São Paulo Noir Read online

  It was strange that, in all those months, no one had more information about the woman, who barely cried after a beating and hid in the bathroom when room service showed up with ice. Cléo, however, bet she was tall and straightened her hair, and she couldn’t wait to find out if she was right.

  As a kind of demonstration of her investigative abilities, in the next room she made a great discovery: the female guest in 28 was having an affair with the man in 34. She got excited and proceeded to show the proof.

  “He slept here! Beyond a doubt. I recognize that toothbrush, it’s classy, Swiss, and costs nineteen reais at the pharmacy. And it’s yellow with green bristles. This slipper is his too: surfer style, with thick straps. They’re both married. She’s a publicist, he’s a salesman. Maybe they met in the lobby and decided to have a fling at night in her room. Notice there’s an extra blanket? He brought it from his room. You’ll have to take it back later.”

  The maid tossed the blanket on top of the dirty sheets, in the cart. Still in 28, she saw that Lena had some sort of problem with her left shoulder, judging by how she handled the mop. She must have hurt herself in the kitchen, where accidents were always happening with the large kettles. Cléo could even see a few purple bruises near her collar.

  For some reason, she didn’t mention what she had observed. Somewhat awkwardly, she continued talking: she said that some of the rooms were used for gun-running; others, for meetings of evangelical groups. Maybe the latter prayed for the salvation of the former, and in the end everything might balance out. In any case, so far she’d never seen a meth lab set up in a suite, or traces of exorcisms. She was, however, constantly covering up signs of some abuse or other and of countless acts of aggression, which for her was more than unpleasant enough.

  They went to room 29, and there Cléo couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “What’s your problem, huh? You don’t say anything and you look at me with that expression. I don’t even know if you understood my instructions, whether I can trust you with the rest of the rooms . . . You think you can handle it? Do you remember which room you’re going to take this blanket to?”

  As always, Lena did not reply. That afternoon, by the end of the shift, the newcomer would have to take care of rooms 30 and above, on her own, since Cléo had been called to the police station to testify about the homicide. She was feeling important because she had been the one to discover the body and also because she had retained so much information about the victim and the likely killer; she would impress the cops with her gifts of perception. Who needed DNA when they had a witness like her? They might even begin to call on her as a consultant at other crime scenes, with the advantage that she could also lend her services in cleaning up the location after the evidence had been gathered. Consultants must make a good salary, even more if they actually solved the crimes. This was finally the way out she had been seeking for such a long time. She would start a new life in a less humiliating profession, and perhaps she could even stop closing her eyes in the face of injustice.

  She would do like those FBI psychologists and compile a complete profile of the killer, starting with the small clues he left on the carpet that could go unnoticed by someone who wasn’t trained by the management of the most renowned luxury hotels in the Jardins.

  “If there’s anyone able to recognize the killer, it’s me,” she stated proudly. But as soon as she said this, she realized she’d made a huge mistake.

  This time, Lena moved the cart away from the entrance and closed the door. Cléo felt her gloves grow sticky with sweat.

  Then she understood: no one had ever seen Dr. Otávio’s lover entering or leaving because she lived there. She would go up through the service elevator, coming directly from the kitchen with a bottle of wine. Thus the smell of garlic at the scene of the crime. Thus the dyed-blond hairs and pink lipstick of Lena, who had probably grown tired of being beaten and decided to resist with the corkscrew. It would have been a well-executed crime were Cléo not a first-class chambermaid, a good observer, a perfect witness to the clues the kitchen helper had left behind.

  In any case, Lena had been trained by Cléo and would do an impeccable cleanup of room 29, with hydrochloric acid and lemongrass essence to disguise a smell that over time would become permanent. Perhaps her recent lessons in hotel order and asepsis would give her a six-week head start on the police, which would be more than enough for her to flee before being discovered. She would finish the job by folding the end of the toilet paper and attempting a pair of towel swans.

  Ripping away the television cable with her left hand, Lena remained quiet, but now she had a resolute air and her head was erect. She had seen worse things. Before approaching Cléo, she put on a new pair of gloves, to avoid cross contamination.

