by Dale Mayer
She winced. Not exactly a good start. She studied his features and realized he, indeed, was the man in the photo. Although he might be a good fifteen to twenty years older. She pulled out a photo and introduced herself. “This came into my possession. I didn’t know if it was important for you to have back.”
He looked at the photo. His eyes widened, and a red wash of anger ripped up his features as he spat out Spanish in a deeply ugly tone.
Kanen stepped forward and held up his hand. “Stop.”
The old man stared at him, almost vibrating with rage.
In a calm voice, Kanen said, “She had nothing to do with it. She’s not part of the blackmail. Her husband, who is now dead, had a bag of these photos he was asked to keep for somebody. She wanted to return it to you. There are four more. She’s happy to destroy them. But she didn’t know if you wanted to know where the originals were.”
As Kanen spoke, she watched the old man’s features. Slowly they calmed as he realized they weren’t here to extort money from him.
He took the photo from her hand. And then raised his eyes to Kanen’s face. “There are more?”
She pulled out the envelope and handed it to him. “Five in all.”
He took them from her fingers and shuffled through them, his shoulders sagging. “You had nothing to do with these?”
She shook her head. “No. The first I saw of them was earlier today.”
He frowned and tapped the photos. “I paid a lot of money to get these.”
“And you didn’t get them?”
He shook his head. “I’d hoped to but no. And then I thought maybe they didn’t exist and how I had paid for nothing,” he admitted. “Now you show up with them decades later, and you’re not looking for money?” Doubt filled his gaze as it went from one to the other, including the two men standing behind Kanen and Laysa.
She smiled up at him. “No. But, if these were photos of me, and I was being blackmailed, I would want the original photos back, even though digital copies or the photographic film from an older camera may still be available.”
He nodded. “If there are digital copies, or the roll of film itself exists, then I still have to worry, don’t I?”
“We don’t know that there are digital copies or any film,” Kanen interrupted. “We think the blackmailer, or somebody involved in the affair, held the originals as leverage against somebody. Maybe multiple somebodies, people like you. But, for some reason, he has now come back after the originals.”
The old man thought about it, but he certainly wasn’t slow. “The only reason he would need them is if he had no other copies and needed these originals.” He nodded and pushed open the door. “I am Carlos. You may come in,” he announced. He led them past a small parlor-type room and back farther to a large family kitchen that opened up to a small garden in the back.
He sat down on a bench in the backyard. “She’s my wife, you know. At least she was after those photos were taken.”
He looked at the photo, his fingers gently caressing the woman’s features. “At this time she was married to someone else, but her husband passed away after being ill for a very long time. I was a politician, so, once he passed, we waited a decent amount of time, then married. But, since I was an upcoming politician, just before I was being voted in as a member of the parliament, these photos were sent to me, with a note saying they would be on the front page of every newspaper if I didn’t pay. At the time it would have been terribly damaging to my career,” he confessed. “She was fairly well-known, as was her husband, and very well-respected. Our images would have been forever tarnished.”
“I’m sorry,” Laysa said. “People are opportunists. And they will try to ruin our life sometimes, but we don’t always have to let that happen.”
He studied her face. “How did you get involved?”
She sat on the bench beside him and explained again how her husband had accepted something from a man who asked him to keep it, and her husband had died almost a year ago. When she came home to her apartment yesterday, she had been held captive for many hours. The stranger tried to find out where the bag was, and he beat her.
Carlos looked terrified at the concept of her being beaten, stared longer at the bruise on her jawline. He kept patting her knee, trying to console her.
She realized she had tears in the corner of her eyes. She sniffed them back and smiled brightly. “It’s okay. Kanen came to help. And he brought his friends. It didn’t take long for them to find the photos. But we didn’t know what they meant. Or what we were supposed to do with them. If these photos could be returned to their rightful owners, maybe they could have some peace of mind after all this time, and that’s what I want to happen the most.”
“You have a big heart,” Carlos said with a smile. “Anja would have liked that.” His gaze dropped to the photos in his gnarled fingers, still working over the surface. “She died five years ago, and a light went out of my world. The older I get, the more I realize the important things in life—whether you live five, ten or one hundred years—are really the relationships you make and keep throughout that life.”
She studied his well-worn features, struck by the wisdom of his words. “I agree,” she said softly, “because that’s exactly what I feel now. Although I lost my husband, I’m so grateful I had the time I did with him.”
He held up the photo for her. “You can’t stop looking for another relationship,” he announced. “Because, my Anja, she loved her first husband. Loved him very, very much. And though she was with me at the end of her time with him, it wasn’t because she wanted to be disloyal. It was because she wanted somebody to care, somebody who would hold her, who would let her know it would be okay, even as she had to return to the dying man she loved. But it was a burden for her that she had nobody to share with. I was her friend. I became her confidant, her supporter and then finally her lover. We knew it was wrong, but we couldn’t help ourselves from taking these stolen moments. Moments to help us return to the separate worlds we lived in.
