by Chris Mooney
Right now Isabella Flores should have been acting like the other two clients: mellow or half-asleep and lounging in the surgical chair, mindlessly watching TV or listening to music as they waited for their transfusion to begin. Instead, she was frantic, pacing rapidly back and forth.
Dawson said, “She’s refusing the transfusion until she speaks to the man in charge—the one who runs the whole operation. The gangster, not the doctor.”
“The gangster?”
“Her words.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s an actress and she’s crazy?” Dawson sighed as she took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “How would you like to handle this?”
“I’ll talk to her.”
Dawson blinked in surprise. “You never talk to the clients.”
“This is her first time getting a transfusion. It’s probably just nerves.”
“Or maybe she’s just another miserable narcissist who thinks the world revolves around her.”
“There’s that.”
Dawson shook her head. “Enjoy.”
The click of Maya’s heels faded behind him as Sebastian took a seat in front of the console. Facing him was one-way glass looking into Isabella Flores’s room. It took him a moment to find the switch for the microphone. He didn’t worry about disguising his voice; the mike already did that.
“Good morning, Miss Flores.”
Isabella Flores started at his voice. She looked up at the ceiling speaker directly above her.
“Can you hear me okay?” Sebastian asked. “Do I need to turn up the volume?”
The woman stepped directly in front of the one-way and straightened and squared her shoulders, looking like she was about to climb inside a boxing ring and knock someone out with one punch. Sebastian caught a whiff of fear behind her pose—the fear of being a onetime insanely popular item now kicked to the discount aisle, reduced for quick clearance.
“Tell me what’s troubling you,” Sebastian said.
“Are you the person in charge?”
“What’s the problem, Miss Flores?”
“How dare you lock me inside here like a prisoner? Do you know who I am? How much I paid?” She glared at the one-way mirror—at him—demanding an answer.
Sebastian had to shut down her attitude right now. He picked up the small microphone and leaned back in his chair, grinning. “I’ve got this recurring dream,” he told her. “It always starts out with me sitting at the head of this really fancy banquet table, right? All the food and booze I could possibly want, and there are—”
“I don’t give a shit about your dream. What I want is—”
“What you want, Miss Flores, is immaterial. What I want is all that matters, and what I want is for you to stop acting like a spoiled brat and to show some manners. A woman such as yourself should know better.” Sebastian paused, pleased when he saw some fight go out of her eyes—not a lot, just some. “Now, I was in the middle of telling you a story. An important story. May I continue?”
She didn’t answer—although she clearly wanted to, her nostrils flaring, Sebastian watching as she swallowed her words. Sebastian continued.
“Okay, so, the dream. Like I said, the banquet table is full of food and booze, and there are, I dunno, a dozen or more chairs around me, and they’re full of dead people. I’m not talking Hollywood dead, with makeup and good lighting; I’m talking real-life dead. Rotting flesh and missing limbs and eyes—everything. I don’t recognize a single one of these people, or any of the ones standing behind them, because their faces are, well, you know, gone. But I’ve got an idea of who some of them are because of the clothes they’re wearing. Can’t remember their names or why I killed them, yet most times I remember what they were wearing when they died. Does that make me crazy?”
Isabella Flores didn’t answer. His story, which was 100 percent true, had taken a bite out of her self-absorption. He had her full attention. “The other crazy thing about the dream?” he said. “Flies and maggots everywhere. On the bodies, the food. I know it reeks to holy hell in there, but I can’t smell anything because it’s a dream. Have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Smelled a dead body?”
She swallowed, indignant. “Why would you ask me such a horrible question?”
“I’ve been around a lot of dead bodies, and it’s the single worst odor on the planet—the kind that hits you in the stomach like a fist. The only thing you want to do is to run from it, find a place to throw up. But in the dream? I just keep on eating like it’s no big deal.”
Sebastian chuckled. “But that’s not the crazy part. That happens when I wake up. Every single time I do? I’m hungry. Not ‘Let’s go downstairs and grab a glass of milk’ hungry. I’m talking about eating-the-entire-contents-of-the-refrigerator hungry. Crazy, right?”
Her eyes cut sideways, to the door.
“Oh no,” he said. “No, no, no. This isn’t some shitty movie where you’re going to escape. No one’s coming to rescue you. This is real—this is happening—so I need you to focus, and answer my question.”
“What question?”
“About the dream. What do you think it means?”
“I’m not a psychiatrist.”
“You seem like a smart woman. Surely you have some insight.”
“I don’t know,” she said, but this time her tone was softer, less hostile. She was ready to play ball.
“But you’re smart enough to understand that being rude to me, my staff, acting ungrateful—such behavior isn’t exactly in your best interest. You’re here as my guest. If I were so inclined, I could let you starve to death, or if I were feeling more generous, I could simply make you disappear. Sure, there would be an investigation, but the fact of the matter is, nothing would come of it, because nobody knows where you are. You see my point?”
