Buried Strangers

grateful. It’ll be another solution he can take the credit for.”

“And if we don’t have a solution?”

“We’ll have a solution. My faith in you is boundless.”

“I’ll bet you say that to all the girls. Where do you want me to start?”

“Go to the travel agency he used. Act like you’re desper-ate to get into the States.”

“And then?”

“Take a cell phone, conceal it on your person, do what they tell you to do, follow the trail to where it leads.”

“Including creeping through the desert in Arizona, or Texas, or wherever?”

“If it comes to that, yes.”

“And Sampaio, when he notices I’m not coming into the office? How are you going to handle him?”

“I’m going to tell him you’re following up a rumor about Romeu Pluma.”

“What rumor?”

“The one about Pluma molesting teenage boys.”

“Such a rumor exists?”

“It does now. It will turn out to be unsubstantiated.”

“How much longer do you think you can keep using Pluma to get away with stuff?”

“He shows no sign of backing off, so Sampaio won’t either. It could go on forever.”

“We should give Pluma a citation for meritorious service. Alright, getting back to the Americans, if I wind up crossing their border, they’re not going to like it.”

“The Americans aren’t going to know about it. Not if you don’t get caught.”

“They’ve got cameras. They’ve got helicopters. They’ve got vigilantes. They catch a lot of people.”

“So they catch you. No big deal.

They’ll send you back.” “They’ll print me first, and they won’t let me back in if I ask for a visa. What if I want to take my kids to Orlando to see Disney World? What do I do then?”

“You can’t afford to take your kids to Orlando.”

“You’re right. I can’t. But what if my rich uncle Uriel dies?”

“You haven’t got a rich uncle Uriel. Do you want to get back to Sao Paulo or not?”

“I want.”

“I can’t ask Ana to do the paperwork. Sampaio would never sign it. I’m gonna have to advance the money myself. Here.”

He held out the envelope he’d been carrying.

“What’s this?” Arnaldo said, taking it.

“Seven thousand American dollars, a ticket to Sao Paulo, and a thousand reais. The so-called travel agent in Sao Paulo is probably going to ask you for five of the seven. The rest is for expenses if you get into the States. Don’t forget to bring sunscreen. The thousand Reais is for expenses here.”

Arnaldo drew the flap and looked inside the envelope. He let out a low whistle. “You’re really taking this seriously, aren’t you? Want me to count it?”

“No need. I already did. Twice. I don’t have money com-ing out of my ears.”

“Your own damned fault. You’re too fucking honest. This travel agency, you got an address?”

“Also in the envelope. It’s called Estrela Viagens and it’s on that street they reserve for pedestrians, the one near the Praca da Republica.”

“The Sete de Abril?”

“That’s the one.”

Arnaldo glanced at his watch. “There’s a flight in about an hour. If I hurry, I can make it.”

“So, hurry,” Silva said.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Along the back wall, a glass-fronted case contained petit fours, biscuits, rosquinhas, cookies, Lebanese esfihas, German pretzels, and a variety of cakes. Two attendants, dressed identically in paper hats and starched, white blouses, were behind the counter. They had no more than a half dozen customers and were having an easy time of it.

Not so the six attendants to Arnaldo’s right. Charged with dispensing the bread, they were beleaguered by a crowd that was elbow to elbow and three rows deep. Service seemed to be on the basis of push and shove. Every now and then an altercation would break out. But since most of the buyers were females, fights never seemed to escalate beyond an exchange of insults.

The loaves in contention were marvels of the baker’s art. There were narrow loaves, thick loaves, short loaves, long loaves, loaves made out of barley, manioc, rye, and wheat. There were loaves with sausage, cheese, and onion baked into the dough. There were French baguettes, loaves of Jewish rye, Syrian pitas, and German black breads, all reflec-tive of the multicultural nature of the neighborhood.

Arnaldo could have done without the noise, but he adored the mouth-watering smells and the jostling, rollick-ing atmosphere that was unique to a Sao Paulo padaria. Brasilia, too, had padarias, but they were nothing like this.

Every few minutes a guy in a white apron, rivulets of sweat running through a dusting of flour on his forehead, would come out of the back where the ovens were. He’d be carry-ing a wicker basket filled with something freshly baked, and he’d dump the contents into one of the unpainted wooden boxes reserved for that kind of bread. The effect on the women was immediate. They couldn’t wait to get at it. It reminded Arnaldo of the time he’d been in the Mato Grosso and had tossed the remainder of a ham sandwich into a pool of piranhas.

Most of the men, Arnaldo included, were gathered around the bar on the other side of the shop. Sao Paulo bakers sold sandwiches, fresh coffee, and alcoholic beverages, too. This particular baker seemed to be conveniently situated on the way home from work of many of his clients, and those clients appeared to be the kind of people who needed a drink to get their evenings under way.

The bar formed a perfect square. Arnaldo, with no little difficulty, had been able to belly up to a spot on the far side that had a view of the street.

He took another bite of his Americano, a grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich with a fried egg on a crusty French roll, and masticated slowly. The men around him were a diverse group that seemed to share only one characteristic: a taste for their cachaca straight up.

There were laborers and office workers; there were men in T-shirts and men in ties; there were kids barely out of their teens; and there was one gaffer who’d never see the shy side of eighty again. They were all making so much noise, and having such a good time, and demanding so much attention from the two men and a woman who were serving them, that no one bothered to ask Arnaldo if he wanted another beer, which was fine with him, because he wasn’t there for the drink or the food. He was there to check out the travel agency directly across the street.

Estrela Viagens, Star Travel, the place was called, but if the proprietors were trying to suggest that their clients included the noteworthy of Brazilian media or sports, they were liars. Arnaldo had been in place for almost two hours, and the only people he’d seen go through the glass door and climb the stairs had been simple working men. The agency had a discreet sign at street level and a bigger sign in the window one floor up, directly above a shop that sold all sorts of imported junk from cheap perfumes to radios the size of a box of matches.

Arnaldo glanced at his watch. It was eight minutes to six.

According to the information stenciled on the door, busi-ness hours at the agency were almost at an end. Things were likely to go more smoothly if the people waiting on him had their minds on closing the shop. That way there’d be less time for chit chat, less conversation that could lead to a mistake. Arnaldo had never thought of emigrating, never would, and he wasn’t sure he could sustain the role of an emigrant for an extended period of time. He had an idea of what he was going to say, and how he was going to say it, but he wasn’t sure he had it right. How did emigrants talk about the place they were leaving behind? And how did they talk about the country they were going to? And how did they come to make the decision to sneak into a place that didn’t want them? It