Chapter 28
“So let me get this straight,” Marisol was saying an hour later. “You literally just got off the plane from PR?”
Dulce had told Marisol the whole story.
“Do you need somewhere to stay?” Marisol asked. “Our shelter is full to the fire code with folks from Puerto Rico, but I’m sure I could figure something out.”
“No,” Dulce shook her head. “I can stay with my family. I just needed someplace to land before I had to deal with them.”
“Do you need any money?” Marisol asked.
Dulce emptied out her water wallet, and in the bottom were several twenties. As she put everything back, a pair of business cards fell out of her passport. Zavier’s and Gerard’s.
Marisol reached for Gerard’s card.
Marisol froze. Then she looked up sharply. “You know this guy?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Dulce said. “He was my sugar daddy for a few weeks. But he wouldn’t do shit for me when I got stuck. Lemme rip that up.”
“But do you know what kind of business he does?” Marisol asked.
Dulce shrugged. “He said something about real estate.”
“More like disaster capitalist,” Marisol said. “He’s one of the rich guys who’s trying to buy up Puerto Rico right now.”
“What?” Dulce asked.
“He has this bullshit charity,” Marisol continued. “He promises to give food and water to struggling people in Puerto Rico, but it’s really just for the people whose houses they’re buying up for pennies on the dollar. Promising cash to desperate people, and even promising food and water. They’re so damn crooked they won’t even foot the bill for the crumbs they’re offering to folks whose houses they’re practically stealing.”
“That’s so fucked up,” Dulce said.
“Yeah,” Marisol said. “Those ‘please give to Puerto Rico’ signs are all over the hood in NYC. And it’s the fucking vultures asking for money while they rip us off.”
“I could call a journalist from the New York Times,” Dulce said. “I know he was talking about all the vultures trying to cash in. He’d probably run with the story.”
Marisol walked around to the desk. “Use my—Tyesha’s phone. Dial nine to get out.”
Dulce took a deep breath and called Zavier’s cell.
It rang three times before he answered.
Just hearing his voice, she could feel a lump in her throat. “Um . . . it’s Dulce.”
“I thought not getting on that plane was enough of a statement,” he said. “But if I’ve gotta say it, then here goes: don’t call me, Dulce.”
“But this isn’t—I mean, I have a news tip for you,” she said.
“I don’t want it,” he said. “I don’t want anything from you.” He hung up.
Marisol raised her eyebrows. “Oh he was that journalist.” She came around the desk and put her arm around Dulce. “Are you ok?”
Dulce nodded. She was all cried out from before, but she felt a dull burning in her chest now.
“I just wanted to be able to do something for you,” Dulce said. “You know, hook you up with a big reporter. You done so much for me.”
“You don’t owe me for that,” Marisol said. “It’s what we do.”
They talked for a while longer and then Dulce ripped Gerard’s card in two and threw it into the recycling.
Marisol walked her to the door and she gave her another hug.
On her way out, Dulce glanced back over her shoulder and thought she saw Marisol retrieve Gerard’s card from the blue bin.
* * *
Dulce took the subway up to 168th Street.
She stepped above ground into a changing neighborhood. She saw a pair of white hipsters headed past her into the subway. The girl had rainbow dreadlocks and the guy had a folding bike. But on the street, Dulce still recognized the woman at the corner bodega and gave her a wave. In Dulce’s disheveled state, the woman didn’t seem to recognize her, but smiled and waved anyway.
Dulce walked down three long blocks to her family’s apartment. She didn’t really think of it as her home anymore. It had been over half a decade.
She picked up her phone and dialed her mom’s number. No answer. The voicemail greeting was a robo-voice that told her the number. She hung up, not even sure why she had bothered calling her mother. It was a sort of ritual. Every time she came home, she would check to see how Mami was doing. Had she gotten up? Was she dressed? Had she taken a shower? Had she eaten? Most of the time, she would walk in to find her mom lying in bed, the TV on—playing the news or novelas. Maybe asleep, maybe awake. If there was a plate near the bed, that was a good sign. Usually, she was in the same clothes from the day before.
Except Sunday. Sundays she got up, dressed and went to church like everything was fine.
Dulce called her sister Yunisa.
“Dónde stas?” she asked. “Are you back in New York yet?”
“I’m downstairs,” Dulce said.
“No shit,” Yunisa said. “Dario, go buzz your titi in!”
In the background, she could hear her nephew: “buzzer’s broken, Mami.”
“Then go downstairs and let her in!” Dulce could hear the door slam in the background. “He’ll be down in a—”
Her sister was interrupted by a shriek from the baby.
Yunisa put the phone down, but apparently didn’t hang up. Dulce got to hear her alternate between cooing and scolding in the couple minutes it took for her nephew to run down three flights of stairs.
