City of Brick and Shadow

by Tim Wirkus

  Felipe’s revelation had set off a town-wide evaluation of financial assets. The men pored over their books, talking with their wives to decide just how much they could afford to invest. They eagerly awaited any new word from Felipe, any further indication of what move his uncannily wealthy father might make next. There was constant dinner-table talk of what they could do with all of the new money they’d soon be making—vacation homes in Europe, newer and bigger yachts, daring plastic surgeries. Collective enthusiasm rose with each passing day.

  The spell was soon broken, however, at a seaside cookout. While the women sat at picnic tables chatting, and the children played at the edge of the water, the men stood around the smoking grills, bantering cheerily as they supervised the cooking meat—the picanhas, the linguiças, the costelinhas. During a lull in the conversation, Felipe cleared his throat and said that he was afraid he had some disappointing news. He had just received a letter from his father—apparently, the geologists he had hired had concluded that the land in question, while promising at first glance, did not hold great potential for oil drilling. The whole venture was off. Felipe told the men that he appreciated all of their enthusiasm and support, that they would be remembered by him and by his father, and that he hoped sometime in the future he would find a way to show his gratitude for their kindness and hospitality. The men nodded gravely, a solemn air descending over the event. As the sun went down, the men, women, and children of Santa Branca ate their barbecued meat, their potato salad, and their rice with a funereal air, glancing sadly from time to time at Felipe. Sílvia, for her part, found the town’s reaction baffling. She watched Felipe smiling bravely at the melancholy faces of the citizens of Santa Branca with that over-perfect earnestness of his, and wondered how no one else could see through him like she did.

  The next morning, Sílvia was jogging along the same beach, the sun just coming up over the water, when she came across Felipe sitting in a squat folding chair, staring out to sea. She stopped running. It was her first chance to talk with Felipe one-on-one since their conversation at the fundraiser three weeks earlier.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Morning,” he said, not looking up at her.

  She stood there, sweating, until she caught her breath.

  “You chickened out,” she said.

  He looked up at her.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It was a scam,” she said, “the whole oil thing.”

  He frowned. She sat down in the sand next to his chair.

  “I don’t necessarily mind that it was,” she said.

  He scratched at the stubble on his face. A seagull landed a few feet away and began picking at the carcass of a dead crab.

  “I’m not going to tell anyone,” she said. “I’d just like to know who you really are.”

  “Listen,” he said, “I’m very hung over and the things you’re saying to me right now aren’t making a whole lot of sense.”

  The seagull, apparently dissatisfied with the crab’s remains, squawked indignantly and flew away.

  “You’re not hung over,” said Sílvia.

  Felipe said, “Believe me, I wish I wasn’t.”

  Sílvia slipped off her shoes and dug her toes into the sand. The two of them watched the waves creeping closer and closer to where they sat. A little cluster of sandpipers scurried by, digging occasionally into the wet sand, careful to avoid the water as it rushed toward their twiggy feet. Out at sea, a yacht raised its flags.

  “Well,” she said finally, “I just wanted to let you know that I thought it was an impressive performance.”

  She stood up and brushed the sand off of her running shorts as he watched her with what could have been a look of genuine bafflement. She slung her shoes over her shoulder and told Felipe she’d see him around.

  • • •

  Three days later, she found the evidence she needed. Concealed from view behind a magazine rack in a roadside convenience store in Verópolis, a dumpy, mid-sized city about a hundred kilometers north of Santa Branca, she watched Felipe emerge from the restrooms and walk toward the front of the store. Felipe had left Santa Branca in the small hours of the morning, having been sent off by the town with a lavish party the night before. Unbeknownst to him, as he had set out on the highway heading north, a taxi—Sílvia tense and alert in the back seat—had followed his car from a distance. Before leaving, Sílvia had written a note to her parents explaining that she and Felipe had been seeing each other in secret—which wasn’t true—and that she had decided to travel the country with him; she would check in when possible. Among the necessities of travel she had loaded into her backpack, Sílvia had included the Beretta 92 that her father always kept in his nightstand drawer. Her backpack in her lap, Sílvia had given the cabbie constant instructions in a low voice—as if her quarry might hear her from several cars ahead—until Felipe had finally pulled off the highway and parked his car in front of a rental agency and then crossed the street on foot to the convenience store. Sílvia had paid the cabbie, tipping him generously, before sending him on his way.