  Boniclaide and Mrs. Als

  by Ilana Casoy

  Cidade Jardim

  It was a day like any other in the home of Amélia Lins e Silva, or Amelinha, as everyone knew her. She had lived in the same neighborhood since childhood, even when her father was still alive and Cidade Jardim was the symbol of a place of success. Nowadays it was a bit in decline, many houses for sale were so old that only the land had any value. In bed, as she had been for a long time, she looked at the clock a thousand times, lamented the delay of Boniclaide, her maid for over fifteen years. Mornings were always difficult when she didn’t arrive on time. She noticed the vexed mood of the night nurse, dying to vacate the scene but unable to abandon his shift. And she could never be alone, so for the long nights her son had contracted one of those firms of companions, now known as Home Care, efficient but impersonal. Better that way—she didn’t need to engage in idle chatter and hear about a slew of other people’s problems. At least they came and went at the appointed times, without drama. And if one professional couldn’t come, another was quickly sent in his place. She didn’t care whether the caregiver was a man or a woman, she didn’t get attached. You get what you pay for. Excellent. With no debt of gratitude. But with Boni it was different.

  Amelinha suffered from a rare disease that developed gradually but inexorably. It was a slow and painful neuromuscular degeneration. At the beginning she accepted the diagnosis with courage and bravery and even soothed her family, but as the disease progressed, it was impossible not to rebel. What she had done to deserve this punishment was the question that never went away. It was painful to remember the feeling of sand under her feet, cooking a favorite dish, shopping at a crowded supermarket, going to the bank—she even missed waiting in line. Many days, when she opened her eyes, her brain forgot for an instant that she was immobile forever. It had the impulse to be normal, to get up without thinking how, and almost pictured turning on the night-table lamp and leaping out of bed, but nothing happened. She remained there, shrunken, paralyzed, with a tube in her trachea helping her to breathe. Breathing! Not even that could she do on her own. How much longer would she have to face this torture? Lately saliva and phlegm, the product of the immobility itself, had gathered in her throat, making just staying alive more difficult. It was as if she was dying! She needed the caregiver on duty to siphon away the excess, using a small machine; fortunately, she could pay for all of it. There were pleasures she wasn’t ready to abandon. She had a state-of-the-art computer, with a special program that let her write with her eyes, the only part that moved in the prison of her body. It was in this manner that she read articles from friends in her profession, saw the updates on social media, kept up with the life of her grandchildren, watched films and television programs. And wrote. Amelinha loved to write. In recent months, even that had become complicated as she took too long to hit the right letters. All things considered, she lived in a cell worse than where criminals go.

  Boniclaide was the person who most easily communicated with her. She used a chart with the alphabet and certain words like cold, hot, thirst, tomorrow. Boni would point to them one by one, and when Amelinha blinked, the sentences would take shape. The method they developed was nothing new, but i
t was quick because they were quite accustomed to each other. Accustomed to many other things as well, from so much time together. Each understood the other through looks. Boniclaide began working there while still a young woman, and Amelinha was her adviser and guardian angel. She had seen Boni’s daughters grow up, she never let anyone go wanting for medicine. It couldn’t be said that Boni was like a daughter to her, because each of them knew her place, and it wasn’t healthy to mix the personal with the professional. Nonetheless, they were friends, though there was a day when she had to explain to Boni the matter of separate chinaware, as she had learned from her mother. Respectful of Amelinha’s possessions, she never used anything without first getting permission. Also, Amelinha couldn’t complain about the affection with which the maid took care of her now, in this phase of her life. There was no comparison with the orderlies; she even got their names mixed up. But today she wasn’t inclined to sing the praises of her employee. Precisely today, when she was hosting some friends for dinner. Boni was late. She just wasn’t the same as before. Since that man, Zen, had started living with her, Boni was over the moon, had lost her focus. Amelinha didn’t know much about the life of her maid—in her family they had been taught to avoid intimacy with the servants—but she did know her employee had changed, and for the worse. She couldn’t lose Boniclaide, and she had done everything to help that Zen fellow find a decent job. He even had a nice appearance. Yet when Amelinha suggested that Zen fill out an application using her as a reference, Boni changed the subject, saying that he was going to do so, but then he didn’t. She couldn’t understand it. Amelinha would have liked to see him employed at the Isle of Flowers, which in the 1960s was the leading market in the region, since then sold to become a successful restaurant. She could easily have a word with the owner, a friend of hers. Boniclaide evaded. Then Amelinha thought of an opening at Veranda, a high-end supermarket on the Cidade Jardim Bridge. She still recalled Argeu and Elias, with their fruit stand beside the favela that had sprung up at the edge of the Jockey Club. Jânio Quadros, mayor of São Paulo at the time, demolished it all in 1985, but not the stand, which prospered and was today almost a tourist attraction for the city’s coconut water. She asked several times for Boni to find Argeu’s e-mail, but she always forgot. In the end, she accepted giving the young man a reference as a dog walker for the pets in the neighborhood, since she knew several families. It seemed that the pet-walking business was a success. Zen had more and more clients and was already subcontracting, but her maid wasn’t the same. She thought of nothing but him, was rather spaced out, didn’t remember the simplest things. Amelinha needed to have an urgent talk with Boniclaide!

