Spiders in the Grove Read online

  I glance at the man again, really having no idea, but getting the feeling I’m about to look like an idiot to Cesara.

  She leans in closer, her shoulder touching mine. “That’s Andreas Cervantes; you’ve probably seen one or two of his films; he’s one of the top directors in the U.S.”

  I never watch movies, or television, or pay much attention to anything concerning famous people, unless it’s directly related to my work—wow, I’m an eighty-year-old woman in my twenties. I shake it off, surprised by how disappointed that makes me feel, and I just play along.

  “I never cared about who made the movies,” I say. “They’re not in them, so why should I?” I shrug.

  Cesara smiles, and I feel her hand patting my thigh.

  When the bidding starts, I use the distraction of the girls coming out on stage one by one, to continue to focus on the buyers. And after an hour, and still not seeing one person who I feel could be Vonnegut, I get frustrated. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, and I knew there was really no chance in the world that I’d spot him at the first auction, but that doesn’t stop me from being impatient.

  While I’m cursing myself, my attention breaks when I hear Joaquin laugh during one of the bidding wars.

  I look up and every head in the theatre is looking at one woman in particular: long blonde hair, flashy silver dress—all I can see is her back. And she’s the only one in the room standing, which is odd because nobody ever stands while bidding; they just quietly raise their colored paddles when they see something they want.

  “I don’t care who you are,” the woman says icily to a man at a table in front of hers—it’s Robert Randolph, piece-of-shit extraordinaire, “I want girl number eleven.”

  Robert Randolph, like everyone else, looks at the woman with disbelief and confusion. Who does this crazy woman think she is? That’s the question on every face in the theatre. Including mine.

  Joaquin is no longer laughing. He steps closer to the edge of the stage, his strong hands clasped together in front of him, and he gazes down at the woman critically. “Ma’am,” he begins, “the best way to…get what you want”—he opens a hand, palm-up, in gesture—“is to bid on it. Quietly. If you don’t mind.”

  “Yes, I understand that,” she says, “but this man is determined to outbid me, and I will not have it.”

  A low wave of laughter circulates around the room.

  Joaquin tries to keep a straight face, but he finds the same humor in her comment as everyone else.

  “That is the point, Miss…?”

  The woman gasps dramatically; her hand flies gracefully to her chest. “Who am I?” she asks, so offended that I even feel offended for her. “Who am I?”—she gasps again, shakes her blonde head—“First, I get seated behind other tables; second, I don’t even get a place-card with my name on it; and now you ask me who I am—my father will be infuriated at how I’ve been treated here!”

  I’m so stunned by this woman’s outburst, in a room literally full of the worst types of people, that I’m frozen on my chair. But I think I’m stunned more by how much I like her.

  Oh. My. God. Is that Nora? Suddenly, my head feels hot, my blood pressure rising to furious heights. I’ll kill her…I swear to God…

  Robert Randolph moves out his chair and stands. He opens his hand to the woman, tilts his head and says, “Ma’am, if you want the girl that badly, I will be a gentleman and let you have her.”

  Gentleman, my ass, you prick.

  The woman’s head snaps around—it’s not Nora. I’m so relieved, but have only a split second to enjoy it before this woman’s drama pulls me back in. She looks at the crowd aghast, oblivious to the fact that everyone thinks she’s nuts, and then she turns back to Robert Randolph.

  “I will buy them all,” she says confidently, rounds her chin as if she’s the most important person in the room, and then she sits back down, bidding paddle in-hand, ready and waiting.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Cesara whispers next to me.

  “Me either,” I whisper back. “She’s crazy. Does she really expect to buy every girl?”

  “She’s pulled it off so far,” Cesara says.

  I look at Cesara, and then back at the strange woman, and I realize just how much I’ve not been paying attention to the bidding process. She’s bought every girl so far? Wow. Of course, I pretend to already know this, or else Cesara will wonder what the hell I’ve been doing the whole time.

  “Her father must be loaded,” a woman sitting at the table next to us says, “to be able to afford them all.”

