Guardian of Lies

by Steve Martini

“So? I am worth it, no?”

  He glanced at her, not exactly angry, but with paternal charm.

  Katia gave him one of those mischievous, dimpled smiles. She was playing it to the hilt tonight.

  Inside, Emerson was sure she was laughing at him. She had used the same line and twinkle in her eyes two days earlier when watching a movie in the media room as she removed polish from her toenails along with the finish from an eight-thousand-dollar ebony-lacquered antique table. Katia could be endearing when she wanted to be, and a hundred-pound wrecking ball when she didn’t.

  “I can’t remember, did you call home today?” he asked.

  “Yes, I called home today.” She mocked him in a singsong tone. “You already asked me. I told you, yes.”

  “Senior moment,” he told her.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Emerson was engrossed in the photographs spread out in front of him on the desk.

  “Why do you care whether I call home every day? Es not important. They don’t expect me to call.”

  “I thought maybe your mother might worry.”

  Her expression was something between irritation and suspicion. “I don’t have to check in with my mother. I’m an adult. What is this thing with you about my mother anyway? You keep asking me where she is, when she is going back home to Costa Rica. Maybe you should live with her.”

  “Now there’s an idea,” said Emerson. “Is she as pretty as you?”

  Katia ignored the question.

  “I just don’t want her to worry about you, that’s all.”

  “Nobody’s going to worry. And besides, I told you, my mother’s not there.”

  “So you did. That means she’s still down in Colombia?” This was what Emerson wanted to know.

  “I don’t know. I guess so.”

  “That’s where you said she was.”

  “So?”

  “So you don’t care where your mother is? That’s not very nice.” Emerson was trying to appear casual, drawing her out as he studied one of the photographs through a magnifying glass.

  To Katia, the constant questions about her mother, and Emerson’s obsession with the photographs, were becoming a major annoyance.

  At first she’d been excited to come to the United States. Getting a visa to the U.S. usually took months, that is, if you could get one at all, but not for Emerson. He invited her to visit his house in San Diego on a Monday. Tuesday, he filled out some papers and had her sign them. By Thursday, he had gone to the U.S. embassy in San José and returned with the visa. To Katia, anyone who could do this could probably spin gold from straw. If he had those kinds of connections, perhaps he could help her get into an American college or university.

  Her only initial concern was that her name on the visa was not complete. Pike had filled out the application in the American style, first and last names only. He had omitted her mother’s paternal name. Katia was concerned that because the visa did not conform precisely to the name on her passport, it might be a problem. But it wasn’t.

  Thinking back now, she should have been much more worried about other things. Coming here with him was a mistake.

  She watched him as he sat behind his desk looking like a miser counting his money. There were coins spread across the desktop, some in clear plastic envelopes, others lying naked, the yellow gold glinting under the light of the lamp. Emerson had a meeting in the morning with an investor. He was supposed to be assembling a selection of coins to show the man. Instead he was looking at the pictures again, this time with a magnifying glass.

  The pictures did not belong to him. They belonged to her, or, more correctly, to her mother, who had borrowed Katia’s camera for one of her recent trips to Colombia. The photographs showed her mother’s relatives or friends, Katia wasn’t exactly sure. They were people Katia had never met. She had long realized, since childhood, that her mother had some family skeletons in the Colombian closet, people she never talked about but visited on occasion. When Katia met Emerson her mother had been in Colombia again. The pictures had been left on the camera’s digital chip. Emerson had asked Katia about her family and where her mother was, in innocent conversation, or so she thought. She saw no harm in showing him the pictures.

  She never realized that the family skeletons might be more serious until Emerson printed the photos and started obsessing about them, asking her questions and constantly pushing for details. He knew something she did not.

  “You look tired. You should go to bed,” she said.

  He was yawning at the desk every few minutes now.

  “I have work to finish.”

  “You could do it in the morning.” She lay out, nearly horizontal in the grip of the drapes wrapped around her body, and bounced a little, testing the elasticity of the cashmere and the strength of the rod. This little act, ŕ la Cirque du Soleil, was intended to annoy Emerson and catch his attention, getting him to think about things other than work.

  It didn’t. He ignored her, his focus directed through the magnifying glass at the photographs.

  She fumed. Her mind began to work. They had been living together now for nearly three months, first in Costa Rica and now here. Each night they slept together in the same bed, but he never touched her. By the end of the first week in the States, she began to suspect that the only reason she was in the same room with him at night was so he could watch her. The old man was a light sleeper. Every time she stirred or went to the bathroom, she noticed he was instantly awake.

  There were also other little things she noticed. Whenever they were out in public and he saw police in a car or walking, it seemed that he would always steer Katia in the other direction. She wasn’t sure about this. So she tested him. In the mall one afternoon, she saw two cops patrolling on foot. She decided to approach them for directions to a shop in the mall. Before she had gone three steps, Emerson had grabbed her by the arm with such force that it left pressure marks on her skin.

