RealLife Rum Read online

Chapter Four

  The eastern sun blazes into the conference room, heating the interior beyond what the air conditioner can handle. This is why Mr. X holds his conferences in the late morning and always arrives late. Each year, he comes cool and collected to a room full of perspiring investors.

  Mexi Gonzalez sits cross-legged, holding her smart phone in her lap. Her long dark hair outshines the polished table. I know, of course, exactly what she is doing. She is texting her lovers, one after another, telling each one how she misses him. I’ve read her racy sexts. Sometimes she sends the same one to all her men. Blind copies. She’s a naughty one.

  Nathan Estes watches Mexi’s long crimson nails as she communicates her lies at lightning speed. I know what’s on his mind, what is always on his mind. He thinks about how they might conjoin, merging bodies and RealLife Shares. But it is too late for that, and he’s regretful. He sighs deeply and lights up a cigarette to annoy the others.

  Everyone in the room wants attention. No one wants to give it.

  Each year, Mr. X makes the investors sit in the overstated luxury of his oversized conference room while he holds a teleconference with his accountant in the Bahamas. Each year, the shareholders wait uncomfortably together in the sun-braised room overlooking the toss of the sea. Impatient, loathing one another, sometimes lusting after one another. Mr. X likes to make them wait. He enjoys their discomfort, their various stages of eagerness, guilt, desperation, and despair.

  Mr. X’s stallion is also out of the running. His RealLife Shares bet was on an infant in Arizona, the youngest child in a second generation Argentinean family. A family of mine owners who worked hard to amass a fortune before moving to the U.S. It was a wild bet, the kind Mr. X thrives on, and the kid showed a certain talent as a painter. But then the boy suffered a breakdown. His increasing paranoia landed him on a mental ward.

  Here’s the thing. I had to watch the sad story unfold, and it was this, on top of my deep love for Marina, that pushed me to the edge on which I stand now. Mr. X’s human investment believed people were watching him, following him, influencing his life. The classic signs of delusion, of paranoid schizophrenia. But he’s not mad. He’s not even wrong. His “hallucinatory” symptoms are grounded in reality. The reality of having a life under the RealLife Shares microscope. With unseen eyes on him, his life was a kind of ant farm he was never informed about but was able to sense. An ant farm worth a lot of money to those unseen others outside the glass walls.

  The kid was sensitive so he felt it. Someone else was creating his luck, his destiny. His life was being manipulated. He realized the truth, although he didn’t understand it. And it drove him mad.

  It is my opinion, an opinion I have shared with no one, that RealLife Shares is more powerful than fate. When someone says the ninety-nine percent are controlled by the one percent, they have no idea how right they are. Billionaires are the new gods, and god help those of us who aren’t.

  I’ll show you exactly what history is made of.

  Mr. X has been paying the kid’s hospital bills. He’s funneling the money through a private fund he set up for the family, who believe they are receiving an anonymous grant from a nonexistent organization. The National Fund for Paranoid Teens.

  Take someone, empty him of himself, remake him your way. You see?

  The day waits outside the conference room window, oil painting pretty, gleaming in the brilliant sun. Down below, where I wait on the sun-splashed steps, the view is paradise trimmed. Perfect coconut palms line the manicured lawn, shapely green fronds rippling in the morning breeze. I breathe in the sea salt, a mild brine lingering in my mouth. White ibis feast on the bugs imbedded in the grass, their pink bills quick pecking as they stalk the lush grounds of the estate. Overhead, a flock of parrots squawk past.

  The world could be such a lovely place.

  Above me, the shareholders sit in the massive bloom of light cast upon them by the east wall, a wall made entirely of hurricane-proof window glass. The shareholders twitch and wriggle. They play with their fingers, food, demitasse cups. They shift in their Italian leather office chairs, listlessly rolling back and forth on the Persian rug. They are silent, brooding.

  Beth Anne Freedmont tosses her mane of silver hair and sniffs. “I think Mr. X wants to buy out my shares,” she announces in a clear oboe of a voice. The others turn to her, their professionally coifed heads snapping quickly enough to muss real hair, but not hard enough to rustle their stiff do’s. “But I’m holding my own,” she continues. “I believe in Marina with all my soul.”

