Jeff Kalas sat in the Restaurant Le Bellevue and watched the lights dance like electric ballerinas across the black waters of Manila Bay. He’d suggested the venue for dinner, the Diamond Hotel’s finest restaurant, because he wanted the event to be an occasion. He’d decided to leave his wife and children. The kids were one or two years away from moving out, and then he’d be stuck living with a stranger, his wife. He realised, since meeting Skye, that he even hated the sound of his wife’s breathing beside him, especially in bed. He had to leave her before he was driven to do something he might regret. And what better time to do the deed than when he was, quite frankly, smitten with another woman. He wondered what Skye would be wearing this night. He hoped it would be the sheer white dress that showed the perfection of her figure and set off the healthy tan of her skin. She’s a beautiful creature, and she’s mine, he said to himself, resisting the temptation to say it aloud. There were a few confessions to make, however. He didn’t think they would get in the way, but this time, he wanted the relationship to be honest and open. Skye deserved that. And more. And when it came to the ‘and more’, she would have that too. He tapped the small box in his coat pocket.
Kalas sensed that the dynamic in the room had changed slightly. The man sitting at the table opposite was looking over the shoulder of the woman he was having dinner with, oblivious both to her conversation and the view. That, Jeff knew, could only mean one thing. Several other men, and a couple of women too, were watching someone who’d entered the room. He resisted the temptation to look around.
Hands closed over his eyes from behind. ‘Guess…’ said the woman’s voice.
‘Umm…Penélope Cruz?’
‘Oh, do you like her?’ said Skye. She let her hands fall away and took the seat beside him. ‘You know, she’s very short.’
‘Yeah, but feisty,’ said Jeff as the waiter brought the bottle of vintage Veuve to the table and presented it to him for approval. Jeff nodded. Yes, she was wearing the white dress and her thick caramel hair was free of any clips or bands. It fell around her shoulders and down her back and stopped where her nipples were thinly disguised behind the stretch fabric. It was a hot night and she had chosen not to wear a bra. Even now, after several months, Jeff found it hard not to stare at her, as did every other man in the restaurant.
‘Do you know, I love this hotel but I’ve never eaten here,’ she said, smiling at Jeff as the waiter poured her a flute of champagne.
‘Well, actually, no; I didn’t know that. Good, it’ll be our restaurant, then.’
‘Like it’s our pool,’ she said.
‘Exactly.’ Jeff looked at Skye, her brown eyes sparkling like the lights on the water outside, and he thought his heart would burst. Was being so captivated by a woman such a bad thing? He wondered whether, somehow, what he was about to do and say was lacking reason. He knew he was taking a big chance, but this girl was worth it. ‘Skye, do you love me?’
Skye looked around, a little embarrassed, her smile just a touch wary and different to the carefree one she wore when she first sat down. ‘Jeff, you know how I feel about you.’
‘You haven’t answered my question.’
‘Jeff…’
‘Well?’
‘Okay, I love you.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘And now you may have your reward.’ He removed his hand from his pocket, placed it on the white damask tablecloth and then took it away, leaving behind a purple velvet box.
‘What’s that?’ Skye asked, intrigued, expectant, frightened and inquisitive all at the same time. Jeff was married, wasn’t he? This couldn’t be what she thought it might be, could it?
‘Well, go on, my little chicken basket…open it?’ he said playfully, sitting back in his chair, sipping at the flute.
Skye reached forward. She took the box and held it in the palm of her hand, weighing it. She was scared to open it.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, woman. Open it!’ he said, rolling his eyes.
Skye flashed him a smile and opened the box. Inside was not what she expected. She removed the stone and held it between her thumb and forefinger, more intrigued than anything else. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s a diamond. An Argyle diamond from Western Australia,’ he said with a broad grin. ‘Uncut, obviously.’
‘Obviously.’ She turned it over in the light. It looked like a little chunk of dirty, vaguely pink glass. ‘Jeff, I…I don’t know what to say. It’s beautiful. Why –’
‘I’ve left Doreen,’ he said, by way of explanation. ‘I want to be with you.’
Skye found it hard to keep the mixed emotions that swept over her from showing on her face. She was frightened by Jeff’s proclamation, but at the same time excited by it. ‘Why –’
‘Why? For me, for you – us,’ he said, leaning forward. ‘Skye, I want things to be open between us. You’ve asked me a few times what I do for a living, where the money comes from. I want to tell you. Now. There are a few things I want you to know.’
Seven hours later, at four in the morning, Skye sat naked on her bed, knees drawn up to her chin with her arms wrapped around her legs, rocking slightly. They’d had sex, but Skye had only been physically present. Jeff had asked whether something was wrong and Skye had taken the opportunity to tell him that the migraine threatening her all day had finally arrived, as indeed it had, her vision fractured by what appeared to be slivers of brightly coloured glass. Soon the headache would begin, pounding at the back of her brain like a heavy brass knocker rapping impatiently.
At the restaurant, Jeff had eventually gotten around to telling her where his money came from, about the two men at the pool – everything. Everything he knew, at any rate. Skye had listened attentively while inside, in her mind and belly, separate tornadoes whirled and she felt as if she were sitting on the deck of a ship being tossed in a storm rather than on a chair in a four-star restaurant. Jeff laundered money or, more accurately, exported money for people he believed were selling massive amounts of marijuana and heroin in Australia, exchanging millions of dollars for Argyle diamonds, which were easy to slip out of the country. He didn’t appear to realise that he was dealing with terrorists rather than drug barons, and that the money he was siphoning out of Australia was being used to cause violent death and destruction, most likely throughout South East Asia. God, our embassy in Jakarta! And then there were the hundreds or possibly thousands of addicts he was helping to supply with heroin, a drug that would surely kill them. Wasn’t that just as bad? Skye knew that she had important information, a link to their most wanted terrorists, that her employer would have far more than a passing interest in obtaining. If she gave it up, she would be giving Jeff up. He would share the same fate as that of the terrorists. ‘Oh, Jeff, you are a foolish man,’ she said aloud to the raindrops that spattered her window.
Skye slipped off the bed and found her rucksack. The phone number she’d written down was there. She dug around until she found the card. She dropped the bag, and then went back to the bed and resumed the knees-up position with the card beside her. If she called it and spoke to the task force in Sydney, Jeff would not be the only one in a shit storm of trouble. But did she have a choice?