Laura Restrepo - Hot Sur

“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?”

“And for María Paz also. But Gunnora is Gunnora. Gunnora, his daughter, his granddaughter, his house in the suburbs, his library, Paris, his Lamborghini, his rose garden… all these things exist in a whole different reality for him. A reality that he gives priority.”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. I was beginning to have another kind of image of him, even thinking he wasn’t like other lawyers…”

“And you weren’t wrong, sir, that’s a fact. Think about it, he’ll only be gone for two weeks. It’s not like he’s deserted his causes forever. He’ll be back in two weeks, leading the crusade for María Paz again. And we’ll lose him again for Gunnora’s birthday or whenever they perform The Marriage of Figaro at La Scala in Milan.”

“What happened in that trial, Buttons? That’s what I want to know.”

“As do I, Mr. Rose, but I don’t know, I can swear to you. I can tell you what I personally witnessed that day, but that’s the extent of my knowledge.”

The trial was set for 11:30 a.m. at the Bronx Criminal Division courthouse on East 161st Street, where Buttons arrived with his boss two hours beforehand. Pro Bono likes to be early; he’s not one to risk racing against the clock. Neither Pro Bono nor Buttons had eaten breakfast, so they went down to the cafeteria.

Pro Bono picked up copies of the daily papers on the way, and ordered coffee, a fruit bowl, and a muffin. Buttons had a slice of pizza and a soda. They sat at a table away from the others and ate in silence. The boss didn’t like to chat or be distracted in the hours before a trial. He needed to focus. They exchanged at most a few words, from what Buttons recalled. Pro Bono told him he had had a good night’s sleep, that he was refreshed and rested. He added that the duel that morning would be unto death, but that he was confident it was winnable. Buttons was somewhat more skeptical, but in general he agreed. The evidence against María Paz was very weak. And then they parted. Buttons had other things to take care of that morning, and he left Pro Bono there reading the newspapers. María Paz had not yet arrived at that point, but nothing to worry about. There was plenty of time.