City of God (59 page)

But it was also on the special bus that the teacher heard from a resident that the guy was called Slick, a dangerous criminal, and if she wanted she could show her his photo in the newspapers.

‘He might be your brother, but he's a Jerry, know what I'm sayin'? Forget this stuff about family, man! You've gotta get rid of 'im!' said Carrots to Fizzy-C, who was only thirteen years old.

‘I know, man! But I've gotta get 'im during the day, know what I'm sayin'? My mum's home at night.'

‘So let's do it now. If he's around, we'll get rid of 'im.'

‘You comin' too?'

‘Sure!'

They ran through the alleys as Carrots had planned, searched high and low and didn't bump into any enemies in the streets. To show he was faithful to Carrots, Fizzy-C himself suggested:

‘Let's go to my place. Maybe the bastard's sleepin'.'

And he was. He was woken with the barrel of a revolver at his neck and was taken outside. His only defence was to threaten his brother:

‘If mum finds out you killed me, she'll be really fuckin' angry with you!'

‘So fuckin' what! Who told you to join the Jerries?'

Alexander was taken to the river's edge and his own brother shot his ten-year-old body three times.

‘You gotta rustle up ten grand, OK? Ten thousand in two weeks to get me out of here. If you bring it Sunday, I'll be out the same day,' said Tiny six months after going to jail.

Black Stump did two hold-ups, Blubber and Israel did the same, they added what they'd stolen to the den's takings, and the following Sunday Tiny shook the guards' hands and left the prison with the other visitors.

Black Stump warned Tiny not to return to the
favela
, because although the police had reduced their patrols, the place was still risky. Tiny went to the house of the only friend he'd made in prison.

Israel went to the
favela
of SãoJosé to buy cocaine, because it had been two weeks since the supplier had paid him a visit. He was going to buy ten wraps to mix with boric acid, package it up in smaller amounts and sell it to the addicts. He parked his Brasília at the foot of the hill and climbed the steep stairs singing a popular samba. At the den, he found Tube chatting with one of the den's owners.

‘Hey, man, this kid's a dickhead. Don't talk to dickheads or you'll turn into one.'

‘Why am I a dickhead?'

‘ 'Cos you're a dickhead, OK? And if you talk too much, you'll bite the dust here and now!' said Israel reaching for his waistband.

Tube was quicker and fired just one shot into the middle of his forehead. Then he felt his waistband and realised Israel was unarmed.

‘The guy wasn't tooled up!'
‘What a dickhead!' said Tube's friend.

With a great deal of effort, the teacher convinced Slick to turn himself in. It was better than living a life of crime. She promised not to leave him and that her own father, who was a lawyer, would work to get him out of prison as soon as possible.

Slick had been feeling reborn ever since he'd fallen in love with the schoolteacher. In the routine of visits to his girlfriend's house, he'd begun to believe in the possibility of a future different to the life he'd led until then. The Saturday afternoon sessions at the cinema, followed by a cold beer and healthy conversation, had made him realise how simple life could be, although no less attractive. He had begun to see beauty in married life, dreamed of a future with her and imagined how nice it would be to grow old together, bringing up children and counting Christmases. In spite of the suffering a prison life would bring, he turned himself in to the Thirty-Second District Police Station.

Tried and sentenced, he went to do time in Sector B of Lemos de Brito Prison, where he had several enemies. They didn't say a word to him and left him alone the first time they were let into the courtyard to take some sun. The second time they stabbed him in the stomach forty times.

Right after Israel's death, the Empty Pockets attacked The Flats four times in a row. The fourth time, they arrived shooting at everything in sight and established themselves as top dogs in the area. They'd killed Black Stump, Tiny's last henchman, and the only reason they didn't kill Blubber and Otávio was because they'd both fled the
favela
. However, the pawns who'd given up crime during the police crackdown, and who thought they wouldn't be harassed by the Empty Pockets because they hadn't
given them a hard time in Tiny's day, were mistaken. The Empty Pockets told everyone that they weren't going to kill anyone, but the pawns were killed one by one, and whenever one of them was found dead, they invented lies to justify the murder so the others wouldn't leave the area. Even those who had never been on the wrong side of the law were killed because they'd argued or fought with one of them.

