The Illegal (11 page)

“What the—?” The doorknob turned and caught against the lock. “Who’re you?” Yvette hissed.

“John Falconer,” he said.

“Stay there or you’re dead.”

Yvette closed the closet, and John felt the humiliating wetness of urine in his pants. He tried to control his breathing. Could anyone hear his heart pounding? Surely not. The door handle rattled. Then there was a hard knock, and Yvette ran to open the door.

“What the hell is going on?” Wellington said. “The damn door was locked.”

“Sorry. It sticks sometimes. That’s all.”

“Did I hear a voice?”

“Phone call.”

“I thought cellphones weren’t allowed up here.”

“Please don’t tell Lula,” Yvette said. “I’ll make it up to you. I can please you in ways you can only imagine,” she said.

She was so tiny. It sickened John to imagine that girl under the weight of the prime minister.

“Where is your phone?” he asked.

“In the bathroom,” she said.

“Leave it there,” he said. “I don’t stand for interruptions.”

“You were interested in my blouse,” she said. “See how soft it is?” She came closer to him; she had to reach way up to let her fingers slide up and down his shoulders.

Wellington slipped his hand inside her shirt. The way they were standing, John could not see the prime minister touching her, and he was relieved about that. It was bad enough to see the way his hand was moving and know what he was touching.

Yvette reached for Wellington’s zipper. “Oh, you’re a powerful man,” she murmured.

Wellington guided Yvette back toward the bed. Then he bent over to lift his briefcase out of the way. But the briefcase fell open.

“Why is my briefcase open? I closed the latch before I left the room.”

On the manila file, the prime minister’s name was displayed prominently.

“Were you going through my things?” he said.

“No.”

Wellington bent down to gather up the scattered papers. “You nosy whore. You went through my goddamn files.” He stood and grabbed her arm. She let out a little cry. “Hurts, doesn’t it? What did you see?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar. I think you did see something. I think you read my memo.”

“No. No, sir. I—”

Wellington struck Yvette, and her head snapped back. She stumbled away, then steadied herself and pressed her hand against her mouth.

John wished he didn’t have to watch. But he had no choice.

The prime minister reached for her again and eased her gently against him. Yvette put her head against his chest. Then he grabbed her hair in his huge fist and tilted her head so she was staring up into his eyes.

“You went through my things. That’s a violation of privacy.” He brought his free hand to her throat.

Yvette lifted her hands to Wellington’s and tried to release his grip. John wanted to leap out of the box, to save her. But instead he crouched lower. Help her, he thought. Somebody has to help her. Yvette kicked against the bed frame. The moment Wellington’s hands came off her throat, she screamed.

The door opened, and Lula DiStefano burst in.

“No one hurts my girls.”

Wellington let go of Yvette, and she fell to her knees, gasping for air. “This bitch went through my things.”

Lula looked at the girl. “Yvette, did you touch this man’s belongings?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Why?” he said.

“I was curious.”

“You’re not paid to be curious,” Lula said. “I’ll deal with you later.”
Then she turned back to the prime minister and said, “I have to ask you to leave. You’ll be refunded. I am sorry for the inconvenience.”

“What’s your name, bitch?” The prime minister came across the floor at Yvette again. “You said Yvette. Yvette what? What’s your last name?”

“I will take care of this,” Lula said.

The prime minister grabbed Yvette again and twisted her forearm. “Your last name, you little black bitch.”

“Peters,” Yvette gasped.

John scribbled into his notebook.
Yvette Peters, 17, threatened by PM.

“Lula,” the prime minister said. “I need you to handle this. Do you read me?”

“Graeme,” Lula said, “I run my own show.”

John wrote again.
Lula DiS. calls the PM by first name.

Graeme Wellington’s face flushed red. Lula betrayed no emotion whatsoever.

Lula opened the door to the hall, and two tall black bouncers stepped in. “This gentleman is on his way out,” she said.

“She read a memo, Lula,” the prime minister said. “It wasn’t just my name on it.”

Lula nodded to the bouncers.

“This way, sir,” one of them said, gesturing toward the door.

The prime minister took one last look at Yvette and followed, flanked by the second bouncer, who closed the door behind them.

John stopped taping. He clicked a key to begin saving the video onto a USB. He needed the entire video for his documentary. But for the time being, to protect himself and Yvette, he didn’t want Lula to find out that he knew that she had instructed Yvette to go through the prime minister’s papers. And he didn’t want Lula to know that he might be able to go back to the video to decode the prime minister’s private memo. The less Lula thought he knew, the better. As soon as a copy of the video was saved, John stuffed the USB in his sock.

