Chapter 6
Marisol’s team, which consisted of Lily and Serena, landed in Puerto Rico by 6 AM the following day. They picked up a blue compact from the car rental, and drove to a small-town bed and breakfast between San Juan and Las Palmas.
Marisol was waiting in their room.
“How was the trip?” she asked, hugging them both. “Any trouble in the airport?”
“No problem,” Lily said, opening the checked luggage and pulling out some of the items Marisol had requested: a satellite phone, two burner phones, and a flame lighter with an extra-long reach. Lily had buried the items under a bunch of costumes. Nothing they had was technically illegal, but they didn’t want to raise any questions.
Puerto Rico didn’t have the same type of customs as sovereign Caribbean nations, but Lily had taken extra care to disguise the biggest item they had brought, a spike strip. Although the strips targeted cars and not people, they were considered weapons. These accordions of jutting nails were used by law enforcement to stop fleeing suspects. Just set one of them in a vehicle’s path for an instant tire blowout. They were commercially available for personal security, and you could buy them online. Or, in Lily’s case, you could get them on short notice from a thuggish on-and-off hookup you knew in Brooklyn.
Lily had disassembled the spike strip and made it look like part of a carnival costume. She’d sewn the spiked bars onto the back of three pairs of leather boots, then she’d stuck bright blue feathers onto each spike. She even packed a trio of blue leotards, two blue wigs and a headdress to make it look more believable.
Serena had packed the other disassembled pieces of the spike strip, as well as the screwdriver and nails. The two women had flown on separate reservations, checked their suitcases, and made sure to sit far apart on the plane. Fortunately, neither of them had been searched.
“So who’s the target?” Serena asked.
Marisol showed them a photo on her phone. “This guy,” she said, pointing to the fiftyish grinning white man. “Davis Evanston, the CEO of Puerto Cyclo.” She pulled up another photo of a black car. “And this is what he’ll be driving.”
Marisol spent the next ten minutes showing the two new arrivals how to set up the satellite phone to follow the GPS tracker she had put on Evanston’s car. Then she loaded a geolocator site and put in a set of coordinates.
“This is the location where you should wait for him,” she said, pointing her finger to a dropped pin on a winding road in the mountains.
“Why here?” Lily asked.
“Notorious for bad cell service,” Marisol said.
“Which is why we needed the satellite phone,” Serena said.
“So after we blow out the tires on the car, do we rob the guy?” Lily asked.
“Nope,” Marisol said. “You know I don’t like to rob, just to burgle.”
“What’s the difference again?” Serena asked.
“Robbing is more intimate,” Lily said. “When you burgle, the mark isn’t there.”
“So why stop the car?” Serena asked.
“You’re my alibi,” Marisol said.
“So while he’s stranded out on the road, you’re gonna burgle him?” Lily asked.
Marisol nodded. “I’m about to burgle the fuck out of this asshole.”
* * *
On her way back to the Puerto Cyclo resort, Marisol stopped by her grandmother’s house in Las Palmas. She put two numbers in the burner phone and gave it to Nidia.
“This first number is my burner phone,” Marisol said. “Call me if there are any problems. This second number is the one you call when I send the signal.”
Nidia nodded.
“Here’s my credit card and ID,” Marisol said. “Just sign a scrawl for my name on any receipts.”
“Should I have Zara straighten my hair with the curling iron so I can look more like you?” Nidia asked.
Marisol nodded. She and Nidia had faces that looked passably alike. Similar height. Marisol had encouraged Nidia to wear a loose dress to hide the differences in their body shapes. If Nidia straightened her hair it would be difficult for any casual observer to say that she wasn’t Marisol. Even if they were shown a photograph later.
“So here’s the big challenge,” Marisol said. “How’s your English?”
“I understand it better than I speak it,” Nidia said.
Marisol nodded. “So speak Spanish in the restaurant,” she said. “Just like I would. But you have to say one phrase in English like a native.”
“What phrase?” Nidia asked.
“ ‘No worries,’ ” Marisol said.
“Noh wodies,” Nidia said back to her.
“Okay,” Marisol said in Spanish, conjure up your inner-yanqui. “Nooooeeeee.”
Nidia laughed. “Noooohhh.”
Marisol laughed, too. “Watch my mouth,” she said in Spanish. “Noooooeeeee.”
Nidia mimicked Marisol’s lips: “nooooeee.”
