by Susan Lewis
Michael glanced at Chambers. He was about to speak when Chambers beat him to it.
‘I think you should know that I’ve got a lot of powerful friends in the media,’ he said, guessing blackmail was the language Forgon understood best, ‘and they’re just going to lap up the story of how Mr Bigshot Hollywood Producer let innocent kids die rather than lose a few million.’
‘A few million!’ Forgon exploded. ‘You call what we’ve got invested here a few million? The last figures I saw we were in for over twenty, and I sure as hell don’t call that a few. Now I suggest you go get yourselves a hit on reality, before you start believing anything you say is going to persuade me. We got some important people here who’ve put up as much as five million bucks each, do you seriously think they’re going to give a fuck about a few kids in a city half of ’em probably never even heard of?’
‘We need to take a vote on this,’ Michael said. ‘I’ve already called Maggie to get her to set up a shareholders’ meeting.’
Forgon’s eyes almost burst from his head. ‘You’re getting Mark Bergin over here from Sydney for this!’ he spat. ‘Did you lose your mind? The man’s not going to vote with you on this. No-one in his right mind’s going to vote with you on this.’
‘Sandy will,’ Chambers told him.
Forgon looked at him in astonishment. ‘Is that so?’ he responded sceptically. ‘Did you ask her?’
Chambers couldn’t lie.
Forgon started to laugh. ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘If you think she’s going to vote with you when she, personally, is answerable to at least half the investors, then you really are cruising with your lights out.’
Chambers looked at Michael.
‘We’ll let you know about the shareholders’ meeting,’ Michael said, and nodding to Chambers he led the way out of the room.
By six the following evening Chris Ruskin in New York and Mark Bergin in Sydney had agreed to fly to LA to attend a shareholders’ meeting. Knowing what was on the agenda, Bergin had already warned Michael that he couldn’t rely on him for support. Ruskin hadn’t yet committed, either to Michael or to Forgon. Nor had Sandy, she’d wanted to speak to her investors first, which Michael had understood, but Chambers hadn’t.
‘These are children, Sandy,’ he raged.
‘I understand that!’ she cried. ‘And I swear, if it were my money I’d be prepared to do what you’re asking. But it’s not mine, and I owe these people, Tom. It wasn’t only their money they gave me, it was their trust.’
‘So you speak to them, and then what? You think they’re going to sanction you voting with Michael?’
‘No,’ she said truthfully. ‘I don’t. But try to see this from my point of view. I have to consult them, not only morally, but very possibly legally.’
‘You’re the shareholder in World Wide. They have no say over how you vote there.’
‘Of course they don’t, but it’s their investments that hang on the way I vote. Tom, please. I’d give anything for this to be just my decision, but we both have to face the fact …’
‘That you don’t care about the kids that are getting killed,’ he shouted, and before she could say any more he slammed out of the room.
The next morning Chambers downloaded the image of another child murder in Bogotá. This time the victim was a sixteen-year-old girl, whose broken, bullet-ridden body was slumped under a swing in a playground, a used syringe and a cuddly toy only inches from her outstretched hand. Her name was Priscilia. Chambers remembered her well, for many was the time she had tried to come onto him, using her then twelve-year-old body with a sophistication and guile it was tragic to behold in one so young. He guessed it was nothing short of a miracle that she had managed to stay alive this long, but that didn’t change the fact that she didn’t deserve to die like this.
It had been several hours now since he’d last heard from Alan Day, which could be either good or bad. Bad if anything had happened to the man, good if he was managing to get through to General Goméz – just about the only man on the ground who could help them with this. For the time being all Chambers could do was wait, and pray that the rest of Rachel’s wretched child subjects were long gone from Bogotá – or even the world. It wasn’t likely that many of them were surviving, most didn’t last more than a few years on the streets, but as the hours ticked by and the cameras continued to roll he could only thank God that Rachel had never known what a terrible price her photographs were ultimately costing the children.
