Uptown Thief

by Aya De León

  Marisol felt a little catch in her stomach. “Tell him to hold.”

  She turned to Nalissa. “I should take this.”

  Marisol closed the office door and took a breath. The thought of Raul brought back the almost kiss, and the ache she carried around. But things had improved since he’d stopped volunteering at the clinic. She could handle this. She picked up. “Great to hear from you. How are you settling into the new apartment?” she asked.

  “The place is great,” Raul said. “But I step out my door and everything’s different. Nobody in my building speaks Spanish.”

  “It’s the little things,” Marisol said.

  “Like the park down the street,” Raul said. “They took out the domino tables where my dad played on Sundays. Now it’s a dog park.”

  Marisol sucked her teeth. “I remember when dogs didn’t get their own park.”

  Raul laughed. “Listen,” he said. “I know you’re busy, but I have something work-related.”

  “What’s up?” Marisol asked.

  “The mayor and the cops are developing a community liaison committee,” he said. “Every time there’s a problem, they develop a committee of community leaders to advise the police. Not that they take the advice, but it’s good to get your two cents in, you know?”

  “Absolutely,” Marisol agreed. “What’s the next step?”

  “There’s a meeting Thursday on how to apply,” Raul said. “I can get you an invitation.”

  Marisol pulled out her calendar.

  “Brown bag lunch at City Hall,” Raul said. “Noon.”

  “I’d love to,” Marisol said. “See you Thursday.”

  Chapter 15

  Marisol came in late the next morning, having been up until 2 a.m. working on grant reports. She found messages from Serena that 1) she had missed a funder meeting, 2) she needed to produce financials for a youth/ health grant, 3) the heater was acting up, and 4) Tyesha was waiting in her office.

  “I been calling you,” Tyesha said when Marisol opened the office door. “How can I get you to reconsider about Thug Woofer? They just announced his next album release party.”

  Marisol blinked at her through a haze. It was like senior year in high school when she was secretly doing sex work and her best friend, Gladys, would ask what dress she was going to wear to the prom.

  “You agreed to this policy when you started working here,” Marisol said as she turned on her laptop, then put a hand in front of the heating vent to see whether warm air was coming out.

  “You said there were exceptions to the rules,” Tyesha argued.

  “Not this one,” Marisol said. “I’m a madam, not a matchmaker.”

  “It’s not even about Thug Woofer,” Tyesha said. “It’s the principle of the thing.”

  “Fine,” Marisol said, closing her office door. “You want to talk principles, let’s go.”

  “How come I can’t decide to date a client?” Tyesha asked. “But you can decide to rob a client? You always said their corrupt CEO friends were fair game, but not clients. Yet now you’re robbing VanDyke? I’m all-in for this operation, but I need to know that it’s not just gonna change on your whim. What’s the bottom line?”

  “The bottom line is”—Marisol searched for the words—“is that I’m sick of playing nice when these motherfuckers are ruthless. I’ve studied VanDyke. He had massive sweatshop operations in Asia. But after some bad publicity, he now owns them through a shell corporation. He became a billionaire by screwing people over in other countries. Like he couldn’t just pick a girl in the escort service. He knows I need money, and he’s using that as leverage to pry my legs open. So many of these assholes don’t play fair, not in business, not in bed. So I’m gonna stop playing by the rules.”

  “Like your rule that no girl has to have sex if she doesn’t want to?” Tyesha asked. “You quit the business. You obviously don’t want to do the VanDyke date.”

  “That’s the cost of being the boss,” Marisol said. “But the no-dating-clients rule is firm. We got enough girls coming in to the clinic beat up. Dulce’s on the mend. And Jerry finally stopped coming around. I don’t want you to be the girlfriend that Thug Woofer beats into the hospital.”

  Tyesha’s mouth contracted. “You act like I can’t handle myself.”

