Uptown Thief (12 page)

Marisol was double-checking her figures when her intercom buzzed.

“Yes, Serena?”

“Jeremy VanDyke on line one.”

Marisol's heart began to pound as she picked up. “Mr. VanDyke,” Marisol said. “So glad—”

“This is his assistant,” a woman's voice said. “Hold please.”

Five minutes later, the billionaire came on the line.

“Marisol,” he said. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Jeremy. So lovely to hear from you. Thank you again for your generous donation.”

“My pleasure,” he said. “Your innovation is amazing. You applied some of my strategies in ways no one else could have dreamed up. So impressive.”

“Okay, Jeremy,” she said. “You know it's rocking my world that the most successful man in the country finds my financial innovations impressive.”

“I understand you have some brilliant strategies that involve offering private services as thank-you gifts,” he said.

“Our donors are incredibly generous,” she said. “We like to offer generous tokens of our appreciation.”

“I want in,” he said.

“You're selecting our agency for your foundation?” she asked.

“Unfortunately not,” he said. “The foundation had already made this round of selections.”

“I understand,” Marisol said, although she felt let down. “Thank you so much for taking the time to tell me personally.”

“I'd like to personally experience your financial strategy,” he said. “To see it in action.”

“You mean, a site visit?” Marisol asked.

VanDyke chuckled. “Not exactly. Rather that I'd like to make a donation and get my personal thank-you gift.”

In a measured voice she said, “I'm not sure what you're referring to, Mr. VanDyke.”

“I understand from a colleague that he got a lovely thank-you gift from one of the young women in your employ.”

So VanDyke had heard about their tax break/escort hustle and wanted in on it. No date for Marisol and no pet charity project. She swallowed her disappointment, and shifted into her madam role.

“As a businessman,” Marisol said, “I'm sure you can understand that I'm not in a position to give out any
information
about young women who work for me. Especially if I have no idea who is authorizing the
information
request.”

“Of course,” VanDyke said. He named a state senator, one of their best clients. “He's a close friend and suggested that I contact you.”

Marisol exhaled. “Well, that's different,” she said. “We always like to help friends of friends.”

She set up an appointment for him to meet the girls in a few days—Thursday evening—then signed off.

Eva stuck her head in the office. “Is it true that VanDyke called?”

Marisol motioned for her to shut the door. “The asshole wants an escort.”

“What a letdown,” Eva said.

It was. With VanDyke, she had imagined red carpets, meeting major world movers, and stepping into powerful circles on the arm of a man who could open any door. But then Marisol contrasted that thought with her morning in the supply room with Raul. She'd never been so overwhelmed with sexual yearning—VanDyke certainly didn't have that effect on her.

“I don't know,” Marisol said. “Maybe VanDyke himself wasn't sexy, but his power was.”

As she spoke, the light bulb overhead blew out. Marisol looked up at Eva. “Not a word,” she said and went to get a replacement bulb.

* * *

Later that night, in Washington Heights, Marisol met a Colombian guy. He loved to dance. At the hotel, he turned the clock radio to a salsa station and moved his hips in the rhythm of the song. It infuriated Marisol. He had a faraway smile on his face, and his shoulders swayed as if he'd rather be on a dance floor.

“I need to be on top,” she said in Spanish.

“
Bueno
,” he said.

She towered over him, thrusting her hips so hard he had to fold his elbows above him to protect his head from banging into the headboard.

Her aggression didn't bother him. He smiled up at her and murmured along with the salsa romántica lyrics:

She rolled off him. “Turn off that damn music,” she said.

He shrugged his broad, brown shoulders and complied, but she still couldn't get the feeling she needed. He moved in the same rhythm—the beat clearly still playing in his head. She tried having him move behind her, as well as sitting in the chair.

He went along with everything, stayed hard, didn't complain.

She wanted him to argue, lose his temper, insist. She wanted some kind of resistance. Finally, she climbed on top and rode him fast.

“Slow down,” he told her in Spanish. “I'm getting too close. What about your pleasure?”

Marisol couldn't articulate her frustration. She couldn't tell him he had been too agreeable, too deep in the music. She couldn't find the feeling that she was taking him—

“Controlling him.” Eva's voice leaped into her mind.

She rode him harder, thrusting her hips to push away the thought, the tears that threatened the back of her eyes.

He gasped beneath her, and in the moment when he lay back, eyes closed, neck exposed, she caught the thread of her own orgasm, and rode him past the moment when he began to soften, to a climax of her own.