“Perfecto!” Marisol said. “You’re halfway there. Now try the second part: Wurrrrrieeezzz.”
“Woodieezz,” Nidia said.
“Wurrriezz,” Marisol said. “Just do the vowel sound. Uuuuurrr.”
“Uuuuhhhh . . .” Nidia tried it, and burst into uncontrollable laughter. “This is a totally unnatural way for the human mouth to move. No wonder yanquis don’t know how to act.”
Marisol laughed, too. “You’re probably right,” she said. “Try again.”
Half an hour later, Nidia could say it with a straight face. “No worries.”
“Yes!” Marisol said. “You did it. Here’s your prize.” She handed her the long reach flame lighter.
“And this is to set the fire?” Nidia asked, turning it over in her hand. She took a while to get the hang of pressing in the button with her thumb and pulling the trigger with her finger. After a few tries, a flame shot out of the tip.
“Nicely done,” Marisol said. “When we do it for real, don’t light too many papers. Maybe just one section of a newspaper. Or better yet, a stack of Puerto Cyclo’s fucking tourist brochures.”
“That’ll be easy,” Nidia said. “For a while now I’ve been taking them from the bar where Zara works.”
Marisol grinned. Again, she felt the pull to tell Nidia that there was no friend, that she was the thief. But she hadn’t gotten this far by being careless when her emotional guard was down.
She smiled at Nidia. “You’re gonna be great at this,” she said. “Now I gotta get back to the resort.”
* * *
By 12:25 that day, Marisol had finally gotten the hang of the rented motorcycle. She’d practiced in sneakers, but now she was riding in her stiletto pumps. She felt like a cliché in the tight spaghetti strap top, the short shorts, and the high heels, but she was determined to get Davis Evanston’s attention.
And so it was, that at 12:45, she revved the bike loudly and drove along the road past the picture window of the hotel’s restaurant.
The CEO speaking at the podium looked up from his audience. From behind her shades, Marisol saw him watching her. She had choreographed it perfectly: a woman roaring slowly by on a motorcycle, her voluptuous ass barely contained on the bike’s seat, and her long dark hair flowing behind her.
Marisol pulled up to the hotel entrance, parked, and walked into the restaurant. Above the podium, there was a huge motorcycle mounted on the wall where the heads of animals might be.
Evanston was taking questions. Marisol carefully ignored the CEO and got a table facing away from him, looking out the window at the unnaturally blue wave pool.
She ordered lunch, and when the pathetic salad arrived fifteen minutes later, Evanston himself was serving her.
“Wow,” she said with a bright smile. “You must be short of staff to have the owner waiting tables.”
“I was concerned about you,” he said, setting down the salad. “You really should wear a helmet.”
She shrugged. “I know. I’m bad,” she said. “But I came here to feel free. Unencumbered by all the constraints of my regular life in the states. Care to join me for lunch Mr. Evanston?”
He slid into the chair opposite her. “Call me Davis,” he said and extended his hand.
“Marisol,” she said, and he clasped her fingers in more of a squeeze than a shake.
“You have great taste,” he said. “You picked the best of our rental bikes.”
She let out a tinkling laugh, the kind she saved for clients and marks. “I like to feel power between my legs.”
She took a bite of the salad as the waiter came by and the CEO ordered his lunch.
As soon as the waiter left, a white guy around Evanston’s age came by the table.
“Great talk, Davis,” he said.
“Thanks,” Davis said, then turned to Marisol. “Meet Phillip Gerard. He’s my real estate genius. And a bit of a rogue. Phil, isn’t there a warrant for your arrest in Costa Rica? Something about a young girl going missing?”
Marisol’s stomach clenched, and she had to work to keep her composure. She maintained her smile, despite a wave of nausea, as Gerard kissed her hand.
“Davis is just jealous because I’m richer and more handsome,” Gerard said. “So he’s stooping to the level of gossip. Not a good look, Davis.”
“Oh come on, Phil,” Davis said. “This woman looks old enough to drink in all fifty states. She’s obviously not your type.”
“You could have fooled me,” Gerard said. “You look like an ingenue.”
Marisol giggled and it sounded shrill to her own ears.
“If you ever decide to skip the middle man and go straight to the top, give me a call,” he said. He was making a move, and still hadn’t asked her name.
“I’ll take your card,” she said.
