Big Surprises

The drafts weren't working; the trouble was, as assertive as she is, I knew I was dealing with a very fragile ego, one that was not ready for another blow: being rejected by the first and only guy she had ever opened up to, physically and intellectually, that could prove devastating. I didn't want that.

So the message didn't get properly written and it was just as well because by the time I got home I wouldn't have sent it anyway, no matter how good it was. And it wasn't just because I was worried about her. The real reason I couldn't blow her off is that I knew I needed to grow up; I need to take charge of my life; I need to go in a different, more adult direction. I'm an over-grown kid. I'm getting by, even doing well, but no one could call me a serious person: I lack goals — the ambition to create them and the determination to reach them. I'm floating on my God-given talents and they're running out; it's getting stale and I'm getting older. I need something new, I just wasn't sure it was her. She seemed to be way too big a gamble.

That's the way I was thinking when I walked, bag in hand, up to my humble little house. I was depressed. The holiday was over. I was returning from the one big adventure in my life and going back to the same tired routine.

I found her note a couple of hours later when unpacking, she must have slipped it in at the last moment. It was written in such haste it seemed like a stream of consciousness.

I'm sorry about the last two days. I'm just so overwhelmed. I'm terrified, Mike. I'm going to start an entirely new life with you. You must be feeling the same way. What are we getting ourselves in for? We don't even know each other, not really. That's probably what you're saying, too. But this is right, Mike, we're right and it's the right time. I know you're worried about it but don't be. I'll make this work and so will you. Sure, we're kind of betting our life on each other but I'm up for that, I've been waiting for you for a long, long time.

Keep the faith. I'll email you with my flight details. Wish me luck (I know you don't!) I love you. Beda

Mercifully, I was busy when I started work on Monday, I didn't have time to think about her every second of the day as I had since I left her. And I didn't expect to hear from her; she would be busy both at work and after work closing out her life in England. At least that's the impression she left me with — she had never gone into many details. Just two: the heist would be on Thursday, on Friday she would confront a VP and quit; on Monday or Tuesday she would take the heat; the next day she would email me when she expected to arrive. That was it.

Of course, all the plans relating to her move were made on the spur of the moment so on second thought she may have abandoned them entirely, and abandoned me. I wouldn't actually be surprised if I never heard from her again. But I was absolutely certain she was fully committed to stealing the money, I had no doubt about that,part of her future.

My memory of our last two days together were ... uncomfortable more than anything. I was there but she wasn't, she was hard at her ToDo list and I was little more than an unwanted complication. At the time, I think I understood that, but still, it didn't do much for my confidence that, in her words, "we were made for each other." That's why I didn't try to contact her, I didn't want to be that unwanted complication again. So I remained silent. But it was hard. And so was I — thinking about her admission.

I found Abby Winters easily enough and it was easy enough to sign up. And there they were. She had said she had wanted to be one of them, wanted to be in the room with some of these girls to express herself, as they did, on the internet ... for the world to see.

And that's what grabbed me about the site. This one wasn't like the others I had seen, those were all about the transfer of money, the more the clothes were off, the greater the action, the bigger the bucks. The women in those sites were just undertaking a commercial transaction and you knew that — that's why I've never understand the argument that pornography is so exploitative. It sure doesn't seem to be. It strikes me that pornography is like any other service, you pay for it in more or less direct proportion to the value you get from it; it's no less a service than, say, valet parking, and I don't consider that exploitative.

But at Abby Winters, I may be way off on this, it seems as if the girls, the young women (most of them not yet fully physically or intellectually developed it occurred to me) may be taking money for their efforts but they were also expressing themselves: they appeared to be making two kinds of statements: a kind of hedonism: we're in it together and we're having a hell of a good time so what's the harm? And a second statement: oh, by the way, sex is a biological imperative — we all like to get at it and some of us like to do it in public, so get over it. There is a disarming naturalness to the site: the bodies are as varied as the girls next door.

So there they are, nicely organized: girl on girl, solo, playful. These women seem more ordinary than anything else but much more beautiful in their own way; they appear honestly open, not acting and they appear wonderfully oblivious to their nakedness, so much so you wonder what all the fuss is about.