As she waited, Dulce turned off the ringer on her phone. Otherwise, she’d just be hoping against hope that Zavier would call.
When Dario opened the door, she was shocked to see how tall he was. He’d had a mouth full of baby teeth when she’d last seen him, but now he had one front tooth missing and two permanent teeth were just growing in on the bottom.
“Darito!” she said, and pulled him into a huge hug.
“Caballito!” he demanded one of the piggy back rides she had given him when they used to see each other.
She tried to heave him onto her back. “Carajo,” she said. “Has your mami been feeding you cement?”
He was disappointed when she insisted he walk up the stairs, but put him on her back the moment they got up to their floor.
When Yunisa opened the apartment door, the place looked so small.
She hugged her sister, and fussed over her new niece. The baby was six months old, and it was Dulce’s first time seeing her.
Dario was slipping off her back, and he insisted she put down the baby to give him the promised horsey ride.
Dulce handed the baby back to Yunisa, and galloped around the small living room with Darito on her back. She galloped down the short hallway to the bathroom. She galloped into the bedroom that her sister shared with the kids, trampling piles of laundry and stuffed animals. She galloped into her mother’s room, only to find her facing a meteorologist who was predicting rain and a cooling trend.
“Mami, I’m back,” Dulce said.
“Gracias a Diós,” her mother said, but didn’t look up.
Dulce galloped back out into the hall.
In the living room, her sister had put baby Belcalis in the play pen. Everyone called her Lali. She was chewing on the end of a plastic cooking spoon.
Dulce’s sister was standing next to the door. She was shoving some clothes and a pair of high heel ankle boots into an oversized handbag. She had grabbed a fashionable cropped jacket off the hook by the apartment door.
“I’m going out to the store,” she said. “Can you watch the kids for a minute?”
Dulce cocked her head to the side. “The store?” she asked, eyeing the bag. “A minute?”
“Please?” her sister asked.
Yunisa was just four years her senior, but she seemed a decade older. She always looked tired and had a frown wrinkle between her eyes. She worked nine to five at a fast food restaurant, and took care of their mother, as well as her kids.
“Go ahead,” Dulce said. “No need to hurry back.”
“Gracias, mi amor,” Yunisa said, and gave Dulce a quick hug before she ran out the door.
Dulce fed the kids dinner and put them to bed. The three of them crashed on the fold-out couch in the living room.
Later that night, she went to check on her mom. She was lying in bed watching TV. Dulce recognized the music from A Woman’s Dark Past. She climbed into bed behind her mother and they watched together.
Xoana has Izabel by the wrist.
“Let go of me, you whore!” Izabel says. “I still have an envelope that shows you screwing another man with your wedding dress in the background.”
“Well, I happen to know that you killed my husband,” Xoana says.
Izabel hesitates for a brief second. “Why would I care about your husband?” Izabel asks. “I never even met your husband.”
“Maybe you never even saw him,” Xoana says. “But he wasn’t your target. You were trying to kill me.”
“You?” Izabel asks haughtily. She walks slowly around Xoana, looking her up and down. “Why would I be the least bit bothered about killing you?”
“At first I couldn’t believe it, either,” Xoana says. “I had always thought of you as my sister. Not that you ever cared much for me, but I didn’t think you hated me enough to kill me.”
“For once, you’re right,” Izabel says with a shrug.
“I hoped it wouldn’t be true,” Xoana says. “I hoped it right up until I got evidence that you bought the poison. And still—still, my mind was trying to find some kind of alternative explanation. Until I found the cab driver who took you to our house. It was like a needle in a haystack, but I didn’t stop until I found him.”
“So what?” Izabel says. “Some lowly cab driver will testify that he took me in his taxi? He could be mistaken. He could be lying. He could have been bribed.”
“And the pharmacist who sold you the poison?” Xoana asks.
“Easy to discredit,” Izabel says.
“And the testimony of Guilherme,” Xoana says. “He told you he still had feelings for me. That he wanted to honor your marriage. He begged you to move back to our home town because it was too painful to see me. He’ll testify. He doesn’t want to be married to a murderess.”
“A murderess?” Izabel asks. “What about a whore? Do you think he’ll really take your word over mine when he sees those photos? Without him, you have two low-level strangers. Once I reveal those photos, your case falls apart. No way to establish any motive. You’ll just look like a crazy person. A widow overcome by grief. Irrational. Trying to make sense of her husband’s death. Or worse yet, a whore trying to steal my husband. Trying to attack me, the daughter of two distinguished professors at the university. You’ll be the sewer rat we should never have taken in.”
“Go ahead,” Xoana says. “Call me a rat. A whore. Savor the taste of the word on your tongue. You think you can wound me with that word? I’ve survived so much worse. So go ahead and hand over the envelope. I’ll give it to Guilherme myself. I told him everything. And he still loves me. He’ll come to love my daughter. We’ll be a family.”
