False Nine

  He was returning to hibernation after a busy January buying and selling several household name players, including a couple of record winter break deals with clubs as far afield as Glasgow and Istanbul; Davey Conn’s move from Rangers to Chelsea for twenty million pounds was reported to be the biggest deal in the Glasgow club’s history, but the most lucrative deal struck by Gentile had been the sale of Lazio’s star striker, Carlos Amatriain, to Manchester City for forty-two million quid. It was small wonder he could afford to own a private jet.

  As he sat down at the table he put both his phones on mute, and from time to time when each rang, he checked to see who was calling but I’m flattered to say he didn’t speak to any of them while he was lunching with me.

  ‘You know I should be skiing in Cortina with my family,’ he said. ‘Instead of which I’m here with you, Scott.’

  ‘You’re protecting your investment in the former PSG number nine. There may not have been a transfer fee for Jérôme Dumas, but there will be. Eventually. Provided I can find the stupid bastard. And of course until then you’re taking ten per cent of everything he makes, Paolo. Anyway, while I was waiting for you to turn up, I calculated that you earned more than ten million quid off your commission on transfer fees in January, so you can afford to delay your holiday a little.’

  ‘Tell me something. Are you still with that red-headed stronza?’

  ‘If you mean Tempest O’Brien, then the answer is yes, she still represents me.’

  ‘In spite of her dropping you in it with the Chinese like that? You should get rid of her right now before she does you some real damage. If she’d exercised a bit of due diligence that would never have happened.’

  ‘And you’d know all about due diligence, you old crook.’

  ‘I’d never have let you go there on your own like that. To Shanghai? Fuck off. It’s the wild west out there, my friend. There’s no way you should ever have been in Shanghai. You should be with me, Scott. If you were you’d have a new club by now. I’m amazed you’re still out of work. A man with your talents, your languages, it’s a crime that you’re not managing a top team. Don’t forget there’s no transfer window for managers. I happen to know a top English club that’s desperate to drop their manager. I could find you a new job, just like that.’

  He snapped his fingers, which only succeeded in summoning the waiter.

  We ordered, quickly.

  ‘Let’s just stick to the matter in hand, shall we?’ I said after the waiter had gone. ‘Jérôme Dumas.’

  ‘How much are they paying you to find him?’

  ‘Enough.’

  ‘I’ll give you a fifty thousand euro cash bonus on top of whatever they’re paying you if you can find him. Save the boy from himself if needs be. Just get him back to Barcelona before the end of March. Will you do that for me?’

  ‘Of course. But that Qatari guy already offered me a finder’s fee if I can find the boy in time for him to play in el clásico.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not worried about the match. If he plays he plays. No, I own half the economic rights in that boy and I just negotiated a deal worth twenty million pounds for him to be the new global ambassador for the fashion house Cesare da Varano.’

  ‘Doesn’t you owning his economic rights contravene FIFA regulations on agents?’

  ‘But you’re not going to tell them, are you, Scott? You dislike those bastards at FIFA almost as much as I do. No, the people at da Varano want him to start on a new advertising campaign that can be ready for Milan Fashion Week in September. That boy’s going to be worth more off the pitch than he is on it. Especially since he started to become the mouthpiece of anti-capitalist agitation. Danny Cohn-Bendit in a Cesare da Varano suit. Russell Brand in a pair of football boots. That’s why he has to be found. I’ve got a lot of other deals in the pipeline. A big cosmetics company want to make a cologne with his name on it.’

  ‘Makes sense, I suppose. They did an Aramis, didn’t they? So why not Dumas.’

  Paolo Gentile laughed. ‘I still have a bottle of that piss in my drawer. Every so often I have a sniff of it to remind me of my spotty adolescence. Like Proust. There’s even talk of a commercial with the Zaragoza Bank. One of the biggest in Europe.’

  ‘Did Dumas know about all this sponsorship?’

  ‘Of course. I called him just before he went on holiday to tell him the good news about da Varano. And I might have mentioned the bank.’

