Treasure Room

October marked my favorite time of year. Temperatures dropped,

salty breezes through the palm trees freshened our quarters, and hurricane

season passed over paradise. Yet, the AC was kept at 56° throughout the

70-acre secured private island for Boss's cold blood. Every palm and

person was bought. Paradise was a facade for the 7th Circle of Hell- the

violence of rape, sex slavery and trafficking of young women and girls.

I began working there in 2002, as a struggling single mother raising

two daughters and two nieces and fiercely protective of my four girls. Boss

forced me to sign a nondisclosure agreement immediately and silenced me

with various threats throughout the years. I finally escaped in 2012, into

hiding.

I remember the last day vividly. Sun warmed the clear quartz and

blue topaz stones of my necklace against my skin during my morning walk

as Big Joe approached in his UTV.

"Boss wants you in the music room, Yemaya," he shouted, one hand

on the wheel, the other extending coffee as he momentarily disappeared in

a dust cloud then stopped in a crunch of pebbles by my feet. I smiled and

accepted the offering. Boss tasked me and only me with this room years

ago. "Piano tuner coming this morning too," he said.

Joe patted the seat beside him. I inhaled, stepped up, and exhaled

pain as weakness left my body. We sped past resident peacocks in their

blue, purple and green splendor, a pair of dolphins in the ocean.

"For you." Joe thumbed behind us to a pile of folded, Lacoste white,

cotton polo shirts, size medium. Boss wore them once then gifted them to

Housekeeping as rags. $90 each new.

Joe didn't mention the dungeons. No one mentions + No one enters

+ No one cleans = The Rule.

With the sun behind us, we parked below the blue and white striped,

gold domed temple at the southwest end of the compound. Its two

ominous golden owls made me reach for my beads every visit. Enormous

faux wood painted, barred doors disguising glass sliders loomed over us at

the main entrance.

Two blue butterflies played around the UTV. I slid out and grabbed

an armful of polos. Joe rifled through a loaded key ring on his belt,

unlocked and opened the sliders.

Inside, I flipped the lights and looked around the acoustic walled

music room, confident it would be sparkling in no time, from its wood

floors to ceiling height bookcases of hardcover best sellers. Twin

mattresses covered in soiled white sheets stacked side by side in front of

the window broke my heart again. I stripped bedding last because any

blood stains made it difficult to get through the day. I ran a finger through

a thick layer of dust on Boss's bare, ten foot long, cherry desk.

The small, black grand piano stood against the western wall of the

room. Sheet music, songbooks, and a little black book were assembled on

the music rack. I stuffed them inside the bench seat, but the little black

book on top caught my eye. Too small for a songbook. I picked it up and

skimmed its pages- hundreds of handwritten names of world leaders,

celebrities, others, with dates, currency, places like "Island", "PB", "NYC",

time codes. Feminine handwriting. I dropped it in my apron.

I inserted ear buds and selected my playlist, dampened a polo shirt

with hydrogen peroxide and wiped the piano keys back to front, left to

right. After that, I waved the feather duster back and forth over the

Wurlitzer like a mad symphony conductor.

The tuner had arrived. I heard clapping behind me.

I popped out my ear buds, embarrassed. "Señor. Buenos días.

Welcome," I presented the Wurlitzer with a smile and feather duster.

Joe introduced Mr. MacGuffin, a tall, slender, chestnut skinned man

with tight salt and pepper curls. He set a clunky canvas duffel on the bench,

said "Thank you", and propped open the piano cover. "My second time

here," he said, "yet, I've never met you."

"Well I'm out," said Joe, "Yemaya will call me you need anything or

when you're ready to head back." He tipped the lid of his Yankees cap and

walked to the doors.

"A ladder?" I called after Joe.

"Stand by," he replied.

"Interesting," MacGuffin remarked, with a nod to the portrait

hanging above the piano. "Who's the other guy in the painting?" he asked.

"Pope John Paul II," I said.

Had they truly met, El Patrón y El Papa, the world's most affluent

member of the Jewish faith and the world's most affluent leader of the

Roman Catholic faith? What had they asked of each other?

I left MacGuffin to his business and went about my own. On the sixth

shelf of the first bookcase stood a dark chocolate rum bottle aged by the

sea. Boss was obsessed with pirate treasure. He paid guests and staff $100

for rum bottles, $1000 for unbroken plates, $500 for broken plates. I

dusted it and carefully tugged at the paper sticking out, which turned out to

be a rolled up Wurlitzer diagram, top board long prop and curve outlined

in gold. I looked up. MacGuffin was bent into the action with a tuning

hammer.

On second glance the diagram was a treasure map of the music room,

scale at bottom, Coffer handwritten at top, clues in right margin with

arrows extending to symbols (dot within a circle): pp to bench seat, LOOT

to rectangle in soundboard, Booty to short top board prop, Blunderbuss to

underneath piano.

Motherload was written on the music rack above a golden owl. Could

the owl represent the little black book? I felt dizzy and sat on the sofa.

"Pp, Booty, Blunderbuss" I repeated, drawing an imaginary line

between symbols, creating another symbol- a triangle. "Pp, LOOT,

Blunderbuss", I said and drew another line, creating a second triangle, a

powerful symbol used in Santería to commune with orichas or saints, but

in Satanic practices to summon demons.

