The Santero Read online

  “You’re almost a different person here,” he said, his eyes on me while I watched the crew team propel their boats from one end of the lake to the other. “So happy and calm.”

  “I’m happy because you’re here with me. Two things I love in one place. It doesn’t get much better than that.” I said, putting my hand over his. I took a deep breath. “It’s just such so gorgeous.”

  “You walked right to the front of the classroom and had a group of strangers hanging on your every word in two minutes.”

  “They have to pay attention, Rafa. They want a good grade.” I shrugged and leaned back into his arms. “You had the girls in the class paying quite a bit of attention to you. As usual.”

  “That’s different. When you walk into a room, the first thing everyone notices is how beautiful you are. I’m guilty, too.” He started to rub the back of my neck in a way that sent tingles down my spine, using his knowledge of every muscle under my skin to create the most deeply satisfying sensations imaginable. “Good?” he asked.

  “God, yes,” I moaned, leaning further forward.

  “But when you start teaching, I forget what you look like, and all I’m really thinking about is how much you know. The depth of your knowledge. You jump from literature to history to anything really and connect it all in the blink of an eye. I just wonder . . .” He stopped rubbing my neck, so I looked up and opened my eyes.

  “What?”

  “If we were at a dinner party with an orthopedic surgeon, for example, what would you contribute to the conversation?”

  “Hm,” I squeezed my lips together. “After a glass of wine, I’d probably comment that medieval astrologers believed that the planet Saturn ruled the knees.”

  Rafa threw his head back and laughed, then began rubbing the spots between my shoulder blades that made me go weak with pleasure. Enjoying his new game, he continued. “How about the warden of a penitentiary?”

  “I’d ask for his or her thoughts on Foucault’s notion that buildings are constructed in a way that make them expressions of power, especially prisons.” I looked over my shoulder at Rafa, whose amused expression made me laugh, too. “Are you trying to stump me?”

  “Last one. What would you talk about with just a random person from New York City?”

  “I’d ask them if it’s truly possible to eat New York pizza outside of the city, even if a real New Yorker made it.” I opened my eyes wide, Twilight Zone style.

  “Yes, of course it is.” Rafa cocked his head to the side. “Then again, not really. Amada, that conversation could go on for hours! Is that a cooking question or is it . . . philosophical?”

  “Who knows,” I laughed. He stopped rubbing and draped his arms around me, inhaling the scent of my hair from behind. God, he felt so good.

  “Just one of the many reasons I love you, mamita,” he breathed in my ear. “So much more than a pretty face,” he murmured. “I don’t know why you hide it.”

  “Do I?” I asked, closing my eyes.

  “You think people—men—won’t like you if you’re smart.” There had never been any question in my mind that Rafa was an intelligent man, but he was so astute about people that it was frightening.

  “My mother used to warn me to never show off my intelligence in front of a man, that it would turn them off. She said they were visual creatures and that all they care about is a woman’s appearance.” I recalled one of the few vivid memories I had of my mother. One night she’d been two hours late to dinner and my father was fuming. I’d thought for certain that they’d have an argument the minute she arrived, but when she finally showed up looking like an angel in her pale blue chiffon gown and every head in the room turned to watch her cross the restaurant straight to my father, he went absolutely weak and forgot that he’d ever been angry. “She was so beautiful, Rafa. When she was all dressed up to go out, she could take your breath away.”

  “I’ve seen photographs.” He pulled me in tight, both of us reveling in the memory of the night we met. Our attraction had been sudden and volatile, like a chemical reaction set into motion by the mere sight of one another. “She was breathtaking, but was she as intelligent as you are?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I never saw that side of her.”

  “With all due respect to your mother, Amada, that was very bad advice. Don’t ever be afraid to be yourself. They’ll see your beauty, but I also want our children to know how smart and sophisticated their mother is. You need to be in this world again. You’ve neglected that side of yourself for too long, and you have to understand that I won’t love you any less. In fact, it can only make me more attracted to you, if that’s possible. Seeing you up there today was a complete aphrodisiac.” He nibbled at my neck for just a second, as if to remind me of what he would do to me if we weren’t in a public place.

