The 3rd Woman

Commotion downstairs. They’d be back up here any second. She moved her eye along the slots one last time, trying to be methodical while her head was about to explode. Calm, calm, calm, she told herself. But it was a lie.

Then at last, the recognizable shape, the distinct colour of the case, lurking in the corner of the second last row. She grabbed it and rushed out of the door, into the open air.

The sound of the freeway was loud but unimaginably welcome. She had no idea how she would get away from here. She could hardly wait for a bus. Besides, she had left her wallet downstairs, tucked inside her now-abandoned bag.

As she began running towards the noise of the traffic, working out who she would call first – her editor to say they should run the story tonight or Katharine to apologize for the broken camera – she realized that she had only one thing on her besides her phone. She unclenched her fist to see Walker’s pass now clammy in her hand. Good, she thought. His photo ID would complement her article nicely: ‘The brute behind the brutality.’

Seven hours later the story was ready to go, including a paragraph or two on her ejection from the sweatshop and accompanied online by several segments of video, with greatest prominence given to the miscarriage episode. ‘How LA sweatshop conditions can mean the difference between life and death.’ Use of the Walker photo had taken up nearly an hour’s back-and-forth with the news editor. Howard Burke had worried about naming an individual.

‘Fine to go after the company, Madison, but you’re calling this guy a sadist.’

‘That’s because he is a sadist, Howard.’

‘Yes, but even sadists can sue.’

‘So let him sue! He’ll lose. We have video of him causing a woman to lose her baby. Jeez, Howard, you’re such—’

‘What, Maddy? What am I “such a”? And tread carefully here, because this story is not going anywhere till I say so.’

There was a silence between them, a stand-off of several seconds broken by her.

‘Asshole.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You’re such an asshole. That’s what I was going to say. Before you interrupted me.’

The exchange that followed could be heard at the other end of the open-plan office.

Burke’s frustration overflowing, he drove his fist through an office partition, which newsroom historians recorded was the second time he had performed that feat – the first some four years earlier, also prompted by a clash with Madison Webb.

It took the intervention of the executive editor herself to broker a compromise. Jane Goldstein summoned Maddy into her office, making her wait while she took evidence from Howard over by the newsdesk. Clearly she had decided it was too risky to have them both in the same room at once.

It gave Maddy time to look at the boss’s power wall, which was a departure from the usual ego mural. Instead of photos with assorted political bigwigs and worthies, Goldstein had displayed a series of framed front pages of the biggest story she – or any other American reporter since Ed Murrow – had ever covered. She’d won a stack of Pulitzers, back when that had been the name of the biggest prize in US journalism.

Maddy’s phone vibrated. A message from a burnt-out former colleague who had left the Times to join a company in Encino making educational films.

Hey Maddy. Greetings from the slow lane. Am attaching my latest, for what it’s worth. Not exactly Stanley Kubrick, but I’d love any feedback. We’ve been told to aim at Junior High level. The brief is to explain the origins of the ‘situation’, in as neutral a way as possible. Nothing loaded. Tell me anything you think needs changing, especially script. You’re the writer!

With no sign of Goldstein, Maddy dutifully clicked the play button. From her phone’s small speaker, the voiceover – deep, mid-Western, reliable – began.

The story starts on Capitol Hill. Congress had gathered to raise the ‘debt ceiling’, the amount of money the American government is allowed to borrow each year. But Congress couldn’t agree. There was footage of the then-Speaker, banging his gavel, failing to bring order to the chamber.

After that, lenders around the world began to worry that a loan to America was a bad bet. The country’s ‘credit rating’ began to slip, downgraded from double A-plus to double A and then to letters of the alphabet no one ever expected to see alongside a dollar sign. That came with a neat little graphic animation, the A turning to B turning to C. But then the crisis deepened.

On screen was a single word in bold, black capital letters: DEFAULT. The voiceover continued. The United States had to admit it couldn’t pay the interest on the money it owed to, among others, China. In official language, the US Treasury announced a default on one of its bonds.

