Uptown Thief

by Aya De León

  “I saw two guys,” Marisol said. “One tall and thin, one shorter and thicker. They both had guns.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Rivera,” he said, standing up. “Sit tight until we get back. I want to show you something.”

  Mathias and Delano stepped out, leaving the sergeant at the door. He offered Marisol a cup of coffee. She declined.

  After five minutes, a light went on in the adjacent room, and the mirrored wall turned into a window. Through the glass, Marisol could see an identical room. Bare walls. Big metal table. A few chairs.

  Mathias and Delano stepped into the adjacent room. Mathias glanced up at Marisol and the sergeant through the two-way mirror.

  Jeremy VanDyke entered. He was dressed in a dark suit and wore a grim expression.

  “Thank you for coming in, Mr. VanDyke,” Mathias said.

  “You pulled me from a conference call with Japan,” VanDyke said, sitting at the desk. “How can I help you?”

  The door to the interview room opened and Raul entered.

  “Mind if I sit in?” Raul asked.

  Mathias pulled out a chair for Raul and made introductions.

  Under any other circumstances, the sight of Raul would fill Marisol with pleasure. But not here. He was too close to the case, and his proximity to VanDyke seemed even more dangerous.

  Raul’s expression was neutral.

  “Mr. VanDyke,” Mathias said. “In a previous interview, you said you dined alone the night of the robbery. Would you like to change your answer?”

  “No,” VanDyke said.

  “This morning, your driver identified this woman”—Delano put the paper in front of VanDyke—“Marisol Rivera, as your dinner date that night.”

  “He must be mistaken,” VanDyke said.

  “That’s what I thought,” Mathias said. “We didn’t find her fingerprints at the scene.”

  “What is this about?” VanDyke asked.

  “We’re working on a theory,” Mathias said. “There’s only one explanation that fits the evidence as it stands.”

  “And what’s that?” VanDyke asked.

  “Your driver is certain he brought her to your residence,” Mathias said. “You insist you didn’t have dinner with her. Our forensics team found no evidence of her presence at your house. They swept the area where the alarm was cut, and the study where your safe was broken into. We found no hairs, no fingerprints of hers. So our theory is that she was the robber.”

  Marisol saw Raul’s face twitch.

  “That’s ridiculous,” VanDyke said. “The robbers were men.”

  “You sure?” Mathias asked, flipping through pages. “In your statement, you said the robbers wore masks. They bound and gagged you in your bedroom, then closed the door. Couldn’t Ms. Rivera have helped them break in? Once that door was closed, anybody could have entered.”

  “Technically, yes,” VanDyke said. “But I would have—”

  “So either your driver is mistaken,” Mathias said. “Or Marisol Rivera helped rob you, or you’re lying. Which is it?”

  VanDyke opened his mouth to answer, when Mathias cut him off.

  “It’s not really fair to single you out,” Mathias said. “We have both of them here—Ms. Rivera and your driver. In nearby interrogation rooms. I’ll just get the two of them and we can straighten this out.”

  VanDyke’s jaw clenched. “I’ll admit,” he said, “I have been less than forthcoming. Ms. Rivera and I did dine together.”

  “Did she also witness the robbery?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can confirm that your driver picked her up near Central Park?”

  “At my request,” he said. “People watch me. They watch my car. They follow my staff. I didn’t want to be seen picking up a woman from her office location.”

  “What?” Raul asked. “The neighborhood isn’t gentrified enough for you?”

  “Not the neighborhood,” VanDyke said. “But a clinic that serves prostitutes.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Raul said. “Marisol Rivera is the executive director, not some girl getting a pregnancy test.”

  VanDyke looked down at his hands. “Perhaps my focus on protecting my privacy may have underresourced my security. I’ll be reordering my priorities.” VanDyke looked over at Mathias. “Are we done here, Detective?”

  The cop nodded and sent him out to sign a revised statement.

  “He tried to clean it up,” Raul told Mathias and Delano. “But I know what he meant. Fucking racist. She’s too brown for the billionaire to be seen with?”