  “Says the man who picks the tightest dress in my closet for me to wear,” I joked. “So you’re saying I can wake up in the morning, put on my thickest glasses, ignore my hair, go straight to my study and work all day in my pajamas without a stitch of makeup on and you’ll still want me? Because that’s what I used to do, and what I’d still do some days if I started working again. I get obsessed and forget to even look in a mirror. Is that what you want?”

  “Yessss,” he growled into my ear. “That’s super hot. You don’t even have to brush your teeth,” he laughed. With one more surreptitious squeeze to my thigh, Rafa let go of me completely and learned back on his arms, his way of getting himself under control when he couldn’t have me.

  This is love, I thought, staring out at the glassy water. I am loved.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Young Luc knocked at the back door of Madrina’s at quarter after nine, as promised. By twenty after, he was sitting in a chair in the old game room with not one but two Glocks pointed at his temples. And according to Sandro, my head of security, yes, it was absolutely necessary.

  “We can’t show any weakness now,” he’d said. Sandro pushed all of his 6’ 5”, three-hundred-pound frame away from the card table in the back room where he, Alex, Sal, and our new associates had the emergency meeting earlier.

  “When Demarais’ guy gets here tonight, we scare the shit out of him.” Sandro’s new team was in complete agreement. Not only were most of them Sandro’s old Gulf War buddies, but they’d all come from the same neighborhood in Little Havana, sharing family and social connections that went back decades to Cuba. It wasn’t possible to find a tighter, more dangerous crew, and Sandro wouldn’t have it any other way. As for Sal, I’d come to trust him implicitly, and the decision to include Alex in our current operation had been spontaneous but ultimately necessary.

  Sandro, Sal and I barged in to Alex’s room around eight, and while his security detail let us pass, they made a show of scowling at us, eyeing the new men with distaste. These worthless outsiders were getting on all of our nerves, and I resolved to call the congressman’s office and demand their dismissal. If Alex’s father didn’t trust me yet, there was no point in Alex’s continued presence here, not to mention that my Amada would be much safer if he weren’t. These assholes, I decided on the spot, were leaving today. I shook Alex awake, not really caring if we startled him. He shouldn’t be napping at this hour, anyway.

  “Alex, wake up,” I said. Sandro positioned himself by the door, while Sal, my right-hand man stood by the window. An intellectual at heart, Sal still had good instincts, having developed them early in life to ensure his survival in a third world country. Just like me.

  “Am I late?” Alex’s skinny frame and translucent skin made him look younger than his nineteen years. Mentally he was probably even less mature, having wasted so much of his formative years on drugs. Just last night I’d treated him as a fragile kid, but this morning everything was different. The time had come for Alex to man up.

  “We have to talk.” I sat on Alex’s bed.

  “What is it?” His panicked eyes went from Sandro, to Sal and then back to me.

  �
��I’m going to speak to you like a man. You’re not some special little snowflake kid, got it? You’re a man, just like us. Nineteen years old. Enough fucking around already.”

  He blinked, internalizing my words.

  “This son of a bitch who keeps bringing you drugs won’t leave you alone because he wants something from your father. Now he’s threatening Amada because I won’t let him near you.”

  “What did he do?” Alex swung his legs around and leaped out of bed, alarmed. I stood with him.

  “Don’t worry about that now. Just know that if he goes near her again, he’s dead, and I’m going to do it myself.”

  “I hope I get to do it,” grumbled Sandro under his breath.

  “Fuck, Rafa, I’m sorry,” said Alex. “I don’t know why I kept going back—” I stopped him right there.

  “That version of yourself is gone. The weak, drug-addicted, lonely, confused boy no longer exists. Physically you’re fine, you’ve fully detoxed, and now the mental dependence goes away. Today.”