“Lying bitch!” Izabel lunges for Xoana and begins to choke her.
With Xoana’s last bit of strength, she pulls the fire alarm. Sprinklers come on, but police also appear. Everyone is quickly soaked.
The officers move in, and pull Izabel off of Xoana.
She is still gasping for breath when Guilherme appears. He ignores Izabel and runs to Xoana.
“My darling, are you okay?”
“Guilherme, how could you betray me?” Izabel asks.
“Betray you?” Guilherme asks. “You are the traitor. Time and time again. And this time you nearly killed the woman I love. I’ll never let you succeed.”
The police take a screaming Izabel away.
Guilherme takes Xoana into his arms. He kisses her neck where Izabel had bruised her. He kisses her cheeks, her hairline, her lips.
Two fire fighters rush in.
“Someone pulled the alarm!” one says.
“Where’s the fire?” the other one asks.
“Right here,” Xoana says, as she and Guilherme continue to kiss.
The baby began to cry, and Dulce hopped up to see about her. It took a half hour of walking her up and down the short hallway to get her back to sleep.
Yunisa didn’t get home til after three AM. When she came in the door, it woke Dulce. For a moment, she thought she was back in Puerto Rico. She felt the back of her nephew in the fold-out next to her, and heard someone tiptoeing past her in the dark. The memories of Zavier and the Lumineer Hotel flooded back.
But she wasn’t in in San Juan. She was in Washington Heights. Never again would she find herself lying next to Zavier. This was her life now.
Her mother was like a ghost who barely spoke to her. Her sister was in way over her head and always looking to tap Dulce for help. Zavier was supposed to be her ticket out of all this. But not anymore.
She lay on the fold-out between the two children and cried silently. The tears ran down the sides of her temples and soaked into the faded floral sheets she’d known since she was born.
* * *
Earlier that night, Marisol had been sitting in the executive director’s office with Tyesha and Serena. Marisol was scouring the internet for any information about Phillip Gerard’s Puerto Rico racket. Serena was trying to find a money trail for the donations and to get information on Gerard’s financial portfolio. Tyesha was working on a grant proposal.
At nine-thirty, two women walked in with a large box of takeout. The Asian girl, Kim, had shoulder-length black hair and a new septum piercing. Her girlfriend Jody was a head taller, with spiky blonde hair, and a frame that would have been decidedly masculine if not for her large bra size.
“Serena said you needed some reinforcements?” Kim said.
“We need a white girl,” Tyesha said, not looking up from her grant proposal.
Jody rolled her eyes. “Serena’s white,” she said. “How come I always get the white girl jobs?”
“First of all, I’m Greek,” Serena said. “Which is off-white. And second, we need someone who looks like a waspy heiress.”
“You all know I’m really descended from Polish farmers, though. Right?” Jody said.
“Yes, but none of us can even pass as a WASP,” Kim said.
“Exactly,” Marisol said. “We need that same girl from the Ukrainian mob heist.”
“Ugh,” Jody said. “I hate her.”
“But you still have the wig,” Kim said. “And the dress.”
Jody made a face like she was smelling something foul.
“Don’t worry,” Marisol said. “No hand jobs this time.”
“Well that’s a comfort,” Jody said.
Marisol handed her a torn business card that had been taped back together.
“This is the mark?” Jody asked.
“He’s a disaster capitalist,” Marisol said.
“It’s worse than that,” Serena said. “He’s into cryptocurrency.”
“Crypto-what?” Jody asked.
“Money from crypts?” Kim asked. “Like grave robbers?”
Serena shook her head. “No, it’s encrypted currency. That is, money that’s off the grid. Digital transactions outside the banking system so they can’t be traced.”
“I heard about that,” Tyesha said. “It’s like the new money laundering.”
“Exactly,” Serena said. “A lot of people use it to make transactions with drug money or money that’s made from human trafficking, particularly sex trafficking. Less of a trail.”
“That should fucking be illegal,” Kim said.
“Sex trafficking is,” Serena said. “Which is why they want untraceable currency to pay for it.”
“Those assholes,” Jody said.
“This guy isn’t just into cryptocurrency,” Marisol said. “He’s one of a group of vultures using that money to try to buy up Puerto Rico.”
“Are you kidding me?” Kim said. “They’re still counting all the bodies.”
“One white girl reporting for duty,” Jody said. “We need to take this fucker down.”
“And you got his cell number from Dulce?” Serena asked.
“Yeah,” Marisol said. “He was her sugar daddy for a while.”
“Not that I’m trying to get out of anything here,” Jody said. “But why don’t you ask Dulce to make the move if they already have a relationship?”
“I’ve risked my life for that girl,” Marisol said. “But I can’t trust Dulce with something like this. She’s too easily manipulated by powerful men.”
