RealLife Rum Read online

  Kevin’s RealLife Share investment is also a winner. He grew up in Miami, where he played varsity tight end. He’s from an aristocratic African-American family—his great grandfather was a powerful tribal healer, his grandfather an admired physician, his dad the head of a hospital chain. The kid attends Penn for premed, and is currently eyeing Harvard Medical School.

  Kevin went to night school and worked three jobs.

  I click over to the security camera in the restroom closest to the conference room and watch as Kevin scrubs and scrubs. He reaches for the pump to add more liquid soap, scrubs some more. Does he think he’s washing the blood from his hands?

  Sean Crumbert is the only other hedger with an investment that could possibly trump the others’. But life recently turned its backside on his investment, the young heir to the Miller Screwtop fortune. The kid has lost weight and is increasingly listless. The boy appears to be struggling with his sexuality and seems unable to commit to his passions. A one-night stand turned sour, and now the kid is skipping classes and smoking medical-grade marijuana in his dorm room.

  “How is your investment faring at Yale?” Mr. X asks when he delivers Sean’s envelope.

  Sean, a portly gentleman with cartoonish Coke-bottle glasses, shifts his bulk before he manages a phony smile. “I really think it’s harder on kids these days than when we were young,” he says.

  Mr. X snorts.

  “I don’t envy them their struggles,” Sean continues, licking his doughy lips. “Kids want to measure up to expectations, and that’s not easy these days. Yale is tough sledding. But I think he’ll do it.”

  Sean is concerned about time. There is only one year left until the Prize Fund comes due, and he believes kids these days don’t mature until they’re over thirty. Sean has doubts his RealLife Share investment will get it together in time. He has commissioned psychiatrists to pose as resident advisors, hookers to play seductive coeds, and businessmen to act like recruiters. Maybe a job would be better than another year in the Ivy League for a boy with complex leanings. Sean is not sure what to do next. His cheating has not paid off and might never do so.

  He takes his check and tucks it in the pocket of his mauve linen suit. Sean has no children of his own and is glad of it. Managing a human investment has been more than enough for him.

  Mr. X hands out the envelopes one by one to his hedgers, including two elderly gentlemen with household names. The man from Omaha and the one from Hungary are not in contention for the final prize.

  Mr. X gives the last packet to Beth Anne Freedmont. Beth bares a set of snow-white hand-painted teeth, then boasts, “I have no doubt, no doubt whatsoever, that Marina will outscore the rest. Nothing can stop that girl. She is my little miracle.”

  ****

  Ugh.

  I let out a groan and Hot Cop laughed. A nice low growl of a laugh. A sexy animal laugh.

  Yum. I wanted to make him laugh some more. And growl.

  An intriguing challenge.

  ****

  Nobody says anything, but everyone in that conference room knows how Beth has cheated over the years, continuously interfering with the natural progress of Marina’s life. Some miracle!

  But really, they are only jealous of her success. They, too, have donated money anonymously, paid off teachers for better exam results, slipped cash to cops and coaches, blackmailed bad boyfriends or girlfriends and small town drug dealers. They’ve fixed scholarships, paid for prizes, adjusted test scores. Opened doors, paved over paths, cut off corners, always steering from afar. Over the years, they’ve all done whatever it takes to help a kid along in today’s challenging world.

  Mr. X is amused by all the backroom hijinks. He has found humor in the subplots, games, long cons, and quick tricks of each and every one of the hedgers. For years, we have followed all the clever attempts at manipulating investments in the hope of influencing the end results for the RealLife Shares Prize. As the years have come and gone, the investors have become more desperate while Mr. X has simply become wealthier.

  This can be the way things work with hedge funds.

  Beth Anne Freedmont, who has devolved from a fairly attractive fast food franchise owner to a bloated matron in a floor-length Hawaiian muumuu, smugs obscenely. She asks Mr. X to tally up the points for the RealLife Shares grand prize. Everyone in the room is aware that Marina, Beth’s Marina, is ahead by a large margin. The others avoid looking at Beth Anne. She is especially unattractive when she’s gloating.

