A Window in Copacabana

by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza

  They went to the same Italian place they’d gone to the last time. It wasn’t far, and he’d known the owner for so long that he could trust him; even so, they sat at a different table. They discussed the case before ordering their food, which forced even the wordiest among them to hone their synthesizing skills. Espinosa opened the meeting.

  “We haven’t learned anything in the last five days. If any progress has been made, it’s been entirely on the killer’s side. We already know that the death in Leme wasn’t a suicide, that the victim wasn’t Celeste, and that the killer threw the wrong woman out of the window. That means that the profile of Celeste is imperfect or out of date: he knew where she was, but he didn’t have a recent photo, which made him confuse the two women, both of whom were former strippers, same age, with similar faces and body types. I’m not surprised he had the basic information right: whoever gave him the information about the cops he killed also provided descriptions of the mistresses. What I don’t understand is how he tracked down Celeste’s friend’s address.”

  “He could have gotten it the same way Welber and Artur got it,” said Ramiro.

  “It’s possible. But if he’d done that, he would have also gotten information about Rosita, and he wouldn’t have confused her with the other woman. If he got it wrong, it’s because he didn’t even know they looked alike. He only had the address.”

  “It’s tough to think a guy as good as he is would have botched something so simple.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to say. He didn’t get it wrong, he just didn’t know what she looked like, and the proof that he’s good is that he talked to Rosita before killing her. The purpose of the discussion was to confirm her identity.”

  “So why did he kill her?”

  “Because when he saw the purse, which obviously had her ID in it, she got there faster, grabbed it, and threw it out the window. He took the action as proof that it was Celeste. Rosita saved her friend and lost her life.”

  “It makes sense,” said Ramiro.

  “What I still don’t understand is how he got her address,” Espinosa continued. “It’s possible that you’re being followed, though that wouldn’t mean the murderer would know in advance where you’re going. In any case, be aware of the possibility. Welber, I want you to go to Celeste’s apartment and see if anything is missing, particularly any photographs. Do it as soon as we’re finished here.”

  The discussion thereafter was purely tactical. No progress had been made in terms of identifying the murderer.

  “If nobody has anything further, we can order our food.”

  At the sight of food, the group’s spirits rose. It occurred to Espinosa that it would be nice if he could do this sort of thing more often, take other cops out for lunch. Then again, he didn’t relish the thought of quality time with most of his colleagues. The group left the restaurant in pairs, Ramiro with Artur and Espinosa with Welber.

  “Chief, I’ve got good news for you.”

  “I need some good news.”

  “They opened a used-book store only a block from the station.”

  The news had an effect Welber hadn’t expected. The chief stopped walking, stared as if he hadn’t heard, and started walking again.

  “You didn’t like the news, sir?”

  “I did. Thanks, Welber.”

  “Did something happen that I didn’t notice, sir?”

  “No, Welber. Sorry. You gave me a great piece of news, but it reminds me of something else …”

  “Something unpleasant?”

  “No, something pleasant, as long as it remains a fantasy, but when it becomes real it’s a bit of a shock.”

  “But you’ve always liked books and bookstores.”

  “True. So much that I’ve always thought I could dedicate my life to them. It’s when I see someone else doing just that, so close by, that I get scared. In any case, it’s great news. Thanks.”

  At the end of the afternoon, on his way back home, he took his usual route. He didn’t think he’d been ready to hear about the bookstore. Maybe he’d stop by the next day. Maybe Saturday, when he had more time. Besides, he didn’t need any new reading material. He’d barely started the Woolrich book he’d inherited from his grandmother.

  7

  The meeting with the chief was one of those telling little incidents that kept Serena from being like other respectable ladies. In her eyes, a real lady was beautiful, elegant, imperturbable. Serena, however, liked to stir the pot, to do things proper ladies might want to do but wouldn’t dare, either out of cowardice or ignorance. Her meeting with the policeman gave her the pleasantly intense, though vague feeling that she’d done something thrillingly illicit.

  But at the end of the day, she had witnessed a murder, and that was why she had been in contact with the officer. She had to be careful not to let anything diminish the importance of that fact. She knew that she hadn’t called the police out of a desire to be a good citizen but because there was something else, something deeper, that connected her to that woman. She didn’t feel connected to her in the way that two different people can feel a bond; she felt like they were two parts of the same person. She had never tried to learn what the woman’s name was, but it didn’t matter. She could give the woman her own name. Not her last name, which had only been tacked on her later, but her name alone: Serena.

  None of this affected Guilherme. The death of the woman was simply a topic for morbid curiosity, and he didn’t think about it for more than a minute, even though she had been crushed on the sidewalk only a few feet from his building. Guilherme was interested in only two things, neither of which required much imagination: economics and golf. And the second interested him only because it was so tightly connected with the first.

  That afternoon, at five, there was a meeting in the Largo do Machado. It was only ten past two. She knew from experience that nothing could satisfactorily fill that time. There was nothing to do but wait.

