Iain M Rodgers
The Zima Confession
22. Aphrodite’s Secret
A man may not know his own mind, Richard thought, twirling the black and gold card from APHRODITE’S SECRET (Exclusive Gentleman’s Sauna) round and round in his fingers. He hadn’t planned on seeing Melanie, but he felt the events of the afternoon were worth celebrating in some way. What better way than this? Besides, it would be a perfect way to find out a bit more about Mitchell.
Finding out if the whole Mitchell thing hung together – that was the reason why he was now paying the taxi driver for the journey to the club. That was the real reason. Mitchell or Weber? Which one was for real? Mitchell was convincing. Weber had not given the proper identification code. He had mentioned “Zima” out of context. He had mentioned it as though it was an introduction, not as an operation, and he had not offered any instructions for the operation. Weber was probably some sort of imposter. If Melanie had more information, he would be able to confirm it. What he would be able to do about it was another matter.
It was hard to believe Mitchell had committed suicide. Perhaps Weber… perhaps Weber had killed or even tortured him. Richard shuddered. Perhaps that was how Weber had got hold of the codes? Would a professional killer be able to torture and kill someone and have the evidence wiped out by throwing the body under a train somehow? He didn’t know if or how that would be possible, but he knew he would need to be very careful with Weber.
As the taxi drove off, Richard speculated that perhaps he had not brought enough money. He had £500 in twenties in his pocket but he had no idea how much a girl like Melanie would cost. He had an idea that it was a lot though.
He had no particular qualms about what he was doing. It was the capitalist version of an ideal of feminism he’d grown up with. Back in the day, back in the squat in Kelvinside, feminism had been all about freedom. Relationships had been all about free love and one-night stands. But things had changed. Free love was never quite as free as it purported to be. Everyone was jealous of everyone else. Even girls like Line-up-Linda often turned out to be wilder in reputation than reality. Linda liked sex, yes, but as Richard had eventually found out, not quite in the random gung-ho gangbang way that everyone had assumed – or hoped.
This was some sort of throwback to those times. Except that, as Marx predicted, all human relationships had become financial.
Aphrodite’s Secret was in the middle of nowhere, just off the North Circular Road. More precisely, it was in the middle of an industrial estate which was quite deserted at this time of night. There was darkness all around apart from a cosy little scene in an oasis of light.
Included in the oasis of light, just to the right, was a parked Bentley with a personalised number plate. The blank grille of the Bentley’s face neither smiled nor scowled. It was inscrutable. On the left-hand side, an Aston Martin maintained a sickly expression on its visage, as though expressing disgust.
Behind and between the two sports limousines was an impressive red awning adorned with gold trim and tassels. This overhung a plush red carpet. A red carpet that melted beneath Richard’s steps as he approached the entrance. It was as though he had floated there, drawn like a moth.
Thick glass doors emblazoned with decorative gold lettering slid apart effortlessly and Richard drifted through them into the space beyond. Here, the dull thud of music throbbing from the interior quickened the pulsing of his blood. He felt almost faint with anticipation. But he had yet to get through the wrought-iron gate protecting the reception area. Beyond reception, a waterfall gurgled cheerfully down a false cliff, in the middle of which was a not-so-secret, secret door. It was all very snug and reminded Richard of a Santa’s Grotto he had the wide-eyed pleasure of visiting as a child.
A buzzing noise indicated the receptionists had released the electric lock of the wrought-iron gate for him, and he obliged them by opening it and letting himself in.
“Have you been here before?” a blonde receptionist dressed in a clinician’s white coat asked him. It was a genuine white coat that would be worn in a genuine clinic, not a cheap thing that you would wear to a fancy-dress party, and certainly not a “naughty nurse” uniform.
“No,” said Richard.
“The entrance fee is £80. Drinks are free, apart from our bottles of Moet Grand Cru, and the rest is negotiable.”
“OK.”
“What shoe size?”
“Erm. Nine.”
“OK. This is your locker key. Take this bathrobe to change into and wear these sandals after you change.”
Richard wandered to the rustic door dreamily. The dull thumping clarified itself and transformed into proper music as he opened the door. The lighting was intimately dimmed but he was able to see the immediate features of the club quite clearly. There was a wide entrance to changing rooms with lockers just to his right, and directly in front, a raised circular platform on which two stunning girls, naked except for a layer of glistening oil, cavorted within a narrow cone of light.