“I’d have to agree,” Serena said. “Me and Marisol nearly died because Dulce slipped up and told Jerry that Marisol was taking her to Cuba.”
“That was over a year ago,” Jody said. “She was barely out of her teens when she left. But look at that New York Times piece. She’s obviously grown up a lot.”
“I don’t know if you’d be so ready to gamble on her if you’d been the one staring down the barrel of that pimp’s gun,” Serena said.
“I’m usually pushing Marisol to trust people,” Tyesha said. “But this time, I agree.”
“Besides,” Marisol said. “We don’t need someone who looks like they want to get some of his money, we need someone who looks like they want to give him some money.”
“Okay,” Jody said. “What’s the plan?”
“I know these guys had a face-to-face in New York this morning,” Marisol said. “You’ll call his cell and ask for a meeting.”
“And who am I this time?” Jody asked.
“You’re the lure,” Marisol said. “You’ll be pretending to be a big donor.”
“No,” Jody said. “I meant what’s my identity.”
“Heidi Honeywell,” Marisol said. “Of the Connecticut Honeywells.”
* * *
Ten minutes later, Jody was on the phone. The team sat around as she called the number from the business card on the speakerphone. So they all heard when the mechanical voice informed them they had reached a number that was no longer in service.
“Dammit!” Marisol said, and banged her fist on the table.
Tyesha shrugged, not looking up from her grant proposal. “You just need to call Dulce and ask if he has another number.”
“I don’t trust her not to say anything,” Marisol said.
“What?” Kim said. “Because in the past she told some of your business to a pimp? That was different. He turned her out as a teenager. Nobody will ever have that same power over Dulce again. Give her some credit.”
“It’s not about credit,” Marisol said. “This guy is worse than a pimp. He’s so well connected and has so many resources that he could damage us beyond one pimp with a gun. We can’t take that risk.”
Serena closed her laptop. “Well we can’t pull this heist if we don’t have his number. We don’t know where he’s staying. He doesn’t have any property in Florida under his own name. I could find his number, but it’ll take time.”
Marisol shook her head. “We don’t have time,” she said. “Right after a tragedy the donations are the highest. Check the hotels near the corporation where they had the face-to-face meet.”
“I already did,” Serena said. “There are over a hundred four- and five-star hotels in a mile radius.”
“Coño!” Marisol said.
Tyesha looked up from her laptop. “Marisol, you’re gonna have to let something go,” she said. “If you wanna do this job, you’re gonna have to put some of your trust in Dulce.”
“Definitely not,” Marisol said. “She’s too fucking impulsive. And in some ways naïve. Plus, when money goes missing, the whores are the first ones who get blamed. He’d come sniffing around and I don’t trust her to hold it together.”
“I agree with Kim that you’re not giving her enough credit,” Jody said.
“The girlfriends always vote as a bloc,” Serena said.
“This isn’t a vote,” Marisol said. “We’re not bringing Dulce on board for this job and that’s final.”
“Without Dulce, there is no job,” Tyesha said.
“There’s gotta be another way,” Marisol insisted.
“We could look for him at a hundred hotels,” Serena said.
“Where he might not even be traveling under his own name,” Kim added.
“Then that’s what we’ll need to do,” Marisol said. “Serena, draw up the list. We’ll divide up and start now.”
Tyesha closed her laptop and stood up. “Marisol,” she said, walking over to the couch. “We can do it your way, but there’s a huge risk that we won’t be able to find him. Or that we’ll be too late.” She put her arm around Marisol. “You gotta weigh that against trusting Dulce. And I think you need to call her. After everything your people have been through? I’m not sure you’re thinking clearly.”
“It’s an impossible choice,” Marisol said. “Risking everything we’ve built versus everything he’s stolen.”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to live with yourself if this asshole escapes from New York City with all this money,” Tyesha said. “Money he swindled from Puerto Ricans in New York to displace Puerto Ricans on the island.”
Marisol nodded, and her eyes filled, but she didn’t cry. She picked up her phone and called Dulce. Not on speaker. It rang and went to voice mail.
* * *
The next day, Marisol finally caught up with Dulce on the phone.
“Hola nena,” Marisol said brightly. “How are you settling in?”
Dulce shrugged. “The usual. My family’s exactly the same. But it’s good to be home, I guess.”
“Feel free to come by the clinic if you need a break,” Marisol said. “Tyesha can always put you to work as a volunteer.”
“I might just do that,” Dulce said.
“Speaking of work,” Marisol said, “can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“You know that guy,” Marisol began. “That businessman Gerard who you spent time with in PR?”
“The one who’s ripping off the community?” Dulce asked.
“That’s the one,” Marisol said. “I know some girls in Puerto Rico who are looking for a sugar daddy.”
