He called Sean Donovan at U.S. Immigration Office, a man who had a prodigious appetite for Louis’ own brand of jam donuts.
“Thank you for Riley… and I am glad you were able to ‘audition’ those two little actresses I sent over.” There was a chortle, then he got right down to business.
“Now I need another small favor. Details aren’t important but I need a little heat on Mr. Tyler Gemmell. Those illegal immigrants you have turned a blind eye to. This time, how about one or two being suspects in something. Nudge Homeland Security or the IRS? Rattle Gemmell’s cage a bit. So long as it’s never tied back to me.”
41
INTERLAKEN, SWITZERLAND
This was the first time in his life Jonathan had failed. How and why Marcus had survived was not important. He assumed Mako would be close by. He was thankful that at least Marcus had only fleetingly met him years ago on the Pagsanjan set. He would make sure the next time they met would be final.
First, a change of plan. He needed to rent a motorbike.
* * *
Mako had collected the basics as well as a large baguette and some grated vacherin and gruyère cheese to make a traditional moitié moitié cheese fondue. Comfort food, Swiss style. Memories from her youth assailed her from every corner as she walked through town and she had wanted to enjoy them alone. The chocolate and patisserie store where her mother would let her buy something after the grocery shopping was finished, the shop where she had bought her father a special limited edition Swiss Army Knife for his fortieth, even the clopping of the horses’ hooves as they drew tourist carriages over the cobblestones; all heartwarming images and comforting sensations.
She purposely sought out the bookstore she and her mother had visited so often, fueling her mother’s passion for Asian works of art as well as igniting her own. She wanted to go in, but it was already closed. This place reminded her of happier and less complicated times.
Now she was with a man she barely knew who was somehow connected to at least one death, probably more. Someone had tried to kill them both. She had missed her father’s funeral and she was going back to a house that she hadn’t called home for a number of years. She would return to the bookstore later. She went back to meet Marcus at the cafe.
* * *
The car edged its way towards her former home. Nisten was situated at the end of the long road up from Interlaken at the very north end of the village of Habkern. The lane petered out at the entrance to the house’s gravel driveway. After that the only way out of town was by foot or 4x4 SUV or return the way you came.
The car crunched to a halt outside the Hof-designed house that had been her father’s winter home. It was a glorious ultra-modern construction of glass, steel and wood that allowed fantastic views both down the valley and up towards the permanently snow-capped peaks. In the moonlight the house appeared to be asleep, with steel shutters covering the huge windows like corrugated eyelids.
“Can you give me a minute and stay here?” she asked. “It’s been a long time.”
Marcus nodded as Mako opened the car door and approached the house. Standing guard at the entrance were two large Chinese stone lions, the same as those in the photo from Stefan’s house. She hoped the alarm code was the same and that the spare front door key and alarm fob were safely guarded by her old friends, each with their nine rolls of mane that signified they had come from an Imperial Palace.
“Hello boys,” she whispered.
Mako approached the one on the left, squatting down in front of him. She put her arms around his neck, locking her fingers over the ringlets of his stone mane and pulled. To her surprise, there was no movement. She tried again. Nothing. She looked into the wide-open eyes and gaping jaws of the stone beast and began to worry. She examined the statue more closely.
“You got a flashlight?” she called to Marcus, without turning around.
Marcus leaned over to the glove box and pulled out a small blue Maglite. “Here. You need help?”
Mako ran back to the car and took it and gave Marcus a concerned look. “Maybe we need a hotel. How much cash have we got left?”
Marcus reached into his pocket and held out a small number of notes. “Enough for a tent.”
She ran back to the two lions. She looked at the bases where, as a child, she had scratched the names of her two beloved friends; ‘Tianlu’ on one and ‘Bixie’ on the other. Her father had spanked her when she had proudly showed him the scratches she made on the valuable lions. Yet it was because they had been defaced that her mother had decided to get a stone mason to cut a recess into one of them to create a secret hiding place. In doing so she turned a damaged item into something unique and special to them.
Mako took a second to look at the names. “He switched them around,” she sighed. This time, she knelt before the lion on the right, and hugging its neck, pulled. The head eased forward and revealed a grooved recess at the back of the neck. She pointed the flashlight beam inside and sighed with relief. What she needed was glinting under the Maglite’s beam.
“Got ‘em,” she said to herself. “Marcus, can you bring everything in?” she called back as she headed towards the house.
She approached the massive front door. Marcus watched as she unlocked it and it swung open. The lights came on and with a whir all the shutters began to rise; the eyes of the sleeping giant now slowly opening.
* * *
“Gimme a hand will you?” Marcus asked as he tried to balance his small bag, groceries, and the wine. There was no answer.
He walked in dumping everything at the elegant entrance, devoid of any decoration other than a large photograph of a teenage Mako and a smiling beautiful Chinese woman. The two had the same delicate features, high cheekbones and jet-black hair and he was sure the elder woman was Mako’s mother. The two women were outside an old timber-framed building holding a certificate in their hands. An elderly gentleman with a wondrous jet-black walrus mustache was standing opposite them, applauding.
