by Susan Lewis
It was late the following afternoon that Michael drove up to the house and parked his car in the garage next to Ellen’s. As it was a Saturday both units had stopped shooting at midday, which had calmed the phones for a while and given him a chance to catch up with other, slightly less pressing commitments. Ellen had left the office around four, taking a stack of work home with her, which she’d insisted she’d get down to after stealing a quick hour with her feet up. She’d looked tired, and pale, and he had been about to tell her they should cancel the dinner they were supposed to attend that evening, when the phone had interrupted. He guessed it was probably too late to back out now, but if she didn’t look any better, he’d insist.
After dropping his keys in a fruit bowl he went to find her. It didn’t take long, as she was standing in front of the pool, her back to the house, staring down at the clear blue water. Her hair was wet, and she wore a thick towelling robe, telling him she had probably just taken a swim.
He stood quietly watching her, wondering what she was thinking and if now was the time for him to start trying to prove what he finally understood she needed to know, that he loved her, no matter what. But that was easy to say now she had told him the baby was his – were there still any doubt would he really be standing here now, thinking this way? He had to believe he would, for the past few months had shown him how unable he was to let her go, how incapable he was of throwing it all away despite how much it hurt him to stay. Perhaps the hardest to understand had been how weakened he’d felt by the depth of his feelings, for they’d made him realize how out of control he was of his own life, and how dependent he was on her to make him feel whole. It had never before occurred to him that loving her so much would bring such problems, and though he hated himself for allowing his ego such power, he was still finding it hard to accept that he wasn’t going to turn himself into some kind of besotted and gullible patsy by believing her just because he loved her. He’d seen so many men go that route, blind, pathetic fools that they were, and how humiliating and defeating it had been for them when finally they’d woken up to the truth.
But what was the truth? Was it really in the scenarios he tormented himself with, of Chambers turning her down, telling her he could never love her, that she should go back to her husband and let him think the child was his? With his air of tragedy and life fraught with danger Chambers had to be attractive to any woman, so how could he blame Ellen if she had fallen for him too? After all, where was the appeal and romance of his life and accomplishments as an agent and producer, when compared to the war zones and human despair that Chambers endured? But even if Ellen were still harbouring a secret longing for Chambers, in his heart of hearts he just couldn’t make himself believe that she would lie to him over something as crucial as the identity of the baby’s father.
But still there was that lingering doubt, upheld by his ego, and he knew he must do something to destroy it, and he must do it soon. After the birth would be too late, for then science would decree the father and she would know that he hadn’t loved or trusted her enough to take her word.
As though sensing him standing behind her she turned, and seeing him she smiled. ‘How long have you been there?’ she said.
‘A few minutes,’ he answered. ‘Where’s Kris? I didn’t see him outside.’
‘He went into the study to use the phone,’ she answered, pulling the robe tighter around her.
‘It’s too cold to swim,’ he said.
She turned and looked back at the pool.
‘What were you thinking?’ he said. ‘Just now, before you turned round.’
Her head went to one side as she continued to gaze into the water. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘About the movie, I guess. And how precipitous it all feels. I mean, it’s like we’re all waiting for something to happen, something horrible and calamitous that’s going to change our lives. Yet the whole thing just keeps moving along, cameras turning, actors whingeing, and nothing unusual’s happening at all.’ She looked at him and sighed. ‘It just feels strange. Like waiting for a bomb to go off when you’re not even sure there is a bomb.’
She hugged herself more deeply into the robe, and pulling her to him, he rubbed his hands over her back.
‘You should take a bath to warm up,’ he said.
She looked up at him, and making her laugh with the drollery in his eyes he led her back inside the house.
A few minutes later he was helping her out of her swimsuit and holding her hand as she stepped into the hot, scented water. She didn’t sit down right away, but stood looking at him, uncertainly, even shyly, feeling the cloying steam swirling around her body.
