Blown

by Mark Haskell Smith

  This woman didn’t do any of that.

  The toilet flushed, the shower turned on. He felt he was getting a crash course in the Caribbean region. After he left the Dominican Republic, going to Puerto Rico was an easy and obvious first move. It was an incorporated part of the United States, and while Bryan didn’t know what that meant legally for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, he did know that it meant an American could enter and exit without much fuss. He took the ferry from Santo Domingo to San Juan, and then hired a car service to drive him across the island to Fajardo.

  In Fajardo he ate tostones and drank a Coquí lager. Then he boarded the fast ferry to St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, another unincorporated territory of the United States. How many unincorporated territories did the United States have? Bryan thought Guam probably fell into this category.

  His itinerary hadn’t been random. He’d spent hours in the New York Public Library using its computers—he knew they’d search his browser history at the office—to look up the various ferry routes and schedules, trying to figure out the most discreet way to travel across a group of islands. These moves were all part of his getaway plan. Any private detective the company might contract would pick up his trail and follow it to the Virgin Islands, but that’s where the trail would grow cold. He was only in St. Thomas for a few hours, long enough to buy a few bottles of rum and to meet up with a nice Australian couple who were spending a year bouncing around the Caribbean on a sailboat. He’d connected with them through his sailing club’s Facebook page and they were happy to give him a lift. He’d introduced himself as Randy, an advertising executive who’d been downsized and was spending his severance package traveling the world. He’d let his beard grow for the past week and thought he looked like a rich hipster on vacation. He told them his plan was to sit in a hammock and drink beer. His only desires were to feel the ocean breeze tickle his bare feet, never look at a spreadsheet again, and waste away in Margaritaville. Which was, more or less, the truth.

  Bryan made sure to annoy the Australians by playing the Grateful Dead on their sound system whenever possible. If anyone ever asked, they’d say they gave an obnoxious Deadhead a ride to Jamaica, some dude who was going to the Reggae Sun-splash festival.

  They docked in Ocho Rios, on the north side of Jamaica, and while the two Australians went to check in with the authorities and get their cruising permit, Bryan walked off the boat and into the city.

  He’d asked a cabdriver for a quiet, inexpensive hotel, and the driver had taken him to a discreet two-star place that advertised itself as “unpretentious.” It was just outside the city, flanked by an overgrown lot on one side and a small cluster of houses on the other. Bryan thought it was more ramshackle than unpretentious, but it was clean and perfect for his purpose. As he checked in, he spun a story for the hotel clerk about how he’d lost everything in a brutal divorce and didn’t want his ex or her lawyer to find him. He needed to relax. Walk on the beach. Piece his life back together. He tried to look sad and ultimately convinced the clerk to register him as “Mr. Smith” by paying cash for a week in advance and slipping her an extra hundred-dollar bill.

  The hotel clerk’s name was Grace, and she had been intrigued by his story, or at least curious enough that a few days later she joined him for dinner and drinks and followed him back to his room. Casual sex hadn’t really been part of Bryan’s plans—not that he was opposed to it on moral or religious grounds—but a couple of days spent walking on the beach and sitting around the hotel had made him anxious.

  Bryan gently pulled the condom off his cock and flicked it into a trash can as Grace came out of the bathroom. She stood naked at the end of the bed, drying her hair with a towel. Bryan couldn’t help admiring her. She was relaxed and warm—the opposite of the kind of women he’d dated in the city, who were uptight and cold, like neurotic Popsicles.

  “What’re you doing today?” she asked.

  Bryan shrugged. “Maybe go to the waterfall.”

  “Dunn’s River?” Grace laughed. “Well, you have fun, but don’t drink the water.”

  “Kids pee in it?”

  “Kids aren’t the problem.” She pulled on her dress and smiled at him. “Well, Mr. Smith, I think you enjoyed yourself last night.”

  Bryan returned her smile. “Very much so.”

  She patted the bed. “Then show Grace your appreciation.”

