Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 03/01/11 (31 page)
Read Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 03/01/11 Online
Authors: Dell Magazines
I swallowed and said, as if I had free will left, “Yes, it’s probably better. We used to . . . date.” I suppose buying takeout tacos and leaving panties in someone’s Suburban counted as dating, but the word was ridiculous. He never bought me flowers, or introduced me to anyone, and he was miles away from the kind of guy I’d like in my “real” life, even though real life was becoming as misty and distant as my memories of childhood summer camp. I held on to it; in the wake of my failed life of crime, it could be all I had.
I plastered some semblance of an expression on my face and actually ran my fingers through my hair. Habit, more than anything.
“Hey, saw that there was a light still on.” What Jon lacked in conversation, he made up for in attention to rent-a-cop detail. It had its advantages, but I said, “You noticed that from across the street?” and felt my voice quiver.
“Oh, no,” he said, and smiled my favorite goofy smile, as if I were a prom queen with whom he was hoping to score. “I was in the neighborhood. Empanadas.” And he held up a white bakery bag on which I was forced to imagine lashings of grease.
Speaking of imaginings, I wanted Jon to be more William Douglas, less Barney Fife. I took the bag, because not doing it would have gotten his attention instantly. I stepped in close, willing him to be a television detective and smell my fear.
I settled on one last red flag that the bandit wouldn’t spot as a red flag. I cooed, “You’re terrible,” and kissed Jon hard, in a way I wouldn’t when we both had our clothes on. It might have raised my antennae if I were in his place, but I’d forgotten how much men’s lessons about life were different from mine. He probably thought this was more a sign of order retained than disrupted. I bitched him out (girlishly) for not waiting for my call and, in a shocky, dispassionate way, wondered if he would be the last person to talk to me alive. I found some fake cheer, told Jon inventory had run long, and he left, tasting my desperation-fueled kiss on his lips along with the starchy pastry. He was sweet, but he wasn’t a hero.
The bandit led us back to the storeroom and tied us back to back. Unless it was my imagination, it seemed there was more slack this time; it had probably been a long night for him as well. “I’m going for it,” Lola whispered.
“Don’t flatter yourself. He’d probably do anything to stay out of prison.”
“Not like that. God. What do you think I am?”
Here’s an elementary etiquette fact: The moment when a coworker offers to do something crazy-dangerous to disarm a robber is not the moment to reveal you think of her as a lazy whore. Even if I hadn’t left some high-road on the floor mats of a certain Suburban. “I’m getting out, or getting the gun. Or something.”
“Can I help?” I asked, moved. I had been so wrong about Lola . . . maybe there was really a giving soul in there, with a higher purpose. My eyes were wet.
“Don’t take this wrong, but you’re, like, better at talking than fighting.”
She wasn’t sweet, but she was a hero. She sprang to life faster than I might have predicted, if I’d been laying bets instead of sitting around with my heart in my mouth. She was no Michelle Yeoh, but the bandit did grunt as she kneed him in the groin. The struggle took a brief turn for the hand-to-hand and ancient atlases hit the floor with explosive bangs. I tried to tell myself that’s what the smaller, more automotive pop was, too, but I knew it wasn’t.
The bandit held his head in his hands. “What have I done?” he moaned, as Lola’s dressy outfit became spattered with blood. By the time he let me see to Lola, or think of 911, it was too late. I knew that much from my big high-school “Be a writing doctor” phase. It never amounted to anything because I suck at math in an epic fashion, but I could figure out one equation: Bleeding + time away from doctors = death. I did what I could, but first-aid class seemed far away and the bandit seemed to have folded in upon himself. We both turned from her body without saying anything. I cleaned myself up and took the
Falcon
, at last. He seemed to head for the men’s room, but I can’t be sure. I went to the back to play victim, my spoils in my sweater.
I picture the bandit slipping out the unscreened window like fate, but I never found out for sure, and my paper-white complexion and unwillingness to speak for a week discouraged many questions. If it hadn’t been so traumatic, being close to death could have been the best thing that ever happened to me. My brief encounter with death had suddenly made my articles and stories worth reading, so I told my father the truth when I said that a “new opportunity” would mean that I wouldn’t be at the store for much longer. “Besides,” I moaned, playing the girlie card I’d resisted and squeezing out a snuffle, “anything might have happened to me in there.” Which of course, it had. My work nemesis was now dead after saving my life. But usually, when I mentioned
anything
happening, it involved body parts my father wasn’t comfortable with below my neck.
