Hide and Seek Page 9

  “Want another go … on goal, so to speak?” Victoria had followed his gaze down and along her body. She reveled in the power she held over supposedly strong and powerful men. This one was different though. He was smarter than she’d expected him to be.

  “I don’t think so. Maybe your ‘string’ has finally ended here,” he said, returning her dazzling smile.

  “What’s the matter? No more arrows in our quiver? Are we fresh out of joy juice?”

  Will fought down the rage, forcing himself to laugh.

  “There’s a game tomorrow, a rather important game. Maybe you’ve heard? You say you read the papers, dear Vic.”

  “And sweet Lambkins wants to get up for that, but not for me?”

  “Don’t,” he said. He’d warned her at least.

  “Don’t what?” she taunted him. “Tempt you?” She wet a finger with her tongue, and placed it between her legs. “If you can’t do it, I suppose I’ll have to do it myself. Now here’s a juicy picture for the tabloids. Victoria does herself! Will not able?”

  With a roar, Will was on her, all over her. Victoria woofed out air.

  “Oh,” she gasped. “Oh God, that hurts. That hurts.” Victoria Lansdowne tried to push him off, but he pinned her hands to her sides. “Please, dear Jesus, stop! Please, please, I’m begging you, Will! Stop it. I’m serious, stop.”

  But there was nothing that could stop the Blond Arrow.

  CHAPTER 35

  ON THE AFTERNOON of the World Cup final the heat soared to ninety-three degrees on the sugary, white sand beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema. For a while, it was a quiet day, a national holiday in celebration of the World Cup. Rich and poor alike rested, saving their energy for the most popular sporting event in the world.

  Then, suddenly, day melted into swarming, jungle-hot night. All of Rio de Janeiro seemed to pour outdoors to witness, and participate in, the national game of “futebol.”

  The wide avenues of the South American city became a raucous and dangerous carnival. Auto horns honked out Bra-sil! Bra-sil! Along the Avenida Brasil and Castello Branco, university students defiantly wrapped themselves in the national flag. All buses and taxis were decorated with bright-colored streamers. Women danced impromptu in the streets, blouses clinging to their breasts, skirts swirling like hoops.

  By seven o’clock, the crowd had converged on Rio’s legendary Maracana Stadium, police letting no one in without a ticket, though hundreds eluded them and entered the stadium to find what sight lines they could.

  Inside, a hundred thousand frenzied Cariocas, waving multicolored banners and placards proclaiming sports victory and social revolution, let out cheers in cadence with the rhythm of ten thousand samba drums, and twice that many boom boxes.

  At the end of a rampway, standing with the rest of his team amid the deafening noise, Will listened.

  He could hear his own heart beat against the walls of his chest. He could hear …

  “Numero nueve … De America … Will … Shepherd!” came from the loudspeaker.

  There were drawn-out boos at the announcement, shouts of palhaco, “clown.” But even in Rio, there were cheers for Will Shepherd. Some in the crowd treasured artistry over partisanship, and Will’s achievements were art. A quartet of shirtless men ran out onto the field. Each had the numeral nine painted on his chest.

  The cheers continued as Will raced onto the field, his fist held high above his flying blond curls. His head was filled with sound and images, fantasies and dreams. He could hardly breathe.

  He felt The Thrill travel through every part of his body.

  No one could stop him tonight.

  He was going to make sports history in front of half the world. No one would ever forget him after this special night in Rio.

  CHAPTER 36

  AT 8:32, THE Colombian referee set the ball down on a bent tuft of grass.

  Brazil versus America! Unthinkable, unpopular, impossible, and yet it was happening.

  The World Cup final had begun!

  Arturo Ribeiro, the mercurial nineteen-year-old Brazilian star, swept up the ball, passed it to a teammate in a play practiced for hours in the preceding months, and raced forward in a brilliant, weaving dance. The ball was sent back to him. His back to the goal, he cartwheeled and sent the ball flying toward the American net.

  The fans exploded.

  “Gooool de Bra-sil!” the PA announcer screamed. “Gooool de Arturo Ribeiro!”

