Bennie didn’t see Mercedes for two weeks, and every day of those two weeks one of Archie’s men came by asking about the money. Joey’s so-called juice was the only thing between Bennie and the butcher’s block. It was the loneliest period of his life. He worked, he ate, he came home, and he sat by the door to his room until it was time for bed. Day in and day out without a holiday, not even Christmas, on which he worked a double shift and made five hundred dollars. The money didn’t matter that much to him. He had nothing to spend it on. He didn’t like whores and had no need for a car. He paid a full twenty dollars a week for his room. His work clothes were provided for by the casino and he had no family to care for, not in Vegas or Miami or Cuba. As he pondered his sorry state, cursing the day he ever decided to leave the island, he heard a knock at his door and Mercedes’s plaintive voice asking to be let in.
Where have you been? he asked.
I was in Mexico but I’m back now.
I can see that, he said. What happened between you and Orlando?
He tried a nasty thing on me,
ese cabrón
.
You didn’t have to kill him.
He wouldn’t stop. There was a knife there. I just try to scare him but he kept coming and so I hit him with it. I just try to scare him.
By now Mercedes had grown very agitated. Her eyes were wide open and her lips were spread into a grimace, like those Mixtec goddesses you see biting into the hearts of men.
Hijode la chingada
, she grumbled.
Bennie wanted to shut the door on her and forget she ever existed. What about the money? he asked.
Mercedes was silent for a moment and grew meek, hunching her shoulders downward and looking up at him with beseeching eyes.
I didn’t steal it. I just found it.
Oh, to be back in Cuba right now, he thought. Communism had to be better than this.
Mujer
, are you crazy? You know half of Vegas is looking for you? What did you do with it?
Mercedes was silent.
If you don’t return that money to its owners, they’re going to grind us up into
picadillo
. You understand?
Mercedes straightened up and narrowed her eyes into fierce slits. Let me tell you three things, she said. First, the money is hidden; second, I ain’t giving it to nobody; third, you are a big
pendejo
.
Why do you come here? You are incriminating me, he said to her, which was stupid, considering he was incriminated the moment he landed at the Vegas airport.
I miss you,
güerito
. I want you to go away with me and we can be rich together.
That’s when he took her by the arm, shoved her out of the room, and slammed the door. When he turned around he saw a letter-size white envelope lying on the dresser. Bennie sat on the bed and stared at it, not knowing whether to pick it up and count it or flush it down the toilet or simply ignore it as if it were never there. He did the latter for a few hours until his fantasies got the better of him and he started thinking of everything he could do with the money. He could buy himself a fancy car. That would draw the women. He could buy a house. That was a smart thing to do. Or he could escape Las Vegas once and for all. Go to Miami, open up a barber shop, run a small book on the side, marry a nice
criolla
who would give him lots of children.
What about Mercedes? After all, she was the one who had killed Orlando and took the money. She worked incessantly, the poor woman, doing laundry, cleaning houses, and selling herself when the opportunity availed itself to lonely men like him who lived in cheap motels without a hope in the world. Most of what she made from her menial labors she sent to her family in Mexico like a dutiful daughter. At least she said she did. Eventually Bennie’s sense of fair play won out. Mercedes was foul-mouthed and overweight but not a bad sort. If he squinted really hard, he could see traces of María Félix in her features. If she killed Orlando she did it in self-defense. How many women would not have done the same under similar circumstances? The more he stared at the envelope the more he thought, Mercedes, Mercedes with that singsong Oaxacan accent of hers and hair like black milk and ever-so-dim resemblance to the most beautiful actress of all time.
He called in sick to work and sat on the bed consumed by an idyll he had never before experienced. He imagined himself in Mexico, owner of a hacienda surrounded by acres and acres of
maguey
and a distillery bearing his name, Benjamín Rojas, Producer of Fine Tequilas. He imagined a stable of black
paso fino
horses and a herd of gleaming prize zebu cattle that were the envy of every
ranchero
in the
comarca
. He built a whole architecture of fantasy with him at the center: cars, women, presidents, prime ministers, cardinals, all currying his favor. What Mexico needed was a Cuban with balls,
coño
, who would create an empire of liquor that would rival the great distilleries of the world—Bacardi, Jack Daniel’s, Hiram Walker—and with those twenty thousand dollars Mercedes had given him, by God, he could do it.