  Mr. X wheels his chair back to the head of the table and opens his chestnut-colored leather ledger, an old-fashioned accounts book in which he has been scrawling for decades. He waits for a minute as Kevin returns from the bathroom, hiding his reddened, raw-looking hands in the pockets of his Calvin Klein slacks. Kevin’s mental problems have grown worse over time. And now Kevin’s RealLife Share investment is thinking about taking a leave from his studies to join the Army. The young man wants to do his patriotic duty. Kevin is sick over it. He slips into his seat next to Veronica Pitts.

  Veronica sneaks a quick look at her Rolex. It’s almost twelve-thirty. I know what she’s thinking. She can hardly wait until she lowers her lovely ass onto a barstool. She can almost taste the lemon drop martini, the slightly sweet burn, the citrus mist on her tongue. She can almost relax into the alcohol fog of forgetting, letting go of everything that has happened to the hedgers and their RealLife Shares over the years.

  Veronica Pitts is a woman who knows her own worth. And everyone else’s.

  When I click to a floor camera, I can see Nathan Estes playing footsie with Veronica Pitts. Nathan has been seeing a physician who gives him hormone injections that are supposed to reverse aging. He has the brain of a seventy-year-old has-been in the body of a thirty-year-old wanna-be. His wife also has maturity issues. She’s in love with the pool boy. Nathan and his wife stay together because a divorce would cost them too much money. Nathan cannot afford a divorce right now. Not until he and Veronica cash out their hedge fund.

  Veronica and Nathan have created a separate hedge fund of the RealLife Shares hedge fund.

  Mr. X knows about the bet on the bet. He finds it amusing. He has seen the tapes of Nathan and Veronica’s gymnastic trysts in a variety of luxury hotels. He finds this most entertaining.

  Why? Because Mr. X has established a hedge fund on the fund on the fund. An F cubed. All of his dozen F cubed investors are Saudi billionaires. Mr. X’s management fee is astronomical.

  You see why I said I am showing you what history looks like? Can you begin to imagine what this kind of wealth can do? What this kind of wealth is doing—politically, socially, culturally, globally? Environmentally?

  Take a minute and think about this. I’ve been thinking about it for years. And here I am, on the cusp of doing something about it. Because of just how wrong it is.

  Please understand that RealLife Shares is a close-ended fund. There are a limited number of shares, but these can be traded among the investors. Some profits are distributed before redemption. The investors have had access to more money than some small countries. Profits have been lavishly, stupidly squandered, sucked down, and fucked off, virtually thrown away.

  This is hard to watch. Especially from an eight by ten security office overflowing with pizza boxes and burger wrappers, a bare closet of a room stuffed with computers and video monitors. I’ve spent a large slice of my life in this colorless cubby, living a virtual existence, experiencing the world vicariously through those I monitor on-screen. I have seen what investors do with their annual profits. I have watched them eat, drink, fuck up, and shit money. Watching them serve their self-interests has ruined my dreams. I’ve seen the waste. An endless stream of money drowning these pathetic people. Eventually, the wretched excess got to me. And I began to question my own future.

  Does luck even exist? Is there such a thing as destiny? How much of what we call fate is actually in our own hands, anyway?

  These ultra-rich people, they press a button
and we jump. Then they laugh, uncork another two hundred dollar bottle of Bordeaux. Another two thousand dollar bottle.

  Who can tally up all the dreams that have been ruined by the money gods like the ones behind RealLife Shares?

  Time is moving me ahead, into my future. My hands are shaking as I straighten my wrinkled necktie. My palm feels damp when I smooth down the front of my short-sleeved white shirt. I turn around to stare at my reflection in the cool blue mirrored glass of Mr. X’s tower, trying to calm myself on this long-awaited day of reckoning.

  All the hedgers arrived by eleven-thirty this morning. I watched their limos ease across the bridge one by one, stopping and idling while a pair of shaved-skull ex-Marines checked their IDs. Security is extra tight this year. Mr. X has been receiving untraceable messages from someone who claims they have valuable insider information about RealLife Shares.

