Genre Savvy

Nonimportant

''I said I like interview-like stories. This one was originally written in Portuguese, but I'm translating/paraphrasing it to English, it should be understandable, but not particularly directed at you. If you are offended by what Antônio says: Remember, don't mind him, he's psycho-crazy.''

Silveira walked up the stairs to the third floor of the building, there were many stairs, but not too many, there never can be too many stairs. Silveira counted seventy-three and stopped, looking around. He stepped over some steps, and counted seventy-five before stepping out of the stairs and moving toward an apartment door. If he hadn't stepped over them, the total number of steps wouldn't be divisible by five, and Silveira liked to be very organized.

This is how he managed to discover who the killer was, after all. It took a long time of investigation and careful organization of facts into tables and Graphs and maps and days and days reading the help files for that Microsoft Excel thing. No wonder the police didn't discover the truth, it took genius for that. And he was the greatest genius he knew, he thought, with a smirk as he knocked on the the door number 402.

A friendly man with a friendly face opened the door, smiling. He had recently shaved, and applied perfume, probably, otherwise he had the nicest body odour Silveira ever smelled. His eyes were blue, and his hair was short, and grey, but not balding., his skin was something between pink and yellow and white, quite different from Silveira's own light brown. The combination of recent shave and light skin tone reflected the sunlight into Silveira's eyes.

"Sr. Antônio!" Silveira said, almost too enthusiastically, but of course, he had a very good reason to be so, he had just cracked the case by himself just like his favourite detective in the books, and now he would confront the perpretator. Silveira was anxious, but he wasn't stupid, of course, and carried a small calibre gun under his coat. A coat he used especially for this reason, disregarding the forty degrees Celsius heat of summer.

Silveira forced himself to calm down before saying anything, and said, "May I enter? I have a very important matter to discuss," yes, that sounded calm, almost uninterested, like the detectives in the books, taking their time before revealing the intricate reasoning behind their conclusions.

They entered the small apartment. It wasn't as bad as it appeared from outside, it was actually comfortable, really, the sofas were covered in floral designs, and a large television sat on front of one of them, the wooden furniture was painted white, almost bright white. And the sun entered through the windows and the door to the balcony, illuminating the whole room with light. And heat. The whole room was full of hot air. The ceiling fan was turned off.

AWhile closing the door, his host asked, "So, is it about that census thing? Or is it something about elections? You're not selling anything, are you?"

Silveira decided to start, "I know it was you! I know it was you the one that killed all those people!" he said it, a little louder, and faster, than he wanted. But it didn't matter, it would have the effect he wanted. Surprise!

The host stopped for a second what he was doing. Then he locked the door, and turned around, still smiling, not a pint of malice on his face, "Ah, finally! So you got it all figured out?"

"YES!" Silveira more or less yelled, "I mean...yes, I have! I used my superior cognitive abilities and managed to follow a trail of clues you left behind! It all started when I..." Silveira started explaining the case, like the detectives from the books always did.

"Doesn't matter. You just followed the clues I left you, right? I expected the police to find it out first, but a private investigator is just as well. The ending will be basically the same, and not a word of the epilogue will change. Anything that you haven't figured out that needs some explaining?" Antônio asked, cheerily, moving his hands about while he walked towards the fridge.

"Uh..." Silveira needed a second or two to understand what was going on, "Ah, yes. Why? I mean, i know the hows and the whens and the wheres...but why? I mean it makes no sense, and 'you are crazy' seems too simple to be satisfactory. There's method to madness, you see. Even if a man that sits on the floor all day wearing few clothes and doesn't eat seems irrational, when you realize he think he's Gandhi, his actions start to make sense. A mad man is still a rational man and..."

"Yeah, yeah, I read 'The ABC crimes' too. Want a glass of wine, Sr....?" Antônio offered a glass.

"Silveira, and no. I don't drink. It kills brain cells," he answered, as Antônio filled his own glass and started to speak while holding it.

"So, why I did it? Huh? I thought it'd be obvious. Do you watch TV, Silveira? And no need to call me sir, we're like intimate friends here, if you've been investigating my crimes," he spoke, still smiling broadly.

"W-well...yes, sometimes."

"Well, did you watch it last night? A horror movie was on it, 'Halloween', I think. One of those movies about psychopaths."

"So...you were copying the movies you saw?"

"Oh, no, of course not. I merely mentioned it because the film was simply retarded," he said, showing the palms of his hands, his smile thinning a bit.

"Oh," was all the answer Silveira could muster.

"You see, it appears Hollywood specializes on this kind of films. Retarded films for brainless people. This is particularly noticeable in horror films. And in a particular subgroup. Films about psychopaths," Antônio started talking, in the stern demeanour of his day-job as a teacher.