Now there were images of Tiananmen Square. Beijing had been prepared to tolerate that once, but when the deadlock in Congress threatened a second American default, China came down hard. A shot of the LA Times front page of the time.

Maddy hit the pause button and splayed her fingers to zoom in on the image. She could just make out the byline: a young Jane Goldstein. The headline was stark:

China’s Message to US: ‘Enough is enough’

A copy of that same front page was here now, framed and on Goldstein’s wall.

At the time the People’s Republic of China was America’s largest creditor, the country that lent it the most money. And so China insisted it had a special right to be paid back what it was owed. Beijing called for ‘certainty’ over US interest payments, insisting it would accept nothing less than ‘a guaranteed revenue stream’. China said it was not prepared to wait in line behind other creditors – or even behind other claims on American tax dollars, such as defence or education. From now on, said Beijing, interest payments to China would have to be America’s number one priority.

Maddy imagined the kids in class watching this story unfold. The voice, calm and reassuring, was taking them through the events that had shaped the country, and the times, they had grown up in.

But China was not prepared to leave the matter of repayment up to America. Beijing demanded the right to take the money it was owed at source. America had little option but to say yes. There followed a clip of an exhausted US official emerging from late night talks saying, ‘If China doesn’t get what it wants, if it deems the US a bad risk, there’ll be no country on earth willing to lend to us, except at extortionate rates.’

Experts declared that the entire American way of life – fuelled by debt for decades – was at risk. And so America accepted China’s demand and granted the People’s Republic direct access to its most regular stream of revenue: the custom duties it levied on goods coming into the US. From now on, a slice of that money would be handed over to Beijing the instant it was received.

But there was a problem: Beijing’s demand for a Chinese presence in the so-called ‘string of pearls’ along the American west coast – the ports of San Diego, Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Francisco. China insisted such a presence was essential if it was to monitor import traffic effectively.

Now came a short, dubbed clip of a Beijing official saying, ‘For this customs arrangement to work, the People’s Republic needs to be assured it is receiving its rightful allocation, no more and no less.’

The US government said no. It insisted a physical presence was a ‘red line’. Finally, after days of negotiation, the two sides reached a compromise. A small delegation of Chinese customs officials would be based on Port Authority premises – including in Los Angeles – but this presence would, the US government insisted, be only ‘symbolic’.

Archive footage of a CBS News broadcast from a few months after that agreement, reporting Chinese claims of smuggling and tax-dodging by American firms, crimes they suspected were tolerated, if not encouraged, by the US authorities. Beijing began to demand an increase in the number of Chinese inspectors based in Los Angeles and the other ‘string of pearl’ ports. Each demand was resisted at first by the US authorities – but each one was met in the end.

Next came pictures of the notorious Summer Riots, a sequence that had been played a thousand times on TV news in the US and around the world. A group of Chinese customs men surrounded by an angry American crowd; the LAPD trying to hold back the mob, struggling and eventually failing. The narrator took up the story. On that turbulent night, several rioters armed with clubs broke through, eventually killing two Chinese customs officers. The two men were lynched. The fallout was immediate. Washington acceded to Beijing’s request that the People’s Republic of China be allowed to protect its own people. The film ended with the White House spokesperson insisting that no more than ‘a light, private security detail’ would be sent from China to LA and the other ‘pearls’.

Maddy smiled a mirthless smile: everyone knew how that had turned out.

She was halfway through a reply to her former colleague – ‘Think that covers all the bases’ followed by a winking emoticon – when she looked up to see the editor striding in, three words into her sentence before she got through the door.

‘OK, we run the Walker picture tomorrow.’

Short, roundish and in her mid-fifties, her hair a solid, unapologetic white, Goldstein exuded impatience. Her eyes, her posture said, Come on, come on, get to the point, even before you had said a word. Still, Maddy risked a redundant question. ‘So not tonight?’

‘Correct. Walker remains unnamed tonight. Maybe tomorrow too. Depends on the re-act to the first piece.’

‘But—’

Goldstein peered over her spectacles in a way that drew instant silence from Maddy. ‘You have thirty minutes to make any final changes – and I mean final, Madison – and then you’re going to get the fuck out of this office, am I clear? You will not hang around and get up to your usual tricks, capisce?’

