THE ART OF NEGOTIATION
Chris Ewan
* * *
SOMETIMES WHEN I meet a new man they like to guess what I do for a living. There are certain things they always begin with, such as model or actress or air hostess. Air hostess annoys the hell out of me. Once, I asked a guy to explain his thinking and he pulled a face like he’d just snagged his ankle on a tripwire. It could have been worse. I could have told him the truth.
It’s the same with my clients. My clients are all men. The ones I turn down are the types who can’t handle the idea that I’m a woman. It’s not a feminist crusade. Fact is, if my client can’t trust me, I can’t trust them. And in my line of work, trust is everything.
I had no need to ask the American in the white linen suit his business. He arranged for me to meet him in Cannes, the week of the film festival, and everything about him said he worked in the movie industry. Not just the linen suit, but the cream espadrilles and the white cotton shirt, the tan and the capped teeth and the hair plugs. He looked like money, but not the old kind. I had him pegged as a studio executive or a producer. His first words placed him a little lower down the evolutionary scale.
He said, “They didn’t tell me you had ovaries.”
I left my carry-on suitcase in the doorway. The apartment was empty of furniture. No curtains. Bare concrete floors. A pair of sliding glass doors led on to a balcony. Beyond the balcony was the ocean, nearer still La Croisette. Super yachts. Red carpets. Movie stars. Hangers-on.
He said, “Your fee is kinda high.”
“I prefer it that way.”
“They told me you’d negotiate.”
“I never negotiate.”
“They told me you’d consider it this time.”
I returned to my suitcase, lifted it from the floor and shaped as if to leave.
“Jesus Christ.” The client ran his hand through his hair. He favoured a style that had been popular during my teenage years. Centre-parting, long at the front, curling in over his eyes. “This is crazy.”
I checked the time on my wristwatch. Hitched my shoulders by way of response.
“How far did you fly to get here?” he asked. “Halfway around the world, right? West Coast, I heard. And you’d walk out – just like that?”
“I never negotiate.”
“All right, I get it. Jeez. Can’t we at least discuss what I need?”
“Just so long as you understand that the fee is non-negotiable.”
“I said I got it already.”
I studied him for a moment, feeling tempted to leave anyway. But he was right, I had flown long haul. Not from the States. From Rio. But the principle was the same.
“Tell me about the job,” I said, and managed to sound pleasant with it.
He licked his lip and glanced at the sliding glass doors, as if he was afraid we were under surveillance. He had no reason to be concerned. I wouldn’t have been there if that was the case.
“If you’re planning on wetting yourself, I’ll be off,” I told him.
“Just wait, OK? Lemme think a minute.”
“One minute.”
I tapped my toe on the floor, keeping time with his thoughts. Interrupting them, even. I didn’t care. He had no need to think. He needed to act. To give me the green light.
“The gear you use is untraceable, right?” he asked.
“Completely.”
“And this thing’ll be contained?”
I tipped my head to one side. “Explain contained.”
“Just his yacht. The people on it. Jesus. Can you do that?”
“If you want something clean, you should hire a sniper. If you require a statement, hire me.”
The guy ran his hand through his hair again. “I guess I need a statement.”
I nodded. “The blast radius will be minimal, but they tend to cram these yachts in pretty tight at this time of year. I can’t control that. And you’ll need to have the fee in my account by tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? That’s not what I agreed.”
I cocked a hip and contemplated my nails. They were an immaculate fuchsia-pink. Perhaps it was time for something different. “Things change based on my assessment of the variables. You’re a variable.”
“Hey, come on. Be reasonable here.”
“I’m being reasonable. Your fee hasn’t increased.”
The American threw his hands into the air, then clutched them to his head. He ran splayed fingers down over his face. “I guess we’re really doing this thing, huh?”
“Looks that way.”
Two days later, I arranged for my contact to route a call to the client. The call was safe for four minutes.
“My money,” I began.
“I paid half.”
“That’s not what we discussed.”
“Hey, it’s like you said, things change. Finish the job and you’ll get the rest.”
“I told you – this isn’t a negotiation.”
“Then you don’t get paid.”
I heard the tinkle of female laughter. The roar of a car engine. The drone of wheels on asphalt.
“Wait,” I said. “Do you have me on speakerphone? Are there people with you?”
“Hey, take it easy.”
“Christ’s sake.”
“These are my people. You can trust them.”
“Hang up the phone.”
“Hang up the phone? Listen lady, you’re working for me now, OK, and I’ll finish the call when I’m good and ready.”
I pressed a button on my laptop and killed the satellite link-up. I bet myself the twerp would call back in less than a day.
The twerp surprised me and waited thirty-six hours. I could hear the shuffle of waves on a beach. No laughter. No engine noise.
“We need to talk,” he said, once my contact had re-routed his call.
“Fine,” I told him. “You have four minutes.”
“What, you have a hair appointment?”
My burgundy nail hovered over my mouse-pad. Count to ten, I told myself. Give him an opportunity to redeem himself.
“So the truth is I don’t have all the money,” he said.
“Then it’s a shame my organization doesn’t offer refunds.”
