“I don’t remember.”
“If you don’t remember that means that you did.”
“There was a rerun of one of her favorite shows on TV.”
“So she was the one who turned on the TV and not you.”
“That’s right, she was the one.”
“What did you watch? House?”
“I don’t know. Some show about doctors.”
“House. In her manuscript, she mentions how much she likes it. So she watched House and you passed your hand through her hair, which was wet, first because of that walk through the silver confetti and second because she had just washed it.”
“It was dry. She had used the hair dryer. If your next question is going to be if we had sex, the answer is no.”
“Yeah, Clinton said the same thing. ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman.’”
“Let’s not go so deep into the gutter. I may have a hump like Richard III, but I am not a villain. And besides, I have my pride; I don’t put myself in situations in which I will appear more grotesque than I already am. I’m telling you things exactly as they happened, Rose. This is a voluntary confession, right? I suddenly felt like telling someone these things I have told no one before. What would be the point of lying? There was never the slightest indication that either of us were interested in what you’re thinking about.”
Pro Bono couldn’t relax inside that room. He felt guilty, couldn’t stop thinking about his wife, was annoyed at the smell of floral air deodorizer, terrified by the possibility of this pretty girl asking him for any kind of thing in bed for which he was not ready. In any case, he couldn’t get comfortable, so he told María Paz about Balthazar, the French bistro where he wanted to take her. The truth was that his handicap was making him more self-conscious than it ever had before, and he needed to find a way out of the situation. He had always been a man who distinguished himself more at a dining table than in bed, more a gourmet than a Don Juan. The name of the restaurant reminded her of the Three Wise Men. “What do you eat there?” she asked. And he told her that his favorite dish was filet mignon au poivre. She: What’s that? He: A big hunk of meat grilled and covered in pepper butter. She: Very spicy? I’m not into spicy food. As he explained to her she could order anything she wanted, the commercials ended, and she again became hypnotized by the program. When it ended, she announced that she was starving and couldn’t wait for the peppered meat: Why don’t they order room service instead? By then, Pro Bono had grown a little more at ease and considered the harm in staying. Examining it closely, it was a once-in-a-lifetime moment; the occasion called for what she desired, this young, beautiful, charming girl who had just come from hell itself and was now happy. Why not keep her so, when it was so easy? The whole scene was infused with a delightful candor, and it was in fact raining buckets outside. Hell, why not? “Room service it is,” he told María Paz, “order whatever you want.” Soon enough a cart with a white tablecloth appeared at the door packed with everything María Paz ordered, double portions of everything: chicken soup, club sandwiches with fries, caprese salads, and apple pie with vanilla ice cream. Pro Bono suggested she order wine but she preferred ice-cold Coke, so they toasted to her freedom with Cokes.
“Conditional freedom,” she specified with her mouth full of food. According to Pro Bono, that’s basically what transpired in that hotel room. She ate and he watched her eat.
“As if I had taken her to Maxim’s in Paris,” he explained to Rose. “She wolfed down that whole thing, her portion and mine—I barely had a bite. Then she burrowed down under the covers like a mole in its lair, and she went into a deep, quiet sleep that could have lasted a day, a week. I don’t know if you understand, my friend Rose, but given the circumstances, that’s as close to that thing called happiness as you’re going to get.”
Given that no happiness is everlasting, Pro Bono had to return home, where, likely, alarms had begun to go off. He was after all a married man with a daughter; he was even a grandfather. He called his Gunnora. “Hello, dear, I’ve run into a little trouble trying to get this prisoner out, but I’m fine, just letting you know, I’ll tell you the whole story when I get back, you know how these things go sometimes.” Before dawn, he and María Paz were in the Lamborghini on the way to New York. She was ecstatic and so was he.
“Did you talk a lot on the way?” Rose asked.
“Not really. It had stopped raining and she wanted to roll the windows down, and I did, though it was a bit cold for it.”