  “I don’t think it’s a race thing,” Delano said.

  “I don’t need a white cop to tell me what is and isn’t a race thing,” Raul said.

  “Guys,” Mathias said. “Forget it. We got what we came for.”

  Marisol watched them with a growing feeling of dread.

  “I know the race thing happens,” Delano said. “I’m just saying not in this particular case.”

  “Hey, you two.” Mathias raised his voice. “Let’s go.”

  “What the hell do you think the issue was?” Raul asked. “Because any guy would be lucky to have dinner with a woman like her.”

  “I’m just saying,” Delano said. “I think VanDyke was worried about her rap sheet.”

  Marisol did the math in her head. No way could she push past the uniformed cop, run out the door, and get to Raul to explain there was something she hadn’t told him yet.

  “Rap sheet?” Raul asked. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Raul stepped closer to Delano.

  “Back the fuck up,” Delano said. “Matty, what’s he even doing here? He’s not a cop anymore.”

  “Barrios is consulting on this case, and I asked him to come,” Mathias said. “We got what we wanted, so let’s move on.”

  “Not until you tell me about Marisol Rivera’s rap sheet,” Raul said, turning toward Mathias.

  Mathias glanced at the two-way mirror, his expression contrite. “Ms. Rivera has two prior arrests,” Mathias said quietly. “Now, can we drop it?”

  “Arrests for what?” Raul asked.

  Not like this. He shouldn’t hear it like this. He should hear it from her. Just the two of them. When she could remind him he’d promised not to hold her sexual past against her.

  “For prostitution,” Delano said.

  Marisol’s eyes flew to Raul. He said them like they were just ordinary words, five matter-of-fact syllables that hadn’t just changed the course of her life. Raul’s eyes widened in shock. His jaw clenched.

  “See?” Delano said. “It’s not a race thing. It’s a hooker thing.”

  Raul stood, fists balled up.

  “Why don’t you take five, Barrios?” Mathias asked.

  “You knew?” Raul asked, looking directly at Mathias.

  “Take five. Okay, buddy?” Mathias asked.

  Raul slammed the door behind him.

  “What’s with him?” Delano asked.

  Marisol leaped up and bolted for the door. The officer restrained her.

  “Miss, I have orders not to let you leave,” he said.

  She managed to stick her head out the door. “Raul!”

  He turned and looked at her, his face puckered in bitter lines of bewilderment. He shook his head and turned away.

  Marisol let the sergeant escort her back to her seat.

  She didn’t hear the door close or Raul’s retreating footsteps. She looked past the two-way glass and through the two men in the illuminated room. She recalled standing in another police station surrounded by men in uniforms. She had been wearing a gold halter top, booty shorts, and platform wedge sandals splattered with mud. She had willed herself not to shiver in the freezing air-conditioned room. The only difference between then and now was that today she had on business casual.

  Mathias came back in. “Mission accomplished,” he said with a stiff smile. “All the stories match.”

  Marisol felt a rock where her heart should be.

>   She kept seeing Raul’s face, contorted with hurt, his back walking away. She wanted to bolt for the door and catch him to explain. But fuck that. She wasn’t gonna chase down some pendejo. For what? She imagined some telenovela scene: “Please, forgive me. I was young and didn’t know what I was doing . . .”

  She had nothing to apologize for. More like, “Fuck you. I did what I had to do to protect my family, and fuck you some more if you’re gonna hold that against me.”

  Fuck the whole romance bullshit with Raul. Who the hell was he? Not the fantasy about them having a future together—some bullshit dream on the beach—but the reality.

  Just a two-time hookup. The little brother of her friend from high school. Some sex she’d mistaken for something more. All that love he talked about? That wasn’t love. That was some immature schoolboy crush. Love was putting on your dead mother’s dress and fucking a stranger to keep your little sister out of foster care.

  Eva was right: The only person she really loved was Cristina. She could catch a plane to Havana tomorrow.

