Vivian blinked as the morning sun lit her room through a small window with white trim. She looked around the room, expecting to be back in her cell at the Robertson Unit. But she was not there. These walls were painted blue, the old ones were off-white over concrete. This bed was warm, the old one stiff. She didn't belong in this bedroom, she belong in her cell.
She wanted to sleep off her hangover, but something else was nagging at her. Ah yes. Her work. Even when she was working with Ramos, she had been described as a workaholic. Granted, organized crime wasn't a 9 to 5 type of job, but Vivian always seemed a little more driven when she was doing what she did best -- messing with numbers.
***
Of course, Vivian hadn't always been doing illegal work for Ramos. At first, she was just an assistant to his chief of Las Vegas finances. At least until she was summoned to his home in Switzerland -- one of his favorite haunts.
She was brought to his office by a very attractive Swiss secretary. "You are a very bright young lady, Miss Jaspers. The accent throws one off. People look at you, with your plantation manners and your big Texas cheerleader hair, and they think you're just a little doll. A simpleton."
Vivian had remember not being afraid of Ramos during the meeting. She would be terrified during later ones. "And what do you see when you look at me?"
"Potential." He held up a pile of bank statements. "You could have sent this material to the FBI, or INTERPOL, or Scotland Yard. I could be in jail. Instead, you corrected the glitches in the formula."
"I was going to ask for a raise, sir."
"Dammit, Vivian!" Ramos threw the papers down. "Do not take me for an idiot! You're smart enough to know where this money came from. Why didn't you go to the police?"
Ramos's face was red from all the excitement. He wanted to get his heart medication out, but he never took them when other people were present. Vivian, on the other hand, looked indifferent. "I don't really care how you get your money, sir. You hired me to make sure things run smoothly. I did my job, didn't I?"
"Don't you worry about punishment? Going to jail?"
Vivian thought about it for a moment. "I suppose I'd have to get caught first, sir. And I don't intend to get caught."
As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Vivian worried that she had sent Ramos over the edge. Instead, he chuckled. "'Don't intend to get caught.' Quite a wit. Brandy?" Vivian nodded. Ramos poured two glasses. "You are a very bright young lady, Miss Jaspers. And I think you're ill-suited to simply be an accountant's assistant. How do you feel about managing the other half of my finances?"
Vivian accepted the drink. "Forgive me for questioning your judgement, sir, but I really don't know much about your particular lifestyle. All I did was see a flaw in your casino system and I corrected it. I just know numbers."
"Hell, that's the hard part!" said Ramos. "Guns and drugs and ships -- I can teach you that. That's easy. But you've got a knack for making money untracable, and that's a rare gift." He stood up from behind his massive mahogany desk. "I'm going to Tokyo in a few weeks. I'd like you to come with me. There are people I want you to meet. You'll pick up on things soon enough."
Vivian looked down at the brandy in her hand. It went down her throat like liquid gold. The glass was made of crystal. The room was well-decorated with first-edition hardbacks. His home -- his home was a damn castle in the Alps! Oh Vivian, you could get use to this sort of lifestyle. "I suppose a good response would be Gou ni itte wa, gou ni shitagae. Don't you agree?"
***
Vivian headed downstair. She was still dressed in her clothing from yesterday -- although a little more rumpled -- and carrying the little black book that had not left her side. Sam was at the table. "Things would help if you could get us more information on the ship."
"Working on that now." She grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil. She flipped to a page in the book and began writing like mad, ignoring her bad hair and her pale complexion.
Sam leaned over to look at the notebook. There were no letters, just a mess of numbers and mathmatical symbols. "You didn't write it in English? What is this stuff?"
"Back in college I came up with a sort of code. It's not a real language -- not one like what your use to, anyways. It's base on mathmatical concepts -- trig, calculas, that sort of thing. When I began to work for Ramos, I used this book to write down everything I've done."
"And you can read all this?"
Vivian grinned. "I spent so much time writing in this notebook...I can read the formula like you read a book. It may just look like random numbers to you, but I see paragraphs."
"Does Ramos have a copy?"
"I don't think so. It was actually in storage during my stay in the jail. Plus, it's not like anyone who works for Ramos could actually translate this thing. There's another book upstairs. It's a little red book. Red...for revenge. That's the book I wrote while I was in jail."
"What's in it?"
"Important stuff that's not in the black book. Ramos's usual haunts. Addresses and names of people that he knows -- friends and enemies." She smiled at the next thought. "My opinions on who should, would, and could help me out."
This was amusing. "What did you write about me?"
"I figured odds were three to four that you wouldn't accept the offer. And the rest was hope, really." Vivian stopped writing for a moment. "I wronged you...greatly. I regret that, you know."
Sam just shrugged. "The money's good and...well, you didn't really know what you were doing."
Vivian stomped her hands on the desk. "I get it, I get it, I'm not a good shot --"
Sam laughed. "That's not what I meant. I mean you not suited for that sort of dirty work. Oh, you're capable of lying and cheating and stealing...but killing? You're bad, Vivian. You're not evil. That's why we're all here to get back at Ramos. We're all bad -- we're not afraid to break the law to make a few bucks. Ramos? He's evil -- he steals other things besides money. You know that better than any of us."
Vivian handed Sam the notebook. "That's only a few pages. I have plenty of material on his boat. I'll give you some more as soon as I've had a drink."
"Thanks. I'll show this to the guys." He got up to head to the garage, when a thought stopped him. "By the way, how many pages do you have on Seth? Or is he a villian in your little blue book?"
Vivian just rolled her eyes. "Everyone's a hero in their own novel."
