Taking Chances (11 page)

It was some time later, as he stepped from the shady interior of the magnificent Iglesia de Santo Domingo, that he noticed an old woman selling flowers on the plaza outside. Without giving it much thought he went over and bought some for Carlota, then realized he now had to find and pay someone to take them to her.

The entire process took an hour or more, as a crowd of taxi-drivers, motor cyclists,
baquianos
, and even a Telecom engineer gathered round, each swearing the other was a thief in a bid to win the healthy fee for carrying flowers to the village.

It was a farce. God only knew how the word spread, but as the throng grew thicker and the good-natured banter began to give way to menace, Chambers finally parted with his money and flowers to a handsome young motor cyclist who might just appeal to Carlota. He still had no real confidence they would ever get there, but he had to take a chance on someone and after watching the boy roar off down the street on his Honda, he summoned one of the taxi-drivers to take him back to the hotel. It was past eleven by now and Morales was probably working up a sweat wondering where in the hell he was and if they were going to make the chopper at midday.

When he got to the hotel the lobby was quiet, just a couple of guests poring over a map of the city and an overweight maid polishing the
tunjo
figurines on the mantelshelf. He realized suddenly that he had forgotten to call Michael, and made a mental note to do it the first opportunity he got.

Now that the time of departure was approaching he could feel his tension returning. Already he could see Molina’s shock as he, Chambers, walked into whatever place they were holding him, and the hatred he felt as he
imagined
himself face to face with Rachel’s killer was only made bearable by planning how greatly he was going to make that son of a bitch suffer.

As he walked up the stairs he was going over it in his mind. The Zapata brothers he had decided to leave to Morales. It was Molina he wanted, Molina who was going to know every moment of pain, every heartbeat of fear, and unanswered plea for mercy.

At a turn in the stairs he stood aside for a woman and her young son to pass. The boy looked up at him and he thought fleetingly of Robbie, Michael and Michelle’s son, the child he’d never imagined Michelle would give up. He wondered, once they arrested him for Molina’s murder, if there would be a way he could still get his notes to Michael. Or maybe it wasn’t an arrest that was planned, maybe they would shoot him down too and make out of it what they would.

The floorboards creaked beneath his feet as he walked along the hallway towards the room he had left a few short hours ago. It suddenly felt like a lifetime. He wished the next few hours were already over, that Molina’s mutilated and lifeless body was already slumped at his feet.

The old grandfather clock opposite his door chimed the quarter-hour. He could see a maid, vacuuming in a room further on. There was a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign hanging on his door. The street door opened downstairs, briefly letting in the noise from outside. Music was playing, somewhere in the depths of the house. The smell of polish mingled with the freshly-cut flowers in a vase beside him. Suddenly all his senses felt heightened. His head was pounding as though the ordeal to come were already upon him. The bag on his shoulder was strangely heavy. The stubble on his chin felt like nails. He looked around. Then he pushed open the door and went inside.

The curtains were still pulled, though pools of
brilliant
sunlight spilled into the room. Everything was as he’d left it: the bathroom door half open, a glass of water on the night stand, Morales’s boots on the floor. He looked at the bed. Morales was still there.

The sudden shaking was so fierce it paralysed him. Terror grabbed him, crushed his bladder and closed his chest. A machete. It could only have been a machete that had split Morales’s head in two.

With a strange, jerky movement he turned round. The door between the two rooms was ajar. He stared at it, then went to it, hardly even thinking about whom or what he might find. The curtains were drawn, but this time he could smell the blood even before he saw it. Escobar and Galvis were on their beds. There was so much blood it was dripping into two small pools on the floor.

The beat of his heart was the only sound he could hear. His whole body was stiff. He had to get out of there as fast as was humanly possible.

Turning back he grabbed his holdall and took one last look at Morales. The blood hadn’t yet congealed, the body would still be warm. It had happened less than an hour ago, as he stood on the plaza arguing and bantering with half of Popayán’s drivers over who was to take flowers to a dark-haired girl with the eyes of a child and the heart of a woman. There was no doubt in his mind that were it not for those flowers he would be lying there on the only empty bed, soaked in his own blood, all but minus his head.

