-
Twelve
- Tagus Press at UMass Dartmouth
- Chapter
- Additional Information
[143] twelve It was shortly past midnight when Chicão asked his friend Zuleika for the keys to her car. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. Don’t wait up for me.” “You didn’t tell me what you’re gonna do.” “I’m taking a big shot to get his rocks off with a girl at the Hotel Colonial, on Avenida Niemeier. He tells his old lady he’s going to São Paulo and heads there to get some strange. I think he’s afraid to go to that neighborhood by himself.I don’t know if he’s planning to spend the night with the woman.If he does,I won’t be back till morning,I’ll be waiting in the car for him.Satisfied? Later, me and you’ll split the money the guy’s giving me. I’m taking the black suitcase. The barbells are for him.” “The guy needs barbells to screw the woman?” “The world’s full of rough people, love.” At the wheel of Zuleika’s old Armstrong, Chicão stopped in front of the Deauville. Raimundo was in the reception area. It was still too early to do the job. Chicão started the car and went to Machado Square, parking near the trolley stop. He walked to the Lamas restaurant, crossed the long room among tables almost entirely occupied, toward the rear where the pool tables were. No pool table was vacant. Kinda busy for late Wednesday night, thought Chicão.For a time he watched the players and the kibitzers.He liked watching people, they were so much alike and at the same time so different. During the war he had lived for a long time among men wearing the same olive drab [144] uniform, using the same slang, cracking the same jokes, seeking the same pleasures, feeling the same fears, and yet he’d been able to perceive that the differences among them were greater than the similarities. He’d spoken with Lieutenant Lobão, but the lieutenant had replied that all men were basically the same. The lieutenant didn’t know anything. He was like Zuleika, who after listening, without understanding the first damned thing he said about it, had replied,“The habit doesn’t make the monk.” He asked one of the kibitzers loitering around one of the tables if he wanted to play. “I’m broke,” the guy said. “I’ll pay for the hour.” They played, without betting. “You play good,”said Chicão,who,his mind on the job he was going to do, had paid little attention to the game and even so had won one match. “I once beat Carne Frita.You know who Carne Frita is, don’t you?” “Who doesn’t?” “I swear, the same one. It came down to the seven ball. People crowded around to watch.” “Was that here, in the Lamas?” The guy hesitated. “Uh . . . No . . . Downtown . . . At the pool hall on Tiradentes Square.” Chicão placed his cue on the green felt of the table. “If you beat Carne Frita, I’m a monkey’s uncle.” Carne Frita’s phony opponent looked at Chicão as if about to say something ,but then desisted.The black man was very large, and beneath that soft voice lurked something very bad. He lowered his eyes and chalked his cue. The clock on the wall read 1:15. It’s showtime, thought Chicão. He got in the car and returned to the street where the Deauville was located. He chose a spot distant from the lampposts. He took from the glove box a wide strip of cloth that he wrapped around his neck. He stuck his right arm inside the strip. He got out of the car.He knocked on the building’s glass door.Raimundo, the doorman, came to open the door, indicating that he had recognized him. “I’ve got a suitcase in the car for Dona Luciana. You could be a big help [3.128.203.143] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 20:27 GMT) [145] by grabbing the suitcase for me. I can’t take my arm out of the sling. I think it’s broken.” He grimaced.“It’s hurting like hell. I’m going from here to the emergency room for the doctors to take an x-ray.” Raimundo followed Chicão to the car. “It’s on the back seat.” Raimundo looked at the suitcase inside...