Ellen looked at Sandy’s calm blue eyes and felt stunned. Not only stunned, but outraged and maddeningly confused. Were she talking to anyone else she might be thinking she hadn’t heard quite right, but as it was Sandy she knew she had, though precisely how she felt about what she’d heard she just couldn’t get a grip on.
‘I’m sure you’d like some time to think this over,’ Sandy said, ‘but as you know, we don’t have that luxury, so I’m going to have to ask you for an answer.’
Ellen blinked, looked away for a moment, then returned her eyes to Sandy. They were sitting in Ellen’s office. Sandy was on one of the sofas, Ellen was squashed into a leather armchair. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I just want to be clear about this. What you’re saying is, that you’ll give me twelve per cent of your shares in World Wide in return for me telling Michael this baby is his?’
‘When it’s born, yes.’
Ellen couldn’t help but marvel at her nerve, and at how coolly she delivered her outrageous proposal, especially when it was only going to leave her with a nine per cent holding. But what was appalling her the most right now was how the hell Sandy knew there was some doubt over who the baby’s father was. ‘What on earth makes you think this baby could be anyone else’s but Michael’s?’ she demanded.
Sandy explained how she had overheard Ellen telling Matty her fears that Tom was the father.
Ellen’s shock hit another level, but at least it explained how Forgon knew. ‘Does Tom know?’ she asked.
Sandy nodded.
Ellen let go her breath and looked around the room.
Sandy continued. ‘With your twelve per cent added to Michael’s twenty-eight,’ she said, ‘there’s a chance he’ll be able to pull the plug on the movie. Providing, of course, Chris Ruskin votes with you.’
Ellen gazed at her in amazement. She was having a hard time taking all this in. ‘Why don’t you just vote with Michael?’ she said.
Sandy merely looked at her, waiting for her to come up with the answer herself. It didn’t take long.
‘Because,’ Ellen said, ‘you want to be able to tell the European investors that you voted to keep the movie going.’
Sandy nodded.
If nothing else, Ellen was impressed by her honesty. ‘And what are you going to tell them,’ she said, ‘when they ask why you signed twelve per cent of your shares over to me the day before the vote was due to be taken?’
‘I’ll think of something,’ Sandy answered. ‘Maybe I’ll tell them you were blackmailing me and I had to pay up.’ It wasn’t funny and already Sandy wished she hadn’t said it. ‘The point is,’ she went on, ‘I can tell them that Chris Ruskin had assured me he was going to back Forgon, so with Mark Bergin’s and my support too, Forgon would win hands down with seventy-two per cent of the vote. So me giving twelve per cent to the other side wasn’t going to affect the outcome one way or the other.’
‘Which it won’t, if Chris does vote with Forgon,’ Ellen pointed out.
Sandy nodded and Ellen stared at her hard as she tried to come up with the catch. She couldn’t find one, except, of course, the condition of the transfer. ‘And all I have to do for you to give me these shares is tell Michael the baby is his?’ she repeated.
Sandy nodded.
Ellen looked at her youthful yet determined face, and suddenly felt the urge to laugh. ‘And exactly how,’ she said, controlling it, ‘is all this going to benefit you?’
A faint colour rose in Sandy’s cheeks. ‘I’m trying to
buy myself a little insurance for the future,’ she answered.
Ellen waited for her to expand, wanting to see just how honest she would be.
‘If the vote goes Michael’s way and the movie is cancelled,’ Sandy went on, ‘there’s a very good chance we’re all going to be ruined, and if that happens … Well, you and Michael will at least have each other. What I’m trying to hang on to is a modicum of my reputation to help get me started again.’
‘And there’s also the chance,’ Ellen added, ‘that if Tom knows for certain the baby isn’t his, he’ll commit to you?’
Sandy said nothing.
Ellen was quiet as the full meaning of what she’d just said started to sink in. All this time Tom had known she might be carrying his child and had said nothing. But it seemed he’d kept himself available in case he had turned out to be the father, and, presumably, in case she had needed him too. At least, according to the way she was reading Sandy that appeared to be the case.