  Bryan looked at her. He never liked it when people referred to themselves in the third person, and for a moment, he was unsure exactly what she was asking. Did she want a kiss? A snuggle? And then it dawned on him.

  “Like a tip?”

  She nodded. “Two hundred dollars should do.”

  It was a stupid postcard, the kind of thing a tourist would send. A vacation shot of a beautiful cocoa-skinned woman, her breasts packed into a teeny red-and-white bikini, her lips spread in a bright smile with glimmering, Photoshop-bleached teeth, as she cradled a bunch of bright green bananas in her arms. Behind her, palm trees swayed in the computer-enhanced sky and turquoise waves curled up against ecru sand; it was a beach that looked exotic and safe, hygienic Caribbean. A typographically jaunty font proclaimed GREETINGS FROM PUNTA CANA!

  “The Dominican Republic?”

  Neal could feel his allergies kicking up, the smoke from the woman’s cigarette making him miserable. He was surprised LeBlanc would be involved with someone who smoked. But it was the right person, the skinny blonde in the photo he’d snagged off LeBlanc’s fridge. Neal flipped the card over. There was her name and address. He chewed on his thumbnail for a moment, squinting at the fine print. She took a last drag and blew a thin stream toward his face as she stubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray. Neal slowly blinked, letting the smoke dissipate. He looked at the smashed cigarette butt and couldn’t help noticing the vibrant red lipstick smears encircling it.

  “We were supposed to go there on vacation. He’d bought two weeks at some all-inclusive resort.”

  “Why didn’t you go with him?”

  “Looks like I got dumped.”

  “Do you think he’s still down there?”

  “How the fuck should I know? My boyfriend took a luxury vacation and all I got was a stupid postcard.”

  It hadn’t taken Neal long to track her down. A quick check of LeBlanc’s office phone records and a hack of his Facebook account and here he was, getting a bitter raft of shit from an angry ex-girlfriend.

  “Did he say anything before he left?”

  “Like what?”

  “Some hint of his intentions.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “He ghosted me.”

  “Ghosted you how?”

  “Like a fucking ghost. How else do you do it?”

  “The last time you saw him, did he behave differently?”

  She shook her head. “He was as weird as always.”

  “Weird?”

  “He was a weird dude.” She lit another cigarette and blew smoke at him. “But he was great between the sheets.”

  Neal decided not to press; he might need to talk to her again and didn’t want her to do anything like disappear or, worse, hire a publicist.

  She looked nice enough, pretty in the way that rich white women from Connecticut are pretty, her blond hair pulled into a sporty ponytail, her body long and lean and dressed in something casual and expensive. He could see why LeBlanc had been attracted to her. She was the kind of woman the Wall Streeters were drawn to, finely tuned like a top-of-the-line Tesla. Neal guessed she played tennis and mixed a good Manhattan. Smoking appeared to be her only flaw.

  He flipped the postcard back and forth. Besides the name and address, there was only one word scrawled on the message side of the postcard.

  “Mofongo? What’s that mean?”

  “Maybe it means ‘suck it’ in Spanish.” She tapped her ash into the ashtray and smirked. She smirked right to his face. “You know, when you called and told me what he did, I wasn’t surprised. But I can’t figure out how he got away with it. A wh
ole office full of financial geniuses and he embezzles millions. How did he pull that off?”

  Neal didn’t answer. He hadn’t wanted to tell her what LeBlanc had done, but she wouldn’t talk to him otherwise.

  “But now I know.”

  There was something in her voice, some subtle shade. Neal felt his face flush, felt his collar suddenly tighten. “What do you mean?”

  She laughed, smoke popping out of her mouth in gray clumps. “You’re just a bunch of fucking nerds.”

  As far as natural wonders go, Dunn’s Falls was pretty good. Not awesome like Niagara Falls or Iguaçu Falls, and not breathtakingly beautiful like the thousand-foot waterfalls in Hawaii, but bigger than he’d expected, though not a roaring wall of water either. It was a comparatively laid-back waterfall.