Maddy nodded.

‘No looking over the desk’s shoulder while they write the headlines, no arguing about the wording of a fucking caption, no getting in the way. Do we understand each other?’

Maddy managed a ‘Yes’.

‘Good. To recapitulate: the suck-ups on Gawker might think you’re the greatest investigative journalist in America, but I do not want you within a three-mile radius of this office.’

Maddy was about to say a word in her defence, but Goldstein’s solution actually made good sense: if a story went big, you needed to have a follow-up ready for the next day. Naming Walker and publishing his photo ID on day two would prove that they – she – had not used up all their ammo in the first raid. That Goldstein was perhaps one of a tiny handful of people on the LA Times she truly respected Maddy did not admit as a factor. She murmured a thank you and headed out – wholly unaware that when she next set foot in that office, her life – and the life of this city – would have turned upside down.

Chapter 2

LA tended not to be a late night town, but the Mail Room was different. Downtown, in that borderland between scuzzy and bohemian, it had gone through a spell as a gay hangout; the Male Room, Katharine called it, explaining why she and her fellow dykes – her word – steered clear of it. Though now enjoying a wider clientele, it still retained some of that edgier vibe. Unlike plenty of places in LA, the kitchen didn’t close at eight and you didn’t have to use a valet to park your car.

Maddy found a spot between a convertible, the roof down even now, in January, and an extravagant sports car with tinted windows. The high-rollers were clearly in; maybe a movie star, slumming it for the night, plus entourage. She considered texting Katharine to suggest they go somewhere else.

The speakers in her car – a battered, made-in-China Geely that had been feeling its age even when she got it – were relaying the voices of the police scanner, announcing the usual mayhem of properties burgled and bodies found: the legacy of her days on the crime beat. She stabbed at the button, found a music station, wound up the volume. Let the beat pump through her while she used the car mirror to fix her make-up. Remarkably, despite the stress, she didn’t look too horrific. Her long, brown hair was tangled: she dragged a brush through it. But the dark circles under her green eyes were beyond cosmetic help: the concealer she dabbed on looked worse than the shadows.

Inside, she had that initial shudder of nerves, known to every person who ever arrived at a party on their own. She scanned the room, looking for a familiar face. Had she got here too late? Had Katharine and Enrica come here, tired of it and moved on? She dug into her pocket, her fingers searching out the reassurance of her phone.

While her head was down, she felt the clasp of a hand on her shoulder.

‘Hey, you!’

It took her a second to place the face, then she had it: Charlie Hughes. They’d met straight after college.

‘You look great, Maddy. What you doing here?’

‘I thought I was going to be celebrating. But I can’t see the people I’m meet—’

‘Celebrating? That’d be nice. I’m here to do the very opposite.’

‘The opposite? Why?’

‘You know that script I’ve been working on for, like, years?’ Charlie was a qualified, practising physician but that wasn’t enough for him. Ever since he’d been hired as a consultant on a TV medical drama, Charlie had become obsessed with making it as a screenwriter. In LA, even the doctors wanted to be in pictures. ‘The one about the monks and devils?’

‘Devil Monk?’

‘Yes! Wow, Maddy, I love that you remember that. See, it does have a memorable title. I told them.’

‘Them?’

‘The studio. They’ve cancelled the project.’

‘Oh no. Why?’

‘Usual story. Sent it to Beijing for “approval”. Which always means disapproval.’

‘What didn’t they like?’ God, she could do without this. She gazed over his shoulder, desperately seeking a glimpse of her friends.

‘Said it wouldn’t resonate with the Chinese public. It’s such bullshit, Maddy. I told them the most particular stories are always the most universal. If it means something to someone in Peoria, it’ll mean something to someone in Guangdong. The trouble is, if they won’t distribute, no one will fund. It’s the same story every time—’

She showed him glazed eyes, but it made no difference. He was off. So lost was he in his own tale – narrative, he’d call it – that he barely looked at her, fixing instead on some middle distance where those who had conspired to thwart his career were apparently gathered.

