I was so high I’d have agreed to anything at the moment. I cuddled up with my head in his lap. “Okay.”

“Oh … and a piece of advice. If we’re ever in that situation again, I don’t need your protection. All I need is for you to get yourself out of the way. I’ll take care of the rest. You hear me?”

“Unh hunh.” I was half asleep already.

“No more taking bullets meant for me.”

“Bottles … not bullets,” I murmured.

“Yes, but you understand the analogy. Don’t do that again. You are much more breakable than I am. Okay?”

“Okay.” And with that I passed out, my head cradled in his lap.

I woke up late in the afternoon, a few minutes before six. My shoulder and arm felt a little sore, but nothing like I expected.

In front of the mirror in my massive bathroom, I tore the bandage off my shoulder expecting to see a nasty set of cuts that would need stitches. I had three little red welts. The scabs were ready to fall off. My cheek had a pink line where the bottle gouged me. The wounds look days old – weeks old.

That vampire’s venom was a miracle cure. Every emergency room in the world could use a couple gallons of it. There’s no way I could’ve escaped that beer bottle without several stitches under normal conditions. But there wasn’t anything normal about my life these days. At this rate, I’d be fully healed in another night. I might even get off without a single scar to show for it.

I poked my shoulder, it felt tender. But it was a slug bug kinda tender, which wasn’t bad under the circumstances. How strange. Weird, but I’m definitely not complaining.

* * * *

Chapter 12

My first assignment as Enrique’s assistant was to accompany him to a dinner party – business meeting. We arrived by taxi. For whatever reason, Enrique didn’t like to travel by subway. With him we always took a taxi or the limo. Enrique took us to the Le Bernardin Restaurant.

“This is the premier French seafood restaurant in New York. Parisian actually. Probably one of the best restaurants in the world. Of course, it’s reservation only. The place has a waiting list for reservations.” If I didn’t know better, I’d think he tried to impress me.

“Oh God, why are you telling me this? Are you afraid I’ll embarrass you?”

“No, relax. You can do this.”

He had me in an eleven hundred dollar maroon Tarik Ediz gown and five hundred dollar Louboutin heels. I looked like a damn runway model. They actually called it a “Red Carpet” gown, as if I was some kind of celebrity. I felt like I could’ve charged a thousand dollars an hour in that outfit, at least enough to earn what Enrique paid for it.

“Listen, you’re gorgeous. A young, beautiful woman helps liven up the meeting. They’ll be staring at you the whole time while you pick their brains.”

“It only takes a few minutes of conversation. I’ll know everything we need to know in a few minutes.”

“No, querida. You don’t know what these people are like. We do this my way, you’ll stay for the entire dinner.”

I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the deception. I’d been hoping to get in and out quickly. I felt like an imposter, a pretender. I didn’t belong in this high-class world of MBAs and investment advisors. Here I was, twenty-two years old – almost twenty-three, a former prostitute, and yet he expected me to put on a façade of being a respectable cultured woman, his date. I thought it near impossible to fool them for any length of time.

“I’m nothing more than an uneducated illegal immigrant. They will see right through this.” My confidence was seriously lacking.

“Querida, don’t worry you’ll be fine. I believe you can do this. It’s okay to ask questions and feign ignorance. No one will expect you to understand the complexity of the transaction they’re proposing. Your role tonight is simple eye candy. They will underestimate you. That’s precisely what I’m counting on. Be who you are, that’s all I ask. You don’t have to tell them anything personal. You’re visiting the US, and enrolling in college. Nothing more. None of that is a lie. If you don’t understand something I expect you to ask questions. That’s the whole point.”

“The broker and the facilitator will take pains to explain to you what they assume I already know. It’s perfect. As they explain the scheme to you, all their secrets will be revealed. Either through their indulgence of your curiosity, or by telepathy, we will uncover the truth.”

It all made sense, but I still felt inadequate for the task. “But what will they think of me? I don’t want to dress up like a sophisticated, rich girl only to be discovered as an escort when they see through the deception. I don’t know any French or anything ...”

“I’ll be right there at your side the whole time. It’ll be fun, trust me.”

He kissed me to seal the deal, and with that I opened a new chapter in my life.