  But as far as tourist attractions go it was a madhouse. Human chains of pasty vacationers in swimsuits held hands as their Jamaican guides led them up the falls. Bryan didn’t bother to count, but it looked like there were about two hundred people clambering through the water, trying to navigate the slippery rocks, while official photographers took photos and videos of them. That was the genius of the scheme: drag tourists through the water and then sell them pictures of themselves being dragged through the water. There was a lot of shouting and encouragement. The tourists were urged to get up, stand up, stand up on the rocks. It was a strange thing to watch. Everyone was splashing and slipping and getting drenched. They seemed genuinely happy, as if the water pouring off the mountain was filled with some kind of wonder drug.

  Maybe that was the thing. If you don’t have much, you need to invent ways to make money, need to think outside the box and turn a perfectly nice but unremarkable waterfall into a tourist attraction. And not just a pleasant place where you charge an entrance fee: You employ dozens of locals to act as guides to lead the tourists through the water and photographers to sell souvenir photos. You sell T-shirts and tchotchkes, Jamaican beef patties and Red Stripe beer. Bryan smiled to himself. It was a bit like Grace asking for a tip. It wasn’t that she was a prostitute; she was just thinking of ways to augment her income. He found himself admiring her for it. Just like Dunn’s Falls, it was about being creative.

  Bryan decided to take Grace’s advice and stay out of the water. Instead he bought a cold beer and sat on a bench, watching the tourists ascend the falls.

  He wondered if it said something about him. Why didn’t he feel like putting on his swimsuit and jumping in with the rest of humanity? He realized he’d always been like that. He’d drifted through adolescence without ever becoming a Boy Scout or playing football; he never joined a club or a committee or a gang in high school. He didn’t feel like making a commitment to an organized anything. He didn’t want to be labeled. He wasn’t a Democrat or a Republican or a member of the Democratic Socialists. He could barely be bothered to vote.

  His friends from college were all off living their lives, getting married and raising little kids. He didn’t see them much anymore.

  Bryan watched a young woman in a bikini slip on the rocks and fall under the water. She emerged with a grin on her face and let out a whoop. He drained the rest of his beer and tossed the empty bottle into a trash can. A friendly Jamaican man asked if he’d like his picture taken by the waterfall, but Bryan shook his head. All these people having fun were getting him down.

  Seo-yun had just wrapped her lips around the tip of his penis when her phone started vibrating and a ringtone erupted from the bedside table. She didn’t need to look. It was her fiancé. He’d chosen a special ringtone for his calls. Seo-yun didn’t think you could find a more annoying song than Atlantic Starr singing “Always,” but that’s what he’d stuck on her phone. He said it was the most popular first dance song at weddings. He was looking forward to that first dance and had even scheduled lessons with a choreographer to help them come up with something fun and memorable that they could video and put online. Apparently that was a thing people did.

  Recently he’d been calling and texting nonstop, bugging her about the invitations, wanting to work on the custom vows he’d insisted on writing, double-checking with her about the flowers, the venue, the menu, her dress. Shouldn’t she pick out her own dress? Did she have to hear that song fifty times a day?

  The air in the room caused a shiver to bloom across her skin, but it felt nice to be naked, to pull off her skirt and blouse and reveal her lean body. She let her tongue roll lazily around the end of the young man’s penis and felt him shudder. Maybe she’d tell her fiancé to include a line in the vows where she promised to be faithful unless he irritated the shit out of her and she felt like fucking someone on her lunch hour.

  The song began playing again and the guy said, “Do you need to get that?”

  Seo-yun shook her head and continued exploring his cock with her mouth.

  “You sure?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  As she sucked his cock, Seo-yun realized that this was just another part of foreign exchange. Bodies got together and swapped value in what one hoped was an equitable exchange. Although she knew it wasn’t uncommon among her male colleagues, this was the first time Seo-yun had taken someone to a hotel for sex, maybe even the first time she’d ducked out of the office in the middle of the afternoon for any reason. It was completely out of character.

