by Jeremy Brown
I debated what to say next. If Carrasco knew I wasn’t at the Arcoverde estate anymore, maybe he wouldn’t go there to snatch me or cause trouble. But he would also know I wasn’t there to protect Marcela. His Pomba Gira.
“Woody.”
I turned. She was outside the academy. She wore a tight yellow sundress and white sandals, her hair tucked under a white cotton hat with a short brim. She had her hands on her hips.
“What are you doing?”
I held up a finger and turned back to Eye Patch. He was still staring past my shoulder at Marcela. The look on his face said he couldn’t wait to offer her up to his Exu. He licked his lips. That decided it.
I gave him a short, hard shot to the liver with my left and kept him from crumpling to the ground with my right. To anybody walking past we looked like two guys having a heart-to-heart. Which we were. Kinda.
I told him, “Listen up. Stop wheezing. Look at me. I’m staying at the Promenade. You know it? Answer or nod.”
He nodded, his one eye blinking sporadically.
“You don’t come here again. When it’s time, you find me there. Got it?”
He nodded again and took a ragged breath. “We going to kill you, man. Is going to be fun.”
I left him slumped against the wall.
Marcela waited for me. The good news was I didn’t have to tell her Antonio had kicked me out of the house.
From the look on her face, someone already had.
As I crossed the street Marcela divided her fury between me and Eye Patch.
“Is he here for the Coluna? To try and take you?”
“No, he’s just shopping.”
“Shopping? Then why did you hit him?”
“You look very pretty.”
“Don’t try to distract me with obvious things I already know. What did he want?”
“To scare me. But that was dumb, because when I get scared, I hit.”
Her eyes broke away from whatever Eye Patch was doing. She brushed at nothing on the front of my shirt and her voice softened. “Gil told me what happened upstairs. Are you okay?”
“Other than insulting your entire family, not too bad.”
She hooked my arm and pulled me into a stroll away from the academy. I checked for Eye Patch. He was gone. We came to an intersection bathed in sunlight from the cross street.
Marcela turned her face into it, eyes closed. “Uncle Antonio can be too sensitive sometimes. And stubbornness is a big part of Arcoverde jiu jitsu.”
“Explains how you got your black belt so young.”
“Yes, it does.”
We kept walking.
She said, “Gil told me you were only trying to help Jairo with his fight.”
“Marcela, he’ll get destroyed if he follows that strategy. You and Jairo have both seen my fights. Jairo was cage-side for Burbank. How has it gone this far without someone stomping the brakes?”
“Imagine telling your father almost everything he knows is wrong.”
“Gil is the closest thing I have to a father. I tell him he’s wrong all the time.”
“It is different with Jairo. To go against what Antonio is telling him would be a slap in the face.”
“So why didn’t you say something?”
“I owe my uncle everything. I could not disrespect him like that.”
“But you’re okay with Jairo getting locked in a cage and torn to pieces.”
“No, I knew it would come up.”
I stopped walking. “Hold on. You mean you knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my mouth shut.”
The little bump on her nose wrinkled. “And you didn’t. Thank you.”
She kissed me and I forgot to be offended.
We got some grilled chicken and vegetables from a street vendor. The food had been rolled in some kind of sauce and spices that made the tin foil edible.
“I will come stay with you,” Marcela said.
“In Vegas?”
“Nice try. At the hotel.”
“I’m sharing a room with Gil.”
“Hm.” She shrugged. “So we will not be intimate. Is not good before a fight, anyway.”
“That’s a myth.”
“Says who?”
“The guy who hasn’t seen you in over six months.”
She leaned her head against my arm. “I know. I don’t like it either.”
“So come to Vegas.”
“Woody, we don’t even know if we can survive in the same hotel room. So we try that first, okay?”
“Promise me something.”
She peeled her head off my chest to squint at me. “What?”
“What I say next won’t affect the chances of you coming to live with me.” I didn’t know what those chances were, but I couldn’t afford to take a chunk out.
