by Aya De León
“Hola nena,” Marisol said brightly. “How are you settling in?”
Dulce shrugged. “The usual. My family’s exactly the same. But it’s good to be home, I guess.”
“Feel free to come by the clinic if you need a break,” Marisol said. “Tyesha can always put you to work as a volunteer.”
“I might just do that,” Dulce said.
“Speaking of work,” Marisol said, “can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“You know that guy,” Marisol began. “That businessman Gerard who you spent time with in PR?”
“The one who’s ripping off the community?” Dulce asked.
“That’s the one,” Marisol said. “I know some girls in Puerto Rico who are looking for a sugar daddy.”
“How can you even consider that?” Dulce asked. “He’s totally pimping la gente.”
“Excuse me?” Marisol said, an edge to her voice. “These girls are just doing what they gotta do to survive. You of all people should understand that.”
“I’m sorry,” Dulce said. “Yeah, you looking for a reference? He was okay. Nothing kinky. Didn’t even like to fuck that much, just for me to act like I was so hot for him all the time. Also, tell them not to wear their best shit, because he likes to rip things off. And then he’d buy me new clothes. But he never gave cash. Just room and board. And he bought fancy things for me. I got a cash hustle going later, but that wouldn’t work now. Not since the hurricane.”
“Thanks, Dulce,” Marisol said. “Do you have a private number for him?”
“Claro,” Dulce said. “I can text it to you.”
“No need,” Marisol said. “Can you just read it off to me?”
“Sure,” Dulce said. “Hold on.” She pulled up her contacts and read off the number.
“Gracias, amor,” Marisol said.
“De nada.”
* * *
An hour later, the crew was in Tyesha’s office again, gathered around the speakerphone.
Jody was talking into the mic. The saccharine voice didn’t go with her spiked buzz cut or her muscle t-shirt.
“Oh, Mr. Gerard, I’m so glad to have caught you before you left New York,” Jody was saying. “I was hoping I could meet you in person for a drink. I think my family would be very interested in donating to your cause . . . Tomorrow at the La Fleur Hotel. Of course I know it. Happy hour? . . . Perfect.”
“Sometimes the white girls get the dirty jobs,” Kim said with a smirk.
“I have some bad news for you,” Marisol said. “We need you to do the real dirty work.”
“What? Fucking him?” Kim asked.
Marisol nodded.
“If he was Dulce’s sugar daddy, then he likes Latinas with big asses,” Kim protested. “Sounds like a job for you, Marisol.”
“Nope,” she said. “Not only have I met him, but he knows someone who can trace me. Besides, he likes young women. Even his wife is in her twenties.”
“Tyesha’s younger than me,” Kim said. “And has much more ass.”
“Tyesha has a grant proposal due.”
“Serena . . . ?”
“Will be busy working her computer magic,” Serena said, referring to herself in the third person. “And has less ass than you, anyway.”
“I want combat pay for this,” Kim said.
“Done,” Marisol said.
Kim screwed up her face. “I enjoyed being a well-paid ho. But I’ve really enjoyed being a retired ho. I’m only doing this for the cause.”
“Nobody knows like me what a drag it is to come out of retirement,” Marisol said. “How can I sweeten the deal?”
“Give me and Jody a hotel room for the night?” Kim asked.
“Okay,” Marisol said. “But on another floor. He can’t see either of you after the hit. And especially not together. No one can.”
“So I guess we’ll have to sleep over,” Kim said. “And order room service til after he leaves.”
“Damn,” Tyesha said. “How did they end up having hotel sex, and I’m stuck in the office working on a grant proposal?”
“The cost to be the boss,” Marisol said.
“Please,” Kim said, cutting her eyes at Tyesha. “Weren’t you and your man Woof just at some hotel in London? Like you didn’t have hotel sex.”
“We totally did,” Tyesha said with a grin.
“Come on, ladies,” Serena said. “Time to focus.”