  She arrived forty minutes early, parked in an underground garage, studied the windows of the two bookstores on the way to the building where the meeting would be held. When she reached the room, at a little before five, there were about ten people there already, half of whom were busy setting up the chairs. It was a testimonial meeting, and the first to speak was a woman. The stories were all variations on the same theme, which didn’t necessarily make them monotonous. Every one was a distinct event, with its own intensity and its own personal effect. Serena had already heard hundreds of similar stories, but to her they were like jazz: the players sounded the same theme, yet their interpretations were original and unique. She didn’t stay until the end. For some of the people there that afternoon, talking was more important than the duration of their abstinence.

  After lunch, instead of going back to the station with the rest of the group, Espinosa headed home, placed Irene’s clothes in a bag, and got in his car, parked almost directly in front of his building. Since he’d been transferred from the Praça Mauá downtown to Copacabana, he rarely used his car. If he couldn’t walk, he took the subway or a cab. Sometimes his car stayed in the same spot for more than a week at a time, which led to mechanical and electrical problems, meaning that he often couldn’t use the car when he needed it most. Yet another reason not to use it.

  But that afternoon the engine started up on the third try. Espinosa left the Peixoto District by the Rua Anita Garibaldi, carefully checking the rearview mirror. He drove around for a few blocks until he was sure nobody was following him, then stopped two blocks away from his starting point, at the entrance to a dry cleaners. He asked them to iron the clothes, gave the address of the Hotel Santa Clara, and instructed the delivery to be made to Miss ngela Cardoso. He then returned to the Peixoto District, parked his car in the same spot, and proceeded on foot to the station.

  While he was walking, he thought about the fact that he was simultaneously preoccupied with three women. Not with the same intensity, not with the same affection, but they all had their place in his m
ind. With daylight savings time, it was five after three, but it was really five after two on a hot, breezeless summer day. He walked slowly, keeping to the shadows, in an almost useless attempt to arrive at work relatively sweat-free. Since he was still only halfway there, he thought about taking off his jacket, which, though it was light and made of linen, was still a jacket. But doing that would require removing his gun from his belt and hiding it from passersby. The operation required two steps. Without breaking his stride, he unclipped his weapon from his belt and moved it to his pants pocket, where it protruded as obviously as if he were holding it in his hand. The second step was to remove his coat and drape it over his arm, which helped conceal the bulge in his pants. When he was done, he was sweating even more profusely than before.

  Serena had been in her dressing room for more than two hours with the light turned off, watching the apartment across the street. She’d taken the adjustable chair from the office and extended it as high as it could go. Even without sitting directly at the window, she had an ample view of the other building. The dead woman’s apartment was still dark. Most of the others reflected the blue light of the television screen, all tuned to the first evening soap opera. She tried one more time to use the binoculars she’d brought from the living room, but they were too powerful for the short distance. All she saw when she tried to focus was a big dark something with unusual reflections. It took her a while to realize that it was the glass of the living room window. When she focused on the apartments below, she could make out the details of objects resting on the furniture.

  She turned her attention back to the empty apartment. She had the clear impression that it wasn’t, in fact, entirely empty. This wasn’t a hallucination or an illusion: she wasn’t seeing furniture where nothing was there; there were no paintings on the walls or people walking through the rooms. Everything was as dark and empty as ever, but she could have sworn that someone was there, in the darkest corner of the room, looking at her. It was as if the other person’s gaze gave off light. Her window was closed, which would make it impossible for someone across the way to see her. Even though she knew this, she was scared. Her hands and armpits were damp, something that rarely happened to her. She had been sitting still for a long time when she heard her husband arrive. Before he could turn on the light in the adjacent room, exposing her lookout, she got up to meet him.

  “Hi, honey, were you in the dark? I’m sorry I’m so late; we had a last-minute meeting.”

  “No problem. We didn’t have any plans.”

  “Did you eat?”

  “I was waiting for you to come home.”

  “Do you want to go out or eat in?”

  “We have plenty here.”

  “Any news from the officer?”

  “No. And I don’t think there will be any, either. I just reported something. What he does with it is up to him. I don’t have anything else to do with it.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “You were really impressed that I spoke to a police chief.”

  “You didn’t speak to him; you had lunch with him in the restaurant next to our house.”

  “We didn’t have lunch, just an orange juice.”

  “Wouldn’t have made much difference to people who saw you together.”

  “Fuck, Guilherme, you’re making it sound like I went to a motel with him.”

  “That’s how he might see it.”

  “No! No, he won’t! The only one who thinks that is you!”

  “Let’s agree that you have a certain thing for the underworld.”

  “Which is more interesting than the overworld where you live.”

  “Not where I live, where we live.”

  “If you call that a life …”

  It could have gone on for hours. In fact, it had been going on for years. Serena thought it was best to go take care of dinner while Guilherme showered and changed. When they sat down at the table, they had calmed down.

  “Please, let’s not fight during dinner,” Guilherme said.

