Chapter Fifteen #3
“Oh, that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
Alena leans in closer. “They take away our phones.”
“Who does?”
“Downstairs. When we come in. You go through a screening. They take your name. They take your photograph. They do a background check. And they lock your phone in a vault.”
Odd, Maggie thinks at first, but then she realizes that it makes perfect sense.
Big-time security at places like this. People pay big bucks for privacy and anonymity.
Heck, Maggie doesn’t even know the names of her hosts.
Naturally, they wouldn’t want any woman coming into their exclusive lair and snapping pics or uploading videos to social media.
Damn. She’d counted on finding a phone down here.
Alena puts her hand on Maggie’s arm. “Are you okay?”
The young girl’s voice is suddenly older, more mature.
“I’m fine, Alena.”
“Why do you need a phone?”
Maggie wonders how to answer that and goes for the truth. “I need to call someone at home.”
“You’re American?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t own a phone?”
“I do. It’s complicated.”
Alena moves a little closer and whispers, “Do you need help?”
“No, I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?”
Her concern is so authentic, so touching.
“I am, Alena. How about you?”
“Oh, I’m fine.”
“Where are you from?”
“Ukraine. But I’ve been here two years now.” Then: “You really need a phone, don’t you?”
Maggie isn’t sure what to say.
“Are you in danger?”
“No.”
“But you need to make this call?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Alena nods. “Order a drink. Watch me. When I go to the ladies’ room, wait a minute and then follow me in.”
“Wait, what?”
But Alena is already up and moving toward a dark booth.
The modelesque bartender saunters over and asks Maggie what she’d like to drink.
Maggie asks if there’s a bourbon she’d recommend.
The bartender says they have a Pappy Van Winkle 23 Year Old.
Maggie is about to nod, but she has a distant memory of seeing one on display at a museum or something.
“Do you have, I don’t know, Maker’s Mark or something?”
A hand reaches over her shoulder, holding a very fancy-looking credit card. She looks to see who it is.
Viking Bob.
“Get her the Pappy Van Winkle,” he says, handing the bartender the card. “In fact, make it two.”
Maggie says, “You don’t have to—”
“Your host insists,” Bob interrupts.
“How much is it?”
“If you have to ask, you don’t belong here.”
“But I don’t belong here,” Maggie says.
“Fair point. Just be glad they ran out of the Old Rip Van Winkle 25 Year Old.”
“Why?”
“In stores it sells for fifty K a bottle.”
“Fifty thousand dollars?”
“Yep.”
“For a bottle of bourbon?”
Bob shrugs.
“Does it come with a sex act?”
He laughs. “I guess it should at that price.”
She laughs back, making the quasi-bawdy joke to keep the mood relaxed and casual so he doesn’t interfere with whatever Alena is planning. Bob has clearly been sent down from ahigh to keep an eye on her.
“On the rocks or straight up?” the bartender asks.
“Oh, you can’t put Pappy Van Winkle over ice,” Bob says.
The bartender nods, pours the drinks. They clink glasses. Maggie brings the glass to her lips. The smell is ambrosia. She tilts a sip into her mouth, leaves it on her tongue for a moment, and even with everything that’s going on, she lets the bourbon warm the back of her throat.
Oh man.
Bob smiles. “Good, right?”
“Nectar of the gods.”
Alena reappears from a dark corner.
She heads down the side of the bar, not so much as glancing toward Maggie. Maggie carefully takes another sip. She smiles at Bob while, behind him, she sees Alena stroll past one of the guards and disappear into the bathroom.
Maggie waits. She doesn’t want to rush this or do anything that might be clocked as suspicious.
Count to sixty, she tells herself. Count to sixty and then excuse yourself.
She makes it to twenty-five. That seems like enough. She takes another sip and slowly rises from her stool.
“You okay?” Bob asks.
“Yeah, fine. I’m just going to go—”
Bob suddenly clasps her forearm with a firm grip. She can feel the power in his fingers as they close talon-like around her skin.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Just a warning.”
“Take your hand off me.”
“We know about your past.”