“How can you even consider that?” Dulce asked. “He’s totally pimping la gente.”
“Excuse me?” Marisol said, an edge to her voice. “These girls are just doing what they gotta do to survive. You of all people should understand that.”
“I’m sorry,” Dulce said. “Yeah, you looking for a reference? He was okay. Nothing kinky. Didn’t even like to fuck that much, just for me to act like I was so hot for him all the time. Also, tell them not to wear their best shit, because he likes to rip things off. And then he’d buy me new clothes. But he never gave cash. Just room and board. And he bought fancy things for me. I got a cash hustle going later, but that wouldn’t work now. Not since the hurricane.”
“Thanks, Dulce,” Marisol said. “Do you have a private number for him?”
“Claro,” Dulce said. “I can text it to you.”
“No need,” Marisol said. “Can you just read it off to me?”
“Sure,” Dulce said. “Hold on.” She pulled up her contacts and read off the number.
“Gracias, amor,” Marisol said.
“De nada.”
* * *
An hour later, the crew was in Tyesha’s office again, gathered around the speakerphone.
Jody was talking into the mic. The saccharine voice didn’t go with her spiked buzz cut or her muscle t-shirt.
“Oh, Mr. Gerard, I’m so glad to have caught you before you left New York,” Jody was saying. “I was hoping I could meet you in person for a drink. I think my family would be very interested in donating to your cause . . . Tomorrow at the La Fleur Hotel. Of course I know it. Happy hour? . . . Perfect.”
“Sometimes the white girls get the dirty jobs,” Kim said with a smirk.
“I have some bad news for you,” Marisol said. “We need you to do the real dirty work.”
“What? Fucking him?” Kim asked.
Marisol nodded.
“If he was Dulce’s sugar daddy, then he likes Latinas with big asses,” Kim protested. “Sounds like a job for you, Marisol.”
“Nope,” she said. “Not only have I met him, but he knows someone who can trace me. Besides, he likes young women. Even his wife is in her twenties.”
“Tyesha’s younger than me,” Kim said. “And has much more ass.”
“Tyesha has a grant proposal due.”
“Serena . . . ?”
“Will be busy working her computer magic,” Serena said, referring to herself in the third person. “And has less ass than you, anyway.”
“I want combat pay for this,” Kim said.
“Done,” Marisol said.
Kim screwed up her face. “I enjoyed being a well-paid ho. But I’ve really enjoyed being a retired ho. I’m only doing this for the cause.”
“Nobody knows like me what a drag it is to come out of retirement,” Marisol said. “How can I sweeten the deal?”
“Give me and Jody a hotel room for the night?” Kim asked.
“Okay,” Marisol said. “But on another floor. He can’t see either of you after the hit. And especially not together. No one can.”
“So I guess we’ll have to sleep over,” Kim said. “And order room service til after he leaves.”
“Damn,” Tyesha said. “How did they end up having hotel sex, and I’m stuck in the office working on a grant proposal?”
“The cost to be the boss,” Marisol said.
“Please,” Kim said, cutting her eyes at Tyesha. “Weren’t you and your man Woof just at some hotel in London? Like you didn’t have hotel sex.”
“We totally did,” Tyesha said with a grin.
“Come on, ladies,” Serena said. “Time to focus.”
“Yes,” Marisol said. “So for the specs on the hotel . . . The La Fleur has wall safes.”
“Aren’t those safes digital?” Serena asked.
“Nope,” Marisol said. “They have a custom line of superlative safes. The combination gets reset with each new guest.”
“So the safecracking is old school?” Serena asked.
Marisol nodded. “Fortunately for us.”
“But why would he be getting the donations in cash?” Tyesha asked.
“He won’t,” Marisol said. “But the hotel encourages their patrons to keep valuables—especially laptops—in the safe.”
“Do you have any idea how much security there is on that kind of account?” Serena said.
“I do,” Marisol said. “Which is why we need Jody to get the donor info, and then Kim to get us access to his hotel room. If we hack into the account from his laptop, it won’t raise a red flag.”
“That’s assuming I can hack my way in,” Serena said.
“If we time it right, you’ll have hours to work,” Marisol said.
“I’d be more confident if we had a couple days,” Serena said.
“Well we don’t have that kind of time,” Marisol said. “So hack fast.”
* * *
The hotel La Fleur had loomed in Marisol’s memory since she was a little girl. She recalled stopping in there one day when her mother was pregnant with Cristina. Marisol rarely got to spend time with her mom, who worked long hours as a custodian. Cristina’s soon-to-be father was still living with them. He wouldn’t leave until a few months after Cristina was born. Marisol’s mom was glowing with pregnancy and the love of what she thought was a good man.