Rapes and muggings gathered new momentum. The cool guys were also being harassed, even though they hadn't been involved in the war, but there were no casualties among them. The dens in The Flats began to lose custom because the Empty Pockets didn't know any other suppliers and those who had dealt with Tiny disappeared when they didn't get paid.

Carrots was under constant attack from Messiah's gang, the Block Thirteen gang and the police, and he lost five men in less than a week. With no alternative, he took his den's takings, rented a shack in the Baixada Fluminense region and left Mousetrap in control of drug sales. He claimed that the police wouldn't rest until they'd caught him.

‘Tell everyone I've gone clean … Tell' em I' m a sucker now and I'm drivin' taxis, OK? We'll split the den's takings fifty-fifty, right?'

Mousetrap was happy. Now he was in charge of the den on Block Fifteen. Even though he had to fight off two gangs with only a few men, the power was seriously exciting.

With the poor management of the den in The Flats, the ongoing war Up Top and the difficult access to Leaky Tap's den, the Block Thirteen gang was now selling more drugs than anyone else. My Man and Earthquake took to drinking only soft drinks, because water was for the poor.

The gang grew, while the attacks Up Top became fewer and
farther between. They'd wait until they'd all killed one another, then try to take over the dens in that area.

‘
K
plus
i
is ki, plus
t
is k-i-t, kite. Fuck! It's kite!' said Tiny, spelling it out next to his new friend's wife in Realengo.

The same week he got out of prison, Tiny spent time with the pals of his new friend from prison. He went on hold-ups with them fifteen days in a row. His cunning in the hold-ups and the shrewdness he demonstrated when they took the dens in Realengo earned him the position of second-in-command: he earned forty per cent on the sale of the drugs. Now he was realising the dream he'd nourished in jail, because he always had to ask someone to read out the letters he received and that could be dangerous; someone might find something out about him. He already knew how to sign his name, and if he managed to track down that lawyer, Violeta, who could solve any problem, he could have an ID card and a cheque book, something he'd always dreamed of.

One Friday, a pawn brought the news that the Empty Pockets had splintered and were at war. Highwayman didn't want to share the command with Tube and they were fighting that very moment. This first battle went on for three days. The police, who had been more concerned with the war between Messiah and Mousetrap, once again stepped up their activities in The Flats and killed four Empty Pockets in ten days.

One Saturday morning, five Empty Pockets showed up in Block Thirteen looking for Butterfly and Tiger. They wanted Block Thirteen to help them take The Flats.

‘Is it just you guys?'

‘Yeah, man. The others've split … But we're here to join you all!'

‘Then what?' asked Tiger.

‘You guys keep the dens in Block Seven and Red Hill and we keep the ones in the shops and the Old Flats.'

‘It don't work like that, man! The dens are all gonna be ours, but you can join us!'

‘OK!'

‘So you're with us then! I'll rustle up a house for you guys to crash in!'

‘Hey, we know where they're stayin'. Where they meet … It'll be easy!'

‘How many of them are there?'

‘Eight.'

Up Top, the war was practically over, Messiah's men had killed most of their opponents, Mousetrap had been arrested and the rest had managed to flee the
favela
. The residents of the New Short-Stay Houses were thankful the saga had come to an end, because Messiah and his men had made holes in the dividing walls of their tiny houses to escape from their enemies and the police. They entered the houses at any hour of the day or night, went through the holes and left again, far from their pursuers.

To take the dens in The Flats, the Block Thirteen gang divided up into groups often, who took different routes in. The fighting lasted two days. In this battle eight Empty Pockets, two gangsters from Block Thirteen and a police officer were killed, and several more were shot.

Although they were greatly outnumbered, the Empty Pockets didn't run, and fought to the death.