  Beth Anne Freedmont has no soul.

  Marina is one of only three investments still in contention for the shareholders’ coveted RealLife Shares Prize. Beth considers Marina hers. Like a piece of property. A farm in Tuscany, an antique doll, an heirloom brooch. A thoroughbred racehorse.

  Two decades ago, Beth carefully selected a five-week-old infant from an exclusive adoption agency list, then hand-picked the adoptive parents from a second, very exclusive list. Marina’s biological parents had been well-paid for their eggs and sperm. Their genes are regarded as some of the best nature has to offer.

  ****

  Now I felt like a specimen under a microscope.

  When I looked up from my lap, Hot Cop was staring directly, unequivocally, at my tits. Finally, he’d noticed me! All the talk of my fine breeding must have prodded his libido. Men—all they want to do is reproduce themselves.

  Well, maybe we could have a good time while he was at it.

  “In case you’re wondering,” I interjected over the audio, “I already knew I was adopted.”

  He paused it. “Adoption is one thing. Genetic breeding another.”

  I scoffed. “That’s not what they did. Not really. Most adoptive parents have a say in what they want in a kid. It’s not all a crapshoot, not these days. High IQ donors are valued for their eggs, their sperm. Medical students, law students are recruited. That’s how it works.”

  He looked shocked. Where had he been the last couple of decades?

  I tossed him a bone so he wouldn’t think I was being a smartass. Which I kind of was. “But what that Beth lady did is pretty intrusive. I wonder if my parents know.”

  He wasn’t looking at my breasts anymore when he clicked on the tape.

  Oh well.

  ****

  Marina’s adoptive family is upper middle class, highly educated. They believe their adopted child has an elusive biological relative who, for years, has generously funded the girl’s education and extracurricular needs. They have never spoken to this anonymous “relative” nor to Beth Anne Freedmont, of whom they know nothing. Funds come to them from a lawyer’s office in Canada.

  In the ongoing RealLife Shares competition, funding one’s investment is regarded as cheating. Investors are not supposed to manipulate their investments. Beth Anne Freedman has been cheating for years. Mr. X finds this amusing. He told me yesterday he has been waiting until the last lap of the RealLife Shares race to force her to concede. He plans to out her, humiliate her in front of the others, and take over her investment. Today is the day he will announce this decision.

  A woman who knows her own worth is not easy to control. Lying is a modern cultural attribute, and cheating to win is highly valued. Mr. X also cheats. But he is the hedge fund manager and can do what he wants.

  Marina doesn’t know anything about RealLife Shares. Right now, she believes she is on her way to meet her new benefactor. A rich stranger who wants to fund the next phase of her life. But she is coming here to Free Island because I invited her in Mr. X’s name.

  Of course, Mr. X, Beth Anne Freedmont, and the others are unaware that Marina is due to arrive any minute.

  The NAV of Marina is around a billion dollars.

  ****

  The cop and I exchanged shocked glances. Shit. I’d forgotten what NAV stood for exactly, but I figured I was worth an awful lot to the people who had been in that conference room.

  Did this increase
my romantic value with Officer Handsome? I would have to wait until the dead man was done with his story to find out.

  ****

  From my position on the steps, I continue to monitor the conference room, watching while Beth Anne Freedmont reapplies her hideous fuchsia lipstick. Mr. Whang checks his heavy platinum watch and frowns at his jittering wife, who is gnawing on a plastic thumbnail.

  “Why is he taking so long today?” Mr. Whang asks the others.

  Nobody answers, but Mrs. Whang kicks his shin painfully with a spiky Jimmy Choo.

  Outside the wall of glass, autumn clouds arrange themselves in beckoning puffs. Below, the sea flashes its diamonds at the naked sun. No one speaks again until the mahogany double doors at the north end of the conference table open and Mr. X wheels himself into the room. His stainless steel wheelchair gleams in the harsh glare of the streaming light.

