The Argentina Rhodochrosite (10 page)

18

With her nose steaming up the
window, Ainsley felt her heart leap at the panorama below her.

Buenos Aires at night.

It was nearly two o’clock in the morning. She was in Caballo, one of the city’s hippest dinner clubs, on the twenty-seventh floor of a brand-new skyscraper in Puerto Madera. There were several other towers lining the port, some not even finished yet. This was one part of Argentina, at least, that had recovered quite well from the economic crash—the part that exported.

She was in a private room at the back of the club, a corner room, two walls of which were clean glass, affording a nearly aerial view of South America’s most exciting city. She gazed down at the bits of blue light, the ribbons of red avenues.

It took her breath away.

On a table in the center of the room was a spread of beautiful grilled meats, cheeses, and olives, which was constantly being replenished by tuxedoed wait staff. Ainsley had already scarfed two small plates and was debating a third. The only thing stopping her was the presence of the women.

Ainsley had never been very catty, but these women were bitches.

Upon their arrival at the club, five girls were already waiting in the private room. None looked older than twenty-three. All were dressed in shimmery miniskirts and stilettos. They had been wearing severe makeup and unattractive pouts.

And then they had surrounded the men like a swarm of fish.

Ainsley had seen possessive girls back in the States. Everybody, after all, knows at least one girl so outrageously insecure that she needs to start fights with other women.

But these
chicas
had achieved another level of clinginess. Ainsley’d found herself literally shoved aside as their manicured fingers and hands had scratched all over the men’s chests and backs. Soon Lalo and his friends had become cocooned inside a giant kittenish cuddle.

Even Sebastian had his own personal barnacle, a girl whose smoky eyes systematically cast murderous looks at every other woman in the room. Her fingers ran through his hair. The player wasn’t returning the intimacies, but he wasn’t discouraging them either. Ainsley imagined that it was hard to say no. It was a mystery to her how professional athletes ever maintained marriages.

Still, her belly was full, and the muted, pulsing music from the main room provided a sexy soundtrack. Soon enough, Lalo disengaged himself from the purring women and lurched over towards Ainsley. A whiskey bottle hung loose from his hand. His eyes were having trouble focusing.

“You having a good time?” he said.

“Of course.”

“The night is young,” he said, then nodded towards the girls. “Younger than even them.”

“Are these your girlfriends?”

“Sometimes,” he said. “When we want them to be.”

“Lucky you.”

Lalo wasn’t hammered enough to miss her sarcastic tone. “It’s how we are,” he said. “Don’t hate something you don’t understand. Besides, you don’t have to be here.” His pudgy finger poked at her sternum. “You’re only here because we
allow
you to be here.”

Ainsley understood the veiled threat. He was pulling rank. And Lalo’s position was stronger than even he knew, because Ovidio had full confidence in him.

“That’s true,” she said. She picked up her purse and coat. “I think I’ll go outside for a while. I’m curious about the docks.”

“It’s up to you,” Lalo said. “But you’re safe with us. I haven’t forgotten my promise.” He leered at her.

Ainsley gave him a fake smile, which probably wasn’t convincing, because she wasn’t particularly good at them. Then she walked past him.

Sebastian was sprawled on the couch, cocktail in hand. The barnacle was now running both her hands through his hair. Ainsley made eye contact with him and nodded as she hit the door.

Outside the VIP suite, the full blast of the music assaulted her ears. The main room of Caballo was a blur of dancers and drinkers, all young, all hip. In the corner, behind an elevated booth, a DJ had his ear cocked into a pair of headphones. This could’ve been any nightclub in New York, and while Ainsley wasn’t opposed to dancing tonight, she needed some fresh air first. The closed space of the private room had made her feel a little claustrophobic. Sealed rooms, no matter how chic, always did that to her.

She threaded her way around the floor, found the elevator, and descended to the street.

Outside, Ainsley stepped onto the pedestrian area. There were four
diques
, or square-shaped bodies of water, that comprised the heart of Puerto Madero. In front of her was the second, known as Dique Dos. She walked across a small plaza to the railing, where she stared across the water, at the buildings on the other side, only five hundred meters away.

Then she heard a voice shout her name. She turned.

It was Sebastian.

Ainsley felt her heart leap in her chest. She had played the best card that a woman could play in such a circumstance: scarcity. Voluntarily leaving a professional athlete was sometimes the best way to separate yourself from the pack. She’d just inadvertently raised her status.

“You didn’t like Caballo?” he said.

“Everyone was busy there,” she replied. “All those girls.”