  ‘But is that how he took it?’

  ‘How do you mean, Scott?’

  ‘That this was good news?’

  ‘He’s a footballer. They have a limited shelf-life. You can be Peter Pan for only so long in this game. Unless it’s David Beckham we’re talking about these guys have got ten years at most to make their money, after which – for most of them, at any rate – it’s a trip to the bankruptcy court or running a guest house in Skegness. Often both. It’s an agent’s job to maximise the client’s earnings while he can. You know how this works. If only he’d had the sense to marry that nice girl. What’s her name? Bella something. Isn’t she great?’

  ‘Bella Macchina. She’s fucking gorgeous.’

  ‘I could have turned them into the next Brand Beckham. The salt and pepper David and Victoria. That’s what he wanted.’

  ‘I can’t believe you just said something like that. And to me.’ I grinned. ‘I’d forgotten what a fucking racist you are, you old wop.’

  ‘Don’t be so sensitive. I could probably do something very similar for you, Scott, if you’d let me. The black Mourinho. Something like that. You’re just not paying attention to who and what you are. To the value of your own brand. You’re not the cleverest man in football, Scott. I am. But you do have a brain and that’s unusual in this game. You’re a good-looking guy, too. You could be the face of something yourself.’

  ‘Jérôme Dumas. We’re straying from the subject. Again. What I’m trying to find out is, did he feel under pressure because of all this shit? I mean, here’s a kid who thinks he’s Russell fucking Brand, leading the French fight against capitalism, and you’re trying to turn him into the preferred tool of the big brands and the bankers, for Christ’s sake. This is a boy who went on demos, Paolo. These are the people who smash the windows of banks, not plug them on the telly.’

  ‘Which is precisely why this particular bank wanted him. To sell the idea that their bank listens to the people and gives them the service they want.’

  ‘They all say that.’

  ‘I know. But advertising agencies exist to help them say it more persuasively than anyone else.’

  ‘They all say it while paying their employees big bonuses and evicting people from their mortgaged homes. Yes, I get what’s in it for them.’

  ‘You don’t believe that. You’re not that naïve.’

  ‘No, of course I’m not. What I’m trying to point out is that even he might have started to feel like a hypocrite. Which creates its own pressure. The week after there’s an article in Libération in which he’s espousing Maoist revolution, you’re trying to sell him as the public face of a bank. The week after that article, Jérôme Dumas gives an interview to L’Equipe bemoaning the fact that he’s not loved by the fans. Small wonder. From what I’ve read online most fans wanted less politics and more goals.’

  ‘I didn’t see the piece in Libération.’

  ‘Maybe you weren’t paying attention.’

  ‘I’m his agent, not his nanny. I’m there to advise him, not wipe his nose. Ever since he went to Monaco I’ve been there to show him that football is a business and that it’s important to treat it as such. Because nobody is as smart as everyone, especially in retrospect. Right at the beginning I told him to find himself a role model from football and try to live up to this person’s image, model himself on them. We went through a book I have, of exemplary footballers. And he picked another former Monaco player, Thierry Henry. Sure, I was able to tell him a few home truths about how he’s perceived in the media. It was me who persuaded him
to take on Alice as his PA, and to get her to start managing his social media. And to keep an eye on him generally.’

  ‘You mean she spied for you?’

  ‘Not in a bad way. We managed to avoid a lot of calamity tweets like that. Twitter is a bloody minefield.’

  ‘Anything else you’re not telling me, Paolo?’

  ‘She was supposed to tell me if he started gambling again, that’s all.’

  ‘Gambling?’

  ‘When he was playing in Monaco he got a taste for playing cards. I had to sort out some poker debts he had. Nothing that hasn’t happened to a host of other players.’

  ‘Debts to who?’

  ‘Some bookmakers.’

  ‘Legit bookmakers?’