  Now, from behind the magazine rack, Sílvia watched Felipe pick up a pack of gum, and approach the register, smiling.

  “Good morning,” he said, and handed the gum to the young woman behind the counter.

  She rang it up, eyes still on her magazine, and he handed her a fifty. She looked up from the magazine.

  “A fifty?” she said. “Really?”

  Felipe gave her an apologetic smile.

  “Sorry,” he said, “it’s the smallest bill I have.”

  As the young woman began counting out his change from the till, Felipe leaned against the register.

  “Listen,” he said, and she looked up at him while she counted out the bills, “this isn’t a line, I’m genuinely trying to figure this out—I’ve seen you somewhere before, but I can’t quite place where it was. Were you—” He prolonged the final vowel as if searching for a word, his face quizzical, his thumb pointing vaguely in the direction of what could have been anything from a childhood apartment building, a nearby grocery store, a dance club. From her vantage point behind the magazine rack, Sílvia watched on, fascinated. This flustered, bumbling persona was a far cry from the suave, indifferent Felipe of Santa Branca.

  “On TV,” said the cashier. “I was in some commercials.”

  “Yeah,” said Felipe, flushing. “Of course. The TV. I mean, I thought it was the TV, I just couldn’t remember the place you were advertising.”

  “Florentino Optical,” she said.

  “That’s right. It wasn’t that the commercial wasn’t memorable or anything—” he said, and without breaking eye contact or pausing in his speech, he slipped the stack of bills she had counted out into his pocket “—it’s just that it slipped my mind briefly, you know? You’re an actress then?”

  “I’m working on it,” she said.

  “I think you’re very talented,” he said.

  She leaned back.

  “Listen,” she said. “I have a boyfriend. I’m flattered and everything, but—”

  “No, no,” said Felipe, flushing more deeply. “I’m really not trying to pick you up, it’s just—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Like I said I’m flattered.”

  “But you look upset,” said Felipe. “I’ve made you uncomfortable. I feel really bad about this. I really shouldn’t have—”

  “Really,” she said. “Forget about it.”

  “No, no, I’m just so embarrassed. I don’t usually—”

  “Really,” she said. “It’s fine.”

  Felipe stuck his hands in his pockets.

  “I feel very silly,” he said.

  She smiled politely.

  “Really, I do. I don’t normally do this kind of thing,” he said. “I’m usually very considerate of boundaries and things like that.”

  “It’s really okay.”

  “That’s good of you to say but—oh.”

  He pulled so
me coins from his pocket and counted them out in his hand.

  “Now I feel even sillier—I had exact change this whole time.”

  He handed the coins to the girl who dropped them in the open till.

  “Once again, I apologize. I shouldn’t have—”

  As she began to close the till, he stopped her.

  “My fifty?” he said.

  “Right,” she said, and handed him the bill. He kept talking as he slipped it into his pocket with the change she had given him earlier.

  “And again, I’m sorry,” he said. “You must get tired of dealing with blockheads like me all the time, trying to get your number—”

  “It’s fine,” she said, trying to stop him.

  “—and here I am, and you have a boyfriend, and I feel very silly, and I’m sorry.”

  “Really, it’s fine,” she said with an edge to her voice now.

  “And now I’m over-apologizing. I’m sorry. Sorry,” he said, red-faced, backing out of the store. When the door closed behind him, the young woman shook her head and went back to her magazine.