With an inward sigh, Maddy scoped the room. The group that caught the eye had occupied the club’s prime spot, perhaps a dozen of them gathering against the wide picture window that made up the far wall. Their laughter was loudest, their clothes sparkling brightest. The women were nearly all blonde – the exception was a redhead – and, as far as Maddy could see, gorgeous. Cocktails in hand, they were throwing their heads back in laughter, showing off their long, laboriously tonged hair. The men were Chinese, wearing expensive jeans and pressed white shirts, set off against watches as bejewelled and shiny as any trinket worn by the women. Princelings, she concluded.

She hadn’t realized the Mail Room had become a favoured hangout for that set, the pampered sons of the Chinese ruling elite who, thanks to the garrison and the attached military academy, had become a fixture of LA high society. Soon these rich boys would be the officer corps of the PLA, the People’s Liberation Army. PLAyers, the gossip sites called them.

The redhead was losing a battle to stay upright, tugged down by her wrist to sit on the lap of a man whose broad grin just got broader. He ran his hand down the woman’s back, resting it just above her buttocks. She was showing her teeth in a smile, but her eyes suggested she didn’t find it funny.

Maddy contemplated the tableau they made, the Princelings and their would-be princesses, their Aston Martins and Ferraris cooling outside. She was surprised this place was expensive enough for them. Now that they were here, it soon would be.

Charlie broke into his own monologue to wave hello at one of the PLAyers.

‘Is he an investor?’ Maddy asked, surprised.

‘I wish,’ Charlie sighed. ‘He’s a patient. The thing is …’

Suddenly she caught sight of Katharine standing at full stretch in a corner, her mouth making an O of delight, waving her to come over. Maddy gave Charlie a parting peck on the cheek, mumbled a ‘Good luck’ and all but fled to Katharine and Enrica, standing in a cluster with a few others around a small, high table congested with cocktails.

She slowed down when she saw him. What on earth was he doing here? She thought it was going to be a night with the girls, or at least men she hadn’t met, ideally gay. A night off. She gave Katharine a glare. But it was too late. He was already there, glass in hand, with his trademark embryonic smile. The beard was a new addition. When they lived together, she had always vetoed facial hair. But that was nearly nine months ago and now she saw it, she had to admit, it suited him.

‘Leo.’

‘Maddy. You look as stunning as ever.’

‘Don’t be slimy. Slimy never suited you.’

‘I was being charming.’

‘Yeah, well, charming never suited you either.’

‘How would you like me to be?’

‘Somewhere else?’ She lowered her voice. ‘Seriously, Leo. I thought we were going to give each other some space.’

‘Come on, Maddy. Let’s not ruin your big night.’

‘How do you know about that?’

He nodded towards Katharine, then took a sip of his drink. The budding smile had blossomed in his eyes, which never left her. They were a warm brown. In the right mood, when his interest, or better still his passion, was engaged, they seemed to contain sparks of light that would careen around the iris, bouncing off each other. They were brightening now.

‘What did she tell you? K, what did you—’

He reached for her wrist. ‘Don’t worry, she didn’t tell me anything. Just that you’ve reeled in a big one. Big enough to win a Huawei.’

‘Katharine doesn’t know what’s she’s talking about,’ Maddy retorted. But her shoulders dropped for the first time since she walked in here. She couldn’t hide it: she’d been thinking this story had the potential to win a Huawei prize from the beginning, before she’d even written a word. It had just what the judges liked: investigation, risk, its target corruption – at just that mid-level where its exposure did not threaten those at the very top. In more than one sleepless hour, she had worded the imaginary citation.

‘But you do, Maddy. And your face is telling me I’m right. You’ve landed a biggie.’

‘Don’t think you’re going to get me to tell you by flattering me, because it won’t work.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I know you, Leo Harris. I know all your tricks. Leaking my exclusive to everyone else, so it makes no impact—’

‘Not that again.’

‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to let you ruin this evening. I’m in a happy mood and I’m going to—’

‘OK, just tell me one thing.’

