by Meili Cady
“You hesitated,” Lisette said. “I’m not going to lie. That really hurt me.”
I tried to console Lisette and assured her that her position was not threatened by Ben, and that he understood that she was a permanent fixture in my life.
“You didn’t tell him anything about work, right?” she asked.
“No, nothing,” I said. “He just knows that we fly to the East Coast. I told him that I signed a confidentiality agreement with you.”
Lisette looked satisfied. “Good girl,” she said.
AS OUR TRIPS TO OHIO became more frequent, we developed a familiar routine in Columbus. We usually drove from the private airport straight to a cheap hotel. Frankie, Henry, and I waited in the hotel parking lot while Lisette went into the lobby. Once she had secured a room, we’d meet her at a side entrance, and then the four of us loaded anywhere between ten and seventeen suitcases inside, using a luggage cart. Lisette left the key for the room at the front desk of the hotel. She never said who would be picking up the key and accessing the room, but it was clear that the bags would be collected after we were long gone and settled into another nearby hotel.
We’d stay three nights and four days. I hung out in my pajamas in a hotel room while Lisette went to and from meetings. I never knew details of her meetings, who they were with or what they were concerning.
Though court documents and news articles have since shed light on many areas of LL’s operation, what exactly she did those days in Ohio is still a mystery to me. My guess is that she was meeting with local drug dealers who had connections in the area for distribution.
My only job tasks in Ohio remained doing wire transfers at the bank and grabbing cheap snack food from the front desk for Lisette and me to have on hand when we didn’t go out for dinner, which was more common than not. Once we stepped off the jet, our stays in Ohio were far from fancy. On the evening of the third day of the trip, or sometimes on the morning of the fourth day, Ko and David would bring back some of the suitcases to our hotel room. The bags were always fewer and much, much lighter than when we’d arrived in Columbus. The jet that we chartered from Los Angeles would wait for us at the private airport while we were in town, and once Lisette said that we were ready, we’d return to the airport and fly home with the remaining suitcases.
AS CHRISTMAS NEARED, BEN WENT on a trip to Miami for his winter vacation from UCLA. He texted me from Florida saying that he missed me and wanted to cut his vacation short and come back to L.A. early if I’d be in town. He left after only a few days in Miami.
After I picked Ben up from LAX, we went downtown and walked hand in hand around an outdoor entertainment complex next to the Staples Center. Elaborate Christmas decorations and lights had been put up all around the complex. A large ice-skating rink had been built in the middle of a courtyard, and we stopped to enjoy the simple pleasure of watching skaters glide around on the ice.
We went to dinner at Bottega Louie, a dimly lit Italian restaurant downtown. While we waited for our food, Ben told me that he’d been very curious about what kind of business I was in with Lisette. “You know I can’t talk about it,” I told him, trying to mask my irritation that he kept bringing it up. I didn’t yet know the exact nature of what I was involved in, but I knew not to divulge any details at all to third parties. I suspected Lisette’s whole operation was on the edge, if not over the edge, of legality, and I didn’t want to stir the pot. If she said it was all okay, I wanted to believe her. I’d been nervous enough about everything as it was, and I didn’t need to be thrown into a panic by other people asking probing questions that I didn’t know the answers to. I finally had a job that was working out, and I wanted to keep it that way. No one had ever understood my friendship with Lisette, and I couldn’t expect them to understand my employment with her.
“I know, I know you can’t tell me,” Ben said. “But I had some time on the flight home, so I made a little list of guesses.” He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his jean pocket. He cleared his throat and grinned at me before he began. “Now, these are just some possibilities, based on what I know,” he said. “Okay, here we go.” He settled down in his chair and leaned over the table. “You’re married, and Lisette is flying with you to the East Coast to handle your divorce.” He playfully raised his eyes to gauge my reaction after each guess. “You’re really a call girl. Lisette is your madam, and she pimps you out to international businessmen.”
“Ooh, you’re getting warmer,” I joked.