  From the convenience store, Sílvia followed Felipe for several blocks. Along the way, he stepped into a padaria and emerged a few minutes later having abandoned his linen suit and tailored shirt in favor of heavy boots, thick cotton pants, and a worn work shirt. Sílvia almost didn’t recognize him; he looked like a different person. He crossed the street to the Verópolis bus terminal where Sílvia watched him buy tickets at one of the booths and then disappear into one of the covered waiting areas.

  After hanging back for a few minutes as a precaution, Sílvia approached the booth where Felipe had bought his tickets, and asked the clerk if her boyfriend had just bought one ticket or two.

  “I don’t know who your boyfriend is,” said the clerk, a middle-aged woman who looked like she hadn’t slept in days.

  Sílvia described Felipe.

  “And we’ve been fighting all morning,” she said. “I found out he’s been meeting his ex-girlfriend for lunch, and he doesn’t see the problem with that. Obviously I do, and we’re supposed to be at his sister’s wedding tomorrow morning, and—”

  “That’s none of my business,” said the clerk, “and I don’t really care. He only bought one ticket. Would you like another one?”

  Sílvia nodded and the clerk rang her up. She took her ticket and noted which bus she would be riding.

  Staying out of Felipe’s line of sight, Sílvia waited to board until the last call before departure. She found Felipe sitting near the back of the mostly empty travel bus, seat leaned back, eyes closed. She took the seat next to his. He didn’t open his eyes. She remained silent for several minutes as the bus made its way across town and onto the freeway where it picked up speed and commenced on its journey up the country’s coast.

  “Wake up,” she said after a while.

  He opened his eyes. There was a half second of panicked disorientation before he assumed his bored playboy face and asked why she had followed him all the way up here—if she was looking for some sort of steamy fling, that moment had passed.

  “I know what you are,” she said.

  “A tired person trying to sleep?” he said. “Yes, I am. And also confused as to what you’re doing on this bus.”

  “I’ve been following you all morning,” she said.

  “That’s very disturbing,” he said, yawning.

  “I saw you with that girl at the convenience store,” she said.

  “You can’t win them all,” he said, folding his arms and shifting away from Sílvia. He leaned against the window and closed his eyes.

  “You did very well,” she said. “When she realizes you walked off with nearly fifty reaís from her till, she might even think it was an honest mistake.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” he said, not opening his eyes.

  “Come on,” she said.

  His breathing slowed in a convincing imitation of sleep.

  “You know, I could call the police,” she said.

  He didn’t stir. For a brief moment she doubted herself—he was so convincing in his denials, and anyway, even if he wasn’t who he claimed to be, why was she here on this bus, following him up the coast? But for reasons she couldn’t articulate, she knew she couldn’t leave this alone. She needed to find out who this young man was in the same way she had needed to catalog and dissect the details of each kidnapping case all those years ago, the same way she had needed to sit cross-legged on the floor next to her grandmother’s chair watching shaky footage of violent crime scenes. She felt that familiar dizziness in her head, that sweating in her palms, and she doubled down in her interrogation of Felipe.

  “I’m going to keep following you,” she said. “I don’t plan on leaving this alone.”

  She saw what could have been a shadow of a grimace on his face.

  “I’m going to keep following you, and if you aren’t more cooperative, next time you try to con some cashier out of a fifty, I might make sure she notices,” said Sílvia.

  He opened his eyes and sat up.

  He looked around, and when he saw that no one else on the bus was paying attention, leaned in close to her, dropping his voice to a low murmur.

  “You know how it is to grow up in a wealthy family,” he said. “You get everything you want your entire life, and before too long, it gets dull. You try touring the world, try a million different hobbies, try anything you can think of to take the edge off that monotony.”

  He leaned in a little closer.

  “So, yeah,” he said. “You got me. I get a thrill out of conning people sometimes. It’s just a hobby. It’s what I do to keep the edge off.”

