Winning the Game and Other Stories

the game of dead men

THEY WOULD MEET EVERY NIGHT in Anísio’s bar. Marinho, who owned the largest pharmacy in town, Fernando and Gonçalves, partners in a grocery store, and Anísio. None of them was a native of the city or even of the Baixada. Anísio and Fernando were from Minas Gerais and Marinho from Ceará. Gonçalves had come from Portugal. They were small-businessmen, prosperous and ambitious. They owned modest summer homes in the same development in the lake region, belonged to the Lions, went to church, lived a quiet life. They also had in common a strong interest in all forms of gambling. They would bet, among themselves, on card games, soccer, horse races, car races, beauty contests, anything with an element of chance. They bet big, but they usually wouldn’t lose much money, since a losing streak was normally followed by a string of wins. In the last few months, however, Anísio, the owner of the bar, had been losing steadily.

They were playing cards and drinking beer the night the game of Dead Men was invented. Anísio invented the game.

“I bet the squad kills over 20 this month,” he said.

Fernando observed that “over 20” was very vague.

“I bet the squad kills 21 this month,” Anísio said.

“Just here in the city or in the whole Baixada?” Gonçalves asked. Despite being in Brazil for many years he still had a strong accent.

“A thousand that the squad kills 21 this month, here in Meriti,” Anísio insisted.

“I bet they kill 69,” Gonçalves said, laughing.

“I think that’s a lot,” Marinho said.

“I’m joking,” Gonçalves said.

“Joking my ass,” said Anísio, forcefully throwing a card on the table. “What’s said is said, and it’s just too bad for anybody who talks nonsense. I’m sick of losing out that way.”

It was true.

“Did you hear the one about the Portuguese guy and sixty-nining?” Anísio asked. “They had to explain to him what sixty-nining was; he was horrified and said, ‘God that’s sickening. I wouldn’t do that even with my dear mother.’”

Everyone laughed but Gonçalves.

“You know, this is a good game,” Fernando said. “A thousand says the squad kills a dozen. Hey, Anísio, how about some cheese to go with the beer. And some of that salami.”

“Write it down there,” Anísio told Marinho, who noted the bets in a book with a green cover, “plus a thousand more that out of my 21, 10 are mulattos, 8 are black, and 2 are white.”

“Who decides who’s white, black, or mulatto? Here everything’s a mixture. And how will we know who does the killing?” Gonçalves asked.

“Whatever it says in the newspaper is what counts. If it says he’s black, he’s black; if it says it was the squad, it was the squad. Agreed?” asked Marinho.

“Another grand that the youngest of mine is 18 and the oldest 26,” Anísio said.

At that moment the False Perpétuo came into the bar and the four immediately stopped talking. The False Perpétuo had straight dark hair, bony facial features, and an impassive gaze, and like the True Perpétuo, a famous detective who had been assassinated some years earlier, he never smiled. None of the players knew what the False Perpétuo did; perhaps he merely worked in a bank or as a civil servant, but his presence, when he showed up now and then in Anísio’s Bar, always frightened the four friends. No one knew his real name; the False Perpétuo was a nickname given him by Anísio, who claimed to have known the True Perpétuo.

He had carried two .45s, one on each hip, and a wide cartridge belt could be seen above his pants. He’d had the habit of lightly running the edge of his jacket through his fingers, as babies do with their diapers, a sign of alertness, always ready to pull out his weapons and shoot with both hands. When he was killed, they’d had to do it from behind.

The False Perpétuo sat down and ordered a beer, not looking at the players but turning his head slightly, his neck taut; he could be listening to what the group was saying.

“I think it’s just our impression,” murmured Fernando, “and anyway, whoever he is, why should we care? No debts, no worries.”

“I don’t know, I just don’t know,” Anísio said pensively. They went back to playing cards, in silence, waiting for the False Perpétuo to leave.

At the end of the month, according to the newspaper, the squad had executed 26 people—16 mulattos, 9 blacks, and 1 white, the youngest, an ex-reformatory inmate, being 15, and the oldest, 38.

“Let’s celebrate the victory,” Gonçalves said to Marinho, who between them had won the majority of the bets. They drank beer, ate cheese, ham, and meat turnovers.

“Three months of bad luck,” Anísio said somberly. He had also lost at poker, on the horses, and on soccer; the lunch counter he had bought in Caxias was losing money, his credit with the bank was getting worse, and the young wife he had married a little over six months before was spending a lot.

“And now August is coming,” he said, “the month Getúlio shot himself in the heart. I was a kid, working in a bar on the same street as the palace, and saw it all, the crying and the screams, the people filing past the coffin, the body being taken to the airport, the soldiers firing machine guns into the crowd. If I was unlucky in July, just think of August.”

“Then don’t bet this month,” said Gonçalves, who had just lent Anísio 200,000 cruzeiros.

“No, this month I plan to win back part of what I lost,” said Anísio with animosity.

