The camera the Club gave Lea was heavy, heavier than she had expected. It would require two hands to operate, and she was told to use her shoulder to prop it up. It was intimidatingly built, but they told her it would be easy enough to use. Their regular cameraman, Jonas, had started like that too, standing in at a moment’s notice for someone else. And Jonas managed just fine, so fine he went on to become their permanent cameraman when his predecessor’s turn finally came. Lea didn’t ask what had happened to Jonas, only listened to what she had to do, when she had to turn the camera on, where she had to aim it, which buttons to press in order to immediately broadcast the video via the usual channels.
The man who taught her how to use the camera was a nervous, soft-spoken thing, with elegant hands like those of a dentist or a neurosurgeon. He looked like someone who had a good day job, someone who could even be a Tender himself. But what Lea had learned over these past few months was that all the Club members, including her, looked like people who could have good day jobs. The man talked slowly, as if she were a child, explaining what the Record button did, the difference between Pause and Stop. He didn’t know that while he told her all this, her own camera was hidden in the folds of the dark silk shirt she wore, its lens peeking out under the second button from the top, watching and listening to everything he said.
“When it’s over,” the man said, “just leave the camera in the room. Lock the door behind you. Cleanup will handle the rest.”
“Cleanup? You mean the people in charge of setup?” Lea asked.
The man frowned, as if she had asked him a personal question he’d rather not answer. Still, he said: “No. Different people.”
Lea nodded. She had discovered, from watching and listening over the past few weeks, that that was how it was done. Different people for every step of the process—a loose measure to make sure no one ever had enough evidence to testify against the Club. Though, of course, that wasn’t what stopped them from doing it. Everyone who was there, as far as Lea could gather, seemed to truly want to be there.
When the day came, Lea arrived at the appointed place an hour early. She’d hoped to catch the people setting up as well, to chat with them and somehow get them on camera, so she’d have the full day documented, the whole process, from beginning to end. But when she got to the building, a nondescript office block on the outskirts of the Central Boroughs, it occurred to her that she hadn’t been told what floor or unit they’d be in. Someone was supposed to meet her downstairs.
Perhaps, however, they weren’t upstairs yet, and if she sat somewhere inconspicuous, she could spot and film them coming in.
The streets were teeming with office workers. She found a bench in a small square across the street, where she had a direct line of vision into the lobby. It was abandoned and quiet, with its windows taped over and its glass doors blocked by signs proclaiming its decommissioned status. A single bored security guard sat at a booth in front of the doors.
Lea sat down on the bench, easing the strap of the camera bag off her shoulder. She rubbed her back, digging her fingers into the hard flesh, enjoying the painful release. She realized it had been weeks since she last attended Swimlates. She would need to go back soon, or it would start showing in her maintenance numbers. Not that Jessie would ask why she hadn’t been going, Lea thought.
It was a glorious, crisp day, and Lea wasn’t the only one who’d stopped to linger in the square. She watched a rounded man dressed in a red shirt and matching red shorts, his stark white socks pulled up high and resolute, stroll by with two large huskies. The huskies had their tongues out despite the autumn chill and they walked reluctantly, pulling at the leash that the man held. Despite their sluggish pace, their bearing was straight and proud, their eyes magnificently dark. Lea wondered what it must be like for them in the summer, and felt a sudden urge to knock their red-faced owner down, undo their collars, and set them free.
Lea looked up. There they were, a trim, upright woman in a loose silk shift that billowed in the wind and a man who was slight and thin, wearing a deep maroon shirt that set off the dark glow of his skin. There was something familiar about the man. It was something about his hands, the way they moved from his hip to his elbows to his face.
After speaking to the security guard briefly, the couple pushed the frosted-glass doors open and went into the building. Lea waited a few minutes, then crossed the street.
“Hello,” she said to the security guard, surprised at how normal her voice sounded.
He looked up from his tablet, face creased in boredom. “Yes?” he asked.
“I’m with them.” She bobbed her head toward the building. “The couple that came in earlier.”
“Oh.” He furrowed his brow. “Oh, yeah, they said someone would be coming. But later. You’re not supposed to be here so soon.”
“God. They keep doing this! Every single time. I mean, how difficult is it to remember—”
The security guard winced. “Why don’t you just go up? It’s no big deal.”