True to form, he patted my shoulder awkwardly and offered me a napkin to dry my fake tears on. We walked through the place, both determined not to mention the imperfectly lifted stains. “I was always planning to replace that carpet anyway,” he told me and I nodded, trying hard to focus on something in the store so I didn’t see the flecks of blood from my futile and ill-informed attempts to save Lola’s life. Everything left in the store now was too heavy for a bandit to make off with, like heavy oak furniture, or kitsch, like a first-edition Operation game from 1965. As we walked through the section Dad still gamely called mine, I felt almost as if I could lock eyes with the red-nosed Operation character in a “Can you believe this shit?” eye-roll.
We approached “my” bookshelves.
Joy of Cooking
was still there, as were Bennett Cerf and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. “He didn’t take much out of here.” My father sounded half relieved, half rueful. “Except the obvious . . . God, that newspaper feature on the
Falcon
was a big mistake.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I assured him. “It will give you proof with the insurance company. Besides, criminals don’t read.”
I couldn’t read his face for a moment and almost feared my jig was up. “Is that more hippie stuff they taught you at college?”
I sighed and acted like I had to let the archaic insult roll off my back and nodded. “You’d be shocked how many felons didn’t learn how to read by third grade.”
I knew I was safe when he said, “Huh,” the same one-syllable grunt he used for sad inner-city documentaries and foreign food. It said, “I don’t want to absorb this. Change the channel.”
I never thought that sound would protect me, but it has. My last day at the store is Friday . . . it’ll be awhile longer until I can sell my literary treasure, but until then, there’s always Go Fug Yourself.
Copyright © 2011 by Erika Jahneke
PASSPORT TO CRIME
by Patrécia Melo
Brazilian writer Patrícia Melo is the author of eight novels, five of which have appeared in English translation. The Killer, a bestseller in Brazil, was made into the 2003 film The Man of the Year,...
Fly Me to the Moon
by Patrécia Melo
Brazilian writer Patrícia Melo is the author of eight novels, five of which have appeared in English translation.
The Killer,
a bestseller in Brazil, was made into the 2003 film
The Man of the
Year,
directed by José Henrique Fonseca. In 1999,
Time
magazine listed Ms. Melo as one of the fifty Latin American leaders of the new millennium. Her novels have also been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Greek, Finnish, and Chinese. This is her first work of short fiction published in English.
Translated from the Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers
“A malfunction of the neurotransmitter system, that’s basically what it is,” he told me. I didn’t under stand but I felt relieved. I avoided doctors. I thought the countdown was already under way. The inexorable one. The inevitable one. Death, in a word. I was sure the problem was with my heart, that I would suddenly be turned off. He explained it to me as if I were an imbecile, stressing syllables: PsychoLOGical disORDer, VIRTually incaPACitating, what we call an anxIETY atTACK. “Is it fatal?” I asked. He said no. He was going to prescribe an antidepressant and psychotherapy. Medicine maybe, but psychobabble never. Anxiety attack. That was a crock of crap.
I was burned out. I’d long since lost interest in work. I went into the Department of Criminal Investigation building; the line for the elevator was huge. I walked up six flights; in the hall I ran into Rubinho with a three-by-four photo of the Lapa rapist and the artist’s impression he’d done two months before: “Looks just like him, doesn’t it?” I didn’t answer. I was irritated, had a bad headache. The doctor said it’d be like this in the period between crises. It was normal. Anxiety attacks. How could anybody believe that story? Really, I preferred leukemia.
I went into my office. An envelope was on the desk, with a note attached to it: “Take a look at this. Paulo.” It’s nice to be the boss: Take a look at this and get rid of the problem for me. I opened the envelope. Some photos, a couple of newspaper clippings.
“Teacher found dead in bathtub,” said the headline of the first article. “Lucia Basconte, 32, drowned in a bathtub at the Hotel Miranda where she was spending her honeymoon.” Accidental drowning. Photos. Lucia Basconte in the tub. Dead. How did they manage to get so many photos? Lucia Basconte at the beach, hands on hips. Lucia Basconte at a school party, long hair, children. Lucia Basconte in a passport shot. I’m quick in the emotional area, Lucia Basconte. I locked onto you. Like that. Immediately. I know just from seeing the photos. I could have loved you. I could have married you. We’d have dinner together tonight. Not tonight, tomorrow. I have a shift tonight.
It’s funny what a calling women have for unhappiness. Soraya, for example. She can’t bring herself to admit that I’m a piece of crap. I do everything wrong, cheat on her, lie to her, treat her badly, ignore her—and she loves me. If you had married me, Lucia Basconte, that wouldn’t have happened.
I brushed against the coffee cup and wet the second clipping. Damn. I could still read it. It was from a paper in Rio. “Honeymoon ends in tragedy,” said the headline. The story was exactly the same. Newlywed drowns in bathtub at honeymoon hotel while her husband is out. Rigorously identical details. Only the name changed. Victim: Eleonora Mendes Brandão. Husband: Nelson Brandão.
