City of God

by Paulo Lins

  ‘Ahh, now you want me? Go find your policeman.’

  Her belly grew and Morais, head over heels in love, took her to the house he had rented.

  His defeat caused Whitey great suffering, because her moving in with the policeman made him feel he’d lost her forever. The only reason he wouldn’t accept a reconciliation immediately was revenge. He wanted her to grovel and suffer as much as he had. The news that Cida had moved in with Officer Morais got around overnight and Whitey’s friends teased him:

  ‘Ha ha ha, lost your girl to a pig!’ they laughed.

  To get his own back, Whitey said loudly:

  ‘But the kid in her belly’s mine!’

  Word got back to Morais.

  Carrots got tooled up before sunrise on a Monday morning and went to Mousetrap’s house. They chatted in his yard for a while, then shook hands.

  ‘I knew I could count on you … Get your shooter, maybe we can find those bastards now.’

  Minutes later, Fernandes and Farias were dead.

  The next day, in an alley near the square on Block Fifteen, the entire gang listened to an argument between Carrots and Messiah, who were both holding guns. Allegiances were spatially defined: those siding with Carrots stood on one side, next to him, and those siding with Messiah stood on the other. Those who didn’t want to take sides tried to calm them down.

  ‘I was the one with the den up here! Tiny killed everyone here and I fought ’im off – me and Knockout! The den’s always been mine and it’s gonna stay that way, got it?’

  ‘But the guys put their lives on the line. We’ve lost a shitload of pals, cousins and brothers!’

  ‘You haven’t lost anyone, and you didn’t kill anyone, so why’re you stickin’ your nose in?’

  ‘I’m stickin’ my nose in ’cos I sent a friend here, the guy donated some guns to the cause, and you took ’im out.’

  ‘It wasn’t me!’

  Lieutenant Cabra headed up Middle Street with ten men.

  My Man, Earthquake, Butterfly, Tiger, Moth and a pawn wound their way through the alleys.

  Over in The Flats, the Empty Pockets got off a bus and walked through the Old Flats.

  ‘Did you fuck him?’

  ‘No! I haven’t spoken to him since we’ve been together. His pride’s hurt ’cos I left him for you.’

  ‘If I find out you screwed him, you’ll get a bullet in the face! You got a photo of the bastard?’

  ‘I did, but I tore it up!’

  ‘Have any of your neighbours got a phone?’

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t like asking to use it!’

  ‘Well, here’s what we’ll do: the next time I’m on duty you take a stroll as if you’re just passing through, and as soon as you see ‘im, you come to the post and tell me.’

  ‘You’re not gonna kill ’im, are you?’

  ‘No, I’m just gonna give ’im a fright!’

  Lieutenant Cabra waited a while behind a wall on the corner opposite the square on Block Fifteen, waved to his men, got his machine gun ready and gave a little jump as if about to surprise someone; he did this at every corner he came to. No villains. He motioned to his men and they walked down one side of the square.

  The argument became heated, with everyone talking at once. Carrots shouted for silence at the top of his lungs and fired a shot into the air, which sparked off a shootout punctuated with shouts and pleas:

  ‘Calm down!’

  ‘Hey, pal, we just wanna talk!’

  ‘Take it easy!’

  ‘What’s up, man?!’

  ‘Cool it, man, cool it!’

  Cabra’s men positioned themselves behind posts, cars, walls, and some even broke into houses. The Block Thirteen gang thought Tiny was attacking and hurried to fend off the assault. Paulo Groover, still not fully recovered, ran through the Short-Stay Houses. He wanted to get away from that mess that no longer made any sense to him. No one in the Short-Stay Houses had hit his mother, no one had beaten him up. He was going home, already with the intention of turning himself in to the authorities. He thought that behind bars he’d be safe, he could learn a trade, but then he found himself face to face with the Block Thirteen gang.

  Over in The Flats, the Empty Pockets found it odd that there were no gangsters on street corners. They kept close to the walls. Only Highwayman and Tube were carrying revolvers tucked into the back of their waistbands. They wanted to tell Tiny that they’d go with him to shoot Carrots, hoping to be given revolvers too. Israel came along carrying a machine gun and a bag of cocaine. He was taking it to Good Life’s house to mix with boric acid, before packaging it in tiny plastic bags and selling it. He saw the Empty Pockets and raised the machine gun.