“Yeah, Lalo arranged that. He always has them waiting.”

“A nice friend to have.”

Sebastian studied her, not sure what the comment could mean. Truth be told, neither did Ainsley.

“It’s a beautiful night,” he said. “Do you want to walk with me?”

“Where?”

“Here. Along the
diques
.”

He held out his arm again. Ainsley knew she shouldn’t be accepting anything like this while she was on assignment, but she didn’t want to regret having wasted this night.

They strolled along the railings. Ahead of them was a white pedestrian bridge, oddly shaped, with a single asymmetrical fin poking up diagonally into the air. Several cables stretched from the fin down to the footpath. It looked like a harp.

“What is that?”

“The woman’s bridge.”

“Really.”

“Yes, I’m serious. It’s called the Woman’s Bridge. It was built by Calatrava. When boats need to pass through, those cables swing the middle portion open.”

“We women are generous like that,” she said.

“Sometimes,” he said.

A cold wind gusted across the open water, and Ainsley wrapped her coat about herself more tightly.

“I only know Ovidio as an adult,” she said. “What was he like as a child?”

Sebastian laughed. “Competitive.”

“I figured that.”

“Trust me, you have no idea. He was the worst bastard in the world. He was always challenging me, let’s have a penalty kick competition, let’s have a handstand competition, let’s have a video game competition, let’s have a kiss-the-girl -first competition. He used to wake me up at five in the morning, come on Sebito, let’s go practice headers before morning practice. Then he would get really mad, really
bronca
, when I wouldn’t want to go. So one morning I finally told him no. He tried to physically pull me out of bed. We got into a huge fistfight, right there, destroyed everything in my room.”

“And you still kept speaking?”

“Are you kidding? After that day, we were best friends.”

Ainsley laughed. “You’re such
men
.”

“Of course. We’ve stayed in touch always. Even while I’ve watched him explode throughout the world.”

Sebastian sighed. Ainsley wondered if there was a little bit of jealousy. “Not everybody can be a superstar.”

The striker responded quickly, as though he’d thought a lot about that. “I wouldn’t want to be one either. It makes you crazy. Of course, Ovidio was already a little bit
loco
, you know. But the fame made it worse.” He sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know why we’re still friends.”

“Maybe habit.”

“I guess because everybody has screwed him except me.”

Ainsley decided to get a little bolder. “Do you know who stole his necklace?”

Sebastian glanced sideways at her. “You know about that?”

She nodded. This truly was an open secret. Nadia was hopelessly behind the gossip.

“It’s a horrible crime,” he said. “That necklace means more than life itself to Ovidio. He cannot function without it.”

“Who could’ve wanted to hurt him?”

Sebastian shrugged. “There are too many. It’s impossible to say.”

“Surely you can narrow it down.”

He shook his head. “Ovidio is a polarizing public figure. He has millions of enemies, especially whenever Boca loses.” Then Sebastian grew very serious. “This country knows how to keep its secrets. We do that very well. Right now, all we can hope is that someone, someday, will be courageous enough to say, yes, I saw it happen, and then point to the guilty one.”

He produced a cigarette and lit it. “I don’t usually smoke, but this conversation has agitated me. I am worried for his future.”

Ainsley was worrying about the future for a different reason. The night had yielded no clues, zero, not a single crack into the solution to Ovidio’s mystery yet. Or, if there had been one, she hadn’t been astute enough to catch it.

Ainsley struggled to get perspective on her situation. She was feeling overwhelmed by the impossibility of the assignment. She was strolling at two in the morning with a South American soccer player who, at first blush, seemed both attractive and kind. And she was mildly drunk.

The rhodochrosite didn’t matter. Ainsley wanted this feeling, this night, to keep going.

She heard the distant thumping of electronic dance music. Ahead lay another nightclub, situated in what seemed to be a line of old warehouses. The queue outside the door was at least a hundred people long. It wrapped around the corrugated iron exterior of the building, out of sight.

“You look like you want to dance tonight,” he said.

Ainsley felt suddenly self-conscious. “I’m really a terrible dancer.”

“Me too,” he replied. “I am useless, period. The coach won’t let me score goals any more. All I do is wear my warmup jersey on the bench and applaud my teammates.”

“An easy job.”

He looked at her askance. “I feel like you want to dance,” he said.

“Yes, I do,” she said.

He stubbed out the cigarette under his shoe. “And I’m with you, so let’s dance.”

Ainsley’s heart rose at the idea. Then she looked at the queue again, and her heart fell. “How long do you think it will take to get through that line?”

