“I think they will be happy to agree.”
“Oh yes they will agree, I am sure of that. I am also sure that they will be happy about it.”
Moniz turns off the flame under the coffee. He pours a cup for himself, another for Julio.
“But first, António, there will be a few questions. They will ask: Why did you not detain the American yourselves, if you were so sure of his guilt? Why were you not monitoring John Wright? Then we will need to admit that in fact we were watching these Americans, but they eluded us.”
Moniz carries one of the cups to the bedroom, and takes a moment to stare at his sleeping husband. Next weekend they will be celebrating their tenth anniversary with a big dinner at his younger sister’s house out in Cascais near the beach. Catia married a rich banker, an ass of the very worst sort. But her homes in both the city and the country are spectacular, and Catia has not needed a job in a decade, and their little girl is an angel. Everyone compromises somewhere along the way. At least with Catia the benefits are abundant and obvious.
“Which is to say, António: We will be laughed at. By Spanish airport security guards.”
Santos is right. She is almost always right. But not quite as always as she thinks.
“It was very clever of John Wright to run to Spain,” she concludes. “Very clever.”
Moniz leaves the coffee on Julio’s bedside table, and retreats quietly from the bedroom.
“So what do you propose?” he asks, though he is pretty sure he knows where Santos is going with this.
“The crime that seems to have been committed was by one American against his own American wife and another American who provided the ransom. This was, fundamentally, an American crime. No one here in Lisbon was hurt, there were no crimes against property here, no possibility of future lawbreaking …”
Moniz is not surprised that Santos is choosing to cover her own ass. But he is surprised that she is willing to let an obviously guilty man walk free.
“I think there is not a lot of potential benefit to the continued involvement of our department. Do you agree, António?”
*
After Charlie left the restaurant, Ariel took a minute to gather herself before setting off through Manhattan’s sweltering streets to the hotel where she’d been living in limbo. That limbo just ended.
“My apologies, Mrs. Turner.” This was Mustafah, the hotel’s day manager, accosting her in the lobby. “Do you have a moment, please?”
“Of course.”
They stepped out of the center of attention. “When we went to settle yesterday’s charges, the credit card that we have on file was … um, I regret to say, it was declined.”
Ariel was not surprised that Bucky had canceled the card; she knew that he had the potential to be a vindictive person. Bucky’s ruthless swagger had been one of his appeals, back when she’d held vastly different ideas of what made a man appealing. And when they were first dating, there’d been something that seemed tongue-in-cheek about Bucky’s bluster, as if he were self-consciously playing a role, with a little wink for Ariel. She’d loved that playfulness of his, that enthusiasm. Over time, though, his youthful skin of detached irony slowly molted away, until that final transformation in the car on the Montauk Highway, revealing his fully matured adult skin. Impossible to misinterpret, impossible to ignore. Impossible to live with.
Since that aborted drive, Bucky had called her again and again, but she let a week go by before she trusted herself to talk to him. And even then she wanted it to be quick. Rip off the Band-Aid.
“I’m so, so sorry,” Bucky began.
“What are you apologizing for? Do you even know?”
Once again he took too long to answer. “For not being more supportive.”
Supportive. Listening. Appreciated. Bucky had learned a few catchwords along the way, probably from his friends, sitting in bars, laughing at the stupid shit they needed to tell their wives, to get the women off their backs.
There are many different ways to be a coward, Ariel thought, but Bucky’s might be the worst. All of a sudden, she realized that she couldn’t stand her husband anymore. It happened just like that, a spigot closed, no more affection.
“Bucky, you let me down in the worst possible way. At the exact moment when I needed you most. Do you understand that?”
“I do,” he said, in a tone that meant he didn’t. “How can I fix this?” As if maybe he could call a handyman, tip the guy a twenty to repair the marriage that Bucky had carelessly broken.
“I don’t think you can, Bucky. And if you’re being honest with yourself: Do you really want to?”
“Of course I do. How can you ask that?”
Ariel had spent the week soul-searching. “I think, Bucky, that maybe you don’t love me as much as you’d wanted to. And maybe I feel the same way.”
“But—” he began to object, then ran out of steam. Maybe out of ideas.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and immediately regretted it. She should not be the one who was apologizing. This was a habit she’d need to break. One of many.
Bucky didn’t accept Ariel’s reasoning, but there wasn’t really anything he could do about her decision. He told her that he’d give her a few days to reconsider, then he’d try her again. He didn’t.
That’s when Ariel started to call around to the top divorce lawyers—or “matrimonial attorneys” as they kept correcting her, gently—who one after another reported the same thing: They were unable to consider representing her due to previous consultations with her husband. That’s when she knew it would just be a matter of time before he cut off the financial support. Bucky could be charming and exciting, fun and friendly. But friendly is not the same thing as nice. Sometimes it’s the opposite. Often.
She’d been living in this hotel whose nightly rate was as much as monthly rent on her new apartment, in the new village to which she’d soon decamp, a modest home commensurate with her newly modest situation.
“I understand,” Ariel told Mustafah. “I’ll depart this evening.”
She’d eventually have three million dollars, plus the stipend specified in her prenup with Bucky. But at that moment she had none of that money. She was very nearly broke, and the remaining distance would be closed very quickly. Last night was apparently the final one she’d be spending in New York City.
She handed Mustafah a credit card that predated her marriage, neither black nor platinum nor gold, no unlimited credit line, no access to status or perks, just the usurious interest and draconian penalties that create the type of crippling debt that crushes millions of ordinary struggling Americans, one essential purchase at a time. Ariel was now an ordinary struggling American.
“When’s checkout?”
“It was noon, Mrs. Turner. But please, take whatever time you need.”