Emmy And Me

After seeing the Tanakas safely back to their room at the hotel, I wandered over to the Castro house. It had been a couple of days since I’d visited last, and since my visit to Cartagena was running out I wanted to spend some more time over there.

Even though I told Mamá that I’d already had dinner, she insisted that I eat something, and who was I to say no? It was going to be a few months until she took up residence in Los Angeles as Angela’s due date neared, so my opportunities to eat her amazing cooking were rapidly running out.

After my late-night post-dinner dinner, Rafael and I made our way to his home office.

Once he’d poured us a couple of glasses of aguardiente and we’d both sat down, he said, “My friend in the National Intelligence Directorate finally got back to me. He says that Emiliano Suárez is a suspected, but not confirmed, CIA asset. Honestly, that means little. As I said, anyone who owns ships or planes in Colombia is assumed to work with the CIA and the cartel. The fact that my friend could not determine completely… makes me think that Suárez is either more slippery than most, or as strange as it may seem, clean.”

“Hmm…” I replied, thinking about it. “I haven’t seen any proof one way or another.” Taking a sip of my drink, I continued. “It might not really matter, since we’ll be leaving the day after tomorrow, anyhow.”

“As you said, it is better to know if you’re of interest than to wonder,” Rafael said with a knowing nod.

“Where are your friends?” Katrina asked the next morning when I laid my towel down on the chaise next to hers.

“Snorkeling,” I said. “When I told them how liberating it was, they just had to try it.”

“What? No way!” Katrina protested. “Can you just imagine that little old lady and that kid swimming naked?”

“I’d rather not imagine it,” I said. “But you do you.”

“No, not gonna get that image in my head,” Katrina said. “I’m just going to remember your Amazon ass in that water.”

“So, Katrina, is there something you want to tell me? Have you been thinking about my naked Amazon ass a lot?” I teased.

“It was pretty freaking unforgettable,” Katrina admitted, looking away shyly.

“If it’s any consolation, I definitely enjoyed looking at yours, too,” I told her.

“And my landing strip?”

“And your landing strip,” I agreed. Then, after a moment, I said, “There has to be a joke there somewhere about your family’s business and hidden landing strips that most people don’t get to see, but I’m just not quite feeling it.”

“I can’t believe you went there,” Katrina said, slumping back in her chair and covering her face with her hands. Taking her hands down, she turned serious. “Look, I might have been born and raised in Miami, but both my parents are Colombian, and when anybody asks, that’s what I tell them I am, too. All the drug stereotypes get really old, you know that? And when people find out our family’s company does imports and exports, that is the first freaking thing everybody thinks of. You don’t know how sick and tired I am of people asking me if I could score them a key or some bullshit like that.”

“So, you’re telling me that your dad doesn’t actually smuggle drugs?”

“Oh, no, he totally does that,” she said, smiling at my surprised reaction. “Hah! Payback for the elevator night before last!” she crowed, poking me in the shoulder. “Is it so hard to believe that the third largest economy in South America has actual legitimate businesses?”

“Yes,” I said, nodding.

“You…!” Katrina said, poking me in the shoulder again. “Go swim. I’m done talking to you. I just want to watch you go back and forth a bajillion times until lunchtime.”

“Now, you know I’ll be thinking of jungle landing strips while I swim,” I said, strapping on my goggles.

“Nothing jungly about it,” she huffed. “Nicely landscaped.”

“True,” I admitted.

Eating lunch with Emiliano and Katrina, I mentioned to the Very Interesting Man that Katrina had said that he smuggles drugs.

“You told her what?” he asked her.

Letting out a big sigh, her shoulders drooping, Katrina explained that it was a sort of running joke between us. When she finished her tale, I reminded him that he’d joked about the subject when we first met, too.

