Blood-drenched Beard : A Novel (9781101635612) Page 19

  Greice steps aside, and he enters the small space, crouches down, and strokes Beta’s neck while murmuring in her ear. She’s going to walk again, aren’t you? I have to make a short trip, but I’ll be back the day after tomorrow, and I’ll come visit you every day, okay?

  The vet lays Beta down again.

  How much longer will she need to stay here?

  About two weeks. At least.

  He smiles to himself several times during the ninety-minute bus trip to Florianópolis, thinking about how things go well when you least expect them to. Beta is able to stand. Sara has still been coming to their morning workouts trying hard to act as if nothing happened. The water has been so warm that he has been swimming in just his Speedos. His more dedicated students haven’t abandoned the pool even though winter is coming, and they are swimming better and better. When he is out and about, he is greeted and waved at by people he doesn’t recognize, and whenever he can, he approaches them and strikes up a conversation until he is able to tell who they are. Nights pass in the blink of an eye and are restorative. The day smells of ozone and the salty sea breeze. The green of the vegetation pulsates on the slopes of the Serra do Mar Range, and the mountaintops framed by the bus windows speak of the mystery of unspoiled places. The vibration of the bus is calming, and the landscape sliding past on the other side of the glass makes him think about the obvious things that one never thinks about. How it is incredible that all the things around him are actually there. That he is there. That he can perceive them. He feels as if he is stationary and moving at the same time and remembers his parents telling him how they used to drive him around in the car to get him to sleep when he was a baby. Across the aisle, a few seats ahead of his, a girl is asleep leaning against her boyfriend with her foot stretched out in the middle of the aisle, and he can see her turquoise-painted toenails, a Mayan sun tattoo on her ankle, the boyfriend’s hand caressing the caramel-colored skin of her calf. The whole composition reminds him of something he once had and that he isn’t sure if he misses. He does and he doesn’t at the same time. It is less the melancholy memory of an absence and more the comforting evidence that it exists and is still part of the world.

  During his two-hour wait at the bus station in Florianópolis, he has dinner at a coffee shop, explores the streets adjacent to the bus station on foot, and goes to a news-stand to get something to read. A man with a shocking appearance approaches the news-stand at the same time as he does. His whole head is enlarged due to some deformity or elephantiasis, especially his jaw, which is four or five times bigger than that of a normal man. He is fair-haired and is wearing a pair of jeans and a colorfully striped wool sweater. The man peruses the magazines on the stand, taking casual steps from side to side with his hands clasped behind his back in a restful position, seemingly unaware of his effect on the attendant and passersby, who glance away as soon as they set eyes on him. He takes a few good looks at the man’s deformed face, while pretending to choose a magazine. Then he picks up the triathlon magazine he intended to buy from the outset, pays, and returns to the bus station waiting area, trying to retain the man’s features in his memory for as long as possible, but they slip away as they always do.

  Once he is settled in his bus seat, he takes a look at the map of downtown Pato Branco that he printed out from Google Maps at the Internet café in Garopaba. The addresses of Zenão Bonato and the hotel that was recommended by the former police chief are written in the margins with a few notes to himself. He got the man’s cell phone number from his security company. Zenão agreed to talk to him without asking many questions. I think I know what you’re talking about, he said in a hoarse voice on the telephone. If you really want to come here, come. I’ll tell you what I can remember.

  The bus makes a lot of stops. He sleeps for much of the twelve-hour ride to Pato Branco, listening to music at a low volume on earphones connected to his phone. He wakes up every time the bus parks in a small town in western Santa Catarina to drop off and pick up passengers. He gets out to go to the bathroom and stretch his legs. He eats some of the worst highway diner food of his life and dreams about an icy-cold can of Coke until the next stop. It is dawn when he wakes instinctively at the entrance to the town, feeling the curves and bumpy terrain. It is much colder here, due to the distance from the coast and the altitude. It can’t be any more than fifty degrees. He opens his backpack with cold hands to pull out his jacket. Fields covered with veils of dew and tiny sleeping farmhouses give way to houses with verandas that increase in density until suddenly, to his surprise, the bus is in an urban center with wide avenues, shopping arcades, and malls. He takes a taxi from the bus station to the hotel. The car climbs steep streets paved with impeccable tarmac. When the young receptionist hands him the key to his room, she says ceremoniously that his password is ninety-eight.