There were other guys in the changing rooms. Some of them belonged to stag parties and were quite drunk. None of them were alone. Suddenly he felt quite lonely. He changed, gloomily wondering if Melanie would even be here. He hoped she would be.
By now the stunning, oiled-up girls had stopped cavorting and had been replaced by a couple of equally stunning “schoolgirls”. The schoolgirls skilfully carried on the tradition of cavorting. They slunk around, each undressing the other with overacted passion and enthusiasm.
The bar was straight ahead of him, raised above floor level by three shallow steps. He headed off to see if the drinks really would be free. But achieving this goal was not as easy as he had expected. Every few steps another spectacularly sexy, scantily clad woman would approach him.
Each of them seemed eager to know his name, and where he was from. He supplied this information courteously but somewhat warily. Some of the girls thought he had nice hair, others said that he had nice eyes. Many of them were concerned that he looked sad and needed to be cheered up. He politely fended each one off. It wasn’t easy. He made a mental note of several of the girls in case he decided to change his mind, but for now he only wanted to see Melanie, and he had a reason. He could already see though, that nearly all the girls here were quite as pretty as she was and they were all dressed in just underwear or were completely naked. Naked, shaven, some with large fake boobs, some with real ones. Pale white girls, black, brown, blonde, brunette…
“Rum and coke please.” Richard had made it to the bar. From this elevated position, he looked round and surveyed the scene.
It was strange to recall that, from the outside, this building was simply a windowless industrial unit, intended for use as a warehouse or factory; a lot of effort had gone into creating a theatre in which the imagination was encouraged to reign like a decadent potentate.
The main room, in which the bar was situated, was large but partially segmented into more intimate spaces by the arrangement of snug seating areas – opulent, high-backed, curving shapes that lent themselves to being occupied by panther-like females. The openness of the room was also interrupted by tall, highly decorated pillars that pretended to support intricately baroque mouldings that swelled upwards, and swooped and dripped downwards. The restrained lighting enhanced the feeling that intimacy would be protected and private. Men, cosseted in luxurious towelling robes, laughed and joked with their new female friends; some standing, some sprawling on large couches – Roman Emperors at an orgy, surrounded by concubines and both guarded and threatened by the panther women, some prowling, some reclining.
Beyond the bar’s oval-shaped counter, visible through a wide, round archway, a loose web of shadow undulated across the walls slowly and randomly, for the light in that room originated from the sapphire depths of a small pool. In this mysterious domain a naked girl relaxed, or perhaps simply displayed her wares, by floating with her long black hair spread into inky tendrils on the water’s gently rippling surface.
That she was holding her arms out, as though crucified, further enhanced the sensation of something ethereal, something beyond even the realm of magic, being demonstrated. She was performing a miracle. Richard could see the miracle – her perfect body suspended in a column of light.
He looked around to try to see Melanie. Perhaps she isn’t here! Loneliness suddenly stabbed at his heart and seeped through him like a hollow pain. What was he getting so upset about? He was surrounded by beautiful women. Any of them could make him feel less lonely. Perhaps he would go over to the swimming pool soon, or perhaps he would go and look for one of the other girls he’d already made a mental note of. His heart was beating fast at the idea. Yes, he had decided, he would do it! But there was one final obstacle. It was the only thing stopping him now – he was spoilt for choice. He couldn’t decide which one to approach. He sipped some of his syrupy drink. It had just enough alcohol to give it an edge. There was no hurry to decide yet.
There was a kind of three-dimensional map on the apex of the bar showing the facilities. As well as the stage and the pool, there was a Turkish steam room and a Finnish sauna. You just had to go through the archway to which the apex of the bar pointed. Maybe he should take a walk there too. Not yet; soon.
A voice behind him said: “Hi, I saw you coming.”
It was Melanie! At once Richard felt less lonely.
She was completely naked apart from high heels and a pair of pink cashmere leggings which came up to her thighs. She stood on tiptoes and leaned over the bar to ask for a drink, and Richard noticed she had a tattoo of an ankh on her shoulder. The lean that she did was obviously carefully choreographed to ensure that her naked breasts thrust out over the bar while her bottom and long legs would be nicely displayed to whoever was interested, which would include most observers. Her action was not lacking in grace or charm, but Richard found it distasteful, as though he expected her to behave with more decorum when they were together.
Free love was never free, not even when you paid for it. You always felt insecure or jealous for one reason or another.