  Then ten days ago something had happened that told her she must leave—and soon. Periodically Emerson gave her money to send home to deposit for the support of her mother. Katia had left her part-time job when she came to the States. It was a kind of unstated understanding when they left Costa Rica. They would send it by Western Union online to a friend of Katia’s in San José who would deposit it for her in Katia’s bank account. Emerson would use one of his credit cards for the transaction.

  But though cash went south, Emerson never gave Katia money to spend while she was here. The most she ever had in her purse was twenty dollars, this in case of an emergency or to buy incidentals. Emerson knew she didn’t have a local bank account or a credit card, so he had to know she had no money. Perhaps he didn’t think she needed much cash; after all, they were always together.

  Emerson had bought her some jewelry and without telling him, Katia had sold it. She did her best to conceal this from him. She had pawned it downtown while he was seeing a client. He always left her to sit in the car or go window-shopping by herself for an hour. But she used the time to pawn the jewelry. A couple of days later Pike saw the pawn tickets in her purse.

  At first she was afraid he would be furious. But he wasn’t. He didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, it was almost as if he’d expected it.

  It was what happened next that unnerved her. He took the cash she had gotten from the pawnshop. Then he allowed her to send an equal amount by Western Union on his credit card to her family back home. She was, of course, grateful, but extremely puzzled. Why wasn’t he angry? He certainly didn’t need the cash. He would always spend lavishly on her whenever they went shopping, in some cases paying thousands of dollars in an afternoon. She had netted just a little over six hundred dollars for the jewelry. So why had he taken it away from her?

  The more she thought about this the more uneasy she became. The only reason she could think of was that Emerson thought she might use the money to run, to fly back to Costa Rica. It planted the seed, the gnawing notion that grew and now blossomed, fully
formed, in her mind. She did not dare raise it with him, not directly, for fear of what he might do. At the moment she had the run of the house. He would take her to town whenever he went. He allowed her to call home. In fact, he insisted on it. If she confronted him, all of that might end. Her growing suspicion could suddenly become fact, that she was no longer Emerson’s guest, if she ever had been. For all intents and purposes she was now a captive. Katia had heard stories of young women who traveled to Asia and the Middle East with wealthy men, women whose families never heard from them again. It happened. She knew it.

  After Emerson took the money from her, that night she gathered her passport and visa, and put them in a small overnight bag with some clothes and other personal items. She hid the bag under the bed in one of the guest rooms just down the hall from the master bedroom. This way, if he searched her luggage, he wouldn’t find the travel documents. Without these she knew she could never get home.

  “You’re awfully quiet tonight. What’s going on behind those beautiful eyes?”

  His question startled her. Perhaps he could read her mind. “Nothing,” she said. “I’m just relaxing.”

  “I know you’re bored. Sometimes I’m not a very good host. Tomorrow I’ll make it up to you.” He yawned again. “Excuse me. I don’t know what’s going on with me tonight. Tomorrow we’ll go somewhere, have some fun. After my meeting in the morning.”

  “If you like.” For a man his age Katia marveled at his stamina. On the other hand, he’d had two cups of black coffee. She had been hoping that by now he would be headed to bed. She pulled herself back up and adjusted the bodice of the black evening dress.

  As she did this, Emerson’s sleepy fingers slid one of the photographs from the stack in front of him under a magazine on his desk.

  Katia didn’t notice.

  “Why don’t you watch one of your movies?” he asked.

  “I’m tired of movies.”

  “Then try on some of your new clothes. Let me see what they look like on you.”

  “It sounds like you want to get rid of me? Maybe it is you who is bored—with me.”

  He looked at her from under sleepy lids. “How can you say that? Come over here and keep me company.” He rolled the chair away from the desk and patted his lap.

  Emerson could always turn on the charm. Now it seemed he used it less and less, as if it was no longer required and he wanted to conserve the energy that it consumed. As Katia had come to know him better, it seemed that Emerson was calculating in almost everything he did.

  His gray hair was still full, thick and wavy. To look at him you would never guess he was seventy-two. The first time he’d told her his age she wouldn’t believe him, not until he showed her his driver’s license. His body was lean, and for a man his age he was powerfully built, and just under six feet in height. He exercised each morning for an hour on the elliptical machine and with the weights downstairs. He had pale blue eyes, a ruddy complexion, and thin lips, and he wore a kind of wry, wary expression, like a Kabuki mask.

  To Katia, ever since arriving in the States he seemed to operate increasingly from behind this, as if there were small demons racing around inside pulling levers and turning wheels.

  If he expected her to run across the room and fly into his lap, he was sorely mistaken.

  She sauntered toward the desk. Her short evening dress clung to the curves of her body. Her five-inch heels clicked like slow castanets across the hardwood floor. She dropped into one of the upholstered wingback chairs across from him, and sat there all dark eyed and leggy, staring at him.

  Emerson rolled his chair back toward the desk. He knew the only thing that would pull her out of this mood was another full-court press on one of his credit cards. It was beginning to drive him crazy.

  “Why are you looking at the pictures again?” she asked.

  “Just curious.”

  “About what?”