  His name was Stanford—like the university in California—and he was the grandson of one of the board members at the firm. Stanford, a twenty-five-year-old with a brand-new MBA and a silver spoon in his mouth, was sent to see her about working on the forex desk. It wasn’t your typical entry-level position in financial services. Stanford would not be starting at the bottom.

  He was interested in foreign exchange, and Seo-yun was told to show him the ropes, to see if he would be a good fit in her department. He was smart, obviously, and earnest, but he wasn’t shy, and she felt some instant sexual tension between them. Normally she would’ve ignored it, but her phone kept ringing, her fiancé kept texting, and it started to get under her skin. So she invited him out to lunch. Why she did it, she couldn’t say exactly. It was impulsive and it turned her on.

  This kind of thing could be dangerous.

  When she’d looked at his résumé, she discovered that he had been selected all-state lacrosse in his undergrad days, and she hadn’t been disappointed when he peeled off his shirt to reveal a well-toned body. She couldn’t remember the last time she touched clearly defined abs. Would it kill her fiancé to hit the gym a few times a week?

  She moved her head back and forth, taking his shaft in deeply, then pulling back and rolling her tongue along the tip, slurping up her saliva, getting his cock thoroughly lubricated.

  It wasn’t professional of her to do this. HR wouldn’t approve. But then she was probably going to be unemployed soon, taking the fall for Bryan’s embezzlement. That was what happened when you gave someone your trust. There was a meeting with the chief executive scheduled at four that afternoon, and she liked the idea that she’d get fired stinking of illicit sex.

  Her cell phone sang again. She felt the young man shift his stance. She looked up and blinked at him. “It’s only my fiancé.”

  “What?”

  “My fiancé. He wants me to look at some napkins or something.”

  The young man paused—she could tell he was thinking about some comforting thing to say or maybe an exit strategy—but he just nodded and said, “Okay.”

  She began stroking him in earnest, sucking the tip and jacking his shaft until he started to come. She pulled her face back and let his semen shoot all over her neck and breasts. She looked up at him. He seemed surprised. Seo-yun smeared his come around her breasts, the sticky fluid coating her nipples. She stood up and kissed him. “Now let’s see you apply for that job.” And with that she lay on the bed and waited for him to return the favor.

  Neal leaned back into the worn vinyl seat of the yellow cab as it slalomed through the city. His office was downtown and, theoretically, he could have walked
to the subway, maybe gotten some of the awful woman’s smoke off his clothes, but taking a cab gave him a chance to think. Neal’s job at InterFund was called “special collections.” He was a one-person department whose job was tracking down investors who’d overreached, taken bad bets, had their margins called, and then skipped out. It did not typically mean going after someone who worked at the company, especially not someone like Bryan LeBlanc.

  It didn’t make a lot of sense to Neal. LeBlanc had been a rising star at InterFund, handpicked and groomed for leadership by the CEO himself and destined to become a managing director of the foreign exchange division. He was handsome, friendly, and liked by everyone. If he’d stayed the course, he would’ve been pulling a seven-figure salary in a couple of years. A multimillionaire by the time he was forty. Wasn’t that why these guys got into the business in the first place? Why rip off the company?

  There was no evidence of what Neal called the “big three,” the typical reasons that led to this kind of behavior. These were: drug abuse, usually cocaine or some variety of prescription painkillers; getting in too deep with a bookie by betting on the Jets, Mets, or Nets; or an addiction to expensive prostitutes. So far he’d come up with nothing.

  LeBlanc had faked documents that gave him permission to borrow against his clients’ funds and invest the money on their behalf. Normally there was nothing unusual about this—lots of traders invested in margin funds; they just had their client’s permission. When the market was performing and stocks were rising, a good investor could double, even triple his money playing the margin. When the market dropped, well, that was no fun for anyone.

  LeBlanc had run the money through an elaborate string of bogus bank accounts and foreign exchange manipulations, making thousands of trades, some lasting less than a couple of seconds. Neal could hardly follow the trail—the world of foreign exchange was unregulated and more like the Wild West than like any other branch of the financial services industry.