That’s when someone knocked at the door.
Bennie picked up the envelope and stuffed it into the back of his pants. He looked through the peephole and saw that it was Joey.
Jesus, Joey said as he walked into Bennie’s room. It’s freezing in here. You’d figure Cuba was in Siberia the way you guys like the cold.
It’s on its way there, Bennie said.
Joey sat on the bed and lit up a Cuban Churchill, every puff of smoke round and sweet and perfect.
You have the money, Joey said. As a matter of fact, I’m willing to bet my left testicle you have it on your person even as we speak.
Bennie felt his throat tightening. He sat on the armchair, took out a handkerchief, and blew his nose. The cigar smoke was getting to him. How about Mercedes? he said. You know, the Mexican.
Yeah, the one you wiped your sword with. A man needs that every once in a while. Joey blew a puff of blue smoke up toward the ceiling. You fucking Cubans can sure make cigars, he said. It’s about the only thing you’re good at. Mercedes is taken care of. Twenty G’s is pocket change for Meyer, but he just hates to be swindled. Why don’t you give me the money, spare yourself?
Bennie hesitated. All those dreams of women and
paso finos
and thousands of acres of
maguey
plantings going up with Joey’s smoke. He reached behind him and handed Joey the envelope.
I’ll make you a deal, Bennie. I keep fifteen and I’ll give you five. Call it a reward for a job well done. Just between you and me. Nobody else has to know.
Joey counted out the five G’s and passed them back to Bennie, who took the money without hesitation and put it in his pocket. As he did so he felt his blood thicken and his heart slow a few beats.
After Joey left, Bennie pulled the shades shut and lay on the bed. He tried to summon up his fantasies but all he could think of was the money in his pocket. What was fat Mercedes to him anyway, and Orlando with that eggplant face of his? Five thousand wasn’t twenty but it was enough for a down-payment on a small house. The wife and the book operation would come eventually. So would the juice. Without his realizing, the coolness inside had turned to ice.
BY
C
HRISTINE
M
C
K
ELLAR
Green Valley
T
he grinding rumble of heavy construction equipment awakened Madison Feldon an hour before her alarm was set to go off. She swung her short, muscular legs out of bed and stumbled into the master bathroom of her two-bedroom condo.
“Those rude bastards,” she grumbled as she sat down on the padded toilet seat. “It’s not even 7 o’clock and already they’re at it.”
Madison sat for a few minutes moodily contemplating the day ahead of her. She was a fitness trainer at a prestigious private club in Green Valley, a burgeoning upscale suburb of Las Vegas. She had a small but steady clientele. Madison was disciplined and very knowledgeable about nutrition and physical therapy. “It’s the social shit I can’t get a handle on,” she muttered. She sighed as she stood up, then went to the sink to wash her hands.
The face reflecting back at her from the mirror, the only mirror in the condo, wasn’t necessarily attractive even on a good day, much less after a night of restless tossing and turning. Madison’s brown eyes had puffy bags beneath them and were slightly bloodshot. At twenty-nine years of age, her skin had a mottled look from too many summers in the dry, windy desert. Madison was stocky and compact. She was the only child of Louie and Rachel Feldon. The Feldons had carved a niche in the Las Vegas Valley in the real estate market. Along with their good friends, Al and Lois Clavell, they also owned a small local casino that was a virtual cash cow.
It was spring in the high desert, and Madison had left her sliding bedroom door open to take advantage of the cool night air. Now, mingled with the noise of the machinery, she could hear the occasional shouts and curses of workers on the construction site. With much more force than necessary, she went and slammed the glass door shut. Madison stood, hands on her hips, glaring at the men in hard hats. Clouds of dirt rose and swirled in the air like masses of swarming angry bees. A chorus of muted honking began as commuters vented their frustration over the congestion caused by the project.
Madison could feel the tic begin in her eyelid. She could never see it when she looked in the bathroom mirror. But it was there, she knew it. She could feel it. Just like she’d felt every nuance of her father’s subtle and not so subtle criticisms. It was his short, micro jabs that had caused the most damage. Not the clean, hard thrusts or stabs that Madison could—and did—parry or fend off.