Keeping her eyes down she wondered about Sandy, and if she really did stand a chance with Tom if he no longer thought the child was his. She guessed she’d just have to let Tom answer that, for she was going to have no trouble telling Michael the baby was his, then the rest was going to be … Well, if nothing else, it was certainly going to be interesting.
‘There’s just one thing you seem to be forgetting,’ she said, somehow knowing that Sandy hadn’t, though how she was going to get round it was certainly beating Ellen. ‘Under the terms and conditions of the company, you can’t transfer any shares without first informing the majority shareholder.’
Sandy allowed herself a smile. ‘If you read the terms and conditions,’ she responded, ‘which were originally drawn up by Michael and his lawyers when the company was getting started, you’ll see that what it actually says is that Michael McCann is the one who has to be informed of any sale or transfer of shares, not the majority shareholder. Of course, it was expected back then that Michael would be the majority shareholder.’ She paused, then smiled again. ‘A very convenient oversight on the part of Ted Forgon, wouldn’t you agree?’
Ellen was looking at her in amazement, and not a little respect. She really had done her homework. ‘Does Michael know that his name still figures that way?’ she asked.
‘I imagine so,’ Sandy answered. ‘But if he doesn’t, he’s about to find out. And if he agrees to the transfer, which I’m sure he will, I’ve already spoken to a notary whose office is in Century Plaza. He’s expecting us sometime between three thirty and five.’
Ellen’s eyes widened. ‘You were so sure I’d do it?’ she said.
‘Let’s just say I tried to stay optimistic.’
‘And how do you know you can trust me?’
Sandy laughed. ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ she said, ‘you’re not like me.’
Ellen looked at her, then she too started to laugh.
Despite the awfulness of what was happening to the children in Colombia, and the fact that they were now poised to lose just about everything they owned, Michael couldn’t help but laugh when Ellen told him about the meeting she’d just had with Sandy.
‘Did you know you were the one who had to be informed about share transfers or sales?’ Ellen asked.
He nodded and she eyed him meaningfully. ‘And you didn’t even tell me,’ she chided.
‘Only because, when I found out, we weren’t exactly seeing eye to eye.’
‘And we are now?’ she teased.
He smiled, and pulling her into his arms he kissed her. ‘You know,’ he said, his tone turning sober, ‘whichever way we look at this we’re going down. You realize that, don’t you?’
Though the fear of it churned in Ellen’s heart, her eyes were shining as she took his hand and placed it on the baby. ‘As long as we all go down together,’ she said.
Michael smiled, and kissed her again.
‘What time’s the meeting tomorrow?’ she asked.
‘Three thirty.’
She started to grin.
‘What?’ Michael asked.
‘I just can’t wait to see the look on Ted Forgon’s face when we win,’ she answered.
Michael laughed too, but this time not quite so heartily. The vote hadn’t been taken yet, and still no-one knew which way Chris Ruskin would go.
Ellen and Sandy left the notary’s office at five that afternoon. After congratulating each other, and recognizing a slight easing of their mutual antipathy, Ellen returned to the office, making a slight detour to drop Sandy off at the Four Seasons on the way. Sandy knew Tom would be there, waiting for a call or e-mail from Alan Day, while dreading another from the Tolima Cartel.
She hated how distant he had become with her, refusing to understand her obligation to her investors. She wanted to tell him now what she’d done to try to help him, but how could she when there was a very good chance she’d just sold his child to another man? She still couldn’t quite believe that Ellen had gone for it so easily, but she guessed the mess Michael was in was so great that Ellen was prepared to do anything to help bail him out. Not that voting to cancel the movie was exactly going to achieve that; but whilst calculating it all out Sandy had considered it a pretty safe bet that Ellen would support Michael in trying to save the kids. Of course, like everyone else, Ellen might want to ignore their plight, but Ellen just didn’t have what it took to detach herself that way. Sandy understood this, for not even she, who’d never felt much pity for anyone before, could reconcile herself to the idea of any child dying for the sake of a film. On the other hand, nor was she desperately attached to the thought of all those millions, as well as her career, going down the pan.