  Groover ducked sideways, fired his gun to try and escape, doubled back, and shouted that the Block Thirteen gang was in the area. He was greeted with a hail of bullets from Carrots’ men, ducked again, ran into someone’s backyard and managed to get away. When he reached his own yard, he saw his mother’s finger lying in a puddle of blood: his sister had hacked it off with a carving knife. He found his mother and walked with her to the bus stop. As they got on, he threw away his gun, and after his mother had been seen to at Cardoso Fontes Hospital, he headed for the youth detention centre.

  The Block Thirteen gang moved in on the enemy and froze when they saw Carrots’ men shooting at one another. Then they joined the shootout and soon Cererê from Block Thirteen fell twisting to the ground, along with Mallet, a friend of Messiah’s. Lieutenant Cabra’s men, armed with machine guns, had also reached the combat zone and joined in too.

  ‘Where you goin’?’ Israel asked the Empty Pockets, pointing his machine gun at them.

  ‘We wanna have a word with Tiny.’

  ‘Tiny’s not around, and I’m running the show. Anyone got shooters on ’em? If you do, put ’em on the ground, ’cos if I find one when I search you, you’re dead.’

  Those who were armed followed Israel’s orders. He searched the entire gang, which had several new members, and then, for no reason at all, clouted Highwayman, Tube and Bruno several times in the face.

  ‘We came to join you guys!’ protested Tube.

  Only then did Israel stop harassing them.

  The shootout had been going on for half an hour and there were five dead. The shots were fewer now, because only the gangsters who hadn’t managed to make a run for it were still fighting; most had split when they saw Cabra and his men. After another twenty minutes of gunfire the police had taken down eight men. The shootout came to an end.

  Cabra ordered an officer to go to the post and get five officers to bring five police vans. Then they put the bodies in the vans and disposed of them in different places.

  Tiny returned to the favela on Sundays to collect money; Sunday was the best day for gangsters to be out and about, the day workers packed bars, played footy in vacant lots, went to the street market … He believed that the hustle and bustle confused the police, because they thought all blacks and northerners looked alike. Whenever he went to the favela, he held barbecues and killed a member of Messiah’s or Carrots’ gang. Sometimes he killed one from his own gang for no apparent reason, just saying he’d felt the guy was up to something. If his German shepherd barked at anyone, he shot them in the foot.

  One Tuesday, Good Life, Beep-Beep, Marcelo, Twit, Whitey and a pawn were packaging coke and dope in a building. Whitey didn’t want to be there, but Israel had insisted.

  ‘Get your arse over there. There’s loads of customers waitin’!

  Good Life’s in charge!’ Israel told him after sending Otávio to fetch him from home.

  Whitey’s ex-girlfriend was strolling through the buildings. When she saw Whitey at the window throwing more money to the pawn who’d gone down to buy food, she headed off, more quickly now, for the police post. She gave her boyfriend the address of where Whitey was, as he’d asked her to. She also told him they were probably packaging. Morais immediately called fifteen officers and told them he’d just discovere
d Tiny’s gang’s new hideout. Sergeant Roberval ordered them all to take machine guns. They got in the van and headed for The Flats.

  ‘The building’s surrounded! Throw your weapons out the window!’

  When the dealers saw the number of policemen around the building, they quickly ducked back into the flat. Tiny’s German shepherd woke with a start and barked loudly. They heard Morais’ voice again:

  ‘Throw your weapons!’

  Good Life took the cocaine and flushed it down the toilet. In a panic, the gangsters called to the neighbours for help, and shouted for their families and friends. They were trying to bring together a crowd of onlookers to intimidate the police, who wouldn’t dare kill them in front of a large audience. Many begged the police to spare the gangsters’ lives, while many others were praying for them to get on with it and finish them off. Good Life ordered his men to throw their weapons out the window.

  ‘Now we’re coming up. If everyone stays nice and quiet no one’ll get hurt. Leave the door open and everyone wait by the window!’ said Morais.

  The villains followed his orders, as Morais and his men came up the building’s three flights of stairs. They entered the flat. The German shepherd leaped at them and was shot.

