The First Lady Escapes

by Verity Speeks

  Phil had tailed the school van to the Hotel Paraiso. When the van arrived, he could see from the frown on Natalia’s face that it was far from her idea of paradise. He parked his car in the Chevron station across the street. From there he shot photos of Natalia nervously sitting in the van while Angel checked with the receptionist at the desk in the lobby. When they walked around the hotel to the swimming pool, he climbed out of his car and tailed them to a bluff overlooking the beach. He stayed far enough behind so that if either Natalia or Angel turned around they wouldn’t be able to ID him. Natalia had seemed preoccupied, searching the beach below for someone that he could only imagine. Angel was looking around nervously too, perhaps for a mystery person of his own. Phil hid behind a stack of aluminum chaise lounges south of the pool. From there he had a clear view of Angel and Natalia and the beach below.

  From his hiding place, he had snapped photos of Natalia’s beautiful face—he saw anguish, fear, and disappointment—as she searched the beach for someone. Then Angel joined her on the bluff with a tall, thin Mexican man about his age. From their warm, but tentative, body language, he guessed that the two men once had been lovers.

  Soon Phil had captured Natalia’s face lighting up as she spotted her “someone” on the beach below. From that point on, he had clicked shot after shot of Natalia: climbing down the rickety wooden stairway to the beach; ditching her sunglasses, sombrero, and Target bag to dash across the sand; and falling into the arms of a tall, handsome man about her age in jogging shorts.

  After taking photos of Natalia’s heart-mole shot, Phil realized that she and her ponytailed lover were about to have sex on the beach. He squirmed. He had only had sex with women a few times. The encounters occurred because his paparazzi pals dared him to try Tinder. He considered them embarrassing “accidents” that he preferred to forget.

  In the mounting darkness, he knew that his telephoto lens soon would lose its clarity. He quickly snapped more photos: the creamy flesh of Natalia’s breasts as her lover unbuttoned her blouse; his muscular back as she pulled off his shirt. Phil hesitated. Could he really photograph the woman who had enchanted him, the woman with whom he was obsessed, in the act of love?

  I’m not a pornographer, he told himself. This is beyond the realm of a paparazzo. This is filth.

  He clicked off his camera and climbed back up to the bluff. That’s when he spotted Angel and his friend walking his way. He scrambled back down the cliff to the beach before they could see him. He would decide what to do next, and shoot next, tomorrow.

  High on a cliff, just north of El Paraiso Hotel, Rosa stood on a white-marble terrace looking through night-vision binoculars. For the past thirty minutes, she had been watching the First Lady and a hunky guy with a ponytail make passionate love on the beach below.

  “He’s so hot!” she said.

  “So’s the First Lady,” said Maria, who was watching them through night-vision binoculars beside her. “Too bad they don’t seem in the mood for a threesome.”

  “Or a foursome.”

  The last wisps of purple on the horizon were fading to black. Through her night-vision binoculars, Rosa watched as the couple got dressed and walked hand-in-hand across the beach to the hotel. She put her night-vision binoculars on a patio table, buttoned the black North Face puffer vest she was wearing over her T-shirt, and picked up her iPhone. She checked the photo she had taken of the People article that she and Maria found in the backpack of the gringo moron they had robbed last night. She also checked the iPhone photos that she had taken of the pictures they found in his backpack: the gay Mexican hairdresser; the First Lady of the United States; and the Facebook page for a rock band in Prague called Zlatorog and the Dragons. It was hard to tell for sure—seeing a man through night-vision binoculars wasn’t as accurate as seeing him in the flesh—but Rosa had a hunch that the hot guitarist was the guy the First Lady was fucking on the beach.

  This morning, Rosa and Maria had showed the photos they took last night to their boss-slash-pimp, Fernando. He didn’t get it. At six-foot-three, the tallest Mexican Rosa had ever seen, Fernando was as strong as a bull, but as dumb as a jackass. Too much cocaine, one of the dangers of the biz, she thought. Once they explained the situation to him, and what it could mean for their boss, Fernando was stoked. He let them keep the hundred dollars, puffer vest, and Ray-Bans that they had ripped off from the gringo. “Keep watching the beach,” Fernando told them. “When you find something more about the maricón hairdresser and his famous client, then we’ll tell Dionisio.”

