“Yes. They didn’t have a record.”
“Did you already get the records?”
“Not yet. But I cut the red tape and called headquarters, and they gave me the information on the phone.”
“Holy shit! That’s illegal, don’t you know that? You put yourself at risk for a bunch of scumbags. You expecting some kind of medal for that? One of these days you’re gonna get fucked — they’ll open up an internal investigation and kick your ass out. Fired for the public good. HQ has had its eye on you ever since that crazy strike you tried to organize.”
They got out on Avenida Rio Branco, at the door of the São Borja Building. The building, eighteen stories, was relatively new, having been built during the war. Across from it, the Senate palace.
“After all, exactly what is it you’re after? Let’s not rattle Laura’s cage unnecessarily.”
“I want information about Senator Vitor Freitas. You think she’ll come across?”
“She does for me.” Pause. “Look, I’ve never had anything with her.” Pause. “Or with any whore.”
“But she’s a friend of yours.”
“Friend, my ass. She’s my informant.”
The São Borja had an ample entrance, a long corridor with several businesses, a tobacco shop, a café, a barbershop, and a record store — the Casa Carlos Wehrs. Mattos remembered then that in that store, some months earlier, he had bought the scores for La Traviata and La Bohème. If he were alone, he would use the opportunity to ask what the long-play of La Traviata cost.
The cops walked down the corridor where the elevators were, three on each side. The São Borja was a mixed-occupancy building, residential and commercial. In a large glassed-in panel Mattos noted some names, followed by room numbers: Brazilian Workers Party, Radiobrás, Odeon Records, Rádio Copacabana. A Workers Party poster read: “Vote for the candidates of the Workers Party and participate in the gigantic struggle for the transformation of Brazil into a great nation. Social Justice. Economic Emancipation. Nationalistic Policy. Defense of Petroleum. Respect for the Minimum Wage. Democratic Enfranchisement. Union Freedom. Agrarian Reform. A Workers Party government is a government of the people.”
“Those guys are a pack of demagogues,” said Pádua.
There was another entrance, in the rear, near the elevators. It faced a courtyard where several automobiles were parked, opening onto Rua México.
“That’s where the senators come in, so as not to be seen,” said Pádua.
They returned to the lobby and waited for the elevator. On the tenth floor a single room had its door open. They heard the sound of a typewriter. A woman, sitting in front of an Underwood, didn’t notice the two cops as they passed by silently. LOTTUFO REPRESENTATION read a small plaque. Pádua turned to the right, in the hallway. The sound of the typewriter keys was no longer heard. All the doors were closed.
“Here it is,” said Pádua, ringing a doorbell.
A middle-aged woman in a maid’s uniform opened the door.
“I’m here to speak with Dona Laura. I’m Inspector Pádua.”
The woman made a gesture for them to come inside. Pádua paced from side to side in the small vestibule. From the movement of his arms, Mattos concluded that his colleague’s biceps and triceps must be flexing furiously.
A thin man with a small mustache and slicked-down hair appeared.
“Ah, Inspector Pádua. . What a pleasure! How nice!”
“I’m not here for small talk, Almeida. I want to speak to Dona Laura.”
“She’s very busy at the moment. Can’t it be with me?”
“No, it can’t be with you. Get in there and call Laura right now.”
“I’m going to have them get you some nice whiskey.”
“We don’t want any nice whiskey. Call the woman.”
“She’s in the other apartment, on the sixteenth floor. We’ll go up by the stairs. Please follow me.”
Laura was waiting for them in a large room full of overstuffed red velvet furniture. The curtains were also red. The room was illuminated by soft light coming from two lamps whose shades were mosaics of colored glass.
Laura was dressed discreetly. Her hair, dyed red, gave her face a look of insolence. A gold pince-nez, held by a black silk ribbon, swayed on her chest.
“You may go, Almeida dear,” she said. Her voice is as dark as the room, thought Mattos.
“This is my colleague, Inspector Mattos.”
“Would you like something to drink? Whiskey? Champagne?”
“He has a stomach ulcer. Can’t drink.”
“But you can.”
“Not today.”
Laura put on her pince-nez and looked at Mattos. “Are you a nervous man?”
“More or less.”
“What happened to your head?”
“Banged it against a wall.”
“Inspector Mattos wants information about a client of yours.”
“We don’t give out information about our clients. You know that.”
“Confidential. Anything you say will be strictly between us.”
“The police can shut down your house,” said Mattos.
“Can. But don’t want to.” Pause. “Have a little whiskey, Pádua.”
“Mattos, can you give us a moment? I want to say a few words to Laura in private, inside there.”
The two left the room.
I can shut down this whorehouse, thought Mattos. It was a crime to maintain, for personal gain, a house of prostitution or place designated for libidinous encounters, whether or not with the intent of monetary gain or direct mediation on the part of the owner or manager. But was there any harm in a bordello? Even for corrupt, crooked senators and important government officials? In Solon’s Athens prostitution was free, and prostitutes were considered a public utility, subject to taxation by the state, a source of revenue for the exchequer, while procuring for pay or acting as go-between by pimps was rigorously punished. Pádua, who enjoyed citing the thinkers of the church, was probably familiar with St. Augustine’s phrase: “Aufer meretrices de rebus humanis, turbaveris omnia libidinus.”
Alberto Mattos remembered the debates in his criminal law classes about the idiotic phrases dealing with prostitution, which had inflamed discussions among the students. Since childhood he had felt an attraction to prostitutes, although he had never frequented a bordello. There came to his mind phrases: from Weininger, “the prostitute is the safeguard of my mother”; from Lecky, “the prostitute is the custodian of virtue, the eternal priestess of humanity”; from Jeannel, “the prostitutes in a city are as necessary as sewers and trash bins.” An inextirpable but necessary evil — who was it said that? In an association of ideas he recalled the melody of the aria “Ah, fors è lui,” but his claqueur’s reverie was interrupted by the return of Pádua and Laura to the room.
Pádua sat down in an armchair. Laura put on her pince-nez and looked at Mattos for a long moment. Then: “What is it you want to know?”
“Senator Vitor Freitas.”
“What?”
“Does he always come here?”
A long pause before replying: “Sometimes.”
“Does he always go with the same girl?”
“No.”
Pádua guffawed.
“Drop the subterfuge, Laura. The senator’s queer, my dear colleague.”
“SIR, I HAVE GOOD NEWS,” said Rosalvo, entering Mattos’s office.
After leaving Dona Laura’s house, the inspector had left Pádua and gone to a bookstore in the Cruzeiro Gallery, where he’d drunk half a liter of watery milk. Then he had caught a bus for the precinct.
“We have to find out everything about the victim’s life to be able to arrive at the killer, isn’t that right?” said Rosalvo.