  Serena answered, “I’m not fighting with you, just saying what I think. How was the meeting?”

  “Fine. But as a result I have to go to Washington this week.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “That’s it? Ha, ha?”

  “Baby, it’s your world and your job. Washington is less newsworthy than São Paulo for you.”

  “It’s not the trip, it’s what I have to do there.”

  “I’m sure that you’ll do great, whatever it is.”

  “You used to be more interested in my work.”

  “And you used to be more interested in me.”

  Before going to bed, Serena sat for a few more minutes in the dressing room, looking across at the other building.

  Ramiro lived in Grajaú, in the Zona Norte. He wasn’t sure if getting transferred to Copacabana had been a reward, as his superiors had said, or a punishment. To get from his house to Copacabana he had to catch a bus to the Praça Saens Pena, in Tijuca, and take the subway from there to Copacabana. If he wanted to get there at the same time as his boss, he had to leave home an hour earlier. That morning, they arrived simultaneously.

  “Morning, boss.”

  “Morning, Ramiro. Anything new?”

  “I’d like you to call the group together.”

  “Fine. Tell Artur and Welber.”

  Since the group had been established, the chief had been treated very differently. Even the people who used to be on close terms with Espinosa, out of friendship or long acquaintance, had started speaking to him more formally. Any chatting in the hallways or on the stairs ceased immediately when Espinosa appeared; in an effort not to draw attention to their special relationship with the boss, Ramiro, Artur, and Welber made a point of addressing him as officially as possible, which sometimes sounded a little phony. This wasn’t the work environment Espinosa had meant to instill when he’d been transferred from the Praça Mauá, and it didn’t suit his personality. But he knew that when people started killing cops and other cops were suspected, the least you could expect was a chillier workplace climate.

  A little after eleven-thirty, Ramiro came into Espinosa’s office, followed by Welber and Artur. They arranged to meet an hour later, in the same restaurant. From the outset, they had agreed that any member of the group could convene a meeting. As an inspector and the head of the detectives, Ramiro would normally call in Welber and Artur for a meeting without informing, let alone asking permission from the chief. But this was a special group, and for safety’s sake everyone needed to know what the others were doing.

  Because Ramiro had called the meeting, he began speaking once everyone had sat down and poured themselves some water.

  “I have a few ideas. Nothing more than a hunch and a few inconsistent clues, but it might be a beginning. Here goes. I began with the chief’s idea, that nobody was killing the cops for personal revenge. I agree. So why? To punish them, perhaps. The guys were guilty of something, so someone hired a killer. Then the problem became: what were they guilty of? Answer: fucking up. They were punished because they made a mistake. A big mistake. They fucked up something they couldn’t afford to. Now, everyone makes mistakes. In our business, I think we get more stuff wrong than right, actually. If every cop who made a mistake was killed, the police force would have disappeared a long time ago. So these guys screwed up something that they absolutely couldn’t afford to screw up. They must have committed a mortal sin. And I thought, what is a cop’s mortal sin? Answer: betrayal. Maybe these guys had betrayed their partners. But what partners, damn it? We’re their partners, we’re all in the police, but nobody had felt betrayed by any of them. There was another problem: what kind of betrayal? It could only be theft or snitching. So I started looking with that in mind. I know where our colleagues hang out. I started to dig around, hearing rumors, inserting myself into conversations and listening more than talking. Lots of them know me and know I work in the Twelfth Precinct with Officer Espinosa. They know we’re inv
estigating these murders, so they clammed up. They want to know why their colleagues are being killed; they’re afraid, and they want to get the killer, too. Some of them opened up, though, just a little. It was like hide-and-seek. I’ve been doing this for a few days, and I think I’ve managed to come up with a couple of things.”

  “Material proof?” Welber asked.

  “No. Suppositions. Nothing proven. Little bits here and there.”

  “And what did you get?”

  “The illegal ‘animal’ lottery. The three cops collected and distributed the lottery mob’s contribution to the police. They weren’t the only ones involved. Apparently, they’ve been doing it for years. They were the middlemen, so there was no way to make sure they were distributing everything they got from the gangsters, but not even the lottery mob or the cops thought anyone would be stupid enough to try to cheat both of them. Rumor has it that when someone found out they’d been cheated, they decided to rub them out.”

  “Who decided? The police or the mob?” Espinosa asked.

  “That I couldn’t find out.”

  “How much credibility do you give these stories?”

  “Chief, I believe it. Not everything was given to me so cleanly, but here and there I started putting the pieces together.”

  “And why did they kill the women?”

  “Because the cops divided up the money in their apartments here in the Zona Sul, and the mistresses were sometimes around. They must have been scared that the mistresses would say something.”

  “Were those three the only ones?”

  “I don’t know, but I didn’t hear about any others.”

  “What doesn’t make sense to me,” Espinosa said, “is that they killed the women as well. If it was a punishment, why were they killed? The men were stealing, not the women; they didn’t participate actively. At most they could have been seen as passive accomplices.”