  Sensing the darkness, the security lights along the perimeter of the white mansion that Dionisio had built for himself automatically switched on. Too bad Dio isn’t here so we can tell him in person what we saw tonight, she thought. But Dionissio was in hiding. It wasn’t just the Mexican government that was after his ass. The Gulf Cartel, the Juarez Cartel, and every other powerful Mexican drug cartel wanted him dead so that they could move in on his Baja Cartel territory. But Rosa fucked Dio from time to time. She knew that he was smarter than they were. Okay, he sucked in bed, but he had TVs in his bedroom tuned to CNBC. To get a hard-on, he watched the stock market. She wondered how big a reward he would give her and Maria for their information. And what he would do with it.

  “Chica,” she said to Maria, who was wearing the gringo’s Ray-Bans and watching a Beyoncé music video on her iPhone. Maria pulled out one of her earbuds and looked at her. “We gotta be checking the beach when the sun comes up tomorrow. Let’s hit the sack.” Maria nodded.

  They walked across the terrace and into the mansion. Fernando and three Baja Cartel toughs as big as he was were lounging on red leather sofas in what Dionisio called the “play room.” It had black marble floors and shiny black-lacquered walls, two pool tables, and a wall full of video-game machines. She knew that their job was to hang out here and make sure none of Dio’s rivals broke in. They were smoking Cuban cigars and watching The Godfather on a theater-sized video screen, as if they owned the place. They ignored the girls as they walked past.

  “Fernando said we could sleep in Dio’s room tonight,” whispered Maria. “Sort of a reward.”

  “Que chido!” She followed her down a hall and into a room that was big as the play room, but white from top to bottom. They flopped down on the round waterbed covered with a white sheepskin bedspread.

  “Y’know the best part about sleeping in Dio’s bed tonight?” said Rosa. “No Dio!”

  “No pendejos, period! Fernando promised.” Maria got up and walked over to the door. “Another reward for last night,” she said, locking it.

  Chapter 47

  Rosarito Beach, MX

  December 19, 8:00 p.m.

  Phil walked into the musty motel room and flicked on the light switch. Nothing happened. Leaving the door open to let in the glow of a streetlight outside, he made his way over to the nightstand and turned on the lamp. With its threadbare carpeting and peeling paint, the room was so shabby that Phil realized the dim yellow light was all he wanted. He dumped his camera bag and backpack on the bed and sprawled beside them.

  The mattress sagged under his weight and the springs creaked. For $15 a night, what did he expect? He couldn’t exactly afford a room with an ocean view and he didn’t need a TV. El Mar Azul had what he needed most tonight: It was located across the street from El Paraiso, where Natalia and her lover were spending the night. He had watched them through his 600mm lens as they entered their room. They were kissing passionately and tearing at each other’s clothes before they even closed the door.

  All Phil wanted to do now was upload today’s photos to his laptop, recharge his camera, and get a burger to eat in the dingy cafe downstairs. Then he’d scrub off the dust and the sweat in the mold-stained shower and crash. He hoped this wasn’t one of those cheap TJ motels he’d seen in movies where hookers scam johns. The last thing he wanted tonight was to be kept awake by the sound of the bed next door slamming against his wall and fake female screams of pleasure. He needed
to be rested in the morning so that he could snap more photos of the First Lady and her lover. He didn’t think that they would be up and at ’em at the crack of dawn. Just in case, he planned to be.

  Phil reached into his backpack and pulled out the plastic water bottle he bought this morning at Starbuck’s. No surprise that it was empty. He was lightheaded from dehydration, but he didn’t dare refill the bottle with tap water. His googling had yielded the fact that drinking tap water in Mexico can lead to a case of the runs. Another “never in Mexico” warning on Google said not to leave valuables in your hotel room. Impulsively, he stood up, slung his backpack and camera case over his shoulder, and walked out.

  The cafe downstairs didn’t have an ocean view, but it had a TV. Phil took a seat on a bar stool within viewing distance. He was surprised to see that it was tuned to FOX News. With all the bad blood that Rex Funck had stirred up between the United States and Mexico, he couldn’t imagine why Mexicans would watch the American President’s favorite TV channel. The bartender, a young Mexican with slicked-back hair and a gold earring, explained the reason: “Most of our customers are gringos and FOX is the only station we get because our satellite dish was ripped off.”