  Time elapsed: thirty-three seconds.

  Less than six minutes later, Brazil scored again. Easily, effortlessly it seemed.

  Cariocas danced in the stands and let loose black snakes and plucked chickens from hidden baskets. Outside the stadium, flares burst in the night sky; handguns were fired into the air; police sirens wailed on and on as though the long-awaited revolution had arrived.

  One would have thought no greater rejoicing was possible. But the celebration of Brazil’s second goal was muted, compared to the reaction when Ribeiro scored again in the thirty-third minute of play.

  Brazil led 3–0 at half-time!

  The game was looking like a rout … no, it was a full-scale massacre.

  Listen to this pompous asshole, Will was thinking as he sat with his head hung low in the visitors’ locker area.

  “You play as if you are drugged,” Wolf Obermeier said. He had already berated his other so-called players, and now he was speaking quietly to Will, whom he had drawn aside as the team left the dressing room to begin the second half. “Something is troubling you? Are you drugged?”

  “Maybe.” Will smiled at the overserious German’s consternation. Truthfully, he didn’t know what was wrong. He felt refreshed after last night, blurred though the memory of it was; no, it was something else holding him back. He shrugged at the German. Whatever it was, The Thrill had passed through him like a thunderbolt, and he could not recapture it. He felt sullen and slow.

  “We need you to become a madman,” Obermeier went on. “Three goals. Absolutely impossible to make up. But I’ve seen you do the impossible. This is not the time to play the worst game of your life—you must be hero, not goat.” He patted Will on the head, father to son. “Show me you are a man.”

  A man. Will walked onto the field in total shock. You’re in the World Cup championship, and you’re playing like you’re still in Fulham. These are the Brazilians. The best in the world. If you beat them, you’ll be famous forever. Obermeier’s right. Be a man.

  He took a deep breath and trotted toward the bench. He heard the crowd roaring, but knew it wasn’t for him; it was for the Brazilian team emerging from the clubhouse. He looked up into the stands—an ocean of dark faces rooting against him. Well, fuck them! He was the Blond Arrow! He did the impossible, regularly.

  At first, Will’s brilliance was all show on the Maracana field. Uncanny dribbling, sudden changes of direction creating paths where none existed, impossible velocity in the smallest spaces—but no support, not even a half-chance at goal.

  Then, nine minutes into the second half, Will stepped in front of a bullet, a streaking pass meant for the Brazilian sweeper Ramon Palero.

  The white ball dropped like a stone from Will’s shoulder. Almost in the same motion, his right leg flew back, and he felt a small muscle tear in his thigh, the pain corkscrewing into his knee socket.

  No matter. Will sent the ball flying toward the upper-left-hand corner of the Brazilian goal. The keeper could barely raise his arm, let alone stop the ball as it rocketed past him.

  “Gooool de America!” Will heard the loudspeaker, and believed the words to be true. “Gooool de Will Shepherd!”

  The Thrill exploded inside his brain. Adrenaline punched through his body, and the pain in his thigh and knee vanished. He felt all-powerful, the way he had the night before, when Victoria had taunted him. All-powerful!

  The striker!

  The goal scorer!

  No one was on the playing field but him! The loner!

  With only three minute
s left in the game, he broke free again. He furiously pushed the ball down the left touchline, faked a pass inside but kept it himself, evading a defender who could only look after him in disbelief. His legs stopped suddenly, went forward again; stopped; accelerated from the dead stop.

  Then he shot, and the ball cannoned forward, a white blur, nearly ripping the net at the back of the Brazilian goal.

  “Gooool de America … Gooool de Will Shepherd.”

  Time remaining: two minutes and forty-six seconds.

  Still time enough.

  CHAPTER 37

  THE HUGE, SPRAWLING crowd had grown silent and still, their attention as much on the stadium clock as on the furious action on the field. Less than three minutes to play in what was suddenly a cliff-hanger.

  No single player could defeat a great team. Not even Will Shepherd could accomplish such a feat.

