by Jay Begler
The voice he heard was tentative only because Rebecca was not sure the call was a set up.
“Daniel, are you there? Is it you?”
He had to stop himself from crying. “Rebecca, it’s me. Where are you? We’ve been frantic.”
“I know Daniel, and I’m sorry. I can’t come back just now. I need to take care of a few things. But I’ll be back in six months; trust me. Are the girls ok?
“They are fine, except like me are worried sick.”
“Just tell them to be patient. Things will work out and six months is not a long time. The good news is that the two men that attacked us are dead.” She began to laugh. “I killed them, Daniel. Can you imagine that? I shot them through the head and then set them on fire. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.”
His relief turned to anguish. He thought that Rebecca might have suffered a nervous breakdown, but assumed that playing along would be for the best. He said, “That’s wonderful. They deserved to die. I hope it was painful for them.” She didn’t elaborate and then added in an upbeat manner, “I love you, Daniel. Be strong.”
Her voice, he thought, was inconsistent with what he assumed was a deteriorated mental condition. She sounded totally normal, strong in fact. “I love you too Rebecca.” The phone went dead. The men opened the door, and ushered Daniel out. One man said, “Walk across the street and under no circumstances look at us.” Before the van pulled away, one of the men said, “Good luck Daniel.” When he turned around, the van was gone. Rebecca had forgotten to mention the Cartel’s promise to invest in his company.
After composing herself and wiping away the remnants of her tears, Rebecca dialed the hacienda and said to Isabella, “Thanks for setting that up. Let’s talk.”
They sat on the terrace of the guest house, and Rebecca, now fully into her old assertive persona, said, “I want twenty million to start and fifty million if we are successful. Hector told me that you have a legitimate pharmaceutical company. I want to my work to be under the auspices of that company. All patent rights to the new drug will belong to me. You’ll need to set things up so it really does look like the company created the drug. I’ll guide you on that. I also want to speak with Daniel again in three weeks.”
Isabella said, we will agree to everything, except your call to Daniel. That’s a deal breaker. Take it or leave it.”
Rebecca stood and walked to the edge of her terrace and looked out for a long moment. She turned, and said, “Ok, it’s a deal. I’m in.”
“Thank you, Rebecca. Tomorrow we will arrange to transfer twenty million to an account for you under a name you will create and a password and pin number only you will know. You can move the money around as you wish, but not to anyone in the United States, meaning primarily Daniel and your family. Now then, I would be very pleased if you could come over to the hacienda tonight for cocktails and dinner. Many people are anxious to meet you. Say 6:30? Louisa will come by and pick you up.”
The wardrobe supplied to Rebecca was substantially larger the one she had home. After looking through her closet, choosing and rejecting items, she finally selected a white Gracie lace-dress, which fell about three inches above her knees, gold roman style heels and a small matching clutch bag. She applied her make-up carefully and put on several dabs of Hermes, Caleche perfume. Rebecca wondered how the Cartel knew it was her favorite perfume. She assessed herself via the large closet mirror, and was pleased by what she saw. To her reflection she said, “Not bad”
Walking with Louisa toward the hacienda, she was struck by the irony of her situation. Just like her father, she was working for a criminal organization. Rebecca murmured to herself, “Like father, like daughter.”
Louisa asked, “Sorry, what did you say?
“Nothing important.”
Rebecca stepped onto the patio of the hacienda. All of the guests turned and began to applaud. She couldn’t deny that she liked that, and despite her circumstances, for the first time in many years she was happy. She was a prisoner but she was also free.
Twenty
•
Camelot for Sociopaths
While Rebecca could imagine Daniel and her daughters’ sorry state, her two psychological shields against guilt, rationalization and the compartmentalization of her emotions, mechanisms in an earlier time that permitted her to cheat on Daniel without regret, were working well. She reasoned that her overwhelming euphoria was because the thugs were dead; not only dead but relegated in the form of ashes to a disgusting place. But there was another feeling at work that she recognized. It was a sense of immense satisfaction knowing that she was the one that killed the thugs, and in a rather brutal fashion. Rebecca thought, “It’s true what they say, revenge really is sweet.” Despite her present circumstances, she felt entitled to enjoy the moment. She would play along with her captors and plan her escape, though deep down, she knew escape was impossible.