  I pulled him out of bed and stood him on his feet. Grabbing him by the back of the neck, I made him look at us.

  “We’re your family now. You are no longer weak.” I looked him in the eye, searching for signs of duplicity, but there were none.

  “You live here, permanently. You work for me, and not as a cook. I’m trusting you with something greater than my life: my wife and our family’s future. If you betray us and let that cocksucker manipulate you with drugs ever again, you’re dead to me. Otherwise, this family will protect you as if we shared the same blood, and I expect you to do the same for us. Do you accept my offer?”

  Alex took in my every word, and when it seemed he might break down, falling back on old, childish habits and mannerisms, he took a deep breath and extended his hand instead. I grasped it and addressed Sandro.

  “He’s with you now.” I thought about all the things Alex had been missing that he would value far beyond getting high. Family. A sense of responsibility and a place in the world. To find his passion. “And let’s find a pro to teach him how to box. We need him strong.” Bingo. Alex’s eyes lit up as I knew they would.

  “You got it, boss,” said Sandro, crossing his arms. “About fucking time. Don’t worry, I’m gonna toughen his candy ass right up. You look like you need to get laid, too, bitch.”

  “For sure,” Sal chimed in, “but I don’t think he’s got any game yet. Watch Rafa, Alex. Take notes.”

  “Maybe he can borrow some Led Zeppelin.” Sandro popped a toothpick in his mouth, obviously in the mood to give me a little shit, too. Sal high-fived Sandro, obviously having heard the whole story already.

  “Hey, you know she calls him Daddy?” howled Sal, doubled over with laughter. I glared at him in disbelief.

  “Not that it’s any of your fucking business, Sal, but she was joking,” I said.

  “How’s your neck, boss?” said Sandro to me, a smile creeping across his face.

  I was about to warn them both to shut the fuck up about Amada when I saw just how much Alex was enjoying the conviviality among us, something he’d probably never seen before, so I let it go.

  “Go ahead, fuck with me all you want, but don’t you two comemierdas ever talk like that in front of Amada. Gossipy bastards.”

  ***

  Later, after I’d called to check on Amada and spoken to her security team, I called Sal into my newly renovated office at Madrina’s. It was small but elegant, decorated in the same rich walnut wood and custom commissioned oils I’d chosen for the main salon and restaurant.

  “The club is looking good, Rafa,” he said, plopping down into the wing chair across from my desk. “The members’ section looks like something out of an old movie. Too bad most people will never get to see it.”

  The pièce de résistance of Madrina’s was the members-only club I’d decided to call The Sanctuary or El Santuario, a wood-paneled hideaway featuring a ten-foot-long trophy bar, walk-in humidor and custom-made Chesterfield sofas and wing chairs imported from England. I’d had an expert design a state-of-the-art lighting and ventilation system and, at Amada’s urging, ordered a solid walnut table for thirty to serve as the centerpiece of the two-story private library. Flanked on either side by two hand-crafted walnut spiral staircases, the shelves contained what Amada considered to be the most important works in the Western canon.

  The club’s thirty members had been curated carefully, forming a group I knew could fully support our aims with the utmost allegiance and discretion. Accordingly, the smaller oils inside The Sanctuary, unlike those in the main salon, were raw and sensual, with no intent to disguise or allegorize any of the seven major Orishas. In the largest painting above my chair at the head of the table, Babalú-Ayé, the exiled Orisha of both epidemics and healing was depicted not as St. Lazarus but how the artist envisioned him, powerful and avenging. The first meeting would be scheduled soon, and though I’d really only planned an informal gathering, a voice in my ear, no doubt Doña Delfina, told me to always be prepared to call on them at a moment’s notice.

  “You wear anything but suits these days, Rafa?” asked Sal, eyeing one of the Tom Fords Amada had chosen for me.

