“How nice?”
“Pretty nice. Five hundred conto.…” What the devil! Da Silva thought. Don’t be pão duro—it isn’t your money! “I meant, one thousand conto.”
Fonseca’s frown deepened. “And no trouble? One thousand conto? I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it,” Da Silva advised. “I gave my word.”
“Sure, but—”
“No buts.” The swarthy detective spread his hands. “Look, Claudio—I gave you my word. But I can only give my word on what I do, or others who do what I tell them. What God decides to do is past my control.”
Fonseca paused, considering. He nodded abruptly. It was the answer he would have given in Da Silva’s position.
“You’ve got a deal.” He picked up the bottle and drained it, in the manner of one sealing a bargain.
“Good,” Da Silva said quietly. He straightened slightly on his stool. “All right. We’ll go up to the Catatumbá now, and you can show us which shack is yours.” He saw the glance Fonseca shot at Perreira and properly interpreted it. “Not him; he’s dressed too well. Besides, he looks like a cop. He’ll wait for us here and take you downtown when you get back.” He walked over to Perreira, one uplifted hand holding Fonseca in place, and spoke to him quietly for a moment. Fonseca’s suspicion returned for a few seconds and then disappeared. He shrugged. If he wasn’t in any trouble in the favela, to hell with everything else. One thousand conto was a lot of money. Which reminded him—
“Hey, Da Silva—what about the money?”
The pockmarked man dug into a pocket, handing over the bundle he had received from the girl. He hoped she was honest, or at least that her arithmetic was correct.
“Here’s fifty-two conto on account. When you get downtown, Lieutenant Perreira will arrange for the balance.”
“Good enough.” Fonseca apparently realized that nobody would cheat him out of pennies at this point. He shoved the bundle into his pocket, also without counting it. “And on the Catatumbá, how do I explain.…”
“What’s to explain? Since when do you explain anything to anybody in a favela, anyway?” Da Silva brushed it aside. “If anyone asks, tell them I’m your grandfather. I’m too young to be your grandmother.”
Fonseca accepted the statement; he had no choice. He still had another question, though, which he punctuated with a thumb thrust in Wilson’s direction. “And him? Does he go along, too?”
“I also go.” Wilson had spoken quickly. He turned to Da Silva, speaking in English; asking. “I’ve always wanted to see a favela, Zé. From the inside.…”
“I know.” Da Silva considered him with expressionless eyes. Fonseca had frowned suspiciously at the exchange in a foreign tongue; Da Silva glanced at the scarred man almost in sympathy, and then looked at Wilson. “All Americans, tourists or permanent residents with their carteira dezenove and twenty years or more in Brazil back of them, would like to go through a genuine favela—a real Rio slum—except that most of them are afraid. Admittedly, with good reason.” He smiled faintly, his voice slightly sardonic. “They apparently feel that our slums are more colorful than theirs in New York, or Detroit, but in all honesty I’ve seen them all and there isn’t that much difference. Except, of course, that our slums in Rio have one major advantage.…”
Wilson stared at him, his jaw hard. “And that is?”
“That is, of course,” Da Silva said quietly, smiling a smile that was far from a true smile, “that our favelas are down here, peopled by us. Rather than being in Washington, or Cleveland, or Watts, or Buffalo—peopled by you.…”
Wilson stared at him, conscious as he was now and then—rarely, but now and then—that first Da Silva was a Brazilian with national pride, and only secondly his friend. He bit back the arguments that automatically came to his lips, arguments of defense, forcing himself to remain noncommittal in face of what they both knew was an attack. Da Silva considered the nondescript, pale face quietly for several moments, almost challengingly, and then turned to Fonseca.
“He goes. Are you ready? Then let’s move.”
Chapter 7
It was late afternoon by the time they returned to Wilson’s apartment. The two men stood on the top step of the entrance and watched Fonseca and Perreira climb into the lieutenant’s car and drive away. The sun was already beginning to dip beneath the top of Corcovado, casting long, ragged shadows against the building walls, dimming the still waters of the lagoon in preparation for the instant darkness that separates evening from night in the tropics.