  What password?

  For the sports channel, sir.

  He calls Zenão Bonato from the hotel room. He says he’ll be busy all day and asks if he doesn’t mind postponing their meeting until quite late, perhaps around midnight. He finds it odd but says it isn’t a problem. Zenão asks him to meet him at a place called Deliryu’s. He jots down the address with the hotel pen and notepad on the bedside table. He thinks it must be the name of a brothel but doesn’t have time to ask because Zenão quickly says good-bye and ends the call.

  He turns on the TV and types ninety-eight on the control. It’s a porn film with a story, and right now it’s in the story part. He waits for it to get to the interesting bit and jerks off quickly. Then he takes a twenty-minute shower.

  His watch says ten o’clock in the morning. He gets dressed, leaves the hotel, walks down a few steep streets, and arrives at a large avenue with a wide planted area in the middle that forms an attractive, well-kept square. He doesn’t remember seeing such a clean, organized town before. The side streets are almost deserted, but the avenues are busy. The town center is full of modern buildings with more than ten stories, but the flower beds and gardens are like those of a country town. The air smells of carbon monoxide and wet earth. The women are at once both slender and strong. He withdraws some money at an ATM, stops at an Internet café to check his e-mails, and walks in the cold wind and midday sun until he is tired. He has a late lunch at an all-you-can-eat buffet and eats so much that he can barely walk. He drags himself back to the hotel, lies on the bed with the heating turned up as high as it can go and the TV on channel ninety-eight, and alternates between snoozing and anticlimactic sessions of self-stimulation. Late in the afternoon he goes out again, heads down to the avenue, and walks through the square a little until he finds a café with large windows and a supersize TV in the outside area. A few spectators are already gathering, some wearing Grêmio jerseys. He enters and asks if they are going to show the Grêmio game. A muscular waiter in a black apron and hat with the name of the establishment written on them says yes. He orders a coffee. The game begins, and in the next two hours he drinks a few draft beers and eats a serving of French fries. Atlético Paranaense beats Grêmio 3–0. His teeth are chattering, and the thermometer in the square says it is fifty-two degrees. He sets off walking through the town again, passing in front of bars full of university students, entire blocks without a soul in sight and gas stations frequented by young people on their way to parties and taxi drivers without customers. It is almost midnight when he returns to the hotel. He doesn’t even go up to his room. He asks the tall young man at reception to call him a cab. He shows him the address and asks if he knows the place. The receptionist presses his lips together and raises his eyebrows.

  Hmm.

  What?

  Who told you to go there?

  I have a business meeting with someone. He was the one who gave me the address.

  Well, if he told you to go there . . . but be careful.

  Why?

  Mafia. The sort you don’t mess with. And the girls there are quick. Real quick. They make off with y
our money, and you don’t even know what happened. My dad used to say we should steer clear of three things in life: fast women, slow horses, and engineers. I’m giving you the same advice. Just the other day two guests came back early in the morning in a car with the bouncer of the place. With a gun to their heads. They’d spent eighteen hundred reais and didn’t have enough cash on them. They’d thought they were going to spend five hundred each, and the numbskulls weren’t carrying credit cards. They had to drive around with a gun in their ear until six in the morning to withdraw the rest at an ATM.

  What a mess.

  They’ll kill you if they have to. Mafia. Have a good think if you really want to go there.

  I just need to talk to the guy. I don’t intend to hang around there.

  The receptionist makes a face as if to say “I warned you,” holds up the palms of his hands, and returns the paper with the address on it. The taxi pulls up at the entrance to the hotel. Inside it smells of wool, and the windows are fogged up. The elderly man in a beret behind the steering wheel reacts as if he already knew his passenger’s destination.

  It’s one of the best places around. I can pick you up if you need me to. Here’s my card. But be warned. Don’t spend what you haven’t got.