“You said you could handle him,” Lula told Yvette, “but you fucked up.”

“I tried,” Yvette said, “but he was rough.”

“You don’t know rough.”

John returned to the original video on his computer. He deleted the part where Yvette described what Lula had asked her to do, and everything after the PM had told Yvette to unbutton her blouse and left the room.

“How could you be so stupid as to let him catch you?” Lula said.

“You told me to—”

Lula put her palm up. “Not get caught.”

“I went as fast as I could,” Yvette said.

John saved the edited version on another stick and put it in his pocket. They might search his pockets, but they were unlikely to make him remove his shoes. They would assume that they had it all. Trouble was coming. John prepared himself. He wished his pants weren’t wet.

“What papers did you see?” Lula asked Yvette.

“Nothing,” Yvette said.

“Do you take me for stupid?”

“I didn’t see anything I understood.”

“What did you see that you
didn’t
understand?”

“Something about a deal. About money. I have no idea what it meant.”

“Girl, you’re in so deep that ideas don’t come into it.”

“Whatever it said, I didn’t get it and won’t retain it. I won’t say a thing. But the boy might.”

“What boy?”

“There’s a boy in the closet. Go look!”

Lula opened the closet door, looked around, and then glanced back at Yvette. “What are you playing at, girl?”

“Open the box,” Yvette said.

Before Lula could do so, John pushed out the flaps and stood up.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Lula shouted. “What the hell are you doing here?”

John climbed out of the box, laptop under his arm.

Lula pointed at it. “What’s that?”

“It’s my laptop.”

“Come over here! I want you to be nice and close when I slap you upside the head.”

John took a step closer, preparing to be hit. Lula drew her hand back and chuckled when he flinched. She dropped her hand.

“Meant no harm, Mrs. DiStefano.”

“Cut the bullshit. Do you know this girl?”

“No.”

“Did she hide you in that box?”

“No. I was hiding there, and she found me.”

“Is that true, Yvette?”

“Yes, Lula.”

“That little thing sticking out from the painting over the bed. Is that a bug? Did you plant that?”

“Bug?” Yvette said.

“You keep those big lips shut up until I ask you to speak,” Lula said to Yvette. She turned back to John. “So. Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Is it taping us right now?” she said.

“No, ma’am. I turned it off.”

“When did you turn it off?”

“When the customer left the room a few minutes after he first came in. Before the trouble began.”

“Hiding in a goddamn box. You either something ballsy or you got shit for brains. Get into the bathroom and wash up.”

“Wash up?”

“Get in that bathroom, and wash your hands and face, and pray that I let you out of here to go change those pants you pissed.”

John headed to the bathroom, but he could still hear them talking.

“Stay here,” Lula said. “Don’t let him go anywhere.”

“I got his ID,” Yvette said. “Just like you told me. I put it on the closet shelf.”

“But you left his briefcase open. Because of you, I have to make nice with the client I just lost.”

Yvette said nothing more.

“Bunch of fucking children,” Lula said. “It’s like a goddamn day-care in here.”

As John came out of the bathroom, Lula left and slammed the door behind her.

“I’m in a lot of trouble,” Yvette said. “Is this what you do for kicks? Film girls taking their clothes off and—”

“I am not into voyeurism. I’m making a documentary. About AfricTown.”

Yvette took a step back. “You’re awful young to use such big words.”

“Give me a break,” John said. “I’m only two years younger than you.”

Yvette studied him. “You little bastard. Who’s your mama?”

“Mary Falconer.”

“Don’t know her,” Yvette said.

“She cleans houses in Clarkson,” John said, “but she lives here and keeps a low profile.”

“Low profile,” Yvette said. “I could use a low profile right now. Lula will fuck me up good, but she won’t put a finger on you, white boy.”

“Don’t call me that! I’m not white. I’m mixed.”

“Mixed awful thin.”

“What are you so high and mighty about?” he said. “You’re mixed too!”

“Anyone can see the black in me. I may be faded, but you are faded right out.”

“My dad was half black. But I never saw him.”

“Count my tears,” she said.

“I was just explaining. Anyway. Why don’t you take off? Disappear.”

“Got nowhere to run. Anywhere I run, she’d find me.”

“Can I contact someone who could help you?” John reached out to touch her arm, but she pulled back.

“Got nobody.”

“What about a mom? You got a mom?”

“Said nobody.”