  Phil ordered a burger, well done, no lettuce or tomato. Undercooked meat and fresh vegetables were additional Mexican “no-no’s” on his Google list. He didn’t trust Coke from a dispenser, but the bartender had Coke in a can, along with a bottle of Coke-owned Dasani purified water. Phil asked the bartender to let him pop the Coke can and open the Dasani bottle himself. From his raised eyebrow, the bartender no doubt had received this request from other wary Americans. Phil bought an extra six-pack of Dasani water for tomorrow.

  On FOX News, a young blonde newscaster was talking to Gus Banks, a balding newscaster Phil had seen in a Washington Post photo of the President golfing with friends. They were discussing the First Couple’s visit today to the hospice ward of Georgetown Hospital. “The way the President reacted to shaking hands with a young hospice patient today has become a hot meme on the internet,” said the blonde. “Let’s take a look.”

  The camera focused in on a short, speeded-up video of President Funck, his eyes wide in seeming panic, shaking hands with a sick, slumped-over bald patient, then quickly pulling his hand back, as if it had been zapped with electricity. The video repeated, forward and then backward, so that it looked as if the President’s hand was jerking first into, and then out of, the patient’s hand. Standing beside him in the video, the First Lady broke into a grin, and then out of it, and then into it again, as the meme repeated. Phil noticed that the First Lady grinned when the President pulled his hand away from the patient, not when he shook hands with him. It was as if the “zapped hand” part of President Funck’s handshake was the one she liked best.

  Phil knew that the First Lady was really Moon Kusnetzov. He wondered if the President had figured it out. If he knew about Moon, the President also knew that the real First Lady was missing. But there was no mention of it on FOX News.

  Phil watched as Gus Banks proceeded to explain away the President’s unease at the hospital. “President Funck has been under a lot of pressure lately,” he said. The newscaster licked his lips, a sure sign, Phil had read, that the next thing out of his mouth would be a lie. “I’m sure that jerky movement was just an involuntary muscle spasm. It happened one time when we were playing golf at Beau Rivage. And y’know what? Right after that, the President hit a hole in one!”

  “Yo, I heard you talking to the bartender in English.” A tall man in his mid-thirties, with a buzz cut, a sweat-stained white shirt, and a backpack, was nursing a Corona a few stools away. “You’re American, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mind if I ask you something?”

  “I guess not.” Phil didn’t want to deal with questions tonight. He hoped the guy would make it quick.

  The man took his Corona bottle with him as he slid onto the bar stool next to Phil’s. “So, my name’s…”—he licked his lips—“John.” He extended his hand. Phil shook it, figuring that the lip licking meant “John” wasn’t his real name. Two can play at this game, he thought.

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Bob,” said Phil.

  “So, like, I’m kinda looking for this dude, and I wonder if you seen him.” John leaned closer to Phil, so close that Phil could smell his bar breath. The Corona was definitely not the first beer John had drunk tonight. Looking at John close up, Phil felt a cold awareness creep over him: He had seen him before.

  “It’s like, y’see, well, I mean, you look like a nice guy, Bob, an honest guy, so I’m just gonna tell you…” He licked his lips twice, like a dog eying a steak. “I think this dude is fucking my wife.”

  “Oh,” said Phil. He wasn’t sure whether to say, “I’m sorry” or not. His mind was scrambling to figure out where he had seen John before.

  “Yeah, the truth is… I might as well just say it, right?” More lip licking. “I think maybe this asshole and my wife took off together. I mean, she told me she was going to her sister’s, but she fucking hates her sister, so, like, I think she’s with this guy. She knows him from work. Dude, I just want to catch up with them. It’s not like I’m out to hurt them or nothing. Seriously. All I want is to know for sure.”

  Phil guessed that the guy’s story was pure bullshit, but he wondered where it would lead. “You got a picture of the guy?”

