Childhood of the Dead (24 page)

He felt strange, when in the street he met a woman with a shiny pocket book who also reminded him of Beth. He didn't want to think about her. He remembered what happened to Brown Sugar for having fallen for a woman. He remembered Pin's jokes and Encravado's motto:

“Women are only for fucking!”

At Deodoro's Square children were playing in the playground. The sun escaping through the branches of the ficus trees shone on the old men reading newspapers on the park benches; on the nursemaids pushing babies' carriages; on the young boy throwing a ball for the hairy dog to catch. In the side streets traffic was heavy, and he saw the boy afraid to go pick up a loose ball that had fallen in the midst of traffic.

Dito continued on in Palmeiras Street stopping next to men, who, shirtless, took out a VW engine from a car chassis, and spread their tools and car parts on the sidewalk. He squatted among them and was ready to be of service. Who knows if he wouldn't be able to get some money from that? The men took out the engine, examined the parts that weren't good, threw aside some rubber rings and cursed.

Dito began to think: they are going to need some parts and there are no stores close by. If they want to ask him to run those errands they will have to tip him. If they wanted something else, heavier work, they could ask. A sweaty and tense man asked him if he knew Arnaldo's shop.

“Over by the bakery.”

Dito nodded.

“Go there and bring me three washers of this type and rubber gaskets like these.”

He gathered the samples. His hand was immediately covered with grease, but he didn't mind. Crossing the street he put the bill they had given him in his pocket. At the store the salesman got little rubber gaskets and the washers from drawers filled with such things and patiently selected the ones needed and wrapped everything afterwards. Dito gave him the money but when the man gave him the change back Dito thought it might be easier if he could give him a receipt. The man didn't like that, but wrote him a receipt.

Dito went back hurriedly to the guys, gave them the package, the receipt and the change. The tense man found all correct and gave Dito a bill. He stayed around looking at their work, but got tired and decided to go back to the parking place to find Zé Ina'cio. His friend was happy to see him.

“How's it going, man?”

Dito smiled, looking at Zé Ina'cio's new cap and recognized the friend. The same freckles on his face, the same blond eyebrows and arms covered with gold colored hair.

“Hat told me you're doing well....”

“The man is fine. Once a week he shows up and we go to Santos. He does what he needs and I take care of the cars.”

“Is it good to drive a Mercedes?”

“It's great. You don't even want to drive another car.”

While Zé Ina'cio continued to talk about his employer, who was great, Dito thought of the similarities the man had with Crystal. He had also been kind; had looked as if he didn't mind spending money; and drove a car that felt like a feather mattress. The problem was that he only brought him, Dito, problems. Had he not been tough, he would been a goner. But he hoped Zé Ina'cio's guy was different. Zé Ina'cio deserved something good. But what he wanted to propose to his friend didn't really involve the way he made money. He had plans to do another job on a supermarket, and maybe Zé Ina'cio might be game. Dito didn't know how to broach it. Perhaps he should talk about it another time. Perhaps the following day. He didn't want to look hurried. And he knew that would please Zé Ina'cio.

They sat down on the curb, on the less busy side of the street. Zé Ina'cio got an American cigarette pack from his pocket and offered Dito one.

Dito smiled, taking his first draw.

“Wow! What a luxury!”

Zé Ina'cio smiled and continued to talk, this time about the woman the rich man would meet in Guaruja' whom he had seen a couple of times.

“Is she the one who drives the Ford?”

“No. That's his wife. I'm talking about his outside dessert. She's great!”

Zé Ina'cio paused, inhaling deeply and exhaling the smoke from his lungs slowly.

“Can you believe she's been putting the makes on me?”

Dito didn't say anything. He just looked at his friend.

“I went to deliver some packages the man sent her. And do you know how she received me? She had her bra and panties on. That's all.”

“Panties or a bikini?”

The two were quiet for a while, Zé Ina'cio with a distant look as if he were still remembering the woman.