They rode the small self-service elevator in a silence that neither seemed to wish to break. Wilson opened the door of the apartment, walked over to switch on a lamp, and moved to the bar, bending down behind the bamboo barrier to bring forth an unopened bottle of brandy. He swiveled the top free and poured himself a large drink.
“Only leaves two unopened.…”
It was inane, a poor substitute for what he wanted to say. He moved to the window, carrying his glass, staring out expressionlessly into the growing darkness.
To his left and sharply visible against the faint light of the evening sky, the rock of Cabritos rose, and on it the favela of Catatumbá. It climbed the sheer slope, filling each crevice with a hovel, covering each promontory with a sheet-metal-clad shanty. The decrepit huts leaned one against the other, seeking sustenance from their common misery, forming a ragged excrescence covering the rock. The upper reaches of the slum still received the dying rays of the setting sun; the flattened gasoline tins that served as siding for the drunken shacks glittered like tinsel. Below, where the shadows had deepened at the foot of the rock, electric lights were already flickering, dangling from the sagging cables that crisscrossed the favela without visible pattern, tied illegally into the power source of the Companhia de Light but allowed to exist by common agreement between the company and the city. It was a relatively inexpensive sop to both municipal and industrial conscience, and almost suicidal to attempt to disconnect, in any event.…
Wilson brought his glass up, drank deeply, and took a shuddering breath from the unaccustomed quaff. He swung around, facing his friend, now almost a stranger. When he spoke he attempted to sound more curious than disturbed.
“How do people live like that, Zé?”
“How?” Da Silva’s voice had a shrug in it. He had been watching Wilson staring at the favela, and he had tired of it. He pulled a stool back from the bar and seated himself, his heels hooked in the bottom rung of the stool. The brandy was dragged closer and tilted. “How else are they supposed to live?”
“But the stinking smells! The open sewers, the garbage all over! The look on the faces—”
Da Silva twisted the cork back into the bottle; it canted drunkenly from the force of his temper. He took a deep breath, calming himself, and picked up his glass, staring into its contents.
“How long have you been in Brazil now, Wilson?”
“Six, seven—no, six years.”
“And in six years this is the first time that you’ve realized what a favela actually is?”
“Yes,” Wilson said, and stared at him.
“Oh.” Da Silva drank and placed his glass down, twisting it on the bar to form damp trails. He looked pensive, his anger gone. “Well, in that case it’s a little hard to explain.”
“It isn’t that I haven’t seen them,” Wilson said. “I’ve seen them from the road, of course, and along the Avenida Brasil—but it’s a different thing when you’re right up there in the middle of the thing.” He stared across the soft darkness separating him and his comfortable apartment from the Catatumbá. Between the two, cicadas began to chirp restlessly. The uneven scattering of bare electric bulbs was climbing the mountain now, keeping pace with the thickening shadows. “And, of course, I’ve seen movie versions of slums down here. I’ve seen—” He paused.
Da Silva smiled faintly, bitterly.
“You’ve seen what? Orfeu Negro? Picturing a Rio favela as a sort of Swiss canton in the mountains of
lovely Guanabara State, complete with all comforts except, possibly, a bidet for the lovely, sexy women? Happy, laughing people, and talented, sturdy, healthy children playing guitar and singing and dancing all day? And stuffing their faces when they didn’t have any better games to play? Admittedly in rags, but clean rags? Admittedly barefoot, but who needs shoes in this glorious climate? In this incessant, everlasting sunshine? Who needs shoes on these soft rocks?”
He hesitated and looked up, a bit embarrassed by his outburst.
“How many people looked happy up there today? How many kids looked fat?”
“Not many,” Wilson said quietly, watching.
“Not many?”
“All right. None.”
“That’s better. It’s more honest, anyway.”
“But—”
The “But” started Da Silva off again. He raised a finger, forbidding interruption. He held it in the air while he finished his drink and pushed his glass from him. It slid to a teetering halt on the edge of the bar.
“And you saw the Catatumbá—the best favela in Brazil. What would you have said if you’d seen the worst?”
“I—”
The warning finger cut the air, severing discussion.
