“The Tchigorin defense jeopardizes the queen, something I never do,” I continued. “Everything’s wrong, the idiotic lyrics of the national anthem, our positivist flag without the color red—what good is the green of our forests and the yellow of our gold without the blood of our veins?”
“It’s scandalous,” the barber said.
While the barber talked about the cost of living, I read the paper. Márcio Amaral, also known as Márcio the Suzuki, had been found dead in his apartment in the Fátima section. One bullet in the head. In his right hand was a .38 Taurus revolver with one spent cartridge in the cylinder. The police suspected homicide. Márcio the Suzuki was said to be involved in the drug trade in the city’s South Zone.
“I don’t care any more. Screw them all, that bastard of a senator and his ice queen daughter, the pale shadow, the dead secretary and her gabby parents, the biker, Guedes—they can all go to hell. I’ve had it.”
The barber looked at me uneasily.
There was a note for me in my apartment: Where have you been hiding? Are you crazy? Wexler wants to talk to you, urgently. I’m at the store. Call me. I love you. I miss you like mad. Berta.
I still liked Berta, but my heart no longer beat faster when I heard her voice or read her messages. Berta had become the perfect person to marry, when I was old and decrepit.
I called Berta, set up a meeting for that night. What else could I do? I dialed Wexler.
“I thought Pacheco had you,” Wexler said. “Raul is looking for you. Says it’s important.”
Raul’s telephone rang and rang and rang. He answered just as I was about to hang up.
“I was in the bathroom. Guedes really wanted to talk to you. Stop by Homicide,” he said.
I told Raul about Pacheco’s threats. Raul said to be careful.
At Homicide, Guedes saw me right away.
“I’ll play straight with you,” he said. “Read this.”
The handwriting was rounded, the dots over the i’s little circles. Rodolfo, don’t think you can treat me like this, like an object you use and then throw away. I feel like doing crazy things, having a talk with your wife, raising a scandal in the company, going public in the newspapers. You have no idea what I’m capable of. I don’t want an apartment anymore, you can’t buy me the way you do everybody else. You’re the man of my life, I never had another, I didn’t want to and I still don’t. You’ve been avoiding me, and that’s no way to end a relationship like ours. I want to see you. Call me, right away. I’m really out of my head and nervous. I might do anything. Marly.
“Well?” Guedes said.
“Well what?”
“You have any ideas?”
“What idea could I have?”
“What do you make of the letter?”
“Has the handwriting been analyzed?”
“No, but I’m sure it’s Marly Moreira’s. Know where the letter was found? On one Márcio Amaral, commonly known as Márcio the Suzuki. The person who killed Márcio searched the room, possibly looking for the letter, but forgot to look in the victim’s pockets. That’s where the letter was.”
“An amateur,” I said.
“A real amateur. They tried to fake a suicide without knowing the tricks. No sign of gunpowder on Márcio’s fingers, the bullet’s path was downward; lots of mistakes. The killer was standing, and the victim was seated. I think I know who the murderer is. An important man.”
“Be careful. Important men can buy everybody.”
“Not everybody’s for sale,” Guedes said. He could have said he was incorruptible, but the ones who really aren’t for sale, like him, don’t brag about it.
“Senator Rodolfo Cavalcante Meier killed Marly,” Guedes went on. “Márcio, we don’t know how, got hold of the letter and started blackmailing the senator. To cover up the first crime, the senator committed a second one, killing Márcio.”
I was looking at a decent man doing his job with dedication and intelligence. I felt like telling everything I knew, but I couldn’t. Cavalcante Meier wasn’t even my client, he was a disgusting millionaire and maybe a vile murderer as well, but even so I couldn’t turn him in. My job is to get people out of the grasp of the police; I just can’t bring myself to do the opposite.
“Well?” Guedes asked.
“The senator wouldn’t have to kill anyone himself. He’d find somebody to do the job for him,” I said.
“We’re not in his home state,” Guedes said.
“We also have hit men here who’ll kill for next to nothing.”
“But they can’t be trusted. The police get hold of them, rough them up a bit, and they spill their guts. They’re not mafiosi working under some code of silence,” Guedes said. “Besides, you agreed that both crimes were the work of an amateur.”
I repeated that I knew nothing about the crimes and that my opinion was off the top of my head.
“Raul said you could help,” Guedes said, disappointed, as I left.
I set up the chessboard and put a bottle of Faísca in the ice bucket.
“I don’t feel like playing chess or drinking wine,” Berta said.
“What is it, honey?” I asked, knowing only too well.
“The only way I’ll stay with you is if you give up that girl.”
“There’s nothing between us. How can I give up what doesn’t exist?”
“You care about her, that exists. I want you to stop caring about her. You once told me you only care about those who care about you, that you only care about those you love. I want you to care only about me. Otherwise, good-bye, no more chess games, no balling any time you feel the urge, no wine binges. I hate wine, you idiot—I drink it because of you. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.”
“What about chess?”
“Chess I like,” Berta said, wiping her tears. Berta was a protagonist in my life, instead of her own.
I promised to make an effort to forget Eve. I let her beat me using the Blemenfeld countergambit. To tell the truth, she’d have won anyway, since the whole time I was asking myself how Marly Moreira’s letter had fallen into the hands of Márcio the Suzuki. P-Q4, N-KB3. Cavalcante Meier would surely have kept it in a safe place. N-KB3, BP-Q3. Why didn’t he destroy it? Maybe he never received it, maybe someone intercepted it. P-B4, P-B4. In that case it had to be someone in his house, assuming the letter was sent to his house; it might have gone to his office. I had a hunch it was the house. The butler? I laughed. P-Q5, P-QN4. “You’re laughing, are you?” Berta said, “In a few minutes you’ll see.” PXKP, BPXP. It was Berta’s turn to laugh. Someone in security, or the wife, whom I’d never seen, or the daughter, or the niece. As Raul said, you have to suspect even your own mother. PXP, P-Q4. “Mate!” Berta said.
“B.B.,” I said, “not even Alekhine could have played so brilliantly.”
“You just played badly,” Berta said.
I was willing to forget Eve, as I had promised Berta, but when I got to Cavalcante Meier’s house it was Eve who opened the door, and my enthusiasm returned. I had first gone to his office, where they told me the senator was at home, sick. I had a newspaper in my hand with a story about the death of Marly Moreira. The case was back on page one. Ballistics had proved that Márcio the Suzuki was shot with the same gun that killed Marly. Detective Guedes had said in an interview that a big name was involved and that the police were close to arresting him, whatever the consequences. There was also talk of drug dealing.
“I want to speak with your father.”
“He can’t see anyone.”
“It’s in his interest. Tell him the police have the letter. Just that.”
She looked at me with her impassive doll’s face. Her healthy skin had the appearance of porcelain, rosy cheeks, red lips, bright blue eyes, a luxuriant growing thing in the prime of life. She was like a color slide projected in the air.