  That someone is me. I have plenty of information about RealLife Shares, enough to convince Mr. X to buy me a pretty good life elsewhere in the world. I’m not a greedy man. Give me Marina and a few million dollars, and I’ll split the scene. Give me the girl and just a minute fraction of the money, and I’ll be content.

  I’ll show you a different version of history.

  This is the hedge on the hedge on the hedge on the bet.

  ****

  Officer Handsome didn’t laugh, but I couldn’t help it. Give me the girl and a few million dollars? Nice try, bucko. How about, give me a bullet in the heart?

  Poor Harry. What a dreamer. And what good did it do him? None. He thought he could grab fate by the balls, but really, he was clutching his own dick.

  Hot Cop met my eyes and didn’t let them go.

  After a minute, my smile slipped away. The man was intense.

  Very intense.

  ****

  I’m watching the drawbridge in the distance as the bridge lowers and snaps into place. A car stops at the guard box, a mid-size margarine-yellow cab. The airport shuttle from West Palm. Is it my imagination, or do I see a streak of beach blonde in the back seat?

  My knees shake a bit, so I lean against the building behind me. The chubby Chevie moves across the bridge in slow motion, adhering to the five miles per hour speed limit posted on the private drive. I reach for my cell and speed-dial the security guard upstairs.

  “Don’t tell him anybody is on the way up,” I say, and Jiiba laughs.

  “Yo man, whatever. I gotta take a dump anyway.”

  Needless to say, I hired Jiiba years ago. He has proven to be an excellent investment in my future.

  When it comes down to it, I’m not that much different from Mr. X. We are ordinary men with nothing special to offer the world. But we are gamblers, Mr. X and I. We’re willing to go for the big brass ring.

  History, after all, is a zero sum game. Life is a gamble and all gamblers end up as losers because we are each betting against fate. Hoping for Big Pot luck, playing the odds against the gods. In the end, though, destiny must rule. At least, this is my final hope. That the destiny I am betting my life on will be the one I deserve.

  The taxi stops in front of the tower, and I watch her climb out. Her white-gold hair tickles her suntanned shoulders. I can feel the sheen of her body as it quickens in my pulse. Her beautiful face is open, her smile dazzling. She sees me and calls out, “Hello! Wow! What an amazing place you have here. I’m Marina.”

  She has no idea who I am. I want to say, I am your Luck, your Fate. I am your Destiny.

  I am about to walk forward to meet her. Marina. Marina Winston. My investment, my future.

  There is such freedom in the surrender to the inevitable. It’s a risk, yes. Sometimes the risk is life or death. But when it’s the truth, when it’s from the heart, it’s always the right thing to do.

  ****

  Maybe not, though.

  That’s what I was thinking when Harry’s monologue ended. Right there. He must have turned off the digital recorder as he came down the steps to meet me. Popped out the memory card and slipped it in his top pocket.

  I tried to recall whether he was mumbling to himself before he arrived to greet me at the curb. But all I could remember was the way he smiled at me. Awkward, shy. I liked him. He seemed like a nice man.

  He pulled my bag from the trunk and paid the cab driver. Then he hefted my suitcase into the lobby while holding the door for me. We rode the elevator together up to the thirteenth floor.

  He came down in a body bag.

  Some destiny.

  “Hey,” I said to my policeman. “I thought buildings weren’t supposed to have thirteenth floors.”

  Hot Cop didn’t respond.

  Chapter Six

  Was I dismissed? Could I go home now? Home to what? My lie of a life?

  Poor me. I’d tried to get as far away as I could from my usual boring life, and here I was. In the middle of a big, bloody, scandalous, and bizarre crime scene. At least I hadn’t gotten shot. At least I still had a choice about how to spend the rest of my life.

  Not poor Harry. He’d made such brave plans for his future. Heroic. Or antiheroic. Whistleblowing, then stealing from the devious rich, but keeping it all for himself. And me! Harry’s personal destiny could have been romantic as hell. Only he got sabotaged. Shot in the chest by Veronica Pitts, overreacting to the news that the hedge and the hedge on the hedge were trashed. Veronica with the bipolar eyes, the anger management issues, the nasty drinking problem. And the stupid-looking pink pistol.

  Another case of artless American violence.