“It’s not my fault I’m not the son he wanted,” Madison mused out loud to the oblivious construction workers. “He would forgive me even that, I suppose, if I looked like Mother. At least he’d have a showcase daughter he could marry off to some money.”
Madison looked like her father. Short, stocky. Brown nondescript hair and eyes, an overly large nose, and a slightly receding chin. Her mother was tall and had a willowy figure that looked elegant even under the worst of circumstances. Madison couldn’t recall one single time when her mother looked anything less than composed and perfectly coiffed.
Her father, on the other hand, was loud and obnoxious. Louie seemed to revel in exemplifying the typical Jewish tycoon. Everything was a crisis to him. And he was merciless when it came to picking on his only child.
“You want that I should spend fifty grand on a bat mitzvah for you when you look like a schlump?” he’d screamed at the chubby, prepubescent teenage girl. As always, her mother seemed to fade gracefully into the background during one of Louie’s tirades. Louie laid down the law. There would be no rite of passage for Madison, not until she lost twenty pounds. Madison lost the weight. That was when the tics started.
Later on, one of her therapists expressed her horror at what went on for years at the Feldon home. While Louie and Rachael were wined and dined most evenings, the housekeeper strictly monitored Madison’s diet. Every morsel she ate had to be accounted for. Every carb and every calorie. Madison attended a private school and her humiliation was without measure when her father showed up at the dean’s office. Madison was called from class and had to sit in an agony of embarrassment as Louie made it loud and clear she was to eat only the meager lunches provided by her parents. The cafeteria was off limits.
Her stomach growled and Madison noticed one of the hard hats across the street seemed to be looking into her second-floor window. “Eat this,” she sneered, and flipped him the bird. She brushed her teeth and went downstairs to the kitchen. Madison ground fresh coffee beans and began brewing a pot of coffee. Then she opened the refrigerator door and stood looking thoughtfully at its contents.
Madison was unaware that the tic had moved from her eye to her upper lip. The refrigerator was stocked, like the tiny pantry, almost to the point of bulging. Unopened packages of deli meats, cheeses, and bagels and cream cheese in all flavors were crammed inside. There were pints of yogurt, bottles of chocolate milk, and doggie bags full of uneaten meals. Madison poked through the contents of the refrigerator before pulling out the only item that wasn’t covered in mold, curdled, or decayed: a carton of egg whites.
As she scrambled the egg whites in a Teflon-coated pan, Madison thought about the new client she was to begin training later that morning. He was a walk-in referral. Garvey Kendall sounded nice enough over the phone. He’d actually seemed a bit nervous. Madison smiled as she measured one and a half ounces of egg onto a paper plate. She had a mental picture of Garvey: tall, geeky. Probably wore glasses and was eager to put some muscle on his skinny frame.
Her cell phone rang, its shrill intrusion into her breakfast moment causing her to drop a plastic forkful of egg onto the dirty parquet floor. “Damnit!” She glanced at the caller ID. Her stomach relaxed when she saw it wasn’t her mother calling. It was her shrink’s office. Dr. Golob’s secretary briskly informed her that tomorrow’s appointment would have to be rescheduled. The doctor had a family emergency.
Partly due to her mother’s insistence, but also partly due to simply needing someone to talk to, Madison had been in therapy for years. In school she hadn’t been that popular to begin with, then word had gotten around about her father’s dietary directive. She became the constant source of entertainment for her creatively cruel classmates.
The strict diet she was forced into seemed to interfere with her pubescence too. While other girls her age were whispering and giggling about bra sizes and tampons versus pads, Madison remained flat chested and untouched by the monthly curse. It wasn’t until she was fourteen that she got her first period. Even so, she remained ridiculously unendowed with breasts.
It was Dr. Golob who’d suggested Madison study nutrition and fitness training. He’d pointed out she could modify her body type with a regimen of a proper diet and exercise, so why not make a living out of it? “People will
have
to talk to you, Madison. Actually, your clients will be counting on you. Trusting you to help them improve their bodies. You really need the socialization. Consider it part of your therapy.”