“Yes,” Marisol said. “So for the specs on the hotel . . . The La Fleur has wall safes.”
“Aren’t those safes digital?” Serena asked.
“Nope,” Marisol said. “They have a custom line of superlative safes. The combination gets reset with each new guest.”
“So the safecracking is old school?” Serena asked.
Marisol nodded. “Fortunately for us.”
“But why would he be getting the donations in cash?” Tyesha asked.
“He won’t,” Marisol said. “But the hotel encourages their patrons to keep valuables—especially laptops—in the safe.”
“Do you have any idea how much security there is on that kind of account?” Serena said.
“I do,” Marisol said. “Which is why we need Jody to get the donor info, and then Kim to get us access to his hotel room. If we hack into the account from his laptop, it won’t raise a red flag.”
“That’s assuming I can hack my way in,” Serena said.
“If we time it right, you’ll have hours to work,” Marisol said.
“I’d be more confident if we had a couple days,” Serena said.
“Well we don’t have that kind of time,” Marisol said. “So hack fast.”
* * *
The hotel La Fleur had loomed in Marisol’s memory since she was a little girl. She recalled stopping in there one day when her mother was pregnant with Cristina. Marisol rarely got to spend time with her mom, who worked long hours as a custodian. Cristina’s soon-to-be father was still living with them. He wouldn’t leave until a few months after Cristina was born. Marisol’s mom was glowing with pregnancy and the love of what she thought was a good man.
Marisol wasn’t nearly as happy. Everything those days was about the baby. And while her mother was completely in love with the boyfriend, Marisol had her reservations. But this day was special. Someone at work had given her mother a gift certificate to an upscale baby store, and they’d come into midtown Manhattan to redeem it. She’d selected a gorgeous changing table and baby bureau set that would be delivered to their apartment. Afterwards, she and Marisol had gotten an ice cream soda float. Marisol was buzzing from the sugar and just getting to spend time with her mother. She didn’t even notice until they were nearly at the subway that she had to pee.
“I asked if you had to go at the ice cream place,” her mother had said irritably. “You’ll have to wait until we get home.”
“They gotta have a toilet in there,” Marisol had pointed to the La Fleur Hotel. It was such a big building, with people going in and out, certainly there would be a baño inside.
“That place is for rich people,” her mother had told her in Spanish.
“I can’t hold it,” Marisol had said.
“Coño, mija,” her mother had cursed, but then had taken a deep breath.
“Okay,” she told Marisol in Spanish. “We’re going to stand up very straight. We’re going to walk in like we live there. You’re not going to look around at everything.”
Marisol nodded, her eyes drifting to the door of this building so special you weren’t even supposed to look around inside.
Her mother put a hand under her chin and turned her head back so their eyes met.
“Keep looking straight forward and don’t turn your head, you got that?” she asked.
Marisol nodded.
Her mother took off the scarf she had over her head and shook out her hair. Then she took off the shabby coat and folded it over her arm. “The bathroom is just for the people who live here, and we don’t live he
re,” her mother said.
“Because they only have one bathroom?” Marisol asked, wondering if it was the same as their apartment.
Marisol’s mother laughed. “No, mi amor. Because . . . because they’re rich. Rich people always have more bathrooms than they need, but they don’t like to be very close to anyone.”
“I have to go really bad,” Marisol said, on the verge of tears. She and her mother had split the root beer float, but Marisol had drunk all the soda.
“We’re going to pretend we live here. We’re going to pretend we know where the bathroom is. Just follow me.” She ran her fingers through Marisol’s unruly hair. “We can’t ask anyone, because we don’t want to make them mad, okay?”
“Okay.”
Her mother crossed herself. She never went to church, but she genuflected when she was worried. “It’ll be okay, nena. It’s an adventure.”
Marisol always thought of this as her first midtown theft. The unauthorized use of a four-star hotel toilet at the age of six.