Emiliano shook his head slowly, as if to admit that it was a topic that came up a lot. “Leah, you and I, we’re both in business, so you know how it is. With every line of work there are… stereotypes, prejudices. You’re a real estate developer in California- the assumption is that you bulldoze endangered habitats and put up endless cookie-cutter houses, right? Well, if you work in logistics in this part of the world, everyone, and I mean everyone, immediately assumes you’re a smuggler.”

“Everybody I’ve talked to here in Cartagena says that if you’re in logistics, you have to be in bed with the cartels and the CIA,” I told him.

“Exactly,” he sighed. “No matter how diligent we are about inspections and manifests, every single shipment to the US gets scrutinized. I’ve come to accept it- expect it, even- but that doesn’t make it any less of a pain.”

“Well, that kinda sucks,” I said. “I’d really been hoping I could tell all my friends back home that I hung out with a couple of undercover spies while I was down here.”

Emiliano laughed, but Katrina looked non-plussed. “Feel free to tell your friends whatever you want,” he said, smiling. “It makes a good story.”

“Well, I am taking off in the morning to meet with an English intelligence officer in London, so it would have made the story all that much better if you guys were CIA, too,” I said, laughing along with Emiliano.

“MI6?” Katrina asked. “Like James Bond?”

“I have no idea what branch or whatever he works for,” I said with a shrug. “Heck, it could be the Beefeaters for all I know.”

“The Beefeaters? The guys in London that wear those big furry hats?” Katrina asked.

“No, those are the Royal Palace Guards,” Emiliano corrected her. “The Beefeaters wear red and black outfits and smaller, but not furry hats. They’re the ceremonial guards of the Tower Of London.”

“You know more about it than I do,” I told him.

“Are you really leaving tomorrow?” Katrina asked after lunch. “Wanna go out tonight?”

“Sure, but I get to pick the scene,” I told her.

“Probably a good idea,” she admitted.

“OK. Dinner at nine here in the hotel. Then we head out.”

“See you then!” she said.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on work, answering emails and making calls. I lost track of time and was surprised to see it had already gotten dark outside when the Tanakas knocked on my door.

They came in and made themselves comfortable on the suite’s living room couch, but I indicated that they should follow me out to the suite’s deck. I pulled three chairs right next to the hot tub, turning on the jets to make a fairly loud white noise.

“I don’t know if my room has listening devices,” I explained.

“Oh- the spies!” Akiko said, then translated what I’d said to her grandmother, who nodded in understanding.

They told me that they’d gone to Bocachica Island and met the woman I’d mentioned, and yes, she wasn’t in favor of our intervention in their lives, but she did admit that we had done nothing aggressive and my people all seemed to be nice- it’s just the idea of outsiders condescending to offer a helping hand that grated on her.

“I can understand where she’s coming from, and I guess I respect her position, but it’s a lot like cutting off your nose to spite your face,” I said.

“That is a phrase I’ve never understood,” Akiko said, frowning.

“It’s a strange one, alright. It means do harm to yourself out of overreaction. You’re mad at your face, so you cut off your nose to hurt it, but of course, it hurts you.”

“I still don’t understand why you would do that,” she protested.

Changing the topic, I asked if they’d met with any of the old folks who hung out at the social club. We talked about them for a while, and it seemed that the encounters had played out exactly as I’d expected they would.

“So what did you learn from this?” I asked.

The Tanakas conferred in Japanese for a little while, before Akiko replied. “It is as you had said. Everything we saw matched with what you told our people at the meeting back in Tokyo.”

“Right,” I said. “And you saw my people, showing their skin, too.”

“Yes. We talked with Ricky, José and Jimmy. We were not surprised that they said good things about you and Queen Emmy- after all, they are your people. What did surprise us was their acceptance of your…” she said, touching the skin on the back of her hand.

“The fact that I’m not blessed by the night? No, that isn’t an issue for us. We want integration in day walker society, after all. Mixed couples are perfectly acceptable,” I said. “What matters is that we know who we are, and celebrate it. Our culture is ancient, and we should not hide any longer.”