“What? No, hey, no, that’s not what I’m saying. You’ll get the other half. You’ll have it when I do.”
“You mean somebody is paying you?”
“My business partner.”
This just got better. “Ask him for the money now.”
“He won’t pay until the fireworks are through.”
“In that case, there won’t be any fireworks.”
A new window popped up on my laptop. Seemed a former colleague from Thames House was trying to private-message me. I tapped out a coded reply, my fingernails clacking across the keys.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to forfeit the cash you’ve already paid,” I told him.
“Hey, come on. Let’s talk.”
“You talk.”
Four hours later, he called back.
“So I spoke to my business partner. We’ll pay another twenty-five per cent of your fee.”
I stayed silent.
“And I know what you’re thinking. But hear me out, OK? I have a place along the coast. Antibes. It has a pool, a terrace, the works.”
“Give me the address. Perhaps I’ll kill you in your sleep.”
He chuckled, nervously. “Here’s how it works, OK? When you’re done, and this whole thing is through, come visit and we’ll pay the rest of your fee, plus an extra ten per cent.”
“You’re offering me a bonus?”
“See? That’s what comes from negotiating.”
I turned it over in my mind. It wasn’t a bad compromise.
“You’ll be watching?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“The fireworks.”
“Oh. Sure thing. We’ll both be watching – me and my business partner. You’ve been to our apartment, right? It has a view over the mari
na.”
“Then take my advice. Wear earplugs.”
On the given night, at the given time, I eased into the oily water in my diving suit. The suit was a snug fit, designed for flexibility, not warmth. I could live with the cold. Hell, considering the fee I was being paid, I could live with most things.
The swim didn’t trouble me. Keeping fit was a requirement of the job, and I swam several hundred lengths whenever I visited my local pool. Tonight, the distance I needed to cover was less than half that far. The harbour tides were negligible, and I was wearing flippers. True, I was towing a floating bag of equipment tied off from my ankle, but it was the least of my concerns.
My primary hazard was being spotted. In most locations, approaching a super-yacht just after midnight, even a heavily guarded one, wouldn’t involve a high degree of risk. Here, by virtue of the film festival, the situation was different. Floodlights bathed the geometric walls of the Palais des Festivals and the gleaming white hulls of the yachts moored beneath it, casting green halos of light into the murky waters along the quay. Partygoers were everywhere: strolling the Jetée Albert Edouard; toasting one another with chilled wine on hotel patios; gazing down from the vaulted decks and bubbling hot tubs of the yachts themselves.
The craft I was swimming towards went by the name Lazy Jane. She was a sleek, 100-foot Italian vessel with five cabins, eight crew and, for this week in particular, a rental cost in excess of 80,000 euros. She boasted three decks, a salon that doubled as a screening room, an aft lounge, a Jacuzzi sundeck, a shaded flying bridge and one highly recognizable target.
The target was a former action hero, from a franchise that had been big in the eighties. His accommodation sounded impressive, but the reality was that no bankable movie star would stay anywhere close. The big names were hiding out in secluded villas up in the hills, where their privacy and security could be guaranteed. Yachts were reserved for middling organizations – start-out production companies, European sales distributors, a cable porn channel. Oh, and the former star of the Vengeance series of espionage thrillers.
He had begun his career as a kickboxing champion with a fondness for steroid injections, a north European accent and a memorable name, and advanced until he was married to the daughter of minor Hollywood royalty, with a mansion in Beverly Hills, a three-way share in a chain of celebrity nightclubs and a shot at cementing his fame as a crossover star in a line of family comedies. It didn’t work. His box office plummeted, younger stars nudged him out of the limelight, his wife divorced him and his popularity began to sag along with his pecs.
Unable to quit, he still made movies, but these days they went straight to video. Now, his star had faded so badly that he was worth more to the makers of his latest film dead than alive. Cannes was scheduled during a hiatus in shooting, but his insurance cover was ongoing. He was a cheque waiting to be cashed.
He was also standing on the aft deck of the Lazy Jane, bunched arms resting on the wood-and-aluminium rails, a mobile phone clasped to his ear. I was close enough by now to count the buttons on the open-neck Hawaiian shirt he was wearing, and to hear his side of the conversation. He didn’t sound happy. The yacht was too noisy to sleep, he complained. There were too many tourists trying to sneak pictures of him. Some jerk from the cable porn channel hadn’t let him board their ship. Didn’t anyone know who he was any more?
I had a reasonable idea who he was talking to, and I could hazard a fair guess at what he was being told. The yacht was ideal. It was central. It was perfect for all the business meetings they had lined up.
And it was also vulnerable to attacks like my own.
Clutching my equipment bag to my chest, I ducked silently beneath the rippling surface and kicked for the cooler waters below the slick of diesel snaking away from the engine outlet and the wash of light from the submerged bulbs under the hull. I have the ability to hold my breath in excess of two minutes when the situation demands it, but I had no need for party tricks this time around. I came up to the side of the mini-deck at the rear of the vessel, where a pair of jet-skis were moored. Tossing my bag up before me, I gripped the smooth timber with my fingertips and heaved myself aboard in one fluid movement.
