Dinner with the Enemy

I will go to hell for this. If I’m lucky I’ll be dead first.

12:00 p.m.

It was a morning for some serious shopping. The only girl clothes I had were the bikini and sarong I bought yesterday. Saturday morning markets gave me everything I needed. The boutiques filled in the need for a more formal evening dress and I got a lot of accessories for it. It’s slinky. I’m going to pump Mr. Reinholdt for a bit of information. He could be my ticket into Ashley Lark’s home. It would be a lot easier if I was invited in instead of breaking in, and you can’t tell me that Jonathon Reinholdt is here on the island and won’t be visiting the esteemed Ms. Lark.

Remind me not to call him Mr. Reinholdt this evening. He hasn’t told me his name yet and god knows he might have an alias here, too.

So now I’ve lathered myself with sunblock and have on a pair of khakis and a light-weight white shirt. I’m planning on a little hike this afternoon.

I’ll check in later. It is so nice to be in a hotel with a WiFi connection!

5:30 p.m.

The place is like a fortress, except it doesn’t have a draw-bridge. I suppose you’d say it’s more palatial. There is a guard at the gate in front and one on the grounds on the beach side. He stopped me when I crossed onto Brenda’s property and went on. It’s a beach after all. I was just walking along it. There’s a huge yacht anchored about 400 yards off-shore. Either it’s Brenda’s (which would explain how she got down here from Mexico without triggering an immigration alert) or it’s another visitor.

When Davy told me there was no meeting of the Committee at the Condo, I got the message clear. The whole Committee wouldn’t risk being seen all together in one place unless it was at some charitable event. Some of them are fierce competitors. That means they must meet somewhere else, and what better time to go away for a week than right before Christmas.

I did a quick check on the net worth of these guys. If you added up the entire net worth of everyone in Seattle, half of it would be in the hands of these ten men. And that’s only the legitimate part that they report. It doesn’t include any of the hidden funds that I’m sure they all have from their illicit dealings.

It strikes me odd that they’ve targeted a specific industry, though, for their heist. I’ve got more research to do there.

Well, I’m meeting Mr. Wrong for dinner at 8:00. I’d better get made up and slip into the slinky gown. Wish me luck.

11:30 p.m.

Angel told me, back in November when I was trying to get a feel for what her business was all about, that the object wasn’t to sell sex to an old fart, it was to sell the idea that sex wasn’t beyond the realm of what was possible. And to make him pay for everything that he thinks might happen, not for what actually happens.

It’s not as easy as it sounds.

I met Mr. Reinholdt in the hotel lobby and he introduced himself as Jon Rentz. Not very imaginative, but then, look at the name I’m using. There’s no Riley Finn to complain about me using his name outside the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I chose it because all my aliases have something to do with Riley.

So, there we were, two impostors having a lovely polite but flirtatious dinner together beside the pool in an 80-degree paradise with the most spectacular night sky above that you’ve ever seen. There are several people I can think of, living and dead, that I’d rather have shared that experience with. Let me tell you, I wasn’t at all hesitant to order the “grill marinated lobster tail with rice and sauce vegetables” at $65, nor to have my fill of single origin dark chocolates with coffee for dessert.

Mr. Rentz, however, seemed to be somewhat disappointed when he offered me a glass of Chenin Blanc ($120 per bottle) from a Northern California vineyard that would have cost $12 at Fred Meyer in Seattle. Of course the menu that I had didn’t have prices on it, but I looked last night when I ate alone. The Dom here is $750 a bottle. Unbelievable.

“So, Miss Finn,” he said. “Where are you from?”

“Chatham, Mass,” I answered. “How about you?”

“Seattle,” he answered. I told you he wasn’t creative. Fake name, but he’s living in the same place.

“Does it really rain there all the time?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “we just tell people that to keep the population down. If everyone knew how beautiful Seattle is, we could never keep them out.”

“Ah. Like an exclusive club, huh?”

“You might say so. Finn. What nationality is that?”

“Oh, my father claimed to be full Irish, though it was his grandfather that immigrated to the US in the 1800s. He always said that’s where I get my red hair from.”

“And the blue eyes?” Ooops! I usually wear green contacts with this outfit, but I didn’t bring those with me.

“My mother is as Swedish as they come,” I said. “She’s tall and blonde and blue-eyed. I don’t know why I couldn’t have gotten her hair as well as her eyes.”

“You’d look good as a blonde,” he said. “You should try it. They say blondes have more fun.”

“Oh, hair color never stopped me from having fun,” I said. “What do you do in Seattle, Mr. Rentz?” It was time to move the conversation off of me and see what I could get out of him.

“I manage a little pharmaceutical company. Seattle is very big in bio-tech.” Really no imagination. I bet he doesn’t even know what other businesses are in Seattle.

“That sounds very exciting. Are you finding a cure for cancer or AIDS?” Where’s your social conscious, is what I was saying.

“Well, that’s a tough problem, better left to people smarter than I am. I just sell what they develop.” What? Was that a hint of false humility I detected.

“You must sell a lot of it to vacation down here in Belize. I mean, this must be a vacation isn’t it?”

“Mostly. Let’s say a working vacation. I have a business meeting to attend Monday, but other than that, it is a lovely place to spend Christmas.”

“It’s too bad you are all alone,” I said. “Don’t you have a family to spend Christmas with?”

“Well, my wife will be joining me Wednesday after the meetings for the holiday. She doesn’t really like it down here that much. But we have three days to enjoy ourselves before she gets here.” The cad.

