Exposure

  Fidel shrugged and shook his head slowly. He suspected the kid didn’t spend much time talking to other people on the street, but he didn’t say it.

  Bush stood there, turning his angry face this way and that as though he was looking for a good direction to run in but couldn’t find it. So when Nina spoke, her voice was calm and cautious.

  “You may be right, Bush. But we’ve known Donato for thirty years. He’s not a fool. I don’t think he’d have told Fidel about this if he didn’t believe it was true.”

  Bush jabbed his fists into his pockets. “So what you sayin’ here, Nina? It’s not like I can keep the girls with me all the time, you know? Have’em hangin’ around my turf. We’d get moved on jus’ like that. Or you think I can make’em stay in the shed all day? How can I do that?”

  “Well,” Fidel said, hesitantly, “maybe you could keep with them for a while. Like you say, things will probably settle down after the election.”

  “Man, how can I do that either? I got a nice thing goin’ uptown, you know? I got an understandin’ with the door guy. I don’ get no hassle. An’ you know how it works — I don’ show up there a while, someone else’ll move in. Then what do I do? Start over someplace else? You know how hard that can be?”

  “Yeah. I do know.”

  “Bush,” Nina said, “I need to say this, and I don’t want you to fire up on me, all right? What we’re worried about is Bianca.”

  “Bianca’s all right. Bianca’s cool, okay?”

  Nina took her glasses off and pinched the skin over the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “Man, Bianca is not cool. That’s one thing she is not. She’s a really sweet kid, but she’s sort of disconnected. It’s like she’s not in the same world as the rest of us.”

  Bush took his hands out of his pockets and wrapped his arms across his chest. “She’s okay,” he said, scowling at the ground.

  Nina sighed. “I was down at the market yesterday. Bianca and Felicia were there, just hanging out along with a bunch of other kids; some I knew, some I didn’t. But the thing is, Bush, Bianca stands out. No one looks at her just once — you know what I’m saying? She’s very beautiful. And when that’s not a blessing, it’s a curse. She doesn’t understand that, Bush. I think you do, though.”

  He said nothing, didn’t lift his face.

  “I watched her. And I can’t tell if she knows what she’s doing, the effect she has on other people, and likes it. Or doesn’t know, or care. Either way, it’s . . . not good. It’s dangerous. Down the market she’s okay, I guess. Lots of people around, plenty of them know her. But in other places, well . . .”

  Nina waited, but still Bush refused to speak.

  “I think . . . I think if she dressed different. Showed less of herself. I mean, look at Felicia. She’s a good-looking girl, but in those old things she wears, no one’s going to pick her out, take any special notice. You hear what I’m saying, Bush?”

  “Yeah.”

  For several seconds the only sound in the yard was the stumbling whir of Señor Oguz’s machines as they stitched fakes.

  Then Fidel said quietly, “And it’s not just what Donato told me. For a while now, there’ve been these rumors. About kids getting disappeared. Okay, okay. I know what you’re gonna say. Usually I don’t pay much attention to that kind of crap either. But now I’m starting to think . . . Well, I’m not so sure anymore.”

  Bush knew these rumors. A week or so ago, working La Nación’s patio at lunchtime, he’d overheard some people talking about the same thing. One of them, Maestro’s friend, the woman with the gray hair, had gotten angry. There had been tears in her eyes, too.

  He sat back down on the beer crate and hunched over, his forearms on his knees, his long hands dangling. “It sucks, man,” he said.

  “What does?”

  From behind his dreads, Bush said, “Life.”

  “Yeah,” Fidel said. “It does, sometimes.”

  It started to rain. Fat, slow drops at first that made dark patches on the ground the shape of starfish.

  DIEGO ARRIVES AT the marina penthouse for his weekly breakfast conference with Otello. He ignores the fruit and cereal but accepts coffee.

  “How’s Dezi? Enjoying Florida?”

  “She’s fine. I spoke to her just now. She was lying on a float in the middle of her mother’s swimming pool.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Seems like since her old man stopped talking to her, she and her mom get on like a house on fire.”

