Winning the Game and Other Stories by Rubem Fonseca Page A

can barely mount a horse. Get the idea? The lesser big shots have their tennis courts and pools. Besides all that, he has a riding area and horses for his friends to use.”
    â€œIf a director earns that much, just imagine the president,” Raul said.
    â€œHe’s probably not on salary; he must be a partner. We’re on a salary—Raul and me I mean, not you, Mr. Mendes.”
    â€œHey, no need for formalities. Call me Mandrake,” I said.
    â€œThey say you’re a rich lawyer.”
    â€œDon’t I wish.”
    â€œMandrake’s a genius,” Raul said, already halfway through the bottle of whiskey. “A real sonofabitch. He had my wife. You remember that, Mandrake?”
    â€œI’m still suffering because of it,” I said.
    â€œI forgave you, Mandrake,” Raul said. “And that bitch too.”
    â€œHis wife went down for the troops. They weren’t married any longer. That’s the story.”
    â€œThe crime, in principle, conforms to the pattern of a crime of passion,” Guedes said, uninterested in my conversation with Raul. “Arthur Rocha is incapable of falling in love or killing for passion, or money, or anything. But I still think he’s lying. What do you think?”
    â€œWhen I investigate a crime, even my own mother is a suspect,” Raul said.
    Guedes was still looking at me, waiting for an answer.
    â€œPeople kill when they’re afraid,” I equivocated, “when they hate, when they envy.”
    â€œRight out of the Farmer’s Almanac,” Raul said.
    â€œI know he’s lying,” Guedes said.
    Alone in my car, I told the rearview mirror, “Everybody’s lying.”
    The next day Marly’s death had dropped off the front pages. Everything wearies, my angel, as the English poet said. The dead must be renewed, the press is an insatiable necrophile. An item in the society pages caught my attention: the marriage of Eve Cavalcante Meier and Luis Vieira Souto would not be held next week. Some of the columnists lamented the calling off of the nuptials. One exclaimed, “What will be done with the mountain of presents the once-future couple has already received from every corner of the country?” Truly a grave problem.
    I got the car and went to Cavalcante Meier’s house. I stopped a hundred yards from the gate. I put a Jorge Ben cassette in the tape deck and kept time with him on the dashboard.
    The first to show was the Mercedes. Cavalcante Meier in the back seat. The chauffeur in navy blue, white shirt, dark tie, black cap. I waited another half hour until the gates opened, and a Fiat sports car came roaring through like a shot.
    I followed it. The car took the curves at high speed, tires squealing. It wasn’t easy to keep up with it. This is the day I die, I thought. Which one of my women would suffer the most? Maybe Berta would stop biting her nails.
    The Fiat stopped in Leblon, in front of a small building. The girl got out of the car, went in a door marked Bernard—Aerobics for Women. I waited two minutes.
    A carpeted waiting room, walls covered with reproductions of Degas ballerinas and dance posters. A bleached, heavily made-up receptionist in a pink uniform said hello from behind a metal-and-glass table and asked if I wanted something.
    â€œI’d like to enroll my wife in the aerobics class.”
    â€œCertainly,” she said, getting a card.
    I scratched my head and said I didn’t want my wife going to just any class, maybe I’m old fashioned but that’s my way.
    The receptionist smiled with her whole mouth, the way only people with all their teeth can, and said I’d come to the right place, an academy frequented by ladies and young women from society. She emphasized the word “society.” Her nails were long and painted dark red.
    â€œWhat is your wife’s name?”
    â€œPérola … Uh, er, is the teacher a man or a woman?
    A man,