The door flew open and hit the wall so hard that it bounced back off the stopper. Lula strode across the room, and John thought she was going to hit Yvette. Instead, Lula grabbed him by the collar and pulled him behind her out into the hall.

“Boy, you are something stupid.”

“It’s not her fault,” John said. “She didn’t know I was there.”

“Here’s when I want you to open your mouth: when you are answering my questions.” She let go of John’s collar, and his head smacked the wall.

“Listen up,” Lula said, “And look here.”

John looked at Lula DiStefano. Tall, regal, powerful. Dark skin. Smooth complexion. Yellow earrings to match her dress.

“Look at me good and straight,” Lula said.

He barely saw it coming. She slapped him fast and flat on his cheek. It stung and left his face burning. John had never been slapped by anyone. Not by his mother, not by a teacher at school.

“Next time, I’ll slap you right through to Wednesday of next week,” Lula said.

His cheek aching, John vowed to himself that he would get away from her once and for all. But Lula wasn’t done.

“No more floor washing. I’m firing you from that job, as of now. But I’m hiring you for something else. You are now my personal videographer.”

She would find it useful, she said, to have certain incidents recorded. He would provide her with the material, and then he would erase the contents of his computer. If he said a word about this, he would not live to tell the story.

“That clear, little man?”

“Yes,” he said. Clear as day.

“Good, because I want you to answer me carefully. Did you record what happened in the room today?”

“Yes, Mrs. DiStefano, I recorded the first part of the client coming into the room.”

“I’m going to need that,” she said.

He reached into his pocket and handed her the stick.

“That was fast,” she said.

“I thought you might ask for it.”

“Thinking ahead, hunh?”

He nodded. He did not tell her that he had copied the entire video onto another stick. Older people were clued out when it came to computers.

“You did not see anything today,” she said, “and if you did, you have completely forgotten it.”

“Yes, Mrs. DiStefano.”

“Go on home now,” she said. Then she turned and walked back into the room where Yvette was waiting. She closed the door.

T
HE PHONE RANG AND RANG IN
V
IOLA
’
S HOTEL
room. Five-fucking-thirty in the morning. It was Bolton.

Viola flicked on the lights, sat up in bed and saw herself in the mirror. Groggy. Overworked. But she could roll out of bed and be ready in minutes. She’d shaved her head over a year ago. Why not? She had a beautiful, shapely head, and she refused to sink hundreds of dollars each month into Cindy’s AfriCentric Hair Salon, where she had once wasted countless Saturdays. How was any black woman to get ahead if her life ground to a halt for five consecutive hours each time she had to get her hair done? Forget it. Bald and beautiful was the way to go, although it hadn’t done much for her love life: Viola and her last girlfriend had broken up months ago.

To be given a crack at serious news stories, Viola Hill had to be perfect on the job. Always on time. Always ready. Invincible. Got the flu? Don’t tell anybody. Having a day when all she could think about was that she wished her mom were still alive? Swallow that emotion. Having a rare burst of phantom pain, like a knife ripping through her thighs? How bloody fair was that, to feel ten-out-of-ten agony in a part of her body that she no longer even owned? Even phantom pains she had to mask. She had learned not to scream when they came out of nowhere. She could not have people thinking she’d keel over and die. They would never promote her. Viola was sick and tired of having to be unassailable. But she answered the phone whenever it rang, because that’s what professionals did.

And here was Bolton, all up in her face. Bolton, caffeinated and manic at the tail end of his night shift at the
Telegram
.

“You’re in Buttersby, right? To cover the marathon?” He sounded breathless. Instead of letting her reply, he pressed on. “What time does it start?”

“Nine a.m.,” she said.

“You’re always on my case for a non-sports assignment, right?”

“Yeah,” she said. What would it be this time? Chasing a fire truck? Dog bites boy?

“Get over to 1138 Potluck Drive, Unit 3. Woman says her daughter was taken from Freedom State and deported to Zantoroland, where she died in prison. Woman’s distraught. Get over there before she calls the local TV station! Interview her quick, take her picture, get a photo of the daughter and send me four hundred words before you cover that race.”

Viola had to tip the taxi driver extra before he would let her get into the car at all. Once she convinced him, it was easy. She pivoted her butt from the chair into the back seat of the taxi, reached down, folded up her day-chair and hauled it into the back seat with her. Lifting it over her legs, she stashed it beside her on the seat. She closed the door and had her seat belt on in no time flat. Viola told him where to go, and when they arrived, she paid him to park and run the meter, which would mean less waiting—and one less cabbie to convince—when she was ready to race back to the hotel to file her story.