  “Yeah, maybe you seen him today. I think she said she and her sister were going to Rosarito Beach, so like, y’know…” John rummaged in his backpack and pulled out a printout of a Facebook page. Before Phil could see all of it, John carefully ripped the paper and handed Phil the photo of a guitarist with a ponytail. In mid-song, his mouth was wide and his eyes were closed. Phil didn’t need to see the color of his eyes to know who it was.

  “That’s the guy who’s screwing your wife?”

  “You seen him?” John’s eyes widened and he climbed off the bar stool, as if expecting good news. He hitched up his jeans, put his hand on his crotch, and hastily rearranged his balls. At that moment, it hit Phil where he had seen John. He was a U.D. officer at the White House. Phil had seen him do this same gesture, playing Macho Cop, when he interrogated visitors in the staff-entrance security area.

  Phil wished he could open his laptop and check the photos he took of Moon and Angel leaving the security checkpoint. He bet if he looked closely, he would see this U.D. officer in the background. He wondered: Did the White House send him after the First Lady because he fucked up and let her walk out on his watch?

  “So, like, did you see this guy or not?” John impatiently drummed his fingers on the bar.

  Phil knew he had to get the U.D. officer away from Rosarito Beach ASAP. If John were here tomorrow morning, he would spot Natalia and her lover. The Secret Service would be all over them and Phil would never get his million-dollar shot.

  “Yeah, come to think of it, I did see him.” He handed the photo back to John.

  “All right!” He pounded his fist on the bar. “I’m gonna get that fucker’s ass. Where’d you see him?”

  “Uh, he was checking out when I was checking in, an hour or so ago.”

  John’s face froze. “He was leaving?”

  “Before he left, he was on his phone. He had an accent—”

  “Do you know who he was talking to?”

  “Definitely a woman. He called her ‘babe.’ I think I heard him say, ‘I love you!’” Phil stopped and pretended to think for a moment. He knew John would be happy about what he said next. He blurted it out: “He arranged to meet her in Ensenada. Yeah! He told her he would see her tonight, at the…” He fumbled for a name that would sound believable. “I think it was the Ensenada Hotel. Yeah, the Hotel Ensenada in Ensenada.”

  John pumped Phil’s hand. Phil worried for a moment that this sweaty guy was going to hug him.

  “Look, man… Sorry, what’s your name again?”

  Phil hoped he remembered it right, then he realized that it
wouldn’t matter because John didn’t. “Bob.”

  “Yeah, Bob. I can’t thank you enough. You saved my life!” John motioned to the bartender, who was walking over with Phil’s hamburger. “Hey, dude, let me pay for this guy’s tab.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” said Phil.

  “No, seriously, you’re saving my fucking life here.” John opened his wallet, realized he had no cash. “Actually, the thing is, I, uh, didn’t get a chance to hit an ATM today. I’ll buy you a drink next time!”

  “No problem, dude.” He was starting to enjoy the “dude this” and “dude that” patter. Like learning a foreign language. Hell, he was starting to enjoy lying. He’d never told a whopper like this before. I get why the President loves telling lies, he thought. It makes me feel…strong.

  John shook Phil’s hand again. “So, you said Hotel Ensenada, right? Wait. Where the hell is Ensenada? You know where Ensenada is?”

  “Uh, south of here somewhere?”

  The bartender put down Phil’s fries and a bottle of ketchup. “Ensenada’s south on Highway 1 about two hours from TJ,” he said. “That’ll be $7 for the Coronas.”

  John started to take out his credit card, but hesitated. Phil figured it was because John didn’t want him to see his real name on it. He wondered what bullshit excuse John would come up with now.

  “Dude, you mind adding my beers to your bill?” He licked his lips one time too many; spittle oozed from the corners of his mouth. “Like, in case I don’t find my wife, I don’t want her to see my credit-card bill and realize I’ve been in TJ on her tail.”

  “Sure, no problem,” said Phil. He was impressed by John’s bullshit level. I could learn something from it, he thought. In fact, suddenly he felt emboldened enough by John’s bravado to do something only self-confident macho guys do. He slipped off his bar stool and gave John a hug, clapping him hard on the back. “Dude, I sure hope you find your man,” he said. “And hey, if he is with your wife, it’s okay with me if you fuck him up a little. I won’t tell.”