Exposure

  In the breakfast room, Otello is speaking to Diego’s voicemail. For the ninth time. He slams down the phone and goes through to the bedroom. He leans against the door frame with his arms folded, gazing grimly at the screen. “Anything?”

  “I just saw Diego. Seems he’s bailed Michael out of police custody. I guess he’s taken him home. Isn’t he answering his phone?”

  “Nope.”

  The phone rings.

  “Capitano?”

  “Diego. What’s going on? Where are you?”

  “Outside Michael’s place.”

  “How is he?”

  “Kind of rough.”

  “I should hope so. Look, Diego, get over here now, will you? I’ll call him.”

  “I wouldn’t bother, Capitano. I made him go to bed and told him to turn his phone off.”

  “Right. I guess that’s sensible.”

  “And from the look of him, I’d be surprised if he’s not already dead to the world.”

  “Okay. I’ll leave it.”

  “Yeah. He won’t be going anywhere. I’ll see you in ten minutes.”

  In his suburban hacienda, Nestor Brabanta smiles and turns the TV off. His morning has improved. Earlier, while brushing his teeth, he had experienced again that little spasm of pain behind his right ear. Like a distant flicker of lightning that has gone before you can focus on it. As on previous occasions, it was followed by a slight blurring of the vision in his right eye and a touch of nausea. His doctor is of the opinion that the source of the problem — the root of it, so to speak, ha, ha — is a diseased tooth in his upper jaw. Brabanta has not done anything about it because he has a morbid fear of dentistry. Of the awful vulnerability of it, lying under the blinding lamps with your mouth open while a masked man uses steel tools on the inside of your head. But the images of Otello’s hired oaf being dragged out of a nightclub have restored him completely.

  He gets up out of the armchair and goes to his study. It will not be difficult to ensure that the story stays in the news. First he will call the two TV stations and the two tabloid newspapers that he has shares in. Then that slug Mateo Campos.

  “Coffee?”

  “God, yes. Black, please.”

  Diego leans his elbow on the table and massages his forehead with the heel of his hand. He is evidently tired, despite his appearance being as immaculate as ever. When Desmerelda comes into the kitchen, her hair still damp from the shower, he starts to get to his feet but she shoves him down and kisses his cheek.

  “Okay,” Otello says, “what the hell happened? Did Michael tell you?”

  “He didn’t have to tell me. I was there.”

  “What? You were at El Capricho as well?”

  Diego sighs heavily. “Yes. I guess maybe this whole thing is my fault. I suppose I should have known that Michael . . . Well.”

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Are you saying that you went there with Michael?”

  “Yep. It was my idea.” He takes a sip of coffee, needing it. “The thing is, I knew that you two were having a rare night at home together. So Michael would be having the evening off. I also happened to know that it was his birthday.”

  “Oh, no,” Desmerelda says. “He never said anything. Oh, man. We’d have come with you if we’d known.”

  “It’s just as well you didn’t, as things turned out. Anyway, I thought it would be nice to treat him to dinner.”

  “That’s so sweet of you, Diego.” She glances across at Otello and bites her lip. She recognizes the look on his face. As, to his pleasure, does Diego.

  “So, I booked a table for two at El Capricho. On account of the food isn’t the best in town, but they are discreet there and the security is sound. Michael turned up a bit late, not much. And it seemed to me he was in a pretty good mood.”

  Otello frowns. “What kind of a good mood? D’you think he’d been drinking?”

  Diego shrugs. “Couldn’t say. I had no reason to suppose so. Just that he was a bit more talkative than usual.”

  “All right. So what happened?”

  “Well, we had dinner —”

  “What was Michael drinking?”

  “You know, those big fruit-juice cocktails they serve there. The ones that look like a rainbow in a glass.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yep. While I was with him, anyway.”

  “What d’you mean, ‘while I was with him’? Where’d you go?”