“Oh, I can’t enjoy myself too much. I’m here with my boyfriend.” Let’s see how you handle that, lech.

“Where is your boyfriend now?”

“He got hit with a stomach bug the minute we got here. He is absolutely no fun to be with right now. I’m sure you’ll see him around by the time your wife gets here, though,” I said. Let’s see if you will pay for my company with a little information. “What kind of a business meeting gets held on an island in Central America?” I asked. “When you say pharmaceuticals, you’re not like a drug runner, are you?”

“I sell drugs,” he answered. “But they are all legal drugs. In the U.S. there are certain restraints on what people can discuss in a meeting if they are in the same business. But we really have to discuss these things or we’d never get anywhere with our businesses. It’s a matter of self-regulating the trade, so to speak.”

Okay. He’s a bigger idiot than I thought. If you are going to cover up a meeting for illegal purposes, you don’t invent a meeting for other illegal purposes to throw someone off your trail. Maybe it is not just an idiot. It is just flat-out arrogance. He might actually be telling me that they are going to meet together to fix the prices on Aspirin around the world. Why? Because he simply can’t believe that anyone in the world would be smart enough to understand what was going on.

By the time he started trying to push a glass of cognac on me, I’d pretty much had enough. By a stroke of good fortune that’s when Prince Charming arrived.

He was a nice six feet tall, dark hair cropped close, trim and fit and about 35 years old. I was looking forward to meeting him on the beach sometime soon. I bet he looks great in his swim trunks.

“Jon, fancy meeting you here,” he said striding up to my dinner date with an outstretched hand. Mr. Rentz rose reluctantly and accepted the greeting.

“Hawkins. The surprise is mutual. What brings you here?” He was just a little tetchy.

“Obviously the same thing as you. I’ve heard how magnificent the women are down here. I see you’ve already reeled one in, eh?” He turned to me and smiled the most brilliant perfect smile I’ve ever seen. I melted just a little. He held out his hand to me.

“I’m Ray Hawkins, Miss. If you wear out the old guy, look me up.”

“Thank you,” I said taking his hand. I was contemplating taking it home with me. Him attached, of course. “Riley Finn.”

“Nice to meet you Miss Finn. I certainly hope to see more of you.” Yes, yes. Much more of me. Okay! OMG! He’s beautiful. “I’ll see you around, Jon. Maybe we can go out for some deep sea fishing.”

“Sure, sure. We’ll make an arrangement later. Good evening.”

Ray Hawkins left the side of the table and headed for the bar. Mr. Rentz ordered another cognac.

“Young ass,” Mr. Rentz said confidentially across the table. “He thinks those video games he sells are real. Let me give you some advice, Miss Finn, stay away from him. He’s a user. Reputation for going through beautiful women like water. Wouldn’t have him in my club, I’ll tell you that, for sure.”

Suddenly the conversation took an interesting turn. My dear Mr. Rentz suddenly became a fatherly sage. The presence of a man about half his age must have struck his ego much harder than I’d have thought. The more glasses of cognac that Mr. Rentz drank while I put away $8.00 glasses of Perrier, the more fatherly and protective he became, leaning across the table and patting my hand, then whispering deep secrets about how men behave when in the presence of beautiful women.

“I see it all the time,” he said. “Hell, when I was that age, I was the same way. You see, Miss Finn—may I call you Riley?—young men only see a woman’s beauty. They don’t understand what a great contribution that woman may make to society, business, science, or even politics. Older men, like myself—I don’t kid myself about my age; I’m old enough to be your grandfather—older men see the potential for a smart woman to make a real impact on the world. What we really want to do is to help her along. For example, what do you do, Riley? What is your profession?”

“I’m a customer engineer for a manufacturer of precision instrumentation. I’m responsible for making sure their installations are set up properly, that their employees are trained properly, and that they never have a problem with our products.” Thank you Lars for insisting that when we create a persona for an alias we do a complete background on where we are supposed to work, even what color our house is.”

“You see!” he exclaimed. “You see what I mean?” He drank down another cognac. He seemed to have forgotten that I wasn’t drinking and poured two more glasses. In the next few minutes he drank both of them. “I knew the minute that I saw you that you weren’t just a pretty face. You have real talent and promise. Now if you were in Seattle, I could arrange for you to meet people who could help your career on its way. Possibly even get you a job with one of the big companies. Not just a field job, but something that would allow you to develop your management potential. I’ve got a young woman that works in my company who has that kind of potential as a Sr. Marketing Manager. She was introduced to me by one of my associates. We are always on the look out for smart, beautiful young women.”

Ding-ding! Bells started going off in my head. My dear little Cinnamon happens in her real life to be a Marketing Manager for a pharmaceutical company. In short, Mr. Rentz was leading up to an offer to come join the women of the Condo. If only he knew how I’d just escaped from the Condo. But the invitation wasn’t forthcoming tonight. Mr. Rentz was now seriously into his drinking. I’d seen it with my mother a hundred times. Once they get to a certain point, the booze is the most important thing, not the people you are with. It made me sick.

But I didn’t show it. I didn’t show how much I loathed him, his drinking, or his insinuation. I didn’t show my intention to bury him and the other nine men on the Committee.

I actually supported him all the way to his room—excuse me, suite—with another bottle of cognac, and managed to extract myself from him at the door with many sincere thanks for all the advice he’d given me and an excuse that I needed to go see how my boyfriend was doing.

I glanced over my shoulder as we left and noticed the handsome Mr. Hawkins watching us from the bar as we left.