Lucia Basconte, I’ve been lead detective in the Homicide division for fifteen years and I’m going to tell you something: You and Eleonora died of blind love. You were killed by the same man. Starting today, he and I are playing chess.
“No, Soraya, I’m on duty tonight. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I put a photo of Lucia Basconte in my pocket, called Tonho and asked for a car. We’re on our way to investigate at the Hotel Miranda, near the Copan Cinema, where you died, Lucia Basconte; the place where your killer was. I’m tired of being a detective, love. Promotion parties. Confiscated-weapons exhibits. Homicide killed my faith. I’ve had these people up to my eyebrows. I was even going to take some time off. Good thing you came along.
The woman who owns the Hotel Miranda thinks she’s a blonde, with that Barbie hairdo of hers. I feel sorry for women who age like that. We went up to the place where you were murdered, Lucia Basconte. It
was
murder, of course. Nobody could drown in a teacup like that, Lucia Basconte! “I have a fabulous memory. She did nothing but cry, the poor thing. That was no honeymoon. It was martyrdom. The two of them fought a lot, and one of the times it was because of the bathtub. Not that I was eavesdropping. I don’t do that kind of thing. But he yelled, that man. That murderer. That monster. That criminal. You can imagine how I felt when I opened the newspaper and saw the poor woman had drowned. A horrible thing. I clearly remember his face. Bald, a real unattractive guy. I’d recognize him if I saw him.”
It was only noon and I’d already had half a dozen cups of espresso with sweetener. Soraya had called again, I don’t know for what. She knew I was on duty. The report on Lucia Basconte was already on my desk. I read and reread the death certificate five hundred times—natural death, they said. I phoned the pathologist who did the autopsy. He told me, love. He told me there were no marks on the body, no lesions, no hematomas, no sign of a struggle, nothing of that sort, Lucia Basconte. Very strange. So how did he kill you, love?
“Hamilton on line one.”
“Tonho told me about the Lucia Basconte case,” he said.
“And?”
“And it made me think of the story my crazy sister-in-law told me some time ago. She runs a small hotel in Mooca. A guy shows up there one day wanting to rent a room. He doesn’t ask about the price, whether it had a minibar, air conditioning, nothing, he just wants to see the bathtub. She shows him. Then the guy climbs into the tub, clothes and all. My sister-in-law thought he was nuts and didn’t rent him the room. Whaddya make of it?”
Eight A.M., I was going home. I began feeling pains in my chest. Panic syndrome, whatever; it was a heart attack, I was going to die. I got out of the car and asked to be taken to the emergency room, fast. Sweating. Our Father, etc. Hail Mary, etc. Tremors. God. I only believe in God when I think I’m about to die. I only believe in God when I get onto an airplane. God, I’m dying. Ten, God, nine, eight, seven, six. Emergency room. Zero. It was over. Nothing. Zero. No trace of the crisis. Zero. I didn’t look at the doctor; I had screamed at the nurses who took care of me.
“I think it’d be advisable for you to see a therapist. The attack is just that, a sensation of imminent death.” I thanked him and left the hospital, devastated. Lucia Basconte, don’t summon me again. I don’t want it.
I opened the door and saw Soraya asleep on the sofa. She always manages to get in, she must have some deal with the doorman. I lay down beside her. We intertwined and had sex for over an hour. She lit a cigarette and took a book from her handbag. Soraya is a college student, twenty-four years old. She read:
“A: Did I ever leave you? B: You let me leave.”
She thought of herself as B and of me as A. I buried my face in her hair and went to sleep. Lucia Basconte, with you it would be different, I feel it.
I woke up ten hours later. Soraya was crying beside me. Every time I see that scene I remember Meryl Streep, the worst actress I’ve ever seen. All crying women are alike. Meryl Streep. Soraya showed me the photo of Lucia Basconte that she’d found in my pocket. “Who is this woman?”
“My lover,” I confessed. “Soraya, I always wanted to spare you, but now that you’ve found out, screw it.”
She slammed the door. I heard Meryl Streep crying in the hallway, waiting for the elevator to come. Do you remember, Lucia Basconte, what I told you about women?
Later, at Homicide, I received a phone call from one Maurício Fraga.
“I work in the legal department of Delta Insurance,” he said, “and I learned that you’re investigating the death of Lucia Basconte.”