  “Well,” Diego says, “when we’d finished eating, I went to the men’s room. And who should be in there but Luis Montano. Seems he’d come back home to visit his family and so forth. He was out on the town with various people. His actress girlfriend whose name I can never remember, and that singer, Emilio Parez. Plus a couple of Rialto players.”

  “What Rialto players?”

  “Well, Roderigo —”

  “What? Are you telling me that Jaco was involved as well?”

  “Capitano, let me just tell it, okay? Then we can talk about the damage. We have to talk about the damage.”

  “All right.”

  “So, I’m in there with Luis, and I know he thinks I’m the evil genius behind his transfer up North. Which I am not, of course. But I managed to get him talking, and eventually he said, ‘Listen, why don’t you come and join the rest of us in the music bar?’ Which I agreed to do. So, later, Michael and I went through. You know what it’s like in there. You have to stand right up against someone and yell if you want to make yourself heard. And usually they don’t listen, because they’re watching the girls up on the dance platforms. My thinking was to give it another half-hour or so and then take Michael somewhere quiet for coffee. I was standing with Montano and his girlfriend, when suddenly there was a major uproar behind us. I turned to look, and Roderigo stumbled past us with the front of his shirt all ripped. And Michael was coming after him.”

  “Oh, my God,” Desmerelda says quietly.

  “Okay,” Otello says. “So what was that about?”

  “I had no idea until this morning, when I talked to Michael in the car. He claims that Roderigo said something about Dezi.”

  “Like what?”

  “He wouldn’t say. Actually, he says he can’t remember. But obviously something that Michael took exception to. Very serious exception to. Because he was shoving through all the bodies to get at Roderigo again. So I got in front of him and put my arms around him, which is a bit like tackling a charging rhino, as you know. But I stayed on my feet somehow and managed to calm him down a bit. Roderigo had vanished into the crowd by this time; I didn’t see him again after that. The bouncers were taking an interest by then, but I waved them away thinking that was the end of it.

  “Unfortunately, it wasn’t. Because Montano, the young idiot, took it into his head to have a go at Michael. Verbally, I mean. Called him a drunken gorilla, polite things like that. Michael stood this for about five seconds and then went off like Vesuvius. He punched Montano on the side of the face, and when the kid fell back against the bar, Michael hit him again and then had him down on the floor. I thought he was going to kill him. It took about ten of us to drag him off. Everyone was screaming and yelling. Then it seemed like just seconds before the police swarmed in.”

  Otello has his forehead resting on his hand as he stares down into his empty cup. “How is Luis? Do you know?”

  “They took him to Santa Theresa. I called there this morning, talked to the duty sister.”

  “And?”

  “Well, it could’ve been worse. He lost a couple of teeth, had to have five stitches in his upper lip. Severe bruising all over the place and possibly a fractured rib. Some concussion. They scanned him for a fractured skull but it was okay. He was discharged a couple of hours ago.”

  “Jesus.”

  “It’ll be a while before he plays again. There is no doubt that his club will sue.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Desmerelda says. “I mean, Michael —”

  Otello interrupts her. “So he was drunk?” I
t is barely a question.

  “Who, Montano?”

  Otello slams the flat of his hand down on the table so fiercely that his coffee cup leaps and clatters. Desmerelda flinches.

  “No, Michael, for Chrissake!”

  Diego does not answer immediately. Nor does he look up. It seems he cannot look Otello in the face. Eventually, reluctantly, he says, “He thinks someone spiked his drink.”

  “And is that likely?”

  “Well,” Diego says, sighing, “it’s maybe possible. But we’re talking about El Capricho, you know? Not some sleaze joint down in Castillo or somewhere.”

  “And you say he was drinking fruit juice? Did you see him drink anything else?”

  “Well, no, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “Nothing. The honest answer is no, I didn’t see him drink anything else.”

  Desmerelda says, “So —” but Otello cuts her off.