“Yes, that is what you say, and we,” Akiko said, indicating herself and her grandmother, “agree with you, as do many, but not all, of our people.”

“I hope that your time with me shows you that living in the open can work. In fact, we really only have a choice about when and how we reveal ourselves, not whether we do or don’t.”

Akiko nodded in agreement, and after she translated for her grandmother, Mrs Tanaka nodded, too.

“Well, tomorrow morning we take off for London,” I said. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to see more of Colombia, but that’s just the way it goes.”

“What is in London?” Akiko asked.

“I have some meetings, and need to pick up some suits that I had made. If you two want, you can explore on your own. I can have a guide assigned to you so you can see the city,” I said.

“We won’t go to the meetings with you?”

“Only one is Night Children business, and you can go to that meeting, if you want. I’ll be meeting with the king and queen of Western Europe.” Turning to Mrs Tanaka, I said, “You’ll remember him from the meeting in Tokyo.”

When Akiko translated, her grandmother nodded and said something.

“Grandmother says that he was a very impressive man.”

“He is. In addition to being the king of a large, powerful nation of our people, he’s my father-in-law. I’m married to his daughter,” I explained.

“Yes, we understand that,” Akiko said. “I am still amazed that such a thing is legal.”

“I’m very pleased that it is,” I said.

Katrina was dressed a bit more conservatively than the last time we’d gone out, but still looked great in her electric blue mini dress. I led her to the hotel’s fancy restaurant- the same one we’d taken the Castros to our first night in Cartagena.

“This is incredible,” Katrina said as we ate. “This is so good! How come we don’t eat here every night?”

“It wouldn’t be a special treat if you had it every night, would it?” I replied. “My mother and father-in-law live in Paris and have unreasonable amounts of money. They go out to Paris’ very best restaurants whenever they want- I mean, Michelin three-star places that normal people can’t even get reservations for, right? But my father-in-law admitted that he can’t eat that stuff more than once in a while. He prefers hole-in-the-wall Thai food, or crêpes from street vendors.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Katrina admitted. “My favorite place in all Miami is a little sandwich shop on Calle Ocho.”

“There’s a little Japanese place in a strip mall in the San Fernando Valley that makes the best yakisoba I’ve ever had,” I said. “And a bar in Silver Lake that makes grilled cheese sandwiches that are to die for.”

“Grilled cheese sandwiches?” Katrina aid, her nose wrinkling.

“If you ever come out to visit, I’ll take you there.”

“Um… Do you want me to? I mean, your wife…” Katrina said.

“Let me lay this out on the table,” I said. “I was serious when I said that I’m more than half convinced you and Emiliano are working for one of the letter agencies. If you are, that’s cool- just tell me, and we can go on from there. If you aren’t, well, that’s cool, too, but proving a negative is hard and you’ll have a hard time convincing me you aren’t. I’m going to operate under the assumption that you are in the meanwhile. Part of that assumption is that you know more about me than I’ve told you, right?”

Sighing and rolling her eyes, Katrina said, “I told you. Not everyone involved in import and export in Colombia are working for the CIA or DEA.”

“Yes, you did say that, but my contacts in the Colombian intelligence community seem to believe that Emiliano certainly is,” I replied.

“You have contacts,” she said, her voice flat.

“Of course I do.”

“And these contacts say my dad is a spy.”

I just shrugged.

“Well, like you said, proving a negative is really difficult,” Katrina said.

“It is,” I agreed.

Leaning back in her seat, Katrina said, “Well, that’s kind of a kicker,” Katrina said. “You think I’m spying on you. You think the only reason I’ve been hanging out with you is to secretly pump you for information.”

“No, I said I thought it was more likely than not. And I have no doubt you had just as good a time as I did swimming naked in the Caribbean. I’d love to be proven wrong- I really would. I’m not sure how you could do that, but you could easily prove that you were,” I said.

“And how would I do that?”