“After her Andre died, I couldn’t convince her to marry me. She was so sure we had done something terribly wrong. It wasn’t wrong,” he said with strength, “but it took a long time to convince her. Finally I did, and together we honored Andre’s life by being happy, by reliving the memories of him, by holding him in honor, by speaking about him, by keeping his legacy alive. We did many good things for the community in his name—set up scholarships, set up grants and programs. We did everything for him because it made us happy. He couldn’t be here with her, but I’d like to think he was smiling from above, giving me permission to make her happy because he wasn’t here to do so himself.”
She was touched by that. “And I’m sure he did smile, that he would be happy to look down and to realize it was important for her to carry on and to have a good life too,” she said with a smile.
The old man turned to look at her. “That goes for you as well. You cannot stay alone. You are young. You have your whole life ahead of you.”
She chuckled. “I don’t intend to stay alone. I was very upset, depressed, and I grieved for a long time.” She smiled again. “But it’s recently been brought to my attention that the time of mourning has come to an end. And it’s time for me to face forward and not backward. I can carry the memory of Blake inside, but I can’t carry his ghost anymore.”
The old man nodded in understanding. “Good. You need to let it go.” He held up the photos in his hand and said, “Even though these photos cost me a lot of pain and anger—and a lot of sleepless nights where I wondered what happened to them—I’m very grateful to have them now because they are of an Anja who I knew at the very beginning of our life together. And that Anja was a very, very special woman.”
“I’m sorry they are so voyeuristic,” Laysa said quietly. “Everybody should be entitled to privacy.”
He smiled. “Anja would say that’s very true. But she was never ashamed of her body or the joy that being together could bring. So, al
though she would be ashamed to have unknown people viewing these photos, and I can’t imagine how many may have seen them over the years,” he said sadly, “she would probably look at the photos, wince and then say, ‘Carlos, I look good, don’t I?’”
His words made Laysa laugh. “That is a great attitude,” she said and stood. “We didn’t want to disturb you. Thank you very much for giving us a few moments. We just wanted to let you know the photos are now yours. We don’t believe any other physical copies are left, but we can never be sure.”
Carlos waved a hand, as if dismissing the idea. “It is not an issue. I am old enough now that any pictures like these are just memories of a time when I was a younger, more virile man, with a woman I loved very much. They don’t make me ashamed. They bring smiles to my face with the memories and maybe a little resentment that I have grown old and lost the one I love.” Then he chuckled. “I will not pay blackmail again. It is a loser’s game. And there’s never any peace of mind, even once the payment is met.”
Kanen nodded. “That’s a very good lesson for everybody to learn. But we all have different reasons for paying off a blackmailer. It might very well have been because you didn’t want anything to disturb your rise in politics.” His voice was low but deep with understanding. “But I suspect it had nothing to do with that.”
The old man turned to look at Kanen, his eyebrows lifting. “What is it you think I did it for?” he asked in challenge.
Kanen studied him and then smiled. “You did it to avoid embarrassing and humiliating and shaming the woman you loved. You would never have paid the blackmail against you alone, except for the pain it would have caused somebody else.”
The old man smiled. “That is very true. I would have done anything to preserve Anja’s peace of mind. I would never have wanted to humiliate or to shame her. I would never have wanted to shame her husband. They were good people, both of them. That they are now together in heaven is something that brings me peace.”
Laysa held out her hand to shake his. “Thank you for seeing us. It makes me feel so much better. We came all the way from England just to hand these to you. But, more than that, I wanted to meet you. I wanted to give you that little peace of mind. Yet you didn’t have to see us, and the anger you showed us in the beginning is what we had expected. But I’m really glad to know a much kinder man is on the inside.” With that she turned and walked toward the front door, the men still gathered around Carlos.
He called out to her, “Wait. Don’t you want to know anything about the blackmail payments?”
She stopped and gave a little gasp, noting the men had not moved. “I completely forgot.” She rushed back to Carlos’s side. “Do you know who blackmailed you? Was there any way to identify him?”
“Yes,” he said. “It was an old colleague of mine. I used to meet him in the coffee shop and make the payments.”
“So you know who he is?” Laysa asked.
He nodded. “I tried to kill him at the time. But, of course, that was much too much melodrama.”
“Can you give us any information on him?”
The old man got up and walked into the kitchen, then over to a small desk. There he opened the top drawer and pulled out several photos. He handed them one picture, with him and another man. “This is him. I paid him cash for a year, and then I told him no more. He seemed to accept it, shrugged and said it was good for a while.” And then Carlos stopped speaking.
“This man is too old to be the one who held me captive,” Laysa said. “I don’t understand …” She turned to look at Kanen. “How does any of this go together?”
He took the photo from her and studied it intently before handing it to Taylor and Nelson. “I don’t know,” he said, “but I can tell you one thing. It will connect. That’s how this evil works. Somewhere it will make sense.”
She looked at the other photos the old man had in his hands. “Who is in those photos?”
