AT THE MEETING held at the Military Club, a motion had been made demanding the president’s resignation, but General Canrobert and General Juarez Távora expressed the view that the crime should first be investigated, and then they could discuss the resignation of the president. The suggestion by the two opposition generals prevailed, as everyone believed the results of the inquiry would demonstrate unequivocally the president’s responsibility for the attack. At that same moment, the secretary of war, Zenóbio, had said, backed by seventy-three generals who met with him in Rio, that resignation was a very touchy issue that had to be resolved in an atmosphere of harmony and patriotism. “We are only interested in lawful solutions, to avoid plunging the country into anarchy,” Zenóbio had said. “In defense of the Constitution, I shall act with speed and vigor. This is my role, and I shall fulfill it to the end.”
Meanwhile, manifestations of protests were increasing against the president of the Republic. The legislatures of almost every state in Brazil were demanding Vargas’s resignation. The Brazilian Bar Association approved a motion, by a vote of 43 to 6, stating that it considered the country leaderless and asking the armed forces to remove Vargas from the Catete Palace and guarantee the swearing in of Vice President Café Filho so that legality could be restored. In military circles, rejection of the president grew continuously. The officer corps of the navy, which until then had maintained a less radical stance than the air force, reacted with outrage to the detaining of Admiral Muniz Freire for having criticized the government in a ceremony aboard the cruiser Barroso. The admiralty, pressured by the younger officers, obliged the secretary of the navy to rescind the punishment. Among the high command of the armed forces, only Marshal Mascarenhas de Morais held a favorable view of the president; but the marshal, though he headed the general staff of the armed forces and was respected for his illustrious past, in reality lacked any real power in that situation of widespread hierarchical subversion.
Throughout Brazil, candidates of the Lantern Club were registered for the October elections. Student associations from all over the country issued manifestos demanding that Vargas resign. The governmental accounting office, approving a motion by counselor Silvestre Péricles de Góis Monteiro, made public a declaration stating that it could not remain silent in the face of the Tonelero attack, in which the valiant Major Vaz had lost his life, victim of the perversity of murderers and criminals, a fact that had deeply wounded Brazilian society and appalled the national soul. The note further referred to the atmosphere of violence and corruption that dominated the country.
At the same time, newspapers published the opinion sent to the Chamber by the attorney general of the Republic, Carlos Medeiros Silva, about the congressional inquiry into loans, in an amount in excess of two hundred and twenty million cruzeiros, made by the Bank of Brazil to “firms and individuals lacking financial qualifications,” in this case the newspaper Última Hora and Samuel Wainer and L. F. Bocaiúva Cunha, among others. The attorney general had read the 2,979 pages of the five volumes of the inquiry and finally issued his opinion, which had been forwarded to the Chamber of Deputies through the secretary of justice in response to a request from two deputies, Armando Falcão and Frota Aguiar. According to the attorney general’s opinion, the congressional inquiry had shown the arbitrary and abusive manner in which the president of the Bank of Brazil, at the time Ricardo Jafet, had conducted the business of the society. No law, no regulation, no social statute had constituted effective barriers against the ill-advised objectives of the Bank’s top-level administrators to protect hidden interests. The president of the Bank of Brazil had ignored information from experts about the inadvisability and impropriety of such transactions, effected without reference to standard banking safeguards.
The text of the attorney general’s opinion was made public by Deputy Armando Falcão through a request to the Chamber’s presiding officer.
One of the few voices dissenting from the chorus of anti-Vargas invective was that of the leader of the dock workers, Duque de Assis. In his view the sole objective of the movement calling for Vargas’s resignation was to hinder the country’s progress and block the march of the workers’ struggle. “Our adversaries, adversaries of the government and the proletariat, are in the pay of hidden forces,” he said.
INSPECTOR PÁDUA handed over to the Robbery and Theft division the jewels stolen from the Esmeralda jewelry store: a gold ring with a diamond solitaire; an eighteen-karat gold Swiss watch with diamond insets; a six-facet gold ring, eighteen karats, with three diamonds set in platinum; a six-facet bracelet, eighteen-karat gold, with nine diamonds set in platinum; and other jewels. The apprehension had come about through a tip. The thief hadn’t been found, according to Pádua, but since all the jewels had been recovered, the matter was shelved.
LEARNING FROM MATTOS that Lomagno wanted to call her, Alice stopped answering the phone that day. The doorbell rang futilely countless times. Alice left the phone on the hook. Thus it was Mattos once again who answered Lomagno’s telephone call.
“I wanted to speak with Alice.”
“She’s here beside me and said she doesn’t want to speak with you.”
Silence.
“Mr. Mattos, I’m convinced that you’re keeping me from speaking to my wife. I want to warn you that I’ve consulted an attorney, who after hearing the facts that I told him stated that I can report you for the crime of kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment. According to the lawyer, your crime has an aggravating factor, namely, given her state of health it has probably caused Alice serious physical and psychological suffering.”
“Do whatever you like. But I advise you to look for a different lawyer. The one you consulted is an idiot. Good night.”
twenty
SHORTLY BEFORE NOON, Mattos arrived at the precinct to relieve Pádua. Normally he would get there earlier, to inform himself in detail about the incidents of the evening before with the inspector of the previous shift. But that day he was inclined to have the least possible contact with Pádua.
Pádua was waiting for him. “I want to talk to you.”
“It’s enough to give me the blotter.”
Pádua picked up the book from the desk and placed it under his arm.
“Five minutes. I’ve got a question to ask you. Not the policeman, the top student in law school.”
“I wasn’t the top student.”
“But you were one of the top students. Everybody knows that. Your nickname was Brain.”
“What is it you want to know?”
“Morally, we’re obligated to sacrifice our lives, if necessary, to carry out our duty, which is to prevent the commission of crimes. Isn’t that right? Why can’t we, also to carry out our duty, kill an outlaw to prevent him from committing a crime?”
“I’m going to answer in a simple manner your simplistic question. Because the law doesn’t give us that right. And the law applies to everyone, especially those who have some form of power, like us. A policeman can die in the exercise of his duty, but he can’t disobey the law.”
“You say my question is simplistic. Your answer is sanctimonious. You chose the wrong profession.”
“I think it’s you who chose the wrong profession.”
Pádua tossed the book on the table, flexed his arm muscles, and left the inspector’s office.
Ipojucan Salustiano, Ilídio’s peg-leg lawyer, appeared at the precinct with a medical statement attesting to his client’s inability to honor the summons he had received. The statement was handed to the recording clerk in the presence of Inspector Mattos.