Anna-Maria never thought about which parent would approach her with the subject, but when it happened, she knew instinctively that it would be her mother. Men were weak when it came to some things—they much preferred to remain in the dark about ugly things.
Her mother had been circumspect about the subject, but Anna-Maria was smart for her age. She got the picture well-enough, had hit the nail on the head when she exclaimed that El Jefe wanted to have sex with her. She also understood without having a picture drawn for her that her family’s future and her own was about to be radically affected by what came down between her and the country’s leader.
Without specifically stating what needed to be done to get the desired result, her mother told her that if everything went all right, she would go to the finest university in the country, perhaps even to a world-class university in America or Spain, that a brilliant marriage would follow with a leading family of the country. It was a rosy prospect for her, not to mention that her parents would be bailed out of severe financial straits and be rewarded with rich government contracts.
All she had to do was have sexual intercourse with a man four or five times older than herself.
That was how she thought of it when she lay in bed that night after the roundabout, never-get-to-the-point, see-no-evil-speak-no-evil conversation she had with her mother.
She was vain enough to be thrilled that the most powerful man in her country, literally in the whole world, as she knew it, was attracted to her. But the prospect of having sex with the man was scary.
Anna-Maria knew what a penis looked like—she had seen enough of them on little boys who ran naked in yards and on the streets. She had not seen a grown man’s penis and had an inflated notion of what the size of one might be. She also knew how babies were made. As she lay in bed, she spread her legs and cocked them back, trying to imagine what it would feel like to have El Jefe on top of her, his naked penis slipping into the opening between her legs.
No matter how she imagined it, the paunchy dictator of the Dominican Republic looked slightly ridiculous naked.
42
Luz came up to the guard gate at La Fundacíon Enstancia and slowed enough for the guard to recognize her and see that no one else was in the car. She pulled the convertible Thunderbird up to the front of the main house and got out, leaving her keys and her purse in the car. Both were safe on the guarded property of the country’s ruler.
The door was opened for her by an old woman who looked to be approaching the hundred-year mark. She had no idea whether the woman was an old family retainer that Trujillo kept employed out of loyalty or if she was someone he inherited when he took over the ranch. It once occurred to her that the old woman might have been Trujillo’s lover when the dictator was young and the woman middle-aged, but she couldn’t imagine the hunched, shriveled-up old thing being sexual. She hoped that she wouldn’t live to see the day when she was old and hunched herself and people could not imagine a time when she had been sexual.
She permitted the woman to lead her to a suite with a large bathroom done in rose-colored Italian marble. She slipped off her clothes and stepped into the warm bath that was already drawn for her. She lay back in the luxurious bubbles, letting her body relax. A silver goblet filled with a fine Madeira, something to relax her further, was on a tray next to the sunken tub.
After soaking in the bath for half an hour, she cleansed her vagina with a douche, then took a shower, using a shower cap to keep her hair dry. She dried herself off with thick, soft towels of Egyptian cotton.
She applied a musk scent on her body, not putting any on her neck or shoulders because it would conflict with her perfume, and applied the scent liberally to the inside of her thighs.
During the preparation, she was careful not to look at herself in the bathroom’s full length mirror. She used a small mirror to apply a new lipstick that claimed to be smear proof, then combed out her hair. Her hair fell into natural curls, which made it easy to deal with.
On the bed laid out for her were black-lace panties and a black bra. They were gifts of El Jefe and expected to be worn. She slipped into a light black linen shift that would keep her cool during the warm evening.
After applying eye shadow and a touch of color to her cheeks, she slipped on her sandals and once again fiddled with her hair, using a small mirror rather than the full-length one in the room.
She didn’t like perfumes, they tended to give her headaches, but El Jefe had given her a gift of L’Aimant from Paris’s House of Coty, a scent promoted as the “passionate woman’s perfume.” It would have been inexcusable not to have used it. She put a dab of it behind each ear.
When she was done, she looked for a third time in a small mirror to make sure her hair and makeup were perfect.
43
Anna-Maria looked up from where she was seated on the couch when Luz walked into the room. Generalissimo Trujillo had arrived a few minutes earlier. He had told Anna-Maria to sit back down as she stood when he entered the room.
“Relax, little one, you are here to enjoy yourself. We are not formal here at my country estate.”
She couldn’t help being in awe of him, but she found it hard to relax in the presence of the man called the Benefactor. Her entire life had been spent under his rule. From her first day in school, she was taught to sing songs in praise of the great man.
They had engaged in small talk for a few minutes before Luz walked into the room. The generalissimo asked polite questions about her family and school, intimating that he had heard good things about her school activities. The generalissimo oozed so much charm, she found herself relaxing.
She started to get up when Luz walked into the room but Luz waved her back down. Luz kissed the generalissimo on the lips. Anna-Maria had not seen her before, did not know who she was in relation to the generalissimo, but the kiss on the lips told her that the two of them must have a sexual relationship.
For sixteen, Anna-Maria was sexually inexperienced, but she had inherited her mother’s sexual competitiveness with other women. She immediately felt jealousy toward what she considered the “older woman.” Luz was only about ten years older than Anna-Maria, but any woman out of her teens seemed older to her.