  ‘Of course legit. It wasn’t anything heavy duty. Listen, Scott, I looked out for that boy. I went to his mother’s funeral in Marseille. Just to make the numbers up otherwise it would have been only Jérôme who was there. That’s above and beyond, you know.’

  ‘How did he take it?’

  ‘No better or worse than I took my own mother’s passing.’

  ‘You had a mother? I never knew.’

  Paolo smiled a sarcastic smile.

  ‘Were they close?’

  ‘Not especially. In fact I gained the impression that there was some issue between them. I think he took against her for some reason. But I don’t know what that might have been. For a man who talked about himself a lot he managed to say very little. I never gained an impression of who he really was. Or thought he was.’

  ‘Most young blokes are like that. Especially in football. Sometimes, with all the training and the games and the media, there’s no time for introspection. Most of them think inner space is the title of a movie directed by Christopher Nolan. They start playing, make money, ten years pass – as you say – and then they wake up one morning, unemployed, with bills to pay and not the first idea of what makes them tick. That’s probably the one moment when you really do need an agent. Someone to counsel you on what to do next.’

  ‘We’re quite a long way from that. The boy is just twenty-two. Look, I don’t have to justify myself to you, Scott. My conscience is clear. I couldn’t have done more for him. If he’s had some sort of breakdown I shan’t hold myself to blame in the least bit. I watched his games on the telly, of course. Went to one or two when I was in Paris. Told him what I thought of his game. Believe me, Scott, I love the game. I have a season ticket at Verona. And take my word for it, you’ve got to love the fucking game to have a season ticket for the scaligeri. Tell you what – the next time you’re in Italy, I’ll take you to the Marcantonio Bentegodi to see a match. Preferably against Chievo – the other club in Verona. You know, I’ve always thought you’d be just the man to put us back where we belong. Up there with the Milans and Juventus.’

  ‘Let me tell you something about your client, Paolo. If he did pick Thierry Henry as his role model then it wasn’t working. Frankly he might just as well have picked Joey Barton or Mario Balotelli. The more I look into this kid’s life the more I begin to see how close to disaster he actually was.’

  ‘You’re exaggerating, surely.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Between you and me he was using drugs and prostitutes like his two middle names were Charlie Sheen. Bella dumped him because she found a sex toy under his bed. He bought a gun off some gangsters in one of the banlieues. He was clinically depressed and using happy pills. And now, on top of all that, you tell me he used to have a gambling problem. It seems to me that there are two Jérôme Dumas. Maybe three. There’s the Dumas who plays football for PSG and fancies himself as a man of the people and a bit of a street philosopher. Then there’s the guy who’s down with the gangs who likes hookers and dope and guns. And somewhere in between these two slices of bread is the advertising brand you were trying to turn him into. The black David Beckham. The face of a bank and an Italian fashion label. Talk about a false nine. This guy is the false nine to end all false nines.’

  ‘If you say so. But we’re all a mass of contradictions. This is the human condition. A hero on one day can be a villain the next. No human being can ever really hope to understand another, and no one can fathom another’s unhappiness. Heroes are no longer the simple men of old – the Bert Trautmanns and the Bobby Moores. Perhaps they never were. The world is not black and white, Scott. It’s always been black and grey. You sound surprised about that. And that surprises me.’

  ‘Clue me in here, Paolo. The kid’s disappeared. The cops on Antigua have looked all over the island. But there’s no trace of him. And no trace of him having left the island. Apparently he checked out of the hotel – a little earlier than scheduled – paid the bill by credit card, and left. Hasn’t been seen since. So where do you think he‘s gone?’

  ‘I really have no idea. But I assume that’s where you’re going next. To Antigua. I mean, that’s the logical place to begin your search in earnest.’

  ‘I leave tomorrow. I’m following the same route he took. Flying to London Gatwick and from there to Antigua. While I’m on my way down there maybe you can persuade FCB and PSG to change their minds about offering a reward for information as to Jérôme’s disappearance.’

