Fiduciary Duty (3 page)

Chapter 3. Beaches

My plane landed at the airport of Guarulhos just outside São Paulo. It was good to be back in Brazil. I felt as if I was on an adventure, but one that was deadly serious. I thought of what H would have said. H had been such a stickler for doing the right thing. She would have told me I was on a just cause. But she would also have warned me that a just cause meant more responsibility. A person who failed on a just cause was inadvertently allowing an injustice to continue. There was almost nothing I would not do to minimize the injustice to H and Jeremy.

I picked up my bag and quickly got through customs. I had packed light – a bagful of clothes, some toiletries, my laptop and that was it. That was lucky, as my rental, a tiny Fiat hatchback, was smaller than I had anticipated. It would never even have accommodated the crutches that were, at the moment, still sitting in the trunk of the Explorer halfway up the Atlantic coast of Florida. Another surprise to me was that the Fiat was tri-flex. That is, it had two fuel tanks, one for compressed natural gas and the other could accept any mix of ethanol and gasoline. Most cars, trucks, and buses, and even a few motorcycles on the road in Brazil could run on two or more fuels allowing the driver to select whichever got the most miles per gallon, or rather, the most kilometers per liter when they pulled into a service station.

The history of those tri-flex vehicles dated back to the second Oil Embargo following the overthrow of the Shah in Iran. Brazil had the same gas lines as we did in the US, but the Brazilian government vowed never to get caught with its pants down. Surprisingly, despite the ineptitude of the Brazilian government, it followed through very successfully. They began by trying to encourage the production of vehicles that ran on ethanol. The government quickly realized that nobody would buy such cars, and thus no company would make them if the fuel wasn’t available. Since the government happened to own a chain of gas stations, it simply started selling ethanol even though the demand wasn’t there. For good measure, the government also placed an order for a few thousand vehicles that ran on ethanol. There were fits and starts, but as the number of vehicles that ran on something other than gasoline increased, competing service stations like Shell and Texaco began selling ethanol as well. That in turn further encouraged car buyers and car makers, and thirty some years later, the typical Brazilian driver had choices Americans didn’t.

As I thought about that, I realized there was a lesson in there for me. If I was going to get results, I would need to think far ahead, and I would need to be flexible.

I had already taken the first step with the anonymous credit cards purchased in Orlando. The next step was to obtain a completely anonymous phone. And just like in Orlando, complete anonymity meant not showing up on a store’s security camera. São Paulo, a disorganized megalopolis seemed like a good place to get these items. I drove around the city more or less randomly until I stumbled upon the Marriott Hotel just off Santo Amaro Avenue, a busy thoroughfare. I found a place to park and walked into the Marriott, all the while wondering who Saint Amaro was and what he did to attain Sainthood. After ten minutes in the lobby doing my best imitation of an American just off the plane, I got up, slipped my wedding ring into my pocket, walked out and hailed a cab.

I told the cabbie in broken Portuguese that I was an Argentine businessman who would be in Brazil for three weeks and I needed a temporary cell phone. Not surprisingly, he knew just the place to take me. Ten minutes later, we were outside a convenience store with music blaring into the parking lot. I told the cabbie I had too much of a headache to deal with the music, and asked him to pick me up a phone with three “chips” on it, with 300 reais of credit on each one.

To be honest, the real headache came from understanding the Brazilian cell-phone system. I had spent some time on message boards before leaving the US, and I never quite figured it out, but then it seems nobody else understood the Brazilian cell-phone system either. It was, however, readily apparent that if you didn’t know what you were doing, you could spend a fortune making cell-phone calls in Brazil. Each of the major phone operators charged different prices per minute depending on whether the phone call was to an in-network number and whether the phone call was to a local number. Adding to the complication, at least one and perhaps all three of the major operators (as with many things in Brazil, it was never quite clear) had instituted a very opaque system of “bonuses” whereby one “earned” credit back depending on, well, I had no idea and had never been able to track anyone who did.

The cabbie soon returned with a nifty little phone that had three “chips” – that is, three separate SMS cards, meaning the phone itself had service through three of four major telephone operators in the country. That would keep most of my phone calls at a manageable rate.

“Where to now, sir?” the cabbie asked.

“Take me somewhere I can meet girls,” I said with a wink, “Clean girls.”

He brought me to a nondescript building, “Here you are, Mr. Fernandez. If you still have a headache I can take care of this too.”

