End of Secrets (29 page)

THIRTY-NINE

The car Rafael Bolívar sent for her wound its way uptown. Kera wore a blood-orange dress and had arranged her hair in an elegant heap at the crown of her head. From the backseat, she enjoyed the evolution of city blocks as they moved across her window. She could not remember the last time she had ridden in a car and just looked at the city, free of distractions from her phone.

Against Gabb
y’s
warnings that Kera must always have the phone on her person, Kera had left it behind—intentionally—when sh
e’d
gone home from work early to get ready. Any phone could be an accurate way of tracking the location of its owner. But a phone issued by Hawk, she suspected, might have even more invasive monitoring capabilities than that. This evening she wanted to be alone. And so the phone was in her work bag by the coffee table in their apartment where, she hoped, it might seem sh
e’d
simply forgotten it if it ever became necessary to explain herself.

Kera did not know the ca
r’s
destination, and she did not ask the driver. Not knowing added to her feeling of exhilaration as the vehicle lurched through the city. Some blocks shot past out of focus; others rolled along at a pedestria
n’s
pace. She sat up with interest when the car pulled over on Fifty-Ninth Street at the entrance to two glass towers that rose up over Columbus Circle at the southwest corner of Central Park. It was his building, where he lived. She recalled reading about his apartment in a tabloid piece, and, of course, she had watched surveillance footage of him coming in and out of these doors daily.

She was surprised to see Bolívar himself emerge from the buildin
g’s
entrance to open her car door. The way he moved—fluid and confident—made his custom suit seem less formal somehow, as if he would be just as natural in sandals and shorts as he was in a suit on Fifty-Ninth Street. Through the hours sh
e’d
watched him, sh
e’d
grown familiar with this comfortable way he had in his own skin, his intrinsic Bolívar-ness. But that description had never been adequate. She realized now what had eluded her about his presence: he did nothing casually; everything was intentional.

“Good evening, Ms. Mersal,” he said, and guided her inside with a firm hand at the small of her back. She thought about that hand a few moments later when she watched him reach with long, slim fingers to push the button to call an elevator. As she removed her sunglasses, which she had worn to throw off facial-recog software, she could still feel the spot on her lower back where h
e’d
touched her.

An elevator whisked them skyward and opened to a lobby on the fifty-sixth floor. The room hummed with conversation. Dozens of people stood sipping cocktails and talking in groups. Bolívar led her outside to a bar on a balcony that jutted out from the room. There was not a bad view of the park from any vantage, inside or out. The only interior camera sh
e’d
spotted had been in the elevator. She hoped it was a firewalled, closed-circuit feed isolated to the buildin
g’s
security monitors and not accessible by Jones or anyone else in the Control Room.

When the
y’d
stepped from the elevator, it had been impossible not to notice Natalie Smith among the crowd. She stood, as ever, like a magnetic pole that pulled on the flow of traffic through the room. Her skin was radiant, her smile warm, her eyes sharp. She had noticed their entrance.

“You two dated,” Kera said, leaning against the balcony railing and looking inside.

Bolívar did not need to ask whom she was referring to. “We experimented. I think we both concluded that it was a valuable and enjoyable mistake.” His voice was so free of regret that it caught Kera off guard. Her motive for bringing it up had been jealousy, and that now seemed low in the face of his honest response.

“The movie w
e’l
l see; i
t’s
hers, is
n’t
it?” Kera said.

“Yes. After
America
was pulled by the studio, I offered to pay to distribute it to every movie theater in the country. She declined. But I finally convinced her to let me host this small screening.”

“Why did she decline?”

Bolívar smiled. “You should ask her that yourself.”

Kera waited and observed the crowd while Bolívar went to the bar. When he rejoined her, she said, “What do you really think about Marybelle Pickett?”

“What?” he said. “Oh, that.”

“I saw you at that basement art show for her work. But at the gala the other night, you completely dismissed her.”

“I was asked a ridiculous question. I gave the answer they wanted.”

“I find it hard to believe that yo
u’v
e gotten to where you are by giving other people what they want. Do you like her paintings?”

“Very much. I tried to buy them that night at the art show.”

“Which painting?”

“All of them.”

Kera laughed. “How much did you offer, if you do
n’t
mind my asking?”

“I was prepared to pay twenty thousand dollars on the spot. But I was told that they were
n’t
for sale.”

“Right. Because at that point they were stolen.”

“I did
n’t
know that then. I only learned it later that night,” he said. “The artist, those paintings—the whole thing was another one of Charli
e’s
stunts.”

“Stunts?”

Bolívar nodded. “He thought stunts like that were important, to draw wide attention to something deserving. I see things the other way around, that if people ca
n’t
recognize value in art, they are
n’t
deserving of it. It was an ongoing disagreement we had.”

“It worked,” Kera said.

“What?”

“The stunt. The paintings were auctioned for eighty thousand more than you would have paid.”

“If the stunt proved anything, i
t’s
that the value of paintings has little to do with their price at auction.”

When they were each holding a drink, Kera led them several steps away from the crowds.

“I have to ask you something,” she said. She knew he expected her to ask why h
e’d
invited her here. So instead she said, “How did you find out about Hawk?” She did not want to reprise their first conversation, but the chance to learn the answer to this question was one reason she had agreed to come here tonight.

Bolívar seemed unafraid of the topic. “It was because of the
Global Report
. When
TGR
launched two years ago, I assumed it was a competitor, so I started doing my homework. The more I researched, the less
TGR
seemed to be what it first appeared. Eventually, I figured out that
TGR
was just a cover for a private security contractor. So I let it go. Or I would have. But then you showed up.”

