by T. R. Ultra
I needed to take action. I wanted more answers. It was time to have them.
“You need to tell me what’s going on, Renato.” I said, after a long breath.
“We’re safe in here. Please, have seat.” Renato replied, then he offered me a cup of water.
I took it, gladly. We had spent so much time exposed to the heat of the city and to the climbing of Gloria Santa’s slopes, that I was very near to morphing into a sack of sand.
I took a drink, questions popped in my head, many of them refreshed after drying out. I had a time window to clarify my situation, but what should I ask next? I had a sense that each question was worth a credit, and I had only so many to use.
There was no evidence Renato would answer my questions. He might dodge some of them as he had already done, or simply make up some excuse. My mind was full of doubts still demanding answers.
I dragged a wooden chair from under the dinner table and sat on it. It required a proper upright posture to digest whatever I was about to hear.
Renato took a place across from me at the table. He sat stiff on the chair, watching me. The cup in his hands, instead of hydrating his body, would find a better use in humidifying his anxious throat.
And, God-be-damned, Renato looked terrific. He squinted at me, his black hair crossed his forehead on a lovely arch. His lips opened, on purpose, and then my questions washed out of my mind.
Renato exhaled a faint scent of fragility, emboldened by all the care he dedicated to his grandma. In contrast to his muscular, powerful body, it only made his whole picture more desirable.
Since we had departed Praia Palace, I did not have so great a chance to admire his features. My life had been turned upside down, yet the sex appeal of this man cast some sort of spell over me that brought my shaken up existence into a perfect balance—or maybe it was the other way around.
A girl laughed on the TV. I felt my cheeks heating up from the self-consciousness his caramel eyes had brought onto me.
“What am I running from?” I asked.
“Drug dealers.” He sipped his water.
I faltered on what to say next, my eyelashes fluttering on the absurdity of the moment.
“Why? What the hell they want me for?”
Renato stared at me.
“These guys are cold and cruel, they hardly take anything personal, Emily, like most successful businessmen do. They want you not because of who you are, but due to the value you can deliver to them. You’re an asset.”
“A valuable asset, like you’ve said before.”
“Highly valuable.”
I was a broken writer who had to earn a living writing about things I disliked, yet drug dealers from across the world seemed to have a great appreciation for my assets.
I just wished I had discovered earlier this gold mine I had suddenly turned into. It would have been great to know while still in Atlanta.
I had no choice but to laugh aloud from my inner joke. Renato, however, disliked my manners.
“I’ve put my grandma at risk for you. Do you think this is some kind of joke?” he said.
“Aren’t you the guy who brags about the risks he dare to take?”
“I don’t risk other people lives.”
Renato frowned. I felt ashamed for messing with the feelings he demonstrated for his grandma.
“I’m sorry. This is surreal, as if from a romance with a foul plot.”
“Perhaps it’s because what you find unbelievable is our daily life,” he replied, his eyes still fixed on me.
He might be right. I decided to go back to my questions. Instead of pushing the valuable asset matter. I would plunge into more practical things.
“I understand you are worried about me . . . but now that we’re safe, I need to let people know about my situation. I have a couple of calls to make and—”
Renato interrupted me.
“That’s not possible. No phone for you in Gloria Santa.”
Panic loomed, but I kept myself together.
“Am I being held captive?”
“I’m not a kidnapper, Emily. You can’t use my phone because they keep track of it. And if they ever suspect I’ve brought you here, we’re dead, all three of us.”
This was the first time he addressed the situation as us.
“What about your grandma’s phone?” I said.
Renato chuckled.
“The only gadgets she possess are a television from the nineties and a radio from the seventies.”
Looking around, that appeared to be the truth.
“So, are you also a valuable asset?”
Renato frowned.
“Not that I am aware of. Why do you ask?”
“Well, you just said your Sim card is trackable, just like the one you gave me.”
His eyes roamed to different places inside the building—the TV behind me, the cup on the table, my watch, the staircase on my right—as if he pondered what to say next, a made up story or the facts. After a couple of seconds, his gaze returned.
“I’m not proud of what I’ve done, but you also must understand that I had no other option.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed, shifted over his chair before speaking.
“Mosts favelas in Rio are controlled by drug dealers.”
“What about Gloria Santa?” I asked.
“Gloria Santa is somewhat . . . pacified, reason why I believe we are safe in here. But there are favelas in Rio heavily controlled by drug dealers, and people unlucky enough to dwell them usually have two options to choose from: either oblige to drug rules or die. And given that dying is not a conscious option, people end up with only one, which is basically how I’ve been grabbed by them.”
“Ok.” I said and paused. “So you have no choice, you get dragged into a drug dealer’s crime web and have to do jobs for them. Like picking me up at the airport? And having your own phone busted. But how do I fit in this situation?”
“My job was to pick up an American tourist at the airport, deliver her a Sim card, and while driving her to the hotel, swerve the path into a favela much worse than this one, meet with some heavy armed teenagers and deliver her to them. After that, I should turn around and never look back—but turns out I didn’t do that.”
