‘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, accountants 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.
In the end, without thinking, or even planning what she would say, she tried to call Tom, but he was no longer in his room. She sat staring at the phone, then before she knew why she had dialled again and was asking to be put through to Ellen. But Ellen wasn’t there either.
‘Do you know where she is?’ she asked Maggie.
‘Sure. She went up to Vic Warren’s place,’ Maggie answered. ‘She was due to meet Tom there at two, so you should get her if you try in a few minutes.’
Sandy suddenly felt very strange inside. It was as though a fog was dropping over her, filling her with noise and tensing her with fear. ‘Thanks,’ she mumbled to Maggie and put down the phone.
Her hands were trembling as she searched for Vic’s number. She couldn’t push through to the end of a thought. She felt panicked, then numbed, then horribly afraid. She couldn’t say what she was afraid of, all she knew was that it was as though she were on the verge of doing something over which she had no control. She had lost connection with herself, had somehow cut loose
from
the normal constraints of behaviour and was being sucked into a compulsion she didn’t understand.
She couldn’t find Vic’s number. Her eyes wouldn’t focus, nor would her mind. Questions came at her, but no answers. Did she want to stop Ellen doing this? Did she want to confess to Tom what she had done? She gave a strangled sort of laugh. Was this what it was to develop a conscience?