Free Exposure by Mal Peet

off in pursuit of the gray running sea.
    A waiter enters. “Happens this time of year,” he says. “She’ll blow over real quick. Two, three hours, maybe. Tomorrow you won’t believe it happened. All will be calm again.” He smiles. “It refreshes the sea.”
    A minute or two later, the card players are again distracted when their waiter and the barman and the assistant manager go to the windows and argumentatively share a pair of binoculars. Otello gets up and wanders over to them.
    “What’s the excitement?”
    “A boat,” the assistant manager says. “Not the ferry. The ferry don’t put out in this weather. Got to be some crazy americano. They don’t think anything got the right to stop them doing what they wanna do.”
    The barman has the binoculars now. “There she is,” he says. “Wow, look at her buck. Jus’ north of the island. Man, I bet they losin’ their lunch.”
    “Mind if I look?” Otello asks, and the barman passes him the binoculars. Otello fiddles with the focus and finds the boat, a ghostly wedge that comes and goes between walls of water. A launch of some sort. The sort that rich people sit on to drink cocktails.
    “Where’s it heading?”
    The assistant manager says, “Well, if it’s got any sense, it’ll come here and wait out the weather.” Struck by a thought, he looks at Otello. “You expecting someone, señor?”
    “No.”
    “Good. Like I thought, some dumb gringo. What time would you like dinner?”
    The star, the agent, and the bodyguard are at a table in the softly lit restaurant when a subdued clamor occurs in the lobby. Cass, who is facing that way, looks up and freezes with a forkful of steak en route to his open mouth.
    Desmerelda Brabanta stands in the doorway. Her hands are deep in the pockets of a yellow waterproof jacket that is far too big for her and conceals whatever other clothes she is wearing, if any. Her long legs are bare and wet, and the canvas sneakers on her feet are soaked a dark shade of blue. Her saturated hair is golden serpents; her eyes are brighter than anything else in the room. She looks like something timeless that the sea has treasured while waiting for the human who deserves her. At her back, several members of the hotel staff cluster, smiling and uncertain like film extras who have not been told what to do.
    Otello and Cass get to their feet. Diego lays his knife and fork neatly parallel on his plate and remains sitting. He has seen Desmerelda, but now his eyes are fixed upon the remains of the crayfish he was eating, almost as though they might reveal the reason for this spectacular intrusion. But he is smiling.
    Desmerelda is the one who breaks the silence.
    “Lord,” she says, speaking exclusively to Otello, “that was a rough ride. I need to get out of these wet clothes. Do you think you might have something that would fit me?”

S HORTLY BEFORE ELEVEN o’clock, the phone on Nestor Brabanta’s bedside table rings. He has already taken his sleeping tablets, but because calls that come through to his private number at this time of night are unusual, he answers it.
    The voice in his ear is coarse and slightly muffled; he thinks he detects a northern accent. At first he assumes it is a long-distance call on a poor connection.
VOICE: Are your doors locked?
BRABANTA: I beg your pardon?
VOICE: You are being robbed, Senator.
BRABANTA: Who is this?
VOICE: Someone who keeps a closer eye on your belongings than you do, Senator. As I say, you are being robbed as we speak. Your heart is being broken, and you do not know it.
BRABANTA: Who the hell is this? How did you get this number? What are you talking about?
VOICE: One of your horses has been stolen, Senator. Your most valuable horse. Your beautiful golden filly. And right now she is with a big black brute of a stallion.
BRABANTA: You are a lunatic. I’m hanging up now.
VOICE: Do you know where your daughter is, Señor Brabanta?
[ BRABANTA sits up and swings his legs over the side of the