Marisol wasn’t nearly as happy. Everything those days was about the baby. And while her mother was completely in love with the boyfriend, Marisol had her reservations. But this day was special. Someone at work had given her mother a gift certificate to an upscale baby store, and they’d come into midtown Manhattan to redeem it. She’d selected a gorgeous changing table and baby bureau set that would be delivered to their apartment. Afterwards, she and Marisol had gotten an ice cream soda float. Marisol was buzzing from the sugar and just getting to spend time with her mother. She didn’t even notice until they were nearly at the subway that she had to pee.
“I asked if you had to go at the ice cream place,” her mother had said irritably. “You’ll have to wait until we get home.”
“They gotta have a toilet in there,” Marisol had pointed to the La Fleur Hotel. It was such a big building, with people going in and out, certainly there would be a baño inside.
“That place is for rich people,” her mother had told her in Spanish.
“I can’t hold it,” Marisol had said.
“Coño, mija,” her mother had cursed, but then had taken a deep breath.
“Okay,” she told Marisol in Spanish. “We’re going to stand up very straight. We’re going to walk in like we live there. You’re not going to look around at everything.”
Marisol nodded, her eyes drifting to the door of this building so special you weren’t even supposed to look around inside.
Her mother put a hand under her chin and turned her head back so their eyes met.
“Keep looking straight forward and don’t turn your head, you got that?” she asked.
Marisol nodded.
Her mother took off the scarf she had over her head and shook out her hair. Then she took off the shabby coat and folded it over her arm. “The bathroom is just for the people who live here, and we don’t live here,” her mother said.
“Because they only have one bathroom?” Marisol asked, wondering if it was the same as their apartment.
Marisol’s mother laughed. “No, mi amor. Because . . . because they’re rich. Rich people always have more bathrooms than they need, but they don’t like to be very close to anyone.”
“I have to go really bad,” Marisol said, on the verge of tears. She and her mother had split the root beer float, but Marisol had drunk all the soda.
“We’re going to pretend we live here. We’re going to pretend we know where the bathroom is. Just follow me.” She ran her fingers through Marisol’s unruly hair. “We can’t ask anyone, because we don’t want to make them mad, okay?”
“Okay.”
Her mother crossed herself. She never went to church, but she genuflected when she was worried. “It’ll be okay, nena. It’s an adventure.”
Marisol always thought of this as her first midtown theft. The unauthorized use of a four-star hotel toilet at the age of six.
* * *
Later that afternoon, the team fussed around Jody, making her exterior match the saccharine voice. Long blonde hair, full makeup, and a blue dress with just enough cleavage to dazzle a man, but still within the range of Tri-State-Area WASP.
The Jody that walked into the La Fleur was a totally transformed woman. The spiky hair gone. The muscles camouflaged under a lacy sweater. The taut neck muscles hidden under the long straight blonde hair. Her bright lipstick and dark, falsely lashed eyes marking conventional femininity.
Kim sat further down the bar, with extensions woven in at the nape of her neck, taking her hair from shoulder-length to glam. When Kim had been working, she’d just kept it long, so she wasn’t used to the glue that held it in place for the rush job Tyesha had done. She scratched at the back of her scalp with the black plastic stirrer from her drink.
Gerard walked in exactly on time. He was clean shaven and wearing an expensive suit.
Jody gave a dainty little wave from the bar, and Kim nearly spit out her drink.
“Mr. Gerard,” Jody said, over the sound of Kim coughing to cover her laughter. “So good to meet you.”
“Please,” he said. “Call me Phillip.”
“I am so thankful to your organization for getting involved in such a messy situation,” she said. “I really feel for these poor people. When I found out that they’re American citizens? That changes everything.”
“I believe, as a nation, we should take care of our own,” Gerard said. He handed her a brochure with several brown-skinned people wading through chest-deep water in rural Puerto Rico.
“Let me get right to it,” she said. “My family would like to give $20,000.”
“Wonderful,” he said. “So generous. Would you like to write the check now, or shall we send—”
Jody laughed. “A check?” she asked. “What? You think I’m going to write a check? Is this 1996? The Honeywells wire money. I just need your account number. This is tax deductible, of course?”
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.” He was a bit flustered. “Let me just—I need to find—”
“I see you weren’t quite prepared,” she said. She stood to go, and reached into her purse. “Let me give you a card for my family’s foundation. There’s a January deadline for grant proposals—”
“No, I assure you Ms. Honeywell,” he said. “We accept wire transfers. I just need to find my ledger.”
He found it in the briefcase and gave her the account number.
Jody smiled as she took the slip of paper. “I’ll send the donation today,” she said.
“Thank you,” he said. “Please convey my thanks to your entire family.”
“I certainly will,” Jody said.
He watched her walk out. Her hips switching back and forth on tall stilettos.
When he turned back to the bar to order a drink, he saw the Asian woman had moved next to him.