“Oh no, you won’t,” Davis said. “Run along, Phillip. I think there’s a high school tour coming in soon.”
“I’ll be at tonight’s lecture, as well,” Gerard said, winking at her as he walked away.
She turned back to Davis Evanston. “With friends like that,” Marisol said, trailing off the cliché.
“So . . .” he fumbled. “You know who I am. You even know who my unscrupulous friends are. Tell me a little about yourself.”
Marisol didn’t want him to google her online and find that she ran a health clinic for sex workers. Fortunately, there were many women named Marisol Rivera. One was sort of YouTube famous, and she dominated any google searches.
“I live in Florida,” she lied. “I had a project that paid off recently, so I guess now I’m an investor.” On reflection, she realized that the latter part of what she’d said was true.
A steak arrived for him and he began to slice it, the sharp knife cutting the meat into thin strips.
“I like how you handle that bike,” he said.
“I like how you’ve handled this resort,” she said. “Tell me about your operation.”
He talked for maybe fifteen minutes. “. . . such an unprecedented investment opportunity . . . really could use more women investors . . .”
None of the content was important. But she listened with her full attention, waiting for the chance to jump in.
“. . . the same architect who did our offices . . .”
“I’d love to see your office,” she said. “Especially if it has some of the same visual themes.” She waved vaguely toward the giant bike on the wall.
“We have this same artist’s work throughout the property,” he explained.
“Of course,” Marisol said. “I was just hoping you could show me your office.” She smiled widely. “As a start.”
He brightened with her lightly flirtatious tone. “Of course,” he said. “Would you like to stop by after lunch?”
“I’ve got nothing but time,” she said.
* * *
At 1:42 Marisol sent a text to Nidia on the burner phone. heat things up in 10 minutes. call in 15.
The offices were on the top floor. The elevator that accessed them was down the hall from the restaurant, which closed at midnight. The front desk stayed open 24-hours, and she also noted the housekeeping and grounds office, where they probably had overnight staff.
There was a security desk in the lobby. She managed to look at the guard’s camera feed. Front door. Lobby. Parking lot. Restaurant entrance. That was it.
On the penthouse floor, she was pleased to see that the air vents were ground level. Good. It would be much easier to get in. But when they got to his office, she was disappointed that the door opened with a card instead of a key. She could pick a regular lock, but she didn’t know how to bypass a card system. She couldn’t rig the door to stay open, because he’d be in and out too many times today. She’d have to crawl in through the vent.
The office was bright and chilly, with the stale flavor of overdone air conditioning. On the walls were more of the motorcycle art. This time tires with sparkling rims.
“I just love these,” Marisol said, noting which of the pieces might cover a safe.
She looked at his wall clock, also a tire theme, and noted that it was 1:54.
At 1:57, Marisol was not surprised when they were interrupted. His office phone on the fake wooden desk rang. He had been standing uncomfortably close to her, droning on about how the artist really understood the inherent sensuousness of circles, when the call came in.
“Excuse me,” he said, and picked up the phone.
Even from across the office, Marisol could hear the raised voice of the woman from the front desk.
“A fire,” the woman said. “A guest says there’s a fire in one of the cottages. I’ve called the fire department and I sent housekeeping with an extra extinguisher.”
He had barely hung up the phone, when he began to sprint for the door.
“I’ll be back,” he stammered over his shoulder.
He didn’t close the door behind him. Marisol shut it carefully.
She could feel her heart beat faster as she searched behind the wheel art until she found the safe. A MuscleMan. No extra security features to the lock. She felt the urge to crack it. But not now. He would be back as soon as he realized the fire was a ruse. Fortunately, it had gotten him out of there. If it hadn’t, Plan B was for Nidia to pull the fire alarm. Marisol would have taken advantage of the confusion.
She had scoped the architectural plans online. She knew the air conditioning vent connected to the hallway. She pulled out her screwdriver and replaced the air vent’s real screws with fakes. From inside the vent, she’d only need to push and the grate would open for her. Hopefully the safe would do the same.
* * *
By the time Davis Evanston came back, she was sitting calmly, flipping through one of the hotel brochures.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Just some papers in a trash can caught on fire,” he said. “Some guest overreacted. Sorry to leave you waiting.”
“I like a man who protects his investments,” she said.
“Let me make it up to you,” he said. “Dinner? On me?”
“Sure,” she said. “But your dining room leaves something to be desired. How about in San Juan? I’ll be there for a meeting this afternoon.”