She noticed one thing very quickly—her bosom was fuller than the older woman’s. So was her whole figure. Luz was much thinner and even though she had an interesting face, even a sensual one, Anna-Maria had an innocent girl look. The difference was Luz had sexual maturity that made her more exotic than a mere girl.
Trujillo whispered something to Luz and she nodded. The small smile, a saintly smile to Anna-Maria, never left his lips.
Luz went to both doors and locked them while Trujillo kept up a conversation with Anna-Maria about her dancing skills. Anna-Maria’s eyes followed Luz as she went to each door.
After locking the doors Luz came up behind the girl. Anna-Maria thought she was going to sit beside her on the backless couch, but instead she stood behind her. She heard something, a swish of clothes from behind her, but kept her attention on El Jefe, who was speaking to her.
Luz leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Our Benefactor suspects you have a very beautiful body. He would like to see your breasts. May we show them to him?”
She felt a sudden surge of nervousness, but she nodded. She was even pleased that he wanted to see her breasts. Her mother had told her that they were her best assets in pleasing a man. She didn’t know how she was supposed to show them, the palms of her hands had become sweaty from sudden anxiety, but Luz took care of the matter.
Still standing behind the girl, Luz leaned around with her arms in front of Anna-Maria and unbuttoned the roll of buttons that went all the way down to the waist of the dress. Luz spread the top of the dress open, exposing Anna-Maria’s white bra lined with white lace with a thin pink ribbon woven in. She squeezed her breasts. Luz undid the clasp on the front of the bra and pulled it aside, freeing the breasts. She cupped the breasts, holding them up so the Benefac
tor could see them.
“Magnifico,” he said, “truly splendid.” He saluted her by kissing the tips of his fingers.
Anna-Maria noticed that he was rubbing his crotch with his other hand, but no bulge had appeared. She had overheard her mother and father once talk about El Jefe having prostate problems, but she didn’t know what that meant.
With Luz’s hands still cupping her breasts, Luz leaned down again and whispered to her. “El Jefe has had many women during his life, hundreds perhaps. Now he enjoys watching two women. Do you understand?”
“Watching two women?”
Luz sat down beside her, facing opposite her on the backless couch. For the first time, Anna-Maria realized that Luz was no longer wearing the linen shift she had had on. She had taken it off and sat beside her wearing black bra and panties.
Luz used her finger to gently caress the girl’s nipple. It stiffened and hardened under the touch. “I’ll show you what he likes,” she said.
She leaned forward, her lips brushing the girl’s. She kissed Anna-Maria on the cheek and her lips came back over her mouth, circling the mouth with her tongue, going down the side of the her neck, and crept atop the lush mound of the Anna-Maria’s breast, taking the nipple in her mouth and arousing it with her tongue. Anna-Maria felt the sexual stirrings building in her body.
Luz guided her to her feet and pulled the dress off. They sat back down and Luz kissed her lips again, teasing her mouth. Luz undid her own bra, slipped it off and placed Anna-Maria’s hands on her own breasts. She responded by squeezing the breasts, kneading them. Luz guided her breasts into Anna-Maria’s mouth.
Anna-Maria had resolved herself to whatever El Jefe had planned to do to her. She found herself first startled, even shocked by the fondling from a woman, but became more and more aroused as Luz touched her.
Luz pulled off her own panties and then Anna-Maria’s. Standing up, she hugged the girl, bringing the girl hard against her breasts. Luz kissed her passionately, her lips going down to each of the girl’s breasts, wrapping around each nipple. She guided the girl to be seated again and she knelt in front of her and kissed each of her knees. She spread the girl’s legs, and slowly, kissing the inside of the thighs, her lips made their way to the pink between the girl’s legs.
Still sitting, Anna-Maria spread her legs and cocked back her knees as the older woman found a spot in her pink area that she had not realized could give such an electrified sensation when it was caressed by a warm tongue.
Her mouth slightly agape, breathing uneven, she felt sensations that she only felt once before when she had touched herself in bed. She looked over at the Benefactor.
The front of his pants was wet.
There was no bulge.
44
I came home from the tobacco country in a quiet rage. Beating Ramos until he was unconscious had spent my hot rage to kill. Now I had a cold rage to kill. I didn’t doubt Ramos’s information or conclusions. He wasn’t stupid, nor would he have risked bandying around El Jefe’s name. Now I understood Luz’s sudden absences and coolness toward me.
I drove back by myself, thoughts and feelings neoned inside of me like fevers, emotions galloping through me—I hit all the high points, shock, murderous anger, mindless jealousy. One moment I was ready to choke the lies from her and the next I had the impulse to cry at her feet and beg her not to leave me. Begging only lasted momentarily—the thought of her in the arms of Trujillo made me want to puke.