  Downstairs, I check and recheck my watch. Marina is late. A trickle of sweat rolls down the small of my back and pools in the crack of my ass. When I shift my weight, my heart flutters and stalls. I am a nerve-wracked basket case. A gawky teenager waiting for a blind date to show. A man waiting for his destiny to arrive.

  While I was still a lowly security gate sentry, popping pimples before going to work at five a.m., I heard a lot of rumors on the mainland about Mr. X.

  “His real name is Xavier Donnelly,” my mother told me while I ate canned beans and a take-out burger. “He bought the island when it was a county park and estuary by paying off area commissioners. They say he made his money in Vegas and Atlantic City,” she said, sipping beer from a sixteen-ounce can while watching me eat. “However he got the money, there’s a lot of it to go around. They say he’s generous with the help.”

  Using this kind of local fiction, my half-in-the-bag mother gave her blessing for me to work for Mr. X. Not that I needed it. I’d been in charge of my own life from as far back as I could remember. My mother cared about me. She just didn’t know how to care for me.

  When I cashed my first paycheck, the bank teller laughed and said to watch out, Mr. X was an escaped convict hiding from the FBI. At the 7-Eleven, Jiiba said Mr. X killed a bunch of people up in New England, then retired here. One of my pool hall buddies had claimed he heard Mr. X was ex-Mafia. Can you even be ex-Mafia?

  “Be careful, man,” Jiiba warned me after my first month on the job. We were skateboarding to the beach after his shift let out. “At the store, I hear stuff about Mr. X that would twirl your chest hair, you had any.” Jiiba spun off the sidewalk and onto the empty two-lane that hugs the shoreline. “Anyone got that much dough has to be brutal. Has to.”

  Jiiba’s people had scratched their way out of horrific oppression in their home country and were engaged in ongoing warfare in this one. Money was always soaked in poor folks’ blood, according to Jiiba. I felt differently. I wanted to make something of my life, and Mr. X represented that kind of possibility. It made my own shiny future seem real enough to grab onto, pull toward me, hold tight to my heart.

  Everyone had something to say about Mr. X, but few people had met him personally. And anyone who did meet the man face to face must have felt like I did about him. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but really, he had nothing special, nothing that stood out. As a person, Mr. X is just like the next guy. Your drinking buddy from college. Your neighbor with the restored Mustang. The man wiping down your bowling shoes. You.

  Except for Mr. X’s hundreds of millions of dollars of net worth.

  For many years, working for Mr. X inspired me. I thought I was lucky. I had hope for my future. He became my role model—an ordinary nothing guy from nowhere who, somehow, stumbled onto the American Dream. And remodeled it, building it into an even bigger dream. The Big Pot of Luck Dream.

  Didn’t this mean we all had a chance at grabbing onto the billion dollar brass ring?

  This was how vague my understanding of the hedge fund was at first. During the first ten years in Mr. X’s employment, I was methodically making my way up the security chain to the top post. Once Mr. X put me in charge, that was when I found out about long/short futures, event-driven strategies, and emerging markets. That’s when I learned how people’s lives could be used as shares, their personal choices worth millions to their investors.

  At first, the new insights into Mr. X and RealLife Shares only made me admire him more. The man was a financial genius, there was no denying it. I was in awe. He was a dream builder!

  But then I fell for Marina. A flesh and blood person. Not just one of the investments, not just one of the prized RealLife Shares, but a real girl. Watching Marina grow up, observing her day after day on the spy cameras implanted around her family’s house, I began to see things differently. I began to view Mr. X differently. I began to follow the natural course, the course from screen and cash value to flesh and blood.

  I’ve been watching Marina since she was a kid. She’s twenty years old now, a senior at UCLA. A beautiful girl with a brain, wit and grit, and a body that never stops. She has acting talent, sings in a rock band, and has two tiny butterfly tattoos on her tailbone and pubis. Her voice is so sexy you almost can’t hold yourself back. She wants to be a bestselling novelist or score a nice role in a big budget film, whichever comes first.

  Marina believes in making her own destiny. She’s in love with her own life.

  ****

  What nonsense. Harry had no clue. And the spy camera remark was really creepy. I’d been watched my whole life? Like I was on some reality TV show?

