find—every beating, every public insult, every exploitation, every deliberate slight, every rape.
In undertaking his project, however, the Argentine faced three key challenges:
The first challenge was to observe these acts of cruelty without being observed himself. During the early days, his strategy resembled that of a bumbling lover’s in a Shakespeare comedy. He hid behind curtains, eavesdropped through open windows, concealed himself—poorly—behind rows of bushes. Although none of the residents acknowledged his presence, the Argentine knew they could see him, and knew that they altered their behavior accordingly. The Argentine considered these specimens tainted by the effect his presence had on his subjects. He needed a better method of concealment during this delicate field work.
Around this time, the population of Vila Barbosa skyrocketed. Sensing an opportunity in this boom, the Argentine built a secret system of tunnels that ran throughout the neighborhood. As the area’s architecture transitioned from flimsy wooden shacks to manmade hills of irregular brick boxes, the Argentine ordered strategically selected spaces to remain unfilled. Linked together, these spaces formed long, twisting tunnels, branching and converging throughout the neighborhood like a dusty network of veins and arteries. These tunnels connected houses to train stations to churches to bars, allowing the Argentine to pass unobserved throughout the neighborhood, to peer out through nearly imperceptible peepholes.
They say that observant residents could detect evidence of these tunnels—the sound of shuffling footsteps audible through an apparently solid wall, or a crack in the floor that occasionally emanated light, or the faintest hint of what could be a moving panel in the altarpiece of a church—but these residents understood that keeping one’s mouth shut was the greatest civic virtue in this neighborhood. And so they kept the evidence to themselves and the whereabouts of the tunnels remained the Argentine’s secret.
They say he rarely went above ground after that. The tunnels concealed him from view, allowing him intimate, undetected access—through the neighborhood’s alleyways, storerooms, bars, police stations, bedrooms—to the lives of Vila Barbosa’s residents. With time, he became expertly attuned to the patterns of cruelty throughout the neighborhood—its usual habitats, its aversions, its migratory patterns—and was overwhelmed with specimens.
The tunnels solved his problem so well, in fact, that the Argentine wasted dozens, possibly even hundreds, of opportunities for observation every day. He needed research ass
istants to help him collect these acts of cruelty that regularly went unobserved. Once he recognized this, the Argentine began collecting his infamous staff of underground minions.
In the early days, those who roamed the tunnels with the Argentine were not only few in number, but recruited against their will. They say the Argentine kidnapped the neighborhood’s best and brightest, imprisoning them in his subterranean labyrinth. One moment, a talented resident of Vila Barbosa might be working out a mathematical proof, or tinkering with a motorcycle, or delivering a sermon, and the next moment they’d be gone, no trace of them ever seen again. Nobody is quite sure how the Argentine compelled those early conscripts to stay below ground and assist him. All that can be known for certain is that none of them ever escaped.
However, as the residents of Vila Barbosa gradually learned of the catalog’s existence—through obscure gossip, and rumors of rumors—a strange thing began to happen; certain members of the neighborhood sought out the Argentine and begged him for the opportunity to work in his underground labyrinth. They say that the Argentine explained to those who approached him that once they descended into the space below his little general store, they could never emerge again, that their life’s work would become the compilation of his universal catalog of human cruelty. Astonishingly, these volunteers agreed to his terms and entered the Argentine’s service within his massive labyrinth. In the ensuing years, a small number of Vila Barbosa’s residents volunteered each year to descend forever into the tunnels, entering the Argentine’s subterranean community of observers. The tunnels became a kind of perverse monastery, housing an ever-increasing number of devotees culled from the neighborhood above. They say that Vila Barbosa’s only true idealists lived below ground.
• • •
The second key challenge was to effectively organize the specimens that the Argentine, and later his minions, collected. This difficulty didn’t manifest itself immediately. In the beginning, the only problem seemed to be finding enough space to store the ever-growing collection of cruelty-filled notebooks. For this purpose, the Argentine constructed a massive underground library just below the little general store.
While most people agree on the space’s magnitude, vastly differing opinions exist as to the layout and design of the library. According to one camp, the library resembled a magnified honeycomb, its walls made up of interlocking hexagonal chambers large enough to contain a person. A lamp hung in the peaked roof of each compartment, illuminating the shelves of notebooks lining the chamber’s inner walls. Cushions filled in the valleyed floor so that each hexagon could serve as both storage space and reading room. They say that the Argentine or one of his minions might spend hours sitting on the floor of a compartment, studying and annotating the notebooks it contained.
