The third floor is the most private area in the prison, especially the far end of the corridor where the room for the C.V. leaders is located. A prisoner sent by Chiquito tells me: "They are inviting you for coffee at their room. They also want you to rest there for a while." Another inmate tells me that nobody except the leadership can go to this area of the prison. "Not even the authorities can enter this territory. They don't try because they know that if they come, there will be blood running on those corridors.", adds another.

I arrive at the cell of the Comando Vermelho leaders and they welcome me with their traditional hand shake. They tell me to relax. They offer me orange juice, coffee, drugs, and pornographic magazines. The room has eight beds, a small improvised kitchen and a bathroom.

I receive a "paper saint" which is given to all the visitors who come to the Caldron. On the cover is an image of Jesus Christ. Inside, there is a picture of the deceased Rogério Lemgruber, the Bagulhão, who lived from 1952 to 1992, and a poetic message of acknowledgment, which ends with the proverb: "If you cry to have lost the Sun, maybe your tears will not permit you to see the Stars."

I had already noticed those paper saints pasted in almost every room of the penitentiary. Little by little, I realized that Rogério is a kind of "saint", not only for the hundreds of inmates that are doing time in the prison cells of Rio de Janeiro, but also for thousands of poor people who live in the slums. His initials R.L., together with the initials of the Comando Vermelho: C.V.R.L., can be seen engraved throughout the prisons, as well as on walls scattered around the city.

When the name of Bagulhão is mentioned in the room, everybody salutes as a sign of respect. "Rogério was considered a leader in the Comando Vermelho for a long time.", one inmate tells me. "He was a kind of Robin Hood of the slums of Rio. He would give to the poor people what the government had never given to them: jobs, food, and other essentials.", says another leader, as he looks at a pornographic magazine. Even when Bagulhão was in prison he would help the needy. When he was the cook, he managed the food in such a way that there would always remain some extra supplies for visitors to carry back to the favelas. There, it would be distributed to woman and children of the prisoners who were hungry.

"The deepest grief for the family of Bagulhão, for the friends and especially for me, was caused when the media claimed that he had

died of Aids. In reality, he died of complications from his diabetes.", declares Chiquito, and narrates in detail the last symptoms of his friend. Disgusted, he also accuses the authorities of having let Bagulhão die. "Rogério was an adored person and an intelligent fighter, who was able to change several inappropriate rules in the prison. He's the one responsible for bringing better living conditions to all the inmates of Rio."

Famous leaders of the Comando, like Bagulhão - Big Thing, O Gordo -The Fat, Japones - Japanese, O Professor - The Professor, and mainly Escadinha - Little Stair, are personalities which the Brazilian media hastransformed into legends. Those nicknames and their spectacular stories are known to almost all Brazilians. "Most of those leaders are now making time at the maximum security prison of Bangu Um. They also spent time incarcerated in Ilha Grande, and it was here that occurred some of the most incredible escapes that Brazil has ever seen.", remembers one of them.

One of the most famous occurred on the last day of 1985 when a member of the C.V. hijacked a helicopter in Rio de Janeiro and ordered the pilot to fly to the island. They landed on the roof and took Escadinha without any problem. The guards, suspecting nothing, had thought that the helicopter was bringing the Director of the penitentiary system. With this escape, television captured the public attention through major reports and the C.V. became a "soap opera". Everybody knew which favela was hiding Escadinha but the vigilant security of the Comando, armed with highly sophisticated weapons, would not let the police enter his community.