Lahat ng Kabanata ng Mi Amor: Kabanata 21 - Kabanata 30

In the morning, Richard just wouldn’t let up. “I need to understand this,” he said, while toasting himself a bagel. “Why did you let him use you? Are you stupid? Didn’t you realize this was a money laundering scheme?”“No, I didn’t. Before yesterday I didn’t even know what money laundering was. In case you forgot, I didn’t go to law school. I’m just an airhead party planner.”“You’re not an airhead. Which is why I don’t see how you got into this mess.”I couldn’t keep the secret any longer. “It was sex, Richard. I had sex with him, all right? That’s how I got my first job with him, and that’s how I kept him as a client. I gave him blowjobs and let him fuck my ass.”Richard put his bagel down, a sour look on his face. For a minute I was reminded of that scene with Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men when he says, “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth.”“So?” I asked. “Now you know. I like to get my ass fucked, and Vlad Solonenko has a big dick. Bigger than mine, bigger than your

My favorite Cuban restaurant is Versailles, on Calle Ocho, Southwest Eighth Street in Little Havana. Imagine a diner with crystal chandeliers, where the guy at the next table could be a grizzled veteran of Brigade 2506 from the Bay of Pigs, or a pharmaceutical sales rep with a six-figure income. The language is Spanglish and the food to die for.After we ordered, I called Javier again, and once more the call went directly to voice mail.“He’s ditching me,” I said, tossing the phone to the table. “That’s not the way it works. I’m supposed to be the one to avoid his calls, to send him a text that says I just want to be friends. It’s not him, it’s me.”“Maybe he skipped town with Vlad,” Jean-Jacques said.“Not helping.”“When you fall off a horse, you have to get right up again,” he said. “We’ll go on a manhunt after dinner.”“I don’t know that I’ve fallen off the horse yet. Maybe my foot is still hanging from the stirrup.”“You can’t have it both ways, Adam. Either he’s dumping you, and

Thursday morning I read through the Miami Herald online, looking for any mention of Vlad Solonenko. The front-page story was that Raul Castro had been spotted with an iPod, and all factions of the Cuban community weighed in on what they suspected he was listening to. Some thought vintage Celia Cruz, while others suggested Daddy Yankee and other reggaetón stars. There was even one group favoring Frank Sinatra and his version of “My Way.”The rest of the world could be falling apart, I thought as I skipped forward, and the Miami press would still seize on any Castro-related tidbit. But no matter how I looked or searched, there was nothing about Vlad in the paper. The FBI was keeping things on the down low – just as Vlad had lived his life.Jean-Jacques came over around noon, and we went through the lineup of acts. We had a gay rapper named Baby Huey; Iona Trailer; the acrobats we’d seen the night before; and a pair of guys who did ballroom dance “with a twist,” among other acts.“Who’s

I told that to Richard. “You’re giving me a headache,” he said. “I’ll have to talk to dad about this. I’ll call you back.”Jean-Jacques and I stopped at the office and told the clerk we weren’t going to renew the lease on the unit, and that we’d emptied it out. The VW wasn’t meant for transporting lots of crap, and I already had my computer equipment in the trunk. We piled the backseat with the bags we were donating, and I drove Jean-Jacques over to his place to drop them off. He said he was going to see his mother over the weekend and would deliver them to the thrift shop on his way.We’d just finished unloading the bags when my father called. “You have no knowledge of that money. You don’t know where it came from. Do you understand?”“Do I tell the FBI that Vlad gave me the lock?” I asked.“If they ask you directly. Don’t volunteer any information.”“How bad is this, Dad?”“Do you have any more secrets?”“Dad. This wasn’t a secret, it was ignorance.”“You’ve been ignorant of a lot o

That night, back at the theater, I was nervous, and not just about the Vlad situation, the FBI situation, or whether or not I would break up with Javier. We’d nearly sold out the theater, and I hoped that the acts wouldn’t disappoint. Jean-Jacques and I hadn’t seen them all together; all we’d done was go over the order with them before the show, making sure they were all there and had all their props.Iona Trailer opened the show, dressed as Ginger Rogers, and sang “We’re in the Money,” against a video background of spinning coins and bills. Of course that made me think of Vlad, and that box of cash in the storage locker. What was he thinking of, hiding that money and not telling me? Of course, if he’d said something, I would have freaked out.I was so preoccupied with thinking about Vlad that I missed the stand-up comic’s act, and only realized when the two acrobats came on and the audience got quiet. Seeing them reminded me of Javier, and I wondered if we would ever have mind-blowin