I laughed, and tipped him a hundred dollars in American currency, confident that if he remembered anything about me in a few weeks, it would be for being asked to meet girls and the tip, not my face and perhaps not even the phone. After I got out, the cabbie remained parked at the curb. He seemed to be writing something on a clipboard. I had no choice, so I walked into the establishment. It was early in the day, too early for the ladies of the evening to be at work. However, a well dressed older woman was seated at a table, apparently doing books. She looked up and asked if she could help me.

“Do you serve feijoada?” I asked in English, “The cab driver said you have best feijoada in town.”

Feijoada, made with black beans and pork products and served with a delicious toasted manioc flour called farofa, is Brazil’s national dish. Clearly, this tourist was in the wrong place. The madam didn’t miss a beat and replied in perfect English, “You are mistaken. Feijoada is only to be eaten on Friday or Saturday nights.”

I sighed audibly. Then I asked to see a menu.

“I am sorry, sir. We will not be open for lunch today,” she said.

“Oh,” I replied, “That’s too bad. I’ll be back Friday evening for the feijoada.”

She looked amused at the statement but let it go uncorrected. When I stepped back outside into the sunlight, the cab I had arrived in was gone. As I walked, I put my wedding ring back on. I was glad to be me again, but it brought back, unbidden, the reason I was on this quest, so far from H and Jeremy.

I walked for a bit. Eventually I hailed another cab which took me back to the Marriot, and from there I walked to my car.

Once on the open road outside the city, there are several ways to get to Ternos. Neither the little Fiat nor I were in any hurry, so we took the scenic route – through the mountains to the Port of Santos, where Pelé, the King of Soccer had grown up and gotten his start. In Santos, I bought a second hand surfboard in Brazil’s national colors, yellow and green. From there, Ternos was straight up the coast for about 3 hours. I drove right through Ternos, and kept driving for another thirty miles, stopping at the delightfully named town of Ubatuba, pronounced “Ooba Tooba” in English. Ubatuba is nicknamed the Brazilian Surf Capital, which provided me with some protective coloration for being there.

The hotel where I had made reservations in my own name was two blocks from the beach. I checked in, unpacked, and came downstairs. In the small lobby, I had the concierge make reservations for me to take surfing lessons the next morning. I made sure to speak English with everyone. I didn’t want anyone in Ubatuba to remember anything unusual about this particular American tourist.

Since it was still early afternoon, I went for a walk. I picked up a few maps and a couple of tour books at a newspaper stand. Half a block later, I stopped at small sidewalk café and bought some finger food – fried shrimp and fried clams. I hadn’t felt hungry in months, but all of a sudden I was famished. After almost inhaling the food, I added a steak and fries to my order. The steak was a poor cut, and unevenly fried, but it tasted heavenly to me. The fries, which sopped up the steak juice, were even better.

While I ate, I realized I was more than hungry, I was elated. For the first time in a long while, I was alive, and I had purpose. The dark cloud in which I had lived since H and Jeremy had died had cleared significantly while I was focused on my mission.

I settled my bill and started walking back to the hotel. Along the way, it started to pour and I sprinted back the rest of the way. I arrived drenched.

The concierge grinned, and said, “You start your lesson of surf early, Mr. Reynolds.” He pronounced “surf” as “soorf.”

I smiled, encouraging him, and he continued, “You know, Ubatuba has more than one, how you say, nickname. Not just surf capital. Also it calls self ‘Ubachuva.’ Chuva means rain.”

For the rest of the day, I read through the tour books and watched TV. I kept an ear out for the Caipira accents similar to those I used to be able to imitate. I knew I would need that skill again. Later, I had an early dinner at a family-owned restaurant down the block from the hotel. The meal was a pleasant mix of exotic and ordinary: some sort of smoked fish with peas and potatoes and a mango juice to wash it down. Afterwards, I felt completely beat. I went to sleep as soon as the sun went down.

During the night, I had the same dream I always did. In the dream I am at my computer, applying for yet another job. H walks into the room holding Jeremy and says, “I have a couple errands to run. Why don’t we eat the leftover lasagna when I get back?”

I respond, “In restaurants they call it twice baked. They charge extra for it like that.” I grin, thinking of Jeremy’s tendency to end up with strings of tomato sauce-covered cheese hanging from his chin.

H puts Jeremy down, and they walk toward the door. For an instant, before they walk out, both of them turn around and smile at me. Jeremy says, “Bye bye, Daddy.”

I smile back, and say “Bye bye, Jeremy. Bye bye, H.”