  “Listen, Diego. I pay Michael to protect Dezi and me. I don’t pay you to protect him. So tell me, no bullshit. In your opinion, was Michael drunk?”

  Diego sighs again, more unhappily than before. “I think so. Yes.”

  There is a longish silence. Desmerelda’s gaze flicks from one man to the other, then comes to rest on her husband. She has never seen him angry. Or, rather, she has never seen him, sober or otherwise, give vent to anger. As a man who suffers sly kicks, minor assaults, verbal abuse, and professional fouls on a weekly basis, he has had to become extremely good at anger management. He has been red-carded off a soccer field only twice in his career, the last time two years ago. His calmness is one of the things she loves about him. He seems calm now, but — and this comes to her as a cold shock of recognition — he is not. She understands that this stony stillness is the form that his rage takes. His rage, or something worse. She has to summon up courage to speak to him, and that is shocking, too.

  “Otello? Honey? What are you thinking?”

  Instead of answering her, he walks over to the phone. He scrolls the memory, then thumbs the call button. He waits. Then he says, “Michael? Call me. I don’t give a damn how rough you feel.” He hangs the phone up but doesn’t come back to the table. He leans against the wall and puts his hands in his pockets.

  Desmerelda watches him warily. “What are you going to say to him?”

  “I’m going to tell him that he’s fired. It’s what he’ll be expecting.”

  She clasps her hands together and stares down at them. Diego’s face is expressionless, but his dark eyes are narrowed and moist with expectation. She says, “Baby, don’t you think we should hear Michael’s side of the story before we make a big-time decision like that? I mean, you know, this thing is so out of character. . . .”

  “No, it isn’t. Unfortunately, it isn’t.”

  “Okay. You know him better than I do. But right now Michael is my bodyguard, okay? And he’s good. It feels good having him around. And I just don’t feel right about losing him without knowing exactly what went down last night, you know? I think this is something we should discuss.”

  Diego interrupts the proceedings by getting to his feet. “Dezi’s right. You two have issues over this thing that are none of my business. And I’ve got some crisis management to do. Let’s talk later.”

  In the elevator down from the penthouse, Diego looks up at the security camera and winks. A small self-indulgence.

  Desmerelda goes to make more coffee, but, as usual, the complexities of the machine frustrate her, and she slaps it angrily.

  Otello goes over. “I’ll do it.”

  She turns and laces her fingers together behind his neck, looking up into his still-impassive face.

  “Don’t,” he says. “Don’t plead Michael’s case. Please.”

  “But —”

  “But nothing.” He pulls her hands away. “Look. Michael Cass and I go back a long way. I know what drink does to him. It’s like there’s this other person inside him, an ugly, violent person, that takes over. He’s been in rehab twice. And we made a deal. He works for me for as long as he likes if he can stay sober. If he can’t, that’s it. Because he’s basically an alcoholic. If he’s started drinking again, he won’t just think, Okay, that’s it. I had a night of it. Now I’ll stop. Because he won’t be able to. And what that means is, instead of him watching us, we’ll be watching him. Think about it, Dezi. Like this awards thing we’re supposed to be at on Tuesday. There’ll be as much free booze there as anyone could want. Imagine if we take Michael and he kicks off, in front of the TV cameras and everything. Nightmare.”

  Desmerelda has to concede that this would not be a good thing. She takes an orange from the fruit bowl and sits at the table to peel it, concentrating on getting all the white pith away from the flesh. In the bedroom, her phone rings. She waits until it gives up.

  “Don’t you think,” she says carefully, “it’s kind of strange that all the papers had pictures of Michael and Montano and everybody coming out of El Capricho? Like, the people call the police because there’s this big fight, they get there pretty fast, yeah, but as soon as they come out with Michael, there’s all these photographers? Isn’t that slightly weird?”

  “I guess somebody tipped them off.”

  “Yeah, but how come they got there so quick? It doesn’t make sense.”