  Off-screen, my cool cop was looking hot and bothered. I almost laughed. That line about my figure, a body that never stops? That was a good one. I had to appreciate Harry’s inadvertent assist. Officer Handsome couldn’t help but take notice of me now. I sounded like such a catch. Nothing like a little competition to spur male interest. If one sled dog wants to hump the she-wolf, before you know it the whole team is trying to mount her.

  When I crossed and uncrossed my legs, airing out my sweaty thighs, Officer Handsome couldn’t help himself. He watched the entire show.

  I didn’t say gotcha, but I was thinking it.

  ****

  Marina has been led to believe Mr. X is offering her a grad school scholarship based on her grades and achievements. She’s used to receiving gifted funds, since her anonymous benefactor has been supporting her for years. Marina’s parents, both college professors, are thrilled. Marina is flying to the east coast today to meet the man who is offering to fund her future! How exciting!

  But this too is illusion. And I am the perpetrator of this illusion. I have stepped in to become a part of the lie. The lie of Marina’s life.

  This is what history looks like up close.

  I set the whole thing up. I sent the phony scholarship letter, the first-class plane tickets, the itinerary. I invited Marina here. I want her to meet her shareholders. I want her to blow their minds.

  Marina hasn’t a clue that her fate has been in others’ hands since birth. Since before her birth. She has no idea that her destiny is the apex of a billion dollar bet.

  None of the RealLife Shares investments have any idea who they are, what the game is. Each of these ten specially selected individuals are clueless. They and their families have no inkling about the cash value of their personal lives. None of them know anything about Mr. X and his hedge fund, the investors he calls his “hedgers,” and the hundred million dollar bet wagered so many years ago.

  The bet that is now worth a billion dollars.

  In today’s down economy, that’s saying something. Something about how history can be made.

  ****

  My cop and I stared openly at each other. We were both silent, but our minds were running. Calculating. There were ten hedgers? Who put in ten million dollars each? A hundred million dollars to play the game? Now, some twenty years later, the pot was worth a billion dollars?

  A billion dollar bet.

  Just thinking about all that money made me want to drink. Made me want
to suck down about ten daiquiris. And it made me want to fuck somebody. Was this a biological urge, a hard-wired response to environmental overabundance? Or was it just me, doubling down?

  Sex and money, money and sex.

  And rum. Rum, rum, rum. My little hum.

  At that moment, I was hoping Officer Handsome was experiencing the same reaction I was to the news that I was worth more than Oprah.

  Wow.

  The audio continued and Harry kept narrating the play by play.

  Chapter Five

  On my phone, I click around until I’ve got a good view of Mr. X wheeling himself across the sunny conference room. He parks his chair at the head of the table and says, “Hello, hedgers. Welcome to South Florida once again. We are approaching our final lap in the race to the RealLife Shares Prize Fund payoff.”

  His voice is deep, commanding. He’s grinning, his handsome face still youthful, tanned, and only mildly lined. The investors smile wanly. Mr. X likes to intimidate his investors. Even after all the years, all the money they have made together, he fosters in each of them a visceral dislike. Fear mixed with awe makes a powerful cocktail.

  I ought to know, I’ve been drinking them for years.

  Mr. X shares the annual good news—the shareholders’ hedge fund is flourishing despite the floundering economy. He wheels himself slowly around the huge table, handing each of the shareholders a thin white business envelope and the thick stack of bundled paperwork that passes for their annual report. He draws each handout from a pile in his lap. His hand is smooth and quick, like a lobster claw. His legs are hidden under a plaid wool blanket.

  Are his legs shriveled and weak? Is he paralyzed, a victim of stroke, fatally ill, dying?

  Of course not. The wheelchair is a prop, used only for shareholder meetings. The rest of the year, Mr. X jogs, swims, and plays a mean game of handball on his private court. I can’t beat him, and I’ve been trying for the last five years.

  Mr. X has a weird sense of humor. He likes to be a mystery, to keep his clients guessing.

  After Kevin Kleinburg receives his payment, he excuses himself to the restroom to wash his hands. Kevin has OCD. But Kevin is a contender. His obsessive personality heightens his attention to detail, and his retail multinational is thriving.