Chapter 25

     “It doesn’t matter, Harrison,” said Barnaby Coors, Harrison’s longtime friend and usually trustworthy lawyer.  “Even with the smoke and God knows what Ari calls that distortion, you still can’t hide the fact that Samantha and Max are at the party.  The fucking sails are all over the frame.  You publish that cover and your legal retainer will triple at best, and if Umberto isn’t kind, forget it.  We’re talking Stratospheric suit action.  A lot of time, money and personnel.  Hurito won’t approve it, and you can’t afford it even if he would.  I don’t understand you sometimes, you know.  You were always a little… no a lot on the compulsive side and …”

     As Barnaby rambled on in his “I’ve got to keep my client straight” mode of lecture, Harrison’s eyes drifted from the speaker phone staring at him from the polished conference table, to the transparency being projected on the far wall.  There was the gamble of his life.  Samantha, partially naked...  Max partially naked… moving down the gangway of a restored ship, the arms of both being pulled left and right by amorphous “Dali” like grave markers.  Behind them, party guests twisted, falling, screaming through the fog that swirled with more images, transparent, not fully realized as the ubiquitous billows of gray miasma merged into the masts.  The graduating image of Sam and Max’s bodies strobing into nakedness as their retreated continued onto another overlay of beach around the castle entrance.  And all this free-form collage framed by wilted gardenias in a gift plastic container.  All he could think was would the public buy it because their diva was of suggested naked essence or because Ari’s conception of her naked body reality was so compelling, so understated, so ethereal that even the most jaded expectant would be moved… just as he was.  He couldn’t take his eyes off her.  It was as if he were gazing at a Mother-God, he thought.  Even more perplexing, he couldn’t stop himself from stealing glances of Max.  Like a teenager enamored with the manliness of the varsity quarterback sharing a shower with him.  “Him” me… he thought, the guy who could never get the girl was in fact taken aback with this Max guy who had it all.  He unconsciously mumbled, “What is it you do, Ari?  What do you do to our innocent expectations?”

     “Oh, good, you’re still there,” Barnaby chortled back, allowing himself to take a breath, before continuing his rant.

     “Later, Barnaby,” said Harrison, as his hand placed the phone in the cradle.  The still small voice of Barnaby faded into a new discourse on the dangers of compulsive behavior in management, as Max’s eyes remained fixed on the picture.

***

     From the 3^rd floor hotel window, Max held the phone as "on hld" music played.  He stood anxiously sipping coffee and watched Sam leisurely make her way down the narrow Zermatt street crowded with tourists disappearing into the heart of small shops, bakeries, and sidewalk cafés.  He flung open the window and shouted her name, “Sam!  Sam, where the hell…!”

    His voice was swallowed up by the tourists hurrying past her along the cobblestone street to make the next cable car up to the Matterhorn viewing station.  The alpine morning air was still brisk, and Sam pulled the collar up around her neck and adjusted her dark glasses as several children from the village walked toward her.  As they passed, they turned and admired her ankle length cashmere coat, its delicate metal tassels of hand-made ice axes clinking delicately like miniature castanets, marking cadence to her morning resolve to find a rich cup of coffee and hopefully a chance sighting of Ari.  Why she felt so compelled to walk the streets in a belief that Ari was still lurking somewhere in Zermatt was a mystery.  But, Sam being Sam also knew she thrived on the unknown and this man Ari was her “unknown” today. 

     Max pondered what Sam must be thinking as she walked the bustling street.  He knew she was obsessed with the thought that this man Ari that had invaded her world without permission.  Max was all too aware of what that kind of intrusion meant to most women and Sam was like an army of women.  He knew that she prided herself with the notion that without her consent and cooperation, no one ever got close enough to know much of anything about the adored and revered Samantha.  And Max?  Well, he was all too aware of the difficulty anyone had in navigating the roads Sam could paradoxically lure them down. 

     As he watched her be swallowed up by the crowded street below, he had a sudden rush of panic knowing her compulsion to find Ari might be insatiable.  To find him and do… “Christ” he thought.  What is she going to do?  Only moments before, as she had kissed him on the cheek and left the room, Sam had reminded him how hard it was to forgive intrusion… especially from someone that eluded her retaliation.  “For God sake, Sam… let it go” he had whispered as she drew her lips away from his cheek.  “Why?” she softly said.  “You don’t just let rape ‘go’, do you Doctor?

     “No, of course not, but…”

     She stroked his cheek, “Well, then… even I understand there’s all kinds of rape, my darling.” She turned and stepped to the polished mahogany staircase.  “I’ll see you in a little while.” 

     Feeling more anxious, Max continued to peer out the window searching for Sam, but she was still out of sight. “Yes, I’m still here, operator,” said Max as he adjusted the phone. 

      “I have Inspector Weber for you now,” she said with heavy German accent. 

      “Thank you.”  Max, obviously seriously alarmed, sat down beside his open briefcase and stared at the broken lock.  Suddenly, he heard the gruff voice on the other end of the line.

     “Inspector Weber, here.  How can I help you Doctor?”

     Max gazed at the empty 9mm holster.  “Thank you for taking my call, Inspector.  I’m a psychiatrist and a patient of mine… well…”  Max stood up, dropping his robe as he walked toward the closet.   “Could I have a moment with you… at your office?” 

     “What’s the problem, Doctor?”