“You mean, at the media pioneers event?”

“No, before that. At the art show in that basement.”

“You thought I was following
you
there?” Kera said. “Is that why you left so suddenly?”

“No. I did
n’t
know who you were then. I left because I was angry with Charlie. That was the first time
I’d
seen him in years. And le
t’s
just say his little stunt with the stolen paintings did not amuse me. It was
n’t
until we left the art show that I heard about you. Charlie and I were having it out, and he mentioned that a journalist was at the party. He said you worked for
TGR
. I knew enough about
TGR
to know that that meant you were
n’t
a journalist. I guess I assumed that it was me you were interested in.”

“It was
n’t
.”

“I know that now. But I still do
n’t
know why you were following Charlie.”

“He did
n’t
tell you?” she asked.

“No. What did you want with him?”

“
I’m
sorry. I ca
n’t
say.”

Bolívar nodded. He watched her take a sip of her drink. “
I’m
sorry for the way I spoke to you the other night.”

“You were protecting yourself. But Rafa—” It just came out. It was the first time sh
e’d
called him that. “Why do you think Hawk is after you?”

“I ca
n’t
say.”

“You ca
n’t
say or you wo
n’t
say?”

He shrugged. “I think Charlie was right. Yo
u’r
e not in on it. Tha
t’s
what matters to me.”

“In on what?”

He did not answer, and she did not have a chance to prod him because they were interrupted by an announcement that the film was about to begin.
He led her into the theater, and they sat side by side. Kera had not anticipated caring much about the movie one way or the other. But at some point in the first few minutes, she became completely engrossed. Natalie Smith was relentlessly self-critical of herself and her career, but also of American culture. She used discomfort as a weapon against complacency—revealing in devastating, often drily humorous interviews the unflattering disconnect between what most Americans proclaim to be American values and how those Americans actually behave. But the takedown was only the setup. The fil
m’s
principal achievement was driving home, artfully and without didacticism, the notions that we should
n’t
be so offended to have our flaws revealed, and how it is only through honestly identifying those flaws that it becomes possible to correct them and advance.

There were several moments during the film when Kera was aware of Bolívar next to her. Once she felt him watching her and turned to face him. She was startled to find herself wanting to see desire in his eyes—and then was terrified to find it there.

Afterward Bolívar introduced her to Natalie Smith. They were standing in a large group, and Natalie was fielding questions from people electrified by what the
y’d
just seen.

“Where did you get the idea for this film?” someone asked.

“A critic of my last movie declared that I would never be a commercial success because I was out of touch with the average American.”

“So you made this film as a rebuttal to a critic?”

“No. I made this film to expose why we should
n’t
care a damn about the average American.”

“What do you have against the average American?” someone asked, a little self-consciously. “Some people are bound to be average. Is
n’t
that a statistical certainty?”

“My understanding of what it means to be average has nothing to do with statistics. The average American is truly average only in the ways he falls short of his own potential, particularly when he is motivated by the expectations of others. There is always someone more to the right or left of you, someone more or less attractive than you, someone richer or poorer, someone who claims to know how you should live your life better than you know it. People are average when they are driven by a motivation to fit in. The American challenge, then, is to be oneself—only, exactly, and totally.”

“Why is that American?”

“Because of our freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. People assume the most important word in that sentence is
‘f
reedom
,’
when, in fact, it is
‘p
ursue
.’
If we do
n’t
pursue life, we are just as free to waste it. Our averageness is the degree to which we fail to attempt that pursuit. It is also the degree to which we accept the status quo. The status quo beckons us in not because i
t’s
evil, but because i
t’s
the status quo. Tha
t’s
its nature. Our cultur
e’s
failure is not that we have a status quo—that fact is perfectly unavoidable in any mob. Our failure is that we actively resist people who fall outside the status quo and especially those who reach beyond it on purpose. An average American is one who cannot overcome his instinct to view the honest aspirations of others with suspicion.”

Kera realized that Bolívar was not by her side. He had excused himself at some point and had not returned. She glanced around, looking for him, but continued to listen in on the conversation.

“Did
n’t
the studio claim that your film was unpatriotic?” someone asked.

“Yes, but only after certain interest groups characterized the film that way, which is their right. And which, as
I’v
e just explained, makes them average.” A healthy ripple of laughter spread through the group. “Average—not because they did
n’t
like it, but because their reason for not liking it was dishonest.”

“Do
n’t
they have a point, though? The film
is
more of a criticism, rather than a defense of, America?”

“I believe patriotism requires a clear understanding of who we are. How do we defend ourselves if we do
n’t
know what about us is worth defending?”

“Do you doubt that parts of this country are worth defending?”

“I do
n’t
view the question itself as blasphemy, if tha
t’s
what yo
u’r
e implying.”

Kera slipped away to go in search of Bolívar. He was not in the main room. She checked the park-facing balcony where the
y’d
stood talking before the film. No sign of him there either. She cut back through the crowd and stepped through a door onto a long, narrow terrace that stretched along the south side of the building. Darkness had settled over the city while they were in the theater, and the balcony was lit with dim, infrequently spaced fixtures.

She almost did
n’t
see the two figures. The terrace contained a series of benches and ashtrays arranged into groups separated by iron planters that sprouted trimmed hedges. In the dark she at first confused the two men with silhouettes of foliage. She had paused to look south at the view of the city, and as she did, her eyes must have adjusted to the relative darkness. When she turned back to the door to go inside, she spotted them, just barely distinguishable from the shadows.