“Thank you.” Lea flashed him a smile.
“No problem.” He turned back to his tablet. “Oh,” he said without looking up, “elevators are off. But three flights isn’t too bad a climb.”
The lobby was cool, cold even, and the only light filtered in through the grime-covered windows. The way the lobby was laid out was not dissimilar to Lea’s own office, with the receptionist’s desk in the middle of a large empty space, and the elevators lining the far wall. It was strange to imagine that perhaps the building of glass and steel where Long Term Capital Partners resided would one day be empty too.
Three flights. The stairs had a musty smell. She craned her neck and looked up. They were there, somewhere, maybe already in the room where it was meant to happen. The tessellation of steps blurred before her eyes.
She gripped the cold railing to steady herself and started climbing. When she reached the third floor, her breath came in short, sharp bursts, and her heart pounded in her chest. She stepped out into the hallway. It was obvious where they were, for all the doorways were dark except for one.
* * *
She would never forget the look on the man’s face when she opened the door. His eyes were dark stars in his face, his full lips curled in a surprised O.
“It’s you,” he said.
His hands were still now, cupped in his lap as if over a fluttering bird eager to escape. He sat in a chair with a black mesh back and shiny silver legs on wheels, the kind of chair that wouldn’t look out of place in her own office. The people who’d worked here must have left it behind when they moved out, Lea found herself thinking. She’d already seen the maroon shirt when he was standing outside the building, but now she also saw that he had on clean, pressed gray trousers and a pair of dress shoes, midnight black and so shiny that that they almost looked plastic.
“Ambrose,” Lea said.
* * *
She had seen him just last week; he’d sat across from her at WeCovery, partnered with Susan. She’d thought he’d seemed better, calmer. She’d noticed that his posture had improved. He’d been sitting with his feet flat on the floor, rather than having his knees curled up to his chest or his legs crossed on his chair.
He sat like that now. Again, she noticed that his hands were still.
“Lea,” he said. “I didn’t know—” he stopped. A look of surprise flitted across his face, but just as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone. “Well, it doesn’t matter, does it. What matters is you’re here now. Do you have the camera?” He gestured at the large bag slung from Lea’s shoulder.
“I—yes, I do.” She fumbled with the strap, lowering the bag to the ground.
Her mind raced. Ambrose. She had steeled herself for this, had watched the previous videos over and over till the sick feeling in her stomach receded, till all that was left was an empty, numb spot. She was ready, she’d told herself and told Manuel; she was ready to watch, to film. More than that, it had turned out that the weeks of footage from other Club events and meetings would be useful after all, for GK had said that they now had incontrovertible evidence that Mrs. Jackman had close personal ties with the lieutenants of the group, those who carried out the dirty work, who made the calls, who arranged for the pills, the cameras, the distribution of videos. Lieutenants like Manuel, whose phone call to Lea stating the place and time of Ambrose’s suicide had been diligently recorded, diligently sent along. Now all they needed was the final piece. The proof that the act had been carried out.
Her hands were cold as she unzipped the bag and lifted the camera out of it.
“Wow,” Ambrose said. “That’s a large camera. The tripod’s set up right here.”
He pointed to the three black legs standing about a meter in front of him. He said it matter-of-factly, as if they were setting up for a charity dinner.
She screwed the camera onto the silver base. The screws were stiff, and it took her several tries to get it right. It wasn’t because her hands were trembling, she told herself; that was not it at all. Finally she had the camera in the right place. She tightened the latch slowly, then turned the camera so that it was facing Ambrose, taking great care to make sure that he was squarely framed, that the image was straight. The camera found his face and auto-focused. His sharp features came into view.
Ambrose was photogenic, very photogenic. Lea suddenly saw that he was impossibly handsome. He had cut his hair, no doubt in preparation for his appearance, like the shirt, the pants, the shoes. Now that the black curls no longer obscured his face, she saw that his eyes were bright and intelligent, his soft round cheeks smooth like a baby’s. She saw that his dark pink lips were full and plump, his neck solid, his shoulders slim and straight. His hands, now so still in his lap, slender like a pianist’s. She wondered if Ambrose played any instruments. She wondered if Ambrose liked music, what he dreamed of at night, whether he had ever been in love.