“Tell me who I’m here in Cartagena to visit, or tell me my home address in Los Angeles. Things that it would be hard for a normal person to know, but easy if you had a dossier on me,” I told her.

“Well, I don’t have a fucking dossier on you,” Katrina said. “All I knew before we actually met was what Dad told me- that you’re married to Emmy Lascaux from The Downfall, who just played in Bogotá.”

“What else have you learned about me?” I asked.

“That you can swim for hours, that you have some car dealerships, and apparently, you know people in the Colombian intelligence services. Which normal people don’t, just so you know.”

“All of that is true,” I said. “Do you know why I’m here in Cartagena?”

“To visit some people?”

“And there you go. You’re adding to the dossier,” I said.

“This isn’t as funny as you seem to think it is,” Katrina said.

“I don’t think it’s as funny as you seem to think I do,” I replied.

“So, and I realize that this question does nothing to prove I’m not working for the CIA, but why would you think they’d be interested in you at all? I mean, is there a reason you’re being paranoid?” Katrina demanded.

“I’ve got nothing to hide,” I said. “But I can imagine it might look as if I do. I’m here to lay the groundwork for a non-profit foundation to help the working poor of Cartagena. That’s it. But to do that, I’ve brought in a bunch of my guys, and that may have set off red flags.”

After taking a sip of my sangria, I went on. “The thing is, if you do work for a letter agency, I’d be perfectly happy to talk about why I’m here. I don’t need any misunderstandings. Like you said about Emiliano, just because I brought a bunch of guys in here and they’re busy making local contacts doesn’t mean I’m setting up a drug smuggling ring, right?”

“O.K.” Katrina said, taking a sip of her own sangria to give herself a moment to think. “I guess I can understand why you might think me and Dad are working for the CIA, or the DEA or something. And I guess I can’t think of any way to prove we aren’t. So that leaves us… where?”

“Having dinner at one of the top restaurants in Latin America, and about to go bar-hopping afterwards,” I said.

“Even though you think I’m a spy?”

“It hasn’t stopped me from enjoying your company before, has it?” I asked.

“I don’t even know anymore,” Katrina said with a sigh. “Do I have to fuck you to prove I’m not working for the CIA?”

“One, that’s not a thing that’s gonna happen, and two, it wouldn’t prove anything.”

“No, I guess it wouldn’t, would it? And anyway, I don’t swing that way,” Katrina said.

“Your loss,” I teased.

“I’ve seen you naked,” Katrina said with a rueful smile. “You’d probably break me in half.”

“I meant in general,” I said. “I’m a happily married girl.”

“Yeah, you said that when we went snorkeling. You wanna know something funny? When I took off my bikini, I was thinking maybe, just maybe, it could lead to something more, but when you said no, it wasn’t gonna, it was kind of a relief, if that makes sense.”

“I think that kind of thing is a lot more common than you might realize,” I told her. “Straight girls, in my experience, are always a bit curious, whether they admit it to themselves or not.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Katrina said with a rueful smile. “So, where does that leave us?”

“Like I said. I’ve enjoyed hanging out with you. I think we should go bar-hopping after dinner,” I told her.

“Even though I work for the CIA?” Katrina teased.

“Do you?” I asked point blank.

“No, I really don’t,” she said with another sigh.

“I mean, I’d be cool with it if you did,” I told her. “Spies are sexy. Like James Bond, or Carmen Sandiego, right?”

“You think I’m sexy?” Katrina asked, looking pleased with herself.

“Seriously? Kat, you’re gorgeous. If I weren’t happily married I would have brought you back to my room and ruined men for you forever.”

Katrina laughed at that. “I bet you totally would.”

After dinner we went to a club that our hotel’s concierge had recommended. It was another rooftop bar, but quite a bit classier than the one we’d gone to the night Katrina got roofied. The crowd was a bit older and clearly had more money, and that was perfect. We got to dance without getting hit on by any drunks and the cocktails were excellent.