Sebastian waved it away. “We won’t wait in line. They know me here.”

Together they made towards the front door of the nightclub, and when they stumbled out, two and a half hours later, a pair of sweaty messes, Ainsley felt absolutely confident of one thing.

For the first time in ages, she’d had a lot of fun with a man.

19

Shortly before seven o’clock am, Ainsley
woke with a start. Next to her bed, someone had just slammed the door shut.

She groped around and realized there was no pillow under her head. Then she realized there was no bed either.

Ainsley bolted up. She bumped her head on a low, padded ceiling. Her pupils tightened enough for her to scope out her surroundings.

She was in the backseat of a luxury automobile. It was parked on the dirt shoulder of a road. A convenience store was about thirty meters behind her.

And she was alone.

Ainsley looked down at her clothes. It was the same purple shirt she’d been wearing just two hours earlier, when she’d come out of the nightclub. Her makeup looked horrible, she was sure.

She groggily tried to piece together the order of events. Sebastian had offered her a ride back to her hotel. She’d accepted, maybe unwisely. She remembered getting into the front seat of his BMW. She remembered fighting to keep her eyes open.

Then she couldn’t remember anything after that.

Ainsley peered into the front seat. Her purse was in the footwell. She leaned forward, grabbed it, rifled through it. Everything inside seemed intact. Then she tried to open her back door.

It was locked.

She cursed out loud. Her fingers scrambled across the inner panel of the back door, looking for the lock button. She poked it furiously. It wouldn’t work. She was locked inside this closed vehicle.

Panicked, Ainsley banged her fists against the window, screaming, thrashing the car from side to side. She was making the entire car shake.

A small click from the doors. Her tantrum paused. She pushed the sweaty hair out of her face.

The door had unlocked. She had
made
it happen with the force of her resistance.

Ainsley yanked it open, scrambled quickly out of the car… and tripped on her shoe. She fell on her left side into the dirt.

Pulling herself up, Ainsley wiped the dirt and twigs from the left side of her blouse. It was no matter. She would be catching a taxi straight back to the Gran Hotel Hispano.

Then she saw Sebastian.

He was walking towards her from the convenience store down the road. He was carrying two cups, one in each hand, with lids. It looked like coffee.

“Good morning,
hermosita
,” he said, “you finally woke up.”

“Why did you lock me in the car?”

“Because I didn’t want anybody to hurt you. This is a dangerous area.” He gestured back to the convenience store, then looked at her clothing. “Did you fall in the dirt?”

“No, I went rolling around in the mud like a pig to cool off,” she shot back. “Of course I fell down. I was furious.”

“Towards me? Why?”

“I thought you were kidnapping me.”

He laughed, then set the coffee cups on the roof of the car. “I guess it’s better that you don’t trust anybody. Life is easier that way.”

Ainsley felt herself softening a little, but she was still wary. “What happened last night?”

“Two hours ago, you fell asleep and I couldn’t wake you up.”

“Why didn’t you take me to my hotel?”

“You fell asleep before you could tell me the name.”

“How did I get in the backseat?”

“I put you there. It would be the best place to sleep.”

She looked at Sebastian. He didn’t seem to have been out all night partying and dancing. He was wearing a new pair of stylish jeans and a fresh pink polo shirt. He’d even brushed his hair. Ainsley felt hideous by comparison.

He noticed her looking at him. “I carry extra clothes in my trunk,” he said. Then he glanced at her own filthy outfit. “Sorry, nothing for you.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I just need to catch a taxi so I can get back to the hotel.”

“That’s not possible right now,” he said, shaking his head.

“Why?”

“Because taxis don’t come out to the
villas
.”

“What are the
villas
?”

Sebastian was taken aback. “The
villas miserias
. You don’t know them?”

“Why?”

He looked taken aback. “Nobody told you?”

“No,” she said. Ainsley was feeling impatient. “Look, we had a fun time last night, but I have different plans for today. I’ll find my own taxi and go back home.”

It was a lie, of course. Ainsley had no plans for the day. But she was feeling ugly, and in need of real sleep in a real bed.

She started walking down the shoulder of the road, but Sebastian rushed over and caught her arm. He looked around worriedly. “I told you, this is a dangerous area, the taxis don’t come out here.”

“So I don’t have a choice.”

He nodded. “Trust me. You want to come.”

“Why?”

Sebastian straightened up with pride. “Because Ovidio is announcing his candidacy for president at the
villa
this morning.”