He sighed. “I had images of him, wanting to do something to destroy him, as he had threatened to destroy me. I could never go through with it. Joseph Carmel was his name. He had a wife who knew nothing of what he was doing, and he had a son who I knew would be forever harmed by the knowledge of his father being a criminal. So I did nothing. We had an uneasy truce for a long time. I think he knew, if he asked me for more money, I would do something serious to end his extortion. There is an art to understanding your prey, and I think he realized he’d reached my limits.”
“Why do we have five photos of you? Did you get any from Carmel at the beginning?”
The old man nodded. “He gave me two. Both were worse than this.” His voice went a little faint. “I think that’s why it made me so mad, to think he was staring at my beautiful Anja without her permission, without any of us knowing. It was so wrong. And so very invasive.”
“Did the blackmail last long?”
“No, no, no,” he said, shaking his head. “After I said, No more, I just shut him down. We had an uneasy working relationship for another few months, and then he disappeared for years. Ironically he lives close by now, but I don’t have anything to do with him.” He slowly shook his head from side to side. “I haven’t forgiven him for what he did, but I have moved on, just wanting to forget it all happened.”
“I think that’s what we all want,” Laysa said starkly. “I want that man who beat me to disappear, so I never see him again.”
“Is it possible Laysa’s assailant is the blackmailer’s son?” Taylor asked. “It would most logically be somebody who had access to the photos.”
She looked to the old man. “Joseph Carmel, how old is he now?”
“Same age as me. Ninety-one.”
“And Joseph’s son. Do you know what his name was?”
He held up one of the photos. “This is his family. That’s his wife and his son, Murray.”
She took the photo and studied it. She looked up at Carlos. “May we take this with us?”
He nodded. “Take it. More bad memories I no longer want to have with me. Take them all. I hope you find whoever it was who did this to you. I don’t want to ever hear any more about it. So, when you leave, please don’t contact me again.”
At the door she leaned over and impulsively kissed Carlos on the cheek. “Have a good life,” she said.
He grabbed her hand as she walked away. “No,” he said gently. “It’s you who needs to make a new life for yourself. My life is old, and it’s done. But you—you have so much to live for. So remember. It’s all worth living.”
Then he stepped inside his house and closed the door while they watched.
“I think those were words to live by,” Kanen said. He nudged her toward the vehicle. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“Where?” she asked, bewildered. “Time to return to England already?”
“No. Time to walk around and to create a few memories of our own,” he said gently.
*
It occurred to Kanen that he was walking a fine line. Blake had been his best friend. They’d been so damn close, almost brothers when they were younger. That had changed somewhat when Blake and Laysa connected but not enough to shift the core of their friendship. He’d been so happy for them when they had married. Kanen had never had his eyes on her, never been jealous of either of them. Since Blake’s death, he’d done his best to be there for Laysa.
But now he also realized he might be interested in being there for her a little more—make that a lot more. And he struggled to come to terms with whether he was encroaching on Blake’s property, crossing the friendship line or reading something into his relationship with Laysa that wasn’t there anyway.
Obviously Kanen had been Blake’s friend, but now Blake was gone, and Kanen was here. He thought about Taylor’s and Nelson’s words earlier. It was quite possible Blake would be happy for Kanen and Laysa to get together. That Blake would encourage Kanen to take the extra step to be with her. But he had to get over that feeling of Laysa being his best friend’s wife and instead vi
ew her as a single woman on her own.
If he’d met any other widow or divorcée, Kanen never would have questioned it. But, because he knew the missing partner, had had a vast and deep relationship with Blake of his own, it made Kanen feel odd.
She squeezed his hand and said, “Penny?”
He chuckled. “It would take several pounds to drag it out of me.”
She dipped into her pocket and pulled out a few crumpled bills. “How about this much?”
He shook his head. “No. Honestly I was thinking about Blake.”
Startled, she looked at him. “Why? Do you think he was involved too?”
He hated to hear the suspicion in her voice, as if somehow Kanen would betray everything they had shared by believing something wrong about Blake. “No. He would never have been involved in blackmail. I have no misconceptions about who Blake was. He was a man’s man, quick to judge and very quick to laugh. He would offer you the shirt off his back, if you needed it, but he also liked to be the best at everything,” Kanen said seriously. “He had the best taste in friends and partners.”
She chuckled at that.
Kanen smiled because he, of course, had intended her to.
She nodded. “He did, indeed. And you’re right. He was quick to judge. But he was also quick to forgive. Although sometimes he didn’t like to see anybody else’s point of view, once you got him to consider it, he would admit he might not always be right.”
Kanen agreed with that too. Blake had been a lot of things. Kanen couldn’t imagine Blake was terribly easy to live with because he had been fairly opinionated. Kanen could also see that, if a buddy had needed Blake to take care of this parcel, he wouldn’t have thought anything of it. He would have stuck it in his gym locker and forgotten about it. “I guess I’m worried that his death had something to do with this,” he said seriously.
“No, no, no,” she cried out.
Taylor and Nelson looked over at him.
“We wondered when you would return to that,” Nelson commented.
Kanen nodded slowly. “I didn’t want to even contemplate it. Who does?”