  She said that was fine, but it didn’t explain why a wealthy heir would dress up like a regular, working-class guy to ride on a rickety travel bus for hundreds of miles. She said that he had to admit that it all seemed a little strange.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” he said.

  “Tell me the truth,” she said. “Tell me who you really are.”

  “You’re delusional,” he said.

  “And as curious as I am about who you are, I’m nearly as curious as to why you didn’t seal the deal in Santa Branca,” she said. “First of all, it must have cost you a fortune to get set up down there—the clothes, the car, the beach house. And second of all, you had them eating out of your hand. You could have made a killing. Did you lose your nerve, or what?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “I know you’re not the son of an oil tycoon,” she said.

  They sat there for a minute, neither of them talking, cityscapes blurring by in the window of the bus.

  “Are you done?” he asked finally.

  “That depends,” she said.

  “Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that everything you said is true,” he said. “If I’m not who I say I am, then you’re putting yourself in a pretty dangerous position. If I’m not some wealthy playboy, then you have no idea who I am or what I’m capable of.”

  He had dropped his upper-crust accent and now spoke with the clipped delivery of the urban tough guys in the city where Sílvia had grown up. It was an accent that made the fine hairs on her arms stand on end, an accent so familiar from her grandmother’s crime show.

  “How do you know I’m not going to kill you the first chance I get?” he said.

  “You’re not going to hurt me,” she said.

  “You don’t sound as sure of yourself as you did a minute ago.”

  She looked around at the other passengers on the bus, all of them asleep.

  “You’re not the violent type,” she said. “If you could stand the violence, you’d be committing violent crimes. I figure you commit the kinds of crimes that you do for a reason.”

  “That seems like pretty shaky logic to stake your personal safety on.”

  She slipped her hand into her backpack.

  “Also,” she said, “I have a gun.”

  She pulled her hand far
enough out of the backpack that he could see the butt of the handgun.

  He shook his head.

  Sílvia waited for his next move, her hand still gripping the gun. After a minute, he pulled a duffel bag out from under the seat in front of him. She shifted her backpack so the gun barrel pointed directly at Felipe’s torso. Inside his duffel was a brown paper bag from the padaria he had visited earlier that day. He pulled out a loaf of bread, tore off a chunk, and handed it to Sílvia.

  “You’re probably hungry,” he said.

  She looked at his face and, after considering for a moment, took the bread with her free hand. They ate in silence as the bus jostled over a pothole-ridden section of freeway, Sílvia’s grip on the gun gradually relaxing.

  • • •

  In front of a desolate restaurant in a northeastern beach town, Sílvia and Marco Aurélio—he had told her his real name but little else after two weeks of working together—sat at a table nursing a pair of caipirinhas. Sílvia swirled the ice in her glass and took a drink, the husk of the lime bumping against her upper lip.

  “A good thing about you,” said Aurélio when she put down her drink, “and don’t take this the wrong way, is that you’re not too pretty. Junior Cabral says that there’s an ideal range of human beauty if you’re in the business. Too ugly, and people dislike you. Too attractive and they instinctively know that whatever you’re pitching is too good to be true. But with you, if you start chatting up some mark, he’s flattered because you’re certainly not bad looking, but you’re not attractive enough that he starts to wonder, you know?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about that,” said Sílvia.

  The waiter/bartender/owner of the restaurant stepped out onto the patio and asked if he could get them anything else.

  “We’re fine, thanks,” said Aurélio.

  The man bowed facetiously and went back inside. Rather than appearing grateful for the presence of actual paying customers, the owner seemed to resent Sílvia and Aurélio for their part in witnessing the slow-burning failure that was his restaurant. On the other end of town, all of the restaurants, lanchonetes, and juice bars, with their postcard-worthy views of the bay, constantly teemed with tourists. The steady influx of money from the tourists allowed for regular remodeling, repainting, and refitting, lending the buildings overlooking the coast a cheery, bustling, welcoming air.