María Paz let her hair loose in the breeze and turned on the radio all the way up. “Let’s go, Thelma,” she told the lawyer, and because he didn’t get it, she told him about the movie. He was Thelma, she said, and she was Louise. Pro Bono drove her to Staten Island, and dropped her off at this woman Socorro’s place. “She’s like an aunt,” María Paz explained. And then came that difficult moment, the end of their celebration.
“When you said good-bye?” Rose asked.
“The rebirth. Leaving prison and returning to real life is a kind of birth for prisoners more difficult than their first one. Prison infantilizes, makes you dependent. It takes away everything but also takes care of everything for you.”
Still inside the car, María Paz gave Pro Bono a desperate look, one that said that she was terrified to be dropped off there in the middle of nowhere. But he had no choice but to ignore it. “You have to make do, my girl.” He was going to help her in the trial and do everything he could to help her avoid any more prison time, but that was as far as he could go for the moment. She had to understand that his relationship with her was a sideline thing for him. His real life was elsewhere, one he had built brick by brick and sheltered from all ills, a successful life in spite of his handicap, a good marriage, beautiful family, a brilliant career. It was clear that someone such as Pro Bono could not risk this all by pushing certain envelopes, not even for an innocent and beautiful girl such as María Paz. Before he drove off, he watched her walk toward the house. From the front door, María Paz waved good-bye. “Bye, Thelma,” she screamed, and he responded, “Bye, Louise.”
“Did you ever see her again?” Rose asked.
“Yes, of course, a few times. But never like that night in the Blue Oasis. I was her defense attorney and there was a trial coming up, my friend, of course I had to see her.
“Freedom suited her well. She looked radiant,” Pro Bono told Rose in hushed tones, as they remained parked in front of the Blue Oasis, as if they had nowhere to go. Rose still didn’t get the point of the story, the obnoxious old man suddenly confessing all his secrets to Rose like he was his old high-school pal. Didn’t they have somewhere to go? To begin their investigation, like in The Wire? There was a girl who was going to die because of the clamp inside her body. Pro Bono behaved as if there were nothing better to do than confess his sins inside the car, like he had set up shop there.
After she was released, María Paz religiously kept her appointments with the parole officer and then went to see her lawyer, always carrying her little dog in a handbag. Miraculously, she had been able to get him back: Hero had been given to an animal care organization and she found him there, alive and well, waiting for her. Since the thing couldn’t walk, she was hesitant to leave him alone again, given that she might not return and he would be abandoned again.
Pro Bono was not only representing her, but he kept his promise of accompanying her to buy new clothes so she would look like a princess in front of the judge and jury. He assured her that appearance was crucial in these types of trials. They got tired of listening to evidence and made their decisions based on a look, or even a smell. Pro Bono took her to Saks Fifth Avenue, but María Paz was not really sure. She thought that the store was too expensive and the clothes not really for younger women, and a little too upper class. “That’s what you have to appear as,” Pro Bono tried to tell her, “like a lady, a pretty, well-dressed lady. Specifically, an inno
cent lady; judges tend to believe innocent ladies wear expensive clothes.”
He finally managed to convince her, and he bought her an outfit made from a fine dark fabric, a white blouse, shoes with moderate heels, and a Gucci handbag that cost a pretty penny. According to him, the girl looked great. When she looked at herself in the mirror, front and sides, she said that since she was not going to a funeral, they should add a little color. “I can’t show up there like this,” she told Pro Bono, “look how I’m dressed, as if in mourning, as if we were going from the courthouse to the gallows.”
Pro Bono got a lump in his throat at hearing this.
“It wasn’t an easy case,” he told Rose. “It wasn’t a sure winner at all. I never said anything, bought her a pretty Ferragamo scarf. Guess the color.”
“Not a clue. Is it important?”
“The most important part of the whole story. It was a pink scarf. French pink, to be exact. She wrapped it around herself and looked gorgeous. Her skin was soft and dark against the light-colored silk, and her black hair was resplendent. She had been right, that little touch of color made a huge difference.”