Knowing Beda as I (barely) do, it's impossible to place her in the frame. She just doesn't fit. These women seem to have spontaneity, abandoned, playfulness, even a touch of recklessness — words that just don't apply to the controlled, private, calculating accountant. Yes, I can imagine her wanting to be in these pictures, wanting the freedom, the self-confidence, the abandon, but it isn't her, at least the her I have come to know.

There was a particular picture of five women sitting in a living room in various comfortable poses chatting presumably about sex. I concentrated and inserted Beda into the mix and imagined her joining the merriment. What could she add to the conversation but questions? She had no experience, no willingness to explore, no real curiosity, no reckless spontaneity. Why would she even want to be there?

And could I imagine her lip locked to another woman, her legs encircling her thigh as she squirmed out an orgasm for the camera? No, playful pornography didn't fit the woman I had tried to get to know, but nor did almost everything else about her: her aloofness, her reclusiveness, her irrationality, her immorality. No, the woman I knew and quite possibly loved was the woman of those tiny pub rooms, the one of angst and doubt and fear and vulnerability, but courage and sexuality, too.

The cop said, "We were going to pick you up at your office but I decided to do you a favour."

"Pick me up?" I managed to get this out though my entire body was stiff with alarm. I knew it was about her, knew it the moment I saw the two RCMP guys confidently striding up my sidewalk — I actually knew one of them, we played on the same hockey team one year and I'd been at a few parties with him. What I didn't know was what to say, how much to say — how to stick-handle my way out of overtly lying to them.

'Just enquiries, Mike' was how he put it ... then he added, ominously, 'for now.' We sat at my kitchen table but it felt more like one of those interrogation rooms you see on television. My friend treated me like a complete stranger. "Did I know ...? What was my relationship with ...? How long had I known ...? What did I know about ...? Did I have any knowledge of ...?"

"We just wanted to give you a head's up that you might be involved in potential criminal investigation in London," he said before leaving. "No charges have been laid, it's just an inquiry for now. We'll keep you posted."

I had admitted I knew her, but not well, and certainly knew nothing about any criminal activity — I professed I couldn't be of any help to them at all.

The interrogation lasted most of a half hour; the relief I felt when the door closed reminded me of the relief guilty collaborators show in all the TV police dramas I've watched. The air hadn't full exhaled from my lungs when I heard the bold knock at my door. "We forgot something," said the guy who hadn't yet talked. "Have you received any written correspondence from the subject since you left? Have you sent her anything?"

My first thought was to lie, then I envisioned my place turned upside down and I saw me in handcuffs so I told them about the note she placed in my bag and when I did that I told them about the three letters I had on my iPad, unsent ... but I assured them I certainly planned to send one of them ... and soon.

Once they read her note their mood changed instantly: they were pissed — I had lied to them. I denied it. They took the note apart: "What about the last two days? Why was she 'overwhelmed?' Why was she 'terrified;' was I terrified? What did 'it felt right' mean? Why is it 'the right time?' Why should you be 'worried?' — they spent a long time on that one. What is she going 'to make work?'

This grilling took over an hour and they weren't pleased when they left. They told me they didn't believe me, there was more to it than I was admitting and if I really was honest about my total separation from her the Dear Beda letters wouldn't still be on my iPad, they would be on her computer.

I didn't sleep that night. I wasn't worried about me, I wasn't involved in this one bit, fuck them. I was worried about her. I saw her in a cell, I saw her in strips, I saw her in the dock ... in the Old Bailey, whatever that is, and I saw the metal bars slamming shut behind that ass — and I felt the huge void that now made me feel so desperately empty — you don't miss someone when you can still have her; you miss her when you can't.

And then I saw her walking along a sunny High Street, as free as a bird. The cop called me at 7:12 the next morning. "The matter has been cleared up, Mike. It was a misunderstanding, that's what they said in London. Sorry for the hassle. We'll return the note and your iPad soon, once the paperwork has been processed. Sorry again. Good luck with her — we understand she'll be arriving tomorrow."