“Just an orange juice please,” she told the barwoman, who delivered the order in a tall glass with a black straw. She had a whole row of juice lined up just ready.
“Well, I’m glad to see you.”
“I bet you are!” she replied, turning to him and reaching into his gown.
Richard stopped her. She turned away again, suddenly uninterested, and sucked at the straw.
“I’d like to talk to you,” he said.
“OK. We can talk.”
“About Mitchell.”
“We can talk about Mitchell,” she said, her long lashes pointing downwards as she examined the straw carefully. “Let’s go somewhere more private though,” she suggested, looking straight at him. It was that radiant, angelic face again. When that face made suggestions, they were rarely denied.
“OK.” She took his hand and led him through the arch and along a corridor. There were numbered doors on either side of the corridor, like a hotel. At length she stopped outside one of the doors and knocked. There was no reply, so she reached up to the hook adjacent to the top of the door and took the key. She pushed the unlocked door open and locked it behind them.
The room was sumptuous in a fake way. All of the elaborately carved wooden furniture was made of moulded plastic. Heavy duty, good quality plastic. But still – plastic. There was a huge, fake Louis Quatorze bed with a fake crystal chandelier hanging over it like the sword of Damocles.
There was a nice little side table on one side of the bed with a nice little table lamp, all in fake walnut, and there was comfy fake sofa on the other side of the bed. The walls were covered by a material that resembled silk, and although there was no window behind, one wall had full-length curtains along its whole width. You could imagine that they would slide open at the press of a button to reveal a balcony overlooking the ocean. You could imagine many things in this room.
“Why did Mitchell give you his mobile?” he snapped.
“Oh, this is so boring. Why can’t we just have some fun, babe?”
“Don’t call me babe. Answer the question.”
She sat down and looked sulky. This wasn’t getting anywhere. Richard sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her crossly. They were having their first tiff. A fake one, of course.
“Listen Melanie. I’m quite happy to be a good customer of yours if you like. I have nothing better to do with my wages. But I’d like to be able to trust you.”
She perked up a bit. She didn’t reward him with the whole radiant face act, but she definitely stopped the sulky face act.
“I can tell you if you like.”
“Go on then.”
Having promised to be a good customer, Richard wondered what he’d let himself in for. He wondered how much this fakely magnificent room was costing him right now, and as for diamond necklaces and designer handbags, he had to admit he still hadn’t bothered to find out what they would cost. He hadn’t done his research. For all he knew, he might have already blown all the money he brought with him just by stepping into this room.
“Andrew was really, really nice to me. Sometimes we really were like girlfriend and boyfriend. He just told me he was in trouble and he wanted me to have his phone for safe-keeping. So I did. I didn’t expect him to kill himself the very next day.”
“I see.”
“Can’t you see that he was really in love with me?” She turned to him, her face suddenly distraught, tears falling from her beautiful eyes.
Richard didn’t doubt it. She was lovely, she was sweet, she was an emotional roller coaster. He remembered how lonely he had felt as he tried to find her just a few moments ago.
“Did you love him?”
“No, not really.”
The sincerity of her answer convinced him she might be telling the truth pretty much the whole time.
“No, I liked him a lot, and I’ll really miss him, but…” she tailed off and started crying again, holding a tasselled cushion up to her face to catch the tears.
Richard wondered if he should go and put his arm round her to comfort her, but he couldn’t do it. He would feel such a fraud, although perhaps the fake room would welcome another fake addition to its collection of fakeness.
Instead, he just waited until Melanie had stopped crying.
“Do you still have the phone?”
“Yes, of course.”
23. Designs
So now he had Mitchell’s old phone too. Of course, he had not resisted Melanie’s charms either and had to use the cash machine in the reception area to make up the full payment. It had all been worthwhile though. The phone, Melanie… the whole thing. Richard was quite pleased, though some £900 had disappeared from his bank account during the evening. Nearly a month’s rent! Paying the rent when it was due would not be easy, but he would just have to cross that bridge when he came to it.
Richard didn’t have much to occupy himself with on Saturday. He moped around his flat thinking about Melanie, wondering if he should pay her another visit.
Melanie wasn’t like those other girls in the club, the ones that had approached him with their stock questions and insincere flattery. When she looked at him, he felt she really understood. They had talked at the bar for a while before he left. They had talked properly.