  “Exactly how did that crazy woman get that ridiculous handgun past the security guards, anyway?” I asked my cop.

  The little pink gun had looked more like a vibrator or a party favor cigarette lighter than a semiautomatic pistol. Since when had they started manufacturing ladies’ weaponry in shades of Pepto-Bismol?

  Officer Handsome popped out the memory card and held it in his large palm. It looked tiny, useless. “Under investigation,” he said in that sexy growl of his.

  Oooh. Talk Dirty Harry to me, was all I could think.

  “These DuraCoated guns get overlooked sometimes,” he explained. “The alleged weapon was a Glock 19 she’d had personalized in Swat Pink.”

  Twat pink, was what I thought but didn’t say. That woman was seriously nuts.

  “The polymer handguns are light, around twenty ounces. And in that shade, a pistol is unusual enough to be misunderstood by security. It looks like a toy. Which is a problem for law officers everywhere. You can get yourself a pink camo AK-47 with Hello Kitty on the stock. Imagine trying to decide if a kid holding a weapon like that is an immediate threat or just a girl having fun.”

  It was the most words he’d said in a row. I liked him talking. I liked him silent, too. I’d take him either way, maybe both.

  Suddenly, my eyes teared up. The whole thing, it was all too much. Pink guns. Children under surveillance. A group of unpredictable strangers determining the value of my life. Billion dollar bets, handball players in wheelchairs, fat men in security booths the size of coffins. A dead man who’d thought he loved me? Jeezus. It was way too much.

  Is this what history was made of?

  “How ’bout that coffee?” my good cop/bad cop said.

  I nodded. Between sniffles, I mumbled, “Thanks.”

  He left to get me what was sure to be a cardboard cup full of bitter backwash from a Mr. Coffee parked all day in a dirty kitchenette. I dug around in my purse for a tissue. My tears wouldn’t stop. Maybe it was from the cigar smoke that lingered in the humid air of the stuffy little office.

  Or maybe my tears stemmed from the fact that my life had been arranged without me. Played like some poker game. Played to a big pot final hand while I lay in a daze on the felt poker table. Like a pile of plastic chips.

  My feelings ran hot and cold. I only knew one thing: I wouldn’t be drinking that coffee. My mind was cartwheeling. I needed something a lot stronger than caffeine to fix my nervous system. Bottles of rum ro
lled around in my brain. Was it drunk o’clock yet? Sure felt like it.

  When the cop came back, ratty Styrofoam cup in hand, I couldn’t help myself. “You get off duty anytime soon? I could use a daiquiri, but I’m not old enough to buy myself a drink.”

  “You’re talking to an officer of the law here, miss,” he said.

  But there was a bit of a gleam in his dazzling blue eyes. And no fuck-ring on his finger. Maybe he was single and available. I needed something to get my mind off my life. Or what I’d thought of as my life.

  I pretended to sip the coffee. It was ludicrously bad. All the stories about cops and ulcers, they’re probably true. I needed a Maalox just from sniffing the fumes.

  “The man was in love with you, and now he’s dead. There will be a lengthy investigation, and you’ll be a focus. The SEC will be involved, the feds. You may need to come back and forth from California while all this gets sorted out.”

  He wasn’t drinking any coffee himself. Smart man.

  “He didn’t know me,” I said. “He just spied on me and made up dossiers about my childhood activities. He didn’t know me at all.”

  I tried not to pout, but really, what the fuck? I realized I was feeling hurt, insulted. My tears dried instantly. I tossed the wad of tissues into an overflowing trash can.

  Insulted was the least of it. I’d been invaded, violated, manipulated. My privacy had been hijacked my entire life. And all I felt was insulted? And sorry for Harry?

  Fuck that shit.

  Harry had thought I was so sweet. A good girl. Hard-working student, a pretty little California chick. But he only knew half the story. He believed what he wanted to believe. Because what most people don’t know about me is this. I own my own darkness. That’s right. I’m a tough cookie, and I hold my own. People think they know me, but they have no idea. All those years on my trail and Harry thought I was some innocent babe? What a lousy investigator that guy had been. An impassioned romantic, maybe, but a fucking terrible investigator.