Exposure

  “Dezi?”

  “Yeah. Maybe someone wants me off the case. Wants me out of the picture so that I’m replaced by people who’re less careful. Or people who could be bribed, even.”

  Diego rubs his jaw, considering this. “Well, maybe. But —”

  “Listen, Diego,” Michael says, leaning closer. “Tell Otello to be very, very careful about security from now on, okay? I mean it. Especially with Dezi.”

  “Sure,” Diego says. “I’ll do that.”

  “But hey, listen — don’t say anything to her. I don’t want her getting paranoid.”

  “Fine. Okay.”

  “How is she, anyway?”

  Diego sighs. “Well, she’s pretty upset, as you can imagine.”

  “I’m sorry.” Michael looks away and down. “I’m sorrier than I can say.”

  “I know, but that’s not what I meant. She’s upset that Otello fired you. She was very strongly against it.”

  Michael lifts his head. Something distantly related to a smile stirs the stubble on his face. “Yeah? That’s nice. She’s a great kid. Really great.” He laughs, a short incredulous noise more like a cough. “And I never thought I’d hear myself say that about someone called Brabanta.”

  Diego gets up and goes to lean on the balcony rail. Below, the boys are playing on, stubbornly ignoring nightfall. Their ball is a small ghostly moon taking an erratic course through the gathering darkness.

  “Michael, you know what I would do if I were you? To remedy this situation? Talk to Dezi. Privately. Explain what happened. Apologize, whatever it takes. She’ll listen to you. And get her to argue your case with Otello. It might take a while, but she’ll get around him. Can you imagine him denying her anything she wants?”

  “Ah, man, I dunno. . . .”

  Diego turns. “What’s the problem?”

  Cass shrugs, looking down at the space between his feet.

  “Ah,” Diego says. “A matter of pride, right? You and Otello really are two of a kind, aren’t you? Pair of stiff-necked northern bastards.”

  “Hey, Señor Mendosa, you better smile when you say that to me.”

  “I am smiling,” Diego says. And he is, of course. “Look, if you’re right about what happened, we need you back with her. It’s her best interests we’re talking about here.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I think so. Call her. Arrange a meeting. And Michael? Don’t leave it too long. She may have to mount a charm offensive.”

  THE MORNING TRAFFIC was even more infernal than usual, so when Faustino got to his underground parking space, he sat in the Celica listening to the faint ticking of the cooling car, trying to mimic the process. Then he clambered out and, as usual, took a rather childish delight in using the key fob to chirrup the door locks. He became aware of the sound of running water. People off the street sometimes slipped in here to take a leak — on camera — but this was louder than that.

  Over in the shadows below the ramp, Bush was filling the bucket from a tap that Faustino hadn’t known existed. Even in the subterranean gloom, the boy’s mad head was unmistakable. It was shameful, how nervous Faustino felt. Just for a second he considered getting back into the car until Bush had gone. But there was something in the kid’s posture, his intentness on his task, that told Faustino that Bush was fully aware of his presence. So he walked over, conscious of how dreadfully loud his footfalls sounded in the low, echoing space.

  “Looks good on you, the top,” Faustino said. “I had to guess the size. How’d I do?”

  Bush let the tap run a bit longer, then shut it off and turned around. “Yeah, pretty good.”

  “The color okay?”

  Bush shrugged. “Yeah, it’s fine. Don’t show up too much, you know what I mean? In the dark.”

  “Good,” Faustino said, nodding. “That’s good. The bucket suit you? It seemed, you know, well made and everything.”

  “It’s heavy, full. But the handle is cool.”

  “Right.”

  Faustino waited, hoping that Bush would say something more. He didn’t, but at least the boy’s eyes met his own, and he managed something close to a smile — a brief flash of bright teeth.

  “Okay,” Faustino said. “Well, I guess we’ve both got jobs to get to.”

  And because neither of them was prepared to make the first move, they found themselves walking up the ramp together toward the light and the surge of the traffic.