Right now though, Tom wanted the kids to come first, so she had done what she could to support him whilst, at the same time, trying to secure at least something of her standing. And the fact that she was getting some payback on that bastard Forgon into the bargain was making her decision a whole lot easier to live with. She just couldn’t wait to see his face the next day when he found out what she’d done, especially if Chris Ruskin voted with Michael. And considering how far back Chris and Michael went, she felt reasonably confident that Chris would.
Chapter 21
A THIRD CHILD was now dead. The latest victim was another boy, Manuel, who was just fourteen years old, had been put into prostitution by his stepfather at the age of ten, and had worked the streets and sleazy porn bars until he’d been found by an outreach worker and taken into a rehabilitation centre at thirteen. The update from Alan Day was that the boy had been making impressive progress towards one day becoming a chef – until Galeano’s men had got to him yesterday, on his way back to the foundation from a mid-town restaurant, where he had started three weeks ago as an apprentice.
Chambers wept with rage and frustration, and for the young life that had been cruelly snuffed out at a time when he really might have had a chance. And for what? The sake of a movie that was supposed to bring justice for a woman who had once taken the boy’s picture. This wasn’t what she would want. God knew, she would have endured what she did a hundred times over rather than have these kids so brutally deprived of their lives. It wasn’t what he wanted either, which was why, after a relentlessly sleepless night, he had decided that he simply couldn’t wait for the shareholders’ meeting to determine the fate of the movie.
It was just after nine in the morning when he picked up the phone to call Michael. Getting past Maggie wasn’t easy, so in the end he left a message for Michael to call back the instant he’d finished with Chris Ruskin. He hoped to God that Michael could talk Ruskin round, but even presuming for a moment that he did, and the vote went their way, by the time the news was relayed to Bogotá there was a very real chance another child would already be dead. And as if that weren’t bad enough, they then had to ask themselves – again presuming Michael got control – how long it would actually take to stop the movie rolling? There was simply no knowing, for after their lengthy meeting last night with attorneys, business managers, a
ccountants and two of the senior producers, no-one could be in any doubt that a thousand lawsuits to keep the show going would come flying their way the instant the news had broken.
But all that was for later. For now, there was a lot he had to get done in order to set his plan for the next few days in motion, so picking up the other line he started on the long list of calls that had to be made.
More than two hours had passed before he was finally through, by which time he’d spoken to everyone from his personal lawyer in Washington, to the film unit in Mexico, at least half a dozen contacts in Colombia, even more in the States and in Europe, and finally to Michael and Ellen. The call to Ellen was the last, and after confirming that she could meet him at two in the privacy of Vic Warren’s Mulholland home, he put the phone down and went through to the bathroom to turn on the shower.
In the next room Sandy was sitting alone, thinking about what she had done. She had Ellen’s word that she would never betray the condition of the share transfer, and knowing that it wouldn’t be in Ellen’s interest ever to reveal it anyway, she had no problem trusting her. Even so, this was a strange and bewildering situation she was in, for there was a time, not so very long ago, when she wouldn’t have thought twice about the tactics she had used, believing that the end always justified the means. But the way she had freed Tom from Ellen was troubling her, and she couldn’t deal with it.
She tried to remind herself that it wasn’t always possible to work things out in a way that made everyone feel good, and as she was very probably the only one who was ever going to feel bad over this, there wasn’t really a problem. But for some reason it didn’t feel that way, and she couldn’t quite figure out why.
As the morning wore on she could feel herself starting to become nervous and agitated, almost afraid. Perhaps that wasn’t so surprising when by four that afternoon the world as she knew it could come to an end. She kept trying to see beyond it, to envisage what might happen in any shape or form, but it was as though her mind had totally shut down on the future.