I could call 911. But what would I say? I don’t know where I am, I don’t know the license plate number of Cleto’s car; how could they find me? And I don’t really want to confess to laundering money for a drug smuggler. Then Cleto would be really mad.
Those “Millionaire Club” guys were right. Having your money work for you is exciting. Totally. At first, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I’d start the morning with a buy — you know, five thousand shares of Millennium Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MLNM) or something, watch it go up a dollar a share, then sell. Bam Five thousand bucks. Get a couple different stocks going, and I’m like a juggler, keeping all the balls in the air until it’s time to strike. It’s totally cool. And for some reason I have a knack for it. I just know when to sell. Sure, some of it is luck. I know that. Though sometimes it’s instinct. Luck and instinct. That’s my formula for success.
But after a while I realized that I was paying too much attention to the market; all day my eyes glued to the computer screen, watching those stocks go up and down. Making trades, taking profit. It was turning into a job.
To help me get back on track with my writing, I took a class at UCLA extension. The teacher was some kind of action-movie hotshot who checked his BlackBerry every ten minutes, but he was very encouraging. He really liked one script I wrote, an alien-invasion romantic comedy — think Sleepless in Seattle meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers — and said he thought it had a lot of potential. He encouraged us to start a writers group. You know, like a support group.
So me and these guys Dave and Victor from the class joined Wendy and Pasha from another class and started
It’s not difficult to start a writers group. You buy a six-pack of beer, a six-pack of Diet Coke, and one of those raw vegetable and dip platters from the supermarket, hide your dirty clothes, and you’re ready to host a literary salon. You don’t need to be Dorothy Parker or Gertrude Stein. I wasn’t. And Dave, he hardly even picked up his dirty gym shorts off the floor when we had “group” at his house — that’s what we called it, “group” — and there was always a funny smell in the air, kinda like cheese.
The meetings were fun. We’d talk about our work and our struggles trying to break into Hollywood. We’d help each other with ideas and talk about agents we’d heard about and stuff like that. This was when I was optimistic. When I thought success in Hollywood was just a screenplay away. This was before I learned the big stinking truth.
One night it was my turn to host and I decided to go all out. I’d had a particularly good day trading. I managed to jump on an IPO and ride it like it was a wild bull. It was crazy. A couple of times I thought about jumping out, taking a solid profit, and calling it a day. But something told me to hang in — that sixth sense I told you about — and despite various ups and downs I managed to triple my money, turning twenty grand into sixty grand and then getting out seconds before the closing bell rang.
You fucking know I was feeling good. I bought some white wine from this little shop on Colorado Boulevard and a large shrimp and crab claw platter from this Japanese fish market in Glendale. I went to a Cuban bakery and got empanadas stuffed with spicy chicken and pastries filled with guava and cream cheese. In other words, I went out of my way to be a great host.
I was the only one in the group who didn’t have a regular day job. Dave and Wendy both worked as assistants, Victor worked at Book Soup, and Pasha was some kind of textile designer. Everyone was talking about their various jobs, the humiliations that they suffered on a daily basis, and finally Wendy asked me what I did.
I told them it was hard to explain. When they pressed me, I turned on my computer and show them my portfolio, trading strategies, how the software worked, things like that. They were more impressed by my day trading than by the first fifteen pages of a Spanish Civil War epic — imagine Tom Hanks as a volunteer in the Abraham Lincoln brigades captured and befriended by Javier Bardem as Franco — and that’s all they could talk about. Pasha even stayed after group to help me clean up, and for the first time in over a year I didn’t end my night looking at pictures of Mandy LaFrance blowing Bourbon Street; I spent it in bed with a slightly pudgy Indian girl with beautiful eyes.
That’s how I met Cleto. Not by banging Pasha — that turned out to be the best part of the whole day trading thing: It got me a girlfriend. You know day trading, it’s sexy, kind of dangerous, but it’s also responsible. You’re investing money. It’s like a very grownup thing to do. That impressed Pasha, and once she spread her legs, that was it, we were an item.
It was Victor who caused the problem. Cleto was Victor’s cousin and Victor couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Cleto had a bunch of cash he wanted to invest, but he couldn’t exactly put it in a bank because he’d earned it “under the table.” I guess I was naïve, but when I met him he just seemed like a nice, hardworking Mexican man who was trying to make a better life for himself just like everybody else who comes to this country. Later I learned that he’d earned his money selling drugs. What can I tell you? I’m a moron.
Anyway, at first I said no. I didn’t want the responsibility. What if I lost Cleto’s nest egg? Then what? He goes back to Oaxaca peso-less? But when Cleto opened that gym bag stuffed full of hundred-dollar bills, well, I couldn’t resist. I mean, he was giving me ten percent of the profit.
I thought they were going to leave me in here to slowly roast to death. But now Cleto’s started up the car and we’re moving. Air is circulating. I can breathe again. He’s popped another CD in and now it’s some kind of salsa — no, wait, I know it. It’s Ozomatli.
Ozomatli is blasting in the trunk.
I like this much better. It’s happier, bouncy, and has a horn section. Maybe Cleto’s mood has improved.
I take out my cell phone and try again. Still no answer; maybe he can’t hear it ringing over the music. It’s too loud in the trunk to leave a message so I hang up.
I guess you could say I got greedy. I could’ve stuck Cleto’s cash into a couple of über-safe stocks and called it a day. All he wanted was for me to let them ride for a year or two, then sell them, pay the taxes on the gains, and give him a nice clean cashier’s check. But I thought about that and realized, you know, what’s in it for me? Ten percent of the profits if the profits are small is like hardly worth my time. I’m not risking my neck to make a couple hundred bucks when I could make thousands, right? Doesn’t make sense. So I gambled a little. I suppose, in retrospect, I should’ve diversified... took some conservative positions. That’s what they call it.
But you know what I thought? I thought, I don’t take conservative positions in bed with Pasha, why should I take ’em with Cleto’s money?
You know? You gotta break some eggs to make an omelet. I wonder if I can explain it to Cleto that way. Do they have omelets in Mexico?
Finally the car’s stopped. We’ve been driving for hours. I tried to call Pasha but I’m not getting any reception. Where are we?
The trunk lid opens and it’s bright. I feel like the Moleman or something. If the Moleman had the living shit kicked out of him. The sun is searing my eyeballs and I can’t seem to blink. Naldo and Ramón pull me out of the trunk. Fuck. That hurts I can hardly stand up. My body’s stiff like I’m filled with concrete. My legs don’t work at all and my pants are wet.
“You pissed your pants, Cleto’s not gonna be happy about that.”
What do they expect? How long was I in there?
I try to talk. “Where are we?”