Twenty minutes later he was at Machangara airport waiting to board the next flight out. He had gone deeper into the throes of shock, and the shaking was so bad people were staring. He stayed with the crowds, hoping to blend in and avoid the eyes of any possible pursuers. It was anyone’s guess now whether he would make it out of this city, but, even if he did, there was still every chance he was never going to make it out of the country.

*

It was late the following morning when Michael came out of his office to the reception area of the executive suite he shared with Ellen. Maggie, their joint personal assistant, and her two-man backup team, Bob and Olivia, were all at their desks, either fielding phone calls, dealing with mail or, in Maggie’s case, fighting to achieve workable structures to Michael and Ellen’s impossible schedules.

Most of the reception was cluttered up with a dozen or more half-opened boxes, unpacked patio furniture and cellophane-wrapped plants, all waiting to take up residence on the large, empty veranda outside. But on the whole they were now sufficiently installed in their new location to have started hanging paintings on the walls, and assigning a telephone each to the growing number of the movie’s production personnel who were currently housed in three recently-combined conference rooms just across the hall. As soon as things really got going Michael would relocate them to wherever he could get the best deal on a soundstage and accompanying offices.

‘Is Ellen still down in the screening room?’ Michael asked, stopping at the cooler to help himself to water.

‘No, she’s gone over to Raleigh to meet with Jill Stoner,’ Maggie answered, ‘she should be back around one.’ Her permanently flushed cheeks and tousled dark curls made her look as romantic as the novels she feasted on, and her gentle Scots brogue was always a welcome reminder to Michael of his good friend and senior agent in London, Zelda Frey.

‘Here, did you see this?’ Maggie said, searching the scattered paperwork on her desk. ‘It’s from Richard Conway’s managers. Ah, here it is.’ Her dark eyes were alive with mischief. ‘Brace yourself, hen,’ she advised, ‘the man wants everything from a chef for his dog to a coach for his voice. He’s got a team of fourteen assistants, all of whom need to be on the payroll; and
added
to that he’s got his own hairdresser, make-up artists, dentist, that’s right, dentist; manicurist, dialogue coach, personal trainer and therapist. He needs four winnebagos to house this royal entourage, and a fleet of limousines to ferry them back and forth from the set.’

Michael was laughing. ‘Give me that,’ he said, snatching it from her.

‘He thinks I’m joking,’ Maggie informed the other assistants. ‘Watch his face when he finds out I’m not.’

And sure enough the humour made a fast demise as Michael’s eyes scanned the unbelievable list of star demands. ‘Put a call in to his manager,’ he said. ‘Has Ellen seen this?’

Maggie nodded as she swallowed a mouthful of coffee. ‘She thought it was hysterical, like the rest of us, and can’t wait to see what your incredible powers of negotiation do to the list. Our money’s on it getting longer.’

Despite himself Michael laughed.

‘Call for you,’ Olivia told him. ‘It’s Jonathan Bridge at Fox Searchlight.’

‘I’ll take it,’ Michael said, reaching for the receiver. ‘Jonathan? What news?’

‘Three million, six per cent and you keep total control,’ the voice at the other end told him.

‘Four and a half and the deal’s done,’ Michael responded.

‘I’ll get back to you. Is there a script yet?’

‘Any day now.’

‘I’m sticking my neck out for you here,’ Bridge reminded him. ‘It would help to have a script.’

‘You’re not kidding,’ Michael muttered as he hung up. He was only too aware of how many favours he was being done, and just hoped to God that Tom Chambers was going to come through with this script. If Chambers failed them, he and Ellen would be in bigger trouble than either of them wanted to think about.

As if on cue the private line in his office started to ring. ‘Tom?’ he said, snatching it up.

‘Thank God you’re there,’ Chambers responded.

‘Where are you?’ Michael demanded. ‘What happened? You sound stressed.’

‘You could say that,’ Chambers remarked drily. ‘I’m in Bogotá. The guys I was with got involved with a machete in Popayán, just hours before we were due to connect up with Molina.’

‘Jesus Christ, are you OK?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine. I’m pretty sure I was supposed to go the same way, but I was out buying flowers.’

Michael frowned. ‘Flowers?’

‘Another time. The important thing is I managed to get out. I’m with someone I can trust now, at least for one night. But just in case anything goes wrong I’m going to e-mail you the bare bones of a script and all my notes.’