He agreed, and suggested a high-end restaurant. They set dinner for eight.
Marisol went back to her room and called Nidia on the burner phone.
“I was so scared when I set the papers on fire,” Nidia said. “And even more scared when I called. I did it like you told me. Hysterical, but not over the top. Did they buy it?”
“You did perfectly,” Marisol said. “Are you in San Juan yet?”
“About another half hour,” Nidia said.
Marisol gave her the name of the high-end restaurant Davis Evanston had suggested. “Be there at eight.”
“What do I order in a place like that?” Nidia asked.
“Whatever you want,” Marisol said. “Bring some dinner home for Zara, too.”
“It’ll be a pleasure,” Nidia said.
* * *
That evening, Serena and Lily stood out on the dark road between Las Palmas and San Juan, right at the spot where Marisol had dropped the GPS pin. Serena seemed jumpy with the darkness, the mosquitoes, and the chirping of frogs. But Lily seemed more relaxed than when she was in New York.
“This place reminds me of home,” Lily said. “Same climate. Same foliage. Same style of houses. Same feeling at night.”
“Not me,” Serena said. “We were from Athens. It’s warm, but not like this. And not always so muggy. My hair is nothing but frizz.”
“Would you ever go back?” Lily asked.
Serena shook her head. “Greece is finally getting out of the dark ages in LGBT rights,” she said. “But my family’s too religious. I wouldn’t have anybody there.”
Lily nodded. “Plus that new boyfriend isn’t trying to leave Manhattan.”
Serena smiled. “Except maybe for one of the boroughs.”
“I still feel torn,” Lily said. “I miss my mother, the feel of home. Brooklyn used to be a little West Indies, but the gentrification now.” She sucked her teeth. “We not there like we used to be. This place brings it all back.”
The two women watched the little dot on the screen move down the road toward their location. They had an estimated half hour til it reached them, so they headed back to their own vehicle, hidden in some shrubbery nearby.
Cars only went by every few minutes, but the timing would be tight.
They needed to make sure to target the right vehicle, and they didn’t want to get hit. It was difficult to hear cars coming in the darkness with the loud sounds of the insects and frogs.
The two of them waited on the rural road for the black car to come. Glancing from time to time at the GPS, the two women huddled by the roadside and plucked a few last feathers from several rows of spikes.
Lily had reassembled the spike strip. When it was collapsed, it was a dense rectangle of metal, but when it was expanded, it was a lethal row of Xs that had spikes on parallel diagonals and connected to make a row of diamond shapes.
Finally, Lily pulled off the last of the feathers and collapsed the spike strip.
“He’s due in about five minutes,” Serena said. “You ready?”
Lily nodded, then opened the car door and walked up to the road.
They heard a vehicle coming from the opposite direction. It wasn’t safe to step out while cars were coming from either side, because drivers often ignored the center line on these curving roads.
The GPS estimated that he’d be there in three minutes. A minivan went by in the other direction.
“Now?” Serena asked.
Lily listened. Was that a car? It was hard to peel the sound of the retreating van apart from any new traffic. The insects and frogs buzzed loudly, drowning other sounds. Yes! That was a car.
“I hear something coming,” Lily said. “But too close to be him. He’s still a full minute away.”
“Damn,” Serena said. “The cars must be pretty close together.”
“We can’t run the risk of harming someone who’s not involved,” Lily said.
“Yeah, but we can’t afford to miss him,” Serena said. “And you could get hit.”
“I’m a fast runner,” Lily said. “That’ll have to be good enough.”
“Okay,” Serena said. “I’ll go further down the road. I’ll shriek like a bird if the cars are close together.”
Serena slipped back into the darkness and around the curve of the hill.
Lily crouched by the side of the road, just behind a tree.
The sound of the car grew louder, and she took a deep breath.
From around the bend, Serena called like a bird. So not this car, but the next one.
Blinding headlights flashed toward Lily, and her body tensed for the leap.
A small coupe made its way around the corner. Five people inside. The windows were open and Lily heard laughter.
The moment it passed, she sprang from her spot at the edge of the asphalt. She ran halfway across the road, pulling the spike strip, which opened behind her.
Lily began to dash the rest of the way across the road, and headlights bore down on her. They were coming from the other direction. A taxi careened toward Lily, swinging wide toward the shoulder on its own side and just missing her. Fortunately, it also swerved out of the path of the spike strip.