“Okay, last one,” he said. “Money laundering. I just put that one down because it would explain a lot.” This made me nervous because I suspected that it couldn’t be far off from what we were really doing. I wasn’t sure exactly what would define money laundering, but I knew that serious cash was involved in Lisette’s operation. I didn’t let on that I thought he was close to the truth. I just laughed along with his wild suspicions.
“You’re good at keeping a secret,” he said as he crumpled the list and tucked it back into his jean pocket.
“Well, it’s Lisette’s secret,” I said. “I mean, it’s her business and I know that she wants to keep it private.”
“That’s weird,” Ben said in a more serious tone now, shaking his head as he took a sip of wine.
DURING THIS TIME, LISETTE TOLD me to be ready and available to fly out on a day’s notice. “We’re leaving soon,” she kept saying. Days passed with no work and no money coming in. I spent all my time with Ben. It was like we were addicted to each other. He introduced me to his family. After having dinner with them in Malibu, we visited his mother and stepfather at their gated estate in Calabasas. His stepfather sent us home with six bottles of wine that had been purchased from Lisette’s ex-boyfriend’s wine shop. The day after we visited his parents, Ben said that his mother had given him her approval of me. “She said that you’re beautiful, well-spoken, and smart,” he told me on the phone. “And she said that I’m lucky to have you. Nothing I didn’t already know.”
Lisette maintained that I needed to remain in town for now in case she needed me to work for her. I was frustrated because that was what she’d been saying for some time, and no work had happened. I could have been home celebrating the holidays with my family this entire time, possibly with Ben. He’d said that he wanted to come home with me. My parents were upset that I wouldn’t be using my ticket they’d bought me to fly into Seattle on the eighteenth of December. I’d been planning to use it, but Lisette told me that she needed me to stay in town to be on call for her. “Well, when are you coming home?” my mother asked me. The day before Christmas Eve, my parents had had enough. “You’re coming home, sweetheart,” my mom said. “There is no way that Lisette is going to need you for work between now and Christmas. I’m sure that Lisette’s parents are going to want her home too.” I told Lisette that I was leaving. THAT’S FINE, she texted me. WE’RE FLYING OUT THE FIRST WEEK OF JANUARY. I was incredulous at the thought that she might have let me stay in Los Angeles through Christmas without ever telling me that it was okay to go home. Maybe she was preoccupied with her own agenda running a still-new business, but such callous disregard seemed unusually selfish, even for her.
Ben and I exchanged holiday gifts at my apartment before he took me to the airport to fly home for Christmas. My twenty-fourth birthday was a week away, and he surprised me with an early birthday present. He noticed that the wallet I’d been using was old and tattered, and he replaced it with a brand-new Gucci wallet, made with the smoothest leather I’d ever felt. It was entirely black and had tiny metal circles on the corners. He presented it to me in the signature bronze bag from the store with a gift receipt, which I’d seen in the back of his car for almost two weeks now. “Yeah, I kinda suck at wrapping . . .” he said with a boyish smile as he watched me take the wallet out of the bag.
“It’s beautiful,” I told him, shocked by his thoughtfulness and generosity. “It’s exactly what I would have picked out.”
Ben seemed relieved and said, “I thought so. The sales g
uy on Rodeo was trying to get me to buy a wallet with ‘Gucci’ written all over it, but I told him that’s not your style. I mean, it was the same price, but he just couldn’t believe that you’d want this one instead.” I was stunned by how well Ben knew me after dating me for less than two months. Anyone else would have thought I’d want something emblazoned with flashy logos, but Ben saw that wasn’t me. Lisette had known me for four years, and every purse and piece of jewelry she’d given me had had the name of the designer visible all over it. I’d never had the heart to admit to her that I thought it was tacky. I set the wallet aside on the coffee table and lifted my dress up to straddle my boyfriend where he sat on the couch. “Thank you,” I whispered as I sat down to face him. He leaned in to me for a long kiss, then picked me up and carried me to my bedroom, where we made the most of the last hour we had together before he drove me to the airport.