“Mako?”
No reply. He went into the main drawing room. She was sitting motionless, her slim body almost entirely hidden from him, slumped in a wing-back leather chair. Her eyes were open and staring in shock.
“My God look at this,” she whispered. He followed her gaze and saw row upon row of cabinets filled with Asian art.
“So? It’s just like London,” he said. Mako slowly turned to Marcus.
“What do you mean? London’s like this? I haven’t been there for years. Marcus, this stuff is priceless. I mean serious, serious money.”
“So, he was a wealthy man,” he said, still confused by Mako’s reaction.
“He was wealthy, sure, but these… these?” She said sweeping her hand out to indicate everything in front of her. “The collection has changed out of all proportion. This is all museum quality. Rare…so rare. A Qing Dynasty porcelain… those bronze Tings, the jade carvings. And the coins. Marcus this is worth millions…”
* * *
Jonathan crouched behind a small rock formation not far away. A pair of powerful binoculars had been focused on the couple ever since their arrival and was now locked through the open front door into the hallway and drawing room. He had seen enough and crept back to the black motor bike. He silently free wheeled it down the hillside, only starting the engine after a few hundred yards. He was formulating a plan for Marcus and Mako. This time there would only be one outcome.
42
SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA
“We need to talk,” whispered a voice.
Cara dropped her front door keys in shock and Cato erupted in a barking frenzy as a slim figure stepped out of the shadows.
The meeting with Louis and the deaths of Sam and Robert had Cara’s warning sirens wailing at full volume. On his return to the booth that day he had abruptly dismissed her. Told her he would contact her once he had any real news. She was already worried having tried to raise Marcus on his cell phone while driving back from Los Angeles. Ominously it just kept d
iverting to his voice mail. He never picked up; never rang back. Grabbing Cato, she shrank back, not sure what to expect, except that it would be bad. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to scare you,” said the man stepping out of the shadows his arms raised above his head. “I’m Christo. I am … was… Robert Kelso’s partner. It’s Cara, right? ”
Cara relaxed back a couple of notches from panic to controlled fear. Cato was less convinced and kept up the incessant barking bravado.
“Please… Can I come in?” He looked exhausted, dark rings under his eyes and his hands trembling.
Cara could see he was not a threat, just afraid.
“Oh, do be quiet,” she admonished, her voice hard and firm. Christo hesitated, thinking she might be addressing him.
“I’m sorry… Christopher Murray.” He held out his hand. It was still shaking as she clasped it and caught a glimpse of his bloodshot eyes.
“I flew into San Francisco from Cannes. Press would have been all over me at LAX. And I wanted to drive down here to see you before going home…”
She made a judgment call and bent to pick up her keys. Christo was there before her, scooping them up.
“Allow me.”
Ten minutes later Cato had slowed his barking and Cara her heart rate. She poured Christo a Diet Coke and herself a Tupay. As soon as they were seated, she went straight in; no pleasantries.
“So, tell me what happened?” she asked gently “All these deaths.…”
“We’ve both lost partners,” she said. “You start. From the beginning.”
“I met Robert a few months after he got back from the Philippines… Well not really met, more like watched.”
Cara frowned.
“He was in rehab in Malibu. Cold turkey. A mess. I was part of the program. Gave seminars on horticulture.”
“Gardening for addicts?”
“You know, health, nature, back to basics.”
“You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt,” she replied. “Believe me I know.” She paused and smiled sympathetically. “We were all in a mess then.”
“Right,” Christo nodded. “Well at first he didn’t want to talk to anyone, let alone participate in anything. Just sat in his room alone, in silence. So I started to pop in each day and leave a plant. Told the staff not to remove them, just water them.
After a week the place looked like a garden nursery. A month, you could barely move without knocking one over. But it got to him and he opened up. We talked a little bit more every day. In the beginning it was simply small talk, my showing him how to trim some of the plants, where to put them, in the light or shade, basic stuff. Three months later he was nearly recovered, tackling subjects on just about anything and everything… except what had driven him to such despair… but at least he started to live with himself again.”
“Bill said he could be …difficult,” Cara volunteered with a genuine smile. She wanted to keep this as honest as possible.
“Don’t get me wrong. He had his downsides. Bull-headed, naïve about the world’s underbelly; always thought he could put on an act to fool people. But at least he was communicating. I grew to love him. The center was even discussing his departure.
Then one day he came back to his room and someone had delivered some ugly purple flowers. It triggered a massive panic attack. I didn’t understand or know how to help. I never left his side from then on. It took a while, but he eventually recovered and was discharged. I agreed to move in with him, just to be sure. We found a place in Topanga, with a wonderful garden. We’ve been… were… there ever since.”
“Did he stay clean?” asked Cara.
“I made it clear if he got back on his brand of snow or ice… coke or vodka on the rocks, I’d see him through another session of rehab, then I’d be off. For years he stayed on that wagon. Drink and drugs were part of the life he was adamant he had left behind. The prostituting of talent, the compromises, the ass-kissing, the deals within deals-the whole shebang.” Christo looked over to Cara.