All I got from her was an email an hour later with 4:12 in the subject line, not even with an exclamation mark.

I was a wreck all day. I hadn't seen the woman in almost two weeks, time enough in our fledgling relationship for her to now appear totally out of focus. I could barely remember what she looked like; there was no continuity to her personality: vulnerable, scared, tearful; confident, brazen, scheming. I just didn't know the woman I was going to meet, the woman who was about to move in with me and take over my life.

It's not that big an airport, she would have noticed me if she bothered looking around but she didn't, she was too busy talking to a woman who, as it turned out, pointed me out, as if she had to, it was as if Beda had already forgotten what I looked like.

The hug was warm enough but she hadn't yet finished her conversation with the woman, whom I knew at least to see and then I was rolling two enormous bags which barely fit in my car and then we did, with a very loud silence ... and then the giggle, the cheerful little giggle that carried notes of happiness and joy and God knows what else. I looked over at her, she wore a huge smile. "Ready for Secret #5?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

She laughed uproariously, as if I had responded just as she had hoped. "Oh, relax, I'm kidding. I told you that once I got here there would be no more secrets, or I meant to. Anyway, there aren't, I am totally out of secrets now, everything from now on will be discussed. I'll be totally boring."

"Like me. Boring and predictable ... and law-abiding."

She exploded in laughter again. She was obviously in a good mood, as if she was now living in a country that didn't have an extradition treaty with the UK. "So what happened?" I asked, annoyed that I had to.

"Happened with what?"

"What do you mean 'happened with what?'" I barked. "Happened with Big Secret #4, the Big Heist, the Golden Parachute Stick-up."

She tittered. "Oh, that."

"Ya, that." It was maddening that she was so casual about something that if I did it, and I need hardly point out that I never would, would have me traumatized for the rest of my life.

"It pretty much went as expected." She had set-up a foreign bank account on the Wednesday, on the Thursday, as planned, she pecked out the keystrokes that would divert her most recent ill-gotten fortune to that bank account and on Friday she stormed into the VP's office and unloaded on him. After her tirade she said she wanted out as soon as possible, she couldn't stomach the immorality any more. He told her to clean out her desk. On the following Monday, she was waiting in her apartment when they came for her. Office Security.

"He knew I took the money but he couldn't be a 100% positive. I denied it. He asked me where the money went. I said I had no idea; it wasn't that big a sum, it could be 'spillage' — that's what we called funds that we're temporarily lost in the process, it happens all the time. He said, no, the money had definitely been stolen. I told him I didn't know anything about it and stuck to that story — plausible deniability. The security guys got heavy with me, bullying, threatenings, warnings, that sort of thing ... fairly ineptly really. The police, when they got involved, were a lot more intimidating with their questioning, and a lot more legal, explaining the possible charges. But what could they do? They couldn't actually prove I stole the money — other people than me had access to it; it was just sort of obvious that I had ... and it had me a little concerned when the police got involved ... I didn't think it would go that far because, when you think about it, the company was boxing itself into a corner: we know she stole the money, prosecute her but don't go too far and make her a cause celeb, don't let her run off to the papers. But once the police got involved it was an official open case of theft, an intractable legal problem the company had to deal with ... unless it admitted that it found the money and all was good. And that's what happened."

End of story.

I summed it up for her. "They didn't prosecute because it was too small a sum for all the bad publicity you would give them?"

She laughed mirthlessly. "Ya, and once they made the charge against me, then rescinded it, they could never re-introduce the charge without looking like absolute fools — we lost the money, then we found it, then we lost it again."

She grew a lot more serious now. "They're sleaze merchants, Mike and they know they're sleaze merchants. They don't create anything, they just move money around and take their cut at every turn — so they understand when others want to take their cut, too; it makes perfect sense to them. Sure it was illegal but in one form or other so is what they're doing and when it's not outrightly illegal it's always profoundly immoral: THEY AREN'T CREATING ANYThING, they're just profiting from their own arcane system that no one understand, including them! Is this it?" She sounded incredulous, as if it couldn't be.