9
HIGH TIMES
Lisette drove Diablo through the gate of the private airport in Van Nuys, a Tupac song thundering out of her sound system. She whisked through the security kiosk on her way in, nodding a familiar greeting to the guard. I was moments behind her in a limo with Frankie, Henry, and an armada of suitcases. Our driver waved at the security guard as we rolled past the kiosk, but the guard’s attention seemed to be lingering on Lisette and her Bentley. “Team LL” was no doubt an anomaly here, but no one more than LL herself. “This isn’t our first rodeo,” as she liked to say. This was our fifth trip, but the airport employees still gawked at us in wonder every time we flew. I could only imagine what they thought we were up to.
As the limo followed Lisette in, the thought crossed my mind that a person would have to show more ID to rent a pair of roller skates than they would to board a flight here. You can’t drive a two-hundred-thousand-dollar car into a skating rink. If you could, Lisette might be more of a skater.
Lisette parked her Bentley near the plane, as usual, and oversaw as the bags were moved into the plane. I stood by for a moment while Frankie and Henry assisted with the luggage from the limo. I didn’t really have anything I was supposed to be doing here, but I stood around with a straight face, like it all made perfect sense. Two pilots emerged from inside the plane to greet us. We’d flown with these pilots before, though I didn’t recall their names. “Good morning, Miss Lee. Nice to see you. How would you like the bags arranged?” The younger pilot’s eyes drifted down to Lisette’s cleavage, which was bolstered by a push-up bra and a bejeweled top.
The suitcases looked as heavy as ever. Even Frankie, who towered over the group and was built like a redwood, was sweating through his suit as he lifted the bags into the back of the jet. He grunted under his breath, “Goddamn,” as he hoisted a bag over his shoulders to hand it to one of the pilots.
“Angel, go ahead,” Lisette told me. She handed me her purse to take into the cabin.
Inside the plane, I grabbed a cup to pour myself some coffee when a blond woman appeared in a uniform. “Good morning!” she said. “Can I get you some coffee?”
“Hi. Good morning,” I said. “Um, yeah, sure. Er, no! I mean, I can get it. Thanks though, thank you. No, I can do that. No problem.” I poured myself a cup. I wasn’t used to having an attendant on the flight.
The rest of the team boarded the G4 and settled into the cabin, ready for takeoff. Lisette claimed a bench of creamy leather and throw pillows near me, after giving me a hug and announcing her plan to get some rest on our way to Ohio.
The attendant served the catering after we were in the air, complete with champagne from JetSetter. Lisette and I leaned across the aisle to clink champagne flutes for a “cheers” before she disappeared underneath a blanket.
Suddenly I was consumed by a familiar smell. It smelled like marijuana—like a lot of marijuana. It was overwhelming. I felt like I was stuck inside of a flying blunt. Someone must have been smoking on the plane before we boarded today—perhaps some touring musicians had chartered it last, and the smell hadn’t come out yet. I looked to Lisette to share my theory, but she appeared to be knocked out asleep beneath her blanket.
This is too funny. I have to share this with someone.
The flight attendant was headed down the aisle, about to pass me. Maybe she would be able to tell me who’d used the plane last. I caught her attention, and she paused in front of me, leaning down to hear me as I spoke quietly to be careful not to wake Lisette.
“Hey,” I said. “Um, do you . . . smell that?” I was hoping that she’d say something like, “Yes! Snoop Dogg flew with us this morning and he decided to hot box the plane.” Instead, she looked at me with what appeared to be genuine confusion.
“Smell what?” she asked.
“Uh, it kinda smells like . . . marijuana. Do you think that someone was smoking it on the plane, like maybe the last people who flew with it?” She seemed unamused and rather concerned. “Oh. No. I don’t know. Would you like me to turn on the air-conditioning? That might help.”
“Er, no, that’s okay,” I said. “Thanks. It’s fine.”
It occurred to me that the smell could be coming from our group, and that someone was probably carrying a dank dime bag or something. I immediately felt stupid for asking her. I sank into my seat and turned back to look around the cabin. I prayed that no one on Team LL had heard me.
I managed to sleep a little during the flight. Lisette shook me awake before we landed. “Sweetie. Sweetie. Good morning, sunshine. Aw, did you sleep okay? We’re almost there.”
