There was action in the other goalmouth as well. The Argentines had
adapted to the attacking French style, and the use of the offside trap allowed for
some hasty counterattacks into European territory. Often the dark-blue-shirted
midfield would be caught too far forward in attack to assist their rear guard.
It was the surprising Leopoldo Anariba that seemed to be constantly
pressing forward. He had received yeoman’s support in the first half from
both Daniele Bennett in the rear and Caesar Castro up front, and now the
rookie National Team member from Racing Club was gaining in poise and
345
JAMES McCREATH
confidence. Chances were to be had continually. Vida hit the crossbar twice only
two minutes apart. Gitares came close to putting the hosts back in the lead, but
he was uncharacteristically inept in his finish.
Renaldo De Seta was more concerned about marking his man and not
allowing the French an opportunity at his expense. He would feed strong balls
to his teammates, but always with an eye on the gathering French hurricane.
Less than fifteen minutes remained to play when the decisive moment arrived.
It started with a save by Junior Calix and a fast clearance out to Daniele
Bennett on the left flank. Bennett looked upfield as the ball arrived and one-
timed it thirty yards up the sideline to Leopoldo Anariba. The underrated
halfback had acres of space since the French midfield was, once again, too
far forward. Anariba made a run diagonally into the center of the pitch, and
Renaldo De Seta, who was also unmarked, pressed forward ten yards in advance
of his teammate.
Twenty-five yards from the goalmouth, Renaldo stopped dead, worried
about a fast-breaking French counterattack should his line-mate cough up the
ball. Anariba’s run had, by now, drawn a crowd of French defenders, and from
the left wing, Caesar Castro was making a strong push into the penalty area,
distracting several more Frenchmen. All this activity left Renaldo momentarily
alone and unattended.
As Anariba flew past number seventeen on his way toward the right-hand
goal post, he delivered a true pass onto the surprised center half’s right foot.
So strongly was la pelota delivered to Renaldo that it volleyed off his boot to
waist height. He watched it rise in the air and sit spinning almost in slow
motion at the peak of its trip. The Newton’s Prefect Under Twenty-one player
remembered thinking what a great, strong ball Anariba had sent him, how
he hadn’t thought Leopoldo could pass with such authority until that very
moment.
Renaldo then flashed on Astor Gordero’s words, Head and feet as one, head
and feet as one! With his peripheral vision, he could pick out the top left corner
of the opposing goal. The French defense seemed frozen in time. No one came
forward to challenge, and as the ball sat suspended at the vertex of its rise,
number seventeen swung a powerful right leg up and made contact.
“There!” the boy shouted as the sphere arched on its journey. His right
hand pointed toward the top left corner of France’s goal, the preordained
destination.
Head and feet as one! Come on, come on! This shot did not misfire, but
was true to its mark. The French keeper had not expected a shot from such a
distance, especially with powder-blue and white players streaming down the
wings. That distraction and the resultant hesitation were his undoing. By the
time he left his feet the ball was behind him, in the top left corner of the net!
346
RENALDO
Renaldo followed the flight of the ball, coaxing, pleading, urging it on its
true path. He saw the back of the net bulge and Delaroche’s futile dive.
Raising his arms upright was the boy’s initial reaction. It was what he
did instinctively any time he was fortunate enough to be rewarded in such a
manner. He did not take to running wildly about the field, shouting praises to
the heavens or falling to his knees while his teammates piled on top of him.
Such demonstrations were for others. He had, at no time in his young life,
scored a goal of this magnitude, however.
The stadium erupted in delight, and the heavens opened up with snow-
like flakes of paper. Shouts of “Argentina! Argentina! Argentina!” rained down
upon the players as they swarmed their newly anointed Wellington.
The goal scorer was finally freed from his human entanglements and
began to make his way back across the center line when he heard it for the first
time. The noise seemed to start low in the field level section of the stadium,
close to where the boy knew that Astor Gordero was seated. It was a strange
sound, somewhat like a low roar followed by a long exclamation. Ramon Vida
was now at Renaldo’s side.
“Do you hear that, man? You have your own cheer! Holy shit, listen to
that, man. They’re saying ‘RRRRRRRenaaaaaaaalllldo.’ That’s you, man!
You’re a fucking hero with your own fucking cheer, my friend. Look at the
scoreboard. Look at those giant letters!”
Mesmerized by the growing volume of the refrain, Renaldo cast his eyes
upon the mammoth illuminated board. There, in huge letters, spread the
graphics of his name. Several ‘R’s’ in succession followed by ‘E,’ ‘N,’ several ‘A’s,’
then several ‘L’s,’ a ‘D’ and an ‘O.’ The entire stadium had picked up the chorus,
and it was an extremely embarrassed, yet elated center half that took up his
position for the final minutes of play.