* * *
Later that afternoon, the team fussed around Jody, making her exterior match the saccharine voice. Long blonde hair, full makeup, and a blue dress with just enough cleavage to dazzle a man, but still within the range of Tri-State-Area WASP.
The Jody that walked into the La Fleur was a totally transformed woman. The spiky hair gone. The muscles camouflaged under a lacy sweater. The taut neck muscles hidden under the long straight blonde hair. Her bright lipstick and dark, falsely lashed eyes marking conventional femininity.
Kim sat further down the bar, with extensions woven in at the nape of her neck, taking her hair from shoulder-length to glam. When Kim had been working, she’d just kept it long, so she wasn’t used to the glue that held it in place for the rush job Tyesha had done. She scratched at the back of her scalp with the black plastic stirrer from her drink.
Gerard walked in exactly on time. He was clean shaven and wearing an expensive suit.
Jody gave a dainty little wave from the bar, and Kim nearly spit out her drink.
“Mr. Gerard,” Jody said, over the sound of Kim coughing to cover her laughter. “So good to meet you.”
“Please,” he said. “Call me Phillip.”
“I am so thankful to your organization for getting involved in such a messy situation,” she said. “I really feel for these poor people. When I found out that they’re American citizens? That changes everything.”
“I believe, as a nation, we should take care of our own,” Gerard said. He handed her a brochure with several brown-skinned people wading through chest-deep water in rural Puerto Rico.
“Let me get right to it,” she said. “My family would like to give $20,000.”
“Wonderful,” he said. “So generous. Would you like to write the check now, or shall we send—”
Jody laughed. “A check?” she asked. “What? You think I’m going to write a check? Is this 1996? The Honeywells wire money. I just need your account number. This is tax deductible, of course?”
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.” He was a bit flustered. “Let me just—I need to find—”
“I see you weren’t quite prepared,” she said. She stood to go, and reached into her purse. “Let me give you a card for my family’s foundation. There’s a January deadline for grant proposals—”
“No, I assure you Ms. Honeywell,” he said. “We accept wire transfers. I just need to find my ledger.”
He found it in the briefcase and gave her the account number.
Jody smiled as she took the slip of paper. “I’ll send the donation today,” she said.
“Thank you,” he said. “Please convey my thanks to your entire family.”
“I certainly will,” Jody said.
He watched her walk out. Her hips switching back and forth on tall stilettos.
When he turned back to the bar to order a drink, he saw the Asian woman had moved next to him.
“Excuse me,” she said. “There’s a creepy guy over there who won’t leave me alone. Can I tell him you’re my boyfriend?”
Gerard raised his eyebrows. “You really expect anyone to believe a young, beautiful woman like you would be with an old guy like me?”
Kim giggled. “This is New York. Anything’s possible. Besides, don’t sell yourself short. You’re an attractive guy. And this is a very nice suit.”
* * *
Apparently, Gerard only ripped up the dresses he had paid for. Kim was a hookup, not a sugar baby, so he let her take off her own dress. Kim had the sedative on her areolas. She didn’t kiss clients, and he wasn’t the type to go down on her. Besides, the drug would knock her out if it was on her own mucous membranes.
Sure enough, when she did the dramatic unhook of her bra, he took a moment to lick each nipple before the penetration.
She had picked the fast-acting stuff. Which was perfect because he didn’t last long. Fifteen minutes later, he had climaxed and was knocked out.
Kim sent a text, and two minutes later, there was a discreet tap at the door. Kim opened it, and Marisol and Serena slipped in.
Marisol pulled a stethoscope from her pocket.
“Safe’s over here,” Kim said, and pulled aside the portrait behind the mini bar.
Marisol was used to working alone. She wasn’t accustomed to having an audience, but Kim and Serena sat watching from the couch in the suite’s living room.
As Marisol put on the latex gloves, she felt almost shy. No matter how many safes she opened, she always had a twinge of insecurity that this next one would be the one that bested her. Still, she had trained Kim to open a Superlative. She should think of the other two women as backup instead of critics.