“I said, Catatumbá is the best favela in Brazil. It has a fine view, and the wind carries away most of the smells. And the rain carries the majority of the garbage and almost all the sewage down to the lagoon or the ocean. At the worst, to the Epitácio Pessôa below, where the Department of Sanitation—at the insistence of apartment dwellers like you—clean it up.” He poured himself another drink and threw it down his throat. It occurred to Wilson that Da Silva could really look vicious when angry. The tall Brazilian nodded, as if reading the other’s thoughts and agreeing with them.
“But most slums here are not up to—what shall we say—standard? They can’t meet the advantages of the Catatumbá.” He smiled grimly. “Out in the Avenida Brasil the favelas are built in the flat. Or below the level. Every time it rains the favelado has to climb on top of a table, if he has one, and wait for the water to go down. Their garbage floats around them while they wait, and when the water finally drains away, the garbage settles to the floor. And stays there.”
He studied Wilson evenly now, the majority of his ill humor consumed.
“And on the north side of town—you’ve never seen the favelas around Caricó and Juramento, have you? I didn’t think so. Anyway, up there in that part of town, the human pigpens are built on dried mud instead of rock, and when we get a good, heavy rain one of them starts to slide, and then it bumps into another, and then a third, and the next morning you read all about it in the newspapers. And not just in Rio.”
“I’ve seen—”
“What you read is a simple headline, nothing more. Nothing fancy. All it says is: ‘Two hundred people feared dead, buried under tons of mud.’” He sighed and looked up calmly. “And everybody wets their finger and turns to the sports page to find out how Santos and Pelê did.”
He poured himself another drink. Wilson was watching him, silent now, making no attempt to break into what seemed to be private thoughts almost inadvertently expressed. Da Silva made no move to drink his drink; he merely moved the glass about on the counter top idly. His eyes came up, unfathomable.
“You know, there are many advantages to a mountain favela like Catatumbá. In Rio it’s almost always warm—the beauty of a tropical climate—but in São Paulo in August and September they cart dead bodies away. Frozen.” He nodded, as if Wilson had tried to disagree with him. “Oh, yes. It’s the truth. And another thing I’m sure you didn’t know—favelas have very few rats. You didn’t know that, did you? People always assume that slums are loaded with rats, but in Brazil, it isn’t always true.” He smiled, a chilling smile. “On a slum like the Catatumbá a rat would either starve or drown in a hurry. And in the northeast?” He seemed to suddenly find it time for his drink; he raised it to his mouth and savored it a moment before completing it. “Where was I? Oh, yes. In the northeast a rat would be stupid to wander into a favela. He’d be killed and cooked before he knew what hit him.”
Wilson felt it time to break into Da Silva’s mood. “All I asked was how do they manage to live there.…”
“And all I did was to tell you.” Da Silva considered Wilson evenly. “Let me ask you a question—do you honestly believe what you saw today was any worse than the slums in the States?”
Wilson hesitated and then shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t either, but I doubt it. We’re both big countries.” Da Silva sighed mightily and relaxed. “Let’s change the subject, shall we?”
“Willingly.” It was an understatement. “They look like a tough bunch up on that hill—”
“I suppose.” Da Silva frowned. “Catatumbá is really a small town by itself, and like all towns, big or small, it has its good people and its bad. The huge majority of the people there hold down small-paying jobs and come home after work like everyone else, worrying about bills, trying to raise their families, trying to live as normal a life as they can under the circumstances. Without enough money, it’s not very normal. They live there because they can’t afford to live anywhere else, not because they want to.” He looked up. “Can you imagine anyone living there because he wanted to?”
“No,” Wilson said simply.
“You may have learned something after all,” Da Silva said. He started to reach for the brandy and changed his mind. “It’s also true that they have a minority who could be called tough. Real tough. We estimate there are at least three or four hundred wanted criminals hiding out on the Catatumbá, but no policeman I know is going in there to pick them up. Or even to count them.”
“You’re going in,” Wilson pointed out. “Suppose you run into somebody who recognizes you?”
“Fonseca didn’t recognize me, and I wasn’t recognized up there today, and tomorrow, with a decent beard, the chances will be less.”