     As Max took a shirt from the closet, “Better we talk in person, Inspector.  I’m afraid this is urgent.”

      Sam sauntered into the train station and stepped to the ticket window.  The clerk continued stamping tickets with the day’s identification date.  “Sir,” Sam said. 

     The clerk looked up.  “Yes.”

    “When does the next train leave?” 

    “Noon,” he replied.

    “Is that the first today?”

    “Yes.”

    She turned, looked at her watch, and as she walked away, “Thank you.”

     “She can’t do any harm… except to herself.  It’s not loaded,” Max said as he pulled the cartridge clip from his pocket and leaned across the desk at Inspector Weber… a man as big as his voice was gruff. 

   “But,” Weber stood up.  “She might brandish a weapon in a public place if she sees this             ‘Ari’ fellow and that is not good Doctor.  Not good at all.”

     Max stood and stepped to his side.  “Trust me, she’s not going to be public with this.  She hates normal publicity.  She will probably not even take it out of her pocket, but…”

     “But, what if she does, Doctor?  I’m afraid you must leave this woman to us.” 

     Max heaved a sigh.  “Sir, with all due respect, this is not just a ’woman’.  This is someone with much to lose if…”

     As Inspector Weber turned on his heels and walked toward the door, “I know who she is, and I am one of her admirers, but” he reached the door and opened it.  “Doctor, matters of this kind are better dealt with by professionals trained to deal with guns… loaded or not.” 

     Max stood motionless, “I just wanted you to…”

     “To what, Sir?”    

     “To be aware that the gun is not loaded.”

     “And we appreciate that.  Now, we know where to reach you.  I assure you, we don’t want a scene any more than you.  Tourism is sensitive to this kind of thing.  And thank you for the description of this man, Ari.”

      Max walked to the door.  “You’ll call me the minute you spot her?”   

      Inspector Weber nodded, “Of course.  You’re the doctor with a problem patient, not us.”

      Max nodded and slipped through the door.  He paused as he heard it shut quietly.  “Oh, Sam…” he muttered to himself.

     Sam raised her head.  Sitting in the corner of the station, tourists filling the room as noon approached, she thought her mind was playing tricks on her when she heard what sounded like the mechanical click of a camera lens inserted and…

     Ari’s finger hesitated, as if he knew any sound of another picture being taken would bring her eyes around directly to him. 

     He pressed the button, making only the subtle digital whisper of a shutter opening and closing. 

     Sam’s instincts reacted and she turned and peered toward a small girl with a wooden carved doll sitting on the floor beside the opaque shadows of the corner.  Hidden in the darkness was Ari, unaware of Sam’s particular resolve, as he continued to ever so carefully press down on the shutter button so as to keep the little girl undisturbed.  The seemingly lost look on the child’s face as she gently fingered the lifeless carving brought Ari closer, he knelt, reaching toward the small body with his instrument of capture for that extra few inches that were to him the difference between just a picture and insight. 

      Sam smiled at the small pulsating red light directed at the little girl and started to turn back when that gentle red light popped again, bringing her head back to catch the familiar small red light on the front of the camera go off again as Ari fired one last shot.  Sam’s inner rage erupted.  She stood up, her body heaving with anger when suddenly she was aware of the two to three hundred people milling about in the station.  The spectacle of the next moment’s potential raced through her mind and no… no, she thought.  Not here.  Her shoulders sagged, but her eyes riveted onto the still crouching black clothed body of Ari. 

He smiled at the little girl. 

     Her mother returning from the rest room and spotting Ari, quickly snatched her daughter up and sped for the train platform.  Ari stood as the little girl smiled back, waving her smooth worn doll. 

     As if the entire station had vacated, Ari and Sam stood, neither willing to let the other see their eyes.  It was as if the illusion that had driven Sam since birth and the illusion that had compelled Ari to pursue this most illusive of illusives was… suspended. 

     It was Sam that first tested the distance between them, moving forward, eyes away, sideways, eyes away.

     Now Ari felt the ill-ness, this dis-ease that was at once both hers and his.  He knew she was out to force closure, to force the man in black back down to his knees.  This man that had followed her half way around the world during her special romantic holy of holies was going to suffer her wrath if she had anything to say about it. 

      “Good God,” she thought to herself as she finally turned her eyes toward him, eyes closer to him than she had anticipated, eyes that now were within inches of his.  Their vision of each other met.  Their whispered voices spoke quietly, but nonetheless articulate.  “I am Samantha Turner.  How dare you.” 

      “How dare I?”

      Their eyes and the shortness of breath both sensed in the other reflected the scalding temperature this meeting represented.  Without warning, any resistance they might have once imagined seemed for some inexplicable reason to melt.  Like welded fractures of steel simmering from molten red to orange to yellow, the sudden insight of the other merged into a raw and unspoiled world of soul... a soul meeting that was unwavering in its sudden calm… a calm both sensed as unreal… oh, so unreal.

      Max looked at his watch one last time before picking up the phone and dialing the police.  “Inspector Weber?” asked Max. 

      The voice on the other end answered, disallowing any compassion for the pleading sound of Max’s voice. “The Inspector is engaged at the moment.” 

      Max took one step to the balcony and seeing the last vestige of the day’s sun dropping behind the gently peaked buildings of Zermatt, quietly ordered her, “Get the Inspector now and tell him that Samantha Turner is now a missing person!  You understand what that means, MISSING?”