"Hey, Rodrigo," I said. "Kumusta ka?"
"Mabuti naman, Mr. Freeman, salamat," he said.
It was the extent of my Tagalog, but Rodrigo dipped his head at my effort. He was used to being spoken to in English on his job. He took my offered hand in greeting and then glanced nervously out the back window. When he turned I could see the wrinkled purple scar that covered the right side of his face. It was like a dark birthmark that spread from his now nonexistent eyebrow down over his cheek and disappeared into the collar of his shirt. Treatment of the burn from the escaping steam had left the skin the mottled color of a dark grape. Angry-looking stretch marks pulled at the corner of his mouth and eye when he smiled. I pulled away from the curb.
As I drove to Billy's office, Rodrigo watched the world roll by through his passenger window. Though he'd been a cruise ship worker for five years, his station as a maintenance-grade utility man kept him belowdecks most of the time. In the many ports of call, rarely did employees like him have the time to see the landscape. I asked if he'd heard from his wife in the Philippines. He nodded. Rodrigo and the others I'd interviewed through an interpreter said the company that signed workers up in Manila would pay for wives or husbands to visit, but only on the promise that they would both return home.
"Yes. She is sick for me," he said. "She is to come here, but has no money."
I pulled into a parking lot on Clematis Street and got a warm greeting from the operator who knew me. I took a ticket and we walked the four blocks through downtown West Palm Beach to Billy's office building. I caught our reflection in the plate glass of a clothing store: a tall and tanned white guy dressed like a weekend boat captain and a five-foot Southeast Asian with a limp and a tic that caused him to turn his face from each person he passed. It was South Florida. No one blinked. But when we reached the lobby, a familiar security man stopped us.
"Hello, Mr. Freeman," he said, talking to me but looking at Rodrigo.
"He's OK, Rich. One of Mr. Manchester's clients," I said.
"Sure, Mr. Freeman. But you're still going to have to go through the metal detectors."
"Yeah, we understand," I said.
It was a new world in America. One where no one simply vouched for another.
When we went through the security point, Rodrigo walked through without a beep but was still swept by a guard with a metal- detecting wand. It took me three passes, dumping everything I had in my pockets into a plastic box, until I finally found the offending foil chewing gum wrapper I'd stuck in my back pocket instead of tossing it out in the street. We rode the elevator to one of the top floors and entered a set of double doors that was unmarked. In the outer office we were greeted by Billy's assistant, whose usual charm and social ease seemed oddly strained.
"Hello, Mr. Freeman, so nice to see you."
"Allie," I said. "This is Mr. Colon."
They shook hands and Allie looked directly into Rodrigo's face without flinching or showing in any manner that she had noticed the burn pattern.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Freeman. He's running a bit late with an unexpected appointment," she said, looking back over her shoulder at Billy's closed door like she didn't know what might come out of it.
"I do have your coffee waiting, though," she said and asked Rodrigo if he would join me.
He declined and followed my lead and sat in one of the high- backed leather chairs, just on the front edge, his hands clasped in front of him as though he were afraid of getting something dirty. Allie brought the coffee and while I drank I watched Rodrigo cut his eyes at the paintings and artwork strategically spotlighted in the room.
In a low voice I asked him about his children at home to try to relax him and he turned and smiled, but before he had a chance to form a word the door handle to Billy's office snapped down and the door opened too quickly. A man marched out with a face like Rushmore, a stern look set in stone. He was white-haired and impeccably dressed in a blue business suit, stiff-collared white shirt and politically correct red-patterned tie. His shoes were freshly polished.
He did not acknowledge our presence or even offer a civilized response to Allie when she said: "May I call down for your car, Mr. Guswaite?" He walked directly out, leaving a silence and a slight movement of air behind.
"One moment," Allie said and slipped quietly into Billy's office. Rodrigo was studying his own shoe tops. He'd seen men of power pissed before. A few minutes passed and Allie returned with a professional face.
"Mr. Manchester is ready for you, gentlemen."
Billy was standing inside the door, his own impeccable suit jacket on, tie cinched up and his face showing nothing but amiability.
"M-Max. Mr. Colon, Magandang hapon! Ikinagagalak kong makilala kayo," Billy said, greeting Rodrigo in his own native language. The kid from the North Philly ghetto, I thought.
Billy steered us to the angled couches that faced the floor-to- ceiling windows. The view was extraordinary, looking east out over the lake and then the Spanish-tiled roofs of the mansions on the island of Palm Beach and the blue-gray Atlantic beyond.
"I kn-know you have t-talked with Mr. Freeman s-several times and answered m-many of these questions, Mr. Colon," Billy began, switching back to English. "But I n-need to hear them myself."
Rodrigo nodded, maybe understanding half of what Billy was saying. But his eyes were intent on the lawyer's face so I sat listening for a few minutes and then took my coffee to another part of the room, giving Billy the authority and control he needed to have.
While they talked I stepped around, reacquainting myself with the paintings Billy had hung in this, the space where he spent most of his time. All were originals done with such talent that you could not help but find a new angle or texture or blend of color that you had not noticed before. I roamed over to his bookcase, which was stacked only with Florida statues and lawyerly tomes that held no interest for me.
As I rounded his desk I saw a splayed-out collection of eight-by- ten photos of Diane McIntyre. They were cropped from the shoulders up and a warm but professional smile was fixed on her face. The white blouse under her blue business jacket was buttoned at the neck. Her hair was perfect. Among the shuffled papers were layout sheets I recognized as campaign posters and I recalled from Billy's discussion before leaving for Europe that Diane was considering a run for a county court judgeship. The stone-faced Mr. Guswaite, I thought, political animal of some sort.
Movement at the couches got my attention and I joined the others. Billy had put Rodrigo at ease and they were clasping hands, the lawyer saying something again in Tagalog and adding: "Please have Allie take down that phone number and Mr. Avino's contacts. Ako'y nagpapsalamat, Mr. Colon for your courage." When Rodrigo stepped out to Allie's desk Billy turned to me.
"Thanks for b-bringing him in, M-Max. I think w-we can work this without too much t-trouble. That part about the lower rung of workers getting p-paid by the cabin boys to handle some of their w-work so they can impress their supervisors by increasing their own n-numbers. It's amazing. The hungry ones work twenty-hour days just to g-get ahead. It's like an entire s-social crab pot on each sh- ship with race and color and p-payoffs all tossed into the mix and all invisible to the American customers around them."
"Nothing a good union couldn't fix," I said, only half joking.
"There's a p-political land mine," Billy said. "How about if we just try to get some of these m-men compensated for having their faces b-burned off?"
"Sounds fair to me. So how come the rest of them won't join up?"
"They're scared, M-Max. He says the Filipino job brokers have long arms. They make money by providing cheap labor, not on workers who have to get paid for injuries. He says the p-pipeline from Manila to Miami is short enough to send an enforcer to shut down dissent. They're all looking over their shoulders."