“Or just suppose,” Wilson went on, thinking, “that your friend Claudio decides, once he has the cash in his pocket, that before he takes his girlfriend up to Petropolis he ought to drop in and tell his pals on the Catatumbá that he rented his palatial home to a cop? Just for laughs? Or just in case this Captain Da Silva was lying to him?”
Da Silva shook his head. “Claudio won’t go back to the favela. He won’t tell his friends a thing.” He sounded positive.
Wilson was far from being so sure. “You have more faith in that character than I do.”
“It’s not a question of faith,” Da Silva said gently. He turned to stare out of the window at the velvety night. He turned back, smiling faintly. “I also considered the possibility that Claudio might have a change of heart.”
“And?”
Da Silva shrugged apologetically. “If he does, I’m afraid he’ll have to wait to spend his thousand conto. Not that he won’t get it, you understand, because he will. It’s just—” He consulted his watch. “It’s just that I imagine about now Lieutenant Perreira is booking our friend Fonseca for some breach of the public weal, like spitting on the sidewalk.” He smiled. “No, I’m afraid Claudio will have to do his talking to the turnkey of the delegacia for the next four or five days.”
He saw the look on Wilson’s face, and his bushy eyebrows rose imperiously.
“What’s your problem?”
“But you said—you promised—”
“I promised he wouldn’t get into any trouble in the favela, and he won’t. I didn’t say anything about jail. Actually, putting him back of the xadrez for a few days will be the best possible guarantee he won’t get into trouble in the favela.” Da Silva’s smile was slightly wicked. “Don’t worry about it. Claudio has been in jail before. For much longer periods and for far worse reasons.”
Wilson shook his head slowly. “I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again; I don’t think I’ll ever completely understand you, Zé.”
“Then simply don’t try.” Da Silva re
ached for the cognac, properly considering his period of abstinence more than sufficient. He poured a drink and raised his glass, wondering in his heightened emotion where the lovely girl was he had met that noon. He tried to dwell on it, but it faded, overshadowed by other feelings.
He forced his voice to be expressionless. “To crime.…”
“To crime,” Wilson repeated automatically, completely unaware that he was echoing the words of a certain Ricardo Caravelas.…
Chapter 8
A good night’s rest had brought Captain Da Silva to his battered taxi refreshed and alert, although the casual observer would not have suspected it. A day without shaving had left his lean, pockmarked face covered with black, wiry stubble; failure to have his usual trim at the barbershop caused his moustache to appear more ragged than usual, while a drop of medicine in each eye had caused them to appear puffed, bloodshot, and painful. With his leather cap—once the badge of all Rio cabdrivers—jammed on top of his uncombed, curly hair, he looked like a tough who had been up all night, which is just what he wanted to look like. What he definitely did not want to look like was Captain Da Silva disguised as a thug who had been up all night.
He came through the Cantagalo pass by way of the Avenida Henrique Dodsworth, dropping down to the Lagôa and turning right into the Epitácio Pessôa. It was a beautiful morning, clear and still cool from the night. He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes to nine: ample time. He relaxed, enjoying the blue sky and the cloudless morning. To his left as he drove, a one-man rowing shell was cutting silently and smartly through the water of the lagoon, its occupant bending and returning upright rhythmically. Behind the sliver of a boat, the wake curled gently, sending even pulses across the taut surface. Peace, Da Silva thought. It’s wonderful!
He passed the narrow entrance to the Catatumbá with its cluster of ragged, barefoot children and old women silently waiting their turn at the two faucets along the curb that served the entire favela for water. The road curved past the wall of shacks that formed a barrier at the sidewalk; beyond the curve the favela was mercifully hidden from sight by a sharp spur of rock. Ahead, the Fonte de Saudade angled off and then returned to parallel the Epitácio Pessôa, leaving a wide, parklike area between. Da Silva slowed up and then frowned; the wedge-shaped intersection appeared deserted. Tomorrow, possibly? He prepared to stop, planning on waiting, when he saw a figure detach itself from the protection of a tree and move to the curb. He drew to the curb, stopping; the man bent down. A young face peered in at the window.
The Xavier Affair Page 7