  “Fancy that,” Diego says, fiddling with the combination lock on his briefcase. “Now, I’ve been drawing up a schedule, which is kind of complicated because it depends slightly on whether or not Rialto qualifies for the next round of the cup. I’ve worked on the assumption that you will, which seems reasonable, now that those moody boys you play with appear to have sorted their heads out. So I’ve organized possible dates for the next Elegante things around that, okay? Then there are the personal appearances we talked about, and a couple of magazine pieces that I think are cool. Quality things. Oh, and Paul Faustino has requested an interview. I think we could toss him another bone, don’t you, seeing as how he’s kept pretty onside as far as we are concerned?”

  “Yeah. Paul’s all right.”

  “I agree,” Diego says. “A little bit up on himself, but sound, I think.” He lays three stapled sheets of paper on the table. “Anyway, it’s all in here, so I’d be grateful if you’d find time to look through it. When is Dezi back?”

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  “Okay, so maybe you could go through it with her then. Any problems, call me. Right, next.”

  He produces from the case two thickish, identical documents, spiral-bound into gray plastic covers. Otello regards them bleakly.

  “Your six-monthly financial statement,” Diego says. “Read and rejoice.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “You really ought to check through these, you know, Capitano. Someone might be ripping you off.”

  “What, and you think I’d find out by reading this? Show me a column of figures and I’m brain-dead inside a minute. You know that.”

  Diego shakes his head sadly. “Yeah. But the information in this is also on the computer disk inside the back cover. Here, see? You could run it through that U-Account program I put on your computer. It’ll flag any suspect —”

  But Otello has lowered his head onto his folded arms and begun to snore loudly.

  “All right, all right,” Diego says. “Point taken. But you could at least cast an eye over the summary on the last three pages. Seven-digit figures have a certain charm, I find. And you need to sign one copy to hand over to the tax people.”

  Otello lifts his head and holds out a hand. “Okay. Gimme a pen.”

  Sighing, Diego takes his French fountain pen from his inside pocket. “Last page. First of the two dotted lines.”

  Otello signs his name, then Diego writes his, neatly, under the words Witnessed by.

  “Thank you,” he says. “I have now successfully embezzled you of half a million dollars.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Otello says, grinning. “What’s next?”

  “We’re meeting Shakespeare at one thirty. I’ve told Michael to pick you up at twelve forty-five.”

  Otello pushes away from the table and stands up. “Good. Plenty of time, then. C’mon. There’s something I want to show you.”

  In the underground garage, Otello takes a key fob from his pocket and presses it. Twenty paces away something black and gleaming, the size of an elephant, blinks its bright eyes.

  “Dear God,” Diego cries, halting. “What is that?”

  “A Hummer. Deluxe version of the U.S. Army Humvee. A beast, isn’t it?”

  It is, too. Taller than a man, it protrudes a good five feet out of its parking slot. Wheels as big as a truck’s, chrome hubcaps, smoked-glass windows. It looks like it has eaten two other cars for breakfast and is sizing up a third.

  “Took delivery of it yesterday a
fternoon,” Otello says. “Haven’t had a go in it yet. I can’t wait to see Michael’s face when he sees it. Come on, climb in.”

  Climb is the appropriate word. Diego puts his foot on the gleaming step rail and hauls himself up into an ivory-white leather passenger seat larger than most armchairs. The smell inside is wonderful: the clean and confident aroma of money purged of guilt. Behind him there are two more rows of voluptuous car furniture. The knob on the end of the gear shift is a miniature chrome soccer ball.

  Otello settles himself behind the wheel. “Six-and-a-half-liter engine,” he says. “This thing could pull the wall off a building, then drive over the rubble. Best GPS on the planet, DVD for the rear passengers, twelve-speaker Bose stereo, beer cooler. Practical, too. Bulletproof body panels, shatterproof glass, more security systems than I can get my head around. The manual is fatter than the Bible. So, where to, amigo?”

  “Anywhere you like,” Diego says. “But go slowly. This is the first car I’ve had vertigo in.”