She was hardly daring to breathe, for so many times in these past few weeks he had seemed to come so close, only to back away at the final moment, leaving her hurt and angry and despairing that he would ever get past his mistrust. In her heart she knew this wasn’t the way he wanted it, but she knew too how difficult he was finding it to overcome.
Feeling the baby suddenly kick, she looked down at her tummy and was about to touch it when she saw that he was on the point of it too. She stood very still, watching, as he raised his hand and placed it gently over the protruding core of her navel. Then he moved it, gliding his fingers over the creamy softness of her skin.
It was the first time he’d touched her like this, and feeling almost overcome by the joy and relief it was giving her, she continued to watch, moving her eyes between his hand and his face, leaving her own hands hanging loosely at her sides, as though to permit him all the exploring he needed. He glanced up at her, then lifting his other hand he watched them both, following their slow, tentative sweep over the growing mound of the child.
There was no movement within, but still he felt strangely diffident, a little overawed, and totally intrigued. He looked at her swollen breasts with their large, distended nipples and small maps of blue veins. He touched them, kissed them gently, then touched them again.
At last his eyes returned to hers and, smiling as she saw his expression, she took his hand and brought it to her lips. ‘Bathe me,’ she said.
As she sat down in the water he knelt on the floor beside her, and began scooping handfuls of bubbles over her neck and shoulders. Then taking the soap he used it to massage her, making white, slippery patterns all over her breasts and belly.
She looked up into his face and seeing the wonder in his eyes, she reached out to touch him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.
She smiled and ran her thumb over his lips.
It was a while before he could make himself go on, until, laughing awkwardly at his reticence, he said, ‘I’m not finding this easy, you know, getting in touch with my emotions. I mean,’ he looked into her eyes, then turned to kiss the palm she had resting on his cheek. ‘I always knew I loved you,’ he said, ‘but I never expected it to be put to the test like this, never dreamt I would come out so lacking – in courage and understanding.’ He dropped his eyes for a moment, then, looking at her again, it was as though he could feel the strength of their love starting to flow past the fear he had harboured. ‘I don’t know if I can find the words to tell you how much you mean to me,’ he said softly, ‘but it’s a whole lot more than I realized, more than I thought I could deal with for a while.’ His voice suddenly gave out, and he smiled self-consciously at the way his emotions had tripped him. ‘I love you,’ he finally managed. ‘I’m inept, I’m a fool and I don’t deserve you at all, but I’m sure as hell never going to let you go. Either of you.’
Reaching out her arms she pulled him to her and kissed him with all the might of her love.
‘Come in with us,’ she said, when finally he raised his head to look into her eyes.
Stripping off his clothes, he got in beside her and lying down next to her he held her and stroked her and laughed as the baby kicked the soap from her belly.
Then he was kissing her again, more deeply and commandingly than before. Their needs and passions were aroused, but as she
started to ask him to take her to bed, the phone beside them suddenly crashed into the moment.
‘Do we have to answer it?’ he said.
‘I don’t know. Do we?’
It continued to ring.
‘I guess we should,’ she said.
Scowling, he reached out and brought the phone to his ear. ‘This better be good,’ he said into the receiver.
‘Michael? It’s Tom.’
Michael’s eyes closed. Of all the people … ‘What can I do for you?’ he said.
‘I just checked my e-mail,’ Chambers told him. ‘We need to talk.’
‘Where are you?’ Michael said, reaching for a towel.
‘In the air, about twenty minutes from LAX. Can you meet me?’
‘If you think it’s necessary.’
‘If you’re qualifying,’ Chambers responded, ‘I’d say it’s vital.’
For the past twenty minutes, after he’d clicked off the phone to Michael and waited for the plane to land, Chambers had sat quietly in his seat knowing that there would be no more warnings now, no more procrastinating, the first person had already been killed, and he didn’t even want to think how many more would die before he got the movie to stop.