  “Someone prefers me in them,” I said, thinking of Filomena, my ballerina spirit guide. A young patient who’d had a crush on me in life was now in death one of my fiercest protectors. I’d honored her with the sixteen-foot-tall bronze ballerina fountain in the main salon, and the only thing she required of me was to wear suits and dance with her when she came to me in my dreams.

  “Whatever it takes, gotta keep ‘em happy.” Sal crossed his arms and waited for me to begin. We sat together in silence for a moment, a technique Doña Delfina had taught me. Sometimes the spirits only communicated in a whisper, and if you weren’t listening, you could miss it.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Sal,” I said, coming around the desk. “Lisa.”

  “Oh.” He drummed his fingers against his forearm, then absently ran his finger along the leather braided edge of the desk. “Rafa, I know.”

  “Know what?” I perched myself on the desk across from him and watched him try to conceal his anxiety.

  “I know she still wants you. That’s what we fought about last night. She denies it, but I’m not stupid.” I thought of asking him how, but instead leaned against the desk and waited for him to finish. To his credit, the conversation wasn’t nearly as awkward as I imagined.

  “So, what do we do?” I pursed my lips and glanced out the window, noting the black storm clouds rolling in from the ocean, a regular occurrence in my beloved Miami.

  “If you’re okay with it, nothing.”

  “Sal, I don’t know how to make it any clearer to her that I’m in love with my wife and nothing is ever going to happen between us. If she’s interested in other men, why is she still here with you?”

  Sal went to the opposite side of the room and unknowingly stood beside the hidden door leading to the room in which I kept my safe and the most private of all my documents and communications. No one but Sandro and Amada even knew it was there.

  “I think I love her,” he continued, “and the sex is like nothing I’ve ever experienced in my life. She’ll come around.”

  “There are so many women here in the club and all over Miami, Sal. The sex, though, that’s tough, I know.” From the very first moment I’d laid eyes on Amada I’d turned into a complete animal, losing all sense of reason and control. I had to have her, and unless she’d rejected me, there was nothing that could have stopped me.

  “I want her.” He finally looked directly at me, then rubbed his forehead with both hands. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t turn into a problem.”

  I thought about all the possible complications and then pushed them out of my mind. This was Sal’s call.

  “Alright,” I said. “But let’s keep her busy. She can run the office.” I quickly added my stipulations. “Nothing confidential, though. And she has to behave respectfully, because
I don’t want her to embarrass any of us, least of all you. Keep in mind she’s from another culture. Make her understand how it is for us.”

  “I will. She’ll love running the office, Rafa, thanks.” Sal slapped me on the shoulder as he often did in the kitchen on the ship, a gesture that had always felt genuine and familial to me.

  “Would you like me to help you along?” There were a number of things within my power to do for him as a santero now. “We can have a feast and ask for help. Lisa can be yours in body and mind if an Orisha makes it so. There’s an oil I can give you to use under the light of the moon the next time you have sex. It’s very pleasurable, I assure you.”

  “Not yet, Rafa,” he said, determination written all over his face. “But maybe soon.”

  By the time Achille’s associate Luc knocked on the back door, everything had been decided and we’d formed one strong unit. There were ten of us now, a security team of seven former soldiers, me, Sal, and Alex. Unlike the night before, when Achille was able to stroll into our home and terrorize Amada, tonight we were prepared and on the offensive. I checked in on Amada one more time to be certain the security system had been installed and that Sandro’s men were watching her at all times. Under normal circumstances I would object to guards inside the house, but until Achille was under control, it would have to be that way.

  We had Achille’s courier in a chair at one of the card tables. The kid was young, perhaps Alex’s age, but unlike Alex, he was more mature than his years. He sat facing us, sporting a well-worn black leather jacket with deep pockets he used to hide his hands. Neither aggressive nor afraid, he’d allowed Sandro to check his body for weapons as if it were an everyday occurrence.

  “What do you want?” I thundered, kicking one of the chair legs. It jerked back, forcing the kid to steady himself or fall over. I spoke to him in Spanish, but he understood me.