The Oracle Year(44)
Iris froze briefly, just for a fraction of a second. Will understood. When she’d first seen him, she’d put Will in a box. His clothes, maybe his demeanor . . . they suggested he was a certain type of person, at a certain level. He might be staying at the Carrasco, but it was a stretch. Or maybe he wasn’t paying with his own money—he was an assistant to a real guest, perhaps. Something like that.
But now, with just a few words, Will had put himself in another box, and Iris had to adjust. Recalibrate her expectations.
“Se?or,” she said, speaking deliberately, “I would of course be happy to assist, but before you spend such a significant amount, let me tell you something about José Pittaluga. No one is expecting a masterpiece this evening.
“He has been part of our theater for many years. He is short, and he is round, and his roles are rarely of the significance of a Prospero. He has been a bit player, as you say. A comedic actor. A clown.
“The producers of The Tempest hired him for the role because the Oracle named him on the Site. He was not even auditioning for the part. They simply saw an opportunity and took it.”
She looked down at the spot on the map where she had circled the Teatro Solís.
“My understanding is that they have done very well—every show sold out. But the reviews have been . . . unkind.”
Will nodded.
“I know. People want a piece of the Oracle, however they can get it. I’d still like to go. I just want to be there. To see it. It’s history, you know?”
Iris smiled.
“I do indeed. If I had the funds, I might also be tempted.”
She inclined her head, almost apologetically.
“And speaking of such things, did you wish to give me a credit card, or—”
Will reached into his bag and pulled out a thick stack of Uruguayan currency—one-and two-thousand peso notes.
“No,” he said, “cash will be fine.”
The concierge looked at the money in silence. Will could feel himself moving into yet another box. Iris would never forget that this had happened, and while the chances she would actually figure out he was the Oracle had to be almost nil (in Will’s opinion), he was still advertising that he was an extremely wealthy man, far from home, who carried a ton of cash.
Hamza would hate this. If he knew about it. Which he didn’t. And wouldn’t.
Will looked at Iris, who still hadn’t taken her eyes from the stack of bills. He smiled.
“Actually,” he said, “if you’re free tonight, why don’t you see if you can get two seats?”
Chapter 17
Cathy Jenkins sprawled in a deck chair on her back patio, her tablet on her lap, both hands curled around a steaming mug, looking out at the waves. A flock of pelicans had gathered just past the edge of the beach. She watched them swooping down to snatch breakfast from the surface of the sea.
Not very pretty birds, she thought. Flying coat hangers.
It was still fun to watch them fish. They’d dive-bomb the water, smacking into the surface with all the grace of a basketball, and come up a moment later to bob along the waves with fish hanging from their beaks, looking very self-satisfied.
Cathy turned on her tablet and pulled up the home page for the Tampa Bay Times, skimming the headlines. President Green’s lead in the election polls had eroded to the point where it was an even race. She’d have thought Green had a lock on a second term, but Aaron Wilson had somehow stolen away a lot of his support.
She scrolled the rest of the page. At first, she was surprised not to see anything Site related. This would be the first day her employer hadn’t made the front page in weeks. And then, an item down toward the bottom—an interview with José Pittaluga, the Uruguayan actor named in one of the first Oracle predictions, whose long-awaited performance was scheduled for that very evening.
Cathy wasn’t much for Shakespeare, really—she knew what the Bard’s work meant to the world’s cultural heritage, but parsing through the plays for meaning always made her feel stupid, and she knew that while she was many things, stupid wasn’t one of them.
Cathy tapped the link to the interview and began to read. She immediately decided she liked José Pittaluga very much.
The man was completely open about the fact that the Oracle’s prediction had made his career, and that it had nothing whatsoever to do with his ability as an actor. He seemed to relish that point, in fact. He knew he wasn’t an Olivier, not even a Nicolas Cage, but that didn’t matter. The Oracle had made him completely, one hundred percent critic proof. And rich.
You and me both, buddy, Cathy thought.
Cathy set down her tablet, smiling. She didn’t just like Pittaluga—it was possible that she loved him.
The man was unrepentantly gleeful in telling the entire world to fuck off—a point of view she could respect, not so different from her own career in the software industry. She’d never had time for people who didn’t recognize what she could do, or who somehow thought it was less just because she had a pair of tits. If the patriarchy didn’t want her talent on her terms, then they would have to get along without it, while she sat in the shadows, making their lives miserable from time to time, getting rich off their mistakes, exploiting flaws in their security, and selling the solutions back to them.
Or, on occasion, being the IT security consultant for a man who could predict the future.