“Let go of me.” Then: “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve had problems,” Bob says. He releases his grip. “You had”—finger quotes—‘issues.’”
“Why did you make quote fingers around the word ‘issues’?”
“What?”
“I had issues. It’s how I lost my medical license. It’s why I’m here. No need to put that in quotation marks.”
“So you get my concern?”
“No.”
“You had issues—and what’s the first thing you want to do when you arrive? Seek out a bar. You feel me?”
“I wouldn’t feel you with oven mitts,” she says. “My issue wasn’t alcohol.”
“Still, Maggie. Maybe you and I just have this one drink and go back up?”
So Bob had been sent down to keep an eye on her, but not in a way she’d worried about. “Sounds like a plan. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to pee.”
She heads down the bar, gives the security guard a quick half smile, and pushes open the bathroom door. Alena is waiting. She has a phone in her hand.
“Where did you get it?” Maggie asks.
“It’s one of the men’s,” Alena tells her. “He’s with my friend. We, uh, distracted him. She still is. I don’t know how much time you’ll have. Use WhatsApp. Delete the call from his recent list when you’re done and leave it on the toilet in the second stall. I’ll come back to get it.”
“Thank you,” Maggie says.
But Alena is already pushing open the door. “Hurry,” Alena says before disappearing back into the bar.
Maggie steps into the second stall. The phone is unlocked. WhatsApp is up on the screen. She holds the phone in her left hand and is about to dial a number when she realizes something.
She doesn’t remember anyone’s phone number.
She has used her mobile phone and contacts for so long that she can’t remember Sharon’s number.
The house’s number, yes, that she remembers from her childhood, but when the bills started stacking up, Sharon got rid of those phones.
Porkchop doesn’t have a mobile. He uses the payphone at Vipers for Bikers.
Wait, hold the phone. So to speak.
The payphone. It’s old. Porkchop had been able to pay more to get the number personalized. She knows the final six digits correspond with the letters V-I-P-E-R-S.
What are the first?
The area code is 201. So it’s only one number.
It comes to her now.
How long does she have? Between Bob at the bar and Mr. Alena-and-Friend Distracted, she can’t stay on very long.
What are the odds Porkchop is at Vipers and by the phone anyway?
She doesn’t know. But what other choice does she have? Plus if what she thought was happening at home was happening, well, Porkchop could be resourceful.
She quickly loads the digits in with her finger and presses send.
Porkchop answers on the first ring. “Where are you?”
“Dubai.”
“More precise?”
“The Bugatti residence.”
“Do you need to be extracted?”
“No, I’m good. Listen, I don’t have much time. I went to Russia. Barlow hired me—”
“I know this,” Porkchop interrupts, because he listened when she said she didn’t have much time. “The mistress. Nadia Something.”
“What about her?”
“She specifically requested you for the surgery.”
Maggie makes a face. “What do you mean? She doesn’t even know me.”
“You said you’re short on time.”
“I am.”
“So don’t waste it. It wasn’t Barlow’s idea to hire you. He was just a go-between. Nadia wanted you in Russia. Any idea why?”
Maggie’s head spins. Nadia? Nadia requested Maggie as her surgeon? “Who told you that?”
“Barlow.”
“It makes no sense.”
“Make it make sense. This Nadia knows you. She wanted you in Russia. We’ve researched her and found nothing significant.”
We.
Interesting choice of words on Porkchop’s part. She gets his hidden meaning here.
“Why are you in Dubai?” Porkchop asks.
“They think Trace is missing,” she says. “They want me to help find him.”
“Would I be sexist and belittling if I said it sounds too dangerous?”
“A little, yeah.”
“So?”
“So I need to follow this through, Porkchop.”
“No, you don’t,” Porkchop says. Then: “Okay, what can I do?”
“They have a theory,” she says. “This CIA guy. His name is Charles Lockwood.”
“We’ll look into him.”
Again with the “we.”
“He told me not to contact anyone from home,” Maggie continues. “That it could be dangerous for you.”
“It’s handled. We’re safe. What’s the CIA guy’s theory?”