  ‘There’s not a chance of that happening, Scott. This is commercially sensitive on all sorts of levels. I thought they made that clear already. I know I just did. Besides, the cops down there didn’t want us to offer a reward. They thought it would be counterproductive.’

  I shrugged. ‘Can’t blame me for asking. It would certainly make things a lot easier.’

  ‘In which case they’d hardly be paying your ass a hundred grand a week to find him.’ He looked around. ‘You’re staying at the Jumby Bay, too? Like he did.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s a great restaurant there. You should try it.’

  ‘I expect I will.’

  ‘And I should check out Guadeloupe while you’re down there. That’s where Jérôme was from, you know – before he went to live in Marseille with his mother – and it’s only a short plane ride south from Antigua. Or is it north? I can never remember.’

  ‘Antigua is north of Guadeloupe.’

  ‘It should be nice down there at this time of year. I would say have a nice time but I assume you’re going to be busy.’

  ‘It’s a real hardship, isn’t it? Going to the Caribbean in February. But someone’s got to do it.’

  ‘If anyone can solve this mystery, I’m sure it’s you.’ Paolo was silent for a moment and then frowned. ‘Maybe you can already tell me why he bought a gun. And from whom?’

  ‘He bought it from some punks who hang around the Alain Savary Sports Centre in Sevran. It’s one of these charming suburbs in northeast Paris. I was there this morning.’

  ‘Not dressed like that, I hope. Or wearing that gold watch.’

  ‘No. I went back to my hotel and changed before coming here.’

  That was almost true.

  ‘The Alain Savary Centre is the one Jérôme was supposed to be putting money in. He was giving the local youth money, all right. But it wasn’t for footballs and sports kit. It was mainly for weed and blow. And the gun, of course. I don’t know why he wanted that, no. Not yet. I’m going to ask the lovely Bella when next I see her. Maybe she can tell me. That won’t exactly be a hardship, either. She’s very easy on the eye.’

  Paolo Gentile’s brown eyes narrowed over the top of his wine glass; he took a sip, and then wagged a perfectly manicured finger at me. I’ll say one thing for Paolo, he’s probably the best-dressed man in football. GQ, look out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just make sure you keep your hands off her.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Meaning that life is just like football; just different sets of tactics.’

  ‘And that means what, exactly?’

  ‘It means, my deliberately obtuse friend, don’t try and fuck her. She’s just a kid.’

  ‘Nonsense. This is a grown-up woman we’re talking
about, Paolo. You make her sound like Lolita with a lollipop and a pout.’

  ‘Just stay out of her pretty little pants, sport.’

  ‘Why would you think that there was even half a chance of me getting in them?’

  ‘Because no one ever fucks these models. Everyone thinks they’re untouchable. Which means they’re anything but, of course. And don’t act so innocent about this. You’re a dog, Scott. That’s right. You’ve got a bit of form here, Scotty my friend.’

  ‘What are you talking about, form?’

  ‘For fucking other men’s wives. That’s what got you into trouble before, wasn’t it? When you were still at Arsenal? I mean, if you hadn’t been with that guy’s wife, you’d never have gone to prison, would you? So, learn your lesson well, my friend, and just make sure you just leave Bella Macchina alone.’

  ‘As far as I’m aware, Bella and Jérôme Dumas weren’t married. In fact, they broke up just before Christmas.’

  ‘Perhaps they did. But that’s irrelevant from where I’m sitting.’

  ‘Take my word for it, there’s a velvet rope around a girl like that.’

  ‘Is there? From what I heard she likes black guys. I’m telling you to make sure you’re not one of them.’

  ‘You know I hadn’t thought of trying to fuck her, Paolo. But now you’ve mentioned it…’ I grinned. ‘You’ve given me an idea here. Maybe no one is fucking her. Be a shame to let a nice white booty like that go to waste. Isn’t that what this is about? Maybe you just don’t like the idea of white women going with black men. Because believe me, the ship has already sailed on that particular vexed issue. Even in Italy.’