I got out of the car, popped the trunk, pulled out the one bag and pulled the other from the back seat. "It's pretty small," she said, as we rolled the bags to the house; she was obviously disappointed.

"Ya, well, I'm not a multi-millionaire," I said, snidely.

"Oh yes you are."

We were sitting in my living room — in chairs opposite each other, me with a beer, Beda with wine; I had just recounted my run-in with the police. "So why did they take your iPad?" Her mischievous smile brought back memories.

I was squirming, trying to come up with an answer when she put me out of my misery.

"You had eight hours to kill on the plane. You pecked out a dear John letter, right? Thanks but no thanks, I can't live my life with a criminal. All the best. See you around. Am I right?"

Why was she grinning? If it had been the other way around I'd be devastated.

She stood up, came over and kissed me on the forehead. "Relax, Mikey. You didn't send it. I'm going to have a bath ... there is a bath in this place?" She didn't bother laughing as she left.

As I watched her go, watched her ass turn the corner, I had to remind myself that this woman once was timid and tearful and vulnerable. Can people change this fast? I wasn't thinking of her. I was thinking of me. I had once been a care-free, fun-loving, quasi-irresponsible dress extra in a not very serious play about my own life. Now, I felt I had all the gravitas of a Dostoevsky character complete with the tragic future. I hate being on the defensive.

I was finishing my beer when there was a knock on the door. It was the cop I knew. "Nice note," he said, as he handed it to me. "And good thing you didn't send it, eh? Five million." He handed me the iPad.

I must have flinched or reacted some way.

He held up his hand as if to stop me. "It's OK, Mike. I was talking to the boys in London. She took it; they know that; they think it's pretty funny ... no one likes those greedy bastards so good on her. Is she here? I'd like to meet her ... nothing official. I'm just curious."

"She's in the bath tub."

"How long? I could wait."

"Come in, I'll find out."

I turned to go to her when it hit me. I paused a moment then turned back to him.

She was dressed in jeans and a sweat shirt when she came into the living room. There was no sign of her smirk.

He told her to put her hands against the wall and spread her legs. When she obeyed he looked over at me, grinned and patted her down — I stifled a laugh. Then he ordered her to put her hands behind her back and he helped her onto on the kitchen chair I had placed in the middle of the living room.

I had to hand it to her, she didn't look even a bit scared, didn't even look nervous, and she said nothing.

"We take these matters very seriously," he said, solemnly. "The return flight to London is tomorrow at 2:15. Unfortunately, it routes through Edmonton, Saskatoon, Churchill, Timmins, Tweed, Toronto then direct to Oslo. I don't know how many stops from there. You'll have to be handcuffed the entire way so keep your liquid intake to a minimum. Sorry. Until then, you'll stay here — we haven't room enough in our cells. Mike, here, will be held accountable for you. I'll be back tomorrow at 1:00 to pick you up. Have a nice day." When he turned and left I went to the kitchen for another beer.

I sat across from her and swigged, really enjoying her confusion and vulnerability.

"What's going on?" There was more annoyance in her eyes than fear.

"You rip off a bank then waltz in here like you haven't a care in the world and dump all over my place."

I took another swig, a little concerned that she wasn't even a little panicked. "Not so saucy any more, are you? It's not quite so much fun." I pulled the little key to the handcuffs from my pocket and waved it at her.

She has a frighteningly cool look as if she was accustomed to dealing with idiots. "What you call saucy I call excitement. Sorry, I didn't know how to act, Mike. I just got rid of my life as I knew it, waved goodbye to the few friends I have ... had, left the only country I've ever known, packed in a job I loved before I hated it, all this to travel 6,000 miles or more to move in with a man I thought I knew, the one I've dreamed of since I could dream. So sorry, Mike, sorry to be so excited. I don't know what got into me ... it certainly hasn't been you who ... never mind. What now?"

A lesser man might have been smoked by her sappy argument but I was ready for it: thieves always try to hide their malice. "Nice, Beda, but that doesn't justify you stealing millions of dollars ... twice. It's all very well to get all principled about it but you're profiting from it — that pretty much deflates all your hot air about how justified you've been in sticking it to the corporate evil-doers."