Walking back to the hotel, though, we ran into a problem. I was on alert, since the streets were unusually empty. This meant that I wan’t surprised at all when two guys stepped out of a dark alley in front of us. A quick glance back confirmed a third behind us.

“Shit shit shit!” Katrina said in a low voice.

“Give us your money!” the guy on the left demanded.

Unwilling to let things play out, I lunged forward and smashed his nose in, then turned and kicked the other guy’s knee, making him crumple to the ground. Another swift kick to the ribs ended any fight he might have had left in him. I spun around to see the third guy had pulled out a knife. I spotted a fist-sized piece of loose concrete and picked it up. I telegraphed my intention to throw it, so when I did, he knew to duck.

Of course, that meant he had to take his eyes off me, and that was all the opening I needed. A solid front kick to the chest sent him reeling and made him drop the knife, which I scooped up, turning back around to face the first guy, who was covering his bleeding nose with his hand.

“Fuck off!” I told him. He took instruction well, fleeing the crazy gringa who now had a knife. The guy I’d taken the knife from used the opportunity to escape, too, just leaving the one guy laid out on the ground, moaning and holding his arms in tight against his torso.

I slid the tip of the knife up into his nostril and said to Katrina, “Tell him that the three of them are very lucky they never laid a hand on you. If they had, I’d have killed all three of them.”

Shaking, Katrina translated what I’d said to the terrified man.

“Tell him that he should find a different line of work. He and his friends got off easy tonight.”

She spoke again to the man, and he nodded slightly, still acutely aware of the blade up his nostril.

“Alright,” I said, removing the knife without cutting him. I tossed the cheap blade into a nearby storm drain, then took Katrina’s hand and pulled her away from the scene. She didn’t resist, but she wasn’t particularly stable on her feet, either.

“Are you O.K.?” I asked when we’d gotten a couple of blocks away and into a much more populated area.

“I don’t know,” she said, her voice shaky.

I spotted a street food vendor’s cart, so I tugged her over. I ordered a couple of Colombiana sodas and some of those cheesy buns you find everywhere in Cartagena.

At first Katrina was still too shaken up to eat, but once she had a bit of food onboard, she managed to calm down a little.

“I’ve never seen anything like that in my life,” she said, still visibly shaking a bit. “You meant it, didn’t you? The part about, you know, killing those guys? You totally could have done it- they didn’t stand a chance.”

“No, they didn’t stand a chance,” I agreed. “They were toast the moment they made their appearance.”

“No shit,” Katrina agreed. “I don’t think they even knew what happened. One moment they were trying to mug-”

“Or worse,” I interrupted.

“Or worse,” Katrina admitted. “Two party girls,” she said, continuing her thought, “and the next moment they were beat to shit. Like, I think at least the one guy is going to need hospital care.”

“Sucks to be them right now,” I said with a shrug.

“And, like, you didn’t even break a fucking sweat. When you stuck that knife up the guy’s nose and told him you’d kill him, like, you sounded… well, not bored, exactly, but like it was just no big deal. Like you’d broken a heel or something.”

“They don’t teach you stuff like that at the CIA academy?” I asked, feigning surprise.

“Oh, Jesus, not that again,” she groaned.

“They really should,” I told her.

“You- I can’t believe you’re making jokes at a time like this!” Katrina said, her voice rising a little bit.

“Best time,” I told her, and reached out and wrapped my arms around her, holding her in a tight hug. She resisted at first, but then relaxed and after a few moments, started crying. I held her until she was done, then just a little longer.

“You O.K.?” I asked again in a soft voice.

“Yeah,” she said, still sniffling a little bit.

I held her hand the rest of the way back to our hotel, and she made no effort to let go of mine, either. I walked her all the way to the door of her room, giving her a final hug before she disappeared inside.

Of course, not even an hour later she knocked on my door.

“I can’t sleep,” she said, so I let her in.

“I just keep thinking about it,” she said when I led her to the couch.