We touched down in Columbus and loaded the suitcases and ourselves into a limo and a black Escalade. Lisette would ride with Frankie in the Escalade. I climbed in next to Henry in the limo, wedging myself against the suitcases that filled the inside of the vehicle. We sat in silence, waiting for Lisette to dispatch her instructions.
I looked at Henry. There was no way that he was the one carrying pot. He’d never smoked it in his life. Frankie? I’d never even seen him drink alcohol. Lisette almost never smoked. I wondered why she wouldn’t tell me if she’d brought some. Wherever she got it, she was packing some powerful plant.
I sat with the door open. Lisette walked over to me. “Where’s your phone? Tell Ko we’re on our way. Get the address.” She went to the Escalade. I texted Ko. He said, OK. WE WILL BE THERE IN AN HOUR, and gave me the address of a local hotel. I passed it along to Lisette. THANKS ANGEL, she wrote back. The Escalade led the way. I decided to wait until we were alone to ask Lisette about the smell.
We drove to the address where Ko had presumably arranged for the bags to be picked up later. Once the luggage was secure in a room, Lisette left a key at the front desk and we headed to another hotel a short distance away.
Lisette checked us into the hotel. She reserved two rooms as usual, one for Frankie and Henry and one for Lisette and me. Frankie walked with Lisette into our room. I went to the bathroom to freshen up and change, then came back in to hear Lisette and Frankie talking. It looked heated, and though I was in the room and could hear everything, I minded my own business. Lisette was boiling over.
“It smelled like a fucking Cypress Hill concert up there,” she said. “We need to take some goddamn precaution. This can’t happen again. The pilots were probably catching a contact high. I swear to God, I was waiting for them to say something.”
Frankie nodded. “Yeah, I mean, I could smell it. It was pretty strong. I was thinkin’, ‘Shit, man, we got a problem.’”
“Next trip we have to be careful,” said Lisette. “We can’t afford to be amateurs.”
Frankie nodded again. “No doubt.”
I tried to busy myself with my luggage, but my heart raced. I realized that I wasn’t moving.
In an attempt to look more natural, I pulled out a sweater and refolded it, hands shaking. Was it possible that all the suitcases we’d been bringing to Ohio had been full of marijuana, and not money that Lisette didn’t care to be moving through a bank account? But I’d seen Ko zipping that suitcase full of money on the second trip. I hadn
’t wanted to see it, but I did. Did that cash go toward paying some drug dealer, in exchange for egregious amounts of pot? I never imagined that Lisette would break away from Samsung to launch a drug operation. This was definitely illegal. How could this not be illegal?
Frankie left. I kept my face to my luggage.
“Babe, what are you doing? I need a fucking drink,” Lisette said.
How was it possible that I’d never smelled it before this morning, on the plane? Who else knew about this?
“Ha. Yeah,” I said. I turned to face her. “I could use a drink too. It’s been a long day.”
She rolled her eyes. “Long day? Babe, honestly, you have the easiest job in the world. If you need me to stop paying you to ride on a private plane and feed you champagne, tell me now.”
There’s no way that Lisette could have believed that I knew about this. She never told me. She just said it was “business.” She intentionally kept me in the dark the whole time, knowing I’d go along with almost anything she asked me to do. Now I knew what had been discussed at all the meetings after she’d told me to step out. There could have at least been some conversation that went like, “Hey, want to smuggle some drugs with me? Because that’s the plan. That cool with you?”
I found myself eerily disturbed that Lisette would knowingly lead me into such a precarious situation. And now that the secret was out, instead of addressing it and making sure I was okay, she made no apologies and looked me straight in the eye as if to challenge me. Her brazen behavior made me uncomfortable and even a little afraid.
“I know that I’m very lucky to be here,” I said, forcing a smile.
“Good,” she said.
Bad. This is bad. Oh God. I’m a drug trafficker. What?! No. This can’t be as bad as I think it is. Lisette must know something that I don’t. She’s in charge. I should just forget I ever heard any of it . . . or smelled any of it. I know that she would never lead me into anything that was actually dangerous. But how could drug trafficking not be dangerous?