“What time is it?” I asked.
“Six. I’m leaving for the day. How did you sleep?”
“Good. I slept good. The first full night’s sleep…”
I didn’t finish the sentence. The first full night’s sleep I’d had in one hundred and eighty days. Six months since the day after my birthday in Laguna. Six months since Ricky’s phone call. Six months since I’d begun this plan.
“Look at me,” Paco said.
I rubbed the blear out of my eyes. Paco was wearing jeans, work boots, a heavy black sweater, a bright yellow hard hat. He seemed excited.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Construction site, downtown, do you like the hat? I look like a real Yankee, don’t I? A real American,” he said, and then in a gravelly voice he added, “Do you feel lucky, punk? Do ya?”-an impersonation that completely escaped me.
“You look like a regular American,” I agreed.
His grin grew even wider before a look of concern darkened his visage. “You better get up too, Esteban’s already here to take the girls up the mountain. He’s in a mood and he’s dressed like a pimp.”
“Screw him,” I muttered and closed my eyes again. In Havana I didn’t get up until I could smell the coffee brewing in the ice cream parlor on O’Reilly.
“Shit, Maria, they’re calling me, I have to go,” Paco said.
“Go then,” I said, and then, remembering basic civility for someone who has slept literally under one’s own roof, I added, “Have a good day, Paco, look after yourself.”
“I’ll see you tonight.”
I nodded and drifted for a minute or two. I didn’t hear him leave the room, I didn’t hear the Toyota pickup full of Mexicans drive away, I
I sat up with a jolt. “Who the fuck-” I began furiously and then remembered where I was.
“I’m running a business here, you got two minutes to make yourself look presentable,” Esteban said.
“Sorry, I-” I began but Esteban cut me off.
“These are important people. You’re a smart girl, you can see that our whole operation is on a knife edge. We gotta project a feeling of competence and calm. The feds didn’t touch us. Everything’s running smoothly. Get me? So no fuckups. This is your first day, I’d hop to it if I were you. I don’t care how bad things get, I’ll fucking can you and everybody else if I want to. Put this uniform on and meet me outside in the parking lot in two minutes,” Esteban said.
He was wearing a charcoal gray suit. His hair was combed, his face washed, his beard trimmed. He had a large diamond ring on his little finger but apart from that he looked good. Few straight men can resist a compliment from a younger woman, so I gave him both barrels at point-blank. “I’m sorry for your troubles, Esteban, and I’m grateful for the opportunity. Can I just add I think you’re bearing up very well under all this pressure? You look very together today.”
Handsome like a bear, as we say in Cuba.
Esteban’s mouth twitched and his cheeks took on a rosy complection. He grunted.
“Yes… well, uhm, I have to meet some of our clients this morning, reassure them that the Mountain State Employment Agency does not hire illegals and has not been affected by the INS raids.”
“Well, you look great. I love the suit.”
“Tailored. In Denver,” he said, and then, remembering why he’d come, muttered, “Uhm, Maria, we all need to be downstairs in, say, five minutes?”
“Oh, no problem, I’ll see you down there.”
He stood there for a moment. Something was on his mind. He got to it. “I don’t normally give people the choice, but, well, do you want to work what we call Malibu Mountain or would you prefer to be downtown, where it’s a bit easier? You’ll probably end up doing both, but the mountain’s good because in about two weeks they’re going to start giving out Christmas tips. Could be lucrative.”
I had to work the mountain, there was no question about it.
“The mountain,” I said.
“I have an arrangement with the other girls. Remember, I get half of all the tips, no exceptions, ok?”
“Ok,” I said.
I’d be gone by Christmas. What the hell did I care?
Esteban seemed relieved. “Great. Thought I’d remind you. Didn’t want to have to strong-arm you later.”
“You think you could?” I asked with a smile, ironically flexing my skinny arms.
He grinned. “I like you, Maria. If this works out maybe you could even work for me in our office on Pearl Street.”
“Ok.”
“Good. I’ll see you down there.” He turned to leave and then paused in the doorway. “It won’t be much, you know, don’t get your hopes up,” he said.
I had lost the drift. “What won’t be much?”
“The Christmas tips. When we used to clean the Cruise estate, Margarita and Luisa got a thousand bucks each. But these fuckers we do now, they’re all the lesser lights.”
“That’s ok,” I said.
“Hurry up now,” he said and finally left the room.
I put on the maid’s uniform, a somber short-sleeved black affair with blue piping, but infinitely better than those I’d seen around the Hotel Nacional or the Sevilla. I smoothed the straggles from my hair, brushed my teeth, washed my face. I looked mousy but rested and fresh.
Angela, a slender young thing from Mexico City, had made Nescafe in the kitchen. I took a few sips of the acrid liquid before joining her and the other girls in the back of Esteban’s Range Rover.
Esteban sped off, talking as fast as he drove. “Luisa, Anna, I’m going to drop you on Pearl Street. A lot of people are jittery, but I’m not. If the INS still has agents in town-which I doubt-remember that they’re civil servants, so no one’s gonna be up and about before ten o’clock. You understand what I’m saying?”
Both Anna and Luisa looked blank.
“Jesus. Am I the only one who does any thinking around here? You gotta be finished by ten o’clock.”
Luisa looked at me and Angela with an expression I couldn’t decipher but which Angela seemed to get. Angela nodded. Luisa leaned forward in the seat until her face was only a few centimeters from Esteban’s. “Don Esteban, how are we supposed to do all the businesses on Pearl Street before ten o’clock? We are not miracle workers. You must be crazy,” she said.
Luisa was an older woman from Guadalajara, and I could tell that she was allowed a little more leeway with Esteban than the others; but even so, Angela and Anna seemed surprised to hear her speak so freely.
Esteban stared at her for a moment, thought about one possible reply-almost certainly a profane one-but chose to select another. “Look, just do your best, Luisa. Make sure you cover the important clients: Hermes, Gucci, DKNY-you know, the big ones. Just get it done and get off the street before ten. We’re in a jam and we all gotta pull together.”
He dropped Luisa and Anna outside Brooks Brothers and drove off toward the so-called Malibu Mountain.
Before he’d gotten a block his phone rang.
“Yes?… Yes?… Yes!”
He hung up, reversed the Range Rover. Luisa was having a last cigarette while Anna was inside the store turning on the power. Esteban wound the window down and called Luisa over. He was excited. “They didn’t get Josefina. She was at her boyfriend’s house. Christ, when she didn’t show up I thought they’d grabbed her. But she got away.”
“Josefina? Ok,” Luisa replied with considerably less excitement.
“So it shouldn’t be any problem to get finished by ten, Josefina will be joining you,” Esteban said.
“It’ll still be difficult to do everything,” Luisa said.
“Just get on with it!” Esteban muttered, and the window whirred back up.
“Good news,” Esteban said, turning to the pair of us. “Great news. Who wants a Starbucks? My treat, eh?”