My body had been compressed in an invisible barrier that constrained movement. I couldn’t blink, I couldn’t hear anything but his words, I couldn’t get up or run away. I was barely able to rationalize. My next words blurted out.
“Did they plan to behead me on a live stream?” I asked.
“Not their first option,” Renato said. “You would be used as a lever to pressure Brazil’s government to release Rio’s greatest drug lord from behind bars, Flávio Beirario. There are some evil geniuses paid with drug money, and these minds have set up a plan to create a diplomatic incident involving the US and Brazil. Threatening the life of an American citizen would certainly bring the US government’s attention to Brazilian politicians, and that might pressure them to release Flávio Beirario from prison.”
I felt dumb struck and stood over the dinner table.
Renato said in an apologetic tone, “but you have to understand that it was not my option to participate in this affair. I only took the job because—well—they killed the former guy who denied it.”
I jolted back into the conversation.
“They killed Carlos?” I said.
Renato rubbed his hand against this forehead.
“Carlos made the mistake of telling everyone he would drive an American woman to a fancy hotel. He said he had done that before, but never to such a beautiful lady like you. That’s when I saw your picture. The problem is that the word got to drug lords’ ears, and suddenly your arrival became the magic trigger of their long planned scheme. But Carlos denied to take part in their plans, and so he ended up with seventeen bullets to his head. Had I not accepted the job, I’d have been turned into a corps too.”
What a terrible way to die.
&nb
sp; “You can still be killed, can’t you? I mean, you didn’t do your job.” I said, my neurons going back to their regular connections after the initial shock.
“Yes, and I don’t regret it. I’ve seen many people die while growing up, Emily. Childhood friends are always the hardest griefs. That’s why I’ve nurtured this sense of life not getting too far into the twenties, of never squandering time with fears and insecurities, because I might never have another opportunity to make use of life.” Renato shifted in his seat. “But then I found you at the airport, and at that very moment I wanted to kiss you inside that car. Because they might have us separated before I ever had the opportunity to taste your lips. But then I failed. I was fucking frozen. Now, I promise I’ll do my best to protect you.”
I wished grandma Norma wasn’t inside that cramped room, because the way Renato spoke, looked at me, moved his lips, jerked his shoulders and gestured his hands made me want to tear my clothes off.
I had no idea of our next steps—someone might still tear the door down and shoot us—but I was sure that a passion for me had bloomed inside Renato’s heart, and that felt delicious.
I looked out the window. A hot evening descended on the city. Hours had passed inside that house. Grandma Norma, still on her sofa, fell asleep.
I was without a phone, unable to ask for help. The presence of Renato around me was a curse and a delight. He was the one who got me into this mess, but he was also the one who would offer me an escape—or so I hoped.
“What about those officers pursuing me?” I said.
“They represent another rotten portion of the city: police corruption. They had been informed of my failure in accomplishing the job, and ordered to undertake and finish it. I thought you would be better protected inside Praia Palace Hotel, but of course I was wrong. Those officers have poisonous tentacles everywhere.”
“Do they work for the same guys that told you to pick me up at the airport?” I asked, mouth dry.
“Yes. But officers Pinto and Rôla work on their own interests, either the constant influx of money or the release of power that connections to drug dealers provide to them.”
I took that as a sign of their persistence. Drug lords wouldn’t give up this easily. Renato might be dead by now, and those two officers would still be sniffing around for me, willing to deliver my head on a tray to their employers.
“All right,” I said, exhausted. So much information. So much malice. “What should we do next?”
Renato stretched his shoulders.
“I’ve already gotten rid of my phone, and most people don’t even know my grandma lives in Gloria Santa. Officers Pinto and Rôla have probably been patrolling the surroundings of US Embassy in search for you. The car I’ve used to bring you here from Copacabana is already far away from Rio. I left it open with car keys in the ignition, and robbers around here don’t take much to notice an easy profit. Now I’m a target just as you are, but I have faith in finding a way out for you.”
He swallowed hard. The danger to his life was probably higher than the danger to mine. Had we been captured, I’d still be kept alive to barter for the release of Flávio Beirario. But Renato would be killed instantly. Thinking about that made me shudder.
“How are you going to protect yourself?” I said.
“Rio is an enormous city, but no one can hide here for long, not even in its narrowest and dimmest alleys. I must find a new life far from here, perhaps in the south of Brazil, or somewhere else—but only after I help you.”
He pushed his chair back, scratching the uncoated cement floor with its wooden legs. After getting up, he raised both arms above his head, and groaned, stretching his body out for a couple of seconds. The bottom hem of his shirt raised up from his torso. A trail of faint, delicate hair revealed a trail to his groin over the most tanned and shredded abs I’d ever seen.
But then I heard those noises again. Gunshots. Two sharp 3-round bursts that sounded somewhat distant, but certainly inside the limits of Gloria Santa.
“I’m gonna get us some pizza, won’t stay out long,” Renato said.
“You heard those gunshots, didn’t you?” I said.
