by M. A. Lawson
What Kay saw was a barren strip of land approximately a mile long and half a mile wide between the Mex ID Highway and the ocean. Whatever structures had once occupied the land were now gone and something large was being constructed, maybe another hotel. There was earthmoving equipment on the site—graders and backhoes—and mounds of dirt piled in a few spots, but the foundation for whatever was being built had not been laid. To the south of the construction site was a golf course, and she could see a foursome playing, and to the north was a gated community, the houses all with red Spanish-tile roofs. The gated community was entirely surrounded by a six-foot ocher-colored stucco wall, which was also good from Kay’s perspective, as the occupants couldn’t easily see the construction site.
“I hope the surf’s not that rough tomorrow morning,” she muttered, looking at the waves crashing onto the beach.
Roman noticed a couple walking their dog on the beach about a quarter mile away. “At five in the morning, there won’t be many people around. Certainly no one will be golfing.”
Kay didn’t really care if there were people around. “Yeah, this will work,” she said. But just like the items provided by the greedy Mr. Durant, she really had no idea if the place she’d picked to make the exchange would work.
“When does the tide go out tomorrow morning?” she asked.
“About dawn.”
“Good.”
Roman recorded the GPS location of the spot using his smartphone.
—
Back at the laundromat, Kay borrowed a bathrobe from Roman and showered. Half an hour later, the hairdresser arrived, a short woman in her fifties who was Asian and not Mexican, as Kay had expected.
“All my girlfriends in Tijuana use Mrs. Tanaka,” Roman said.
“All your girlfriends?” Kay said.
Roman smiled.
Kay told the hairdresser what she wanted, and an hour later she was transformed. The little woman was a magician. Kay’s hair was now more red than blond, and it was cut in an asymmetrical pattern that went down just past her ears. She put on glasses with clear lenses and large black frames and studied herself in the mirror. The sexy secretary. She was still recognizable as Kay Hamilton, but she looked significantly different—and significantly better—than she had an hour before.
Five minutes after the hairdresser left, there was a knock on the door.
“I believe your new wardrobe has arrived,” Roman said.
In spite of her stress, Kay was excited to see what Roman had bought her to wear for her dinner with Caesar Olivera.
40
Roman had borrowed—or commandeered—a taxicab to take her to Caesar’s place in Rosarito Beach. He was wearing a red baseball cap pulled down low on his forehead, and in place of his expensive suit, he had on faded blue jeans and a white T-shirt emblazoned with the word XOLOS in large red letters. Xolos, Roman informed Kay, stood for Club Tijuana Xoloitzcuintles de Caliente, Tijuana’s professional soccer team.
Caesar’s house stood alone on a bluff overlooking the Pacific, and for Caesar the place was relatively small, only four thousand square feet, sitting on about an acre. As Kay had seen earlier, an eight-foot wall surrounded the grounds, and Roman had told her there were cameras and motion detectors monitoring every possible way in and out. Double wrought-iron gates barred the driveway to the house. Next to the large gates was a small door.
As soon as Kay exited the taxicab, a man holding a MAC-10 machine pistol stepped through the small door in the wall. He was dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved white shirt that hung outside his pants. Kay assumed that his shirttails concealed a sidearm. The man then stepped aside and a slim woman in her forties, wearing a dark blue pantsuit, looking like an executive secretary for a CEO, approached Kay. “Please come with me,” she said.
Kay assumed the woman knew that she was Caesar’s whore for the night, but she acted as if Kay was just a guest expected for dinner, which, in a way, she was.
Kay was dressed in a simple but very expensive aquamarine Christian Dior dress that left one shoulder bare, stopped two inches above her knees, and clung to every curve she had. She figured the dress had cost three or four grand. Underneath the dress, the only thing she had on was a sheer, white thong. Her shoes matched the color of the dress, had three-inch stiletto heels, and had straps that went around her ankles. The shoes were gorgeous, the most expensive pair she’d ever worn. Her purse, although made by Coach, was unfashionably large for her stylish outfit. Kay was packing a lot of crap inside the purse.