  She tried to reach for a feeling, conjure her sister’s face. She felt nothing. She slid her hand up to her locket. It lay on top of her cotton undershirt, but beneath her blouse, cool to the touch.

  Mathias said, “I assumed he knew. Didn’t you grow up together?”

  Marisol began to feel something. A buzzing started in the soles of her feet and moved up her legs. Rage. So strong, she began to tremble with it. She knew she should leave, but she didn’t care. Raul? Cristina? It felt like nothing mattered anymore.

  “It’s not just some coincidence that I run a clinic for sex workers,” she said. “I know how hard it is on the street. And New York’s Finest are a big part of the problem. What other guys pay for, NYPD takes for free.” She looked at Mathias. She could feel the heat under her neck, her face, her scalp. Rapist. The word almost spit itself out of her mouth.

  “You can go now, Ms. Rivera,” he said.

  She opened her mouth, but the rage must have unlocked something else, some whisper of caring about seeing Cristina. She walked out with her back straight and her head held high, the same strut she’d performed down the runway of VanDyke’s hall.

  * * *

  Marisol held it together on the taxi ride home, all the way into the clinic and down the hallway to Eva’s couch. She lay with her face against the microfiber and sobbed.

  “What happened, honey?” Eva asked.

  “The cops read Raul my rap sheet.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Eva said.

  “I’m not,” Marisol said, wiping her eyes with the heels of her hands. She grabbed a tissue. “I don’t need him. Fucking asshole. El amor es una mierda.”

  “Marisol, you shouldn’t—”

  “No, you’re the one who shouldn’t,” she spat. “You shouldn’t have pushed me to date him. To open my heart. If this is what an open heart feels like, I’d rather have open heart surgery.”

  “I know,” Eva said.

  “I’m not cut out for this shit,” Marisol said. “If I want a man, I can find one uptown any night of the week. I don’t care if you judge me for it. Fuck Raul. He doesn’t have anything I need.”

  * * *

  That night, or really Saturday morning, she got a late phone call that woke her up.

  “So, is it true?” Raul’s drunken voice came through the phone, his speech slurred.

  “Is what true?” Marisol asked. She blinked at her phone, which said 1:52 a.m. “That I was a sex worker?”

  “When I asked you about yourself,” he said, “you told me you had dated a bunch. Izzat what qualifies as ‘a bunch’ these days? Fucking guys for money?”

  Marisol was wide-awake now, and pissed. “If you wanna know about me so bad, why don’t you go look it up on your cop database?”

  When he spoke again, his voice was a malicious hiss. “You fucking lied to me. I’ve been called hijo de la gran puta before. But I never thought I’d be novio de la gran puta.”

  Marisol slammed the phone down.

  This time when she cried, it was equal parts rage and sorrow.

  Chapter 26

  On Monday, two days later, Marisol stood in the rooftop garden above her apartment. In the dusk light, she could scarcely make out the lavender buds on a bush one of the staff had planted. She looked past the garden, past the opposite buildings with their rows of bright windows and zigzag fire escapes. She looked past the church spires and skyscrapers, toward the horizon and the cloud cover over the city.

  Her chest ached. She had been distracted from it all afternoon in the bustle of the clinic, but the minute she was alone, the grief fell on her, heavy and sharp.

  Her phone rang, and she felt a pang of hope in her solar plexus. That he was calling to apologize. To beg forgiveness. She didn’t recognize the caller ID. Stop it, Marisol, she admonished herself. Don’t be that girl waiting for the phone to ring. You’re done with him. Just ignore it.

  She picked up the phone.

  “Ms. Rivera? It’s Jeremy VanDyke. I need to arrange a meeting with you, tonight.”

  “Tonight’s bad,” Marisol said, trying to recover from the disappointment that it wasn’t Raul, and the even stronger disappointment that she cared.

  “I apologize for the urgency of the request, but I can meet any time before I leave for Japan at four a.m.”

  “Jeremy, what’s this about?”