It was a long time since he’d had anything like a proper relationship. In the heyday of hippiedom, even Richard had managed to find a bit of “free love” and quite a few one-night stands, but he soon realised how empty those relationships were. Over time, as attitudes changed, the one-night stands fizzled out. In fact, it was starting to get more difficult to get sex of any sort.
A possible explanation for all this was that, like so many of the beliefs he had internalised and that had formed his personality, the basis had by now been proven false. A few years ago, Richard had been shocked to read an article on the web about Margaret Meade. The anthropologist, whose works had laid the foundation for the very idea of free love, an idea which had been so eagerly taken up by the hippies, feminists and counter-culturalists of the sixties, had been the victim of a hoax. Another anthropologist, Derek Freeman, proved the young girls who had given her the information her work was based on had simply lied to her for their own amusement.
In spite of the article, and his personal failures in this regard, Richard still couldn’t shake off his belief in free love as an ideal. It seemed to him an essential part of being a leftist libertarian. The fact the only place where the ideal of free love really existed was in “sauna clubs” such as the one Melanie was a “member” of was, therefore, of little concern to him.
What was so wrong about paying? He hadn’t done so before, but he hadn’t particularly thought of doing so before. Until now he had swallowed the third-wave feminist propaganda that it was exploitative and sordid. More to the point, he hadn’t realised girls like Melanie might be available.
Where the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies had failed, the free market stood ready to provide a solution. Richard had no problem with this. He’d never got to go with Linda MacKerricher, but only because he’d been too polite or shy to try. So why, now the opportunity had arisen, should he be squeamish about paying for something, or rather someone, he really wanted?
Unfortunately, his bank account couldn’t withstand another onslaught yet. Instead, he decided to go and have a look round Selfridges to find out if he could afford to buy designer handbags as presents.
The answer, he soon found out, was – no. It turned out designer handbags were a serious consideration.
A bitter debate took place in his mind. Richard wouldn’t admit to himself the underlying reason for the debate was sour grapes. The subject of the debate was “handbags”.
Handbags… there was almost no limit to what had to be spent to buy a really good designer handbag. After a certain point, the money wasn’t going toward increasing quality. It was going toward snob value – the more you spent, the higher that value was. Why was that necessary? Because these items were bought to massage the ego, and there was no limit to how much the ego needed to be massaged, because the very shallowness of character that required a handbag to heal it made it impossible to build something more enduring and real onto that character.
In spite of winning the debate with himself, for some reason he found himself trying to calculate what he could cut back on so that he could get into the handbag-buying league, to compete with his deceased rival for Melanie’s attentions, Mitchell.
24. Watching Football
Sunday came at last. Richard knew it was his duty to go to meet Weber. He wanted to feel powerful before this meeting, so he put Siegfried’s Funeral March on full blast. After a few minutes he switched to Ride of the Valkyries but then decided the ominous music was not helping. He tried Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture but switched it off despondently and roamed round his flat starting useless tasks without completing any of them. He didn’t want to see Weber again. Right up until the last moment, he kept delaying, hoping to think of a reason for not going. But in the end, there was no reason, no excuse.
It was obvious to Richard that Weber was just trying to get information from him. Weber had not used any of the “wake up” phrases Mitchell had. Weber must be somebody dangerous. Yet here he was preparing to go to the park to talk to him. The problem was that, the more dangerous Weber might be, the more necessary it was to keep him away from his flat and, for Christ’s sake, not mention Mitchell to him! He had to play along. He had to go to the park.
The park was only a few blocks away. Weber could wait for him if he wanted to meet. Sure enough, Weber was there already when Richard turned up five minutes late.
“I suggest we walk towards the playing fields. There should be fewer people there,” said Weber.
Richard nodded solemnly. Why not? he asked himself. The thought then crossed his mind as to why not. Well, anyway, it was still a totally public place. He could run, cry out. He would not be in any real danger.
The noise and oppression of Baker Street faded away as they made their way past the pond and into the interior of the park. In the park, everyone was happy and carefree. Liberated.
Weber wanted to talk about holidays as they made their way to their imprecisely specified destination. Richard supplied a few unwilling replies to his questions. He was able to assure Weber he had a nice holiday in Croatia that year and was most impressed by the Dalmatian coast. Dubrovnik had been wonderful. Klaus, for his part, highly recommended Vancouver. It was his first visit to Canada, but he had already promised himself to go again.