Her lower lip trembled. “Yes.”
“Anything else you’d like to say?”
She nodded, chastened. “I’m sorry for my behavior.”
“We’ll chalk it up to pre-transfusion jitters. This is your first one, correct?”
“It is. How do I know I’m really getting Pandora and not some . . . imitation or substitute?”
“Is that what’s making you nervous, Miss Flores?”
“That and a few other questions I have.”
Sebastian decided to indulge her. He had plenty of time until his next appointment, in Pacific Palisades, where he’d be showing a house. His real job—his cover—was in real estate.
“How about you take a seat and I’ll answer every single question you have until you’re completely satisfied? How does that sound?”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“Of course.”
She sat on the side of the surgical chair, looking a bit cowed, and gripped the edge with both hands. Her arms trembled a bit and her knuckles were white.
“Now, you asked about Pandora—specifically, how do you know whether or not you’re getting the real thing?” Sebastian said. “Great question—and one that we get asked a lot. The answer is, you don’t know. There is no FDA seal of approval or anything along those lines, for reasons I don’t have to explain to you.”
“So I’ll just have to take your word for it.”
“Yes.”
“The medications you mix into your carrier blood—”
“All perfectly legal, all perfectly safe.”
“What are they?”
Wouldn’t you like to know? Sebastian thought with a grin. People would have been surprised to discover that his winning formula consisted of a generic diabetes drug and a generic used to prevent organ rejection. Well, those and one special ingredient. Sebastian had the medications smuggled into the US from Canada and other countries so he wouldn’t raise suspicion with any of the federal watchdogs
and agencies here in the US.
“It’s my right to know what’s going into my body,” she said.
“Think of me as Coca-Cola. I can’t give away my secret recipe.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“True, but it’s the only one you’re getting. I assure you the medications are safe, with few to no side effects.”
His answer, he saw, did little to mollify her.
“You don’t have to go ahead with this,” Sebastian said. “If you’d like to change—which is certainly your right—I will refund your money. But the rule is, once you say no, that’s it. You don’t get an invite back. And you waited a long, long time to get to this point.”
“Almost two years,” she said, a bit indignant. Her attitude didn’t surprise him. A lot of powerful and famous women believed they should shoot up to the front of the line instead of waiting with the common folk.
“Would you like to leave, Miss Flores? If so, please tell me now so I can make the proper arrangements.”
“And the side effects?”
“This wasn’t explained to you?”
“It was. I just . . . I’d like to hear it again, one more time. If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. The transfusion will take more or less four hours. During that time, you will most likely experience intense hot flashes, possibly even chills—like a bad flu. Your vitals will be monitored, of course, and someone will be here to assist you the entire time. By the end of the day, you’ll feel tired. Worn-out. You’ll stay here tonight, as my guest, and tomorrow you’ll be examined and, as long as you don’t have any medical issues, released.”
“What about blood moles?”
“Not a single one of my clients has ever developed them, so you can put that out of your mind,” Sebastian said. It was true. Blood moles—tiny red sores that developed all over the body, in hivelike clusters, usually on the face and chest and inside the mouth, sinuses, and anus—had been the telltale sign of a major and deadly autoimmune disorder caused by a chemotherapy drug that was now off the market. Those early blood seekers who had wanted to look beautiful and extend their lives and thwart disease had their blood platelet counts drop so low, they were at risk of hemorrhaging. These people had to undergo, ironically, chemotherapy—massive “shock and awe” rounds to try to escape death.
Most didn’t.
Sebastian took a sip of his coffee. “What you will experience over the next few days is what many clients refer to as a rebirth. Your senses will feel as though they were, say, rebooted. Colors will seem particularly intense, as will tastes. You’ll be very sensitive to sounds and touch. Are you married?”
“God no.”
“Seeing anyone? Involved in a serious relationship? I ask because a good majority of my clients report heightened and sometimes intense sexual arousal during the first month. Nothing to be alarmed about, but we tell clients so they can inform their partner or partners. Clients who are single—we urge them not to put themselves in situations for the first month or so where they may engage in, say, sexual conduct that they may later regret.
“Now,” Sebastian said, “the physical benefits—the tightening of skin and firmer muscle tone, thicker hair and more energy. Those will be noticeable in about fifteen days. Your sleep will improve, too. Of course, a lot of this depends on your lifestyle choices—exercise, diet, what have you. You smoke?”
“No.”
“Great. Booze?”
“A glass of wine every now and then.”
“Nothing wrong with that. We urge our clients to live healthy and active lives in order to gain the maximum benefits of Pandora. If you do that—and judging by how well you take care of yourself, I don’t see that as being a problem—then you can get your next treatment in, say, five or six months. If you start smoking or pounding back bottles of wine, if you develop some disease, then we urge clients to get quarterly transfusions.”
“And if I decide not to get another transfusion?”