  At Desmerelda’s suggestion, she and Michael Cass meet for lunch at a place called Tako, tucked away in the district popularly known as New Tokyo. Michael likes sushi. The restaurant is divided into discreet booths, and Desmerelda has ensured that theirs is visible from only one other table. At that table, one of her two bodyguards is sitting, nibbling crunchy little things that he finds slightly disgusting yet interesting. He has a phone mounted on the side of his head; it looks as though a silver cockroach is feasting on his ear. The second bodyguard is outside in the agency car. He has already called Señor Mendosa, as instructed, to tell him of their whereabouts.

  “Look, Michael,” Desmerelda says. “He’ll come around. I know he will. This is like politics, you know? He’ll have to keep his distance for a while because, well, because there’s so much involved.”

  “Yeah. I’m bad for the image.”

  She wants to deny this, but can’t, so she stirs her seafood with one chopstick. Eventually she says, “He’s going to miss you more than you miss him.”

  “Dezi, let’s not get all sentimental here. You and him, you’ve got stuff happening all the time. I’m not dumb. I know that a month, two weeks from now, there’ll be so much going on that if someone says ‘Michael Cass,’ you’ll say ‘Who?’”

  “Michael, that’s not true. Please don’t say that.” She reaches over and lays her hand, briefly, on his.

  Her bodyguard pops another seaweed-flavored something into his mouth.

  “I want you back with me,” she murmurs. “These two stooges I’ve got today — I mean, can you imagine? The other one, the one in the car, is positively obese. I talk to them, it’s like, duh, you know?”

  Cass smiles for the first time.

  “Michael, be patient a little while. We’ll get you back, I promise.”

  An exquisite waitress comes to take their bowls away. An equally exquisite waiter sets in front of them square white plates and a complex work of food art that they hesitate to spoil.

  “No disrespect,” Michael says, “but he’s a stubborn bastard.”

  Desmerelda makes a fond noise. “Well, you know what? I don’t think so. Not with me, anyway. It’s a matter of timing. A word or two over dinner, a little ask at exactly the right moment, you know? Keep the issue on his mind. I’m on the case, Michael. Don’t worry.”

  Otello is doing warm-downs after training when one of the juniors, his equipment boy, brings his phone to him.

  “Capitano? This a bad time?”

  “Diego. No, it’s fine. Something up?”

  “No. Just a couple of things I thought we might talk about. I wondered if you’d like a late lunch.”

  “Yeah, okay. Where?”

  “There’s a quiet little place down in New Tokyo I’ve been to once or twice. Good sushi. The steak is excellent, too. Pick you up in, what, fifteen minutes?”

  The lunchtime business on La Nación’s patio had been poor, and Maestro had not appeared. Bush was about to give up on him, refill his bucket, and take up position at the curb again, when Faustino emerged from the building. Within five minutes he was back with Faustino’s two packs of Presidentes.

  Bush waited, solemn but awkward, while the man battled with the cellophane and lit up. Then he said, “Maestro, I was wonderin’ if you’d do me a favor.”

  Faustino raised one eyebrow. “Well, I guess that depends on what kind of favor that might be.”

  From his pocket, Bush produced a scroll of printed pages and held it out.

  “What’s this?”

  The boy shrugged. “Somethi
n’ I found.”

  The rolled-up pages kept curling back on themselves; Faustino found them difficult to manage with the cigarette in his hand. Their margins were yellowed and the few illustrations were badly printed, their colors off-register. They appeared to be part of a chapter from a book about, of all things, crabs. He looked at Bush, flummoxed.

  “I was wonderin’ if you could tell me what this says here,” the kid said, pointing.

  “Er, okay . . . It says, ‘Limb regeneration in the species Callinectes exasperatus.’”

  The boy’s face was somehow blank and expectant at the same time.

  “That last bit is Latin,” Faustino added helpfully.

  “You mean, like Mexican?”

  “Ah, no. It’s a language. An old language. It’s the name of this particular crab.”

  Bush nodded, impressed. “That’s one helluva name for a crab, huh?”

  “Well, it’s not just this . . . Yeah, I suppose it is. Why do you want to know, Bush?”

  He shrugged again. “I dunno. Been buggin’ me, I guess.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe that’s why it’s called exasperatus,” Faustino said, smiling, and then felt ashamed of himself, seeing the baffled seriousness in the kid’s face.

  “The way I figure it,” Bush said, pointing again, “is these pictures show this crab can grow back a leg. One that’s been bit off, maybe.”