‘No.’

‘Does it affect the mayor in any way at all?’

‘No.’

‘Do I need to worry about it in any way at all?’

‘No.’ She paused. ‘Not really.’

‘Not really? And I’m supposed to be reassured by that?’

‘I mean, only in the sense that it’s happening in this city. And,’ she tilted her chin towards her chest and dropped her voice two octaves, ‘“Everything that happens in this city concerns—”’

‘“—concerns the mayor.” You see, Maddy, you do remember me.’

She said nothing but kept her eyes trained on his, brown and warm as a logfire. Seeing his pleasure, his tickled vanity, the thought came out of her mouth before she was even fully aware of it. ‘You’re such an asshole, Leo.’

‘Let me get you a drink.’

He turned and headed towards the bar, leaving Maddy to the gaze of Katharine, simultaneously quizzical and reproachful. Her friend and colleague, shorter, older and always wiser in such matters, was wordlessly asking her what the hell she was doing. By means of her eyes alone, she said, I thought we’d talked about this.

Leo was back, handing Maddy a glass. Whisky, not wine. I know you. She downed it in one gulp.

‘So,’ he began again, as if drawing a line under the previous topic. ‘I tell you what would win an instant Huawei.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Inside the campaign of the next Governor of the great state of California. Unprecedented access, fly on the wall. In the room.’

‘Are you offering me access to Berger’s campaign?’

‘No. I’m telling you what you could’ve had if you hadn’t broken up with me.’

‘Leo.’

‘All right. If you hadn’t decided we should have a “break”.’

‘We decided.’

‘Whatever. The point is, the mayor’s going to win, Maddy. He’s the most popular mayor in the history of Los Angeles.’

‘Well, I’ll just have to live with that, won’t I?’

He shrugged. Your loss.

They were joined just then by an improbably tall, slender woman perched on four-inch heels, wearing a dress which appeared to be slashed to the waist. Her skin was tanned and flawless. She was, Maddy decided, either a professional model or twenty-three years old. Or possibly both. When she spoke, it was with an accent that suggested an expensive education.

‘Aren’t you going to introduce me, Leo?’ The woman’s smile was wide and white. She gave Maddy a look of unambiguous warmth, as if they were destined to be friends for life.

‘This is Jade,’ Leo mumbled.

A long moment passed before Madison extended her hand and, realizing Leo was not going to do it for her, offered her own name. The three smiled at each other mutely before Madison finally turned and said under her breath, ‘Goodnight, Leo.’

He whispered back, ‘Don’t break my balls, Maddy.’

‘I don’t want to go anywhere near your balls, Leo. Have a good night.’

It was after midnight when Enrica announced that it was past her bedtime and that, unless Katharine wanted to deal with a woman no longer responsible for her actions, she needed to take her home. As Maddy followed them down the two flights of stairs, Katharine steadying her wife as she negotiated each step, she imagined what Leo would make of this sight: the lesbian couple, one Chinese-American, the other Latina, both committed Angelenos. It was a wonder he hadn’t cast them in a Berger campaign ad ages ago.

Now, in the dead of night, Maddy was experiencing what was, to her, the rare sensation of having done what she had been told. She had gone out and gone back home and not phoned the desk once. She had not bothered Howard or complained. She had not tried to tweak the odd sentence here and there. Nor had she exploited the fact that she knew all the relevant codes to go online and make the changes herself – an action that would squarely fall into the category defined by Goldstein as ‘her usual tricks’. Sure, she had looked at the website a dozen times, she had checked Weibo, which was now humming with the story. But, by her standards, she had exercised remarkable restraint.

She stood in the shower, unmoving, not washing, letting the water envelop her. Prompted, perhaps, by the sensation of warmth on her skin, she found herself tingling, her hands’ movements turning to caresses. Unbidden, came Leo – not the look of him so much as the sense of him, his presence. And the memory of his touch when he had been close to her, right here, in this shower, his body next to hers.

And yet she lacked the energy for what would ordinarily come next. What she wanted most of all was to fall into a deep, restoring sleep. But what else was new?