  “I’m interested in your family.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you, and I want to know everything there is to know about you.” He almost said it with conviction.

  “Uh-huh. You keep looking at the pictures and wanting to know who the people are. You ask me about my mother and her family. How she came from Cuba and what she’s doing in Colombia. You have a lot of questions for someone who is just curious,” said Katia.

  “If it bothers you, I’ll stop.”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes I begin to think that maybe the way we met was no accident.”

  “What are you saying?”

  She thought about it quickly and decided this was not wise.

  “It’s just that I don’t understand. What are you looking for in the pictures?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “You’re looking for nothing? Then you’re wasting a lot of time. If you tell me what you’re looking for, maybe I can help you.”

  She fixed him with her piercing dark brown eyes.

  “You said you didn’t know any of the people in the photographs,” he said.

  “That’s true.”

  “It’s not important. There’s no reason for us to argue about it.”

  He’d believed her when she told him she knew none of the people in the photographs, or where the pictures had been taken. According to Katia she had never been to Colombia. This seemed strange since her mother claimed to have relatives there and she visited them at least once a year. But she never took her daughter, nor, according to Katia, did she take any of the rest of her family from Costa Rica. Why? Emerson thought he knew the reason. It was in the pictures.

  “Tell me the truth. You are looking for something or someone in those photographs. Tell me what it is? Maybe if you tell me, it will make sense to me. And then maybe I can help you.” Katia was determined to find out what it was. Increasingly she felt that Emerson was a threat, to her, and perhaps to her family.

  “I told you. I’m just curious.”

  “Yes, because you love me. You want to know everything about my family. I know, you told me.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s okay, don’t worry about it. Listen, why don’t we go watch a movie in the video room?”

  “I don’t want to watch a movie.” She sat there in a slow burn. “I want to know why you’re always looking at those pictures. And don’t change the subject.”

  “I told you the reason. Tell you what. Why don’t I put the photographs away if it upsets you? I won’t look at them anymore. The pictures are none of my business. I’m sorry I ever looked at them. If it upsets you, then I will not look at them again.”

  What was he hiding?

  “You’re right. It’s none of your business,” she told him. The Latin temper was starting to kick in. Emerson could feel the heat rising in the room.

  “You looked in my camera.” It was a sore point with Katia because Pike had taken it and uploaded the pictures without asking her. Then, by mistake, he’d put the camera someplace where she couldn’t find it when they left for the States.

  “I never told you you could go through my stuff and mess with my camera.”

  “I bought you a new camera when we got here, didn’t I?”

  “Yes. But you had no business going through my things without asking me.”

  “I was trying to surprise you,” said Emerson. This has been the line since she caught him with the pictures in his computer. That he was planning on surprising her with glossy pictures of her family members as a gift.

  Katia wasn’t buying it. True, her mother took the pictures and there were supposed to be some family members in them, but Katia didn’t know a single one of them. She had never been to Colombia, and she told Emerson that. These people meant nothing to her and he knew it. “You had them printed out without even asking.” The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. He was nosing around her family. He may have been sending them money, but he was still an outsider.

  “Don’t get angry, Katia.”

  “And don’t te
ll me what to do. Those are not your photographs. They belong to my mother. You had no right to take them.”

  “Fine, here. They’re yours. Take them.” Emerson leaned back in his chair, both hands up as if to surrender.

  Katia didn’t hesitate. She scooped the photos up and turned her back as she assembled them.

  Pike didn’t care. If retrieving the glossy printouts kept her quiet, fine. As long as she didn’t tell him to erase the downloaded photo files from his laptop, what difference did it make? And by now there were digital copies in several places. Pike’s laptop was configured for global travel. Once connected to the Internet, his home e-mail opened from anywhere in the world. Before they had even flown north, Pike had forwarded the digital images from Katia’s camera to a laboratory in Virginia for enhancement and analysis. If all went well, the results should be back any day.

  The only picture Katia didn’t get when she grabbed them from the desk was the one Emerson had slid under the magazine. This was a shot he had enlarged and cropped to better see something in the background. He thought he knew what it was, but he wasn’t sure. He tried to enhance it using consumer software. He could make out only a few details—lines and part of a circle. But because of the angle at which the original picture was taken it was impossible to make out anything else. None of the lettering or dimensions on the diagram in the photo could even be seen, much less read. But Emerson had a hunch as to what it was, and who the old man was too. They were the reason he kept going back to the photos.

  Katia stood with her back to him, on the other side of the desk. He could tell by the way she stood, stiff, that she was still riding a wave of anger.

  Unless he could patch this up, she would not be sleeping with him tonight. This would raise logistical problems: how to keep an eye on her without locking her up so she wouldn’t rabbit. Once the lab report on the photos came back, if what he suspected was true, she would be someone else’s problem. But until then, he wanted to keep her close. She was part of the genetic chain, and blood is thicker than water.

  He waited a few seconds, then got up out of the chair and walked slowly around the desk until he stood behind her. He put his hand on her shoulder. Katia jerked and pulled away.