“Excuse me,” she said. “There’s a creepy guy over there who won’t leave me alone. Can I tell him you’re my boyfriend?”
Gerard raised his eyebrows. “You really expect anyone to believe a young, beautiful woman like you would be with an old guy like me?”
Kim giggled. “This is New York. Anything’s possible. Besides, don’t sell yourself short. You’re an attractive guy. And this is a very nice suit.”
* * *
Apparently, Gerard only ripped up the dresses he had paid for. Kim was a hookup, not a sugar baby, so he let her take off her own dress. Kim had the sedative on her areolas. She didn’t kiss clients, and he wasn’t the type to go down on her. Besides, the drug would knock her out if it was on her own mucous membranes.
Sure enough, when she did the dramatic unhook of her bra, he took a moment to lick each nipple before the penetration.
She had picked the fast-acting stuff. Which was perfect because he didn’t last long. Fifteen minutes later, he had climaxed and was knocked out.
Kim sent a text, and two minutes later, there was a discreet tap at the door. Kim opened it, and Marisol and Serena slipped in.
Marisol pulled a stethoscope from her pocket.
“Safe’s over here,” Kim said, and pulled aside the portrait behind the mini bar.
Marisol was used to working alone. She wasn’t accustomed to having an audience, but Kim and Serena sat watching from the couch in the suite’s living room.
As Marisol put on the latex gloves, she felt almost shy. No matter how many safes she opened, she always had a twinge of insecurity that this next one would be the one that bested her. Still, she had trained Kim to open a Superlative. She should think of the other two women as backup instead of critics.
She had a ritual, she always did. It seemed silly with people watching, but it was her talisman. She turned her body toward the wall so they couldn’t see as she tapped twice on the door of the safe. Then she put her stethoscope to the door and slowly turned the dial. The pads of her fingers pressed against the serrated surface of the metal. She turned it carefully to the right, then left, then right again. She glanced over her shoulder and saw them watching, and it distracted her.
She started over, this time with her eyes closed, and tapped twice again. She listened for the safe’s three-click reply. She relied on the ritual of the two-beat/three-beat call and response in clave rhythm to guide her dance with the safe.
This second time, she cracked it, and when she swung the door open, she turned to her team and did a deep curtsey.
The two women clapped.
Marisol stood up and took the laptop out of the safe. When Serena took the laptop, Marisol handed her a second pair of latex gloves.
“Do I really need to hang around?” Kim asked.
“In case he wakes up,” Marisol said.
“As long as I don’t have to service him again,” Kim said.
“Service him? Give him another dose of whatever it was? Knock him over the head with a brick? I don’t care,” Marisol said. “Just as long as he’s unconscious until after we’re done.”
“I gave him plenty,” Kim said. “He ought to sleep through the night.”
As Serena began to work on Gerard’s laptop, Marisol unloaded all the small bottles of liquor from the minibar.
“What are you doing?” Kim asked.
“I want him to think you all had a much bigger party,” Marisol said. “It’ll explain his headache in the morning.”
Marisol began to pour one of the bottles down the sink.
“Wait a minute!” Kim said, snatching it from her.
“What?” Marisol asked. “We can’t drink it. We need to be sharp.”
“How you gonna throw out free booze?” Kim asked. She emptied her water bottle and filled it with liquor.
“Marisol, can you come here?” Serena asked from the living room.
Marisol walked back out of the bathroom. “What’s up?”
“He has an extra level of security on this account,” Serena said. “What do we know about him?”
“Not much,” Marisol said. “Kim, can you look in his wallet to see if we have names of kids or pets?”
“I have reason to believe,” Serena said, “that it is a seven or eight-letter word, beginning with S.”
Kim flipped through the wallet. “Not much cash . . .” she reported. “Lots of credit cards.”
“Symphony?” Marisol asked.
“No luck,” Serena said. “I also tried ‘serenade.’”
“Sympathy would fit,” Kim said. “But I don’t think he’s the sympathetic type.”
“Pictures of the wife?” Marisol asked. “Kids?”
“Nope.”
“Sidecar?” Serena asked.
“Sidechick?” Kim asked.
“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” Marisol said.
“It’s been a long day,” Kim said. “I’m getting punchy.”
“Anything else in his pockets?” Marisol asked.
“Speaking of side chicks,” Kim said. “I think you need to call Dulce.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea—”
“You don’t have to tell her what it’s for,” Serena said. “But we’re not gonna get in here if we don’t get this password. I can’t just keep trying. Two more tries and I’ll be locked out.”
Reluctantly, Marisol dialed Dulce on her cell phone.
“Marisol,” Dulce said. “What’s up?”
Marisol felt something she rarely felt: awkward and unsure. “I was calling to check in on you,” she said. “Actually, I was hoping to take you to lunch tomorrow. You busy?”
