But was she right to fear for Martine’s safety?
Alex had no way of knowing that. But he knew that Manning had escaped. He had heard the news reports on the radio, so he knew that what Gene had said about Manning’s veiled threat was true. And he knew that there was a certain underlying logic to her theory that Martine was the intended target.
There was just nothing he could do about it until the traffic cleared ahead of him.
But what about Gene?
He phoned her and waited desperately for an answer.
“Hallo Ale–”
Gene’s voice was cut short abruptly.
Something had happened. It sounded like some kind of a struggle, albeit a very brief one. For the next thing he heard was a man’s voice.
“I’ve got your bitch here.”
Wednesday, 2 September 2009 – 19:41
Holding on with only one hand, Andi swept her hair back with a self-assured, almost arrogant gesture. Then she gripped the rail with both hands. The tears seemed to dry up in an instant her face grew in confidence. Even her posture and body language was different. This was no timid little girl anymore. This was a woman with attitude.
“You were pretty smart to figure it out Claymore.” The voice was deeper now. “How did you know?”
“Some of the things you said – she said.”
“Well that’s pretty smart of you for a nigger! You’re right too, I was the one who hacked the jury selection software. I mean I literally hacked it to pieces with two snips of my intellectual scissors. Two lines of code swapped round, two memory heaps expanded and that was it. I did it in five years back in the Big Apple. Actually it was very easy.
While she was talking, Claymore was surreptitiously taking off his jacket.
“The source code was on public record and all I had to do was get my hands on it, switch the object calls in the main object and recompile it. The hard part was slipping it into the system afterward. Most of the States have firewalls in place on the jury selection systems. But I beat them. I beat the bleeding heart liberal motherfuckers! I’m good at what I do Claymore, just as you were good in your chosen vocation.”
“Then I guess I deserve to die too.”
“Probably,” she said, with an indifferent shrug of her shoulders.
“Then maybe I’m the one who should jump.”
“It’s up to you.”
Seizing his opportunity, Claymore edged nearer and began climbing over the rail, making sure that none of his movements seemed too threatening.
Now, with the menacing waters far below them, they were facing each other on equal terms for the only time in their lives. But he still had to get through to her.
“Why did you frame Andi for the break-in at the DNA database. I mean I can understand why you did the break-in. That was to frame me. But why frame Andi?
“I should think that’s obvious. Andi was making trouble for me. I had to stop her.”
“But in the end that was what gave her the ammunition to save me.”
“Yes, she’s a smart girl, that Andi. But then again that’s not surprising. She’s got part of me in her. But none of that really matters because it’s the end of the line for both us.”
“Us?” he echoed nervously.
“Me and her.”
Claymore was desperately trying to think of something to say – something that would persuade the strong-willed “Lannosea” to reconsider.
“But she doesn’t deserve to suffer – and neither do you. I’m the one who hurt both of you. And I’m the one who should pay for it.”
“What are you saying Claymore? That you care about Andi? That you care about a weak white bitch whom you raped?”
“Yes,” he said, weakly. She still had the upper hand, and they both knew it.
“It looks like you’re pretty weak too.”
Claymore shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
“It’s true. I am weak.”
“And you used to be so strong.”
“I guess I was strong then because I was driven by anger. Now I’m weak because I’m restrained by guilt.”
“But if you’re weak, you’re also vulnerable.”
“That’s true. But I’m the one who deserves to be punished... not Andi.”
“But it’s the form of your weakness that interests me. Your weakness is that you care for her.”
“Yes.”
“And so, ironically, now that you’ve learned to care about your victims, you’re more vulnerable to punishment than when they meant nothing to you.”
She was holding on with only one hand again, and starting to turn, as if ready to jump.
“Yes but why should she suffer for what I did?”
“Because she’s weak too. And because she sold out.”
“Andi!” he shrieked. “It wasn’t meant to be like this!”
She stopped turning and gripped the rail with both hands again.
“What do you mean?”
She was whining again. Andi was back... possibly.
“I thought all the suffering was over – for my victims as well as me! When I came back to America to serve out my sentence, I was a different man. I thought when I turned my life around I’d lost the capacity to inflict suffering on anyone. I thought from then on the pain would only diminish... I thought that in time all the pain and suffering I’d caused would fade away, maybe not completely, but at least enough to be bearable.”
Her eyes were welling up with tears again.
“You think the pain of your victims ebbs into oblivion just because you turned your life around!” She was whining, like a little girl having a tantrum. “You think it’s that easy! Don’t you know that for the victims the pain never goes away! And sometimes it just keeps getting worse! That why it’s better to end it!”
She let go with both hands and turned.
“No!” screamed Claymore.
