Dreams and Desires (50 page)

"How do I know your intentions are so benign, as you've said? How do I know you're not controlling my mind? That when I've helped you, you won't make me your slave? How do I know, assuming I believe any of this, that you're not the bad guy?"

"The only answer I can give you is that you'll have to have faith in me. You won't know for sure until it's all over. In the meantime, I think there's something I can do for you that will help you make up your mind."

"And what's that?"

"You have a daughter, Natalie, I believe."

"My daughter, what's she got to do with this?” Hardings was visibly upset at the mention of Natalie.

"Nothing, really,” Ramón responded. “But I can help you with her."

"My daughter is none of your business, Mr. Vasquez, or whatever your real name is. She and I haven't spoken since before my wife died."

"Yes, and I can help you with that."

"How do you even know about her? No one here knows anything about her except.... “A light went off in Hardings’ head. “Except Hannah,” he continued. “You've hypnotized Hannah, my secretary. That's how you got all this information, isn't it?"

"Hypnotized is the wrong word, Mr. Hardings. And you shouldn't blame Mrs. Greene. She had no choice."

"She had no choice because you stole her brain!” Hardings was visibly upset at the prospect of the dream man's interference with his secretary. He had a special feeling for her, an affection, even if it was apparently unrequited. “If you've hurt her in any way, I'll fix your wagon good!” Hardings threatened, his voice bordering on ferocious.

"I haven't harmed Mrs. Greene. You should know, though, that she is in love with you."

"In love with me? How would you know that?"

"I can read her mind, her feelings, her emotions. She loves you very much."

Hardings sat back in his chair. Today was a day for revelations.

"And yes, she helped me. I needed to be able to show you I can help your business very much, make you a millionaire many times over, if that's what you want. And I can, to some extent, read your mind too. I can feel your love for Hannah. I can help bring you together."

"I told you, I don't want a love slave, especially someone I care about."

"That wouldn't be necessary, Mr. Hardings. All she really needs is a sign from you."

Ramón let his information about the middle aged, black secretary sink in. When he saw Hardings was over his initial, protective rage, he continued.

"But back to your daughter, Mr. Hardings. I can bring her home to you.” The dream man knew Hardings considered his daughter a lost cause. From what he learned from Hannah and had drawn from Hardings’ mind, he realized the man had good reason for his abandonment of hope for her.

Natalie had started out as a normal, sweet, little girl, born quite a few years into his and his wife's marriage. She had gone away to college and, once there, had fallen into bad company. She dropped out after her sophomore year and held a series of low paying, menial jobs while her drug addiction was blossoming. She had shown up at her mother's funeral, gaunt and strung out. He had not seen her since. From a private investigator about two years ago, he had learned she had turned to prostitution to support her heroin habit and was a fixture on the “Strip’ as they called it, near the airport in Richmond, a four laned roadway lined with hot sheet motels and strip joints. Natalie had descended into a roadside whore, not fit even to work as a call girl. He had the P.I. check up on her from time to time and he knew she was still there.

Hardings stared at the star man. There was nothing more he wanted than his sweet Natalie back again, and nothing less. He didn't know how he could ever see past what she had done to herself, think past the vision of the countless men who had used her body. And how was she to cure her heroin addiction? The last thing he wanted was to have her back only to lose her again.

"You're playing with fire, Mr. Spaceman,” Hardings said to him tensely. “I ought to throw you out of here right now."

"Mr. Hardings, if I could bring Natalie back to you, cure her heroin addiction, make her a free and healthy woman again, would that convince you to help me?” A tear had formed in Hardings’ eye. His face was a mask of anguish. After a moment's pause, he replied.

"If you could restore Natalie to me, take her away permanently from her awful life, I wouldn't care if you were Beelzebub himself,” the man told him, a fierce determination in his eyes. “I would give you anything and everything that I own. I swear that on my wife's grave."

"I will hold you to that, Mr. Hardings. I will do what you want. But, if I do, I cannot have you questioning anything I do. I don't need all of your wealth and property. I just need your cooperation. And I swear to you on everything that's sacred to me, everything I've told you is the truth. I mean no one any harm beyond what is necessary for my mission."