  “Yep, that’s right. Crabs can do that. So can starfish and, if I remember correctly, some lizards too.”

  “Yeah? That’s a pretty good trick, ain’ it?”

  “It is indeed,” Faustino said. “Be kind of neat if we could do that, wouldn’t it?”

  “Wouldn’ it, though,” Bush said soberly. “And what do the words under the pictures say, Maestro?”

  “Um, the first one says ‘Leg bud,’ then the next ones say ‘First molt. Second molt. Third molt. Fourth molt.’”

  “Uh-huh. What’s a molt?”

  “Well,” Faustino said, stalling while he skimmed Professor Fuentes’s enthusiastic but turgid prose. “Yeah. What happens is that when a baby crab grows, sooner or later it gets too big for its shell. So it has to, er, discard . . . well, basically, it sort of climbs out of its shell. That’s a molt. Then it grows another one. A bigger one. Then after a while it gets too big for that shell. So it does the molt thing again, and grows an even bigger shell. And it has to keep on doing this until it’s fully grown, you know? Then it’s got a shell it can keep.”

  And that, Faustino thought, is a trick we can do. Have to do. But it was probably not an idea he could share with the boy.

  “So I guess what the pictures are telling us, Bush, is that it takes old exasperatus here four of these molts to grow that leg back. I imagine that’s a pretty long time.”

  Bush was silent for a while studying the pictures, nodding thoughtfully. Then he looked up. “He does it, though,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Faustino agreed, grinning. “It’s amazing what you can do if you’ve got the —”

  “Ambition, maybe?”

  Faustino laughed aloud now, and in response a huge smile dispersed the solemnity in the boy’s face. Then his eyes switched to the road. He took the pages from Faustino and rolled them up.

  “Cars comin’ in,” he said. “I gotta run. Thanks, Maestro.”

  “Bush, tell me . . .”

  But the kid was already halfway down the steps. Then he stopped, turned back. “Maestro? I’m sorry about . . . you know?”

  “A simple misunderstanding,” Faustino said.

  “Yeah.”

  His hair bounced out of sight.

  “Hey, señora! Wan’ me to keep an eye on your car? There’s people round here needs watchin’, you know what I mean?”

  The bodyguard with the silver insect on his ear stands up when he sees Otello and Diego. He doesn’t think this is in the script. Looks like an uh-oh situation. . . .

  He takes a couple of paces toward Desmerelda. “Señora?” She looks up from her phone. He wags his head toward the door. “Your husband, señora.”

  “What?”

  She leans forward and peers around the side of the booth. A waiter is showing Otello and Diego to a table, but Otello walks past it, toward her. She stands up. Her face feels hot, suddenly, and that is awful.

  “Baby! My God! What are you doing here? Hi, Diego. Hey, I can’t believe this! Why didn’t you tell me you two were going to be here? Aw, I’ve just paid the bill. I’ve got to meet Ramona in twenty minutes. If I’d known . . .”

  “It was a last-minute thing,” Diego says, smiling. “I didn’t think to call you. I’m so sorry.”

  Otello glances down at the table, the two tea bowls, the two empty glasses. He says, “Was that Michael I just saw heading off down the street?”

  THE AIRPORT. RIALTO is flying down to Dos Santos for the second leg of the cup tie. Half the squad, plus Tresor, have already left on the afternoon flight. You just don’t put a billion dollars’ worth of soccer players on one plane. Otello wanders over to a far corner of the VIP lounge where the Muzak doesn’t reach and taps Diego’s number on his phone. Waiting, he looks down through the dark glass to where people in luminous vests are doing mysterious things that his life probably depends on.

  DIEGO: Hi. You’re checked in?

  OTELLO: Yeah. Anyway, like we were saying.

  DIEGO: Well, I’m not sure I have any further thoughts on the subject. To be honest, it’s not really any of my business. Well, it is, but essentially it’s something you and Dezi have to sort out.

  OTELLO: Diego, I don’t need to see you to know you’re doing that thing.

  DIEGO: What thing?

  OTELLO: That frowny thing you do when you’re thinking stuff you think I don’t want to know about.

  DIEGO: You’re spooky, Capitano. You read me like a book, and I don’t know if I like it.

