Day 149 - Intoxicated Story

Intoxicated Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

She asked me what I was doing there. For some reason it caught me off guard and I paused and smiled instead of answering. She was a good looking girl – Sheryl Parker Silva, daughter of Raymond “Ace” Silva. She had been born beautiful and famous. She was successful before she learned her first word or took her first step. She was born one of the lucky ones. She was part of a family that had had money for over a century, with ties and links and interconnected marriages to the movers and the shakers, in front and behind the scenes. Previous generations had been happier behind the scenes, where they could whisper and push and make their money that way. They had been king makers. They had turned elections. Their playing ground was with the industrialites, the money makers, and politicians. Her father was a master of the stock market and had interests in technology and manufacturing all over the world. But this young generation of brothers and sisters and cousins, they featured an ever increased number of socialites. Money for money’s sake with a healthy round of hedonism for everyone. They were so comfortable in front of the camera now. But that’s natural. That’s the story of the here and now and the spoiled. Always get suckered in and get their ‘fifteen minutes.’ Fame is intoxicating in its own right, and who can blame people for pursuing that.

One thing for sure, little Sheryl was going to get anything she ever wanted in this world. And yet, I couldn’t hold it against her. Looking at her in that moment of silence, I understood why people fell in love with her. I had been warned. I had heard the stories. I had read the reports. And yet here I was suckered in the same way everyone was suckered in the first time they saw her. She had a spirit energy about her that was infectious. She brightened up a room. She had lived her life and grown up in front of the cameras with a million gossip writers waiting for her to slip up, and she never did. She made it through adolescence unscathed, a tough feat for any kid, but damn near impossible with that money and the moochers and the prying eyes.

 She asked if I worked for her father, if I was hired to spy on her. I nodded and she accepted it without me saying a word of consent. I could see her relax. She shouldn’t have. She should have asked more questions. Even if she believed I had been hired by her father, there was no good explanation why I should be in her room so far away from the party.

She told me I was bad at my job, telling her that I was a spy, but she joked that if I was willing to help with the occasional lie of her own, then she could help me out with an occasional secret bonus. Her father must have had a long history of hiring body guards and detectives and she must have known a thing or two about sneaking around behind his back.

I told her I had no interest in telling her father any of her secrets. That was true enough. She was hard to lie to, even the simple lie of omission. She looked at you like she was letting you in on a little secret, like you were now her closest friend or confidant. She must have been taught that by an acting coach or something. Probably it was part of her lifelong training of dealing with the public. Still, it was hard to lie to that. You wanted her to like you, to love you. You wanted to be a part of whatever future she was selling you on. The simplest lie seemed like the worst sin imaginable.

I almost told her right then who I was and why I was there. I wanted to, but I knew if I did I would never get to see her again, ever. And the thought of that was just too painful.

I thought about the other men I was with. I was the lucky one to have found her first. But they would be here soon. I put my hand in my pockets, feeling my gun with one hand and the zip tie handcuffs in the other pocket. I knew what I was supposed to do. I also knew what I now wanted to do. I was going to do something very stupid and very dangerous.

If I got her out of here in one piece, all she would ever think was that I was really good at my job. If she asked her father it would probably lead to some confusion, but hopefully I would be long gone by then. Something about the way she looked with those eyes of hers made me not want to go anywhere. But that was just stupid. I knew that was just me being stupid.

When the first former associate of mine came in the room, I fired before he had a chance to say anything and reveal who I really was. I grabbed her arm and pulled her with me. She had no idea how lucky she was that I was the one that found her first. There was no way she could. The lucky ones never really understand just how lucky they really were.