Before they parted, Pro Bono gave María Paz enough money to get her hair done up in a bun at a nice hairdresser, because loose hair could be downright counterproductive. “Too showy,” he explained. He advised her not to put on too much makeup, not to wear red lipstick or nail polish, nothing. “Discretion is the better part,” he told her. “It’s not enough just to be innocent, you have to look it.
“But enough with these stories,” Pro Bono said suddenly, sitting up in his seat and looking at his watch, as if to regain the sense of time and shake himself out of his reverie.
“I agree wholeheartedly,” said Rose, “but get to the point, where is María Paz now?”
“I have to tell you something, Rose. I hope you won’t take it badly. You see, what happens, my friend Rose, is that in these two weeks coming up I’m not going to be in New York.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have to go to Paris.”
“Paris? To Paris, now? What?”
“It . . . it’s our honeymoon.”
“Whose honeymoon?” Rose could not believe what he was hearing. “What are you talking about?”
“Actually, my second honeymoon. I’m going with Gunnora, my wife. It’s not my doing, believe me. She is set on this, wants me to take her to Paris for a second honeymoon.”
“This is a joke, right?”
“No, sadly it’s not.”
“Don’t we have to look for María Paz?”
“You’re going to have to do it, Rose. For the first two weeks. Just these two weeks. As soon as I return, I’ll come rejoin you. Don’t worry, I’ve set it up nicely, one of my people will be with you at all times, someone I trust to the death.”
“I’m sorry, I’m still not sure I’m getting this. You lure me right into this mess, and then you just leave me hanging? And you think I’ll just agree to it? Fuck you, my friend. Now I understand why you got in touch with me, now I get it. There’s no suspended driver’s license; that was a lie, you needed some jerk to fill in for you, so you could wash your hands and take off for Paris. I fell from the sky, didn’t I? I was just the idiot you needed. Fuck you, Pro Bono; I will not get more entangled in your trap.”
Rose was so outraged that he could feel the anger hammering in his chest and his veins throbbing at his temples. He tried to say more but tripped on his words. So he turned from the old man and glared out the window. He had to cool down, get a hand on this mess he had walked into. He had to think, think, but clear thoughts evaded him. Pro Bono’s words continued to do cartwheels in his head, enraging him even more.
“Believe me, going to Paris is the last thing I want to do right now,” Pro Bono said. “I care about María Paz. You see that, don’t you, Rose? I’m terrified about what may happen to her. But it’s only two weeks. Two weeks, that’s all I’m asking, then we can continue together. Please calm down. You’re right. I should have told you from the start. I apologize. I am very fond of María Paz. I respect her and have supported her without fail all this time. When everything seemed lost, I was the one there by her side. You’re new to this whole situation, Rose, but I’ve been there. I’ve risked a lot for that girl. And all I’m asking now is for a short two-week vacation.”
“Are you denying that the only reason you called me was because you needed a replacement? Knowing that I would get stuck with this?”
“Two weeks, Rose. Chances are María Paz won’t show up so soon. I think it will take a month or more to find her, if we do. But for the moment, I need to attend to my wife. I’ve been putting off doing this for her for two years. Two years is too long for a woman as old as me to wait. Gunnora has lived for this these past years. We have the plane tickets, hotel reservations in Paris, tickets one night for La nozze di Figaro, her favorite opera, she—”
“Is guilt eating you up that badly when it comes to your wife? What sins are you atoning for, sir? That night in the motel with María Paz? Or were there other nights like that one? What’s the story? Are you in love with María Paz? Is that it? Is that the reason for this trip to Paris?”
“Stop, Rose, you’re being absurd. You’re very upset, so it’s understandable. I wasn’t expecting any different. But it’s two weeks, that’s all I need.” Pro Bono left his cell phone number on a business card that he stashed on the dashboard. “Call me whenever you need to, day or night, I’ll be looking for it. And look, you won’t be alone. I leave you in the best of hands. William Guillermo White, the best investigator in my office, has been instructed to follow you twenty-four/seven.”