  • • •

  The blinking neon of Deliryu’s Nightclub is a few miles out of town, on high ground just off the highway, along a gravel driveway. The square, windowless building is surrounded by a pine plantation. The bouncer, a friendly, hulking bald guy in a black suit, weighing some four hundred pounds, bows ceremoniously and informs him that the cover charge is forty reais. He is given a pay card with his name at the top, and he enters. The place looks much bigger on the inside than it did from the outside and is almost empty. At the back are the bathrooms and a small stage with a metal post. The floor is swept by colorful circles from a spinning spotlight in the middle of the ceiling and green light beams coming from another mechanism above the stage, which picks out the silhouettes of the hookers, who are in two small groups at the back of the club, leaning on the wall, or lounging on sofas, almost hidden in the dim light. Another bouncer, of average stature, wearing jeans and a leather jacket, greets him inside. His gray hair is slicked back with some kind of shiny gel or grease. There are two hookers leaning against the bar, and he can see these ones well: a thin, grumpy-looking blonde, who tries to smile when she sees him, and a tall brunette with very white skin and a slightly gothic look, who is talking to a young waiter with a goatee. She is wearing black knee-high boots with metal buckles and is standing on one leg, with the other perched on the round stool. To his right, in an area that has half a dozen booths with tables and sofas, is the only other client in the place, an older man accompanied by a young woman. It can only be Zenão Bonato.

  He walks over and introduces himself. Zenão, a mulatto who appears to be about sixty, although he is older than that, motions for him to sit on the adjacent sofa. He looks like a former athlete, someone who has had to maintain a considerable amount of muscle mass his whole life, like a boxer or rower. He is wearing dress pants, good shoes, and a wool blazer. A cigarillo is burning between his fingers, and the smoke from his last few puffs forms a dome that spreads lazily around the three of them.

  The young woman’s legs are draped over her client’s. Her black tube dress barely passes her waist, and he can see her red panties. Her long, straight hair looks discolored and seems to give off a white light. In fact, her whole head emanates a slightly ghostly light. He strains to see her better. She is albino.

  Guess what her name is? asks Zenão, noting his interest. Ivory! A guttural laugh escapes the old man’s throat in long bursts that end in a smoker’s wheeze and start up again with full force. It takes some time. While he tries to stop laughing, he pours himself another generous shot from the bottle of Natu Nobilis on the table. Ivory mixes a little of the same whiskey with an energy drink in her tall glass, sips it with her colorless lips, and then analyzes it with a pair of gray eyes almost camouflaged in her un-made-up face.

  Why did you want to meet me here?

  I’m among friends here.

  I figured that.

  Because I don’t know you, and I’m not really sure why you wanted to come and see me in person. You didn’t strike me as dangerous, but at my age, in my line of work . . . a guy calls you wanting to know about an old case . . . you know how it is.

  I can imagine. Don’t worry.

  And I might as well take the opportunity and have some fun, right? These folks owe me so many favors that I can hide the hedgehog for free until I die.

  While Zenão has another long fit of laughter, he notices one of the hookers at the back of the club heading toward their table. She sits next to him without touching him. She is a brunette with large thighs, wet hair, and lips cracked with cold. She is drenched in perfume and appears to have stepped out of the shower moments earlier.

  Can I keep you company?

  I’m just here to have a quick chat with my friend here.

  But what fun is that if you’re alone? What’s your name?

  It takes him a few minutes to get rid of her.

  Pick one, says Zenão.

  What?

  Pick one, and call her over to sit here. They’re going to keep coming one by one, and when they’ve all tried, they’re going to start again. The house is empty.

  The waiter sees him signal and comes over to the table.

  Ask the girl in boots over at the bar to come here. And I’d like a can of beer.

  I’m on it.

  The forró song that is playing gives way to a Roxette song that he recognizes from his tender youth. He has to raise his voice to be heard, and he and Zenão lean in toward each other, sandwiching the albino girl between them. She nibbles on Zenão’s ear and then pulls her white hair over her shoulder and occupies herself inspecting it for split ends. Zenão confirms that he was the police chief in Laguna in 1969.

  Do you remember a case where a man was stabbed to death in Garopaba at the end of that year? A man who was known as Gaudério?