Marcela frowned, stared along the street for a few steps. “No. I won’t promise. Now say it.”
So much for that.
I said, “You can’t stay with me at the hotel.”
“Can’t?”
“As much as I want you to, as much as I want to spend every possible second with you, you’re safer at home. Your whole family is there, it’s private. And I’m not going to tell Detective Rubin I’m not there anymore—I want him and his guys with you and your family. They’ll escort you in for the fights, if you still want to come.”
She squeezed my hand, maybe too overwhelmed to say thank you. She kept squeezing.
“Careful, I have to punch people with that later.”
She tried to pull my arm off, yanked me around to face her. “Listen, stupid. You aren’t here to protect me. I am keeping you safe. So don’t be such a hero and send your security to watch over me. They are with you, all the time. We just saw Carrasco’s man across the street from the academy. This whole time, I’m watching the street for them to come for you.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Oh? What are you watching for?”
“You know.” I scanned the narrow road and sidewalks, people walking in small groups and alone, carrying lunch, boxes, sacks. They smiled as they passed us, enjoying the show. “Vans. Gangs. Maybe a pickup truck with guys in the back.”
“A pickup truck.”
“Like the ones we saw at the Axila.”
She nodded. “If they come for you here, they will block both ends of the street with buses and garbage trucks. They will move in from all directions, dozens of them, and spray you with gasoline. They will hold up lighters and tell you to come with them. Have you been watching for that?”
“No.”
“I have. Don’t you dare tell me I cannot be near you and keep you safe. And I will tell Rubin where you are staying. If he wants to sleep in the bed with you, I will let him. He takes you to the fight, and after that to the airport.”
“Yeah? Then what?”
“You fly home, away from Carrasco and his men. You are safe.”
“And where are you?”
She hooked my arm again, started walking. “Come on. Let’s get to the hotel before Gil. We are together now, and we are still missing each other. No more, okay? While you are here, just be with me.”
I felt the sun on my face and the heat coming off her, the smell of her clean hair, and allowed myself to bask in it all, knowing it would be a moment I’d take out and look at, forever, thinking: See how perfect it can be?
We took a cab to the Promenade Barra First Hotel. The outside looked nice as we sprinted past it—some palm trees, classy bricks. Probably windows.
Eddie had my name on a room but check-in took too long, the woman behind the counter asking all kinds of pointless questions.
How are you?
Are you enjoying Brazil?
Finally she gave me the damn keycard and Marcela and I stepped into the slowest elevator in the western hemisphere. It made me wonder if gravity was stronger below the equator.
The room had walls and a floor and a door that locked behind us.
The bed put up a valiant effort and
the headboard used to be attached to the wall. If anyone was on the other side, they kept quiet and probably hid in the bathtub until the hotel quit shaking.
We showered and tried to make the white sheets and blanket on my bed look normal for when Gil showed up. Compared to his bed, which looked like an ice rink—still tight and flat from the housekeeping professionals—mine looked like an abused ski slope.
“Good enough. I’ll tell him I took a nap.”
Marcela smiled. “I like your naps.”
Now that I had the time and focus to look around, the room was impressive. Soft tan walls, real wood floors the color of honey, and a view down onto a pool sparkling in the sunshine.
It pissed me off—one more thing for Eddie to smirk about.
Marcela slipped under my arm and wrapped me up, her face against my chest. “I have to go back to the academy. I have a class to teach.”
“I’ll come with.”
“No, I don’t think Uncle Antonio is ready to see you yet. I will talk to him. You stay here. Relax, get ready for your fight. Anybody else would think that sounds silly, but you don’t get nervous, do you?”
“Nah. What’s the point?”
She tilted her head so I could kiss her.
“I will come here for dinner,” she said. “Maybe I bring my uncle, if he stops being a mule. If he comes, will you apologize to him?”
“For trying to save his son’s life?”