“She must be about twenty-six, and she has everything in the right places, man.”

“The man dosn't need a helper?” Dito asked jokingly.

“I think he's getting fed up with me. I am gonna have her.”

A van arrived looking for parking. Zé Ina'cio stood up to tell him only sedans were permitted in the lot. The man didn't like that answer, but Hat showed up and confirmed the restriction. Dito continued seated, knowing that interruption wouldn't last long. The driver backed up and pulled away in a great fury.

Dito thought this might be a good moment to talk to Zé Ina'cio about his plans. His friend still showed a distant look, as if he thought of the woman in her undies.

“And what are you gonna offer her?” Dito wanted to know.

“That's the problem. With this shitty life, I can't even try with her.”

“She'll see you're small potatoes. If she lets you go to bed with her, it will only be a one shot deal,” Dito said.

“Yeah, it sucks!”

“If you were willing to be part of a job, you could have some dough to impress her.”

“What job?”

“To get the dough of a supermarket. On a day of great business.”

Zé Ina'cio smiled in disbelief.

“It's sure money, man.”

Zé Ina'cio wasn't convinced.

“Armadillo got mixed up with something like that... Fucked over... Got no money, got nothing. Nothing, man!”

Dito insisted.

“In Rio, we almost put our hands on a big score. I had the money all the time with me. We got screwed because one guy rushed.”

“What guy?”

“Mother's Scourge. At the time to get away with the car he freaked out.”

“So?”

“He fucked himself and we all went to jail.”

“Doesn't that always happen?”

Dito was upset with Zé Ina'cio's obstinacy.

“You need to try to get something. You think that woman will have anything to do with you knowing you are a scumbag?”

Zé Ina'cio looked as if he were seeing the woman again: thick thighs, flat belly, pink breasts. There was only a little pair of panties separating him from that body, covered with French perfume. When he paid attention to Dito he heard:

“Lots of money, man. I had a bunch of money in my hands. Luck was close to me. It will come back. I know our time is coming.”

“And how did this plan work in Rio?”

“I looked over a supermarket and studied the manager's office. Then, I just had to wait for the right opportunity.”

Zé Ina'cio got another cigarette out. Dito just thanked him.

“It's the only way to get our lives straight. Or we will always be among the lowest of the low. We'll end up like Hat. Looking at other people's cars coming and going from the parking lot, all our lives.

III

On a dark and rainy morning when Sao Paulo's streets lights were still on, Dito and Zé Ina'cio went to supermarket. Dito picked up a cart and pushed it through the aisles of canned goods and bottles. In a few moments, when they got to the deli counter, they discovered the manager's office was not there. That was something Dito had not counted on, but he didn't feel perturbed.

“Ask at the cash register how we can talk to the manager. Say it's the guy who came to talk about a job. The woman will tell you.”

He went about pushing his cart, putting a few things inside it, and following from afar Zé Ina'cio's approach to a young woman at the cash register, speaking with her, and then leaving the store. Dito realized Zé Ina'cio would be waiting for him on the outside, so he pushed the cart through the cash register, paid, and waited for the redheaded girl put his purchases in a bag.

“The manager's office is in that building,” Zé Ina'cio said, when they met.

They went into the building. Dito looked in the panel above the elevator, for the manager's floor. He couldn't find it. A man, behind the lobby's counter told him it was on the third floor. Dito told Zé Ina'cio to stay behind minding the grocery bag.

“I'm going, just to take a look.”

Dito went up the stairs, while Zé Ina'cio stayed at the door of the building watching cars passing by in the street. After Dito arrived on the third floor, he followed a long hallway with a counter and glass wall-divisions. He saw several young women typing and men busy with paperwork. A few people were making payments, while a bald man counted money next to a dark man with uncombed hair.