Hardings stood up and proffered Ramón his trembling hand. As they shook, Hardings told him, “If you're fucking with me, I'll kill you."

Three days later, Ramón was cruising Kelly's Sentra down Route 227 outside of Richmond Municipal Airport. It was a lonely, desolate road, except for the gaudy neon lights of the sin palaces. The was his third time cruising down the Strip, slowing long enough to allow the bevy of former beauties to call out to him, offering various services. In spite of the late December cold, the girls were all dressed scantily, showing off their naked legs, proffering their breasts to him through the light, revealing tops they wore. He was appalled at the sorrow and unhappiness he detected in them, lives brutalized by drugs, alcohol, the cruelties of men. He could easily have turned their minds, eased their pain. But that was not what he was here for. His was not a crusade to fix everything wrong with this planet's culture. In any event, someone, somewhere would notice if the 20 or so whores who were trawling this desolate lane for johns all decided to quit the life all at once, all on the same night.

On the third cruise down the highway, he finally saw the girl he was looking for. She had just gotten out of a long, metallic blue, late model Cadillac. Two other girls got out of the car with her. They were all dressed in short skirts that hiked up their thighs as they stepped out. The rear license plate of the car, registered in Washington D.C., said ‘SHABAZZ GIRLZ', all in capital letters, and was surrounded by a trim of small lights. He could not see the driver's face, but he wore a large, oversized, heavy fur coat and a broad rimmed hat. While the whores were getting out of the car, a cigarette end flew out the driver's window and landed on the roadway in an explosion of orange sparks. When they were all out of the car, it sped away.

Ramón waited a few minutes for the new girls to get settled. He let three cars cruise the Strip before he made his move. There seemed to be some kind of a system among the women and three of them approached each car, giving the john a limited choice. There were conversations, some ribald exchanges and finally, the front passenger door opened and one of the girls, the lucky one selected, got in. The car drove away.

Natalie, who was wearing a short, tight, red skirt and long, black leather boots, was huddled by one of the steel drums the whores had set alight for warmth. She had on a waist length, white, imitation fur jacket. Her black hair was long and stringy, her face pale and drawn. He had seen pictures of the girl from when she had started college, and if he had not also seen the pictures taken by the P.I. a year ago, he would not have recognized her. He was sitting by the side of the road opposite from where the prostitutes congregated, about 40 feet away. He could just detect Natalie's psychic emanations from that distance, feint and barely distinguishable from that of the other women. All of their emotional discharges were blunted and flat, as if deliberately truncated. Who could blame them? What future could they have? They were already near the bottom of the barrel, street whores in such a god forsaken place. It was hard to imagine where the next stop along their descent into death would be.

Before he could move his car, a police patrol car came cruising slowly down the street. It stopped just in front of a congregation of the shivering, scantily dressed girls. They tried to ignore it, but the car put on its overheads and it beeped its siren twice. Three of the girls reluctantly approached it. One of them was Natalie. There was a brief conversation and two of the girls wandered away. Natalie got in.

Between the choice of following the cop car and waiting for it to return, Ramón chose the latter course. It seemed unlikely Natalie had been arrested and, even if she had, she would probably make bail in the morning and be back tomorrow night. What seemed more probable was Natalie had been selected to pay a ‘duty’ on behalf of the other girls in exchange for not getting rousted this cold, December night. Ramón was sure the cop would bring Natalie back quickly since he was supposed to be on patrol and could not afford a long, unexplained absence from his duties.

Sure enough, about twenty minutes later, the patrol car reappeared and Natalie came bouncing out. When the cop car pulled away, she surreptitiously raised her middle finger at him in what Ramón understood as a near universal sign of disparagement.

As soon as Natalie got settled, Ramón started his car and slowly cruised up to the bevy of what might have been at one time, beauties. Two women approached his car from the passenger side and he powered the window down. A large black skinned whore shoved her face in, her large, droopy breasts hanging over the bottom of the window opening. She smelled of cheap perfume and was wearing a light, pink, fuzzy jacket she opened so Ramón could get a better look at her attributes.

"Lookin’ for a party, honey?” she asked with a false sweetness. “How about a nice blow job? Fifty bucks."

