Stone Cold

by Kristi Belcamino

  “You know we agree on this,” I said.

  “After much thinking, I think the following things. One,” he said, holding up a finger. “Rosalie is most likely very happy living with you.”

  I caught my breath, but he kept talking.

  “She also has the right to get to know her father.” He ticked the second point off on another finger. “Three, staying in your home, going to school, and maintaining her regular routine is probably what’s best for her stability after such a rough young life.”

  Now, I was nodding enthusiastically. But he was not done.

  “And, lastly, so let’s make that four, she needs to also live with me some of the time so we can establish a relationship as father and child.”

  It sounded so clinical. But sort of made sense.

  After getting to know Nico Morales, I no longer considered him a monster. And I genuinely believed him when he said the most important thing in the world to him was Rosalie and ensuring she had a good life.

  He was proposing some sort of custody arrangement. The thought of having her away from me for extended periods of time felt wrong. It made my stomach clench in anxiety.

  “Keep going,” I said.

  “What if,” he said, shifting uncomfortably and not meeting my eyes. “What if—just entertain this thought for a second—what if you had her living with you during the school year and then during the summer she could come stay with me? Either here, or at the beach house or both or maybe even someplace safer. I could buy a house that would just be for the summer with her and have it be the most secure, heavily guarded home that ever existed.”

  He spoke rapidly, caught up in the idea, so when he stopped suddenly and stared at me, I was taken off-guard.

  “Uh,” I started, then closed my eyes. “Give me a second.”

  I opened my eyes and paced the office, afraid to speak, sick with anxiety over agreeing to let Rosalie live with this man for three months of the year. Even if he was her father.

  Finally, I turned to him. “I don’t know.”

  “Think on it overnight,” he said, standing suddenly. “I have to leave for Mexico City. I will stay there tonight. I was going to ask you to come with me to show you the city, but I have a better idea if you are game.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  “My oldest and dearest friend from Guatemala, Ian, has messaged me that he is in town for the next few days. He has asked about dinner tonight. Here is what I propose. This man knows me better than my own mother. And yet, he is unfailingly honest, sometimes to his detriment. I propose you spend the evening speaking to him and having dinner in town here. San Miguel de Allende is known as one of the most wonderful cities in the world. I will tell him to answer all your questions in deadly earnest. After speaking to him and sleeping on it overnight, we can speak again?”

  He waited.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

  42

  Nico had settled me into my room on the penthouse floor. It had been used, he said, for his mother when she was still alive. It was decorated in forest green velvet: sumptuous curtains that draped to the floor, a green velvet headboard, and a green velvet throw over the bed’s white coverlet. One wall was painted black and another wall had two large black-and-white framed photographs side-by-side. One of Frida Kahlo. One of Diego Rivera.

  I’d just taken a shower and was still wrapped in the towel when there was a knock on the door.

  “Gia?”

  I let the towel drop to the floor and said, “Come in.”

  He opened the door and froze. Water dripped down my shoulders from my wet hair.

  He was holding a big stack of clothing over one arm. Without looking, he dumped all the clothing articles on the chair beside the door and was in front of me, picking me up so quickly I squealed as he brought me to the bed.

  “I thought you had to leave?” I said.

  “I’m going to be late,” he said hoarsely, and then we stopped talking.

  Later, I propped myself up on the cushions. “What time was your meeting in Mexico City?”

  “An hour ago.”

  “Oops.”

  He stood and I snuck a glance at him. He was in remarkably good shape. He groaned as he leaned over to retrieve his clothes from the floor. “Gia, you are such a distraction. I haven’t worked out or done yoga for three days.” He turned and winked at me. “But it’s been worth it.”

  He paused at the door. “I hope this doesn’t seem odd, but I think you and Sylvia were the same size, and I found these in her closet. Feel free to go in and see if there is something you might like more, but I know the restaurant Ian is taking you to tonight is one where women do wear long dresses.”

  “Thank you,” I said, pulling the covers up to my neck and watching him.

  “Okay, then,” he said. “Until tomorrow.”

  It was only when I heard the elevator ding and watched the doors whoosh closed that I got out of bed.

  The driver was right on time. I was told a car would arrive at seven o’clock and take me to the restaurant where Nico’s friend would be waiting. I’d tried on a few of the dresses that Nico had brought me, finally deciding on a dark green velvet one in honor of my bedroom and his mother’s most excellent taste. I didn’t have a single piece of jewelry, which I thought was best, considering the sumptuous nature of the dress. It was a halter style with an open back that dipped almost obscenely low. I slipped on some flat sandals that didn’t show under the hem. I grabbed my bag with some lipstick and the reloaded gun tucked inside.

  In the back of the car, I began to get a little nervous and wished I’d had a drink before leaving. I was sure El Jefe had booze somewhere. But it would be okay. I could do this sober. I really should have my wits about me to grill this friend about Nico if I was seriously considering sending Rosalie to live with him at some point in the future.

  Ian was waiting for me on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. As soon as the car came to a stop, he opened my door for me and held out his hand.