There’s a commotion outside. Maggie lowers the phone for a second. Then she hears a man shout in English. “What did you do with my goddamn phone?”
No time to stall, Maggie realizes. So she just dives in. “That Marc is still alive.”
From outside in the bar, she hears the voice of a placating woman: “Calm down, Arty. We’ll find it.”
“I’m not calming down! What did you do with my phone?”
Maggie puts the phone near her ear. “I don’t have much time, Porkchop.”
“We know that theory can’t be true,” Porkchop says.
His voice is almost too steady, but she still hears the slight hitch of Porkchop fighting back the choke.
“Maggie?”
“I’m here.”
“Marc was hacked up in North Africa. They’re lying to you. They’re trying to manipulate you.”
Porkchop’s words make her heart sink.
“Maggie?”
“They believe it’s possible.”
“Doesn’t matter what they believe.”
“They think maybe Marc faked his death,” she says, speaking fast now. “A violent Russian oligarch named Oleg Ragoravich was using WorldCures to launder money. Marc became an informant—”
“Maggie—”
“Ragoravich found out. That’s the theory. His people would have killed Marc—and me and probably you too. So Marc faked his own death—”
“Maggie—”
“To escape him.”
“And, what, he never told us?”
“Yes. To keep us safe.”
There’s more commotion outside. The American man is furious now, demanding that they turn on all the lights.
Time’s up, Maggie thinks.
“Porkchop, I have to—”
“So he’s been alive this whole time?” Porkchop half rants. “And he chooses to stay silent. Even now? He never tries to reach out to his wife or father and tell us…” He stops. “Maggie—”
“I know,” she says. Tears run down her cheeks. Her heart plummets deep in her chest at what is so obvious. “Marc is dead.”
“Then what are we doing here? It’s not our fight.”
The bathroom door bursts open.
“Bye.”
Maggie disconnects and deletes the Vipers number.
The screensaver comes on. The center image is a man with a fake tan and blindingly white teeth in some kind of dark club surrounded by young, curvy women holding a huge birthday cake with the message “HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE ARTSTER.” The Artster.
Maggie shakes her head. My God. Men. She flushes the toilet, puts the phone on top of it, and then hurries out.
Alena rushes past her, not so much as glancing at Maggie.
When Maggie gets back to the bar, she spots the Artster in a dark suit and blindingly white dress shirt with one too many buttons open.
He is still ranting about someone stealing his phone while a young woman tries to calm him—“It’s okay, Arty, it’s here, Arty, we’ll find it, Arty”—and another digs through the cushions.
Look at this clown, Maggie thinks. Arty the Artster.
Another faux Master of the Universe. Arty shouts for someone to turn on the goddamn lights, but that doesn’t happen.
Another young woman joins the search. Then a security guard.
Alena hurries back out of the bathroom and immediately gets on her hands and knees to “help” in the search for Arty’s phone.
A few seconds later, in an acting performance that deserves Oscar buzz, Alena shouts in stop-the-presses style: “I found it!” and lifts Arty’s phone into the air.
The other women clap and cheer. Arty scowls.
From across the bar, Alena meets Maggie’s eye. There’s a small, knowing smile on the young woman’s lips. Maggie mouths a thank-you. Arty snatches the phone from Alena’s hand and heads to the exit. He snaps his fingers—actually snaps his goddamn fingers—and two of the women follow.
Then Alena heads to the exit too.
She doesn’t look back when she leaves.
Bob taps her on the shoulder. “Do you want to finish your drink?”
What she really wants to do is follow Alena and make sure she’s safe and okay and take her back home with her, and even while thinking all of this, Maggie knows how condescending she’s being.
Alena had offered her help. No strings, no quid pro quo.
It’s a moment in time. Maggie will never forget it.
She will never forget Alena. Appreciate the connection, as fleeting as it might have been. It’s so damn human.
Man, Maggie thinks, I’m being awfully deep today.
“Maggie?”
She throws back the rest of the bourbon and puts the glass back on the bar. “Let’s go,” she says. “I need to review those medical files.”