There was also the money. By staying on, Rebecca would save their company and way of life. For now, she placed her thoughts about Daniel and her daughters into a hermetically sealed psychological compartment. In her present circumstances, she would focus on the here and now and Daniel would be excluded from her thoughts. Had Rebecca known what lay ahead for him, her mindset would have been entirely different and the compartment where she kept guilt sealed up would have exploded open.
An array of colorful lanterns surrounded the perimeter of the large terrace. Near a table that functioned as a bar, a harpist and flautist played. About thirty well-dressed guests milled about, drinking cocktails and talking quietly to each other. Waiters wearing starched white jackets passed hors d’œuvres. It was all so civilized and, for Rebecca, incongruous beyond reason. She thought, “This is what it must be like to be in a madhouse when the inmates take over. These people, responsible for so much misery and for so many deaths, are eating miniature crab cakes and curried chicken on small skewers, as if they were at an opening of an art gallery.” She thought, “The hacienda. It’s Camelot for sociopaths”.
She conjured a series of questions. “What would her father’s small talk be like if he were at the party? Would someone ask him, ‘So tell me, what you do here?’ And would he reply nonchalantly, ‘Oh, I perfect all of our drugs. I just made a better grade and much cheaper form of heroin and what do you do?’ ‘Nothing as impressive as that. I’m a professional assassin.’ Rebecca laughed at her dark little scenario.
Isabella approached her, and asked, “Something strike you as funny?”
“A passing thought; thanks for the party.”
Isabella was wearing what Rebecca supposed was an original Valentino dress, which on anyone else would have looked stunning, but because of Isabella’s slight body mass it seemed to hang on her like drapes by a window. Her usual thick veil, which had become such an integral part of her appearance that no one paid any attention to it, covered her face. With great warmth, Isabella said, “Rebecca, I’m so pleased you came. Thank you.”
Isabella tapped on her glass to gain the attention of the guests and, having succeeded in this task, said, “Ladies and gentlemen, our guest of honor, Rebecca Levy.” Simultaneously, all the guests applauded again. Rebecca did not know how to respond and gave a nod.
Isabella took Rebecca by her hand and said, “Come; there are a few people I want you to meet.”
Without exception, everyone she met spoke about her tenure at the hacienda with the euphemistic word, “stay.” A woman said, “We hope you enjoy your stay.” A waiter said, “You’ll find your stay with us will be very pleasant.”
Isabella introduced her to a nondescript, roly-poly man and woman in their seventies, who Rebecca thought could have been the poster couple for an assisted living facility in Florida, and whom she immediately labeled Tweedledee and Tweedledum. The woman asked, with an identifiable British accent, if she played bridge, because they needed a fourth. Rebecca’s affirmative answer delighted them. “We must work you in during your stay.”
Rebecca thought,
“During my stay? It’s like I’m at a Goddamn Marriot.”
“May I ask what you do?”
They answered in unison without a hint of shame or remorse, “We head up the poison team. It’s part of the assassination group.”
As Isabella led Rebecca from person-to-person Rebecca said, “You know Isabella, besides being pissed off as hell at what you did to me, I feel like I’m into some weird dream or motion picture. These elegant and seemingly nice people are criminals, sociopaths, and yet in this setting they seem perfectly normal. It’s so strange.”
“Tell me Rebecca, aside from being abducted and here against your will and putting aside your anger, how do you feel?”
“Aside from those insurmountable things, I feel rather incredible. It’s hard to describe. It’s as if killing them brought me back to life. I got my life back. More importantly, I got who I was back. I didn’t fully realize how broken and frail I was after the Event.”
“And if none of this happened, if you didn’t kill those men and were at home, how would you feel?”