The four friends, for the month of August, expanded the rules of the game. Besides the quantity, age, and color of the dead, they added national origin, marital status, and occupation. The game was becoming complicated.

“I think we’ve invented a game that’s going to be more popular than the numbers game,” Marinho said. Already half drunk, they laughed so hard that Fernando wet his pants.

The end of the month was approaching, and Anísio, more and more irritated, argued frequently with his companions. That day he was more exasperated and nervous than ever, and his friends, ill at ease, were looking forward to when the card game would end.

“Who’s for an even-money bet with me?” Anísio asked.

“What kind of even-money bet?” asked Marinho, who had won more frequently than any of them.

“I’ll bet that this month the squad kills a young girl and a businessman. Two hundred thousand bills.”

“That’s crazy,” said Gonçalves, thinking of his money and of the fact that the squad never killed girls and businessmen.

“Two hundred thousand,” Anísio repeated in a bitter tone, “and you, Gonçalves, don’t call other people crazy, you’re the one who’s crazy for leaving your homeland to come to this shithole of a country.”

“You’re on,” said Marinho. “You don’t have a prayer of winning; it’s almost the end of the month.”

Around eleven o’clock the players ended the game and quickly said goodnight.

The waiters left and Anísio was alone in the bar. On other nights he would rush home to be with his young wife. But that night he sat drinking beer until shortly after one a.m., when there was a knock at the rear door.

The False Perpétuo came in and sat down at Anísio’s table.

“Want a beer?” Anísio asked, avoiding either the polite or familiar form of address with the False Perpétuo, uncertain of the degree of respect he should show.

“No. What’s this about?” The False Perpétuo spoke quietly, in a soft voice, apathetic, indifferent.

Anísio told him about the bets he and his friends made every month in the game of Dead Men. The visitor listened in silence, erect in his chair, his hands resting on his legs; at times it seemed to Anísio that the False Perpétuo ran the edge of his jacket through his fingers the way the true one did, but he must have been mistaken.

Anísio began to regret the man’s gentleness; maybe he was nothing more than a bureaucratic functionary. God, Anísio thought, 200,000 down the drain; he’d have to sell the lunch counter in Caxias. Unexpectedly he thought about his young wife, her round, tepid body.

“The squad has to kill a young girl and a businessman this month for me to get out of the hole,” Anísio said.

“And what does that have to do with me?” Smoothly.

Anísio summoned up his courage. He had drunk a lot of beer; he was on the verge of ruin and felt awful, as if he couldn’t breathe properly. “I think you belong to the death squad.”

The False Perpétuo remained inscrutable.

“What’s the deal?”

“Ten thousand if you kill a young girl and a businessman. You or your colleagues, it’s all the same to me.”

Anísio sighed unhappily. Now that he saw his plan close to realization, his body was overcome by a feeling of weakness.

“You got the money here? I can do the job right now.”

“It’s at home.”

“Where do I start?”

“Both at once.”

“Anybody special?”

“Gonçalves, the owner of the grocery, and his daughter.”

“That Portuguese friend of yours?”

“He’s not my friend.” Another sigh.

“How old’s his daughter?”

“Twelve.” The image of the girl having a soft drink in his bar flashed through his head, like a twinge of pain.

“All right,” said the False Perpétuo, “show me his house.” That was when Anísio noticed that above his waist he also wore a wide cartridge belt.

They got into the False Perpétuo’s car and headed for Gonçalves’s house. At that hour the city was deserted. They stopped fifty yards from the house. The False Perpétuo took two pieces of paper from the glove compartment and drew two crude death’s-heads with the initials D.S. below.

“It’ll be quick,” the False Perpétuo said, getting out of the car.

Anísio put his hands over his ears, closed his eyes, and curled up on the seat until his face touched the plastic seat cover, which gave off an unpleasant odor that reminded him of his childhood. There was a buzzing in his ears. A long time went by, until he heard three shots.

The False Perpétuo returned and got into the car.

“Let’s get my money. I took care of them both. I threw in the old woman for free.”

They stopped at the door to Anísio’s house. He went in. His wife was in bed, her naked back facing the bedroom door. She usually slept on her side, and the view of her body seen from behind was prettier. Anísio got the money and left.

“You know, I don’t know your name,” Anísio said in the car, while the False Perpétuo counted the money.

“It’s better that way.”

“I gave you a nickname.”

“What?”

“The False Perpétuo.” Anísio tried to laugh, but his heart was heavy and sad.

Could it have been an illusion? The other man’s expression had suddenly become alert and he was delicately fingering the edge of his jacket. The two looked at each other in the half shadow of the car. As he realized what was about to happen, Anísio felt a kind of relief.

The False Perpétuo took an enormous weapon from his waist, pointed it at Anísio’s chest, and fired. Anísio heard the roar and then an immense silence. Forgive me, he tried to say, tasting the blood in his mouth and attempting to remember a prayer, while at his side the bony face of Christ, illuminated by the streetlight, faded rapidly.