“Why do I have to be involved then? Why can’t this great investigator just do his thing on his own?”
“Because you’re the only one with certain information that can lead us to her.”
“Me? What do I know about María Paz?”
“You, nothing. But your son knew.”
Right at that moment, Rose heard the noise of a car engine and turned to look. There it was, like a hallucination. Powerful, sleek, and gleaming jet-black like his dog Dix: a sports car that had pulled up and parked right next to them. A Lamborghini. Was it Pro Bono’s? Another cold calculation by the fucking old man? A tall, overweight man got out of the Lamborghini. He was thirty or thirty-five, with appealing features, a five o’clock shadow at noon, unkempt hair down to his shoulders, and wires coming out of his ears that were connected to something in his pocket. He was a wearing a conventional business suit made of a fine dark cloth, no tie, a Nirvana T-shirt under an unbuttoned white shirt, and, half-hidden under the hem of his pants, a pair of thick-soled sneakers that put a bounce to his step and added a couple of inches to his height.
“William Guillermo White,” the man said, extending a hand to Rose.
“Who on earth?”
“William Guillermo White. I’m an assistant at the firm. Everybody calls me Buttons.”
Rose chatted for a moment with the newcomer, and before he realized it, Pro Bono had snuck out of the Ford and was off in his Lamborghini, racing away in a flash and leaving behind a wake of tremulous air.
“I . . . can’t . . . believe it,” Rose muttered, more to himself than to his new companion. “I can’t believe it. It was all lies, that son of a bitch . . . speeding tickets.”
“Speeding tickets?” Buttons laughs. “Don’t be stupid. Opera tickets, maybe, that’s more like my boss. Lesson number one: never trust a rich man with opera tickets.”
“Don’t fucking tell me that he made you drive up here, two and a half hours, just to bring him his car. Who’s the stupid kiss-ass now?” Rose growled, turning his anger toward Pro Bono on the poor assistant who had been nothing but cheerful up to that point.
“A little kissing ass, you got me there. But how often does one get the chance to drive a Lamborghini? Besides, I came
to speak with you, Mr. Rose. At the behest of my boss, of course. So you’re right, I’m a kiss-ass, a brownnoser.”
“And they call you Buttons. Why the hell do you let them call you Buttons?”
“Because I’m always fidgeting with the buttons of my shirt, until I just pull them off. Little tick of mine. Among others, I hate to say. Then I suck on them. Like this.” Buttons pulled back his lips to reveal a white button clenched between his teeth. “It works for me. Calms the nerves. I also know a heap of button jokes. You want to hear one? This guy says to some other guy, ‘Why don’t you press for the elevator?’ And the guy presses the door of the elevator. ‘Not there, you idiot,’ the first guy says, ‘the button.’ So the second guy looks down at his shirt and presses one of the buttons.”
“That’s not a button joke, that’s a joke about autism.”
“Fair enough. Why don’t we grab a hamburger at the diner, I’m starving.”
They got the food to go and ate and had some beers at Rose’s house, surrounded by the dogs.
“Do you think your boss is a bit smitten with this María Paz?” Rose asked, unsure why he did but perhaps so he wouldn’t have to hear another button joke.
Too many contradictory things had happened, and his mind had short-circuited and gone blank.
“Smitten? No, I wouldn’t say that,” Buttons responded. “I would say he’s in love with her, at his age. There’s a kind of delightful love that is called what it is, a love that’s spoken and acted on. It’s not that kind of love. But there is another kind of love that is not really obvious, or spoken, or acted upon; it just is, without the lover even being aware of it or able to do much about it. That’s the kind of love I’m talking about.”
“And yet he’s leaving for Paris when she most needs him.”
“He wants to go to Paris, and so he goes, that’s what rich people do, Mr. Rose. They have certain priorities, you know. It’s in their DNA.”
“But doesn’t he stand up for the rights of the indigenous, those without water, and whatnot?”
Hot Sur Page 35