  “I’d prefer to discuss it face-to-face.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, our business has concluded,” Marisol said.

  She walked into the building, closing the roof door behind her.

  “I have a lucrative proposition for you,” VanDyke said.

  “My workday is over,” she said. “Call me when you get back from Japan.”

  “Five minutes,” he said. “There have been some—developments.”

  “You’ve already had three minutes, and you haven’t said anything. I’m hanging up.” She walked down the stairwell.

  “Wait!” he said. “Security has been compromised from our previous meeting. Five minutes, Ms. Rivera. Please.”

  “Security?” she asked, stepping into the clinic’s administrative office area.

  “Please,” he said. “I’d rather not discuss it over the phone.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll be in my office for the next two hours.”

  “My limo is out front. I’ll be right up.”

  Marisol rang off. She called Eva and explained the situation.

  The intercom buzzed.

  “Do you want me to come up?” Eva asked. “I’m only five minutes away.”

  The bell buzzed again.

  “Definitely,” Marisol said. “If you could come in through the back and just be in your office in case I need you.”

  “Done,” Eva said. “I’ve been carrying around the panic button receiver in my purse, so use it if you need it.”

  Marisol surveyed the mess in her office. Tax season always trashed the place. Manila folders and forms sat on every available surface, along with several grant proposals.

  Marisol looked at the video intercom. Even with the grainy image, she could read the anxiety on VanDyke’s face. She buzzed him in.

  “I appreciate you making time on such short notice,” he said.

  “Your five-minute clock is ticking,” she said.

  “I understand that the police brought you in for questioning today about the robbery.”

  Marisol shrugged and nodded.

  “The police also mentioned your prior arrests—” he began.

  “I’m familiar with my own police record, Jeremy,” Marisol said.

  “I fired my driver for identifying you,” he said. “His dismissal included a generous severance package with a nondisclosure agreement. No leaks from him.” VanDyke pushed up the arms of his sweater. “My concern is about leaks from the department.”

  “I can’t control leaks from the department,” Marisol said.

  “I’m concerned about wh
at you might say that would corroborate their information,” VanDyke said.

  “Jeremy,” Marisol said, “I told you I might have said something if we had gone out on a real date. We didn’t. You hired me as an escort, and I won’t be bragging about my reentry into the business, even for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It would jeopardize my professional reputation as an executive director, and leave me vulnerable to criminal charges.”

  “But if the word gets out about your past,” VanDyke said, “your professional reputation will already be compromised. And the income potential of selling your story to the tabloids, or better yet, some tell-all memoir, would easily offset any losses of disclosure.”

  “Are you kidding me?” she asked.

  “Ms. Rivera,” he said. “You’re a businesswoman who covers all the angles. I can’t imagine this hasn’t crossed your mind. Particularly with your account of the robbery, it would be quite marketable.”

  “This is why you’re here after-hours? This is your urgent business?” Marisol asked. “You’re worried I’m gonna say some shit, since the cops know I did sex work ten years ago? How did I ever find you attractive? What I mistook for charisma is really just arrogance and self-centeredness.”

  “I will ignore the name-calling and clarify,” he said. “I want to offer you another donation, in exchange for you signing a nondisclosure agreement.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and produced a document.

  “I—” He ran a hand through his hair, his face flushing a bit. “I wouldn’t be so insistent, but the deal I have going in Tokyo is very big, and with an extremely conservative corporation. The cost of exposure would be quite significant right now.”

  “Don’t waste my time,” she told him, leaving the paper untouched on the desk. “At age seventeen, I learned to keep my mouth shut as a sex worker. If I could do it then, I can do it now. I don’t want my picture in the Post with some lurid ‘I fucked a billionaire and all I got was this lousy two hundred fifty grand’ story. I’m not gonna write a kiss-and-tell memoir about you.”

  She looked around at the piles in her office, all the things she had to do. How was she supposed to do it all with a fifty-pound weight on her chest, pining for a guy whom she’d never even really had? Now Jeremy was coming with this bullshit?