The Argentina Rhodochrosite (11 page)

20

As Sebastian drove them further down
the road, Ainsley reclined in the passenger seat, sipped at her coffee, and listened to him explain what had really happened last night.

While it was true that Ovidio had skipped out on his own party at Milion because it was Wednesday, Sebastian said, there was also another reason.

The superstar had realized that, as a people’s athlete, he needed to be seen as the people’s politician, not as a tool of the rich. So he’d decided to announce his political ambitions not in a fancy mansion-turned-nightclub, but surrounded instead by people’s people: in the
villas miserias
, the poorest parts of Buenos Aires.

Ainsley suddenly understood the translation: These “villages of misery” were shantytowns.

Sebastian seemed to read her mind. “You’re going someplace most journalists never see. Most
porteños
don’t go here either. I certainly don’t.”

“But what about all those people who waited for him at Milion last night?” said Ainsley. “They’re going to be even more pissed off.”

Sebastian shrugged. “You can never guess which way Ovidio is going to move. It’s the same on and off the soccer field. He is Argentine to his very soul.”

“So does this place have a name?”

“Yes. We’re going to Villa 27. It’s one of the most notorious. Lots of drugs.”

That name sounded familiar. She remembered Nadia saying that back in Ovidio’s hotel suite. It was where the suspect maid, the one who hadn’t shown up for work since the day of the theft, supposedly lived.

But all Ainsley said was, “I presume the media is going to be there.”

“Of course,” said Sebastian, “in fact, I heard Nadia was alerting them late last night. That’s probably why she couldn’t make it to Milion.” Then he squinted and angled his head, watching something. “There. Look. The beginning of the madhouse.”

He pointed. Through the windshield, Ainsley could see a swarm of activity on an open field.

Sebastian parked the car a safe distance away. Then he laid a hand on her arm. “Do yourself a favor,” he said. “Stay near the stage, on the side. Don’t go into the neighborhood.” He looked very serious.

“I won’t,” she said.

“It’s dangerous for everybody. Especially a
turista
.”

Ainsley smiled. “It’s a good thing I’m not one of those.”

Sebastian smiled back. They left the car and moved down the street towards the small field. As they drew closer, Ainsley realized that calling it a park was too generous. It was an expanse of dirt dotted with patches of grass. Two pairs of wooden sticks stood as pathetic goals. There were no trees anywhere, not even a garbage can.

At the far end of this field, a small stage had been erected, empty for the moment, surrounded by a bank of bright lights. A long blue-and-white banner read
Mi Gente, Mi Pais, Mi Ovidio
.

Translation: My people, my homeland, my Ovidio.

A crowd of at least five hundred had already gathered around the stage, and there were more pouring in every minute. Nearby, an elevated platform stood to the rear of the crowd, on which twenty cameras were already set up, their cables running off the back of the platform to the media trucks nearby, which were parked haphazardly on the dirt.

And encircling the small field stood the most ramshackle neighborhood Ainsley had ever seen.

This was Villa 27.

The structures were two, three, even four stories tall, but they looked like home jobs, as though the owners had just stacked extra floors onto their homes with whatever materials were around, whenever they’d felt the urge. Ainsley knew that her eye had been conditioned by the standards of construction in the United States, but there was no denying that these structures were truly dangerous. She guessed that no building inspector had ever set a single toe in this neighborhood. How could a supposedly first-world country allow this type of third-world construction?

Ainsley didn’t have an answer to that question. She pushed other thoughts out of her mind as she followed Sebastian around the edges of the crowd.

She studied the men and women who were milling about. They looked surprisingly healthy. The children seemed well-nourished, a few even pudgy, and bore no obvious markers of severe poverty. Most of their clothing was worn, faded, but given Ainsley’s own condition—oily hair, caked-on makeup, shirt stained with dirt—she had zero right to judge anybody.

Streams of people were pouring out of the villa into the field. The crowd was growing larger and larger, the party vibe growing stronger and stronger.

