Raymond uncurled from the fetal position.  The midday sun had found its way through the skylight of his dingy Nassau bungalow.  Inhaling his first waking breath, his nostrils filled with the scent of the local girl he had screwed the night before.  Just then he remembered her: the dark skin, the mop of tiny black braids for hair, the small but natural breasts, and the slight v-shaped gap in her front teeth.  She had been tall—only an inch shorter than Raymond—and she had moaned and convulsed convincingly during orgasm.  Like all the girls on all the other nights, she was long gone.

Fishing through his discarded tan shorts, Raymond found his wallet.  He opened it to discover that the last ten dollars of yesterday’s entertainment budget were still there.  Raymond always paid for sex, in dollars, drugs or casino chips.  The way he saw it, all guys paid for it some way or another; he just liked to be up front about what he was getting into.  Some nights—though not last night, apparently—a girl would pretend not to be interested in Raymond’s money, only to rob him on her way out the door.  It was all the same to Raymond.  By hook or by crook, she got the money and he got laid, and whether a girl would rather think of herself as a thief or a prostitute was none of Raymond’s business.  It was because of those girls—the crooks, that is—that Raymond never kept anything of value in the bungalow: a soiled mattress on the floor, a fridge full of beer and a few changes of clothes.  He kept his cash in a safety deposit box downtown, and his real wallet in his room safe at the casino hotel. The bungalow was strictly for entertainment purposes; it was his fuck shack. 

Throwing on the shorts and the grimy shirt from the night before, Raymond headed out to begin his daily routine.  He would walk a few miles along the beach to the casino.  As he tracked sand into the hotel lobby, one of the doormen would toss him his room key.  He would head up to shit, shower and shave, and from there he would go straight to his usual blackjack table, where breakfast would be waiting for him. 

By the time Raymond reached the gaming floor, he had cleaned himself up to the point that he could have passed as any other American tourist: well-groomed, white, sunburned, obviously loose with money, and dressed a shade too dark and heavy for the Caribbean heat.  As he crossed the floor to his table, shouts of “Ray!  How’s it going!” and “Ray!  Good to see you again!” erupted from a nearby roulette table.  It was a handful of middle-aged tourists that Raymond had met a few nights ago.  Raymond pretended not to hear.  He hated guys who called him “Ray.”

Miranda was dealing at his usual table, which meant that it was Thursday.  Raymond sat down at his stool on the left end of the table, and at the same moment his breakfast arrived: scrambled eggs, rye toast, fresh pineapple, a mimosa, and ten hundred-dollar casino chips.  After shoveling a forkful of eggs in his mouth, he took a single chip off the stack and placed his first bet of the day. 

Raymond had almost finished eating when a new player sat down in the stool to his right. He was a tall man (six foot two at least), thirty-something, and stocky in a muscular way.  He was wearing a dark business suit.  Had Raymond noticed his face, he might have remarked to himself that without his bushy mustache this guy might look a lot like some movie star or another.  But Raymond hadn’t noticed his face at all; what had caught his eye was the rack of black rectangular chips the player had brought with him; thousand-dollar chips.  He scanned them and counted twenty-five—high stakes for this particular casino.

“Excuse me, Mister Blank,” came a voice from behind Raymond, “we’d like a word with you, if that’s possible.”  Raymond shuddered visibly.  Mister Blank was his work name.

Turning around, Raymond saw that the speaker was a bald man in his forties.  His open shirt revealed that his chest was also bald.  He wore sunglasses—useless in casino lighting—with dark, round lenses.

 “If you know me by that name,” Raymond said, “you know that I’m on vacation.”

“Of course, Mister Blank,” said the bald man, “but we’d like a few minutes of your time to convince you otherwise.” 

“What’s in it for me?”

With that, the stocky player pushed the rack of black chips in front of Raymond.  That was easy, Raymond thought.

“Alright, let’s go for a walk,” said Mister Blank.  He pushed the chips towards the blackjack dealer.  “Miranda, be a good kid and cash me out?  Keep a couple for yourself.”

A few minutes later the three of them were walking on the beach, the big guy with the mustache struggling to keep up as his dress shoes filled with sand.  The bald guy was wearing Birkenstocks.  Raymond was barefoot. 

“Let’s cut to the chase,” said Mister Blank. “Who’s our subject?  Where is he, who is he really, and who does he think he is?” 

In the early days of his career, Raymond often dealt with first-time clients, clients who he had sought out rather than vice versa.  Those clients usually required a lot of hand-holding; they would need to be assured that Raymond’s services were for real, and that his methods—if somewhat dangerous—were effective.  In recent years, more and more of his clients had been men like these, men who knew Raymond by his reputation.   These guys clearly knew the biz, and cutting to the chase is what they expected from Mister Blank.

“His name is Frank Healey,” said the bald guy.  “He’s a phone service rep in New York City.” 

“Ok,” said Mister Blank, “and who does he think he is?”

“He thinks he’s Frank Healey, a phone service rep in New York City.” 