“For yelling at him in his own academy.”
“Right. That. Yeah, I’ll apologize.”
“Such a grown-up.”
I walked her out. The elevator went too fast on the way down, confirming my Brazilian gravity theory. The lobby was mostly deserted, save for a few MMA trainers I recognized checking in and a man reading a magazine in one of the plush chairs against the wall near an elaborate water fountain. He stood up as we passed.
It was Detective Rubin.
I stopped, looked at Marcela. “When did you have time to call him?”
Her eyes were wide. “I didn’t.”
Marcela’s cab puttered away, tilting on ruined suspension.
Rubin stood next to me at the curb. He wore a cream-colored fedora with a tight brim that didn’t shield his eyes from the sun, but he didn’t seem to mind squinting. He nodded at the hotel grounds. Now that I had the time and interest to look around, I saw the hotel was part of a huge campus of pools, landscaped paths, and towers of rooms and condos.
“Very nice here,” Rubin said.
“Did Eddie tell you I was relocating?”
“Hm, no.”
“So you’re following me? I thought the security didn’t start until tomorrow, the weigh-ins.”
“That’s right.”
He turned in a tight circle, his boxing footwork still there, and pulled at his chin. The hotel had an outdoor café along the side of the building, red umbrellas over black tables. Rubin pretended to notice it for the first time. He pointed at it, hand still near his chin.
“Let’s get some coffee, eh? My treat.”
“What for?”
“So we can talk.”
“About what?”
He pulled his chin some more, finally put his eyes on my face. “Carrasco.”
Rubin sipped his espresso and grunted, smacked his lips. “Man, they do it right. I hope I didn’t break up your date with Marcela.”
“She was leaving anyway.”
“Good, good. I also hope you didn’t, you know. Have too much fun. It’s bad right before a fight.”
“That’s a myth. And I thought you were rooting for Aviso.”
“You know, you’re right. I’ll call some ladies I’ve arrested, they’ll wear you out.” He used his index finger to spin the tiny cup on the saucer. “I wasn’t going to talk to you about Carrasco, but when you came here, checked in, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep a good eye on you all the time. Not like at the Arcoverde estate. And I need to keep a good eye on you, buddy.”
I had an iced tea with a slice of fresh lemon, plucked that morning off a tree on the property according to the server. It was trying to be sweet, but the bitterness ruled. “Who told you? Marcela? Antonio?”
“No no, I am a detective, remember?”
The way he looked at me, sly and playful, made me ask: “What department are you in?”
He shrugged, took his time sipping the espresso. “Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais.”
“The hell does that mean?”
“For you, it means Special Police Operations Battalion.”
“That sounds military.”
He lifted the empty cup so the server could see it. “I deal with the favelas.”
“From what I saw at Carrasco’s place, you aren’t doing very well.”
“Eh, some people think rules are a good idea for this work. Like you go into your fighting cage, they tell you not to take a chainsaw.”
“Nobody has to tell me that.”
“But you get the idea,” Rubin said. “The way they want to do it, I go in with my team and we arrest the mean people, or shoot them if we really, really have to—but try not to, guys—then we leave it all nice and cozy for the Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora, the Pacifying Police Unit. They swarm into the favelas after we are done and teach the lifelong criminals, these murderous traffickers of drugs and people, how to get a job, wear shoes, contribute to the growth of Brazil. My way, we drop napalm at the top of the Axila da Serpente and watch it roll all the way down. Beautiful. When it’s done, we have our mountain back. That, my friend, is pacification.”
“Don’t people live there? Civilians?”
He leaned back and waved a hand at my point, shooed it away. “If they are there, they are with Carrasco. Or Exu, take your pick.”
That floated above the table for a while, waiting for me to chase it.
I said, “You know about Exu?”
“The people who talk to me, they say don’t bother bringing my guns and armored vehicles to the Axila again. Their Exu can’t be killed. You’ve seen him?”