  He was much older than Nico. He was thin and balding and wore wire-rimmed glasses. He wore a tight black T-shirt under a black fitted blazer, designer jeans, and sporty designer sneakers with a thick sole. I liked him right away.

  “Mucho gusto,” I said, smiling at him as I stood. Nice to meet you.

  “Encantado,” he said. Charmed.

  The restaurant was lovely—dark and filled with candles and funky stained glass chandeliers that looked a bit Dr. Seuss-ish. The food was even better. Gourmet Mexican food meant shrimp enchiladas, mini tortillas with dollops of sweet potato and chorizo filling on top, guacamole that tasted like cilantro and mint and lime all at once, and salty chips that were just what the doctor ordered. I hadn’t realized I was ravenous until the food arrived.

  We exchanged niceties until I’d had some of the food and an entire margarita.

  Feeling no pain, I leaned in, smiling. “Tell me why I should trust El Jefe.”

  He smiled back. “The man is salt of the earth.”

  “He is responsible for possibly thousands of deaths around the globe.”

  “Most indirectly.”

  “That’s a bullshit excuse.”

  He sighed. “He has killed. It is true. His business has been drugs. That is true.”

  “Has been?”

  “He is trying to move away from that. He is exploring other avenues of income, such as crops like avocados.”

  “Oh my God, the fucking avocados again?” I said waving my hand wildly and thinking I probably shouldn’t have the second margarita the waiter was putting before me right then.

  Instead of shocking him, my words made him burst into laughter.

  “Yes, the fucking avocados,” he said. “My friend sees this as an honorable way out.”

  “Really?” I was skeptical.

  “My dear Gia, unless you have lived in our shoes, unless you grew up in our small village, it is probably going to be impossible for you to understand why
Nico does what he does or why he did what he did.”

  I thought about that before answering. “I believe you are right.”

  “Without experiencing firsthand the poverty and hopelessness and sheer desperation that we did, you cannot understand how a life as the head of the world’s most powerful drug cartel would be an impossible dream that he has fulfilled,” he said. “Even eating in this restaurant was not something we could have imagined in our wildest dreams.”

  I swallowed. I could not possibly understand.

  “So, ask me what you will, and I will try my best to vouch for my friend’s character, but just know this: I have and will always—until the day I die—trust my life, and that of my dearest child to this man. I would entrust anything to him.”

  I spent the next hour learning about Nico’s past. It was not pretty. It involved him figuratively crawling on hands and knees out of one of the world’s worst slums. Going for days without eating. Seeing violence firsthand every day of his life.

  They grew up in a rural area known as the “poverty belt” of the country where malnutrition of Guatemalan children is among the worst in the world. Kids, on average, only attend three and a half years of school, he said.

  “He has been secretly funneling millions of dollars there over the past two years to help with poverty and illiteracy. I’m his point man in Guatemala. I am the face of the foundation doing so. It is slow going, even with the money he is giving us. We need much more,” he said. “One of the projects we are working on is buying some of the agricultural businesses there. Coffee, sugar, bananas, and cardamom. We hire locally and can then also pour some of the profits back into the community for education and hunger relief.”

  I sat back and thought about this. He was right. I didn’t have a fucking clue. I could never stand in El Jefe’s shoes. I could not possibly understand. What I was hearing, though, was that this drug cartel, murderer, and thief was giving back to the community.

  It was complex and confusing. Like so many things in life.

  At the end of the night, when Ian walked me to the car, I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for your time,” I said. “He is lucky to have a friend like you.”

  “Opuesto. I am the lucky one.”

  “Good night,” I said.

  Before the car door closed, he leaned over and said, “His greatest wish in life is to be a father. Just remember that.”

  Then he closed the door, and the car pulled away. I turned to look behind us and saw him standing there watching us drive away.

  The house seemed lonely even though there were armed guards at the entrance and even stationed in a chair outside the elevator on the top floor. The guard nodded to me when I stepped out of the elevator and jumped seeing him sitting here. Creepy. Is that what it would be like if Rosalie ever came here?

  I ducked into my bedroom and deadbolted the door before I changed into a silky nightgown I found splayed across the bed. It still had tags on it. El Jefe must have had it delivered while I was gone. It was a soft white that made my tanned skinned seem even more bronzed. I slipped beneath the covers, sunk into the luxurious bed, and dialed Dante.

  “Ciao bella,” he said. “I’m so glad to hear from you. I was getting a little worried.”

  “Hey,” I said. “Is Rosalie right there with you?”

  “She is coloring with Eva.”

  Coloring? My assassin former mafia boss aunt? Unbelievable.

  “I need your advice,” I said. I told him everything that had happened and all I had learned since meeting up with El Jefe, leaving out only that we had fucked.

  “Wow,” he said when I finished.

  “No shit.”

  “What do you want me to say, Gia?”

  “I want you to give me the straight talk you always do.”

  “Well, first, I can tell by the way you talk about him that you’ve had sex with him, so your thinking is not clear.”

  Anger flushed through me, but I bit my tongue and remained silent. When I didn’t respond, he continued. “Even with that said, from what you’ve told me, and from a man’s perspective, a man who wants nothing more than to be a father himself, I think you need to figure out a way to give the guy a chance.”