The mother lived in a townhouse on the ground level, so Viola wheeled right up to the front door. She thumped it with her fist. Six thirty in the morning was not the best time to be banging on a stranger’s door.

A woman answered in a bathrobe. Hair a mess. Face puffy from crying. Calves, which were evident under the bathrobe, were puffy too. She was a user, for sure. Viola Hill could spot a user at fifty paces. She had grown up walking past them every day in AfricTown, or running when she felt unsafe. As a child, when she still had the use of her legs, Viola had loved to run.

“Mrs. Peters? I’m Viola Hill, with the
Clarkson Evening Telegram
.”

“I thought they were sending a reporter.”

“I
am
a reporter.”

“You’re black,” Mrs. Peters said.

“So are you, Mrs. Peters.”

“And you’re a cripple.”

Viola ignored the comment and wheeled inside.

The dingy living room had a lamp or two, a crappy old couch and a TV set. Viola whipped out her notebook.

“You get around fast enough in that thing,” Mrs. Peters said. “I only called the paper an hour ago—”

“When is the last time you saw your daughter?” Viola asked.

“I haven’t seen her in two years,” the mother said. “I didn’t like her, and she didn’t like me. But I never thought she would end up . . .”

“How exactly
did
your daughter end up?”

“She passed away. In a Zantoroland prison.”

“Had she ever been in Zantoroland before?” Viola asked.

“No. Never. I’m from Zantoroland. I never got my residency papers, but Yvette was born here in Freedom State, right here in Buttersby, and that gave her citizenship. I kind of forgot to get her identity card. But she was born here.”

“Birthdate?” Viola asked.

“January 24, 2001.”

The kid was lucky, or could have been. Like any person from AfricTown, Viola knew that in April 2001, the government had revoked the law granting citizenship to any person born in Freedom State. After that, you were only eligible for citizenship if you were born in the country
and
both your parents were citizens.

“So she was seventeen,” Viola said. “Got a photo?”

Mrs. Peters brought her two albums of photos.

“Mind if I hold on to these for a day or two? We’ll get them back to you.” Viola stashed them in the back pocket of her chair before Mrs. Peters had a chance to object.

Viola got all the basics. Yvette Peters had attended schools in
Buttersby, dropped out in Grade 10, got caught up with some bad kids and started messing around with dope. She and Mrs. Peters had had several run-ins. Yes, Mrs. Peters admitted, the last ones got a bit rough, and she had slapped her daughter a few times too many. She slapped her because she loved her, damn it, and wanted to get her off the path that she, Mrs. Peters, had taken herself in life. But it didn’t work. Yvette ran away from home the day she turned sixteen. Later, Mrs. Peters heard through the grapevine that her daughter was a sex worker at the Bombay Booty in AfricTown.

Mrs. Peters had been drying out in a detox centre and had just come home to the latest news. There was a letter in her mailbox from the Zantoroland Ministry of Citizenship. It was dated three days earlier and had been sent by urgent mail.
We regret to inform you that your daughter died of natural causes in immigration custody. Contact us immediately to make arrangements to recover the body at your own expense.
There had also been a message on her phone machine, telling her that her daughter had died and to get in touch immediately.

Viola was scribbling furiously. Eventually, every good interview yielded the quotable paragraph, and soon enough, Mrs. Peters gave it up.

“My daughter gave me a hard time about being from Zantoroland and not getting my papers for Freedom State. I told her I had been here for ages and was getting by, so why rock the boat? Last thing Yvette wanted to do was go to Zantoroland. Someone made her. I know it! Someone dragged her over there. Why did they do that to my daughter? I been calling the newspapers and the government information hotline. I been leaving messages for everyone. I didn’t like my daughter, and she didn’t like me, but she was my daughter, and I loved her, and now she’s dead and I want answers.”

Viola had to go. This was a complicated story, and she did not have time to go deeper into it today. She snapped a photo of the grieving mother holding the daughter’s photo. She told Mrs. Peters that she’d be in touch again, perhaps later in the day.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Mrs. Peters said.

Back in her hotel room, Viola called the Zantoroland Ministry of Citizenship. A man named Chelsea—the jerk refused to give his first name or confirm the spelling of his last—confirmed that they had detained a young woman named Yvette Peters because she had arrived in the country without proper documentation, and that she died in custody of natural causes. When Viola asked what exactly that meant, Chelsea merely repeated, “Natural causes.”