Lily dove into the greenery on the far side of the road, just as Davis Evanston’s car came around the curve.
She heard the explosion sound as the tires blew. The car teetered a bit on the busted tires, and as it did so, Lily darted back into the street and dragged the spike strip back toward their own car. She slid it behind her into the bushes like a huntress, returning with a huge tropical snake.
“Did he see you?” Serena asked.
“No,” Lily said. “How about the folks in the taxi? Did they hear the blowout?”
“I doubt it,” Serena said. “They didn’t slow down or turn around.”
“Good,” Lily said. “I think we’re done here.”
“So what do we do now?” Serena asked.
“It’s the Caribbean,” Lily said. “We go to the bar and celebrate.”
“But it’s so late,” Serena said. “And this is such a small town.”
“No matter how small the town,” Lily said. “There’s always a bar open late.”
* * *
Davis Evanston cursed when his tire blew out on the way to San Juan. Unfortunately, he got the flat along a portion of the road with notoriously bad cell phone service. He honked, attempting to get the attention of a blue compact, but the driver zoomed by without stopping. He tried flagging down cars, but with the twists in the road, he nearly got himself killed.
It was 8:45 by the time he had walked to a place where he got decent reception. He called for roadside assistance and then called the restaurant in San Juan. The host was able to find a woman dining alone, about the right age. She fit the description and answered to the name Marisol Rivera.
Davis launched into a long explanation about how he wasn’t the type of man to leave a lady waiting. She really must forgive him. And Davis cursed this backwards island where consumer goods were of such low quality that even new tires were half bald and the roads were strewn with de-tritis sharp enough to cause multiple flat tires. When he had finally ranted himself out, the woman on the other side of the phone said, “No worries.”
As Davis was waiting for a tow truck on the side of the road, Marisol was waiting for the right moment to creep past the front desk staff.
A large party of Midwestern tourists came in with a mountain of luggage, and she took that opportunity to slip into the hallway. She caught the elevator to the penthouse floor. Once she arrived, she unscrewed the air vent and crawled in, leaving the grate in place behind her with clips.
At first, the only sound was the slide of fabric against metal. But as she wriggled through the tiny space to the office, a sudden burst of laughter came throught the grate. She froze.
“Well don’t let my dad hear you talk like that,” a young female voice said. “He doesn’t trust any man who won’t ride a motorcycle.”
Marisol felt the swell of panic in her chest. Who was in the office? She had been so careful to make sure Evanston didn’t have a partner. She hadn’t counted on a daughter. The young woman continued to flirt, but Marisol couldn’t hear the response. She must be on the phone.
Then the air came on. Marisol began to panic, as she felt cold pressure against her feet, pushing up toward her ass in the vent. The back half of her body was freezing, but the front half was overly warm. She began to sweat.
At least the noise of the air covered the sound of Marisol’s movement. She inched toward the office, until she could see through the slats. A young blonde woman sat with her feet up on the desk.
The girl blathered on. Marisol carefully tried to control her breathing, but the feeling of panic continued to rise.
Finally the girl interjected her own monologue: “Why is it so damn hot in here? Hold on—” She set down the phone and walked over to the vent.
Marisol knew intellectually that the girl’s pupils would be adjusted to the office’s bright light. Yet she had had the irrational fear that somehow the young blonde would be able to detect the glint of light on Marisol’s eyes, her hair, her skin beading with sweat in the dark vent.
A pale hand waved in front of the grate. The hand began to open and close the slats for the air. The bright image of the girl in the office flashed on and off like a peep show.
Marisol’s panic spiked. What if the daughter really tried to adjust the grate? With the fake screws Marisol had put in, would it fall off?
The girl left the grate open and walked to the desk: “Let me call you back from my cell. By the time maintenance comes to fix it I’ll have melted in this heat. They say Puerto Rico is part of the United States, but I know the third world when I see it. It’ll take five minutes to get down to my suite.”
After she heard the door click shut, Marisol pressed hard on the grate and it fell onto the rug. She wriggled herself out, and screwed it in behind her with real screws.
Then she went to work on the safe with her stethoscope. Five minutes later, she had cracked it.
Inside, she found nearly $100,000 in cash, several types of bonds and what looked like more of the same stock options Nidia had. She took all of it, and crammed it into her bag.