“You’ll hear gunshots every now and then. They’re not really a problem unless you hear a few dozen in a row. Now that Gloria Santa has been pacified, chances are these are only celebration bursts. Flamengo soccer team is playing today, and most likely winning”
Renato went down the stairs. I felt terribly alone. Grandma Norma snorted on her couch, the TV casting ghastly lights over her body. I stayed at the table, away from the window. Night was coming, and I didn’t know what kind of monsters dwelled around a favela when the lights went out.
Chapter 13
I heard a sound coming from downstairs and jerked my head up, my heart heaving inside my chest. I was in a darkness with only the light of a bulb coming through the window from the building across the street. The TV was off, and inside the dimly lit room, grandma Norma was not on her sofa anymore. I rubbed my chin with the back of my hand. My jaw was sore and I felt that a sticky crust of saliva had formed after I had fallen asleep on the table.
Maybe because of the adrenaline of the day, I wasn’t aware of being so worn out. I remember lowering down my head over my forearms to help ease my thoughts, and without realizing it I’d slid into a deep sleep.
I heard steps coming from the ground floor. Was it Renato? That man had strange habits. I sensed he had good intentions, but I was also suspicious of him. Even grandma Norma resembled the kind of character whose kindness had been brought into play only to raise the credibility of a lie.
I had been groping for a blatant truth, and my fingers had only reached slippery corners. Renato seemed to be a fair, irresistible kind of man, but many serial killers had been profiled with those traits as well.
My head throbbed in pain. I couldn’t stand this situation much longer. I’d been a fugitive for less than twelve hours, nearly giving up. I almost got seduced by the idea of being caught after all. Being used as a bargaining chip might actually improve my situation, as the whole world would finally become aware of my current, absurd history.
Lights turned on, I raised my hands to protect my eyes. Renato walked up on the staircase with a box of pizza and a plastic bag in his hands. He carried out the most harmless of looks.
“You didn’t have to stay in the dark,” he said. He put the pizza box and a bottle of red wine on the table.
“I fell asleep,” I said.
Renato pulled out some plates, cups and some cutlery from under the kitchen sink.
“I’ve also brought you a new toothbrush.”
I had noticed it inside the plastic bag with the red wine. He had something sassy in mind. And, to be honest, I did too.
“Where’s your grandma?” I asked.
“Oh, she’s probably already asleep. She is an independent woman. That’s damn risky if you ask me, but after so many years, and so much limitation, there’s no way I’ll take that from her.”
“Sounds fair.”
I only realized how hungry I was after Renato had put a pizza slice on my plate. I ate it in a few bites, and asked for another one. Renato poured the red wine in a mug—poor Norma didn’t have a wine glass. I gulped it down waiting for the next serving.
The wine triggered an instant reaction in my body: cheeks heating up, tingles on my legs, and confidence rushing back. It had the same effect on Renato, his gaze before long, went from hungry for pizza to hungry for me.
“Where did you learn to speak English?” I asked. I shouldn’t want to know more about him, but I did.
“In America. I spent a couple of years working as a waiter in Orlando. I had quite a good life, but an illegal immigrant is a bomb waiting to blow up.”
I wished I had something reassuring to say to him. Renato raised the corner of his lips and squinted at me.
“I still plan on moving there. And I’ll do everything by the book next time. Is there anything else you would like to k
now about me, Emily?”
I took another sip of wine, another dose of courage, and looked at Renato’s lips. They were a bright scarlet. Was it from the redness of the wine or the lust of his heart? Renato had this terrible habit of half opening his mouth while staring at me, like he wanted to taste me—in small, uninterrupted portions.
“Are you still brave enough to take risks?” I asked.
My life had always been neat, planned out, safe, and full of achievable goals. But for the first time I didn’t know what would happen tomorrow. I loathed makeshift arrangements, and could only enjoy a party if all details had been sketched out weeks before. This was also true about my relationships. I never found bliss living with Marlon. I’d kept expecting that our next perfectly planned summer trip, or the new restaurant in town, would provide us with the energy and the special moments that we never took part in our home.
But now, life proved itself to be a mass of unpredictability. I should live in the present, otherwise I might die before tasting all the pleasures it had to offer. Similar to Renato’s perspective of living.
“I’ve been risking my life since I picked you up. And I don’t regret it,” he responded.
I bit my lower lip and ran my hands across my shoulders. The piece of fabric I wore over my body suddenly felt too heavy, the bra too tight. Renato pushed his plate aside, gulped the remaining wine on his mug, and got up.
This fortress of a man stood before my eyes. He took his shirt off in a single pull, and posed his bare torso. His chest, a dense mass of neatly worked out muscles, gleamed under the light bulbs fixed to the ceiling in the crumbling building. For a moment I thought he could implode the walls by only squeezing his pecs together.
I felt an urge to get up. My strength left me. I wanted Renato’s hands to feel my body and do to me whatever he wished. I yearned to be possessed by that vicious desire only male beasts can bestow on their female prey.
He walked along the wall and turned off the lights. Darkness fell in the room, but I had Renato’s heat beside me.
His hands ran across my hips. He ignored my shirt and went beneath it, rubbing my lower back with his coarse palms. He grabbed my hips and squeezed.