  Only three officers remained downstairs at the entrance to the building, and they stopped Marcelo’s and Whitey’s mothers from going in.

  After searching the entire flat, they ordered the five to face the wall, took aim, and fired.

  There was a great commotion downstairs, with the gangsters’ family members and dozens of residents in panic. The officers called for reinforcements. One resident called Cardoso Fontes Hospital for an ambulance.

  Sergeant Linivaldo, who wasn’t on duty, was talking with other police officers in Taquara Square after leaving the bank. After hearing the call for reinforcements on the radio, he got in his van and headed for The Flats.

  Marcelo and Beep-Beep were still alive and Marcelo was shouting, ‘Muuuuum, muuuuum!’ thinking she’d hear him because she lived in the next building.

  Sergeant Linivaldo arrived at the same time as the ambulance. He ordered the officers not to let any of the ambulance workers into the building, galloped up the stairs, drew his revolver, put four more bullets in Beep-Beep and six more in Marcelo. Morais saw an umbrella with a pointy tip lying on a table, grabbed it and perforated the eyes of the bodies lying around the room, including the dog’s.

  ‘Shoot each one two more times from the front, so we can say they tried to resist,’ Roberval told Morais, who carried out the order straightaway.

  ‘That guy you hang around with is a joke! You can’t stay with ’im, ’cos he’s a joke! Stick with me! I’m the one you should be kissin’, not him!’ Israel told a woman passing through the square in The Flats.

  Israel had taken over the running of the den since his brother Good Life had been murdered. He was always drinking at the shops and when he was drunk he was all over the women, even the married ones. He was always asking whoever happened to be nearby to lend him their car, and if they refused, he shot them in the foot. Even his mates were afraid of him when he was drunk.

  Tiny had the misfortune to be approached by the Civil and Military Police six more times. Both used extortion on him. On one occasion, he was taken into custody and the police made him phone to ask someone to bring them the documents for the houses, car and boat that Good Life had bought, which the Military Police’s Secret Service had tracked down. All of Tiny’s assets were signed over in the policemen’s names. Even the chest of gold ended up in the hands of the police.

  One Friday the Civil Police approached him again. This time he was in a stolen car with three pounds of dope and two hundred thousand cruzeiros, a couple of pistols and Sting’s rifle. He immediately offered the drugs and money to the police, but this time they didn’t accept the bribe.

  Down at the station, Tiny revealed the places where Carrots, Butterfly and Messiah might be found, with the intention of weakening his competition’s drug trade. After being found guilty of several crimes, he went to serve his sentence at Milton Dias Moreira Prison, where enemies from both São Carlos and City of God were also doing time. There were even two men who had once tried to sell weapons to Slick on Block Thirteen, but ended up being robbed and beaten up. They were all there now, united by the Red Command, the dominant faction in Rio’s prisons.

  Tiny knew he’d die in jail. His only way of staying alive was to pay the prison chiefs a weekly bribe. He called his brother on a daily basis and always said the same thing:

  ‘Send another fifty thousand during visiting hours.’

  On one occasion Black Stump answered the phone and said that Israel was drinking a lot, spending money in motels and restaurants, and pushing the sellers around. All Tiny was concerned about was the fact that his brother was spending money and he yelled down the phone:

  ‘Take the den, take the den and don’t give ’im any more money! I was the one who did the killin’ – he didn’t kill anyone. Take the den and if he don’t want to hand it over, get rid of ’im, get rid of ’im …’

  ‘And that’s not all. He’s kicked the Empty Pockets out again, and he’s killin’ addicts, givin’ workers a hard time and takin’ girls by force. The pawns’re all gettin’ out. One day Russian Mouse gave him loads of beer, waited for him to get trashed, took that week’s takings and pissed off … Ah, and I almost forgot – Night Owl got taken out yesterday. The pigs got ’im in his sleep.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit! I already said, if Israel keeps screwin’ up, kill ’im …’

  Black Stump, Blubber and Slick listened to and followed Leonardo’s advice: to let Israel live. All they had to do was tell him he couldn’t drink or spend money any more, because Tiny was paying to stay alive in prison. He agreed and started saving money.