  Otello drives northeast for a while on quiet suburban roads. Diego responds appreciatively to Otello’s comments on the car. Then they turn left onto the Transversal into the city.

  He wants to be seen in this, Diego thinks. No, not seen, of course. He wants people to look and wonder.

  Surprising him, Otello says, “Shakespeare is a weird name. What are they, American?”

  Diego asks, “Did you read that prospectus I sent you?”

  “Prospectus? Oh, yeah. I skimmed it.”

  Sure you did, Diego thinks. My fool. He says, “They have branches in New York and Los Angeles, but they’re based here. And they are the best PR company there is, believe me.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Dezi told me. According to her, they’ve been trying to sign her for over a year.”

  “Indeed they have,” Diego says. “They’re big fans of hers.”

  “That’s nice. But what Dezi thinks is that Shakespeare wants the two of us as a package deal. They get me, they’ll be more likely to get her. Make a killing. Is she right?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  Otello leans back from the wheel, unable to resist smiling. “Diego, your honesty always amazes me. How come it doesn’t make your life impossible?”

  “Simple. I am only honest with you.”

  “Ha! So you lie to everyone else?”

  “I represent you, Capitano. Which means, basically, that I tell other people what they want to hear.”

  Over to the right, Diego sees, between the office spires, the brown baroque tower of the Catedral San Marco. At the next junction he asks Otello to take the turn. As they wait, the rain stops, and slanting sunlight strikes the windshield.

  They pass the cathedral, then Diego says, “You want to pull in here? There’s something I’d like to show you.”

  Otello glances at him. “Where, the cemetery?”

  “Yeah.”

  Otello brings the Hummer to a stop in the semicircular lot at the foot of the thirty-foot-high statue of Christ. Beyond the Redeemer’s outstretched arms, tombs radiate into the distance. Before any questions can be asked, Diego opens the door and gets out and walks away. Otello locks the car and follows him.

  The graves, memorials, and mausoleums closest to Christ are ornate and well kept. Diego walks briskly past them. When Otello catches up with him, Diego slows and says, “I come here quite often.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “It’s the only big open space in the city. I read somewhere that it contains thirty percent of the city’s trees. I rather like trees. Their roots have the same spread as their branches. They have the same amount of life under the ground as they have above it. Did you know that?”

  “Nope.”

  “Trees flourish here, of course. Rich soil for their roots.”

  “Ach, Diego, please.”

  Diego grins. “Sorry.”

  The trees drip on them as they pass. After a while Diego says, “This way” and turns down a narrow avenue. In this suburb of the necropolis, the graves are packed together, mean, and neglected. Undergrowth has repossessed many of them. The path is broken asphalt with weeds swarming through its cracks. The rain has given the air an acrid flavor.

  “Here,” Diego says. “I found him by accident a few weeks ago.”

  It’s a low slab of stone huddled among others, leaning slightly backward. Otello steps around to where he might read the name, but the lettering has been blurred by time and weather. The inside surface of the glass over the photograph has been made opaque by a coating of mold.

  “‘Esdras Caballo,’” Diego recites expressionlessly. “‘1944–92.’ Underneath it says: ‘A great player and a great man.’ That’s all.”

  Otello looks up. “The Esdras Caballo?”

  “Yep. The Esdras Caballo. Died in a boardinghouse out in Estramura. They didn’t find him for a week.”

  “That’s terrible,” Otello says, stooping over the grave. “He was amazing. When we were kids, we all wanted to be like him.”

  “You will be, one day. At the top of his game, Caballo earned a thousand dollars a week. Unheard-of at the time. In today’s money, that’s more or less what you earn a minute. But that’s no guarantee you won’t end up in a miserable hole in the ground like this, forgotten.”

  “Hey, Diego, c’mon, man. Lighten up. What’s brought this on?”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound morbid. But, well, it has to do with what you yourself talked about a while back. About only having a certain amount of time left at the highest level. Then what? Dezi too. Pop music is a fickle business.”

  “I know. That’s why Dezi doesn’t take it too seriously.”

