Emily Kimelman - Sydney Rye 03 - Insatiable (13 page)

“I’ll call. I think an email might seem like a prank.”

Easy handed me the phone. It reminded me of the kind of phone Sean Connery’s James Bond would use to take out an enemy. I lifted the receiver and listened to the tone at the other end. I dialed the numbers slowly and practiced in my head what I would say.

“Hola,” a voice said. I hung up.

“What’d you do that for?” Ana asked.

“She was speaking Spanish.”

“You speak Spanish.”

I stared at her. “Not well.”

“I’ll do it.” She took the phone away from me and gave me another one of those teenage looks. I tried to make my face look like hers but I didn’t believe that she was the dumbest person in the whole wide world so it was hard. Ana redialed.

The first words out of Ana Maria’s mouth were: “Do you speak English?”

Then she handed me the phone and said, “She speaks English.”

I cleared my throat. “Who is this?” the woman asked.

I’d rehearsed this in my head. “My name is Sydney Rye but I was once called Joy Humbolt.” That came out great, I thought. I can do this.

“Who?” she asked. Shit.

“Wait, is this Izel?”

“You have the wrong number.” Click.

I handed the phone back to Ana Maria. “That was the wrong number.”

Ana blushed. “Oops.”

“Let’s try again.”

I dialed the number this time and used Ana’s method by first asking if the woman spoke English. She did, so I then asked the second logical question: “Is this Izel?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“My name is Sydney Rye, but I used to be called Joy.”

“Humbolt?”

“Yes,” before she had a chance to say anything, I continued, “I want to offer you a job. I need you to help me.”

“How?”

“I need you to watch a house. I want you to tell me who goes in and who goes out.”

“You mean spy on somebody?”

“Yes.”

Another silence. I played with the cord that attached the handset to the phone. I wrapped it around my finger making the skin rise between the lines. The ridges of skin went white while I waited for her to speak. “Who’s house?”

“Pedro Hernandez Gonzales and Juanita Vargas Llosa de Hernandez.”

She swallowed audibly. “Are you crazy?”

“Izel. Here’s the thing. Pedro and Juanita hired an assassin to kill their nephew because he was trying to help indigenous people find representation in the Mexican government. Now maybe the rights of native Mexicans are of little interest to you, but I’m sure that you can agree the cold-blooded murder of family is just plain fucked up. Now I want to stop them. I want to make them pay. I’m not sure how I’ll do it yet, but right now I need to know what they are doing. Is this something you can help me with?”

“They killed their own nephew? I can’t believe it.”

“Try.”

“Are you going to kill them?”

“No.”

“OK.”

“Do you want time to think about it?”

“I do not need time to think. I will work with you. But watching a house takes many hours.”

“Hire whoever you need but don’t tell them who you are working for. Let me know who they are and I will arrange payment.”

“Yes.”

“Call me at this number,” I read the number off the phone.

“Thank you,” Izel said, and we hung up.

Both Easy and Ana were looking at me. “How’d I do?”

“Great,” Ana said.

I looked to Easy. She nodded. “I thought you were very convincing.”

“All right, who’s next?”

“Didn’t you want to call your friend Malina?” Ana said, handing me her profile. I looked down at Malina’s beautiful face. “Maybe she will spy on my father,” Ana Maria suggested.

“Can I have a moment alone?” I said. Ana Maria and Easy nodded then headed down to the pool taking Blue with them.

I picked up the phone and dialed the number. It rang three times, I took a deep breath. “Hola!” Malina answered her phone.

“Malina?” I asked.

“Si?”

“It’s Sydney Rye.”

“My God.” She cupped her hand over the receiver and spoke to someone in the room. “Hello? Are you there?”

“Yes.”

“My God, Sydney, how are you? I’m so glad you called. Where are you?”

“I’m in some trouble.”

“How can I help? Anything.”

I took a deep breath. “I need some information about Juanita and Pedro Hernandez Gonzales.”

Malina started laughing. “This is so wonderful. I know Pedro very well. He is a great customer of mine.”

“Really?”

“Yes, yes, I see him all the time. Less so in the last six months but just in the last week he has started to visit again.”

“What kind of business do you have, Malina?”

She laughed again, sounding older and happier than I remembered her. “I would have no business without you. I’m sure I would still be in that horrible city. You, Sydney Rye, saved me.”

“You saved yourself, Malina.”

“Do not be so modest! Without the money you gave me I would be somewhere else, somewhere terrible.”

“So what kind of a business is it?”

“Similar to the work I was doing when I met you only now I am the boss.”

I was pretty sure that was a nice way of saying she owned a brothel. It appeared Ana Maria knew her father well. “It’s good to be the boss,” I said.

Malina laughed again. “Si, very good. Now, what can I tell you about Pedro?”

I bit my lip and thought for a moment. “I guess I’m trying to understand his mental state. Is he very upset?”

“I will ask the girl who he is seeing. When I saw him he was all smiles but who knows what is really in his heart. We will find out for you.”

“Thanks.”

“How do I reach you? Once I have some information.”

I read her the number off the phone. “And Malina, I don’t think I even have to say this but please don’t tell anyone I called.”

“Of course not, you know my business is discretion.”

There was a knock on the door. “I’ve got to go Malina. We’ll talk again soon.”

At the door was a bellboy with our food. “Where do you want it?” he asked.

“You know what? I think we should eat it by the pool. Do you mind?”

He smiled. “Of course not. This is your paradise vacation and we want to make it perfect for you.”

I smiled. “That’s great.”

