It is $30,000 exactly – Marcel saw Bam count it. But, looked at one way, it in’t as bad as it could have been. Marcel could have been slapped around. Bam could have taken the painting and not given him a cent. So, in a way, every cent of that half beer box of deal money is a bonus. But, looked at another way, Turton’s gang has sold their guy exactly the same thing as Marcel sold his guy, for a … million … dollars.

Marcel thinks himself a poor salesman in comparison, and he knows his guy has ripped him off to the tune of $970,000 dollars. And he’s only ripped Bam off $30,000 by selling him a fake. So, in a way, in their deal, if anyone has a right to be aggrieved it is he, Marcel thinks. He’s been ripped off $940,000 more than he’s ripped off the Stinking Pariahs. And all because he is a weakling, in no position to negotiate when Bam came up with that silly wildflower-press nonsense. Marcel should be at the front of the complaints queue, really. But, with his forgiving nature, he has no axe to grind. He is happy for peace to reign and for bygones to be set-in-stone, bona fide bygones, where nobody kills anybody. Why, then, does everyone want to kill everyone?

Marcel is ready to go. The travel arrangements have been made and are beautiful. His destination is limited only by the hatred his appearance inspires throughout the Western world. That precludes New York and San Francisco, and Paris, which he knows he would have loved.

He eventually chooses São Paulo because, his research tells him, only one in five households there have a TV, and Western pop music is pretty much drowned out by sambas and tangos, and the Catholic Church forbids any mention of paedophilia. Michael has never been a superstar in Brazil, so the Brazilians aren’t interested in vilifying him. There is lots of music in bars, a must for Marcel. He envisions a few lost souls who have wandered down from the United States in the early eighties and never returned, who haven’t heard of Michael’s downfall, smiling at him on the street, waving at him from buses. Life will be like it was before the fall. His name will soon be on the door of the best clubs. He will be an attraction. Not a superstar, but a respected man; a man who looks like a man who has done good work. It is all he wants.

Thirty thousand dollars is a small fortune in São Paulo, where the real has collapsed. Everyone is a street bum there now, Marcel gathers from his reading. Nobody works. They have cafés where old men sit outside and eat feijão com arroz and Moqueca Capixaba and drink Coca-Cola and rum all day. They play cards and talk and wear white singlets under open shirts. They wear sisal hats. It is all so dignified. They nod their heads at people who go by and wish the grace of God go with them.

This is the place for Marcel. A foreign land where Michael is barely known, where he can sip rum among old men whose hearts have been broken. Marcel wants to spend his days in these cafés of remembered sorrows, where each man trumps another’s tragedy with his own, waiting his turn to tell his story and offering the grace of God to people passing by.

He is at the airport ready to board a plane. He has bought a sisal hat and is checking himself out in the plate glass when his phone rings. It’s Turton. His voice is urgent and high-pitched and he says, ‘Go. I mean it. What’s done is done. Go …’

Then Bam Hecker comes on the phone and says, ‘Yeah, go ahead and leave. Bon voyage, Marcel.’

In the glass Marcel sees himself put his fingertips to his throat. He tells Bam he doesn’t have time to talk to him because they are calling his flight number. He holds his phone out so Bam can hear a flight number being called. When he puts the phone back to his ear he hears Bam say, ‘I’ve got no time to talk myself, Marcel. I got to lubricate and defoliate Turton – get him ready for escapades of pain.’

‘Turton wasn’t involved. You can’t think Turton was involved. I stole the painting from him. He didn’t know anything about it. Why would he still be hanging around if he’d sold you guys a fake?’ Marcel watches himself in the window shaking his head involuntarily at the stupidity of these guys.

‘I’m not saying Turton was involved in the crime. I’m letting you know he’s involved in the aftermath. He’s been elected to the important office of hostage, of bargaining chip, of … of “You either get your little Michael Jackson self back here, Marcel, or we’re going to electrify Turton’s skin off him.” Which won’t be a hundred per cent satisfying, because vengeance isn’t sweet as Juicy Fruit when you serve it up to old men who are, as you said, innocent.’

‘You can’t hurt Turton for this.’

‘I can’t think how else to hurt you.’

Marcel has a vision of Turton naked and bound, bikies shaving him all over, slathering him with unctions that will conduct the flow of voltage, joking about his scrawny old body and laughing at his fear. ‘When Michael became monster / You dressed me as man.’ Marcel has no real friend other than Turton. And the old man will be so frightened right now. He hears the echo of Turton telling him, ‘Go. I mean it. What’s done is done. Go …’

What else can he do but come back? ‘Wait on,’ he tells Bam. ‘I’ll get a taxi. I’m hailing a taxi now. I’m jumping the queue. Don’t get him ready for anything. He’s innocent.’ Marcel throws his sisal hat in a bin on the way out of the airport.

What would the old boys at the street tables in São Paulo make of this horrible tale? he asks himself. If only he could be there to relate it to them.