  “Loaded is what we like,” Cesara responds. “She may be a spoiled little bitch, but if Daddy’s got the money, she can throw as many tantrums as she likes.”

  The woman nods, agreeing. “Mmm-hmm,” she says. “But it could put off the other buyers.”

  “They’re big boys and girls,” Cesara says. “The best way any of them can handle it is by outbidding her. I look forward to seeing it, the look on her face when she loses.”

  “That’ll probably happen soon,” the other woman says. “She’s going to spend all of her money on the opening girls, and not have anything left when the special ones are brought out. I’ve never seen anybody take such an interest in the openers.”

  “Me either, but who cares?” Cesara says. “Though, when Daddy finds out, he won’t send her in his place anymore.”

  “You know who she is?” the woman asks.

  “I wasn’t sure before,” Cesara begins, “but now I remember—I ran her information myself. Her name is Frances Julietta Lockhart, daughter of Brock Lockhart, a wealthy investor and politician in the United States. I’ve seen him before, at previous auctions; first time I’ve ever seen his daughter come in his stead.”

  “And probably the last,” the woman puts in.

  Cesara nods. Then she looks over at me. “What do you think, Lydia?”

  I think Frances Julietta Lockhart is a fraud—like me. Unlike me, I think she’s never done anything like this before. I think she’s in over her head. And I think whoever sent her here is an idiot, because she’s gonna get herself killed.

  “I think you’re right,” I answer Cesara. “But it’ll be interesting to watch.”

  All of us are right by the second hour, and ‘Frances’ is out of money. Cesara and the woman sitting at the table next to us marvel in the anticipated “look on her face” when Frances realizes she can’t afford the next girl whose starting bid is half a million dollars—a huge difference from the ten, twenty, and fifty thousand dollars she’s used to. Everybody else in the room sees a “tantrum” when Frances sits quietly in her chair, close-lipped, tense, a knot moving down the center of her throat every two-point-four-seconds. I see someone finally realizing she’s in over her head, someone who is as frightened as she is angry, and someone who thinks whoever sent her here is an idiot, because she just might not make it out of here alive.

  Joaquin has a habit of looking right at Frances every time a new girl is brought on stage and it’s time to bid, expecting her to raise her paddle before anyone else. But after the fifth and sixth girl, who sell for one million each—to Robert Randolph, smugly, of course—nobody looks toward Frances Julietta Lockhart anymore except the two beefy bodyguards who sit with her at their lonely little table.

  The first night of a three-night auction ends with Frances going back to her hotel, presumably—because she did not book a room in the mansion like many guests—with thirteen new slave girls, all totaling one million, one hundred fifty thousand—one girl, the last one she bought, she paid the most for, and it undoubtedly took all she had. It was a bidding war with Robert Randolph, but he was too smart and experienced for Frances. He knew when to keep raising his paddle; he could see the anxiousness and frustration in Frances’ face, just like I could, and he used it to his advantage: he bid against her until he knew she was out of money, and then he let her have it, forcing her to spend all that she had, and putting her out of the game. For a
girl that wasn’t even worth half as much as Randolph forced Frances to pay.

  And although she was a “spoiled little bitch” and she was here to buy girls, I couldn’t help but wonder what it was about her I liked so much.

  But Frances is the least of my concerns, and not what I came here for. So, putting my interest in her away, and focusing on the task at hand—and finding Naeva—is all I have room for to care about.

  Unfortunately, I’m going to have to figure out how not to have to fuck Joaquin Ruiz, because he just walked into my and Cesara’s room, and I already know where this is heading.

  Izabel

  Cesara greets Joaquin, takes his suit jacket for him and hangs it over the back of a chair near the door. He unbuttons the top two buttons of his dress shirt as he walks farther into the spacious suite; a sexy, confident air about him that’s surprisingly not off-putting. His face looks like it was sculpted by a Renaissance artist who gave him perfectly contoured cheekbones and shapely lips and piercing eyes that somehow look vacant, yet are full of intensity and expectation. He is an attractive man, I admit; the younger, livelier version of his infamous brother; but he’s still not Javier no matter how much I believe he wants to be.