  “What?” A man who wants nothing more than to be a father himself.

  “We need to figure out a way to give him a chance. I can help you figure something out.”

  “I mean the part about you wanting to be a dad. Dante? When did this happen?”

  “Matt and I had talked about it,” he said in a quiet, somber voice. “But it’s been on my mind since then a lot. And now, after spending time with Rosalie, I have realized even more that I want to be a father. And I would be a damn good one.”

  “Oh, Dante, you would be an amazing father,” I said and felt tears forming.

  “I am going to start looking for a surrogate mother,” he said.

  “Good,” I said and was filled with excitement. “I can’t wait to be an auntie.”

  He was silent for a few seconds. Then he cleared his throat.

  “Gia? Would…would you?”

  “What?” I shot out of bed. “Holy fuck. You can’t lay this on me right now, Dante. Holy fuck.” I was pacing the room like a wild woman. “I’ve got a lot on my plate right now. I have the fate of a little girl in my hands. I’m staying in a goddamn estate in Mexico owned by one of the most powerful drug lords in the world, and you are asking me about giving birth to a baby? What the fuck, Dante?”

  He burst into laughter, which instead of making me angrier, completely diffused my panic. I started laughing as well.

  “So, you’re telling me I’ve got a chance,” he said, reciting one of the lines from one of our favorite Jim Carrey movies.

  “No!” I shouted, but it wasn’t in anger. “Back to me. And Rosalie. How can we give him a chance?”

  “I think that, first off, he needs to meet her.”

  “For sure,” I said.

  “And then see what Rosalie thinks.”

  “Bingo,” I said. “I’ve seen where Rosalie would stay. Now he needs to see where she lives and meet her on her turf.”

  “Wait,” Dante said. “You’re asking the leader of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel to come visit you in San Francisco?”

  “Damn right,” I said. “If he’s serious about being in Rosalie’s life, he’ll make it happen.”

  “That’s the plan, then,” Dante said, enthusiastically embracing my plan. “He comes to us. She meets him. She decides if she wants to go visit him.”

  “Right!” I said. “And the first visit, I get to go, too, and be there to make sure it is smooth and she is comfortable. And if that first short visit goes well, then maybe we can extend it and so on.”

  “Yep. That’s the plan.”

  “It’s fucking insane.” I’d be making dinner for a drug kingpin. Inviting him into my home. Crazy town.

  “It’s totally insane,” Dante agreed.

  “Which is why it might just work,” I said.

  “Yep.”

  “I knew you’d give me good advice, Dante,” I said, filled with relief. “I just didn’t know you’d ask me to carry your baby during the same conversation.”

  “We’ll talk about that later.”

  “Yeah, much later. Like when hell freezes over later.”

  “Love you, Gia.”

  “I love you, Dante.”

  43

  I woke later in the dark, heart pounding, sitting straight up, disoriented. After a few seconds, I realized where I was. I was wide awake and alone in a giant house. Well, alone except for a few creepy armed men whom I didn’t trust as far as I could throw them.

  I grabbed a soft throw off an armchair and, wrapping it around my shoulders, stepped out onto the small wrought iron balcony overlooking the pool and the valley beyond.

  The shimmering water of the pool sparkled in the moonlight. As my eyes adjusted, I realized what was causing the water to undulate. The black panth
er stood at one end, dipping its head into the water. Then, as if sensing me, it raised its head and seemed to look directly up at me. A chill ran down my spine. For the first time I wondered, completely irrationally, how high the giant cat could leap. There was a balcony below me that stuck out further than mine and then one below that. A truly talented and intelligent animal could use the balconies as steps right up to my floor. I laughed at the thought. In the quiet of the night, the sound rang out, and the giant cat responded in irritation, roaring and taking off toward the jungle area behind it, tail swishing menacingly.

  I fell back asleep easily but then woke suddenly in the dark to the feeling of a hand clamped over my mouth. A voice whispered in my ear urgently:

  “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound. There are assassins after Nico and now they are here to kill you. Follow me.”

  The voice was familiar, and this calmed me enough to stop struggling.

  “It is Ian. They have killed the guards. I’m going to remove my hand. Do you promise not to scream?”

  I nodded. The hand left my mouth, and I gasped for air.

  “What about the secret passage and room?”

  “No. Anthony knows about it. That is the first place they will look. They are waiting on the floor below. I managed to barricade the door to this floor, but they are getting something to blow it apart.

  Anthony? I thought he was El Jefe’s friend? Blow it apart? They?

  “We will escape off the balcony and jump down to the pool. Follow me.”

  He headed to the balcony, holding my hand and tugging me after him.

  “But…but the fucking black panther is down there. Out there.”

  “It will not harm me.”

  “What about me?” I whispered frantically.

  He didn’t answer.

  He tossed a small rope ladder over the side of the balcony. Throwing one leg over, he began to climb down. I scanned the area surrounding the pool and, not seeing the large cat, followed. We managed to reach the patio before I heard a sound from the bushes near the pool house.