  The clock was already showing 7:20 and the woman hadn’t arrived. Given the level of dependency to which she was subjected, anguish and anger grew in Amelinha’s breast, knowing the chaos there would be if Boni didn’t come. What hatred she felt being dependent on someone!

  * * *

  In the middle of a bunch of people packed onto the bus, Boni saw the Paineira stop approach, where she descended daily. The corner of Avenida Vital Brasil and Francisco Morato. According to legend, a silk-cotton tree once stood there. It was a stop for workers coming from all over, the North, South, and East Zones, and from there each spread out to his or her destination—heavens, they had to take two buses to arrive, two more to return, besides having to walk a good part of the way. No one deserved to spend so much time commuting in order to earn a living, but everyone there faced the same situation every day, impossible to pay the rent near the districts where the upper class lived, and they didn’t want to live in the favela, since they’d had enough of that in childhood. They might be poor, but they never gave up having a street address and a number so mail could arrive.

  She pushed herself past butts and thighs to get off the bus, after hours of rattling around. Enormous and unstable! She was late and still had a twenty-minute walk to her mistress’s house. She liked working for Dona Amelinha, but lately she was always tired, and with Zen’s dog-walking business going so well, she wondered whether it was time to slow down and enjoy life more. Zen, the love of her life, the carefully hidden secret.

  As she walked along the avenue by the Jockey Club toward her job, she reminded herself that Dona Amelinha must never know the truth about Zen. She would never understand; it was better for her to think he was a new love after years of loneliness. Or not? She had always been good, had helped with the girls’ things . . . Well, omission isn’t lying, is it? No, she hadn’t done anything wrong.

  She continued walking and greeted several cross-dressers, many of them her friends.

  “Good morning, Morena,” said Shirley, standing on the corner. Shirley Caveira. She was beautiful to die for, but her ID read Ernesto Correia. Boni had a special affection for the transvestite. Boni had a “great ass,” and several times on her way there she was approached by men in very expensive cars. At first, some of the drag queens thought she was a competitor, and she was afraid to come and go by that route until Shirley talked to them and adopted her. She never had any more problems. Today she even laughed when a “sugar daddy” stopped his car beside her and rolled down the passenger window. She felt pretty.

  “Good morning, friend. How’s Marcos, has he ‘watered the flowers’ today? May I get by on the sidewalk?”

  They both burst out laughing. The only danger they faced daily was from a half-crazy resident, the owner of one of those enormous mansions across from the Jockey, who used a garden hose to roust the transvestites from his corner, soaking anyone standing there. It was enough to provoke laughter witnessing the scene, but it wasn’t at all funny when you were the one getting drenched.

  Boni continued on her way, daydreaming to pass the time more quickly. She always went along the sidewalk where the cross-dressers were. She had never had an agreement with the whores and they were overly aggressive. São Paulo Jockey Club, the horse races, and such. And an endless wall, all beige with a few green details. She’d never been inside and was dying of curiosity, but she had seen the bustle on Grand Prize day, women in hats, extremely chic, accompanied by those guys you only see on television. Dona Amelinha proudly told of her high school inside there, the Jockey Club School of São Paulo, where the pupils were a mix of employees’ children and those from the noblest families. Just think, the stableman’s daughter dating the rich man’s son from Cidade Jardim! Dona Amelinha said she couldn’t imagine herself paying attention to a poor man. Lineage! She had heard a lot about that. Rich people think they’re better than others, Boni was accustomed to it. She had been trained by her godmother, who said: “Stay in the shadows and make yourself indispensable.” The anger she felt toward such people! They did charity for the church, but at home no one was as good as them. Sometimes even the puppy was more important than everyone. She wasn’t talking about Dona Amelinha, just the opposite, the old lady was actually very kind to her, but from there to understanding Zen’s problem was too much to ask. At times she regretted not having said anything, though she tried not to think about that. Not a lot.

  She crossed the intersection at the end of the avenue—which was always hard because the traffic lights had multiple phases—avoided the confusion at the entrance to the American school on the corner, made the sign of the cross as she saw the Parish of Saints Peter and Paul, and entered the pedestrian-only street that began at the avenue. Now she was inside the neighborhood.