‘Tom, it’s more important that you get yourself out of there. Is there anything I can do this end?’

‘If there is, I’ll let you know. Check the e-mail and with any luck, the next time you hear from me I’ll be in Miami en route to LA.’

Much later in the day Michael walked into Ellen’s office and found her sitting in a corner of a tan leather sofa, her long bare legs curled under her. She was reading the partially-written script and notes they had downloaded and printed from Tom Chambers’s e-mail a couple of hours ago.

‘So what do you think?’ Michael said, closing the door behind him.

Ellen looked up. ‘The first word that comes to mind is relief,’ she responded. ‘I mean, at least we’ve actually got something now, so we don’t have to keep lying and stalling. But yeah, it’s good. Needs a lot of work, but on the whole it’s better than I expected. What about you, what did you think?’

‘I agree it needs work,’ he answered, coming to sit on the coffee-table in front of her.

She stretched out her legs, putting her feet in his lap, and moaned luxuriously as he began massaging her calves. ‘Did I tell you, I got your son the whole way to school this morning,’ she said, ‘then he reminded me he had gym first thing and I had to go all the way back again for his kit. Boy, was he mad at me, like it was my fault. I could have crowned him, especially as it made me forty minutes late for Jill Stoner. Mmm, don’t stop that,’ she murmured, letting her eyes close as he began squeezing her toes. ‘Have you got any idea how much this turns me on?’

‘Well, seeing as you’ve fallen asleep on me three nights in a row,’ he reminded her, ‘I could be up for taking my chances while I’ve got them.’

Ellen’s eyes started to dance. ‘Don’t tempt me,’ she said, and inhaled deeply as he pressed his thumbs into the soles of her feet.

Grinning, he relaxed his grip. ‘So will you take it on?’ he said, nodding towards the script. ‘Help him get it into shape?’

Ellen eyed him for a moment, then smiled. ‘Is this the carrot?’ she said. ‘Get her involved in the script, it might soften her up a bit. Make her feel more needed.’

‘Oh, come on,’ he said. ‘You’re so far into this now you surely can’t be in any doubt about that. No, what I’m saying is, we both know you’ve got a gift for making scripts work, and I happen to think you could really make something of this.’

‘While you do what, exactly?’

‘Fight with Richard Conway’s managers to see if he’ll agree to Spot’s chef taking on the catering for the Conway cur, and for my manicurist to fix up the acrylics.’

Ellen was laughing. ‘Since when did Spot get himself a chef?’ she enquired.

‘You’re looking at him,’ he replied. ‘And as you know, I come cheap.’

Still laughing, Ellen returned to the notes in front of her. ‘You know, if I didn’t have a wedding to sidetrack me I’d be pouring all my excitement into this,’ she said. ‘I really think it’s going to work, especially now I’ve seen what Tom’s already done. And we’re pulling a terrific team together, in case you hadn’t noticed. Some of the best.’

‘Thanks to you.’

‘And you. After all, you’re the one who’s raising the money to pay them.’

‘For now. We’ve still got a way to go, and if we don’t come up with more investment by the end of the month, the payroll’s in jeopardy.’

She sighed and chewed thoughtfully on her lip. He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. ‘Do you reckon we’re going to be able to afford another big name to play Rachel?’ she asked.

He took a breath to answer, then suddenly changed course. ‘Don’t let’s get into the casting now,’ he said, knowing she was about to start making a case for her cousin Matty. ‘Let’s just sort the script out, ’cos without it we’re dead. Will you take it on? I mean, we could get another writer in, but I don’t think Tom’ll go for that and …’

‘It’s OK, I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘Though God only knows where I’m going to find the time. Which reminds me, we’re supposed to go see Robbie’s teacher this evening for his progress report. Can you make it?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m meeting with the Touchstone people at six,’ he said. ‘And there’s a chance Tom might fly in later. I got a call from him saying he was on a flight out of Bogotá. From what he told me on the phone it seems things got pretty hairy down there.’ He was about to enlarge further when he remembered how nervous she already was about the Colombian cartels, so keeping
it
brief he said, ‘Maggie’s working on getting him a connection in Miami.’