On again came Napoleon’s legions, undaunted by the odds against
them. Fine, inspired football propelled the blue shirts forward in search of the
equalizer. But Wellington’s forces held their ground, and at the end of the day,
left the field victorious.
The French must now retreat to Paris, empty-handed. Two games, two
losses. A skilled, poetic team that just couldn’t find their offensive form.
Renaldo De Seta exchanged jerseys with French captain Christian Thierry, who
expressed best wishes and admiration for his young opponent. The crowd was
still in a state of euphoria as Renaldo De Seta left the playing field, stripped
to the waist and listening. The Gallery Gods were loudly proclaiming him as
Argentina’s new darling of the River Plate.
34
JAMES McCREATH
The occupant of seat 3, row 8, field level section 365 had managed to
contain herself through the first seventy-five minutes of the Argentina-France
encounter. It had been an exceedingly difficult task, but the portly gentleman
accompanying the young lady that evening had urged her to keep a low profile
lest a riot break out.
They had arrived at the stadium early to avoid recognition, and sure
enough, no one had given the girl dressed in the tight jeans, a brown bomber
jacket, and midthigh leather boots more than an approving glance. The fact
that her long, curly hair had been neatly tucked up under a powder-blue and
white tam and her eyes were covered with oversized dark glasses made her
discernible features even more obscure. Two of the five bodyguards occupied
the seats immediately in front of her, t
wo sat directly behind her, and the fifth
beside her to the left. With Astor Gordero wedged into seats 1 & 2 to her
right, Simone Yvonne Montana Carta-Aqua was surrounded by so much prime
Argentine beef that she felt like a lovesick cow that had wandered into the
bull’s barn at mating season.
In the end, Symca’s cover was blown with Renaldo De Seta’s winning
goal. She leapt to her feet along with the rest of the stadium, hugging the large
girth of Gordero and squealing with joy. The Fat Man clutched his huge flag,
and waving it to and fro, trilled a succession of ‘R’s’ and then completed the
expression with an ‘E,’ ‘N,’ several ‘A’s,’ several ‘L’s’ then a ‘D,’ and an ‘O.’
“Simone, he scored, the boy scored! Did you see that shot? It was fantastic!
Come, help me salute him. I’ve made up a cheer. You men there, all of you, help
out. It goes like this . . .”
Gordero then led the faithful in a series of loud punctuated exclamations,
each one gaining in length and volume. Others in the section followed suit,
but when the young lady in seat 3 stepped into the aisle and doffed her tam,
it seemed like that entire side of River Plate Stadium picked up the refrain.
There was no mistaking the beautiful Symca as she urged the throng to join
in with a spirited and sensual outburst of euphoria. Astor Gordero had been
so pleased at his innovative cheer that he had paid the scoreboard operator one
thousand U.S. dollars to visually display the boy’s name should the definitive
occasion occur.
True to the agreement, after the clincher had been netted, the giant
blackboard spelt out ‘RRRRRRR-e-n-aaaaaaaa-llll-d-o.’ Now the entire
gathering joined the chorus, and as the patrons close to field level section 365
gawked and craned their necks to get a glimpse of the nation’s premier pop
sensation, the entire stadium rocked to the haunting sound of the vocalized
refrain saluting their new idol’s name.
348
Chapter twenty-three
Lonnie De Seta held the small, portable radio tightly to his left ear. The
reception in the basement room he and Celeste called home was terrible.
Static cracked constantly, giving the hyperactive football announcer the
effect of barking over the airwaves. Names were a blur, and the flow of the
match impeded by noise pollution. Lonnie swore at the black rectangle in his
hand.
“Goddamn piece of shit radio, smarten up and work, for Christ’s sake!”
He smacked the side of the object and was about to put it down when
he thought that he could make out the name ‘De Seta’ through the inaudible
jumble. He put the box to his ear again. “De Seta scores!!! Renaldo De
Seta scores to give Argentina a 2-1 lead with fourteen minutes to play!!!!!!
RRRRRRRRRenaaaldo . . . De . . . Seta!!!!”
The goal scorer’s older brother wanted to shout the boy’s name at the top
of his lungs. He wanted to dance around the room, embracing Celeste while
whooping for joy. He could hear the commotion from the parlor above him in
this moderately priced, moderately decent boarding house in the Boca area of
the capital. But there would be no spontaneous outburst of any kind from the
occupants of lower room number three.
They had resided in the small efficiency flat exactly one month to the day,
when Argentina took the field against France. Outside their basement window,
the football-mad residents of Boca were going crazy, and on the inside of that
same window, so was Lonnie De Seta. Only it was a different kind of crazy.
Lonnie was well on his travels down the road to a complete mental
breakdown. He was convinced that Celeste had already reached that
destination.