  OTELLO: I know you saw Michael. You did, didn’t you?

  DIEGO: Yeah, okay. I saw him.

  OTELLO: And did he look guilty to you, or what?

  DIEGO: Well, I don’t know. Furtive, maybe. Embarrassed . . . I’m really sorry, Capitano. I had no idea they’d be there. It’s sort of my fault. I’d told Dezi it was a good place to eat, but . . . Look, he needed to apologize to Dezi in person, right? There’s probably no more to it than that.

  OTELLO: You’re doing it again.

  DIEGO: What? Christ, have you got me on camera or something?

  OTELLO [laughing a little]: No. You’re easy, is all. So tell me what you really think.

  DIEGO: You mustn’t rely on what I think. Seriously. I’m an agent. It’s in the nature of my business to think the worst of people. It’s my affliction. And it’s useful to me, Capitano, but not to you. Jealousy, suspicion, paranoia, they’re not useful to a player. I strongly suggest you forget all about this and concentrate on tomorrow’s game.

  OTELLO: It’s not like she denied it, right? She admitted straight out that Michael had been there.

  DIEGO: She did. Mind you, there’d’ve been little point in denying it.

  OTELLO: And as soon as we got home, she was on it again. About giving Michael his job back.

  DIEGO: And what did you say?

  OTELLO: I said I’d think about it. But not yet. Listen, they’ve just called our flight. I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow maybe.

  DIEGO: You and Dezi are spending Thursday and Friday at the villa, right?

  OTELLO: Yeah. Dezi’s going down there ahead of me, tomorrow night.

  DIEGO: She say anything to you about Michael taking her?

  OTELLO: What? No, why?

  DIEGO: I just wondered. Listen, Capitano, don’t let this business get to you, okay? Take it out on Dos Santos tomorrow. Have a good flight. Ciao.

  That night, with Emilia, Diego is playful.

  The following evening, the tie between Rialto and Dos Santos ends in a goalless draw. It is a game that lacks shape and rhythm. And excitement. The result is, however, satisfactory from th
e Rialto point of view: they progress to the next stage, having scored twice in the first leg. Otello is substituted in the sixty-third minute.

  In La Prensa the match is watched with noisy derision. Fidel is pleased. He is not, of course, a Rialto fan. He supports unfashionable and struggling Gimnasia, although the truth is that he only does so to be awkward; in reality he does not take much interest in soccer. Besides, a bad game means that his customers buy more drinks. When the bar begins to empty he goes out back for a little smoke — a thing Nina pretends not to know he still does. The sky is overcast, so featureless that it doesn’t seem to be there at all. There are no lights in the windows of Oguz’s sweatshop. Maybe his workers have gone on strike. A nice thought, but improbable. So the yard is in darkness, except where slanting rectangles of dingy yellow from the street lamp spill through the gaps in the old house front. He peers over at where the shed is, wondering about Bush and the two girls.

  Fidel has scanned the newspapers these past weeks, looking for stories about kids who’ve disappeared, bodies. And found nothing. Not that he expected to find anything. The socialist paper he buys every week has become increasingly savage and hysterical now that the date of the election has been announced, but it’s like it’s stopped covering actual news, stopped digging the dirt, stopped looking for the source of the smell that rises to its nose. And as for the other papers — well, Jesus, you’d hardly notice that the country was heading for an elected dictatorship. All you get is Otello and Dezi this, Otello and Dezi that. Celebrity as the opiate of the masses, man. Otello had seemed like a good guy, a man of the people, all the stuff he did in the North. Then he comes down here, and before you can say knife, he’s married to the superstar daughter of that fascist pig Brabanta, and next minute they’re like Mary and Joseph, Evita and Perón, King and Queen of Fairyland. Take everybody’s eye off the ball while her old man and his cronies steal the country. Conspiracy? You betcha. Her daddy put her up to it, no question. Sad, though, when smart black guys get suckered like that.

  He stubs the joint and puts the butt into his pocket, and is about to return inside when he hears movement and murmured speech. The kids coming back. That’s Bianca, first, then Bush and the other girl, Felicia. You can tell them apart by their hair, even in the dark. He sits silently on the bench until he hears the shed door scrape shut.