"Come on, Ilona,” a scratchy female voice behind her called out. “Let the man see a real set of tits.” A tall white girl with even larger breasts than Ilona squeezed into the window frame next to the black woman. She had discarded her jacket and was wearing a halter top. She flipped it up, revealing her breasts. “How'd ya like to suck on these, Jose,” she said, referring to Ramón's obvious Hispanic background.

A third girl, skinny, about 5'2” tall stepped up to the driver's side window. Ramón lowered his window and looked at her. She looked like she could pass for 15 years old, although he could read her mind and saw she was, in fact, 24. She was high on heroin and her eyes were all watery and her face sagged. “Want a blow job, mister?” she said, her words slow and slurred.

"My friend told me to look up a girl named Natalie,” Ramón responded. “Is she here?” he asked. The black woman answered him, “What do you want that scraggly bitch for? I tell you what, I'll suck you off for 40 bucks. Just cause you're so handsome.” She laughed.

Ramón had had enough. He sent all the girls a message of obedience, slight enough so they wouldn't be startled, but strong enough to make them comply with his command. The black whore took herself out of the window. “Hey Natalie!” she yelled. “Some spic's got the hots for you!"

He watched as the white jacketed whore approached the car. Having just been required to give away a freebie, she was anxious to start earning. She stuck her head in the window. “Hey good looking,” she said. “You looking for me?"

"You Natalie?” Ramón asked. He would have to play the charade of a john so the other girls wouldn't get suspicious. He didn't want any of them to have reason to remember his license plate number. Natalie would not be coming back.

"If you want me to be,” the girl answered coyly. “Whatja lookin for?"

"My friend says you give a real hot blowjob,” Ramón said, staying in character. “Twenty bucks."

"For twenty bucks you can blow yourself,” the girl replied. She too was high. She had opened her white imitation fur jacket and had pulled aside her thin, ‘v’ necked blouse to show him her tits. “Fifty bucks,” she stated. “I'll roll your eyeballs back in their sockets."

"My friend says twenty five,” Ramón rejoined.

"Forty,” was Natalie's answer.

"Thirty, or I'll party with one of your friends instead,” Ramón insisted.

"Have you got a big, fat dick?” the girl asked, a salacious grin on her face.

"Sure,” Ramón answered. “Big enough."

"Then, okay,” the girl agreed, “thirty it is.” She opened the door and stepped inside. When she closed the door, Ramón eased the car away.

"First thing I gotta ask you is if you're a cop,” Natalie said. Her voice was businesslike.

"No, I'm not a cop,” Ramón answered.

"Sorry,” she said. “You don't look like a cop, but I gotta ask. Rules is rules."

"Sure,” Ramón answered.

"Pull up at the next road and make a left,” Natalie instructed him. “There's a bunch of trees about 50 yards down the way. Pull over there."

Ramón pulled the car over where Natalie indicated and turned out the lights. He kept the engine running. The other girls would be watching, a kind of citizens’ committee of self protection. If he tried to pull anything nasty on the black haired whore, they would all come screaming over.

Ramón didn't waste any time. Before the girl could ask for her money, he sent her a strong signal of obedience. She looked at him wide eyed and succumbed immediately. He sent her another psychic message to relax and be calm. Her eyes returned to normal and she looked to him for instructions.

He gave her none as pulled the car slowly down the lane. He waited to turn on his lights until he was about a half mile down the road. There was a motel about another half mile further on the right hand side called, imaginatively, the Airport Inn. It sat on the corner of another main roadway. He pulled into the lot in case any of the whores from the pick up place were watching and he drove around to the other side. He exited the parking lot and made a right hand turn. In front of one of the rooms on the first floor in the back was the Caddy with the license plate “SHABAZZ GIRLZ".

Ramón had rented a room on the other side of the city, closer to the Interstate that would take him back to Jacksonville. He would need some time to work on the girls’ mind. She had a wondering look on her face as he led her into the room. It was a typical motel room, with a large, hard, double bed, a TV, a cheap green rug and a small, ash wood bedside stand with a small lamp on it. The walls were standard motel white. Ramón didn't require luxurious accommodations for his task. They would not be there long.