Raymond stopped in his tracks.  “You want me to scrub a guy who hasn’t been washed?  What do you suppose you’ll be left with afterwards?”

“We’re hoping to be left with nothing,” said the bald guy.  “That’s why we’re hiring the best.”   The big guy with the mustache and the sand-filled shoes had yet to speak.

“And when would you want him pulled?” asked Mister Blank.

“They’ll be no need to pull him.  He’ll go willingly.”    There was an awkward pause.

“You know I don’t work for washers,” said Mister Blank.

“And you know that if we were, we’d be fools to approach you,” the bald guy quickly retorted. 

Mister Blank asked, “Any other details?” 

“We want you to rid the subject of his smoking habit.” 

“Then get him a nicotine patch,” said Mister Blank.  “I’m a deprogrammer, not a twelve-step program.”

“Mister Blank!” the big guy in the suit finally piped up, probably not aware of how loud he was speaking.  “This is the work we have for you, are you interested or not?”

“I haven’t heard an offer yet,” said Mister Blank, coolly.

The bald guy and the big guy exchanged looks.  “Double your normal fee,” said the bald guy finally, “in uncut diamonds.  Half up front.” 

“Ok,” said Mister Blank.  “I’ll have to think about it.  Find me tomorrow.  You know where.”

“Of course,” said the bald one. “Oh, and one other thing: The Orlando Miracle is berthed here for the weekend.”

“Fantasia,” the mustached guy interrupted.

“What?”

“It’s the Orlando Fantasia, the cruise ship,” explained the big guy. “The Orlando Miracle is a women’s basketball team.”

“Quite right,” his bald friend replied.  “As I was saying, the ship is berthed here for the weekend.  One of their performers, a Miss Becky Graham, is a rather talented Madonna impersonator.  We’ve arranged for a private performance this evening, at your bungalow…with our compliments, of course.”  

“I said I’d think about it,” said Mister Blank, and headed up the beach alone.

What am I getting into was the only question on Raymond’s mind.  He needed to figure out how he felt about this new gig.  During his whole career, Raymond had allowed greed to override his better judgment exactly twice, and he had been burned both times.  The first time, he had agreed to scrub a subject that turned out to be a journalist, a young Geraldo Rivera wanna-be.  But the kid had been too eager, and let the cat out of the bag way too early.  Still, Raymond had to call one of his government friends to keep the kid silent, and he hoped they would never call in the favor he still owed them.  Raymond would rather owe a favor to the devil himself than to a spook. 

The second time Raymond got burned was when he was hired to pull and scrub a Scientologist.  There was nothing unusual about the job at the time; there had been a rash of clients who wanted him to pull some Scientologist friend or relative.  But there was something about this one job that was too good.  It was too typical, too similar to the other jobs he was getting at the time, as if the scenario had been carefully constructed.  He took the job anyway, and it turned out that the Scientologists had hired him to scrub one of their own.  They were using that job to learn all of Raymond’s techniques, which they would later use themselves for their own purposes.   After that, the Scientologists sent a hue and cry through their organization, and Raymond had never been able to get near one of them again.

Were these guys setting him up?  Raymond didn’t think so.  His gut told him that these guys had a real job that needed doing.  Clearly there was a bigger picture they weren’t telling him about, but whatever it was, Raymond was sure that it had nothing to do with him.  Given the circumstances, their offer was a low-ball bid, and they must have known that.  So either they were on a budget, or they were trying not to look over-eager.  Either way, they were sincere.

After an early dinner, Raymond walked to the marina and took his catamaran out for a sail.   An hour or so later he landed on the shore near his bungalow.  On the beach, a solitary hotel deck chair had been set up beneath an oversized parasol.  Reclining there was a young blonde in a long paisley-pattern wrap skirt and a blue bikini top.  As Raymond arrived, she looked up from the copy of Gravity’s Rainbow that she held open on her lap.  Without her oversized sunglasses, anyone looking at her would have instantly seen the spitting image of Madonna, circa 1986.  Sure enough, it was Becky Graham from the Orlando Fantasia.

They pushed the boat back into the water, and sailed up and down the beach until the sun had set.  At dusk they let the sails luff and watched the shore for signs of activity.  When the blaze of the night’s first bonfire appeared, they pulled in the sails and steered straight for it, landing in the middle of a beach party in full-swing. 

It was the real deal, not some pre-fab resort event.  The crowd was an eclectic mix of timeshare dwellers (who could be identified by their designer polo shirts), off-duty casino dealers (who could be picked out by their sultry English accents, a job requirement), and overworked locals burning off some steam.  Raymond found the booze and made Becky a jack-n-coke.  He opened a corona for himself.  A few drinks later, they both had switched to tequila slammers.  They danced and mingled until the bonfire burned down to coals.  At one point, Becky launched into a slurred but authentic a capella rendition of “Material Girl,” earning cheers and catcalls from the other revelers.  When the crowd started to thin, Raymond was still too drunk to sail, so he abandoned the cat and led Becky back to the bungalow along the beach.

They went inside and fucked until dawn.