Sebastian maneuvered confidently through the people, despite his own status as a professional soccer player. Ainsley tugged on his sleeve. “Aren’t you worried about people recognizing you?”

He shrugged. “I’ve sat on the bench with a warm-up hoodie over my head for two years. It doesn’t happen.” He gestured. “I was nowhere near this popular anyways.”

Ainsley caught a definite whiff of jealousy. She’d never been friends with a superstar, but thus far, the experience appeared to be stressful for everybody involved.

An expensive black Mercedes with limo-tinted windows pulled up into the field and behind the stage. The crowd grew excited. There was a small surge as a hundred people rushed forward.

“Isn’t this dangerous?” she said. “No protection?”

“Ovidio’s not in that car,” said Sebastian. “He knows how these things work.”

The back door opened, and a couple of masculine guys stood up with chests puffed out and no-bullshit expressions on their faces. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that these were security guards, the first of Ovidio’s personal entourage.

Then a second Mercedes pulled up behind the first. Another small surge. This time, a pair of professional women stepped out, presumably office staffers.

“He’s smart,” said Ainsley.

“It’s the principle of crowd control,” Sebastian said. “In a place this vulnerable, you must keep the energy low. Disappoint them. Keep disappointing them. Then surprise them.”

A third Mercedes, then a fourth followed, each with more professional people stepping out of the backseat. There was a perceptible sense of deflation from the poor residents. Ainsley could see them turning away from the stage.

Then a simple gray sedan, a Chevrolet Classic with tinted windows, pulled up onto the field from the road. Slowly, it began to drive slowly through the crowd of people towards the stage. The people parted as it moved. There was cheering. Hands pounded on its windows.

Ainsley craned her head. “Do you think he’s in that car?”

“Never,” said Sebastian. “That’s the decoy. I’ve seen him do this before.” He scanned the area. “There. That’s him.”

He nodded backwards. On the road, behind the distracted crowd, an outrageously gorgeous black Rolls-Royce had ripped around the corner. A fleet of six security guards stood on the running boards, hands placed on their weapons.

“He looks presidential already,” said Ainsley.

“Yes,” said Sebastian, “but only to them.”

The Rolls-Royce accelerated around the media platform and roared to a halt behind the four Mercedes, sending up a cloud of brown dust. The six security guards stepped off the sides, hands revealing their weapons. One opened the door.

Ainsley stood up on her tiptoes. She saw the familiar face of Ovidio rose out of the vehicle.

The crowd, obsessed with the decoy Chevy moving slowly through its midst, was slow to recognize his arrival. That was the point. Ovidio wasted no time. He sprinted the few short feet towards the main stage and bounded up the stairs. He was dressed in a sharp suit. Makeup covered his face.

The crowd finally saw him. They began to roar.

And that’s when Ainsley saw, for the first time, just how famous Ovidio Angeletti really was in Argentina.

21

The crowd had grown to nearly
fifteen hundred people now, and they were all screaming. But they weren’t shouting in the usual manner that Ainsley had seen at graduations and sporting events back in the United States.

These poor people were expressing themselves in a deeper way, vocalizing a sort of soul-deep longing. It wasn’t from their throats. These people were screaming at Ovidio from the very bottom of their
souls
, from the pits of their shattered spirits, in the way that only the truly desperate can do.

Ainsley nodded. She knew that feeling, had tasted its bitterness.

Then a song came across on the loudspeakers. It was an odd dance rhythm, a genre Ainsley had never heard before.

But the people of this
villa
certainly knew it. They began bouncing in synchronization, arms in the air. Then Ainsley realized why.

Onstage, Ovidio had rolled up his white sleeves, in the typical politician’s style. However, unlike most politicians, he was bouncing too. His mouth was open, a smile on his cheeks. A look of sheer joy decorated his face.

And the people were reacting towards him in the exact same manner.