There was just one problem, one tiny doubt that existed in my mind—it just didn’t seem like Luz. She wasn’t a social climber, she wasn’t a bootlicker or someone who would be a sycophant for status or career gain. I don’t think she would be impressed with God. But she was a woman and he was the most powerful man in the country. Hell, he was God as far as she was concerned. He had already been dictator when she was born, and she had gone to school like everyone else singing praises of the great Benefactor.
I had learned long ago that women liked power in a man, masculine energy, financial clout, inter-personal dominance, raw power that is found in politics, entertainment and sports. Men like Rubi, who had a lot of experience dating Hollywood stars, joked that Hollywood was the only place in the world where a short, pudgy middle-aged man could go to bed with a tall, lush blonde. But he was wrong. Women went for powerful men everywhere. Hell, even I was constantly having the make put on me.
The only explanation I could find for Luz’s infidelity was that she somehow became awed by the mystique of Trujillo. Unless she was being forced to service the old bastard to protect her family, but her father, mother and brother were living in Madrid where her father was a distinguished visiting professor at a university.
I called her acts infidelity, and that’s what they were. We weren’t married, but we lived together, professed our love for each other, shared the same bed, understood that we would someday be married when we were both ready.
My gut was raw and boiling as I drove through Ciudad Trujillo and headed for our penthouse. I kept telling myself over and over that I had to hear her out, let her tell me what was going on, and not just launch into brutal recriminations. I felt sick as I approached the building. Loss, loss, loss, that had been the story of my life. I should have known better than to permit myself to love, I should have protected myself better.
I parked in the underground garage. Her white Thunderbird was not there. In some ways it was a relief. I needed to go up and get my bearings, have a drink, sit down and think before I confronted her.
When I entered the penthouse, Rosa, the housekeeper, came into the living room. I could tell from the expression on her face that something was wrong.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“Gone. They came and took her belongings. All of them.”
I felt dead inside.
“Where has she gone?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who came?”
“Government men. SIM.”
Jesus.
“Was she forced?”
“No, señor. No, she directed them in the packing.”
I went into the bedroom. The cosmetics and grooming items on her vanity were gone. I didn’t bother checking the closets—I knew they would be empty.
One thing was odd. The full-length mirror near her vanity was broken.
Rosa came in behind me.
“What happened to the mirror?” I asked.
“Broken, señor, she did it. She smashed the one in the bathroom, too. I don’t know why, can you tell me why?”
I stared at the mirror and shook my head. I had no clue.
“Señor Cutter.”
The voice came from behind me. I turned and faced Johnny Mena.
I hadn’t seen Trujillo’s chief of the SIM since we had met in Havana nearly two years ago. But I had heard plenty about him. He was his master’s dirty tricks thug. I suppose every dictator has a Johnny Mena—Stalin had his Beria, Hitler his Himmler. They needed someone to pull the trigger, spill the blood, spread the terror.
Two SIM agents entered behind him.
“We will wait while you pack,” Johnny Mena said.
“Am I going someplace?”
“Si, señor, you are being asked to leave the country—in lieu of a prison term.”
“What did I do to deserve a prison term?”
Johnny Mena’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “For illegal business activities, of course. The Minister of Economic Development is shocked to discover that you have been paying bribes to public employees.”
“Funny,” I said, “I don’t remember him being too shocked last time we had lunch and I slipped him an envelope full of American dollars.”
45
San Cristóbal Highway, May 30, 1961
Salvador Garcia was nervous—piss-your-pants, shaky-knees, sweaty-palms anxious. He was riding shotgun in a car with a group of men who intended on waylaying the generalissimo’s car as it drove along the coast highway from Ciudad Trujillo to El Jefe’s
country estate near San Cristóbal.
When he was a teenager and got a ride in other boys’ cars, the privileged seat, other than the driver’s seat, was the front seat next to the passenger window. They called occupying that seat “riding shotgun,” adopting the phrase used during the days of stagecoaches when a man with a shotgun rode next to the driver.
Salvador was an unlikely candidate to be involved in a plot to assassinate El Jefe. Salvador was a product of old Dominican Republic money—his family’s ownership of a sugarcane plantation predated the country’s declaration of independence from Spain in 1821. His family managed to stay on the good side of the succession of dictators who ruled the country, literally from the time an occupation by Haiti, which came on the heels of independence, was thrown off.
In terms of the color of his blood, it was blue indeed. From the standpoint of his family, the Trujillos, who had ruled the country for three decades, should have been just a speed-bump in the family’s history, someone they had to pay off and show their support for as they always did.
But Salvador lacked the discretion of his long line of sugarcane planter ancestors. He made the mistake in a moment when he had had too much to drink and started running off at the mouth, calling two of Trujillo’s brother’s pimps because they had been on the take from the prostitution rings in the capital. His father always said he had diarrhea of the mouth, and this time he flushed the family fortunes down the toilet. He couldn’t get labor to harvest his sugarcane crop, but that didn’t really matter—he couldn’t have sold the cane to a processor even if he managed to get it cut.
It was the same story for all the dozen and a half other conspiradors. Each had an ambition stilted, a wrong unredressed, a humiliation suffered, a reversal of fortunes, all at the hands of the Trujillos.
The Betrayers Page 24