He pulled out and disposed of the condom in the bathroom. By the time he came back, she was halfway dressed.

He looked surprised, but caught the hint. He dressed and headed out the door with a formal, “
Buenas noches
.”

She stripped her clothes off again and lay in bed. Marisol didn't feel her usual sense of relief, but slowly she fell asleep.

An hour later, she awoke from a suffocating nightmare.

“Just a dream . . .” she told herself.

She pulled the covers tight around her. She turned on the television, paced around the room for a while, and decided to go find a drink.

Walking up and down the dark and quiet streets, she was spoiling for a fight. But no one spoke to her except the convenience store clerk when she bought the bottle of wine.

Back in the hotel, she drank it all and watched an old episode of
The Bionic Woman
.

The dream she passed out into was a version of her recurring nightmare. Her uncle's cramped Lower East Side apartment, her sister 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. In spite of her scrubbing, the smell of mildew and bad plumbing hovered just beneath a chemical rose scent from the 99 Cent Store's all-purpose cleaner.

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 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. She couldn't handle it. In the dream there was always the smell and the feeling of her body crushed under a familiar hated heaviness. But in this particular version of the nightmare, her fifteen-year-old legs moved in slow motion, the
Bionic Woman
soundtrack making all the right noises of superstrength, but not able to push him off. Usually she would have woken up at this point in the dream, but the booze did its own part to hold her down, and the dream eventually morphed into a forest scene where she had to save Cristina from a huge, ferocious bear. Just as she had locked her sister safely in a cabin, she found herself standing in a green botanical garden with the hulking figure of Jerry the pimp.

* * *

Marisol woke up feeling slightly sick to her stomach. Not just from the hangover, but it was an anxious nausea, like she was forgetting something important. The tangle of the dream came back to her. The forest. Jerry. Worrying about her sister. She hadn't been to the botanical garden in twenty years. Since high school.

In the quiet Harlem hotel room, Marisol felt a jolt of recognition as she recalled—over twenty years earlier—meeting Jerry for the first time.

Chapter 12

T
he memory took her back to high school. The knot in her stomach had started around 2 p.m., when their biology teacher led them out of the botanical garden toward the subway.

The school day was when she could relax and laugh with her friend Gladys. On bad days—like if she'd been to the hospital the night before—the school nurse would usually let her doze on a cot. Field trips were the best. She could lose herself in the change of routine.

After ten minutes of walking through the Bronx, they were on a wide street, passing a corner bodega and a check-cashing place. Gladys had worn a short dress with platform shoes, and she complained that her feet hurt.

“Trade shoes with me?” She begged for a chance to wear Marisol's sneakers. “Please. Just back to the train?”

“No way,
tonta
,” Marisol said. “You're the one tryna look cute for these stupid boys, not me.”

“Don't be such a bitch,” Gladys said, gesturing to Marisol's oversized button-down shirt and jeans. “With your
tetas
and
nalgas
you can wear a fucking tent and these boys are all over you. Some of us gotta try a little harder.”

“I wouldn't mind if Marisol tried a little harder,” one boy said. “I wouldn't mind if she made it a little harder.” He rubbed his crotch.

“
Por qué?
” Marisol asked. “So I could be like, ‘I don't feel nothing. Oh wait. It's kinda like being poked with a toothpick.'”

“Fuck you,
puta
. I got something for you.” He raised a middle finger at her.

Marisol flipped him the bird right back. “Fuck you?” she said, then retracted her middle finger and extended her pinkie. “Isn't this more scientifically accurate?”

A few of the kids cracked up.

“Mr. De Guzman,” the teacher said sternly. “Please join me at the front of the line or get detention.” He turned to Marisol. “And Miss Rivera, you might focus more on scientific accuracy on your next test.”

Gladys laughed and threw an arm around Marisol. “You told De Guzman's skinny ass.”

As they arrived at the subway station, however, the laugh evaporated in Marisol's throat. There was some problem with the train.

“Hey, guys,” the teacher called. “We'll have to walk to another station. I'll have the secretary call to tell your parents we'll be late.”

Not with Cristina at home, letting herself in with her key around three thirty, and her uncle getting off work at five thirty. The field trip was already a risk getting her home around five. He sometimes came home early.

Marisol hustled up to the front of the line. “I can't be late,” she told the teacher. “I gotta take care of my little sister.”

De Guzman grabbed her ass, and she elbowed him hard in the ribs, but didn't turn around.