“I am the opposite of busy,” Dulce said. “I’d love to.”
“Great,” Marisol said. “Meet me at the clinic at noon?”
“It’s a date,” Dulce said.
“Oh, while I have you on the line,” Marisol said. “I had a random question.”
“Ask me,” Dulce said.
“That businessman you . . . dated,” Marisol said. “Was his wife’s name Siobhan?”
“No,” Dulce said. “I think it was Julianne.”
“So strange,” Marisol said. “Some S-name associated with him. Maybe one of his kids?”
“He doesn’t have kids,” Dulce said. “Just a dog.”
“The dog’s name isn’t Siobhan,” Marisol said with a laugh. “Is it?”
“I doubt it,” Dulce said. “He said it was a male dog.”
“I must have gotten it wrong,” Marisol said. “I met this woman with the last name Gerard, and a long first name with an S. I thought they might be related.”
“Nope,” Dulce said. “No S-names I heard. Unless you count his boat.”
“His boat?” Marisol asked.
“He calls it the Stampede,” Dulce said. “Talks about it all the time. His yacht.”
“Of course,” Marisol said. “I guess this S-name woman is no relation.”
“I guess not,” Dulce said. “See you tomorrow for lunch.”
“Absolutely,” Marisol said.
“STAMPEDE” opened the account.
* * *
Kim took the elevator two floors up and knocked on the door of another hotel room.
When Jody opened it, she kissed Kim and said, “I ran a bath.”
“I knew there was something about you I liked,” Kim said, stepping inside and stripping off her work clothes. Jody walked her into the bathroom, where the light was low and warm.
“They have a Jacuzzi?” Kim asked, looking at the deep tub.
“Not in the standard rooms,” Jody said. “But I paid Marisol the difference.”
“I definitely like you,” Kim said. She slid into the water. Jody slid in behind her and kissed her neck.
“Best girlfriend ever,” Kim said.
“Wait til I get the jets going,” Jody said.
Soon, the water was whirring with movement.
“And I brought a few things,” Jody said.
Kim grinned. “Like what?”
“Like sweet almond oil,” Jody said, and put some on her fingertips.
“Do I get a massage?” Kim asked.
“Sort of,” Jody said. She slid her fingers across Kim’s nipples, and her girlfriend moaned and leaned back against her.
With one long arm, Jody kept stroking her fingertips across Kim’s nipples, first one side, then the other. With her other hand, she got some special waterproof lubricant and slid a finger down between Kim’s labia.
Kim had been languid with the heat of the water, but now she arched with a moan.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Jody murmured into her ear, and proceeded to stroke mercilessly.
* * *
By the time Kim reached a third climax, the water was turning tepid.
They drained the tub. Jody gave Kim a fluffy robe, and Kim stumbled into bed. Jody joined her a moment later.
“What about you?” Kim mumbled.
Jody laughed. “You’re in no shape to do anything about me right now.”
She was right. After a couple of minutes, Kim was asleep.
Two hours later, Kim woke up. She had knocked out on top of the covers in the robe. She blinked and looked around. Jody was on the bed next to her in a matching robe, reading a paperback book.
“This room is awesome,” Kim said.
“Uh-huh,” Jody half agreed, not looking up from her book. She was reading The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
“This room . . . the Jacuzzi . . .” Kim said.
“Uh-huh,” Jody said, turning a page.
“And these robes,” Kim said. “So cozy, but so breezy, too.”
“Yuh,” Jody said, eyes glued to the page.
Kim moved around to the foot of the bed on Jody’s side. Jody had her knees bent, and her book leaning up against them.
“I would like to demonstrate some of the more exciting qualities of these robes,” Kim said.
“Mm hmm,” Jody said.
Kim climbed up onto the bed and slid her hands up Jody’s calves.
Jody patted Kim’s hand. “I’m reading, babe,” she murmured.
“Don’t mind me,” Kim said, sliding her hands up Jody’s thighs.
“How am I supposed to read when you’re trying to distract me?” Jody asked, laughing.
“Don’t blame me,” Kim said. “It’s not my fault if your book isn’t as compelling as I am.”
“This book is really compelling,” Jody said. “Marisol gave it to me.”
“Can your book do this?” Kim asked, kissing Jody’s inner thighs.
“That’s not a fair comparison,” Jody said, leaning the book against her chest.
“How about this?” Kim asked, running her tongue softly against the opening of Jody’s lips.
“Definitely not,” Jody said, putting the book aside.
“Do I have your attention?” Kim asked.
“I think so,” Jody said.
Kim gave a fake evil laugh, and Jody laughed too.
Then Kim slid her tongue up and down Jody’s clitoris until her girlfriend was bucking and screaming, half out of the robe. Yet somehow, she had kept hold of the book. She still gripped it in her hand, one finger holding her place.