“So, I traded one form of imprisonment, being a prisoner of my terror, to being a prisoner here.”
“True, but assume you had to choose between having those men out of your life versus being away from your family for six months, while working on a drug that on the one hand will be highly addictive and illegal and on the other hand a possible cure for some horrible diseases, which would you choose? This is the far better of the two choices and you know that. Besides, your imprisonment, so to speak, is relatively short term. Your imprisonment in your own terror would have been for the rest of your life. Think about it.” Rebecca had to concede that Isabella was correct, and replied, “Point taken.”
“And Rebecca, we hope you come to like us, but that’s not required. You’re here to do a job, so you don’t have to like us. You have a choice, however.”
“A choice?”
“You can try to enjoy yourself while you’re here and while you stay with us, sorry for that word stay, or you can be miserable. The choice is yours. If you don’t want to interact, we’ll respect that choice.” As to the bizarre nature of your situation, I know how you feel. When I realized that my father was the head of the Cartel and that everyone at the hacienda, some of whom watched over me when I was a child, were all criminals, it was almost too much to absorb, but then just got used to it. The Cartel’s environment became my normal. I believe that after a short while our environment will seem normal to you, even pleasant.”
A servant announced dinner. As Rebecca entered an enormous dining room, she saw Morales, who beckoned to her. He held out her chair and said, “Thank you Rebecca, for helping us. You’ve made me a very happy and grateful man. I must say, you look particularly lovely this evening.”
Without thinking of what her response should be, Rebecca said, “You are looking rather fine yourself, Hector.” He blushed slightly, and she laughed as they sat down and said, “The blushing drug lord.”
The way the evening progressed was in stark contrast to the portrayal of drug cartels in the movies. The talk at the table did not relate to crime but to art, music, literature, and politics. Mixed in with this talk was banter between the two of them and reminiscences of their lives as students on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. There was some intermittent jostling and touching of elbows, the contact of which seemed to last longer in each instance. The mere touching, the feel of his warm skin, stirred something within her. Rebecca’s robust sexual appetite, suppressed so long by the Event, was reawakening. She sensed an undercurrent of sexual excitement provoked by the proximity of Morales. For the second time, she wondered what it would be like to make love to Morales now. Hearing Morales’ voice distracted her. “Rebecca?” And then, “You’re blushing. I’d love to know what you are thinking.”
She laughed, touched his arm again, held her hand there and said, “I bet you would.” She found it strange that she didn’t feel particularly angry at him and wondered about the reason for this, but couldn’t dwell on it because of a continuous parade of people coming to their table to introduce themselves. “Are these people part of the Cartel?”
“All are part of what we call our ‘core group,’ the people at the top of our pyramid, the directors, managers and high-level operatives. They are the brains and heart and soul of our operation. Without them, we wouldn’t exist. Eighty percent of our business relates to drug trafficking and twenty percent relates to other activities, from illegal gambling, to fraud, to blackmail, to legitimate operations. But the mainstay of our business, and by far the most profitable element is the drug business. That’s why you are so important.”
He said it in such a matter-of-fact manner that she was not alarmed or upset. “But Hector, you realize that it’s more than likely that I, or I should say my team, will fail.”
“We all know that. Just do your best.”
“And you will let me go in six months?”
“If you choose to go; yes, without question. I promise you that, but I will be heartbroken if you do.”
“Given who you are, and what you do, it’s hard to imagine you being heartbroken about anything?”
Very few things sadden me, Rebecca but your leaving would certainly have that effect. I made a promise to you, which I intend to keep. So, if you choose to leave, you can.”
After dinner, they walked down a narrow path towards a small gazebo.
“I don’t remember this,” she said.
“It’s relatively new. Isabella hired a landscape architect several years ago to spruce up the grounds. I’ll show you some other areas that are quite nice.”
When they sat, Rebecca said, “So Hector, I assume you brought me here to tell me something.”