After a minute or two, the song was turned down, and a sober-looking man in his fifties, wearing regular work boots and jeans, slowly climbed onstage with Ovidio. He was carrying a microphone.

The man spoke a few stumbling sentences, but the volume on the microphone was turned too low, and soon the people turned impatient, and began booing him. He looked like someone who knew next to nothing about stagecraft.

“Who is that?” said Ainsley.

“I can’t really hear,” said Sebastian, “but I think it’s the mayor of Villa 27.”

“They have mayors here?”

“Why wouldn’t they? It’s a community.”

The man continued with his plodding speech, occasionally consulting a shaky piece of paper. Ainsley guessed that the guy was politically way out of his element. He looked like he would probably be a lot more comfortable chatting at someone’s rickety kitchen table about sewage pipes.

Evidently he had the sense that he was losing the crowd, because he wrapped up his talk quickly. Ainsley caught his last sentence: “… please, I beg you, welcome, to this villa, the football star, the center of the
Albiceleste
, and your next
selección
for president of Argentina, Señor Ovidio Angeletti.”

Ovidio hugged him and took the microphone from his hand. There was more of that wild roaring from the poverty-trapped crowd.

Ainsley had to admit that Ovidio looked comfortable onstage, even without his uniform or a ball. She realized that she had been unconsciously dismissing professional athletes, forgetting that, in the end, they were performers too. It’s just that, unlike most actors or musicians, their performances are always improvised, each and every day.

“
Che boludos
!” the soccer star shouted.

The people roared even harder, hearing the slang.

“I want to be direct,” he said. “Our homeland is a
cagada
. For too long we have watched those
boludos soberbios
look down their long European noses at us. For too long we have stood by while those
chamuyeros
, the ones with the levers of power, poured their vile honey down our throats. You in particular have swallowed more lies than anybody. What has been the result? What do you have?” He clutched the microphone and roared. “
What do you have, Villa 27
?”

The crowd was going off its head. By now, people had climbed on top of the Chevy, which was now parked in the middle of the crowd, and were waving blue-and-gold soccer jerseys.

Ovidio continued. “You may have heard of me from my little career as an athlete.” There was more lusty cheering. He held up a hand to quiet the noise. “And, if I can boast for a moment, I’m not just any athlete, but the second-best football player that Argentina has ever created.”

There was respectful applause now. The crowd recognized that he was paying respect to Maradona.

“Despite that, I have to announce something very important today. My career has only just
begun
!!”

A soccer ball suddenly flew out of the crowd towards the stage. Ovidio’s reaction was unbelievably quick. He kicked up his left leg, stopped the ball, and dropped it, trapping it under his foot. The whole move happened in less than a second, as though he’d been expecting the pass.

“And that was in my
dress shoes
,” he said into the microphone.

There was laughter, but his security force, lined up at the front of the stage, were visibly upset. Ainsley guessed that they knew how quickly crowds can turn.

Then Ainsley heard a dreadful popping sound from the rear of the crowd. She saw at least a hundred people started scatter. Everyone was watching, even Ovidio.

“What’s that?” she said.

Sebastian looked worried. “Firecrackers. It looks like somebody set them off under the crowd’s feet.”

Then Ainsley noticed disturbances forming in other pockets of the crowd. These were fights. People were shoving.

From other parts of the crowd came a chant that started slowly, but then gained volume.

“
Per-ón, Per-ón, Per-ón
”.

Soon a thousand people were chanting that name in unison. Ainsley knew that reference. Juan Perón had been the president of Argentina in the nineteen-fifties, a populist hero whose philosophy had become muddied in following decades. Outside of Argentina, most people only know him from his marriage to the world-famous Eva, but inside the country, his name is still revered by the poorest of the poor.

Now the people were shouting his name at Ovidio. Ainsley was standing close enough to see the soccer player’s face. His lips trembled as he tried to find the right words to recapture his audience.

Then a bottle flew out of the middle of the crowd.

Towards Ovidio.