“About what?” Obviously I knew the general topic, but I was curious as to what aspect of the night’s event had her attention.

“It all happened so fast- I’m still trying to figure out…”

“Three guys tried to mug us- or worse,” I added. “I beat ‘em up and told them to fuck off, and they did.”

“You told that one guy- the one you… you stuck a knife up his nose, Leah! Who does that?” Katrina demanded.

“Somebody who really wants somebody else’s complete, undivided attention, that’s who. He’s going to remember that moment the rest of his life.”

“So am I,” Katrina said in a low voice, almost a whisper. Then, looking at me, she said, “But you aren’t, are you? That wasn’t your first time something like that has happened, is it?”

“First time this week,” I said with a shrug.

“All that stuff about car dealerships and non-profits… That’s all bullshit, isn’t it? That isn’t what you do for a living, is it? You’re some kind of… Shit, you say I’m working for the CIA, but you… That’s why you have contacts with the Colombian intelligence. You’re…” she said.

Laughing, I said, “No, I’m not a pro. This is a hobby for me, that’s all. I really am a real estate developer and car dealer with a big company that does have a non-profit arm. I also own a bunch of restaurants and night clubs, too. But like I said, I do mixed martial arts. A lot. I train hours every day, with really hardcore dudes. But that’s just to stay in shape, and to deal with shitheads like those guys tonight. I’m not any sort of hired heavy. And no, I wouldn’t actually have killed those guys tonight unless it was them or us.”

“I believed it when you said you would. That guy with the knife up his nose did, too,” Katrina countered.

“I’m sure he did,” I agreed.

Katrina was silent for a while, so I got up and poured a couple of glasses of wine from the suite’s mini bar. I handed her one as I sat back down, and she took it gratefully.

Sipping her wine, she said, “That was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Seriously, Leah. The scariest.”

“Those guys-” I started to say, but she interrupted me.

“Those guys were scary, but I’m talking about you. It was like something out of a movie, but, like, faster. I mean, from the moment the guy said ‘give me your money’ to when you threw the knife away and we left couldn’t have been more than a minute, maybe? Those guys had no idea they walked in front of a speeding truck!” Katrina said, not looking at me.

“No, they didn’t. Hopefully they’ll learn something from this,” I said.

“I sure did,” Katrina said, finally looking at me. “I learned that speeding trucks show no remorse.”

“Remorse? For beating up three muggers, maybe rapists? No, no remorse there,” I said.

“You told the nose guy that if they’d even touched me, you’d have killed ‘em,” Katrina said.

“I did say that, yes.”

“Would you have?” Katrina asked.

“Their life expectancies would have been very limited if they’d managed to hurt you,” I confirmed.

“But it’s not like I’m even your girlfriend! You don’t even trust me!” she protested.

“I may not trust you, but I do like you. I’d prefer to think of you as a friend. We’ve had good times together, right? I’d like to think that wasn’t fake,” I said.

“God,” Katrina groaned. “Not this again.”

“Swear to me that you’re not working for the CIA and I’ll believe you,” I told her.

“Then you swear to me you aren’t some sort of cartel hitman- I mean, hitwoman,” she countered.

I raised my right hand and said, “I swear I’ve never killed anyone for money.”

Katrina just laughed at that, sort of a sad little laugh. “But you’ve killed people for other reasons?”

“I never said that,” I replied. “Now, your turn.”

She raised her hand like I had and said, “I swear I don’t work for the CIA-”

“Or other, similar organizations,” I interrupted.

“Or similar organizations. I really am just a business student at the U of M,” Katrina said.

“Alright. We can put that behind us now,” I said. “Now we’re just friends, that’s all.”

“Does that mean you aren’t going to ruin me for men forever?” she asked, a coy smile on her pretty face.

“Nope. No ruining,” I said, leaning back.

“It was worth a try,” Katrina sighed.

“You’re straight,” I reminded her.

“Like spaghetti,” she said, raising her glass in a toast.