Viola checked her address book. She was probably the only reporter in the country who had Lula DiStefano’s private cell number. Normally, Viola wouldn’t push her luck with Lula, but today it was worth it. She dialed the number.

“I’m sorry to wake you, Mrs. DiStefano,” Viola said. “But it’s important.”

“Who the fuck is this?” Lula asked.

Viola knew that Lula DiStefano never forgot a name or a face or the story that went with them. She acted all rough and tumble and could out-diss any thug on the street, but a little-known fact that Viola might pull out one day was that Lula had studied decades earlier at the London School of Economics.

On the phone, Viola merely gave her name and said she had grown up in AfricTown and that her mother—Rebecca Hill—had been Lula’s hairdresser back in the day.

“Uh-hunh,” Lula said.

Viola said she had been out on her own for years now and that she was a reporter for the
Telegram
.

“I’m awake now, honey chile,” Lula said. “I remember everything about you. How are you keeping?”

“I’m fine, thank you. I’m calling about a story we’re working on.”

“At this hour of the morning, I know you ain’t calling to discuss the weather. You workin’ for the man now, so spit it out, girl.”

“Did a girl named Yvette Peters work for you?”

“Shit, yeah,” Lula said. “She was one of my, um, dancers. You get news of her? She disappeared a while back, and we’ve all been wondering.”

“Yvette Peters is dead, Mrs. DiStefano. She died in a Zantoroland prison.”

“Zantoroland? Dead? That’s awful,” Lula said. “Poor kid. She was a good kid. Good heart. But I can’t talk any more about this, darling. Don’t you quote me, or I’ll have my boys rip your kidneys out. And you know I’m good for it.”

“Her own mother tells me that Yvette worked at the Bombay Booty. I’m looking at my notes: ‘sex worker.’”

“An exotic dancer at the Pit,” Lula said. “Clear? You want your kidneys, girl. Most people do, but you got special need of every organ, being you’re already in a wheelchair. You come out the other end right good, girl. Reporter now. Well, get going. You got work to do, and I ain’t feeling friendly at this hour.”

Lula hung up on her. It was strange to be dismissed by someone who had once done so much for her. But that was Lula DiStefano: an angel one moment, and a shark the next.

Viola hadn’t spent much time in AfricTown since the accident, and that was twenty years ago. She was run over by the drunk driver of a stolen pickup truck, lost her legs, became something of a one-day wonder in the news. The journalists came in a mob, with camera crews, lights, tape recorders stuck on the end of poles like marshmallows on whittled sticks, pushing into her hospital room until the nurses turfed them out. Viola had never seen reporters at work before. And sure enough, she became one herself.

Now she aspired to write the very sort of news articles that had been written about her, and her mother. Drunk driver in stolen truck runs over mother and daughter in AfricTown. Mother killed, eight-year-old daughter loses legs but survives. Deaths in AfricTown were a dime a dozen and didn’t usually attract attention. But the spectacular nature of Viola’s loss and survival triggered an avalanche of news. Yes, she was an actual citizen of Freedom State. Yes, her mother was too. That helped, for sure. Fundraising drives were held. Money was raised. Even the people of AfricTown contributed. Lula DiStefano personally contributed fifty thousand. Viola’s amputa
tions and follow-up surgeries were all paid for, as was her extensive physiotherapy, her prosthetic limbs and her first wheelchair. Or, as some preferred to call it, her mobility enhancement device. She could walk with prosthetic legs, but they were slow and awkward. So when she had to take notes and balance the notepad on her lap, or when she needed to move fast and had a flat surface before her, Viola preferred a chair. She had two: a regular kicking-about chair for daily living in Clarkson, and a chair for training and racing. Abs of steel, biceps like guns, that was Viola Hill. Every part of her worked just fine, apart from the fact that her body ended with two stumps, mid-thigh.

Viola had just enough to write the story. No time for fancy stuff: seventeen-year-old prostitute from the Bombay Booty, apparently a citizen of Freedom State, ends up mysteriously in Zantoroland, where she dies in prison. Confirmation from the Zantoroland Ministry of Citizenship, confirmation from a source in AfricTown, and a colourful quote from the distraught mother. That was the best Viola could do in two hours. She filed the story, scanned some photos of Yvette Peters, and emailed them with the photo she had taken of the mother. She managed to leave the hotel in time to cover the marathon. It was a morning race. As long as she filed her marathon story by 1 p.m., it too would make the evening edition of the paper.