  “Good morning, Boni!” It was Dutra, the head of security at Colinas das Flores, the firm that patrolled the district in vehicles. All the streets had names of plants: Maidenhair, Manacá, Acacia, Blackberry, Peach, Begonia.

  “Hi, Dutra! Let’s hope for a good day,” Boni said, smiling.

  “Is Zen working today?”

  “He’ll be here soon. I think his clients don’t get started till eight.”

  “Cool.”

  Dutra waved, getting into the car to answer a call on the radio. They kept watch over the residents entering and leaving their garag
es, the moment when most attacks took place. What would Dona Amelinha think if she knew in fact who Zen was? Convicted of robbery and murder. He didn’t pull the trigger, but in the eyes of the law that didn’t matter. The thing went south, an idiot in the gang lost control, and that’s all it took! Killed the security guard. And everyone paid the price. Oh, Zen, the love of her life . . . He couldn’t kill a fly. His wide smile whenever he saw her was filled with emotion; her brow furrowed with the constant humiliation of each body search she suffered in visits to the prison. Boni always took special snacks and treats just to see the childlike delight on his face when he opened the bag that she brought for everyone in the cell. Almost fifteen years of that life, away from home, not even seeing the girls born, but she couldn’t deny they had never gotten on as well as during this time. They never fought. The prison visits were always full of love and sex, promises and dreams for when he got out. When his parole came through and Zen walked out into the open, they couldn’t believe it! Finally it would be every day, whenever they wanted.

  Dona Amelinha had even tried to help Zen find a job when he got out, but Boni couldn’t run the risk. It wouldn’t do, especially since it was a matter of robbery. The old lady would immediately think there would be a robbery in the district, that Boni was involved with criminals, and so on. She suggested looking for a job as a waiter, a bagger in a supermarket, but Boni dodged the subject because Zen’s past mustn’t be discovered. What if she were fired because of it? Both of them unemployed?

  Boni went in quickly. She donned her uniform and immediately headed to Dona Amelinha’s bedroom. The list of the day’s tasks must already be on the computer screen. She opened the curtains to let light in.

  “Good morning, Dona Amelinha!”

  * * *

  Amelinha let out a sigh of relief when Boni came into the room. She indicated to the maid all the tasks, chose the dinner menu, the chinaware to be used, and the wine for Boniclaide to bring from the cellar. Then she concentrated on the reading she was doing, pausing now and then to listen to the news. She lunched frugally and took her nap. It was then, as in a nightmare, that she was awakened by a hail of gunshots, explosions, the sounds of cars braking, police sirens. She could neither move nor scream, but she was in a panic! What if she were assaulted? How could she convince anyone that she really couldn’t move, that she couldn’t open the safe, that no sound came out of her mouth? Terrified, she activated the button that summoned the maid. Nothing—she didn’t come! She heard the doorbell ring. And waited. And nothing happened, no sign of Boniclaide; phlegm began to rise from her throat to her nostrils, saliva gathering in her mouth. That happened sometimes when she was nervous. Amelinha couldn’t remain very long without the aid of the suction device. Where was Boni? She didn’t know how long she could hold out. She focused on the news, changing channels with her eyes in an attempt to understand what was going on. The crime programs were sensationalist, trashy, but at that moment they were all she had. Many reporters were now live, with cameras out there near her corner. Robbery, a stray bullet, a death. Amelinha mentally reconstructed the action that had unfolded a few meters from her. It was then that she heard—it couldn’t be the same person, it couldn’t! Had Boni been lying to her for so long? Could a killer have come and gone freely in her house all that time? What a betrayal Boniclaide had done to her! The shameless woman dissembled her entire life. That’s why this country didn’t progress: an individual commits a crime and before long he’s back on the street, ready to perpetrate another. The police were useless! How was it someone doesn’t serve out the full term to which he was sentenced? Didn’t he get twenty years? Let him rot in jail until he paid for what he did! American law had it right, it doesn’t want to know and doesn’t care—the death penalty, and three strikes is life imprisonment. She couldn’t resign herself to the lie, she could put up with anything except lying. Lying was betrayal. Omission was lying. And she thought Boniclaide was her friend, what a dream. She should have listened to her mother, who always told her not to take a liking to servants, they’d change jobs for an extra two cents. It wasn’t going to end like this, not at all. Her eyes, now furious, began to “hammer” the letters on the computer keyboard. She wanted an explanation for such a betrayal of trust.