“Yeah.”
“So you know. Maybe they are right. One of those scars is from me. I shot him point-blank, closer than you and me, sitting here. This was three years ago, when we first tried going into the Axila da Serpente. Everything is so close there, right on top of everything else. Some rooms no bigger than a bathtub, alleys tighter than a phone booth. I turned a corner and there he was. I shot him.”
“Was he going to shoot you?”
“How would I know? I wasn’t going to wait and see. He fell backward and that monster he keeps, Malhar, dragged him through a doorway. Then we are being shot at from everywhere, every window. We had to retreat.”
Rubin stared at his fresh espresso, seeing something else in the steam. “So that was the first time. I’ve gone in thirteen more.”
“And he’s still there.”
“Taking what he wants, doing what he wants. Killing who he wants. Now I hear he wants your lady. Marcela. For his Pomba Gira?”
I nodded.
“And you think you’re gonna run the Coluna da Cobra to keep her.”
“That’s right.”
Rubin gave a low whistle. “This is serious stuff, man.”
“Yeah. And it’s why you should be protecting her, not me.”
“That’s not how it works. Carrasco can’t just take her. He’s a god to his people, he is Exu. He needs them to believe it is Exu’s will that Marcela becomes his Pomba Gira. If he just grabs her, it’s a man taking a woman. Nothing special. But if it is fate,” Rubin twiddled his fingers up toward the umbrella, “it again proves he is Exu.”
“Or disproves, after I make it through the Coluna.”
Rubin’s eyes popped. “Well, since we are talking about the lands of make-believe, we can talk about this. You’re right, he’s put himself into a little corner, up on his little hill. If he says Exu wants a thing, and Exu doesn’t get that thing, what then? I don’t think it’s happened yet. But now you
are here, invited to run the Coluna da Cobra, and stupid enough to think you will survive.”
“It’s an initiation ritual for the gang. If no one survived, there would be no gang.”
He shook his head. “The ones Carrasco wants with him, he lets live. The others, he uses for practice. Or to send a message. A man owes him money, won’t pay, Carrasco convinces the man’s son he should join Exu’s army. The son runs the Coluna and gets cut to pieces. You see? It is Exu’s will. If the man had paid, he’d still have his son. Now, if Carrasco does that to an innocent boy over money, what will he do to you for his queen?”
He had that look again. I flashed on him putting me in a jail cell until the Aviso fight, driving me from the arena to the airport afterward to make sure I didn’t meddle in his jurisdiction. Telling me it was for my own good while I chewed the bars, knowing Marcela was out here without me.
Rubin said, “So I’m sorry, you not gonna run the Coluna for your lady, for Marcela. You gonna run it for me.”
I said, “Wait, you want me to go up against Carrasco?”
“Let’s not say I want you to. That would be, what’s the word . . . unethical? Is that a word?”
“But you aren’t going to stop me.”
“That sounds better.”
“I gotta tell you, this throws up some red flags.”
He raised his eyebrows.
I said, “It makes me think you want me to run the Coluna so I can get shot, blown up, an American tourist killed in a Rio favela, so you’ll have an excuse to go scorched-earth on Carrasco.”
“No no, they won’t shoot you. The Coluna is all about beating people to death. Cutting them up.”
“Still, red flags.”
“I understand your concern.”
I waited. “And?”
“And I want to tell you, in the most sincere way, I hope you don’t get beaten to death.”
“I’m not planning on it.”
He studied me. “You really think you can survive this.”
I didn’t say anything. No reason to repeat the truth.
Rubin said, “Why did you put yourself here? In this position?”
“Marcela is in trouble. My position is between her and it. I didn’t put myself there. It’s where I belong.”
He narrowed his eyes and nodded. “I gotta tell you man, I am in awe of your ignorance and stupidity. It is beyond my understanding. But I will do all I can to make sure you live to tell people how stupid you are, and how smart and brave City Detective Rubin is.”