There was one other article of clothing that made up Kay’s ensemble—a long silk shawl that she could drape over her bare shoulders if she was chilly. The shawl was about six feet long, a slightly darker green than her dress, and was the most important thing she was wearing. She needed the dress to seduce Caesar. She needed the shawl to capture him.
Kay followed the woman to a golf cart. The golf cart was useful, as the main house was about a quarter mile away, up a fairly steep driveway, and Kay didn’t want to walk that far in stilettos. As beautiful as the shoes were, she wished she were wearing shoes she could run in, but she figured Reeboks wouldn’t look too good with Christian Dior.
The woman stopped the golf cart at the main entrance to the house, and just as Kay and her escort were going up the steps, the door opened and Raphael Mora stepped out onto the porch, holding a cell phone to his ear, speaking quietly to someone. Kay guessed that he might be at the Rosarito Beach house to give Caesar an update on the situation with Tito.
If Mora recognized her, her entire elaborate plan was going to disintegrate—and she and her daughter were going to die.
Mora started down the steps, still talking on the phone. He glanced over at Kay—at red-haired Kay with the large-framed glasses—and frowned. Kay didn’t know if the frown was because she looked vaguely familiar to him or because he didn’t approve of Caesar bringing hookers to his home. Suddenly, he raised his voice—as if whoever he was talking to had said something to annoy him—and glanced away from her and continued down the steps.
Kay and her escort continued up the steps, and Kay felt like telling the escort, “Hurry up!” If Mora had shouted Stop! she was sure her knees would have buckled. But he didn’t; Mora kept walking, still berating whoever he was speaking to, and Kay’s heart rate slowed.
Inside the house, the woman led her to a small room off the foyer. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but we have certain security precautions we must take regarding Mr. Olivera’s visitors.”
Apparently, Olivera didn’t care if the whores knew his name; Caesar Olivera was not a person you blackmailed.
“Yes, Claudio told me,” Kay said.
“May I see your ID, please?”
Kay reached into her purse, groped through all the clutter, and extracted the driver’s license made out in the name of Sandra Whitman. The woman examined the picture on the license and compared it to Kay’s face.
“Yeah, I know, not a good picture,” Kay said. She didn’t bother to comment on the fact that her current hair color didn’t match the ID photo, and the woman didn’t say anything. Apparently, she was used to Caesar’s visitors having hairstyles that didn’t match their photos.
The woman then patted Kay down very thoroughly, taking her time, running her hands down the length of her body, cupping her breasts, sliding her hands up her bare legs, touching her crotch. She was as intimate as a lover, and Kay wondered if the woman was turned on by the frisk. She probed Kay’s hair with her fingers, and Kay, as might be expected, said, “Please don’t mess up my hair.”
“I’m being careful,” the woman said.
She then looked inside Kay’s handbag, which was just full of shit: Kleenex, three lipstick tubes, condoms, tampons, two combs, a hairbrush, a toothbrush, toothpaste, breath mints, enough makeup for a drag queen, perfume, and a small can of VO5 hair spray. At the bottom of the purse was a pair of
long white gloves, gloves that would be appropriate with a ball gown and that would almost reach Kay’s elbows if she was wearing them. The way the gloves looked—wrinkled and somewhat soiled—it appeared as if Kay had worn them on some past occasion and had just forgotten they were inside the purse.
“Do you have a cell phone?” the woman asked.
“Yes, but Claudio told me not to bring it,” Kay said.
The woman pulled each item from the purse and examined it carefully. She took the tops off the lipstick tubes, squeezed the tampons to make sure they felt as they should, and did the same thing with the condoms. She then picked up the perfume dispenser, spritzed a little perfume into the air, wafted it back toward her nose with her hand—and Kay thought: Please, please, God, don’t let her spray the hair spray.