“You will go through withdrawal. It will feel like the world’s worst flu. Not life-threatening, mind you, but extremely unpleasant. Do you have any other questions?”
“The blood I’m getting . . .”
“It’s the best on the market,” he said. “That’s why we have such a long waiting list. We harvest the blood on the morning of a transfusion so it’s fresh. No chemicals or preservatives.”
“I want to know about the—you know, the donors.”
“What would you like to know?”
“You treat them well?”
Sebastian had assumed her anxiety had to do with fear of dying or her fear of aging gracefully into a woman who was no longer admired for her radiant youth, beauty, and sexuality. Or, as Maya had suggested, maybe she was simply a narcissist. Sebastian didn’t peg her as the type to have a crisis of conscience.
“The person giving you this blood,” he said, “did so willingly. Hand to God.”
“But you treat them well?”
“No,” he said. “I treat them very well.”
She looked down at the floor, embarrassed.
“I want to keep living my life,” she said.
Sebastian sensed she had more to say. She did.
“I have the most amazing life. I’m going to be taking a tour of Egypt next month—I’m dying to see the pyramids—and then I’m heading to France, where, God willing, I’ll meet a much younger man who will enjoy the company of a much older but hopefully still vibrant woman.”
“He’ll be a lucky man, Ms. Flores.”
“I’m completely shallow. That’s the only benefit of getting older—knowing who and what you really are. I miss being young and pretty because I’m deeply shallow, and I love young and pretty things.” Her gaze drifted back up to him, and she seemed incredibly vulnerable. “Does that make me an awful person?”
“No,” he said. “Makes you human.”
* * *
* * *
Ava was still very much on his mind later that morning, for reasons he didn’t completely understand. He hadn’t seen her in a good ten or twelve years, and here he was showing a beachfront home in Pacific Palisades to a bony, blue-eyed blonde named Celine Marcus and thinking about Ava’s home, a modern architectural marvel of stone and glass that sat on half an acre in Hollywood Hills West, high above Sunset Boulevard. He wondered if she still lived there.
When he had been released from prison, he would often drive through her neighborhood—first at night and then, when he felt braver, during the day. He eventually found places where he could safely spy on her using binoculars, watching her for long periods of time while she was inside her house or out in her backyard, gardening or enjoying the pool. Sometimes he would follow her as she ran errands, often with her daughter in tow. He never approached her, because what was the point? She had gotten married and had a kid while he was in prison. She had moved on without him.
It had gone on for almost five years, his spying, this constant craving to punish himself for something that had been stolen from him—which, he would later learn, explained why he had turned from a heavy drinker into a full-blown alcoholic. Frank, his friend since childhood, stepped in, got him into a ninety-day detox and into AA. Frank knew about his obsession with Ava, and Sebastian eventually confessed it to the man who became his AA sponsor, and they both told him he was engaging in alcoholic behavior even though he was no longer drinking, that the only way to move forward was to stop moving backward, and that meant putting his past to rest—his prison sentence, the life taken from him, everything. It meant putting Ava behind him.
And he did.
Or at least he thought he had. So why was he thinking about her now? Why was he thinking back to the last time he’d seen her—not in person but through a pair of binoculars, something he had admitted to no one, including Frank, because he had known it would make him sound
like a major-league pervert even though he had never watched her get undressed. That would be wrong. Watching was never about sex. Watching her was about—
“I love the way the natural light fills the room,” Celine Marcus said, her voice echoing in the cool, cavernous space. The current owners had been forced to unload all the furniture in the house in a fire sale. “So beautiful and peaceful.”
“Absolutely.”
Celine turned to the picture windows overlooking the backyard, with its pool and private spa, the thick lawn and the covered patio with its ample alfresco dining space. Sebastian turned his thoughts back to the last night he’d seen Ava. He had watched her getting ready for bed, coming out of her bathroom, her hair still damp from the shower. She wore a pair of gray boy shorts and a matching tank top, her Colombian skin dark with a summer tan, her curves still there but firm with muscle. She slid into the king-sized bed she shared with her husband—the bed empty a lot, he saw, her husband, some sort of hedge fund douchebag, out entertaining clients most nights—and Sebastian thought, I should be lying there next to her. He would have had that life with her if the judge hadn’t sent him off to prison for beating someone to death—even though it was self-defense and an accident.
“The architecture,” Celine said, “is beautiful.”
Ava had visited him every Saturday the first two months and then stopped when she got into a bad car accident that broke her leg and injured her spine. Prison didn’t allow him access to a phone, unless he was contacting his lawyer, and he couldn’t use email, but it did allow good, ol’-fashioned snail mail, and she wrote to him—long letters at first, then, by the end of his fourth month, short and vague notes featuring highlights from her life, the sort of thing you wrote to a long-distance aunt or cousin out of obligation. Five months into his life sentence the letters had reduced to a trickle, and then they stopped. No more visits, either.