In the dream, even as I say “Bye bye” I always feel a sense of foreboding, and I try to warn H but cannot. Every night, at that same point, I would wake up with a feeling of despair pitted in my stomach. But that night was different. The dream felt almost bittersweet, as if I had distant memories of H and Jeremy actually coming back a few hours later and the three of us having lasagna for lunch. In real life, of course, I was at the coroner’s office a few hours later to identify their bodies.

The bittersweet feeling from the dream was still with me when I woke up at the crack of dawn. After puttering around in the bathroom, I found my running shoes and shorts and went out for run. The tour books said there are 92 different beaches in the Ubatuba area and I found a semi-deserted one on which to start my jog. I hadn’t given up jogging since H and Jeremy died, but it had simply become another mindless thing I had to do, like brushing my teeth, shaving or cleaning out the cats’ litter box. Since my late teens, if I didn’t jog and do stomach crunches regularly, I would get excruciating back pains. As long as maintained the regimen and kept my weight below a hundred and seventy pounds, I could usually keep the back pains at bay.

What I hadn’t been doing for the past few months was eating or sleeping properly. As a result, I had lost about ten pounds. That was on top of ten pounds I had lost earlier from stress when I first became unemployed. I was down to the same weight I had in my freshman year in college, but it didn’t feel good.

But that morning, that morning I did feel good. In fact, I was elated. My sense of purpose from the day before was still there, and I had always enjoyed jogging on sand, especially the wet sand at the water’s edge. As I ran along the sand and the occasional rocks and past a lagoon, I kept thinking about how much H would have loved Ubatuba – she thought she loved sunbathing but could never stay out more than twenty minutes before getting too hot– and how much fun Jeremy would have had in the water. Normally, at that point I would have broken down, but not this morning. I realized, as I was having those thoughts, something in me had changed. The bittersweet feeling was still there. I felt like traces of H and Jeremy were with me.

An hour later, I got back, took a shower, and changed into swim trunks and a t-shirt. I went down to the first floor – labeled “T” (for “terreo” or ground) on the elevator, since the first floor to Brazilians is what we Americans call the second. Even modest Brazilian hotels typically have a nice spread for breakfast, and this one was no exception. I enjoyed a hearty meal of fruit, bread, and doce de leite, a milk-based spread exactly like the “dulce de leche” I had eaten so frequently as a child in Argentina and Uruguay. Americans somehow mistake it for caramel, but it is actually made from condensed milk and tastes so much better.

Later, I went for my surf lessons. I had surfed a bit in California but I wasn’t any good at it. I immediately noticed a big difference between the water in Ubatuba and the water off the coast of Malibu or Santa Cruz – you don’t need a wetsuit in Brazil because the water was warm even though it was still early spring. And unlike in Santa Cruz, you didn’t have to worry about being mistaken for a sea lion by a shark, making it that much easier to concentrate on surfing.

After the lesson, I walked back to the hotel, showered, and changed into Bermuda cargo shorts, a t-shirt, and flip-flops. It was an outfit that loudly proclaimed “American tourist in an exotic beach town.” There was a fine line to be walked. I wanted to be remembered, if at all, as a tourist on vacation, but I didn’t want to fall victim to Brazil’s national sport of pick pocketing. Had I been in Rio or São Paulo I would have taken my mugger’s wallet – a billfold with a handful of small denomination bills and expired credit cards to be worn conspicuously, but where I was I didn’t expect any problems. I hopped into my little Fiat and we headed down the coast to Ternos to get a feel for the area.

According to the tour-books, Ternos had a population of 9,837 people, but it was hard to see where they were all hiding. The entire town appeared to sit on a single beautiful half-moon beach about a mile long with the most perfect white sand I had ever seen. Torrimpietra Castle was easy to find – dead center of the beach, right across the street from the water. It turns out that in Brazil, unlike in the US, you can’t build on the beach side of the street. That policy guarantees that would-be beachgoers can get to and enjoy the ocean, rather than being faced with a wall of homes, as they would in parts of Malibu, say, or Naples, Florida.

To my unprofessional eye, it seemed that the town of Ternos wasn’t conducive to a killing. Leaving aside a twisty and treacherous mountain road, there was only one road into and out of town, and that road led onto BR-101. BR-101 is the longest highway in Brazil, running about 3,000 miles along the country’s coast. Police, to say nothing of the Prince’s own security team, could block off any escape attempt with ease. The town was also too small to have many effective hiding places. On the plus side, the half-moon shape of the beach meant that many of the condos provided a direct line of sight to the entrance of the castle.