The blood, chains, weapons, etc. below the music room in the

dungeons from last cleanup haunted me. And the smells. I felt nauseous,

replaced the map and bottle. Stupid game. I had work to do.

"Señor Tuner, please lift your bag." I emptied the bench and sat. A

Moroccan passport fell from the pile of papers and songbooks into my lap.

I slid it in my chinos pocket.

"Let me call for your lunch and see if Joe forgot my ladder," I said to

MacGuffin and radioed, "Oye, Flaco! Joe?"

Joe returned by truck with scaffolding and took MacGuffin so I could

make noise vacuuming and climbing the scaffolding. As soon as they left I

dragged the bench to the Wurlitzer's flank for support, scooted down to the

creeper on the oriental rug and rolled under the piano like when I was a

little girl helping Abuelo change oil in his 1958 Chevy Bel Air.

"What are you, 'blunderbu-'," but I saw it: a hammerless steel

revolver held by a magnet drilled to the underside. I took it down by its

rubber grips, opened it to five rounds of .357magnum, lifted my polo shirt,

unhooked the top clasp of my faja corset, and crammed that blunderbuss

in. I rolled out from under the Wurlitzer as an armed crab.

I hoisted myself up and peered inside the cabinet. Sure enough,

against the far wall of sat a thin wooden box the same finish as the piano.

LOOT. Using a reach tool, I lifted the box up and out.

Of the two hardwood lid props, the short black prop lay nested in the

long gold prop. I made a fist around the short stick and broke it out. It

was hollow with rubber end caps and something inside: Booty.

I took prop and box to the closet and locked myself inside.

Sweat dripped from my breasts down my abdomen between warm

skin and cold steel. I took the passport from my pocket, flipped it open to a

photo of Boss with different name and Moroccan address, and jammed it

into a paper towel roll. He spoke nothing but American English, not even

Spanglish.

I slid the top off the box, removed two mustard strapped stacks of

U.S. $100 bills. $20,000USD.

"Jesús, María y José", I whispered.

My faja just fit without a gun. I unhooked a second clasp, inhaled,

and shoved a stack inside under my left breast next to the gun, yanked up

my right pant leg, held out the compression stocking and dropped the other

stack. That's when I heard voices and checked my Cuervo y Sobrinos.

Joe called, "Yemaya!"

"Gimme a minute!" I dug into my apron for that glass bottle, opened

it, dropped the dropper, spilled the liniment on the floor, dabbed my wrist

enough to smell the potent grassy, citrusy incense a mile away, and placed

the bottle on a shelf.

I reached for the prop.

Short nails and neuropathy hampered my dexterity, but I picked one

end cap off the prop with determination and flipped it over my palm. Out

slid a Ziploc bag containing maybe four dozen loose, heart cut diamonds.

Most looked over two carats. I stared at the gems, their value inestimable,

their brilliance hypnotizing even through plastic.

"Yemaya?" Joe's voice came from the other side of the door, "You

okay?"

"Claro, but my hip is bad this week and made worse climbing the

scaffolding." I lifted my left pant leg, rolled the sock down a few inches, set

the diamonds against my calf, pulled the sock up, and let my pant leg

down. I unscrewed a mop handle, dropped the lid prop in, and tossed it in

the corner. I smoothed my polo, apron and curls into a band from my

wrist, unlocked and swung open the door to Joe's weathered, round face.

I conjured my best pout. Joe held out a container of fresh fruit-

cantaloupe, strawberries, coconut-with fork and napkin on top. I took it

gratefully.

"Let's get you back to rest," he said, "or massage?"

"Noooo. I'm calling out for tomorrow to get shots with Doc on St.

Thomas. My day is Saturday anyway," I said, jabbing my hip with a finger,

"rest tomorrow, move around in the water with the girls Saturday, Sunday

like new."

"Sounds good. I'll drive you back for your things and get you on the

3pm," he said.

I followed. "Ciao, Señor Piano Tuner. Pleasure," I said.

MacGuffin reached for my right hand as I passed and kissed lightly

above my mother of pearl ring. I blushed. "Long, slender fingers of

honey," he mused, "Do you play?"

"A bit," I replied.

I drank my first full glass of water all day, changed out of uniform

then layered jewelry, documents, pills, Mama's Rosary, little black book,

$10k strapped, small photo album, favorite dress, clothes, sandals in a bag.

I flushed over the counter remedies, dumped most of the diamonds

into the bottles then into my purse. I peeled 5 bills from the second stack

and tucked those and a good knife into my pocket. I split that stack

between my wallet and a belly band stuffed with diamonds, looked around

at framed memories, gifts, shells, candles...then fled.

At the dock, Jesús, the boat operator, was waiting. Every board on

the pier marked one step closer to freedom from what locals dubbed

"Pedophile Island". Jesús took my bag and helped me aboard. I leaned on

him a little harder than I had intended and slipped a $100 bill into his

palm.

I tossed seven pennies overboard and sat to stave off sea sickness

through unusually rough waters during the longest 15 minutes of my life.

We disembarked at Red Hook. I tipped Jesús another $100 when he

brought my bag. He flipped the bill between two fingers and looked me in

the eye. He had many mouths to feed.

"Gracias, Jesús," I said, placing my hand over his. I called my

daughter and waited.