  “Okay, but look — right now you two are the hottest item in the country, agreed? You’re not just two famous individuals who happen to be married; as a couple, you’re something else, something unique. If you don’t mind my saying so, my friend, your stars now burn more brightly than they did before you met.”

  Otello shrugs uncomfortably. “Yeah, well . . .”

  “Which is why Shakespeare thinks — and I agree with them — that career-wise it’s time to make a quantum leap. To move into a whole new dimension.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “In the crudest possible terms, making more money. Lots more money.”

  “I’ve got lots of money, Diego.”

  “Yes. But not enough.”

  “No?”

  “No. Fame comes at a very high price, Capitano. And you have not been paid it.”

  Otello frowns. He is quite out of his depth now.

  Diego perches his backside on Esdras Caballo’s headstone and folds his arms. Surveying the tilted slabs and damaged angels, he says, “Listen, Capitano. To those who don’t have it, fame is enormously desirable. It’s like food to the hungry, sex to the lonely, cash to the poor. And they have no idea what it costs. You live in a multimillion-dollar penthouse. But the building is surrounded by a steel fence topped with razor wire and is patrolled by men with dogs. Your lobby is protected by armed guards twenty-four hours a day. There are security cameras in the corridors and the elevator. It’s extremely risky for you to go anywhere public without a bodyguard. Your every move, both on and off the soccer field, is recorded, analyzed, published. You have no privacy. If you and Dezi want to go shopping, it has to be after hours in shops that stay open just for you. If you want to go out for a meal, it has to be in a private room with men stationed at the door. Paparazzi stalk you, follow your car on their whining little motorbikes like a cloud of mosquitoes.

  “If there is no story, the tabloids and magazines print lies, rumors, gossip. A snatched snapshot of Dezi looking less than radiant, and suddenly your marriage is on the brink of collapse. Or she has an eating disorder. A photo of you with another woman who just happens to be in the frame, and you’re having an affair. Trip on the sidewalk, and you are an alcoholic. You sneak vacations in secret locations, yet thousands of sweaty men in thousands of dirty little rooms a
re soon leering over a picture of your wife in her bikini. And this shit becomes part of your life whether you like it or not. It invades your bedroom; it enters your bloodstream.”

  Diego looks at his client now, meets his puzzled gaze. “Fame involves the sacrifice of almost everything that ordinary people take for granted. It leaves you with practically nothing that you can call uniquely your own. Your own body — its changes, its aging, its damage — will become the subject of street humor. Your accountant, your dentist, your doorman, will be offered bribes. Your friends will become sources of information. Your casual remarks will be recorded by directional microphones; the tiniest moment of indiscretion or ill humor will be translated into vast headlines. Fame guts you like a fish and lays you on the slab in the marketplace to be sniffed and prodded by the grubby populace. I happen to think that no amount of money can adequately compensate the very famous for that. To be merely rich is nothing like enough.”

  Diego glances at his watch and straightens. “Time is catching up with us, Capitano. We’d better clamber back into that battle tank of yours.”

  They have to run the last fifty yards; the rain has resumed, heavier than before.

  Rubén was wearing a see-through plastic raincoat over his uniform and was sporting a big green golf umbrella. He hauled open the glass door when Faustino came scuttling across the patio, but Faustino, instead of going inside, took shelter under the umbrella and looked back toward the avenue.

  “You seen the kid today?”

  Rubén stuck his bottom lip out and shook his head. “Nope. The weather, I guess.”

  “Hmm. I doubt it. It’s never stopped him before.”

  Rubén shrugged. “Yeah, well. These kids come and go, you know.”

  The spectral traffic hissed behind its veils of rain.

  “I guess they do,” Faustino said, and went inside.

  From the window of the bar’s kitchen, Nina saw Bush return to the shed. He splodged across the yard, holding something in a plastic bag over his head as if he hoped, absurdly, that it could keep him dry. She warmed milk in a pan, whisked into it a big spoonful of powdered chocolate and a pinch of chili, and poured the mix into a jug. She cut the last of the banana cornbread into three chunks and balanced them on top of the jug, then, with Fidel’s raincoat draped over her head and shoulders, carried the breakfast over to the shed.