  Marisol sighed. “I obviously don’t say this enough,” she said. “I care about you.” She put an arm around Tyesha. “I saw something in you from that first time when I spoke at Columbia. Of course I know you can handle yourself. That’s why I picked you to take over the clinic. Because I trust you with my mother’s good name, and the well-being of all the sex workers in Manhattan. And when you’re in charge, date all the rappers or fuck all the clients or rob them or both if that’s what’s needed to keep the place going. Okay?” Marisol squeezed Tyesha’s shoulder.

  Tyesha laughed and rolled her eyes. “Okay.”

  * * *

  On Thursday, Marisol slipped into the City Hall meeting room with a takeout salad. She sat in an aisle seat halfway back, and peeled off her suit jacket to reveal her short-sleeved green silk blouse. Ten minutes into the presentation, Raul walked in.

  He nodded to a few people and walked across the room to sit beside her.

  They were built like reverse triangles. He had broad shoulders and she had full hips. Their bodies made contact at the widest points of both.

  As she ate, their arms brushed against each other. She could barely pay attention to the speaker. Raul opened a takeout container of maduros—sweet fried plantains. A fragrant cloud of fried sugar and garlic escaped.

  “Want some?” he asked.

  She speared one with her fork, enjoying the tang of the fruit and the savory spices.

  “Where’d you get this?” she whispered.

  “My kitchen, mujer,” he said.

  “You cook?”

  “Don’t stereotype Latino men,” he said. “You need to come over for dinner.”

  “You need to give me another maduro,” she said.

  Just as she went to spear the platano, he yanked the container away without taking his eyes off the speaker.

  Marisol let out a giggle, and a nearby woman looked irritated.

  Marisol gripped Raul’s arm and went for another plantain.

  Again, he moved the container out of her reach.

  “Don’t play with me, chico,” she said. “I will stab you with this fork.”

  Now he suppressed a laugh. “Assault on an ex-cop,” he whispered. “Calling all cars.”

  “Shhhhh!” the woman near Marisol hissed.

  “You’re gonna get us in trouble,” Marisol said.

  “I’m just eating my lunch,” Raul said. “What’s wrong? Your gentrified salad isn’t doing it for you?”

  “Hand over the platano and nobody gets hurt,” Marisol murmured.

  As the woman shushed them again, the room filled with polite applause. Marisol grabbed the container and wolfed down three maduros before Raul could grab it back.

  “That was very unprofessional,” the woman said as she squeezed past them out to the aisle.

  The two of them cracked up.

  “I’ll go pick us up a couple of applications,” Raul said. “Guard those plantains, okay?”

  * * *

  When he came back, Raul looked down at the empty container and then at Marisol. “What happened?”

  “I moved them to a more secure location,” she said.

  “Your stomach?”

  “What could be more secure?”

  He shook his head and handed her the application.

  “On a serious note,” she said. “Thanks so much for inviting me. A committee like this would be a good move for the clinic.”

  “You’d be great on something like this,” he said.

  “Eva Feldman would be the one,” Marisol said as they walked into the hallway.

  “Why not you?” he asked as they put their jackets back on. “You’ve got the charisma and charm to really make a di
fference.”

  She shook her head. “You know this committee isn’t about making real change. It would just piss me off. Eva’s the patient one.”

  “You’re probably right,” he said. “But after that gala event, I think you could do anything. You got wealthy Manhattan to come out and give money to Lower East Side sex workers? You got Delia Borbón and Jeremy VanDyke to make an appearance?”

  Marisol laughed. “Not all by myself. I got the best team in the world.” She didn’t mention some of her escort clients from whom she’d called in favors.

  “And she’s modest,” Raul said.

  They walked down the steps to the street.

  “Where you headed?” he asked. “I’m catching the train home.”

  Marisol looked at the slow traffic and decided to take the subway.

  “You going home or back to the clinic?” he asked, as they descended the stairs.

  “Same thing,” she said. “My apartment is above the clinic.”

  “Like a bodega,” Raul said. “Living above the shop. I love it.”

  “Can’t beat the commute,” she said. They swiped their MetroCards.

  “Marisol, you got that local style, immigrant hustle, but you run a multimillion-dollar clinic. I read your report. Plus you got billionaires sweating you.”

