Chapter 19: Tootsie Explains

I HAD THE VISA APPLICATION on my desk. It sat there in the middle of the blotter like a fly on a hamburger. I turned it over. She’d signed the application, at least I hoped she’d been the one to sign.

I turned the paper back over to read the name again. “María Fernanda Dolores Vasquez,” born March 23rd, never mind the year. Old enough to travel alone, at any rate.

The whole thing smelled. Even if she was of age, or said she was, girls her age rarely had a good reason to travel alone to the U.S. even if they were staying with family. Sometimes the “cousins” weren’t strictly cousins, although that in itself wasn’t too bad. “Cousin,” along with “uncle” and “aunt,” covered a lot of territory in this culture.

Letters. Mother worked as a hotel maid for minimum wage plus whatever tips she earned. No way could she pay for a trip like this, even if María Fernanda was an only child and I doubted she was. There didn’t seem to be a dad in the picture.

I looked again at the mother’s letter. Hotel Nueva York. That explained it. Not the fanciest place in town, despite its name, but an OK mid-range hotel. Good tourist trade, from what the manager, himself a recent Cornell School of Hotel Administration graduate, had told me when I’d chatted with him at one of our annual travel fairs.

Monsieur M owned this hotel, among others.

That explained the referral from the ambassador, but not why. Tootsie had said it was urgent. Ambassador or not, it was going to be my name on the visa and I wanted to know what I was getting into.

“Tootsie, it’s Michael.”

“Hey, Michael, what’s up?”

I was pretty sure she knew.

“This referral from Monsieur M, María Fernanda, what’s the deal, do you know? What’s the ambassador’s interest?”

She was silent.

“Tootsie?”

I thought I heard a sigh.

“Michael, I don’t know, but it matters to him. A lot.”

Another silence.

“Um, Tootsie?”

“Take me to lunch, Michael, OK?”

“Sure. Are you free today?”

“I’ll meet you in front of the embassy in an hour. Let’s go to the Coq, OK?”

The Coq d’Or, despite its fancy name, was everything a neighborhood French bistro should be, at least in my book. Unpretentious even as they were serious about their food. French, but host country dishes were prepared as well as anyone did. It was a favorite lunch place for many of us at the embassy as well as for our colleagues at other embassies.

Tootsie looked tired when I met her at the entrance. Bags under her eyes, as well as a tremble in her hands I hadn’t noticed before now. They weren’t too crowded at the Coq and we didn’t have to wait for a table.

“Monsieur M told the ambassador how very helpful you were with Rolando’s urgent visa case. Remember him?”

“Yeah, there wasn’t anything special about it, aside from having to leave the best roast chicken in town to cool on my dining room table.”

I must have sounded really aggrieved, because Tootsie laughed and reached over to take my hand in hers.

“It’s OK, Michael. I know.”

“Anyway, other than that what’s the big deal?”

“Roland isn’t exactly what he appears to be, Michael.”