The woman put the top back on the perfume dispenser and picked up the small can of hair spray, and Kay prepared to launch herself at the woman. She’d get a choke hold on her and . . . and she didn’t know what she’d do next. But all the woman did was glance at the label on the hair spray can, then place it down on the table with everything else. It seemed like she had sprayed the perfume only because she was curious as to what sort of scent Kay might favor.
Next the woman passed two electronic wands over Kay’s body. She assumed one was a metal detector and the other was seeking eavesdropping devices. She passed one of the devices over all the items she’d removed from Kay’s purse, and then the woman made her take off her glasses and spent more time testing them. Kay was glad the woman didn’t look through the glasses; if she had, she would have discovered that the lenses were plain glass.
Kay said nothing while all this was going on. The expression on her face, however, made it clear that she thought the whole process was rather silly but she was too well-mannered to make a fuss.
“Thank you,” the woman said, finally finished, and put everything back into Kay’s oversized purse. “I’ll escort you to Mr. Olivera now.”
“Do you mind if I use the restroom first?” Kay asked. “To check my hair,” she added. Kay figured that the woman she was supposed to be would demand to check a mirror after being pawed at and before meeting a lover.
“Of course,” the woman said, and she took Kay to a small, beautifully appointed powder room down the hall.
Kay stepped inside, closed the door, and stood in front of the mirror. She had just wanted to take a moment to center herself, to prepare for what was ahead.
Her hair looked fine.
“It’s showtime,” she said to the woman in the mirror.
41
The woman who frisked Kay led her to a room on the second floor of the house that appeared to be a combination library and den. There were comfortable-looking red leather chairs, Tiffany-style lamps, hardback books in floor-to-ceiling shelves, pottery Kay thought might be Mayan, and a large globe in a stand that appeared to be very old—like Christopher Columbus old.
Caesar Olivera was sitting behind a desk made from some expensive, gleaming hardwood, talking on the phone. When he saw Kay, he said good-bye to whoever he was speaking to and stood to greet her.
“Ms. Whitman,” he said in excellent English, “I’m Caesar Olivera.”
Kay responded in Spanish, saying, “Please, call me Sandra. And thank you for inviting me to your home.” Kay figured that Caesar would want a Sandra, not a Sandy, and she could tell he was pleased that she spoke Spanish.
He was dressed in a black sport jacket, an open-collared light gray shirt, dark gray slacks, and black loafers. He looked better than the pictures Kay had seen of him. In the surveillance photos he looked brutal, his face cruel and hard, his eyes intense, focused on whatever he was looking at or thinking about when the photo was taken. Tonight, he looked relaxed.
He was clean shaven and his thick hair was combed straight back from his forehead without a part. He was a handsome man and powerfully built, with a deep chest and broad shoulders. His hands were large, the knuckles lumpy, and Kay wondered if he’d ever boxed. Then she thought: Well, he probably never boxed for sport, but he probably has beaten a few men to death.
“Would you like a drink?” he asked.
“Thank you,” Kay said. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
He poured her a glass of white wine, something very good and very smooth and, Kay was sure, very expensive.
“Would you like to see my home?” he asked.
She wondered if he was going to be so formal all evening.
“I was hoping you’d offer to show it to me,” Kay said. And she was. The more she knew about the layout of the house, the better.
As he walked her through the house, he touched her occasionally, but not in an inappropriate way. He’d place a hand on her upper arm or lightly touch her back as he guided her into a room. She thought he might paw her just a bit, fondling the merchandise, as it were, but he didn’t. Caesar was a perfect gentleman.
Kay couldn’t do what she planned to do until after dinner, because she was sure dinner would be served by someone—a chef, a maid, a waiter—and she didn’t want any interruptions. So until dinner was finished, she would have to continue to play her role. And if Caesar decided to take her to bed before dinner . . . then she’d go to bed with Caesar.