The sound of distant shouting became louder as they approached the football pitches. Teamwork is not a stealthy activity. It requires the participants to shout instructions at each other and there were at least ten games taking place, including one on a pitch just a few yards from the bench Klaus was heading for.
“So, here are the playing fields at last. Let’s sit.” Weber took a small hip-flask from an inside pocket of his coat. He unscrewed the little cups from the top and set them down on the ground in a series of precise movements.
“Cognac?”
“Not for me, Weber.”
“Call me Klaus. You don’t trust me, do you?”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
“If I could believe that, it would at least be of some comfort to me. My fear is that you are more trusting than you imagine.”
“What the fuck are we doing here, Weber? Scouting for a new striker?”
“‘Klaus.’ We’re being discreet. We have things to discuss. One thing, anyway.”
“And what’s that?”
“Зима.”
“Zima?” Weber suddenly seemed weary, as though the effort of answering was draining all his strength.
“You are supposed to know what it means. If you don’t know, I can’t help you and we have both been wasting our time. Not just the last ten minutes. Not the time that we’ve wasted since I rang the bell of your flat. Years of our time.”
Richard considered this. It might be true, but for the fact there was already a Zima contact. The original contact, and best, had already provided him with actual instructions. Furthermore, this new guy had not followed the correct protocol.
“OK, Mr Slater. I think I see your dilemma. You don’t know who I am. You are prejudiced against me. I need to help you overcome this, and since I am sure of who you are, I can lay my cards on the table.”
“Go on.”
“This photograph shows you with Stuart Douglas and Eddie MacFarlane.”
“Yes. You showed me that already. By the way, how did you get…”
“Eddie was convicted of a terrorist act in 1994.”
“I lost touch with Eddie years ago – late seventies.”
“Very good Mr Slater, very good indeed.”
“It’s true.” “I can tell you more about Eddie’s conviction if you wish.”
“Why not?”
“Yes, why not? Eddie tried to petrol-bomb the HQ of Lloyds Bank.”
“Really? A petrol bomb would do nothing of significance to Lloyds.”
“He was taking part in a demonstration objecting to Shell Oil’s activities in Nigeria. They were targeting the bank’s AGM. Some demonstrators bought shares to gain access to the AGM itself. The rest of them wanted to make a more public protest outside the HQ.”
“You said they were demonstrating against Shell Oil. What the fuck were they doing at Lloyds Bank?”
“Silly me, I should’ve explained. Lloyds was Shell’s bank.”
“Oh. I see.” Richard knew this was quite a common tactic. Activists tried to isolate companies by targeting their suppliers, banks etc.
“Anyway, the fact is that Eddie threw petrol bombs at the door of Lloyds’ HQ.”
“It was just a gesture, I imagine. A futile gesture.”
“Exactly. It was exactly that, a futile gesture. A misjudgement. Other demonstrators threw paint bombs. They were charged with vandalism. They understood the purpose of the demo was publicity, not revolution. Eddie got ten years, later reduced to seven, for terrorism.”
“Poor fucker.”
“So you sympathise with him?”
“Oh, have I fallen into your trap?”
“Don’t worry. It’s a free country. You can sympathise with whoever you like.”
“Just so long as you never do anything, eh?”
“Let me get back to the main point though. The photograph shows you with Stuart and Eddie for a good reason.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Yes it was, but the reason lives on, as you know.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t help you with your plan… Klaus.”
“Zima is your plan. It is you who needs help, and I who am offering it – as you know.”
“What help do you think I need?”
“Tell me what help you want and I can arrange it.”
Weber’s words were icy. But Richard was determined not to be intimidated. That question confirmed that Weber was just fishing for information. He had no idea about Zima.
They sat in silence.
An argument had broken out on the nearest pitch. There was a lot of extravagant gesticulating and shouting between several of the players. Then someone took the initiative of simply taking the free kick, and the players who had been doing the theatrics had to quickly drop their posturing and resume the game.
“I should get back home, things to do.”
“Mr Slater, I don’t wish to embarrass you with reminders of youthful idealism, but we both know that this was once very important to you.”
“Once.”
“…and we both know that it still is important.”
“If you say so.”
“Take my card. Call me when you are ready. One last thing Richard – if you are in any doubt about what to do, make sure you do nothing.”
But as Richard wandered off, without bothering to watch Weber retrieve the two cups with the same precision as he had placed them on the ground, he was already planning to burst into action like a jack-in-the-box.