LETTER FROM RIO DE JANEIRO

Bouquets of white roses, loud samba music and tears flowed freely between the tombs drenched in tropical humidity. On January 23, Rio de Janeiro was in mourning. At the Inhauma cemetery in the north of the city, a small crowd of grieving Cariocas laid to rest one of their heroes. An oxymoronic hero, such as the "marvelous city" is capable of producing, at once trumpeting, endearing, disquieting and evil. José Caruzzo Escafura, known as "Piruinha," was all these things, to the point of excess.

Escafura, who died the day before at the age of 95, was the best-known and oldest of the bicheiros, the men who ruled the jogo de bicho ("animal game"), a clandestine and illegal lottery resembling a tombola, which over the decades became a genuine Brazilian institution, its charismatic leaders elevated to legendary status.

A thousand mourners and 30 flower wreaths, showers of tributes from Rio's top samba schools, a minute's silence from Botafogo before a match, nothing less was fitting for this final, unanimous farewell to Piruinha.

At the Inhauma cemetery, amidst the grief-stricken admirers, even the tiny head of "Fato Novo" ("Last News"), the bicheiro's beloved parakeet, was carried in a cage by a relative. "This guy was everyone's friend here," samba musician Xande de Pilares told the daily O Dia.

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