He grabbed her torso with his legs, clinging on desperately with his hands. He didn’t think he would have the strength to hold onto her if she struggled – or the strength in his upper body to hold onto the rail. But he surprised himself just as she surprised him. There was no struggling – and no cooperation either. As he looked down at her he noticed that she had lost consciousness.
It must have been the drink, he thought.
And in time with that, he realized that her body was limp. She had lost consciousness. And here he was holding on to an unconscious woman with a leg scissor lock, while supporting the weight of both of them by clinging on to the Golden Gate Bridge for his life with his hands.
Wednesday, 2 September 2009 – 19:44
“I can understand why you blame me,” said Gene, fighting back the tears. “But I don’t understand why you blame women in general so much, and your father so little.”
“I told you. In the animal kingdom there is no such thing as rape.”
“But we’re not animals. We don’t live by the law of the jungle. We live by the laws of civilization. And your father broke those laws.”
“Not the law of nature. Everything he did was strictly in accordance with the laws of nature. But you rebelled against a woman’s nature. A woman’s nature – a mother’s nature – is to nurture and protect her child, not give it away to strangers. You should have been proud to carry a child with strong genes like mine – even if my daddy did have to force you.”
“You don’t think that maybe the circumstances in which you were conceived made that unbearably painful for me?”
“Sex is always painful. All the physiological responses that go with sex are part of the pain mechanism. That’s true of men as much as women.”
“But rape isn’t about sex. It’s about power.”
“Oh yes, that old feminist cliché. But sex is always about power, whether it’s the men fighting to get the pick of the females or the power involved in the transaction itself. Why do you think in sex there’s nearly always some one on top, figuratively as well as literally? Why do you thin
k there are so many S & M sites on the web?”
“Okay,” she said, struggling to keep pace with his self-serving rationalization, “and what about all those men who go online in search of some leather-clad dominatrix to whop the butts?”
“But don’t you see that just proves my point? It’s the same process with the polarity reversed. Sex is about an exchange of power. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the exercise of power over the other person or giving in to their power. It doesn’t even matter whether it’s real power or just make believe. Either way, it’s not about equality. Never was!”
Gene thought about this for a moment and realized that it was true, even in her own relationship with Andi. All those role-playing games they played. What were they if not ritualized exercises in power and control?
“Okay look… maybe you’re right. Maybe sex is just one big game about power. But it’s a game with rules. Society has rules. We call it the social contract. And people have rights. And we all have a duty to obey those rules and respect the rights of our fellow human beings.”
“Uh-uh! I never signed up for no social contract.” She noticed that as anger got the better of him, his grammar was slipping, like a façade that couldn’t stand up to the inclement weather. “The social contract never did a thing for me. I got jack-shit out of other people’s social contract! So why should I abide by it? This animal lives by the law of the jungle. And I’m proud of it.”
“Then go back to the jungle! Don’t bring your jungle into our cities.”
He looked at her with a wide-eyed smile.
“I prefer to do it this way… to take my jungle with me wherever I go. And that’s not a race thing either. Most kluckers would agree with me on this one.”
He turned to the terrified Martine on the bed and smiled not with delight, but with the vengeful anger that he had carried around with him.
Wednesday, 2 September 2009 – 19:47
Claymore was desperately looking around as the sun set over the Pacific. But there was no one there to help. On other days, there might have been, even at this time. But not today. Right now those people who weren’t on the road were sitting in front of their TVs glued to the final day of the baseball game.
With an almighty effort of his stomach muscles, he heaved Andi’s lifeless body up to the level of the rail and then rested his elbows on the rail, still clinging on with his hands. It gave him a breather, although her body was still held there only by the pressure of his legs and torso. But now he was able to plant his feet again on the girders of the bridge. This enabled him to free one hand.
Choosing to free his left hand, he leaned back, encircled Andi’s waist with his left arm and heaved her with all his might, so that he could deposit her onto the railing. From there it was a simple matter to turn her over onto her stomach, flopped across the railing and maneuver her down back onto the observation platform.
Climbing back himself was no problem after that. But then he realized that his problems were just beginning. For as he surveyed her crumpled, motionless body he saw that there was no sign of breathing or movement of any kind. And her body had almost turned blue.
He realized in that moment that she wasn’t merely unconscious. She had gone into cardiac arrest!
He scrambled frantically to his jacket, whipped out his cell phone and punched in 911.
“Listen I’m on the Golden Gate Bridge with a woman who–”
“Have you got a potential jumper?”
“No, I’ve pulled her back in. But she’s gone into cardiac arrest. She’s been drinking heavily – and maybe popping pills too. I need an ambulance right away.”
“Is she still breathing?”
“No and there’s no pulse either, I already checked!”
“Okay I’ll send an ambulance right away. Do you know how to do CPR?”
“I’ve seen it on TV, but I’m not really sure. I mean I never learned how to do it properly.”