  Slick had started to dress with great distinction. Linen trousers, a watch with a leather strap, sometimes suits, sunglasses, and he didn’t catch the normal buses to avoid police raids. The special bus was much safer, because the police never searched anyone.

  It was on the special bus that Slick saw her for the first time and gave her a romantic look. Luckily for Slick, the schoolteacher got off at the same stop as he did and continued the conversation he’d started as they waited for the lights to change so they could cross the street, before continuing towards Middle Street.

  From that day on, Slick went out of his way to bump into her every day as she left school and, although she found him a bit rough around the edges, the primary-school teacher started seeing the gangster. His passion softened his seriousness. He started laughing again, and went back to playing around and cracking jokes with his friends. He spent less time in the streets, stopped launching attacks Up Top, didn’t hang around chatting with other gangsters on street corners and went to his girlfriend’s house whenever he could, just to get away from the favela.

  But it was also on the special bus that the teacher heard from a resident that the guy was called Slick, a dangerous criminal, and if she wanted she could show her his photo in the newspapers.

  ‘He might be your brother, but he’s a Jerry, know what I’m sayin’? Forget this stuff about family, man! You’ve gotta get rid of ’im!’ said Carrots to Fizzy-C, who was only thirteen years old.

  ‘I know, man! But I’ve gotta get ’im during the day, know what I’m sayin’? My mum’s home at night.’

  ‘So let’s do it now. If he’s around, we’ll get rid of ’im.’

  ‘You comin’ too?’

  ‘Sure!’

  They ran through the alleys as Carrots had planned, searched high and low and didn’t bump into any enemies in the streets. To show he was faithful to Carrots, Fizzy-C himself suggested:

  ‘Let’s go to my place. Maybe the bastard’s sleepin’.’

  And he was. He was woken with the barrel of a revolver at his neck and was taken outside. His only defence was to threaten his brother:

  ‘If mum finds out you killed me, she’ll be
really fuckin’ angry with you!’

  ‘So fuckin’ what! Who told you to join the Jerries?’

  Alexander was taken to the river’s edge and his own brother shot his ten-year-old body three times.

  ‘You gotta rustle up ten grand, OK? Ten thousand in two weeks to get me out of here. If you bring it Sunday, I’ll be out the same day,’ said Tiny six months after going to jail.

  Black Stump did two hold-ups, Blubber and Israel did the same, they added what they’d stolen to the den’s takings, and the following Sunday Tiny shook the guards’ hands and left the prison with the other visitors.

  Black Stump warned Tiny not to return to the favela, because although the police had reduced their patrols, the place was still risky. Tiny went to the house of the only friend he’d made in prison.

  Israel went to the favela of SãoJosé to buy cocaine, because it had been two weeks since the supplier had paid him a visit. He was going to buy ten wraps to mix with boric acid, package it up in smaller amounts and sell it to the addicts. He parked his Brasília at the foot of the hill and climbed the steep stairs singing a popular samba. At the den, he found Tube chatting with one of the den’s owners.

  ‘Hey, man, this kid’s a dickhead. Don’t talk to dickheads or you’ll turn into one.’

  ‘Why am I a dickhead?’

  ‘ ’Cos you’re a dickhead, OK? And if you talk too much, you’ll bite the dust here and now!’ said Israel reaching for his waistband.

  Tube was quicker and fired just one shot into the middle of his forehead. Then he felt his waistband and realised Israel was unarmed.

  ‘The guy wasn’t tooled up!’

  ‘What a dickhead!’ said Tube’s friend.

  With a great deal of effort, the teacher convinced Slick to turn himself in. It was better than living a life of crime. She promised not to leave him and that her own father, who was a lawyer, would work to get him out of prison as soon as possible.

  Slick had been feeling reborn ever since he’d fallen in love with the schoolteacher. In the routine of visits to his girlfriend’s house, he’d begun to believe in the possibility of a future different to the life he’d led until then. The Saturday afternoon sessions at the cinema, followed by a cold beer and healthy conversation, had made him realise how simple life could be, although no less attractive. He had begun to see beauty in married life, dreamed of a future with her and imagined how nice it would be to grow old together, bringing up children and counting Christmases. In spite of the suffering a prison life would bring, he turned himself in to the Thirty-Second District Police Station.