We met Prince Ahmet Rahim Mahmoud, accompanied by a Spaniard, Emilio Rodriguez, a broker for Enrique’s investments. I recognized Emilio’s name from a consulting fee agreement I’d seen that entitled him to ten percent commission on a transaction with Reguera Internacional S.A.. Emilio, a short bald pale man with a please–everyone sycophantic manner, introduced the Prince, and we all shook hands then sat down to order drinks.

The Prince poured on the charm thick and syrupy. “I’m very pleased to meet you. I’ve heard so many good things about you from Emilio.”

“Your Highness, I hope you didn’t believe everything. Emilio tends to exaggerate.” Enrique chuckled, but I could tell he was concerned about what Emilio had said. I felt so in tune with Enrique, it seemed like I could read his emotions. But I still can’t read a damn thing from his mind.

“Please feel free to address me as Rahim. We are among friends here. I don’t like to use royal titles when I can avoid it, seems too pretentious.” Pretentious was exactly the word for him. Pretentious, pompous, imperious, affected. He was short like Emilio, but much darker in color, swarthy, with a head of tight, reddish brown curls. Rahim spoke with an ever-so-slight Middle Eastern accent in articulate English. He sounded worldly and highly educated. It was easy to believe the pretentious ass had relations with the Saudi Royal family, even though he didn’t.

The alarms started going off right out the gate. He had lied about his supposed connection to the Saudi King. Rahim was so smooth he didn’t even have to propagate his lies, he conned Emilio into doing it for him. Emilio bragged about Rahim’s nonexistent banking relationships in Dubai and imaginary cousins in the Saudi Royal family. Emilio was such a sucker, blathering excitedly about this phenomenal new buy–sell investment program, which he also called a trade platform.

It was all bullshit, starting with Rahim himself, or more accurately, Jaleel Ahmet, from Chicago Illinois, born and raised right here in the good ole US of A. Rahim’s only knowledge of the Saudi Royal family came from world news, magazines, and Google. He’d never been to Saudi Arabia or Dubai, but could expound for hours with seemingly educated opinions on the problems of Saudi society, politics, law, customs, and of course, oil. He had a library of written material on the Saudi’s, and he spoke just enough Arabic to convince idiot American investors of his authenticity.

Rahim had several clients he’d conned into his trade platform totaling three million so far. He paid generous commissions to Emilio for another sucker he’d brought in. Needless to say, Emilio was hyped up – well motivated, doing his damnedest to convince Enrique to invest. It seemed Emilio’s problem was greed. He didn’t attempt to verify Rahim’s claims – he hadn’t even run a standard background check on Rahim.

Each comment from Emilio sparked little nuggets of truth in Rahim’s mind. I found liars always focus intently on both the lie and the truth simultaneously as the falsehood is weaved into a tapestry of creative bullshit.

Emilio rambled on and on with diarrhea of the mouth. “The Prince has an exclusive invitation-only buy-sell platform. Although it’s impossible to make any guarantees, historically the platform has profit returns in the neighborhood of thirty percent monthly or more per month.”

Pure fantasy. Platform didn’t exist. No returns were paid to anyone apart from a few initial payments coming from new investors funds used to pay earlier investors. I think it’s called robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The one investor Emilio referred hadn’t received a single payout from the fantasy platform, but Emilio was okay, he’d collected his broker’s commission up front. Emilio had no proof the imaginary platform had ever paid out, and yet he promoted it.

I dived right into the role Enrique wished me to play. “Thirty percent monthly, why so high? I thought the stock market only produced like ten percent a year if you’re lucky.”

I didn’t know a thing about the stock market, but I’d recently read a spam email that complained about the ten percent average yield of the stock market. Enrique’s eyebrows rose up at my question. He held my hand and smiled warmly as we waited for Emilio’s answer.

“That’s so true, so true. Lucky for us the platform isn’t a function of the stock market, it’s a series of private contracts to buy medium-term notes at a discount and sell at a profit instantaneously. The trader already knows his profit in advance.”

What a mouthful. Emilio believed every word of it, which didn’t change the fact it was all bullshit.

“How fascinating.” I could do the dumb blonde role all night long. I felt like a child playing in a pool of sharks – does the big mean fish with all those teeth bite? Of course it does.

Emilio bit into my dumb blonde act. “The trader managing the platform has a special banking arrangement. Accounts are blocked, monies are never at risk. The best part, the trader offers a tax treaty to the investor. All proceeds are tax-free.”

“Oh my.”

I gave him my earnest look of admiration. The same look I give a client after unsatisfying sex when he asks, “was it good for you?”