  Cesara sashays in and out of the room, returning with a bottle of wine and three empty glasses clutched in one hand.

  “We did well tonight,” she says. “Sold all ten girls for more than expected. Tomorrow night is looking even more lucrative.” She sets the bottle and glasses down on a table and pours the drinks.

  Joaquin nods. “Sure,” he says, “but many of them were sold to the same woman—a character, that one.” He takes a seat on a lavish antique sofa, resting his left arm upon the length of the sofa arm, his long, manly fingers dangling over the edge.

  “I think her father is trying to break her into the business,” Cesara says, “by throwing her in head-first.”

  “Costly way of doing it,” Joaquin puts in.

  “Sure,” Cesara agrees, “but learning from one’s mistakes through head-first experience is the quickest and most effective way.” She pauses, and then adds, “I don’t suppose she’ll be joining us tomorrow night though.”

  Joaquin smiles. “I’d be surprised if she did; a shame, really—an inexperienced buyer is always good for us.” He shrugs. “No matter; we’ve got more big buyers coming tomorrow night, that, I’m confident, will make up for Miss Lockhart’s absence.”

  His comment gets my attention. More big buyers? Maybe all is not lost yet.

  “Is that why you make it a three-night event?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Joaquin answers, places his lips on his glass and sips as he eyes me. “Not everyone can show up on the same day; we like to give our buyers options.”

  “Well, if I was a buyer,” I say, “I’d worry about all the best girls being sold off on the first night.” I remain standing, and I refrain from eye contact with him as much as I can.

  Cesara hands me a glass of wine, and, with a look in her eye, and the subtle backward tilt of her head, she insists that I join her and Joaquin on the loveseat.

  Fuck…

  Reluctantly, I do. And I see she notices it straightaway, the reluctance.

  Think fast, Izabel…you gotta get yourself out of this.

  “Tell me about the buyers,” I say as I sit down—right next to Joaquin, because that’s where Cesara wants me, between them—and try to keep conversation the number one activity for as long as I can. “Are there any who I should be…aware of, for any reason?” I’m fishing for clues on Vonnegut; I just hope it comes off as an innocent inquiry.

  “In time you’ll learn these things,” Cesara says, combing her fingers gingerly through my hair.

  “Yes, but since we are in the middle of my first auction event, it’d be nice to have some pointers.”

  “Head-first is the best way to learn, remember?” Cesara says with a grin, and then her eyes dance over the rim of her glass as she drinks from it slowly.

  I take a deep breath, covering it up with the motion of my own drink, assuming I’ve failed at my information attempt.

  She sets her glass on a side-table. “But in this particular situation,” she says, compromising, “head-first could look bad on me.”

  OK, maybe not a failure, after all.

  Joaquin smirks, agreeing.

  He straightens his back against the sofa, places his glass on a side-table, and then turns at an angle to better face us, his shiny dress shoe propped upon his knee.

  “The biggest buyers,” Joaquin begins, “usually attend on the third day—it’s quieter and less crowded. And because of our relationship with them, we pick girls for them ahead of time, based on their usual purchases, their preferences, and we set them aside.”

  “Oh yes,” Cesara adds, “we always save the best girls for the biggest buyers. It costs three times as much just to get in the front door on the third day of the event, and they’re willing to pay it.”

  “And even the least expensive girls,” Joaquin says, “start out at a quarter of a million dollars.”

  “Wow,” I say, pretending to be amazed by this information. “Imagine someone like Miss Lockhart trying to bid against one of those buyers.”

  Joaquin laughs.

  A grin spreads across painted Cesara’s lips. “Yes,” she says, “that would be quite a sight to see.”

  “I admit,” Joaquin adds, “I rather enjoyed the show with Miss Lockhart tonight”—he twirls his hand at the wrist, and his brown eyes roll upward momentarily—“these events can be so monotonous at times; I really get nothing out of them anymore.”

  “I’d say your bank account does,” Cesara puts in.