  Everyone watching believed that; yet none of them could be absolutely sure. He was such a dazzling scorer, perhaps the greatest striker ever. He was a magician, or perhaps he’d made a deal with the devil.

  Will intercepted a pass to the Brazilian right wing and, like an eagle, swooped down the field at incredible speed. Everything was concentration now, moves practiced a thousand—no, a million times. He feinted left and went right at nearly ninety degrees, past a stranded defender. He could see the goalkeeper ahead of him, a patch of enemy color.

  If he were God he couldn’t stop me, Will thought, and saw fear in the keeper’s eye. He switched the ball from his right leg to his left.

  He used his elbow deftly on a defender. He curled softly to the right.

  The ninety minutes were up. There would be a few seconds of stoppage time. Plenty of time to be immortal, to join the likes of Pele and Cruyff.

  Relax. Let this stretch out. Feel it course through your body like heroin.

  The Brazilian goalkeeper moved left, anticipating Will’s shot, leaving the right corner of the goal free.

  Not much daylight—a tiny sliver.

  The referee was raising his whistle. In seconds it would blow and the game would be over.

  It was a shot Will was famous for, a curve hit with the left foot that broke from left to right, and Will measured it carefully in his mind’s eye. An opening as wide as the gates of Hell!

  He was aware of so many things: the sudden, chilling silence of the stadium, the sound of his own breath, and even of the ball on the turf, the look of pure horror on the keeper’s face, the futile pursuit of the Brazilian sweeper.

  His father’s face rose up before him. His eyes. His dead, open eyes on the surface of that swimming pool.

  And with the force of a whirlwind the furies attacked, demons took possession of his instincts, his legs, his soul. No! He wouldn’t let that control him!

  With a roar and a shudder, Will drew back his left leg and kicked. He hit it smoothly, perfectly.

  He wanted to laugh at all those who had ever doubted him—he wanted to scream in each and every face looking down from their precious stadium seats.

  The crowd went mad. Literally insane. Strangers hugged and kissed, and a wild dance began, one hundred thousand people participating in the frenzy. From outside and in, horns and trumpets blared, and a thousand streamers flew upward toward the moon.

  As soon as he had shot, Will had fallen, all strength gone, and now as he lay on the ground he strained for the sound he didn’t hear: “Gooool de America … Gooool de Will Shepherd.”

  He saw the players running off the field, fearful of the crazed mob of spectators streaming toward them. Puzzled, he tried to stand up. Fear swept through his body. He couldn’t get to his feet.

  But the game is a draw, Will thought. There’s extra time to play. No one but the players should be allowed on the field. Get those assholes off. Get them off the field!

  A stricken Wolf Obermeier reached his side and tried to help him to his feet. “Too bad,” his coach said. “How do Americans put it? Tough luck.”

  “The game’s a draw,” Will said, but the look on Obermeier’s face told him the truth, and at that instant all of his furies emerged, even noisier and more terrifying than the thousands of fans descending on them. His father was in that crowd, carrying his mother. She was the dead one now. Blood gushed from her open mouth. His father held her out to Will, like a trophy.

  The Haunting.

  And Will Shepherd began to scream. Finally, he understood.

  Brazil had won the World Cup.

  The Blond Arrow had missed the shot of his life.

  He had failed.

  It’s all your fault.

  It’s always been your fault.

  CHAPTER 38

  IT WAS LIKE carnival in Rio that night, and there was no more sensuous, no wilder time to be had anywhere in the world. Conga lines weaved along every street. Will had rented a red Corvette, and he drove it through the city like a madman. The football bum, the football loser, he thought. The werewolf of Rio.

  “Your name is Angelita, right?” he asked the woman slouched beside him in the speeding car. She was tall and dark-haired; very slender and quite strikingly beautiful. She wanted to feel the Blond Arrow, she’d told him. She wanted the Arrow deep inside her.

  “Yes, I am Angelita. You keep asking me, as if my name is going to change. Maybe the way you drive we’ll both be called Dead On Arrival soon.”

  “That’s cute. That’s very funny,” Will said, shifting the car into fourth on the wide avenue that ran alongside Copacabana. “A funny and beautiful woman can be very dangerous, no?”