Frustration, anger and impotence welled up in him. It mushroomed around him like a great shadowy monster. All he’d wanted was to make amends, to try somehow to show her, wherever she was, that he hadn’t meant to let her down. That, were he given the time over, he would willingly sacrifice his own life in place of hers. But that wasn’t possible, so making this movie, immortalizing her memory and bringing her killers to justice, was the only way he could think of to let the whole world, and her, know that he still loved her, still thought about her every day and still longed for her in a way he knew he would never long for any other woman.
He sat very still, showing nothing of the torment going on inside him. Sandy was beside him, allowing him the silence he needed. She had seen the e-mail too, and being unused to Colombian ways, her shock had been even more profound than his. He wished he hadn’t shown her. There was no good reason to show anyone the terrible image that had been transmitted from Bogotá. They’d contacted him direct this time, obviously wanting no doubts about the message reaching him. There had been a message from Alan Day too – it seemed they had e-mailed him as a backup.
Chambers felt sick to his stomach, and afraid in a way he hadn’t been in a very long time. He knew the most important thing now was not to panic, or do anything rash that would end up causing more confusion and damage. He had to think about this as rationally as he was able, to sort out in his mind what he could do to stop the barbaric slaughter Galeano and his people had already set in motion.
By the time the plane landed and they were through customs, Michael was outside in the car. Seeing the Land Cruiser, Sandy pointed it out, then, stopping Tom as he made to go towards it, she said, ‘You two need to talk. I’ll take a taxi and see you back at the hotel.’
He nodded, kissed her hard on the forehead, and went to get in the car.
As Michael pulled away Chambers folded down the visor, attempting to see if they were being followed. There was so much traffic it was impossible to tell.
‘I need to know,’ he said abruptly, ‘if Ellen has received any more calls.’
Michael glanced at him, then indicated to change lanes. ‘No,’ he said, narrowly avoiding a car rental bus.
Chambers allowed himself a moment’s relief.
‘Why?’ Michael demanded. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Something I wasn’t expecting,’ Chambers responded. ‘It wasn’t what they’ve been preparing us for. I guess the schmozo who’s been calling me, the one who made out he was contacting someone else on the unit too, was just a decoy, someone to make us look the other way while they worked out the next best way to get to me. I say next best, because obviously going after Ellen would have been the worst. But if she hasn’t received any more calls then we can probably assume the one she got, that she wasn’t even sure was a threat, was benign.’ He glanced over at Michael. ‘We should keep on with the bodyguard though, just to make sure, but my guess is they don’t want to bring the Feds down on their case, which is what it would mean if anything happened to her.’
Michael swallowed hard. ‘You think just the threat of the Feds is enough to keep them away?’ he said.
‘I sure hope so,’ Chambers replied. ‘But what we’re facing now has already become a reality. Find a place to pull over, you need to see this e-mail.’
They sped out of the airport, hanging a left down on to Sepulveda, and at the first hotel Michael pulled into the parking lot.
Chambers’s laptop was already open, the image he had downloaded there on the screen. He passed it over to Michael.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Michael murmured, when he saw the mutilated body of a teenage boy. He felt his stomach rise and the air lock in his lungs. During all his years in the business he had seen a thousand pictures like this, but none had ever been real. There was no doubt in his mind that this one was. ‘Who is it, do you know?’ he said quietly.
‘His name’s Casto,’ Chambers answered, his face totally devoid of colour, his words without tone. ‘He’s one of the kids Rachel photographed for her exhibition.’ A stark bitterness crept into his voice. ‘The exhibition we’re due to start shooting at the end of the week.’ He looked at the picture of the boy again, then looked away. ‘His story’s not unique,’ he said. ‘Sold by his mother, age five, for the price of a hit, taken in by a bunch of druggies who used him as a house-slave until he was ten. Then they put him into prostitution. He ran away, lived on the streets, continued his prostitution in order to survive. Sniffed glue, smoked basuco, got regularly abused in ways you don’t even want to hear about. A street-smart, mischievous kid, with a wicked humour and a spirit that kept him alive when no doctor would even check him over. Not a handsome boy, which was why he was so badly abused – no pity for ugly gay boys in the macho world of Bogotá. Got his teeth smashed out by one of his tricks who thought it would make for a better blow-job.’