“I don't know what to tell you,” the teacher said. “It's not like I have a car.”

“Can you loan me cab fare?”

“To the Lower East Side?” he asked. “At rush hour? Do you know what that costs?”

“I don't care,” she said. “I'll pay you back.”

“I don't have that kind of cash, Miss Rivera. Please get back in line.”

An SUV went by, blasting hip-hop, and a guy leaned out of the passenger side, making a kissing sound in their direction.

Marisol went back to Gladys. “Gimme those platforms,” she said.

As the two girls traded shoes, they fell to the end of the line. Then Marisol pulled out her ponytail holder, and shook out her hair. She tied the oversized shirt around her narrow waist and undid several buttons.

“
Eso!
” said one of the boys. “Finally, Marisol showing what she got. Ass for days!”

“Can you please get your fat
nalgas
outta my boyfriend's face?” the girl on his arm asked.

Marisol ignored them. She turned to the cars coming toward them on the broad street, and stuck out her thumb, pointing downtown.

“What the hell are you doing?” Gladys asked.

“Getting home on time.”

She turned back to the street with a wide smile. They walked a block with cars speeding past. Finally, a beat-up black Datsun pulled up with a Puerto Rican flag hanging from the rearview mirror.

“Looking good,
mami
.” The curly-haired young man smiled at her appreciatively. He might have been in high school, as well. She advanced toward the car.

Horns honked behind them. Gladys stood on the curb in Marisol's sneakers just out of earshot, her arms folded across her chest.

Behind the passenger, the driver leaned toward her. His face was partially obscured. He had paler skin, and was maybe a bit older, with a scraggly goatee.

“Need a ride, lil' girl?” he asked. She drew back from his creepy come-on and squinted into the car. She could barely see hard dark eyes under the brim of a baseball cap, pulled low.

She hesitated at that face, but then looked at her watch. “Yeah,” she said. “To the Lower East Side. You going that way?”

“I could be,” the driver said. “How about a ride for a ride?” he asked, jutting his chin toward her hips and pressing the tip of his tongue to his upper lip.

The passenger turned to the driver and said in Spanish, “Come on, Jay, be a gentleman.”

Jay shook his head. “Nobody rides free.”

“Fine,” she said. “I'll give you a blow job.”

“Only if you get your friend to do my cousin,” he said, indicating Gladys.

The cousin looked stricken. “I'm not in this,” he said.

“She's not in this, either,” Marisol said. “If that's your price, I'll do both of you.”

The driver agreed, but the cousin shook his head.

“First the ride,” she insisted, and reached for the door handle.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Gladys yelled from the curb, as Marisol climbed into the backseat of the car.

“Tell the teacher I saw someone I knew,” she called back, just before the Datsun took off down the street.

“What are you?” the driver asked his cousin. “A faggot?”

Jay drove fast and recklessly, baiting the cousin the whole time.

“Maybe you'd let a boy suck your dick, huh?”

Marisol kept her hand gripped on the door handle, ready to bail out.

The cousin stayed silent.

Once they hit her neighborhood, she directed them to drive into an alley.

Without ceremony, she went down on Jay beside a dumpster, kneeling on the concrete in her jeans. Afterward, she started on the cousin, but he couldn't seem to get an erection. She glanced down at her watch: 5:26. Startled by the time, she bit down anxiously and the cousin gave a brief howl of pain.

Marisol wasn't sure how to apologize. She didn't want to piss him off.

Unexpectedly, Jay said, “Feels good, huh?”

“Yeah.” The cousin gave a moan of feigned pleasure.

He and Marisol made a split second of eye contact, then the two of them began to work together. He moaned more and moved faster. She made gagging sounds, although his penis was soft in her mouth.

“Eso!”
Jay said, as if cheering an athletic event. “Bang it right in her face!”

After a few moments, the cousin faked ejaculation, then quickly zipped his fly over his flaccid penis.

Marisol shook his hand off the back of her head, and made a big show of spitting, as she turned to run the six blocks home.

After a quarter mile, she stopped at a red light. Her chest burned and she could feel raw blisters on her feet in the cheap, pinching shoes, a size too small. She looked at her watch. 5:37. When the light changed, she began to sprint. At home, she shoved the shoes under her bed so her uncle wouldn't call her a slut.

By the time he walked in the door at 6:03, Cristina was no longer hysterical, and Marisol was gargling with Scope for the fifth time, feeling the alcohol and camphor mint burn in the back of her throat.