First, I dried myself with the towel I’d packed inside my waterproof bag, since I didn’t want to leave a giveaway trail of water running through the inner corridors of the yacht. Then I slipped my backpack over my shoulders, removed my flippers and climbed barefoot up the metal ladder to the deck above.
It didn’t take long to locate the burnished wooden door to the master cabin, and it occupied but a moment’s thought for me to kneel before the flimsy lock and coax the tumblers into tumbling with my picking gun. I slipped my hand inside and flipped a light switch, then entered a sumptuous world of highly polished teak, fine cotton sheets and thick woollen carpet. I scanned the lighted interior until my eyes settled on a small drawer in the fitted cabinet beside the bed. Perfect.
I was back in my compact hire car, towel coiled around my damp hair and a pair of field binoculars raised to my eyes, when I clicked the appropriate icon on my laptop to place the call. Minutes before, I’d watched the target flick a cigarette over the side of the yacht, check his watch and disappear below deck. Once the lights in his cabin had been extinguished, I’d made the connection. The American answered on the first ring.
“Yeah?”
“Are you watching?” I asked.
“Hell, yes. What kept you? We’ve been waiting hours already.”
“You wanted a thorough job.”
“You didn’t tell us it’d be this late. Christ.”
I scanned the quay. “Less people means less casualties. Less witnesses, too.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“You’re sure you still want to go ahead?”
“Sure I’m sure. Asshole’s been griping on the phone, yanking my chain about his damn issues. Thinks he’s still somebody. Nothing’s good enough for him. Go ahead. Toast the schmuck.”
“I’ll leave that to you, if I may.”
“Huh?”
“Write down this number.”
I delivered the sequence. He interrupted me halfway through.
“Wait. What is this?”
“Are you writing it down?”
“I don’t have a pen.”
“Then get one.”
“OK. Jeez. Keep your panties on.”
I counted to ten. Made it to twelve. I was still shaking my head when he came back on the line.
“Give it to me again,” he said.
I did. Slowly. I had no desire to repeat myself.
“It’s a telephone number,” I explained. “For a mobile. I hid it in his cabin. You call the number and when he picks up it completes the circuit.”
“Ka-boom time?”
“Indeed.”
“No shit. And say, do you have some kind of master-control over all this?”
Funny. I had a feeling he might ask me that. “Not any more,” I told him. “It’s all down to you.”
He paused. “Wait. If I use my cell, it can be traced, right?”
“It could be.”
“Don’t you think maybe you should have considered that?”
“Go to the kitchen in your apartment,” I told him. “Open the bottom left cupboard beside the gas cooker.”
“Huh?”
“Just do it.”
I heard the cluck of his tongue, followed by the sound of his footsteps and the rasp of his breath. Then I heard the squeak of the cupboard hinge.
“Hey, there’s a handset in here.”
“It’s prepaid,” I told him, trying not to sound vexed. “No trace.”
“Shit. You’ve been here?”
This time I failed to control my irritation. “You invited me in, remember?”
I waited for the cogs to mesh. It took longer than it should have done.
“Lady, you’re good.”
“I’m pleased that you’re pleased. And I assume that I will be paid the rest
of my money.”
There was a moment’s hesitation. “Oh, sure thing. The bonus too. Absolutely. No question. You’re coming to Antibes, right?”
I let go of a weary breath and lowered the binoculars from my eyes. “There’s nobody on the Jetée just now. You should make the call.”
I closed the lid of my laptop, gripped hold of my steering wheel and craned my neck until my line of sight was clear. I turned the radio on low and was mid-way through a morsel of Euro-pop when I saw the bright pulse of blue-white light. The windows gave out in a flaming burst and a cloud of blackened smoke idled upwards on the faint night breeze. I muted the radio and awaited the boom.
Less than three minutes later, I was fitting my key in the ignition of my rental Citröen and getting ready to drive to the airport when I happened to glance across to the Lazy Jane. Standing on deck was a man in a Hawaiian shirt. He had a mobile phone clutched uselessly in his hand and his tanned face was lifted towards the fire raging through the exclusive apartment overlooking the harbour.
My name is Rachel Delaney and there are three things you’d do well to remember about me. I never negotiate. I always do my research, so I know if a client is lying about a place in Antibes, or anything else for that matter. Oh, and I’m a huge fan of cheesy action movies, especially the ones starring Rick van Hammer.
JUNGLE BOOGIE
Kate Horsley
* * *
RAOUL STOOD ON the corner, leaning against the plaster wall of Bar El Diablo, telling himself to walk away. It was seven in the evening and the sky was a ripening bruise behind the cathedral. The August heat licked his face and a knot of girls skipped arm in arm across the zócalo. One burst into song. He told himself to go back to the museum, to lock the statue in its glass case, and if his boss asked any questions to make up some amusing story. But he’d crossed an unseen line on Barrio El Cerrillo and now he couldn’t move. So he dragged on the stub of his cigarette and stared at the blonde woman on the cathedral steps.
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