Just as she was ready to walk out the door, she heard the elevator open out in the hallway. She grabbed the bag, and hid under the desk.
A maintenance man came in, a local. He walked to the grate and put his hand in front of it. Marisol could both feel and hear the cold air pouring in. She felt nearly weak with gratitude that she’d refastened the grate.
On his way out, the maintenance man called down on his radio. “It’s working fine,” he said in Spanish. “Fucking Americans. I think they just call to see us jump.”
When Marisol heard the whirr of the elevator heading back down, she peered carefully into the corridor.
Finding it empty, she refastened the hallway grate, and slid into the stairwell, walking gingerly down to her room. She stashed her take from the safe, then walked down the stairs to the ground floor and slipped out of the hotel.
* * *
When Marisol returned from her alleged dinner in San Juan, Davis Evanston was waiting in the lobby, apologetic, with flowers.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I can’t believe I left you waiting.”
“Like I said, no worries,” Marisol told him. “But I’m tired from the drive. I’ll see you next time I’m in town.”
He put a hand on her arm. “It’s not that late,” he said. “It’s barely ten. Have a drink with me.”
She smiled and removed his hand from her arm. “Some other time.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” he said. His voice was half whining, half belligerent.
“Of course not,” she said. “I don’t blame you. I’m just tired.”
“Come on,” he pressed. “Just one drink.”
Marisol looked around the quiet lobby. No one was in sight. The thick doors to the bar were closed. The lights were on, but she couldn’t see anyone through the window. Was it empty? Was there a bartender? Was the bar even open? Or would Evanston make up the drinks himself?
“Oh . . .” she began coyly. “I don’t know . . .”
A grin began to creep up one side of his face.
“You won’t regret it,” he said.
She smiled and rolled her eyes, a sort of coquettish self-mockery. A giggling sort of I know I’ll regret it in the morning, but . . .
She would play along to get his defenses down. Head toward the bar and look for a chance to exit. If nothing else, she could reach for the heavy restaurant door and swing it into his face.
But then the elevator dinged, and a trio of middle aged white women tourists stepped out. She recognized them from the lunch talk.
“Oh Mr. Evanston,” they cooed.
Marisol shrugged. “I really should get to bed,” she said. “I’m gonna take that raincheck.”
And then she walked away from him, and slipped into the elevator. One minute he had his hand on her back. The next minute, his hand hovered alone in space.
She smiled and waved at him from the elevator as she stabbed the door close button. He stood helplessly in the knot of tourists, his rage shimmering beneath the surface of his jovial hotel owner’s smile.
Up on her floor, she practically ran to her room and locked the door. She put the security latch on, grateful that an owner with a key card couldn’t gain access.
Marisol dug in the bottom of her suitcase for the bag of cash and bonds. Not that it would have gone anywhere, but she had to check. She lay down on the bed, curling her body around the bag, as if she needed it for comfort.
I really am too old for this, Marisol thought. Between the safecracking and getting caught in the grate, and then the anxiety of her encounter with Evanston, her adrenaline had spiked several times and was now crashing. One moment she was breathing a sigh of relief, and the next she was out cold asleep with all the lights on.
* * *
In the dream, it was Davis Evanston who crept into the hotel room. The security latch did nothing to keep him out.
He reached for the bag of cash and bonds, and the two of them tussled on the bed. Then the dream morphed into a version of a recurring nightmare she’d had for many years. Her uncle’s cramped Lower East Side apartment. A teenage Marisol in one twin bed, and her sister in another twin across the room. Marisol not asleep anymore. Never asleep after she heard her uncle come home. The beige wallpaper and suffocating brown marble carpet. Dank. Despite her scrubbing with the ninety-nine cent store’s all-purpose cleaner, she could never remove the smell of mildew and bad plumbing.
Eventually at night, her exhaustion would eclipse her will to stay awake. Then the terror at the sound of the front door opening. She felt an overwhelming desperation to run, to hide under the bed, to climb out onto the fire escape before he came into the room. But then he’d find Cristina and she was too little. Her sister couldn’t handle it. In the dream, there was always the smell and the feeling of her body crushed under a familiar, hated heaviness. She had never screamed in all the years she’d lived in that apartment, but somehow now, she was able to find her voice.
She screamed herself awake, only to find the heaviness was real. Pressure on her chest. Someone was on top of her. Through her panic, she managed to recognize her surroundings as the bright hotel room. Was it Evanston? How had he gotten in?