The office was large and Dito realized the job would be dangerous. He walked up to the bathrooms at the end of the hall and found another stairway, which he climbed up to the next floor. He was nicely surprised: it was there, and not on the third floor, that the money was kept. There was a security guard and a fat man counted piles of money, passing them to an older man with a black case. The fat man was protected by a screen and his compartment had a locked door. On his side there was a fan, which on this cool dark morning was not working.

Though he tried to absorb all the details on this floor, he was at a loss on how to proceed. He decided to go up another flight of stairs but soon realized that it was not part of the supermarket anymore. Doors with small signs indicated a floor devoted to small businesses and doctors' and dentists' offices. He returned to the bathroom on the fourth floor, noticed they were large and that their doors had keys. He took and kept them, after making sure they locked the doors. This was the first sign he had that things might work out. He went down the stairs to the ground level. Zé Ina'cio had been impatiently waiting for him; and as soon as they left the building, Dito began explaining the plan's possibilities to his friend.

“We'll make a drawing when we gwt to your parking lot,” Dito said.

“You think they keep the money there?”

“I saw the guy counting a pile of cash,” Dito explained.

“And what would be the best day?”

“Maybe Thursday?”

“Why Thursday?”

“I don't know,” Dito argued, “this we can decide later.”

“I think it a good idea to go back there again and again.

“That's what we'll do. But what I'm thinking of is how to get inside that office.”

“How, man? Are you crazy?”

Dito smiled. “The bunch of dough the fat man was counting would let us take a vacation for several years.”

Zé Ina'cio felt more attracted to the plan now. It was true he wouldn't amount to much by parking and washing cars. Dito was right about it. And since it was possible he might meet that woman again, how could he impress her if he didn't have any money? If the plan worked, it would be different. He would invite her to come to a hotel with him, and then she would know he had money, that he wasn't just a helpless case.

Dito began to scribble on a paper. He drew the stairway, and the bathroom doors. Then, he had an idea he thought was important:

“Depending on the time the office closes, we can wait for the attack in the bathroom.”

Zé Ina'cio didn't venture any opinion, for he had never been good at thinking.

“Another idea is for us to open one of the offices in the fifth floor, using a lockpick. We lock the people in the bathroom and then wait in an office, until the entire affair is over. Then we go to the top floor and jump to the neighbouring building.”

Dito wasn't sure whether the next building was built attached or separated from the manager's office building.

“Do you remember if they are next to each other?”

An imported car arrived at the parking lot. Hat stood up to give instructions to the driver, Zé Ina'cio kept looking at the car as his thoughts wandered from the new car, to the woman in panties, and to the supermarket adventure.

“While everyone is looking for us, we're gonna be only a few feet from the office.”

Zé Ina'cio smiled nervously. “It's very dangerous, man!”

“Oh, fuck it. Tell me something that's not dangerous.”

The driver got out of the car. Hat was being very nice to him and asked Zé Ina'cio to finish parking the car. Dito noticed his friends' pleasure in driving that car, as he moved it forward and backward. When he came back to sit down, Dito said:

“With your part in this job, you'll be able to buy two of those cars. You hide the dough for a couple of years and then let fly with it.”

Zé Ina'cio had other plans, closer to reality: “Not a car! If I get some real money, I'm buying an apartment for auntie.””Who is auntie?”

“The old woman who raised me. When I left her she cried a lot. Then I promised her that one day I would help her out.”

“And where does she live?”

“In a slum, close to Continental Park.”

Dito looked at his friend as if he had never known him. He envied him for having someone about whom he could worry. And he repeated the plan. Zé Ina'cio already knew how to behave, and got impatient.

“Don't get mad, man,” Dito warned, “we must know this in our sleep. Or they will catch us.”

“And the guns?”

“I'll get them.”

“Who will go in first?”

“I will,” Dito answered. “I'll get one of the women, put a gun to her head. You get the rest into the bathroom. Then we clean out the cashier. We let some bills fall in direction of the elevator and we return by the back stairs.”

Zé Ina'cio smiled. He seemed convinced of the plan's virtues.