“Okay, I’m sending an ambulance. In the meantime I’ll explain to you what to do. Lie her down on a flat, hard surface.”
“I did that already.”
“Okay now tilt her head slightly back to clear an air passage.”
“Okay,” he said, noting the instruction, but not yet acting on it.
“No with a pumping wrist action of both hands, do fifteen sharp compressions on the left side of her chest.”
“Fifteen?”
“Yes.”
“And then what?”
“Then you do two ventilations. That means you pinch her nose shut and breathe into her twice, gently. Don’t breathe too hard or it can burst her lungs.”
“OK I’ll try that.”
He put the phone down and crouched down next to Andi, engulfed in sorrow. He knew that he had lost – that he had killed her twenty five years ago. What he had before him now was merely the culmination of his wickedness. But he had to try to save her. He owed her that at least. He had hurt her in every way possible, including driving her to this. But he couldn’t fail her now.
He looked around in blind panic as if hoping to see some one there who could help him. But there was no one. And as misery and fear engulfed him, it finally dawned on him that he was well and truly alone.
It hadn’t merely been idle talk when he said at the trial when he said: “Since I came back to America to serve out my sentence I haven’t been able to touch a woman.”
It had been the truth. But he remembered what Andi had told him at their conference before he testified.
“Sometimes the greatest test of courage is standing up to the enemy within.”
In his case the immediate enemy within was the fear of touching a woman, knowing what he had done to women in the past. But the latent enemy was the knowledge of how little his own life was worth.
Only now it was different. Now he could do something. If he could bring himself to overcome his own self-loathing.
But if he couldn’t overcome this terror in this moment, then he would do more harm by his inaction now than he had ever done by his actions in the past. It would be the ultimate guilt: the guilt of indifference.
One of his fellow revolutionaries had once said: “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” If this applied to problems that affected him, then it must surely also apply to the problems that afflicted others.
So now, he knew, it was time for the hands that had once violated to become the hands that heal… in a final act of redemption.
Wednesday, 2 September 2009 – 19:50
Alex had phoned the cops and tried to explain the situation, to no avail. The more he explained, the more convoluted it sounded. Up till the point when he got through to Gene and Manning had addressed him directly, he couldn’t really cite any reason why they should even bother to pay a visit to Martine’s room, because all he had was conjecture piled on top of paranoia.
When he finally told them about the phone call to Gene and Manning’s response, they sounded interested. But when he admitted that he couldn’t be sure that it was Manning – and also that he reached Gene on her cell phone rather than the landline in Martine’s room – they seemed to lose interest. The dispatcher even pointed out that Gene could have been anywhere and that “Manning” could have been anyone.
So all Alex could do was make his own way to Martine’s room and hope that he had the wherewithal to deal with the situation.
When he arrived at the parking lot of the Waterfront hotel, he leapt out of his car without even making sure to park it properly. He just tossed the keys to the valet and ran inside. He knew which room she was in, so it was just a case of racing up the stairs and getting there. He thought about the possibility of calling 911 again, so that they would hear what was going on when he got there. He knew that there was no way that he could take on Manning – especially as he almost certainly had the cop’s gun.
But Martine was in danger and he had to save her. He hadn’t been there for Melody when she was in danger. But he was h
ere for Martine now. He had to justify his existence, even if it meant putting it on the line.
When he got to the door, his courage almost deserted him, but in his mind, the faces of Martine and Melody merged into one and he knew that he had to do.
He banged on the door even more aggressively than Gene had done fifty minutes earlier.
“Martine! Martine!”
There was movement inside, followed by the sound of the door handle. Slowly the door opened a crack… then a little more. Finally it opened enough for Martine’s frightened, huddled figure to become visible. But what surprised Alex was what happened next.
The door was flung open and Martine staggered out in her bathrobe. She collapsed into his arms.
Wednesday, 2 September 2009 – 19:53
Slowly, Claymore’s hands reached down and took their place over her heart – the same hands that had once fondled her breasts while she lay there on the grass, sobbing profusely and begging for him not to hurt her, in that secluded area of woodland where he had raped her. As the woman on the phone had instructed, he began the manual compressions, pumping her heart with a double-handed action, counting as he did do.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen fourteen, fifteen.”
He leaned over and opened his mouth. For a moment he hesitated, remembering how he had pinioned her to the ground, holding her thin, frail wrists together with one of his giant hands while he leaned over her and thrust his mouth onto hers, kissing her in a way that was so possessive that it made him feel as if he owned her for life, regardless of her wishes.
I have to do it, he told himself.
He placed his mouth gingerly over hers and did the first ventilation, breathing into her and silently praying that it would be the breath of life. He paused and did it a second time. Then he straightened up into a kneeling position and did the next fifteen compressions.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen fourteen, fifteen.”
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