“How do I know?”
“Tell her we’re stupid Americans. We make bad life choices.”
The woman smiled and nodded as if she understood, and Taylor ordered two Cokes.
Miss Venezuela retrieved a couple of Coke bottles from a fridge behind the counter, cracked them open, and put them on the counter. She told Taylor the price and Taylor took a fat stack of bolívars from her pocket, peeled off about twenty or thirty bills of funny money, and handed them to Miss Venezuela. They took their Cokes and left.
Taylor observed, “That woman was beautiful.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“How could you? You never took your eyes off her tits.”
“My infantry training. Look for the most prominent terrain feature.”
Taylor laughed.
They rounded a corner and entered Plaza Bolívar, a large, leafy square surrounded by colonial-era buildings. Elevated on a high black marble pedestal in the center of the plaza was a large bronze statue of the Great Liberator on horseback. He was decked out in formal military attire including a jacket with epaulettes, a flowing sash, and a long, sheathed sword. He grasped the reins with one hand and in the other held out a feathered cocked hat. He looked out to the distance with a steely gaze, his eyes obscured by slabs of shadow beneath his prominent brow.
Taylor said, “He actually looks like George Washington.”
“All statues look the same with bird shit on them.”
“Try to be less cool and cynical.”
“Okay.”
“Luis is proud of his country. Keep your wiseass remarks to yourself.”
“I will be more culturally sensitive.”
“Please don’t. Just zip it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She put her arm through his to show she wasn’t angry. Just offering friendly advice.
They walked toward the statue, around which was a crowd of Chavistas—Chávez supporters—in red T-shirts and baseball caps. A man held aloft the tricolor Venezuelan flag, occasionally waving it around, and at the front of the group a tiny woman stood on a plastic stool and spoke to the crowd through a bullhorn in an angry and urgent tone. She spoke in short declaratives, jabbing her fist in the air to put an exclamation point on everything she said, and the crowd cheered or booed as necessary.
“Do you want a translation?” asked Taylor.
“No,” said Brodie, though the only words he could make out were the proper nouns—“Chávez” and “Maduro”—which elicited cheers, of course, while the names of every recent American president invited hisses and boos. On this point, the people’s vitriol seemed to be commendably bipartisan.
Brodie was more interested in the bystanders on the fringes of this fervent sea of red—the average Caraqueño who passed through or hung around the square. Couples strolled hand in hand, children terrorized pigeons, pedestrians took a brief respite from the heat in the shade of the flowering jacarandas and palms that lined the plaza. To the degree that anyone paid attention to the woman shouting into the bullhorn, it was to shoot a glare or roll their eyes. The Chavistas tried to draw passersby into their group to stop and hear what the woman had to say, like desperate cheerleaders at a pep rally for a team with a few too many losing seasons.
A scrawny middle-aged man strode into the square and started shouting at the Chavistas. He spat at the feet of a dumpy, mustachioed guy in a red cap and red T-shirt featuring Chávez’ face on the back. The two men started yelling at each other, and the scrawny guy shoved the dumpy guy. They started throwing punches.
The Chavistas rushed to the aid of their comrade, knocking the scrawny guy to the ground and repeatedly kicking and stomping him.
On the edge of the square, Brodie noticed a line of cops in light blue uniforms and black helmets, watching with studied indifference.
Brodie dropped his Coke bottle on the pavement and walked toward the victim, who was now bleeding.
Taylor grabbed his arm. “Don’t.”
“They’ll kill him.”
“We have a job to do, Brodie. And a cover to maintain. Don’t do anything that will put us in a jail cell.”