So much had changed since Celeste’s return to their room in Barracas on
May the fifth, yet in many ways, so much had stayed the same. It seemed to
Lonnie that he was making a lifetime commitment to living in flee-bitten rooms
and scurrying about the outer world incognito, like some detested rodent. His
roommate had been beside herself with grief since her younger brother’s death,
and at times, had remained in bed sobbing for days on end.
With a price on the ‘Attractive Assassin’s’ head, Celeste should have
been the one to venture out into the real world to buy staples and retrieve
the newspapers, but in her state of mourning, she seemed either unwilling or
JAMES McCREATH
unable to make that effort. The task fell to Lonnie to keep the pair alive, and
when absolutely necessary, he would put on one of several disguises and slip out
the basement window after dark to the late-night market nearby.
There had been no contact from Serge Lavalle whatsoever, and adding to
Celeste’s grief was the intuition that her eldest brother was no longer among
the living. Lonnie could do little to search for the missing man, for he was ‘the
hunted one,’ and his clean-shaven likeness still was pasted on the walls of many
a building. The crazed, shaggy animal that Lonnie De Seta had become bore
not a thread of resemblance to the word ‘attractive’ at all.
Nevertheless, extreme caution was the operative word. What little street
talk Lonnie could acquire confirmed that certain unknown people were asking
for information about any of the remaining cadre members from the Barracas
terrorist assassination. The local newspaper vendor had been the most reliable
source of information, but like most members of the Boca population, he
wanted to discuss football-related matters only. The fugitive had to be careful
not to seem overly interested in the terrorist roundup, so he would always open
their dialogue with the topic that appeased the information vendor. Just as he
was about to depart, Lonnie would ask his new friend if there was any late news
on the terrorist killings.
The fear was real throughout the capital that the Montoneros or some
similar dissident organization would disrupt the World Cup Tournament,
so it was easy enough to steer the newsy onto the topic without raising an
eyebrow. On the night of June seventh, as the terrorist ventured out to buy
every printed word relating to Argentina’s latest soccer victory, he was told that
several different men had come by the kiosk inquiring after one specific person.
The merchant showed Lonnie a poster that had been left with him. It bore the
image of the ‘Attractive Assassin.’
This news turned Lonnie’s blood cold and caused his forehead to break
out into a heavy sweat under his brown slouch hat. He felt weak at the knees as
he made his way back to his semi-incarcerated existence. The questions raced
through his mind.
Should they try to reach the bank, get some money, and make a run for it? Should
they make a better effort to find Serge? Was it safe to move Celeste in her unstable state?
And who were these people that were showing his picture around? Police? Montoneros?
Assassins?
Lonnie wondered how much lower he could sink. He felt like sobbing in
his mother’s arms and repenting for all the bad little things he had done. But
they were not little boy things these actions that had brought him to
Boca. He
had committed a cold-blooded killing, and his mother’s love could not save him
now. He was on his own, and he felt the noose getting tighter and tighter.
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RENALDO
Orville Richard Geary Jr. liked to think of himself as a Porteño, even
though he was born in Palo Alto, California. The offspring of a homesick
U.S. Army colonel bound for Korea in April of 1950, and a fiery, red-headed
Argentine exchange student at Stanford University, Orville Jr.’s namesake was
killed in action before his son entered this world.
Carmela Gaspero claimed to have married the colonel two days before
he had shipped out. Wanting to avoid a scandal, Orville Sr.’s distraught New
England widow and family paid the extremely pregnant foreigner a tidy sum
of money to make her disappear back to Argentina as soon as the baby was
born.
Whatever documentation Carmela had obtained from Orville Geary
during their brief romance was enough to convince the authorities to put the
surname ‘Geary’ on her newborn baby’s birth certificate instead of her own
name ‘Gaspero.’ Little Orville would be an American citizen with an American-
sounding name. That was very important to Carmela. She would always
remember America, and she would always remember her handsome Colonel
Orville every time she looked at her beautiful Yankee son.
It seemed that Carmela had a thing for men in uniform, for shortly after
her return to Buenos Aires, she wed a young captain in the Argentine army.
Orville Junior was raised along strict military guidelines by his cold and often
abusive stepfather, but the boy reveled in the pseudo army-camp lifestyle. His
birth father’s military picture adorned the wall above his bed, and even his
stepfather showed a certain amount of respect for the memory of his fellow
soldier-at-arms.
Orville was sent to one of the finest military academies in all of Argentina
by the time he was eight. It was there that he fostered the strong right-wing
views that remained with him to this day. Loyalty to the country, the army, and
to the family. That was all that mattered.
An officer’s commission into the army upon matriculation was not enough
to keep eighteen-year-old Orville content, however. He had become so enthused
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