Messiah sent a message to Butterfly and Tiger saying that if they didn't attack Up Top, his gang wouldn't raid Block
Thirteen, and if Carrots showed up, they'd kill him themselves.

‘Agreed!' said Butterfly to Messiah's errand boy.

Peace reigned once again, and the only man who, for a time, continued to kill those who stole, mugged or raped in the
favela
was Otávio, who put thirty bodies in a single hole, and when he didn't kill them, chopped off their hands with an axe. Then, out of the blue, he became a Protestant and started preaching near the dens, saying he'd committed those murders because he'd been possessed by the Devil. The gangsters left him in peace because they always left the evangelists alone. He was arrested one night on his way home from church and spent two years in jail. After he was released, he got married and had children. Every Sunday, he visited prisons to try to convert the inmates. The police didn't believe he'd converted, however, and when they saw him they beat him up, even in front of his wife and children.

One day Otávio tore up his Bible, burned the suit he wore to church and went to the den to ask Butterfly for a pistol just to kill policemen with.

Jackfruit, Orange and Acerola, now married, still got together to smoke a joint and remember the old days. Their meetings had been rare during the war.

Old Teresa went back to working as a domestic for rich housewives, but only to keep herself occupied, since she no longer needed the work. Her eldest daughter had married a Canadian, who had taken her to Canada, and every month she sent her mother a decent sum of money.

* * *

After several years of fighting for rights on the Residents' Association, Rocket got married and moved house. He managed to establish himself as a photographer, and returned to the
favela
from time to time to visit his mother and friends.

Leaky Tap was caught during a bank robbery in Copacabana and his assistants gave up dealing. Some time later, Leaky Tap's den became the headquarters for a new gang, whose bosses were Carrots' cousins. Carrots started frequenting the
favela
again and fighting the villains Up Top, but was arrested early on in the conflict.

One rainy Christmas Eve in Blonde Square, thirty men got out of several taxis, all armed with machine guns. Only Tiny was carrying a pistol. Fat, wearing linen pants and a silk shirt, he told his men which path to take. They arrived at Block Thirteen, where there were no lookouts on duty because it was Christmas and the gangsters always started drinking early on such dates. He searched high and low until he found Butterfly, who tried to run, thinking Tiny's men were policemen.

‘We've come to talk … It's me, man, Tiny!'

Butterfly stopped behind a wall, recognising his voice.

‘Here's the story, OK? I want The Flats back because that area's mine!'

‘Sure, OK!'

‘When you guys wanted to keep this den, I didn't say nothin', right? We fought side by side and there was never any back-stabbin'. Bicky was the only one who tried somethin' smart, but that was it, right?'

‘We only took The Flats 'cos the Empty Pockets were givin' everyone a hard time, yeah? Go ahead and take it – just let us sell the merchandise we've got there and we'll be out.'

After they had talked, they drank from the same glass, Tiger
fired shots into the air, they snorted coke, drank wine, whisky and beer, and Tiny left, certain that he'd return for good on December 31st.

Tiny's sense of self-importance was renewed and he had plans to be the boss of City of God once more. To this end, he and his friends from Realengo had already planned a surprise attack on Block Thirteen in the very first week of his new reign in The Flats. Then they'd attack Up Top. He believed everyone there was afraid of him, because he'd always been mean – that was the best way a gangster could be respected. For Tiny, there was no peace or remorse, he never did anything he couldn't get something out of later, and he rubbed every good deed in the face of the person he'd done it for, because he suffered when it wasn't returned, thus destroying everything that didn't feature in his cruel understanding of the world, of life, of relationships. He had the ability to bring out violence in anyone and multiply it at will. He talked to himself in the corners of the living room, the bedroom, in prison and at liberty, and anything he perceived as aggression towards him was returned in the guise of death. He was lord of his own disillusion, and it was his evil fate to be unable to forgive, to annihilate everything his villainous mind was unable to grasp, to invent what others hadn't done to justify his own cruelty. He was vermin born under the sign of Gemini.