SLEEP

I woke up with a start. Dusk crept into the room casting a haze over the space. Blue was awake, too. He stood by the door to the balcony watching. I threw the covers back and felt the air turn the sweat on my body cold. I sat on the edge of my bed and thought about what I was doing. Building an army. What was I thinking? Who the fuck did I think I was?

I wrapped a sheet around myself and stepped out onto the balcony. The trade winds blew steadily, pushing my hair around my face. I sat down and looked out to the little island across the way. It was dark, not a sign of life. Close by, I heard a car door slam, two women laughing and then silence.

Leaning my head against the back of the chair I looked up at the sky. No clouds broke up the perfect arc of dusty blue. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the darkness behind my lids. I had one big contact left to make. A guy who was good with computers. Someone who I hoped could tell me about Mulberry. Tell me if I could trust him. I wondered what Mulberry would say to this. To me on this hotel balcony. For a second I thought he might be proud.

A smile spread across my face. Mulberry would love it. I had the feeling over the past year or so that he was sick of running a company. That he wanted back in the action. Maybe I’d find out he didn’t know about any of this. Maybe he’d come out here and join me. We could be working together again soon enough.

I thought back to when we were plotting together in New York. Mulberry didn’t want to help at first, but I convinced him to. He chose to join me. Sure, some of it was the treasure but it was also, I suddenly realized, me. I convinced Mulberry to change his life and I could do it with others.

But he betrayed me. In the end he told Bobby Maxim to take what was mine.

I opened my eyes and looked back up at the sky. I could do it. This guy I was going to call today, I was going to call him and convince him to throw it all away. To forget about everything he thought he wanted and instead join me. Become my expert. I laughed out loud. I was gonna get my own expert.

I picked a man who lived in Key West. Out of all the profiles of people with computer related jobs he was the closest and as far as I could tell the most qualified. I called him at home at 8 a.m.

“Dan?”

“Who’s this?”

“Opportunity.”

“I can’t remember when the last time a B&B called offering me opportunity.”

“Caller I.D.”

“Don’t pick up the phone without it.”

“I want you to come here. Your flight leaves in an hour. A car will pick you up.”

Dan laughed. “Are you crazy?” he asked.

“I’ve been getting that question a lot.”

“Look, I’m sure that an operation your size does not need the kind of protection I provide.”

“I’m not the B&B, Dan. I’m Joy Humbolt. A car will be at your place in 30 minutes. See you in a couple of hours.”

Years later, while Dan and I were getting drunk together in this shit hole in Peru, he told me that he hung up the phone and was about to go to work and forget about the phone call. But as he was walking out the door wearing his suit, he thought about how fucking hot it was out and that he was wearing a tie. Dan said that he threw his briefcase on the ground, pulled his tie off and was kicking off his shoes when the car pulled up. He arrived in St. Thomas wearing shorts, flip flops and an old cotton T-shirt.

Growing up in New Jersey and bored out of his mother-fucking mind, Dan started hacking when his grandmother gave him a computer for his 11th birthday and his parents gave him his own phone line. When he was a teenager his mother worried about him spending too much time online, but Dan figured it was better than going to the mall to drop acid, jump in the fountain, and get kicked out.

One of those kids who could have gotten straight A’s if he’d just cared a little more, he floated along in a sea of B’s, the occasional C and, of course, he failed gym. But it wasn’t because Dan was some pencil-necked geek who couldn’t climb to the top of the rope. It was just hard to get up in the mornings after spending all night chatting with kids in Japan to go play dodgeball.

Dan went to college in California where he fell in love with warm weather and learned that his computer skills could be used to make a living by stopping other hackers. He went to work for a company in Key West because he liked the color of the water there and the idea that gators floated just under the surface of the swamp. But after six years of helping protect the networks of large corporations, he was sick of his bosses, his peers and his life.

When he found the site about me, or at least the site for people who liked me, he found something new. It was a different type of person who networked through my site. Beyond the normal complaints of their lives, the people on the site wanted to do something. They wanted more than what they had, and not in a material sense, but they wanted to be more important to the world.

The night before I called Dan he was sitting in front of his computer scanning through the latest postings on a blog about algorithms and he started to wonder what would happen to the world if he was eaten by an alligator. First he imagined his own death, the struggle to escape the prehistoric beast’s grip, the spin underwater, the last desperate gasp for breath. His body eventually giving up and sinking into the depth, leaving a red sheen to the swamp’s surface.

His boss would be the first to notice. He’d leave some messages on the machine, the last one probably firing him. Dan’s mother would eventually get worried enough to come down and file a police report. She would cry, pack up his house and go back to New Jersey. And though he knew his disappearance would break his mother’s heart, it would do little else. His friends online would miss him but not enough to find him. His stuff would end up at the Salvation Army. There was nothing that Dan would leave behind.

So my phone call came at just the right time. Dan was looking for a challenge; he was looking for actual human contact, friendships that involved looking at each other’s face. He was looking for something to do. Do.

Easy brought Dan to the hotel. I was by the pool sunbathing and thinking. Izel had just called and let me know about her new hires. My bank in the Caymans was more than happy to oblige setting up the necessary wire transfers. I was trying to think about the next step when Dan blocked the sun pouring through my closed eyelids. I blinked looking up at his silhouette. He was a medium-sized guy in a dirty t-shirt.

“This is Dan,” Easy told me. I sat up and put out a hand. Dan shook it.

“You know who I am?” I asked Dan. His hair was brown. It needed a cut; his shaggy bangs tickled his eyelashes. He pushed it aside and looked at my face. I pushed my shades up.