  She tossed her black hair back and laughed. “You’re afraid I might steal your heart, right?”

  “No, not at all, Angelita. I’m afraid that you won’t steal my heart. I’m afraid that no one will. Do you follow me?”

  “Not a word of it, darling.”

  “Perfect!”

  He took her up to his hotel suite. The room was well illuminated by the twinkling lights of the city, so he didn’t bother to switch on the lamp. The rhythm from drum-beating bands on the street sounded as though they were right in the room.

  “Put it in me right here, right now, Will Shepherd, numero nueve. I don’t want to wait one second longer,” she screamed at him as they embraced.

  That had been hours and hours ago. He had put it in her all right. She’d moaned, then she had tried to scream. Then she desperately tried to pull the “arrow” out of her heart.

  “What have you done? Oh my God, what did you do to me?”

  “I wanted to steal your heart,” Will said in a whisper. “Did I?”

  Now, he kept forgetting her name. Who the hell was she? Oh yes, yes, it was Angelita.

  Now Angelita lay in the bathtub of his hotel room. He looked down at her and knew that he’d finally gone too far, even for him.

  He had gone too far—slipped right over the edge.

  If my fans could see me now, he thought. Here’s the real Will Shepherd. This is the worthless scum I am. Beneath the handsome exterior beats a heart of darkness. Conrad, right? Will had finished that book in school. He’d understood it perfectly from the very first pages, until the end.

  No one knew him, no one got it—except maybe Angelita. Now, she knows, doesn’t she?

  The woman’s brown eyes were glazed over, looking up at him—looking sideways it seemed. He was her god, right? Her savior from the mean streets of Rio. She had wanted so badly to fuck with such a big star. Well, she had been fucked.

  In his hand he held a glass filled with red liquid. He toasted Angelita. He saluted the woman with her own blood.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Well, I’m not, but I wish I were.”

  He drank from the glass, and knew he was lost. He had committed a murder. There would be a trial—he would be found guilty. Beads of perspiration formed on his forehead.

  Blond Arrow—silver stiletto—vampire—what difference did it make, really.

  He was going to prison for life.

  CHAPTER 39

&
nbsp; I KNEW ALL about “falling from grace,” but “falling in love” was something I realized I hadn’t really understood before. It was happening though, gradually, beautifully, between Patrick and me. Day by day, our feelings for each other grew deeper and deeper. It was different from infatuation, which we’d experienced as well.

  Let me count the ways that I was learning to love Patrick.

  There was the way he reminded me, nearly every day, that I was very special, a worthwhile person. I began to believe it for the first time in my life.

  There was the way Patrick set out to learn everything about the kind of music I wrote and sang, and how he came to understand and appreciate it better than most music writers for Rolling Stone and Spin.

  There was the way he and Jennie could talk about anything and everything; and the way the three of us could do the same.

  There was the way in which he surprised and delighted me with his stories, his wit, his insights.

  In fact, during the first half year we were together, the only troubling point wasn’t about us—it was Patrick’s son. Peter was a genuine bastard—the opposite of his father. Peter tried to take over his father’s company during that period, but he failed. Patrick mourned his failure with Peter, what he called, his loss of his only son.

  Which was a good segue for me, I was thinking one afternoon in Bedford. If there could be a segue for this—

  This was so hard, so very difficult for me. I was absolutely petrified. I sighed, got myself as ready as I’d ever be, and then said.

  “We’re going to have a baby, Patrick.”

  We were sitting in the living room in Bedford. I was about ready to show. Show, I figured—and therefore tell. We had used discretion and protection, but somehow I got pregnant anyway.

  Even though I was an “artist” and “music person,” I was traditional at heart and the pregnancy shook me to my roots. I told Jennie immediately. She said, “You love Patrick and he loves you. I love you both. I’m happy we’re pregnant.” That helped me a lot.

  Now, Patrick’s face registered a half-dozen emotions: amazement, shock, consternation, worry, doubt—but then—joy. Fabulous, unmistakable joy. The smile that I loved so much.