She reached to claw at him and felt only the sharp edges of cash and bond bricks through the cloth of a sack.
Marisol gasped and shook the bag of loot off her chest.
She sat up, her heart banging hard against her ribs.
Scrambling for her phone, she called her boyfriend Raul in New York. She shuddered at the memories of the dream as his phone rang and rang. It was four AM, and he was undoubtedly asleep, his ringer probably off. She called Eva, her colleague and sometimes therapist. No luck there, either.
So Marisol sat up, watching television, numb with fear and vigilant. Nobody tried to break in, but Marisol kept all the lights on and didn’t even try to sleep.
Later that morning, Marisol checked out. She didn’t see Evanston as she wheeled her luggage out of his hotel, full of his cash and bonds.
When she got back to her cousin’s house, Zara said that Nidia was at work.
Marisol meant to wait up for her, but she fell asleep on the couch.
* * *
She woke up that afternoon to hear Nidia walking in the door.
“Qué pasó?” her cousin asked.
Marisol sat up and stretched. “We need to get to a bank,” she said.
Nidia grinned, and the two of them headed to the nearest one. They set up an account, got a cell plan for Nidia, and tossed the burner phones.
It would raise red flags if they deposited the money all at once. So Marisol transferred enough money from her personal account to cover the initial payment to get the house out of foreclosure. She would transfer enough each month to cover the mortgage payments. And she’d take the cash to New York to launder it.
Back at the house, Nidia and Zara cried. They’d get to keep their home, the house their grandparents had so painstakingly saved to purchase. And if Marisol helped Julio get a job in New York, they’d be okay.
* * *
Later, Nidia walked Marisol to the rented green coupe. “Is there a safe somewhere in San Juan with seventy-five billion in it? Maybe your friend could crack that next? Solve the rest of the problems in Puerto Rico?”
Marisol sighed. “Ay, nena. That money isn’t in Puerto Rico. It’s all in the States. I see it walk by every day in New York.”
“On Wall Street?”
“All over Manhattan.”
“Goddamn colonization,” Nidia said. “That’s our money. We fucking worked for that money. For over a hundred years.”
“They want us to pay back what they stole from us,” Marisol said. “Keep us working to put money in their pocket for another hundred years.”
“I just knew we were gonna lose the house,” Nidia said, shaking her head. “Tell your friend I don’t know how to thank her.”
Marisol put her arm around Nidia. “I’ll make sure she gets the message.”
“My mom always said she regretted not putting her foot down about you girls staying in Puerto Rico,” Nidia said.
“What do you mean?” Marisol asked.
“When our uncle came for the funeral and sort of claimed the two of you,” Nidia said. “He and his wife apparently couldn’t have children. He said they were the obvious ones to take you. My mom objected, but he boasted about what a good life you would have in the US. That maybe if we lived in the capital—in San Juan—he wouldn’t insist, because your English was so good. You spoke without an accent. In San Juan you could find opportunities. But my mother would be ruining your prospects if she kept you in a small jibaro town like Las Palmas when he could offer you Manhattan.”
Marisol was too stunned to speak. She might have stayed in Puerto Rico? With Nidia’s mom? Everything might have been different?
“And he was right, no?” Nidia said. “You’ve made a big success of yourself. You run a clinic. Your sister is a doctor. We read about your clinic’s big event. You’re hanging out with movie stars like Delia Borbón.”
Marisol had faltered then. Unable to find words for the loss that she hadn’t even imagined before. A different path. A different life. Even though her aunt hadn’t been able to rescue her, it choked her up to know that she had tried.
Marisol bit back the tears and waved away Nidia’s words. “It’s really not that glamorous,” she said. “You’ll have to come visit one of these days and see.”
* * *
Before Marisol left Puerto Rico, she made one last stop.
In spite of the fact that the cemetery’s business had gone bankrupt, the actual graveyard hadn’t changed much. The building was still whitewashed wood to match the white marble statue of La Virgen María, arms open in welcome.
As Marisol pulled up to the parking lot, she recalled the funeral, imagined her stoic little eleven-year-old self, staying strong for her sister. Her feet knew the way back to the graveyard.