  Otello shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe the paparazzi knew that Luis and his celebrity friends were going to be there, and were just hanging around for pictures. Maybe they hang around there all the time. It’s that kind of place, isn’t it? It’s why we don’t go there anymore.”

  He pours the coffee. “Or what’s more likely, come to think of it, is that people took pictures with their cell phones and sold them to the papers. It happens all the time. Everyone with a goddamn Nokia is a paparazzo these days.”

  Desmerelda pulls the segments of her orange apart so that they look like the petals of a fleshy flower, or a starfish.

  “Maybe,” she says. “It still seems kind of funny to me, though.”

  It is funny. Marvelously funny. Diego, gunning the Maserati at the traffic lights on Independencia, laughs out loud. Really, who could have predicted that it would all work out so well? The taxi to his right has two young guys in it who are checking out his car, and his laughter. They grin back at him, lifting their thumbs in an admiring salute. He returns the gesture. The lights change, and he pumps the accelerator, cutting off the cab for the simple pleasure of it.

  Soon, he knows, Dezi will start working on Otello to give Cass his job back. And Otello will start to ask himself why she cares so much. Yes. But just to make sure, he will talk to Cass. Not now, though. Later. Let things simmer awhile. Besides, Emilia will be missing him.

  YAWNING, FAUSTINO SHAMBLED into his kitchen and switched on the kettle. He opened the fridge and sniffed suspiciously at the pineapple juice. It smelled slightly fermented, but he glugged some down anyway.

  He had not slept well, but could not recall the dreams that had troubled his night. They had slipped away to wherever it was they spent the days lying in wait for him.

  While the coffee brewed, he went to the tiny bedroom he used as a home office and fired up his aging PC. Once he had deleted the usual baffling messages about firewall updates and virus checkers, then the spam (why was it that these people assumed he was lonely, impotent, and sick?), he discovered that he had one new e-mail. From Diego Mendosa, suggesting possible dates and times for the next interview with Otello. The message was logged at 6:04 a.m. Either the man started work very early or he didn’t sleep. It occurred to Faustino that he knew nothing about Mendosa’s private life. Just as — he tried to avoid the thought, and the memory that went with it, but couldn’t — he knew nothing about Bush’s.

  He consumed his usual breakfast of two cups of coffee and two cigarettes while gazing blankly at the strips of world showing through the venetian blind. Then he called his office at La Nación. A robotic voice informed him that the departmental secretary was not at
her desk at the moment. When the bleep went, he thought about saying, “And why not, exactly?” but then decided he couldn’t be bothered and hung up without leaving a message. It would hardly be a shocking novelty if El Maestro was late on duty.

  Faustino drove the Celica as quickly as he dared up through the lower tiers of the multistory garage. Bad shadowy things lived at these levels, and he would not leave his car there. There were spaces on the roof, and he parked in one that was within sight of the attendant’s glass booth. He walked through the tubular glass bridge that arced above the squalling traffic and onto the concourse that overlooked the vast atrium of Beckers, the biggest and best department store in the city. From his vantage point, it resembled a colony built by termites that declined to use any building materials other than crystal or chrome. Here, as always, he felt almost religious. The Muzak and the ascending voices of a thousand shoppers blended into something that could be mistaken for prayer. He rode the escalators down to the menswear department, trying to look uninterested as he sank past the brazen mannequins that beckoned him into women’s lingerie.

  Faustino knew about clothes. His fingers could tell the difference between the genuine article and the product of some local or Asian sweatshop. He was halfway to the cashier with a nice cotton crew neck when he realized his mistake. He returned the garment to its rack and went to rummage in the discount bin for something that looked less stealable. Almost everything in there made him wince, but eventually he found a gray-and-black synthetic sports top that wasn’t entirely disgusting and was probably windproof. He took it to the register. There was no point using a credit card; Faustino paid with the change in his pocket.