—
The house, as one would expect of a man with Caesar Olivera’s wealth, was truly magnificent. Kay didn’t know anything about Persian rugs, tapestries, art, or high-end furniture, but she could tell that she was looking at quality and was impressed. The Pacific Ocean could be seen from almost every room, and with the sun setting on a blood-red horizon, the view was breathtaking.
Talking with Caesar was surprisingly easy. He was a marvelous host, and he acted as if he was genuinely interested in learning about her. When he asked about her family, she invented one: a grade-school teacher for a mother, a real estate agent for a father, and a big brother she adored who was an engineer in Boise. When he asked what she did for a living, she didn’t tell him that she was an L.A. call girl; she knew that wouldn’t suit Caesar’s fantasy. She told him instead that she was going to college—to law school—and that it was taking her longer than normal to graduate because she’d switched majors a couple of times and had to work to earn money to pay her tuition. Her day job, she said, was working as a part-time paralegal and researcher in a law firm.
If Caesar suspected she was lying, he didn’t act like it. Instead, he asked what type of law she planned to practice when she graduated.
“Entertainment law,” she said.
She picked entertainment law because her ex-lover, Robert Meyer, the Assistant U.S. Attorney, had talked to her several times about the complexities of intellectual property laws, particularly in today’s electronic world, and she could pretend some expertise in these areas. She didn’t pick criminal law because she figured Caesar might be more knowledgeable than she was when it came to that subject.
As any good courtesan would do, Kay turned the conversation to him as quickly as possible, and she was surprised that he spoke quite truthfully about himself. Kay knew he was speaking the truth because over the years, she’d read everything that had been written about him. He didn’t say he ran a drug cartel, of course. He spoke only of being a very successful businessman, and when Kay asked about his businesses, he mentioned real estate and communications firms and other industries that she knew he legitimately owned. He complained about the sour economy, which he blamed on the Americans.
Had Kay not been thinking about Jessica and what lay ahead the whole time they were talking, and if she’d been able to forget what a monster Caesar Olivera could be, it would have actually been a very pleasant evening; it reminded her of similar evenings with Marco Álvarez, her drug-dealing lover in Miami who she had shot dead.
Dinner was served at eight forty-five in a small, informal dining room, also on the second floor of the house. It consisted of a sala
d containing pears and oranges that Caesar said came from his own orchards, an incredible mushroom soup, boneless quail, vegetables from a farm he owned, and a tart decorated with swirls of raspberry like a work of art. Two different kinds of wine were served with dinner, though neither she nor Caesar drank very much.
Two young women cleared the table when they finished dessert, and Caesar asked if she would like a brandy. She said no, maybe later, giving him a look that made it clear she was ready for bed and thinking that by now Caesar must be eager to get her into bed. She did ask if she could use the restroom, and he told her it was just down the hall. She took her purse with her when she went to the restroom. She put one of the long white gloves on her right hand, pulling the material up as high as it would go on her arm, and removed the can of hair spray from her purse.
—
When she returned to the dining room, Caesar was standing, his back to her, looking out at the ocean and the stars. He must have heard her enter the room, the way her high heels struck the hardwood floor, but he didn’t turn to face her. She walked toward him rapidly, the hair spray in her gloved right hand, and when she said, “Caesar,” her voice low and sultry, he turned to look at her, a small smile on his face—and she sprayed him directly in the face with the same drug she used to incapacitate the marshals at Pendleton.
Kay had no idea how much of the chemical was left in the can. Enough, she hoped.
She had no idea if the spray had lost its potency. She hoped not.
She prayed that the long glove on her right hand and arm would protect her from any droplets that might blow back and hit her own skin.
Caesar said, “What did you do?”
He started toward her, then stopped and shut his eyes for a moment, as if he was feeling dizzy—and then swung his right fist at her face. She was able to get her left forearm up in time to block the blow, but it was a hard punch and it struck the bone in her forearm and made her stagger backward. If the punch had hit her face it might have knocked her out. She felt her backside hit the dining room table, turned quickly, and picked up one of the heavy candleholders on the table.