She followed the narrow stone path, past the banyan, a huge, green-leafed tree with a thick trunk and roots that cascaded down from the branches. Rust peeked through the cracking black paint on the cemetery’s wrought iron fence. Marisol opened the gate and let her feet guide her to the northeast edge. She had to pick her way carefully, afraid of stepping on other graves in the overgrowth. The small cemetery was empty of people, except for marble and stone figures of angels and Jesus and Mary, among the crosses and other saints on the headstones and tombs.
Finally, she arrived at her family gravesite. Grass, fallen leaves, moss, and dirt covered many of the headstones; some were so old or dirty, she couldn’t read the names, the dates, the amada esposa, querida madre.
Yet two headstones she knew by heart. “I miss you, Mami,” she said to the stone. “I love you. You, too, Abuelita.”
She ran her fingers along the indented letters in her mother’s name, dislodging some of the dirt. “You know, things got really bad after you guys died.” She let out a sudden whoop and chuckle. Always that inappropriate laughter. “It was a lousy thing to do, you know, die? Leave us with your crazy-ass brother.” She still couldn’t bring herself to say his name. “Well, he has a grave of his own, now,” she said.
“Then things got a little better,” she said. “A little better for me. A lot better for Cristina.”
Marisol had talked to her mother before, believed her mother was watching over her. But now, sitting at the graveside, she wanted to tell it all again. And she found herself whispering this next part, somehow feeling a need to be discreet in the empty graveyard, with faces of Jesus and angels and Marías and Santos watching her: “I started doing sex work, tú sabes? I had to do something to support Cristina,” she said, as if to justify herself in the eyes of the icons. “You’d be proud of her. She graduated college, and now she’s studying to be a doctor in Cuba. I miss her a lot,” Marisol said. “I miss all of you.”
She picked up a leaf and twirled it in her fingers. “You might be proud of me, too. I started a clinic. Named it after you, Mami. The María de le Vega clinic. We’re doing big things in the old neighborhood. Cristina’s gonna work for us when she gets back. And remember that hotel in Manhattan, La Fleur? I had a benefit there. I was the one in charge, Mami.” Marisol became even more animated when she recalled the presence of the movie star. “Even Delia Borbón came to my fundraiser. She was wearing this wild—”
And then she stopped suddenly. Mami wouldn’t even know who Delia Borbón was. Her mother was dead before the Diva became famous. Mami’s death had ruined even this. Her mother had missed everything.
Utterly devastated by this seemingly insignificant piece of chronology, Marisol’s entire body was suddenly siezed with grief. It pressed the breath out of her, sucked the strength from the muscles in her thighs and core. She collapsed onto the ground and sobbed.
At first only wails, then finally she managed to exhale words. “How could you leave me?” she cried in Spanish, the staccato sobs in counterpoint to the leaden weight of the grief in her limbs. Her breath came in ragged spasms, her face pressed against red dirt, leaves tangling in her hair.
With a surge of rage, she beat on the ground with a fist. “Noooo!” she shrieked into the earth. “Don’t leave me with him! How could you?” Somehow in her mind, it was as if her uncle had dragged them away, her and Cristina, as if her mother and grandmother had permitted it by dying. Had cosigned it, sentenced them to a Lower East Side bedroom cell for two girls.
Marisol screamed into dirt, into earth, into the past. Her body thrashed among the fallen leaves. Lizards scurried past her feet, and birds cawed overhead. Finally, her face against the warm red clay dirt, she cried herself to sleep.
* * *
The sun was almost setting when she awoke an hour later. Completely disoriented, her neck and shoulder stiff, her body damp on the side that had been on the ground. She sat up, dazed, breathing the moist air; she expected to be in her grandmother’s house, under a mosquito net with Cristina, but no. Memory returned. The graveyard. Just a visit. She was grown now.
A mosquito buzzed by her ear. Must have been what woke her. She scratched a spot on her earlobe that itched and burned. She sat up and blinked at the headstones in the fading light.
Suddenly, Marisol laughed bitterly. “It was really shitty of both of you to go and die, you know?” She stood up and pulled a few leaves out of her hair. “But I just might forgive you.”
She kissed her finger and placed it on her mother’s headstone, then picked her way back out through the bankrupt cemetery.
* * *
After Marisol had returned to New York, she sent an attorney to sue for an injunction against Puerto Cyclo from digging up the graves, and furthermore, challenged the legality of paying with stock options instead of cash, particularly since the contract promised that it would be a cash equivalent, and it hadn’t been. The court case was going to take several years, but until it was decided, the graves would be safe.