In what Rem took to be the lounge, the largest defined space, a staircase, a clean oblong dropped through the concrete.
‘Get this,’ Santo called up. ‘There’s more down here.’
Rem came carefully down the steps and found Santo in a concrete chamber, working on the door. With nothing else to take out his frustration on, he swung the crowbar and knocked off the handle. Still inside, he let the door close.
Rem stood on the bottom step. Santo, unable to get out, banged, first with his fist, then with the crowbar. The sounds seeming soft, distant. Rem had to push hard to open the door.
‘That’s not funny.’ Santo stepped out, alarmed. ‘There’s no windows. You know how dark it is in here?’
‘Shouldn’t have messed with the lock.’
Rem returned up the stairs, there was nothing to be gained by looking at this place.
He sat in the car and waited for Santo.
‘There’s one thing I don’t understand.’
Santo dug in his pockets for his cigarettes.
‘Kiprowski. He didn’t have to go to Amrah. I don’t see why he did what he did.’
Santo set the cigarette on his lap. ‘He wanted to go. He had his own reasons.’ He found the lighter and tested the flame. ‘You remember that map? The road that didn’t exist.’
‘It came from CIPA.’
‘CIPA funded projects just to get rid of money. That road where the translator died — it used to be straight. They had a roadwork project that was supposed to improve connections between remote villages. Only they didn’t do anything. They dug up roads and re-laid them. They put a curve in a road that used to run straight.’
‘How did he know this?’
Santo lit the cigarette. ‘He asked Howell. Said the road was straight on all the maps. Howell came right out with it, told us about a number of projects just like that. None of them any use. Just a way to spend money.’
‘We’re here because of a curve in a road?’
‘I think you know there’s a little more to it than that.’
Santo blew out smoke. Both men looked ahead at Geezler’s house. Another incomplete project.
* * *
He woke with a headache, and felt more tired on waking than he had when he’d lain down. The room was otherwise empty, and Santo gone. The car also gone.
Santo had left an envelope on a small Singapore Airlines bag. The envelope contained a DVD and a note: Watch the DVD, I’ll call.
* * *
Santo sent two SMS messages mid-morning. Rem had risen properly, showered, and sat on the bed. He watched the sunlight slip across the floor and considered how he was going to get back home. It wasn’t just about deciding the next moment, the next couple of hours, but a larger, more difficult question. Why return? What to do?
After the second message, Rem slipped onto his knees and figured through the small complications of playing a DVD on the motel monitor. He sat on the floor and watched with the sound turned low.
* * *
On the first segment, a small image sank into the screen, large pixels vibrated unevenly, unstable, material shot on a handheld phone. The image dipped and opened to a figure in a doorway, silhouetted by giddy light, a voice, male, off-camera, close and wet: <How about that>, a white hand pointing into the room.
A woman on her back on a bed, a sheet pulled up over her crotch, her breasts shining, her hand dug between her thighs. A man with a cigarette and credit card was told to <Fuck her, just get on top and fuck her>, and the woman kicked the sheet back to her ankles.
Rem couldn’t guess her age, young, surely, without doubt, long black hair, dark eyebrows, so that she might be Middle Eastern, he could not be more specific, the camera divided her body into flat plains, light and dark.
Santo, now close, smoking, rubbing his gums, <Try this>.
Another man, Pakosta, standing over the girl, <I’ll leave you here>.
Instructions: <No, fuck her, get on top>.
Pakosta in another shot, closer now, seen from the back, labouring, flopped forward, slow then active, naked on top of the girl. A leg in the way, interrupting. Then on her side with two men, Clark and Santo, the woman propped between them, their skin shining, making one animal out of the three.
<You up her ass? Fuck her, fuck her, she doesn’t care>.
Pakosta walking into the room, undressing and thrusting his hips as an example. <I’ll have some of that>.
A soft downlight now, a different shot a different camera, infinitely more detailed. Pakosta, bleary-eyed, face messed with powder, opening perfumes and smelling them, pouring out the contents. The woman spread-eagled on the bed. Then Clark thrusting over her head.
Pakosta laughing: <You’re gonna choke her>.
Santo again, aggressive with the woman, working on top, turning her over, hands gripping her breasts, pinching hard, and no reaction from the girl. In this shot it is clear that she is young, clear also that she is not aware of her surroundings.
<Thank you, thank you>.
<That was inspired>.
* * *
Santo rang about an hour after Rem had watched the footage. ‘Who was she?’
‘This isn’t about the girl.’
‘She was, what? Fifteen? Fourteen, fifteen?’
‘She was working at the hotel. What does it matter? Howell paid for her. You have no idea, and when we came back it was like nothing happened. You didn’t want to know. I don’t think you even asked.’
‘This has nothing to do with me. This is you, Pakosta, Clark, and Howell, and whoever that girl was. It has nothing to do with me.’
‘See. The thing is. That wasn’t the problem. The problem is that Howell had us. He took that footage for pleasure, and he wanted more, and he would have kept it going for as long as he wanted. He owned us once he had that material. He made that happen. The day after we returned he sent us emails with these attached.’
Santo wanted to know what Rem had done with the DVD.
‘We were toys,’ Santo said, his voice unnaturally flat. ‘You get that? Howell. Sutler. Geezler. We were the entertainment.’
* * *
When the news came that Howell had died of his injuries, Santo called Rem. ‘That’s everyone except Geezler.’
‘You’re forgetting Sutler?’
‘You think he survived? They just haven’t found him yet.’
APRIL
Rem played games with the landlord’s dog, a small wire-haired terrier, to distract himself while he waited for Santo. When Rem blinked, the animal blinked, or it blinked then he blinked — impossible to tell. The woman held the dog to her bosom and cleaned the animal’s eyes then her own using the same tissue, only slightly less hygienic than when she kissed it on the mouth.
He searched for jobs in the paper, found a couple, none too promising, and wondered what time Santo would show. Blinked at the dog, and the dog blinked back. Chimeno’s death, still recent, gave a perspective to the upcoming hearings.
* * *
The car, a Lincoln, sat low on the back axle. Santo leaned against the driver’s door and appeared to be making a call — and sure enough, Rem’s cellphone began to ring. When Santo looked up Rem guessed he could be seen, framed by the window.
‘What’s up with the car?’ Rem asked.
Santo held up a hand in a static wave. ‘Heavy load.’
As Rem came out of the apartments to the adjoining lot, Santo walked about the car and unlocked the boot. The lot, filled with oil patches, stumpy grasses, pea gravel, and building blocks, in-filling for a building long removed, was overshadowed by the brick side of Rem’s building, blind except for one vertical strip of windows.