There are just two kinds of murder: the interesting and the contemptible. My opponent was involved in both, Lucia Basconte. His execution was flawless, but his trail smelled to high heaven. A huge insurance policy taken out only hours before your death, love. Lucia Basconte, a woman in love is a stack of foolishness. You. Eleonora. Soraya. Three fools.
I should have done it earlier, but overcoming inertia was something beyond my strength. I called Renato, the great Renato, chief of the 2nd Precinct in Rio, where the inquiry into the death of Eleonora Mendes Brandão began. I asked for information about the case.
I can’t swim in the ocean. I can’t travel in planes. I can’t go on boats. Or hang gliders, jet skis, or shantytown raids. Fights, amorous arguments, crowded elevators. All forbidden. Stress triggers the attack. It occasions discharges of adrenaline in the body. The certainty of death is a great illusion. You’re condemned, but at the moment of execution it does no good. There are no warnings like with epilepsy, the auras that announce an attack. In the bathroom, at the lunch stand, crossing the street. Suddenly you realize the abyss that’s opening beneath your feet. No one’s sure, but the affected region of the brain may be the locus coeruleus. That’s why the increasing doses of Anafranil. I’m one of the two percent of the population with panic syndrome. “Why?” “No one knows,” the doctor said. Doctors are the most ignorant people I’ve ever met. Panic syndrome. Because of it, I was avoiding being by myself. It’s horrible when even an Uzi can’t protect us. I phoned and left a message on the answering machine: “Soraya, even killers have the right to lie.”
On Friday, as I was leaving, the report arrived from Rio. I bought pizza, Coca-Cola, and cigarettes and went home. It was going to be an awful weekend.
I opened the stack of papers (I thought of you, Soraya). Six years ago, Nelson Brandão arrived at the Hotel Calamar in Copacabana. He had recently married Eleonora Mendes, 30. The husband insisted on a suite with a bathtub. A large bathtub. (The phone rang. I answered and they hung up. It was Soraya, I’m sure of it. A good sign.) The next day, the couple left to visit the Christ statue on Corcovado. Christ the Redeemer. They returned at the end of the afternoon. Eleonora went to take a bath. In the tub. A good tub. (Was Soraya going to call again? 9:15.) The husband went out briefly to buy aspirin. When he got back, he found his wife dead in the bathtub, the cunning bastard. (Soraya, stealing my thoughts away to her hot triangle.) He didn’t say anything else, nor was he asked. Read, recorded, and signed by the constituted authority, my great old friend in Rio, Renato, who loves São Paulo only because of Dada, that luscious dark-skinned beauty who engages in explicit sex at a nightclub there.
Eleonora wasn’t beautiful like you, Lucia Basconte. She had blue eyes. She was a secretary. She met her husband at a pizzeria, on a Sunday. One day before the wedding, Eleonora, like you, Lucia Basconte, took out a life insurance policy, and guess who was the sole beneficiary?
When I was almost asleep, Tonho called.
“I’ve got the guy’s rap sheet in my hand,” he said. “His name’s not Ernesto or Nelson. It’s Gilberto Santos. Seems the son of a bitch’s business is to dupe ugly women. He specialized in it. There’s three more in line, just small stuff.”
“Any witnesses?”
“That’s the problem. None.”
Monday, the Department of Criminal Investigations. I arrived dying for some coffee. It’s incredible, but there’s no bar near the Department that sells espresso. There wasn’t a line for the elevator. The door closed and I was surrounded by detectives, poor people, murderers, lawyers, mothers, brothers, damn, I want out. I began to sweat. Lucia Basconte wants to see me immediately. I don’t want to die. I want beaches. I want to leave Homicide. I want to sleep. I want money. I want gentle people. I want nice smells. I want to visit my mother. I want the sea. I want sex. I want vodka. I want God. I was learning to control myself. I didn’t faint, it just got darker. When I opened my eyes, I saw Tonho fanning me. “They’re saying you’re pregnant, sir.” I called my doctor: “Did you go see that psychotherapist I recommended to you?”
I got an audience with Judge Edevaldo Fontoura. I spoke of the double identity of the husband, Ernesto Basconte and Nelson Brandão. Lucia Basconte, you don’t know how good it feels when you get a bench warrant for the arrest of a homicide suspect.
I always say my profession is to play chess with murderers. The trap was ready, Lucia Basconte. Now I’m going to tell you about my encounter with your ex-husband, at the Delta Insurance Company office door.
“Homicide Division. You’re under arrest. Checkmate.”
He looked at me as if he were better than me. Please explain to me, Lucia Basconte, why the best women always end up with the scum? Did you love that traitor? How did you marry that guy?
Lucia Basconte, your husband is in jail. My time is short: I have just five days to prove he’s the killer. Five days. After that, he walks. That’s the way our justice system works.