“I’d like to know what your life has been like since you walked out of the Apple store on that day in December. I think I got a small snapshot of that when we met in New York for dinner, but would like to know more about you. And, if you are interested, I’ll bring you up to date on the last twenty years.”
“It’s hard to believe that over twenty years have passed. My life is easy to describe, it’s in two parts, my life before what we call the Event and my life after the Event.”
He interrupted, “But now there’s a third part, “Your life after you killed those two thugs.”
“Correct. If my life was a movie, I guess I would call it, ‘Rebecca, Prisoner of a Drug Lord.’”
“It’s not me Rebecca, believe me, but tell me about yourself. I know we spoke at Pedigree, but that was mostly superficial. You seemed down a bit and edgy. You had a habit of looking over your shoulder.”
“People often told me that. I think it was to see if those men were nearby. Notice, I don’t do that anymore.” For the next hour Rebecca set out her autobiography, and finished rather whimsically, “And now, as a captive of a drug cartel, I am about to engage in facilitating a new illegal drug. OK, Hector, now it’s your turn.”
Morales highlighted the major events of his life from going to school in New York City, just to see her, but always at a distance so she would not see him, to how he came to marry Isabella, which he prefaced as the “real version, not the one I told you in New York,” and how he became the head of the Aztec Cartel.
Brushing a small firefly out of her hair, he said, “In a way, you are responsible for me marrying Isabella. No matter how tempting the offer from Mr. Chula was, I couldn’t see myself marrying her, not that I wasn’t fond of her, but only platonically. Then, I saw the pictures of your wedding to Daniel on Facebook and in a drunken stupor phoned Mr. Chula and agreed to marry Isabella. I was so drunk that when I awoke the next day, I was not sure I even called him, but then my parents called to congratulate me. It was too late to change my mind. At the time, I didn’t know about his involvement with the drug Cartel. When I found out, I had some doubts, but eventually I agreed. In the scheme of things, I’m glad I did. After all, if I didn’t accept his offer, I would have led the ultra-dull life of a prosperous ban
ker and wouldn’t have seen you ever again.”
He took her hand in his and said, “Now I am in a beautiful gazebo, harp music playing in the background, and I’m with you. So, I don’t have any regrets.”
He half expected her to respond, but she said nothing. He told her about his brief encounter with Marcella. “She asked me what I thought my life might have been if magically you and I continued our relationship and we married and lived in New York City. For an instant I imagined the two of us living the upper-middle-class lifestyle, with two kids, and doing all those things that couples do to enjoy themselves in the city. I even pictured us pushing a stroller through Washington Square Park on one of those nasty fall days in New York. I still remember what I said to her. I said, ‘I suppose I’d be happy.’ Funny, I hadn’t thought of what I had said for many years.”
“And how do you feel now, Hector?”
He laughed slightly, “Want to move to New York?”
“Seriously”
“I’ve kept my emotions in check for many years, but sitting here with you now, frankly I don’t know. Some of my old emotions seem to be percolating.”
She lightened the moment by punching in the arm and said, “Well, keep a lid on that percolator. I don’t want it to boil over.”
He leaned towards Rebecca, put one hand on her neck, and kissed her softly on the cheek and said, “I promise.”
“I better get back. Big day tomorrow.”
“Want me to walk you back?”
“Not tonight.” Both of them wondered why she said it in that way, the inference being on another night they would stroll together to the guest house and possibly her bedroom.
Rebecca’s desire for sexual pleasure that was once the most important driving forces in her life before the Event had re-emerged with vigor. As she walked back to the guest house, unaware of the men with guns hidden in the shadows and assigned to protect the hacienda, she thought about Morales’ hand on her neck and his kiss. It was undeniable that she felt a strong sexual attraction to him. Lying beneath her covers in the darkness of her bedroom, Rebecca imagined them making love and when she placed her finger in her vagina to augment her vision, it was already wet. Holding the image of herself intertwined with Morales, she masturbated. Her orgasm was the first one she had in over a decade. She felt no guilt in what she was doing.