There was a bottle in his hand. He raised it to his mouth and took a small sip, winced a bit.
“What’s that? What are you drinking?” Lea said before she could stop herself. The question sprang from her lips like an accusation.
Ambrose frowned. “Surely you know.”
“Of course,” she said quickly. “Yes. Of course.”
He lowered the bottle to the ground and stood up, walking out of the camera frame and over to Lea.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he said to her in a quiet voice.
Are you sure you want to do this? Lea thought, the panic rising in her chest.
“We can always get someone else,” he said. “Postpone it. Another day. Do it—do it another day.”
The disappointment in his voice was palpable. She thought of her father and his pain. No, Ambrose was not hers to save.
Lea pressed the Record button. “I’m sure,” she said. “Shall we get started?”
His gaze flickered over her face for a long moment. Finally he nodded and went back to his seat.
He gave a short speech, similar to those she had seen in prior videos. They all said the same things. She wondered how much of it had been scripted, who told them what to say. She wondered if they had been pushed into this final, melodramatic act. Ambrose was impressionable, she knew. He seemed calmer now, happier, but who was to really know? Who was to know what Mrs. Jackman or Manuel had said to him? If they had made him feel that he had no choice, that what he was doing was noble in some warped way?
When Ambrose lit the match, Lea wasn’t thinking of her father, the reason she was here in the first place. She found herself thinking instead of Uju. She thought of the way her mother had lived her life: life-loving, compliant, never complaining. Strong, striving, always striving. Unlike her father, who had run away once, and wanted to run away again.
She thought of the way her mother had died, at the end of her natural predicted lifespan, in a peaceful end-of-life home. The mechanical parts of her body switched off one at a time, one after another, all within the span of twenty-four hours. Perfectly calibrated. Lea thought of the way her mother had held her hand toward the end. The way she’d stared at Lea without blinking, one long, last stare, drinking in her features, before she’d closed her eyes for the last time. As if she wanted to make sure that Lea was the last thing she saw.
Surely it was an insult, what Ambrose was doing? What the Club, Anja, Mrs. Jackman, Manuel, what they were all doing. But as she watched Ambrose lift the match to his glistening tongue, she felt no horror, no revulsion, no fear. The flame was growing now. Ambrose kept his eyes on the camera. He kept his eyes on her.
Lea realized that the window was open. Or rather, it no longer had any glass in it, the building being slated for demolition. Through the window came sounds from the outside world, a world that seemed, suddenly, to be unbearably loud. She felt the violent thrum of every passing car in her bones, the shrill squeal of a baby piercing her nerves. Somewhere outside, a dog began to bark, a low, terrible, hungry sound.
Lea watched as the fire engulfed Ambrose. She watched with a kind of fascination, hands gripping the camera so hard that her knuckles turned white. It was horrifying, yes, watching a man burn to death, but it also raised something primal within her, something she didn’t understand, something that kept her eyes open and fixated on the scene before her.
She was reminded of Dwight.
Suddenly the feeling rushed back into her hands. Lea ducked around the camera and threw herself to Ambrose’s side. She tried to beat the flames with her bare hands, not feeling the heat, not feeling the pain. The smell hit her all of a sudden. It was a terrible, acrid, bitter smell. She tried not to breathe.
It wasn’t working—the fire was still going strong. Ambrose was unconscious now, his eyes rolling up in his head. Lea grabbed the empty bottle he’d drunk from, running out into the hallway, heading for the bathroom. She placed its mouth under the faucet and turned the handle, praying that the water was still running. It was, but only at a trickle. Lea’s hands were shaking and the bottle mouth was narrow. It seemed to take forever to fill it just halfway.
When it was full she ran back to the room, spilling water over her legs and feet. But when she got back, the flames had already gone out. DiamondSkinTM, she thought, thank goodness. It wouldn’t burn. It didn’t work.
Ambrose lay curled on his side, the legs of his pants burnt to ash. She crouched over him and shook his shoulder.
“Ambrose,” she said softly. He didn’t move. Lea pulled on his shoulder, turning him face up.
When she saw his face, her hands stopped shaking. She placed the bottle of water on the floor carefully, as if all that mattered in the world was that it should not spill.