  “I wouldn’t say sweating me,” she said. They came out of the tunnel to the platform.

  “Come on, Marisol,” he said. “You’re having meetings with VanDyke, when you wouldn’t even have coffee with me. You still think of me as your friend’s little brother.”

  “It’s not like that,” Marisol said. “He could be a major funder.”

  “I get it,” Raul agreed. “If I was running a clinic and VanDyke came through, I’d smile like a toothpaste model and give him my card, too.”

  “So you understand,” Marisol said.

  “No. I’m jealous,” he said. “Even though intellectually I understand that you put the clinic first. He can offer a lot to an executive director. But I’m trying to offer something to you, as a woman.”

  Marisol didn’t know what to say. The train pulled up and they boarded.

  “Oye,” he said, “I’m not hanging around because you’re the cause of the day or because I need a little Latin dish on my menu. I’m hoping you’ll carve out a little space in your life for real.”

  “I’m flattered, Raul,” she said. “But I don’t carve out space for anything but work.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you that a supportive guy could be an asset?” he asked. “That he might share your vision and help make it happen?”

  “It never worked like that in my family,” Marisol said. “The men cut out and left the women to hold everything together.”

  “But that was our parents’ generation,” Raul said. “Your abuelo? Did your grandfather cut out, too?”

  “No,” Marisol said. “He just died.”

  “But was he down for the fam when he was alive?”

  “He died before I was born,” Marisol said. “But yeah, I heard he was a family man.”

  “I’m like that,” Raul said. “Your clinic is one of the best things I see around here. Score one for the old hood.”

  “If you’re so down for the hood, why become a cop?” Marisol asked. “Back in the day we hated cops.”

  “I was naïve,” he said. “Every time cops hassled us, I wished I was looking at somebody brown. I thought I could be that guy. Turns out, it’s still a white-boy network.”

  “How can you say that?” Marisol asked. “You still hang with your white ex-partner.”

  “We don’t hang,” Raul said. “He came to the gala to get me to consult on a case. I told him I’m through with cop shit.”

  Marisol glanced up to see that theirs was the next stop. “That guy fucking smells like a cop,” she said.

  “I know,” Raul agreed. “But he had my back when shit went down at NYPD.”

  “What the hell happened?” Marisol asked.

  “I saw some white cops assault this black kid,” Raul said. “He was no Boy Scout, but they beat him into a coma. I knew my cop days were numbered. I wasn’t gonna fall in line with that. At first they didn’t know I’d seen. But then they tried to play it like, ‘oh, ha-ha, those crazy black guys.’ Like my grandfather wasn’t the same color as the kid.”

  “So you snitched?” Marisol said.

  “I filed a report and they retaliated,” Raul said. “First they would leave me without backup. I almost got killed, but Matty had my back—almost got himself killed, too. Then they framed me for stealing drugs from the evidence room and I got fired.”

  “How’d you win the case?” Marisol asked.

  “Kid in the coma died,” Raul said. “When it became murder, one of the cops turned. The department cut a deal. They all got fired but no criminal charges. I got a settlement and so did the kid’s family. They offered my job back to me, or offered for me to consult on cases, but I turned them down. I never shoulda become a cop in the first place.”

  The train slowly squealed to a stop and the two of them exited.

  As they walked up to the street, Marisol asked, “What do you wish you’d been?” She pushed through the fare gates. “Instead of a cop.”

  “Honestly?” Raul said. “I shoulda been a criminal.”

  Marisol laughed. “Really?”

  They walked out into the weak winter sunlight.

  “A stickup kid in the nineties,” he said. “My crew woulda pulled a gun on every yuppie and hipster who tried to move in. I woulda sprayed graffiti on every ‘our neighborhood is great’ public campaign. I woulda convinced all the gentrifiers that this area was a dangerous, crack-infested, crazy junkie–filled death trap, and to buy elsewhere.”

  “You got a time machine?” Marisol asked. “It’s not a bad plan.” She walked by what had been her favorite bakery as a kid. Now it sold upscale maternity clothes.