  A female voice sings “Listen to your heaaart” in his ear, and the weight of a body shakes the seat cushion on the sofa. The smell of cinnamon chewing gum reaches his nostrils.

  I was hoping you’d call me.

  I like your boots. What’s your name?

  Honey.

  Your real name.

  That’s something you don’t ask, handsome.

  He stares into her eyes. Blue irises, heavy mascara. Bloodred lipstick. A small mole on her left cheekbone. It is all he can make out in the half-light.

  It’s Andreia.

  Have a seat, Andreia. I’ll talk to you properly in a minute. I just need to finish talking to my friend here.

  Can I order a drink?

  What would you like?

  Wine.

  Go ahead and order one.

  Zenão gives him a little slap on the knee.

  Doesn’t she look a bit like a young Anjelica Huston?

  Who?

  Your girl there.

  She looks like who?

  Anjelica Huston. The actress. You know?

  He doesn’t but he looks at Andreia and pretends to be considering it.

  I think she does a bit. But anyway. At the end of ’sixty-nine.

  I remember that story about the guy who was killed in Garopaba. It was one of the weirdest cases I’d ever come across, which is probably why the investigations didn’t get very far.

  Weird why?

  Because there was no body.

  My dad told me the same thing. That when he got there, he couldn’t find out where they’d buried my granddad. There was a beggar’s grave with grass growing over it. It didn’t look recent.

  Come again? Your dad? What are you talking about?

  His name was Hélio. He was the one who told
me the story.

  Ah, his son. From Porto Alegre. That’s right, we managed to track him down a few days later. He came. Blond hair, smoked like a chimney.

  That’s him.

  I remember him. But anyway. The mystery is that there was no body when I got there.

  Who’d they bury then?

  Dunno. Listen. I got a tip-off by telegraph. There were no phones in Garopaba back then. I think they only got phone lines in the mid-seventies. Sometimes they’d call the station in Laguna and ask us to come and investigate more serious crimes in the region. Garopaba had been a separate municipality since the early sixties. The municipalities had their own police commissioners, but it was all a bit primitive. I saw the lockup once, a little guard post with iron bars where they’d hold their criminals. It was near the parish church. The guy would spend a day in the lockup, and then he’d have to pull weeds in the square in the presence of the police chief or officer. I was called in a few times to resolve things there. Murders, violent rapes, arson.

  Arson?

  Garopaba has a long tradition of arson.

  Were there many murders? One local told me no one had ever been killed in Garopaba.

  People are killed everywhere. There were lots of problems when the gauchos started moving there. There was an invasion of them overnight. They’d come to camp, surf. Hippies. A lot of them stayed on, and the place was overrun with them. They started to get involved in money, property, power. There was even a gaucho killer. His name was Corporal Freitas. He was kept in work for many years until someone took him out too. He was a walking archive.

  Andreia nuzzles up to him.

  Move closer.

  Her breath now smells of sweet wine.

  Put your hand on my leg.

  He obeys and feels her fishnet tights. Her cold thighs pin his fingers.

  So my granddad wasn’t the only one.

  Far from it. But your granddad’s story was different. We got a telegram on a Monday saying a man had been killed the night before. We didn’t even get wind of most crimes. There was a lot of local justice. There were hardly any police in the region, and people took matters into their own hands. I left Laguna by car on the Tuesday morning. Rain pissing down. There was lightning on the highway, a huge owl hit my windshield and cracked the glass, and then there was that dirt road, which was atrocious in those days. I arrived in Garopaba town center after noon and went to talk to people. First they told me that nothing had happened. The town’s only policeman didn’t know what was going on, and I started to realize that the person who’d sent the telegram had done so of their own initiative. Maybe even in secret. No one had been expecting a police chief to show up there. But I let them know who was boss, and they saw that they weren’t going to get rid of me that easily and told me the story about the lights going out at the dance. When they came on again, the guy was dead. Gaudério. No suspect, of course. There wasn’t a trace of blood in the hall by the time I got there, or the murder weapon, nothing. The body had disappeared. I spent the day trying to find out what I could, but there wasn’t much to be done. Night fell, and I was about to leave when a woman came to talk to me and said she’d sent the telegram.