Ian McDonald - Brasyl

Marcelina watched them take the car on Rua Sacopã It was a C-Class Mercedes, a drug dealer’s car, done up to the tits by the Pimp My Ride: Brasileiro design crew with wheel trim and tail and blue lighting that ran up and down the subframe. Subwoofers the size of suitcases. The design boys had done a good job; it looked a fistful more than the four thousand reis Marcelina had paid at the city car pound.

One time they passed it: three guys in basketball shorts and vests and caps. The first time the looking time. A second time, this time the checking time, pretending to be interested in the trim and the rosary and Flamengo key-fob hanging from the mirror (sweet touch) and was it CD multichanger or a hardpoint for MP3?

Go, my sons, you know you want it, thought Marcelina in the back of the chase car in a driveway two hundred meters up hill. It’s all there for you, I made it that way, how can you resist?

The third time, that is the taking time. They gave it ten minutes’ safety, ten minutes in which Marcelina sat over the monitor fearing would they come back would someone else get there first? No, here they were swinging down the hill, big pretty boys long-limbed and loose, and they were good, very good. She hardly saw them try the door, but there was no mistaking the look of surprise on their faces when it swung open. Yes, it is unlocked. And yes, the keys are in it. And they were in: door closed, engine started, lights on.

“We’re on!” Marcelina Hoffman shouted to her driver and was immediately flung against the monitor as the SUV took off. God and Mary they were hard on it, screaming the engine as they ripped out onto the Avenida Epicicio Pessoa. “All cars all cars!” Marcelina shouted into her talkback as the Cherokee swayed into the traffic. “We have a lift we have a lift! Heading north for the Rebouças Tunnel.” She poked the driver, an AP who had confessed a love for car rallying, hard in the shoulder. “Keep him in sight, but don’t scare him.” The monitor was blank. She banged it. “What is wrong with this thing?” The screen filled with pictures, feed from the Mercedes’ lippstick-cams. “I need real-time time-code up on this.” Don’t let them find the cameras , Marcelina prayed to Nossa Senhora da Valiosa Producão, her divine patroness. Three guys, the one in the black and gold driving, the one in the Nike vest, and the one with no shirt at all and a patchy little knot of wiry hair right between his nipples. Sirens dopplered past; Marcelina looked up from her monitor to see a police car turn across four lanes of traffic on the lagoon avenue and accelerate past her. “Get me audio.”

João-Batista the soundman waggled his head like an Indian, the gesture made the more cartoonish by his headphones. He fiddled with the mixer slung around his neck and gave a tentative thumbs-up. Marcelina had rehearsed this-rehearsed this and rehearsed this and rehearsed this-and now she could not remember a single word. Joao-Batista looked at her: Go on, it’s your show.

“You like this car? You like it?” She was shrieking like a shoutygirl-presenter. João-Batista looking pityingly at her. On the car cams the boys looked as if a bomb had gone off under their Knight Rider LEDS. Don’t bail, Lady Lady Lady, don’t bail. “It’s yours! It’s your big star prize. It’s all right, you’re on a TV game show!”

“It’s a shit old Merc with a cheap pimp from graphics,” Souza the driver muttered. “And they know that.”

Marcelina knocked off the talk back.

“Are you the director here? Are you? Are you? It’ll do for the pilot.”

The SUV veered abruptly, sending Marcelina reeling across the backseat. Tires squealed. God she loved this.

“They decided against the tunnel. They’re taking a trip to Jardim Botânica instead.”

Marcelina glanced at the satnav. The police cars were orange flags, their careful formation across Rio’s Zona Sul breaking up and reordering as the chase car refused to drive into their trap. That’s what it’s about, Marcelina said to herself. That’s what makes it great TV . Back on the talkback again.

“You’re on Getaway . It’s a new reality show for Canal Quatro, and you’re on it! Hey, you’re going to be big stars!” That got them looking at each other. Attention culture. It never failed to seduce the vain Carioca. Best reality show participants on the planet, cariocas. “That car is yours, absolutely, guaranteed, legal. All you have to do is not get arrested by the cops for half an hour, and we’ve told them you’re out there. You want to play?” That might even do for the strapline: Getaway: You Want to Play?

Nike vest boy’s mouth was moving.

“I need audio out,” Marcelina shouted. João-Batista turned another knob. Baile funk shook the SUV.

“I said, for this heap of shit?” Nike vest shouted over the booty beat. Souza took another corner at tire-shredding speed. The orange flags of the police were flocking together, route by route cutting off possible escape. For the first time Marcelina believed she might have a program here. She thumbed the talk back off. “Where are we going?”

“It could be Rocinha or up through Tijuca on the Estrada Dona Castorina.” The SUV slid across another junction, scattering jugglers, their balls cascading around them, and windshield-washers with buckets and squeegees. “No, it’s Rocinha.”

“Are we getting anything usable?” Marcelina asked João-Batista. He shook his head. She had never had a sound man who wasn’t a laconic bastard, and that went for soundwomen too.

“Hey hey hey, could you turn the music down a little?”

DJ Furação’s baile beat dropped to thumbs-up levels from João-Batista. “What’s your name?” Marcelina shouted at Nike vest.

“You think I’m going to tell you, in a stolen car with half Zona Sul up my ass? This is entrapment.”

“We have to call you something,” Marcelina wheedled.

“Well, Canal Quatro, you can call me Malhação, and this América” — the driver took his hands off the wheel and waved — “and O Clono.” Chest-hair pushed his mouth up to the driver’s headrest minicam in the classic MTV rock-shot.

“Is this going to be like Bus 174 ?” he asked.

“Do you want to end up like the guy on Bus 174 ?” Souza murmured. “If they try and take that into Rocinha, it’ll make Bus 174 look like a First Commmunion party.”

“Am I going to be like a big celebrity then?” O CIono asked, still kissing the camera.

“You’ll be in Contigo . We know people there, we can set something up.”

“Can I get to meet Gisele Bundchen?”

“We can get you on a shoot with Gisele Bundchen, all of you, and the car. Getaway stars and their cars.”

“I like that Ana Beatriz Barros,” América said.

“Hear that? Gisele Bundchen!” O CIono had his head between the seats, bellowing in Malhação’s ear.

“Man, there is going to be no Gisele Bundchen, or Ana Beatriz Barros,” Malhação said. “This is TV; they’ll say anything to keep the show going. Hey Canal Quatro, what happens if we get caught? We didn’t ask to be in this show.”

“You took the car.”

“You wanted us to take the car. You left the doors open and the keys in.”

“Ethics is good,” João-Batista said. “We don’t get a lot of ethics in reality TV.” Sirens on all sides, growing closer, coming into phase. Police cars knifed past on each side, a blast, a blur of sound and flashing light. Marcelina felt her heart kick in her chest, that moment of beauty when it all works together, perfect, automatic, divine. Souza slid the SUV into top gear as he accelerated past the shuttered-up construction gear where the new favela wall was going up.