She had a ritual, she always did. It seemed silly with people watching, but it was her talisman. She turned her body toward the wall so they couldn’t see as she tapped twice on the door of the safe. Then she put her stethoscope to the door and slowly turned the dial. The pads of her fingers pressed against the serrated surface of the metal. She turned it carefully to the right, then left, then right again. She glanced over her shoulder and saw them watching, and it distracted her.
She started over, this time with her eyes closed, and tapped twice again. She listened for the safe’s three-click reply. She relied on the ritual of the two-beat/three-beat call and response in clave rhythm to guide her dance with the safe.
This second time, she cracked it, and when she swung the door open, she turned to her team and did a deep curtsey.
The two women clapped.
Marisol stood up and took the laptop out of the safe. When Serena took the laptop, Marisol handed her a second pair of latex gloves.
“Do I really need to hang around?” Kim asked.
“In case he wakes up,” Marisol said.
“As long as I don’t have to service him again,” Kim said.
“Service him? Give him another dose of whatever it was? Knock him over the head with a brick? I don’t care,” Marisol said. “Just as long as he’s unconscious until after we’re done.”
“I gave him plenty,” Kim said. “He ought to sleep through the night.”
As Serena began to work on Gerard’s laptop, Marisol unloaded all the small bottles of liquor from the minibar.
“What are you doing?” Kim asked.
“I want him to think you all had a much bigger party,” Marisol said. “It’ll explain his headache in the morning.”
Marisol began to pour one of the bottles down the sink.
“Wait a minute!” Kim said, snatching it from her.
“What?” Marisol asked. “We can’t drink it. We need to be sharp.”
“How you gonna throw out free booze?” Kim asked. She emptied her water bottle and filled it with liquor.
“Marisol, can you come here?” Serena asked from the living room.
Marisol walked back out of the bathroom. “What’s up?”
“He has an extra level of security on this account,” Serena said. “What do we know about
him?”
“Not much,” Marisol said. “Kim, can you look in his wallet to see if we have names of kids or pets?”
“I have reason to believe,” Serena said, “that it is a seven or eight-letter word, beginning with S.”
Kim flipped through the wallet. “Not much cash . . .” she reported. “Lots of credit cards.”
“Symphony?” Marisol asked.
“No luck,” Serena said. “I also tried ‘serenade.’”
“Sympathy would fit,” Kim said. “But I don’t think he’s the sympathetic type.”
“Pictures of the wife?” Marisol asked. “Kids?”
“Nope.”
“Sidecar?” Serena asked.
“Sidechick?” Kim asked.
“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” Marisol said.
“It’s been a long day,” Kim said. “I’m getting punchy.”
“Anything else in his pockets?” Marisol asked.
“Speaking of side chicks,” Kim said. “I think you need to call Dulce.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea—”
“You don’t have to tell her what it’s for,” Serena said. “But we’re not gonna get in here if we don’t get this password. I can’t just keep trying. Two more tries and I’ll be locked out.”
Reluctantly, Marisol dialed Dulce on her cell phone.
“Marisol,” Dulce said. “What’s up?”
Marisol felt something she rarely felt: awkward and unsure. “I was calling to check in on you,” she said. “Actually, I was hoping to take you to lunch tomorrow. You busy?”
“I am the opposite of busy,” Dulce said. “I’d love to.”
“Great,” Marisol said. “Meet me at the clinic at noon?”
“It’s a date,” Dulce said.
“Oh, while I have you on the line,” Marisol said. “I had a random question.”
“Ask me,” Dulce said.
“That businessman you . . . dated,” Marisol said. “Was his wife’s name Siobhan?”
“No,” Dulce said. “I think it was Julianne.”
“So strange,” Marisol said. “Some S-name associated with him. Maybe one of his kids?”
“He doesn’t have kids,” Dulce said. “Just a dog.”
“The dog’s name isn’t Siobhan,” Marisol said with a laugh. “Is it?”