His eyes returned to the downloaded image of Casto’s chubby, twisted little body lying in a doorway, neck so deeply cut his head was almost severed. ‘He told me once he wanted to be a movie star and live in a big house with gates and bars and security guards so that no-one could ever get to him again,’ Chambers murmured.
Michael was so appalled he could barely find any words. ‘So what’s the message?’ he asked.
‘The message,’ Chambers responded, ‘is that for every day the movie goes on one of these kids, the ones Rachel took shots of, is going to die.’
Michael’s face drained as he stared at Chambers in disbelief. ‘You can’t be serious,’ he said.
‘No-one gives a fuck about any of these kids,’ Chambers responded. ‘They’re gamines, desechables – gutter waste, disposable.’
With a horrible morbidity Michael looked at Casto’s picture again and tried not to measure his own livelihood and reputation against the lives of children such as this. That was what it was now coming down to, because in order to save these kids he was going to have to jeopardize, and probably lose, everything he owned in the world – his agency in London, his stake in World Wide, his homes in London, Barbados and LA, not to mention all the hard-won commitments from investors – and bring the movie to a standstill. Not only a standstill, a total demise. And then he would have to look at the debts, the lawsuits, the bankruptcy and probable prison sentence that would inevitably follow. His brain began speeding, so fast he felt nauseous.
‘Fuck,’ he muttered. ‘Fuck, fuck, and fuck.’ He looked at Chambers.
Chambers looked back helplessly. He knew what this meant to Michael, so was under no illusion how much he was asking.
In the end Michael said, ‘There’s no choice, is there?’
‘There’s always a choice,’ Chambers responded.
Michael sighed. ‘You think I’d let them die?’
Chambe
rs shook his head.
‘Were it just me, I could try to do what you’re asking,’ Michael said. ‘But there’re the other shareholders, and I just can’t see them going for this. Christ, I can hear Forgon already.’
Chambers remained silent.
Michael turned to look out of the window, his eyes unfocused on the passing rush of headlights. He thought of Robbie and knew there was no way in the world he could live with himself if he didn’t do something to rescue these kids, no matter what the cost to himself. But still he felt sick, wishing to God he could think of something, anything, that would avert this disaster. He’d never dreamt that the day would come when Forgon would be his saviour, but right now that was exactly what he could turn out to be, for there was just no way Michael could see him agreeing to pull out of the movie. Too many stood to lose too much, including Forgon who personally was in to the tune of two million. And over twenty million more was already committed in ways it was impossible to back out of without facing bankruptcy and maybe prison.
His hand went to his head. The very idea of the bond company coughing up was so delusional it was laughable. The rest of the world had never cared about these kids before, and now with so much money at stake he could already hear the answers, that they were probably better off dead anyway.
Taking out his cellphone he started to dial.
‘Who are you calling?’ Chambers asked.
‘Forgon. If he’s home we’ll go over there now.’
Forgon’s leathery face was incredulous. In fact, he was so stunned by what Chambers and McCann had just shown him – and then told him – that he couldn’t find a way to express his amazement. ‘Let me get this straight,’ he said, when finally he recovered his speech. ‘You want me to turn tail on this movie because a bunch of badass Spies are threatening to off a few kids no-one’s ever gonna miss, except the poor bastards they rob and contaminate with their foul diseases?’ He looked at Michael. ‘Did you get a brain bypass, boy? I mean, did you fuck up your wits with some shit drug, or something, because it’s the only reason I can think of that you’d actually come here and ask me this, like I was going to give a fuck?’