  “Like speaking Spanish to your folks in front of white people,” Raul said. “I woulda kept our hood a beautiful secret among ourselves.” He nodded toward the apartments they were approaching. “This is my building.”

  Marisol looked at the immaculate façade. “Not bad,” she said. “Listen, Raul, it’s been great—”

  “Go out to dinner with me,” he said, grabbing her hand. “I know a mom-and-pop cafeteria in the Bronx that makes a pork mofongo like we used to get down here. And the place isn’t located between a poodle grooming salon and a vegan fondue restaurant with wild Alaskan organic pine needles. Mami, I’m telling you, nobody speaks English and the food will clog your arteries on the spot.”

  Although Marisol shook her head, she couldn’t help smiling.

  But the rules, an inner voice said. Stick to the rules.

  The rules were in trouble. It was so easy to be with him. Not just the sexual chemistry, but the conversation. The fact that he could play with her, get her laughing. She had been able to use the ex-cop thing as a barricade, but something about him wishing he’d been the robber instead was threatening to melt her.

  “I see how it is,” Raul said. “You try to steal my maduros, but won’t go out to dinner with me.”

  Marisol laughed. “Okay, fine. It’s hard to get your arteries clogged with good comida criolla these days. But it’s gotta be after I finish a big grant proposal on the fifteenth.”

  “Yes!” he said. “The hottest woman in Manhattan agrees to go out with me.” He sang a salsa riff and twirled her by the hand.

  “Gee.” Marisol laughed. “I might have to go get the book He’s Just Not That Into You.”

  “You wanna say Friday after next?” Raul asked.

  “Sure.” She hadn’t felt this light and playful since she was a kid. Since her mother was alive. “But don’t get arrested as a stickup kid before then.”

  “It’s too late for that,” he said. “A crime wave can prevent gentrification, not cure it. Like that uptown crime wave going on now. You don’t see anyone moving out.”

 
; “What uptown crime wave?” Marisol asked.

  “The one Matty wanted me to consult on,” Raul said. “A string of robberies uptown they can’t figure out. These guys slip in, crack the safe, walk out with the cash. Nobody sees a damn thing. The MO is the same, but they can’t find a link. They want me because they know I’m good at making those connections. But like I said, I turned him down.”

  Marisol froze.

  “Listen,” he said. “I know you gotta get back to work. But you made my day by saying yes.”

  Marisol nodded and hugged him good-bye. As she walked toward the clinic, she began rehearsing sorry-I-can’t-make-it lines in her head.

  What had she been thinking? The rules were there for a reason.

  * * *

  Later that night, Marisol had another planning meeting in her office with Tyesha, Kim, and Jody.

  “So what’s the money on this hit?” Jody asked. “The usual?” She and Kim were on the black leather couch with their feet up on the coffee table.

  “VanDyke is different,” Marisol said. “Hopefully a game changer. So I’m proposing fifty percent off the top for the clinic, and we split the rest four ways.”

  “What’s the math on that?” Kim asked.

  “If we get a million, that’s a hundred twenty-five thousand each.”

  “Sounds good,” Tyesha said. She sat in the matching black leather recliner, tipped all the way back. “I’ll be able to do public health full-time.”

  “I’ll get my physical education degree and coach soccer,” Jody said.

  “Jody might’ve been a world-class athlete,” Kim said, “if she hadn’t got kicked outta the house in high school.”

  “You’ll be the soccer mom?” Tyesha asked Kim.

  “Maybe,” Kim said. “But first I’ll visit my family in Korea.”

  “For how long?” Jody asked.

  “A year at least,” Kim said.

  “Then maybe I’ll coach Korean girls’ soccer,” Jody said.

  “You’d come with me?” Kim asked.

  “I’m not gonna be without you for a whole year,” Jody said. “But I don’t speak Korean.”

  “Me neither,” said Kim.

  “We have to make sure you’re not coaching soccer in prison,” Marisol said. “So we’ll sit on the cash a couple of months to see what the cops suspect.”