  Joaquin’s expression agrees. “True. And that’s the only reason I do it.”

  “Oh?” I ask, though I didn’t mean to out loud; it just came out.

  Joaquin nods. “I’d much rather be running everything—I’m practically just an event organizer, and truly, that’s a woman’s fucking job—or a fairy; the fairies do it even better.”

  “You’re so homophobic, Joaquin,” Cesara says, playfully. “You know what that means, don’t you? Being homophobic?”

  Joaquin’s right eyebrow hitches up curiously.

  “It means,” Cesara says, “you secretly think about men a little more than you like.”

  Joaquin doesn’t look as offended as I expected him to.

  “You’re a nasty bitch, Cesara,” he says, grinning. “Sometimes the things you say make me want to put my hands around your throat.”

  “But you do that already,” she says, suggestively. “And you know how much I like it.”

  Oh, Jesus... Figuratively, I roll my eyes straight into the back of my head.

  Before their sexual play goes too far, and I become the mayonesa in a Mexican sandwich, I pretend-cough, throwing my hand over my mouth and making the grossest hacking noise with my throat I can work up.

  They both look at me as if I just ruined the moment.

  “Oh, sorry,” I say, casually. “So, you were going to tell me how not to make you look bad?”

  Cesara appears to think on it a moment.

  Joaquin speaks up first.

  “The three biggest buyers,” he begins, “they come on day three: Jorge Ramirez; he owns two hundred nightclubs in Mexico, United States, and Puerto Rico. The only thing you need to be aware of with Jorge is that you don’t want to be alone in a room with him. He…ruined one of our most expensive girls six months ago—of course, we made him pay for her afterwards—but he’s a serial rapist, and he doesn’t care who it is—trainer or merchandise, old or young, attractive or repulsive—he’ll fuck it.”

  “Sounds like a charmer,” I say, mordantly.

  “He tried to get me in a bathroom once,” Cesara says. “So, whenever he’s expected to be at one of our auctions, I always take a man with me everywhere I go.”

  “If he tried anything with me,” I threaten, channeling Izel, “I’d cut it off, and shove it down his throat.” />
  Joaquin and Cesara look at one another from each of my sides—it feels like I said something wrong.

  Joaquin shakes his head in a punishing fashion.

  “You will never attack, or insult, a buyer,” he warns. “Not even in self-defense. They are what keeps us in business; kill one, and others will start to wonder if they’ll be next.”

  “Our buyers are not saints,” Cesara puts in, and I turn to see her. “They’re as fucked up as you or me or Joaquin—look what we’re involved in, what you’re involved in—and the same rules that apply out there in the world, don’t exist in here. Simply put: the buyers are more important than you, or me, or Joaquin—kill one, or run one off, and you’ll end up in a shallow grave”—her eyes wander past me to find Joaquin’s—“isn’t that right, Joaquin?”

  I look over at him again. He reaches for his wine glass and brings it to his pinched mouth; and after taking a sip that seems more like a distraction, he stares off at nothing with a hard look in his eyes. “Yes,” he answers, begrudgingly. “The jefe is a brutal man, and none of us are immune to his…punishments.”

  I get the feeling he had wanted to use another word, something far more offensive than jefe.

  Knowing better than to probe further on this particular subject, I focus on trying to still my raging heartbeat; I swallow, and gladly change the subject back. “And the other two buyers?”

  Joaquin loosens up in an instant, probably glad he doesn’t have to think about his ‘jefe’, whom he obviously hates, a second longer.

  “Iosif Veselov,” Cesara says. “One of the richest men in Russia; he practically owns the sex slave industry there; buys men and women from all over the world. He’s a lot like your friend, Robert Randolph: impeccably rude; thinks he’s the most important man to ever walk the face of the earth; and has absolutely no tolerance for imperfection. But Iosif is worse—not only will be never kiss your hand, Lydia, but if you speak to him without being spoken to first, he’ll beat you in front of everyone.”

  “But I’m no fucking slave,” I say, angry at just the thought of him running loose.