There was no way out — I fell in love with Veronique. I know, passion like this is a faggy sentiment, but it happened. It took a long time for me to realize it and still longer for me to admit it. I was hooked. Happy as a clam: she gave me money and didn’t demand anything in return, kept my morale high and fucked like a rabbit in heat. You don’t fix something that isn’t broken, my father used to say, God rest his soul.
9
One afternoon the bill arrived.
But it didn’t come in the form of a summons or an arrest warrant. Nothing like that. I already said that Veronique was intelligent, tough, and she knew how to handle me. We were in Guaratiba, at an inn, Veronique on top molding my joint like clay. I screamed as I came, feeling pain and arousal at the same time. My dick was turning red from all the compressing that Veronique was doing with her tight musculature. It was like she had crab claws instead of ovaries. I was in that dopey state after coming, looking serenely at the greenish sea through the window, when she went back to making insinuations about Mr. Mollusk.
“Now then,” she said, “I’ve got something to propose to you.”
Propose? Married toned cougars don’t make proposals. They make deposits. The alarm went off for the second time. But it was already too late, though I wasn’t aware of it at the moment.
“What?”
“Your financial independence.”
“What kind of talk is that, Veronique? You think I’m here for the dough?” I laid the indignation on thick.
“My dear.” She ran her hand along my arm like an affectionate grandmother and I noticed how shaky and fleshless it was, like the hand of a witch in an animated film. “I know you make a good bit of money taking advantage of needy old women, and I see nothing wrong with that. It’s an honest agreement: you give me love and attention and in exchange I give you money. Nothing could be more fair. I know life. You’re forty already, think about it: pretty soon you’ll be middle-aged. And the old ladies won’t want to run their hands along your tired skin, full of spots like mine.” She held her hand in front of my face for me to see the spots. Then she affectionately tweaked my nose. “Life starts galloping after a certain age, and no Viagra can change that. I know you’re not a personal trainer here or any goddamn place. The pittance you wring out of elderly ladies isn’t going to last forever. I’m talking about real money.”
I felt like hugging Veronique. But I’m a pro and kept quiet, wearing the expression of a grifter caught in the act. “What?” I asked.
“You know,” she said, and squeezed the end of my nose.
10
I took some time to decide.
Deep down I had already decided, but we fool ourselves and pretend we still haven’t decided about what we know is already a done deal. Isn’t that how it is? And I really was in need of dough. Not only for myself but for my mother. She was costing a bundle. Being old is hell. But I’m not the kind of soulless son who dumps his mother in some shithole asylum.
The first thing I’d have to do was buy a gun. I’m a peaceful guy and have never carried a weapon. I set up a meeting with Alferes, an ex-cop I know from drinking at the Black Cat. They say he’s in a militia, but I don’t know about that.
“What do you want a gun for, tiger?”
“Nothing, really. Just to scare a guy.”
“Then scare him with your muscle, you’re ripped. Your arm’s thicker than my leg,” he said, and had me hold my arm next to his leg. It was nighttime and no one else was around, but I was worried someone would see us and think I was a homo paying Alferes for a blow job. In fact, his leg was short and skinny.
“I want it to be a helluva scare. Just seeing the piece pointing at his forehead will be enough to make him shit himself.”
“Then you won’t need any ammunition.”
“Yes, I will. If the guy sees the gun isn’t loaded I’ll look like an idiot.”
“Be careful,” said Alferes.
That Be careful echoed in my brain for some time, but I went ahead anyway. You can’t waste a chance at financial independence when it falls in your lap. Two nights later, in Nobel Square, I bought from Alferes a police.38, black, with its serial number filed off. Plus the ammo.
The next morning I started training. Doing it felt good. It was like something in a movie, when the criminals gear up for the big heist. Scientific, know what I mean?
I went to a vacant lot in the vicinity of Água Santa and took some potshots at old oil cans to improve my aim. And in my head I kept track of the information Veronique was providing me. I felt like Jason Bourne.
11
Mr. Mollusk, self-absorbed, full of himself, spent most of his time in the couple’s penthouse on Avenida Atlântica, sitting in front of his computer and investing his dough in the world’s stock markets. The cuckold made his living that way. Veronique said the money was the product of the sale of a chain of laundromats and a shoe factory that he had begrudgingly administered his entire life and got rid of some years ago. The Mollusk went out three times a week to walk along the oceanfront, accompanied by his male secretary and his chauffeur. But those walks were inconsistent. If it rained, or he woke up in a bad mood, he canceled the walk. He wasn’t a man of regular habits. There was only one thing that Mr. Mollusk always did the same way. At ten o’clock in the morning of the first Tuesday of each month, rain or shine, he would go to the São João Batista Cemetery, in Botafogo, and place flowers on his mother’s tomb. The old woman had died on a Tuesday, fifteen years earlier, and ever since then the nutcase visited her once a month. One detaiclass="underline" there inside the cemetery he insisted on going to the gravesite by himself.
With this information in mind, I began developing Veronique’s plan. She gave me a photo of the old man so I could recognize him, but even so she insisted I see the bag of bones in person. One day I loitered around a kiosk in Copa, drinking coconut water through a straw, and waited for the geezer to come by. Veronique alerted me by cell phone when he left the apartment and said he was wearing a navy-blue Adidas warm-up jacket. When the geriatric passed by, I stared at him to register his features. He was just another old guy like hundreds of others wandering around Copacabana drooling, and he didn’t even notice me. The secretary and the chauffeur were with him, a dark-haired man and a black dude dressed like a nurse.
I felt ready.
On Friday before the first Tuesday of the month, Veronique and I agreed to go a few days without contact, as a precaution. That weekend, before going to sleep, I spent a few minutes looking at the photo of Mr. Mollusk that Veronique had given me. Then I prayed.
12
It breaks my heart to see a guy putting flowers on his mother’s tomb because I think of my own mother, and thinking about her brings me down. Thinking that one day she’s going to die.
The sky was cloudy that day. Veronique had told me the cemetery is usually quiet on Tuesdays, and it was true. Mr. Mollusk arrived with his shuffling walk and set the flowers down. Then he kneeled, with difficulty, and began to pray. I snuck up behind him and said, “Rest easy, you’re going to meet her.”