“And recently?” said Cara.
Christo sighed not looking her in the eye. “He guessed I wouldn’t notice. As I said he wasn’t as good an actor as he thought he was. He stayed clean until FALL OUT arrived or rather until Louis McConnell got involved.”
“That damn script, and that damn man,” said Cara quietly.
“I should have stopped him, confronted him. But the prospect of making a movie again… he was so alive… a new man I wanted to see grow. I was frightened he’d go back into his shell. Against all my training and better instincts, I fooled myself that he could keep the odd line of coke under control until he got the rights, then I was going to step in.”
“Did he ever mention the shoot in Pagsanjan?”
“He hated talking about it. Only twice. Most recently in Cannes but the first time was at the clinic. Sam Wood had come to see Robert one day when I was not initially in his room. I heard raised voices and came in at the end of their meeting. It hadn’t been friendly. Sam then accused Robert of ruining his career. Said the whole thing stank. Robert should have known better than to let that hothead Baines…” He stopped talking and raised his hand to his lips, as if trying to put back the words he had spoken. “Oh, I’m sorry Cara.”
She nodded forgiveness “It’s OK, go on.”
“Sam said Marcus had been too wet behind the ears to take on this project, let alone Robert and McConnell. Said it was a disaster waiting to happen and stormed out. At first shocked, Robert eventually told me not to worry, Sam ran hot and cold. It had shaken me up though. Then Robert opened up a little. Somehow, he felt he’d sold his soul to Louis and the price had been to obey, rather than create. As he had descended into drug hell at the end of the shoot, he started to blame himself for Bill’s death, though would not say why. ‘Everyone got screwed up by it’, was all he’d say…” Christo hesitated realizing once again he had come across as insensitive. “I’m so sorry about Bill.”
Cara sighed. “It’s the past, Christo. Over. Please continue.”
“I tried to rationalize, to make Robert see that they had all done what they thought was right, struggling through so much. Everyone was young and headstrong. Marcus, Bill, Sam. I could see Robert wrestling with his conscience, going over all that had happened. And then suddenly he asked me, ‘Do you know what you use nitro-hydrochloric acid for?’” Cara looked at him blankly.
“It was something Sam had asked him once on the set. He’d seen a shipment sent to the site construction manager. He thought it might be dangerous and wondered what it was doing on the set. Bottles labeled by its street name; Aqua Regia. Robert had no idea.” Christo grimaced, “I should never have told him.”
“What?” asked Cara?
“I told him the only thing I knew hydrochloric acid is used for is to refine heroin from opium paste,” he sighed. “Sam obviously figured that out later.”
Cara gave a sharp intake of breath.
“A day or so later those purple flowers showed up and Robert went into relapse. We never spoke of it again until the afternoon before he died. He was on the balcony in Cannes reading that script for the umpteenth time when he suddenly said, ‘Aqua Regia’. That’s it!”
Christo paused for an effect that was obviously lost on Cara.
She just shrugged.
“The screenplay,” he replied by way of an explanation. “I still don’t understand.”
“You have your copy?”
Cara went to a drawer and returned with it, handing it to Christo.
He found the scene. Then fell silent, a look of confusion on his face. “It’s not here,” he said slowly.
“Christo. You’re not making sense.”
“In Robert’s copy, it’s the scene with the architect, Kenny. In your version there are some lines missing. In Robert’s version of the scene, Kenny is drinking from this bottle. Frank says to Kenny something about Aqua Regia. Guarantee of purity. Does it cleanse your soul?”
Cara sat motionless.
“You think so? Robert had picked up little hints in Sam’s screenplay about connections with the past, but this was what he’d been looking for. Robert became convinced Sam was telling him it was drugs they took out of the Philippine jungle. That’s what killed Bill… and now Robert.”
“And probably Sam. My God, you think they used that shoot as a cover up for a drug deal?” Cara said grimly, replenishing her glass then emptying it just as quickly. The alcohol wasn’t helping.
“That first day in Cannes, Robert insisted we go over exactly what Sam had said to him in the clinic as well as on the set. He spent the rest of the day thinking back to the shoot. I sat with him as he went over everything he could remember. The people, the places, trying to extract every ounce of memory.
That night we were at a party on the beach. As Robert and Marcus were talking, I noticed Robert staring at someone in the crowd. I followed his gaze and saw a small guy dressed as a builder/waiter slip out past security. Just a glimpse. I thought nothing more of it. Robert snapped out of it. But…”
“But what…?” Cara’s mouth was so dry she could hardly speak. Christo took the folded pieces of paper from his breast pocket and handed Cara the pictures the police had given him in Cannes. “It was him. He’s what jogged Robert’s memory at the party the night before. He was there at the apartment when Robert was killed; the police got this photo of him leaving around the time of his murder. The more I have been thinking about that face, the more I’m damn sure he also disguised himself as the limousine driver who picked us up at the airstrip and drove us to the apartment in Cannes. I rang Louis. Left him a message. He had made all the arrangements for the trip, I thought maybe he could find out where the guy came from.” Cara stared at the photos in disbelief.
Fall Out Page 19