Follow Me Down

by Gordon MacKinney

  The customer appeared, trailing shyness, the yellow box in his hand.

  “Just unofficial business here, sir,” I said to him amiably, stepping aside and waiting while Tricia rang him up.

  Her wavy brunette hair, restrained by a black hairband, fell to her shoulder blades. In high school, that same hair crashed about her face, blocking her brown eyes and shielding her from a world that disapproved of her scruffy looks and screw-you demeanor. Back then, only a couple of close friends squeezed past the barrier. The rest of us were assholes until proven otherwise.

  One weekend last year, I spotted her across the dance floor of a Mount Adams nightclub called The Blind Lemon. She’d teased her hair into madness and tinted it purple and yellow. She was dancing with a guy who looked like James Dean back from the grave—probably her one-night stand, if you believed the gossip from back in high school.

  At Queen City High, Tricia seemed to hate the sameness of American suburban teenhood. For a year, she called herself Tricks because she hated all the “Goldilocks” variations on Patricia. “But tricks are what prostitutes sell to make a living,” her friends told her. So Tricia changed the spelling to Trix, like the cereal. By senior year, she was Tricia again and I forgot about her until years later when I began working for her grandfather to pay my tuition bills.

  She placed the enlarging paper in a brown bag, folded over the top, and stapled it shut with the cash register receipt. She handed over the package and smiled as if she’d been waiting all day for the man to pay a visit. “We sure do appreciate your business, sir. Have a wonderful evening.”

  The moment the customer cleared the front door, the warmth escaped Tricia’s expression. “Look, all I know is that Alfred stormed off to the reshoot about two hours ago hollering that you’re supposed to get your ass over there.”

  So she didn’t know about the Leica, and she didn’t know about my arrest. But wait. “Reshoot?” I asked, the ominous word sinking in.

  “You didn’t hear?” Her face brightened at the prospect of juicy storytelling. “Chuckles fought the dip ‘n dunk and lost big time.” That meant film shot at a recent wedding had been destroyed, the worst possible news for a photo lab.

  A few years earlier, Alfred installed dip ‘n dunk automated color film-developing equipment to better handle the booming wedding business. Two people received training from the manufacturer: my fellow lab technician Chuckles and me. If only we’d known what we were getting into, and why the machine would come to be nicknamed fuck ‘n junk.

  Developing wedding film was nerve-racking, beginning with inserting the filmstrips into the machine, like threading needles in total darkness. Then, for the forty-five-minute cycle, we’d perch blind on a folding chair and hunger for the sounds of nothing going wrong. But every so often, things did go wrong. Something unseen would clunk and splash, and part of a twenty-thousand-dollar wedding would disintegrate in chemicals. Alfred would then drag us along to share in the agony of apologizing to the tearful bride. Dresses would be dry cleaned and tuxedos re-rented to re-stage and re-shoot the lost moments, the smiles of the wedding party stiff the second time around.

  “Which scene bit the dust?” I asked. All weddings were comprised of predictable scenes, from the bride getting dressed, to the newlyweds’ car dragging tin cans off to marital bliss.

  “Not scene, scenes—cake cutting and the first dance.” Tricia was enjoying this a little too much.

  The dance photos would be a total loss. You couldn’t restage a reception crowd encircling a dance floor. As for the cake scene, Tricia anticipated my question. “Alfred got Turetzky’s to whip up a replacement triple-decker, and swore to deduct the cost from Chuckles’ paycheck.” Chuckles, a.k.a. Charles “Chuck” Dahlgren, only cared about four things: football, weightlifting, pot smoking and his Corvette—and the last two cost money.

  “But it’s not his fault,” I said. “It’s the machine.”

  “But the old man bought the thing,” Tricia said. “He’ll always blame human error before himself.”

  “Tough break. Is Chuckles here?” The least I could do is offer a word of sympathy from one lab tech to another. There but for the grace of God go I. But then again, Chuck took chances.

  Tricia reached under the cash register, pulled out her notepad, and set it on the glass case. She caught me eyeballing it. “He’s either at the hospital or asleep in the lab. The bleach bath splashed his eye when he tried to salvage the film. Alfred ordered him to the ER but Chuckles blew it off. He was pretty baked when it all happened.”

  Maybe it was human error. Russian roulette with the dip ‘n dunk was stressful but we coped. I would play music cassettes but Chuckles would light up a joint. Because of the chemicals, the dip ‘n dunk room was the best ventilated in the complex. Chuckles could ride the Rasta rocket to distant planets and Alfred would never be the wiser. And while Tricia could slay with a fiery glance, she’d never rat out a coworker, especially to her grandfather—her boss.

  Reuben reappeared at my side after his phony browsing. “We better get going.”

  “Where’s the reshoot?” I asked Tricia.

  “Hyde Park Event Center on Fifteenth.”

  The location sounded familiar. Then it struck me. “Chuckles screwed up the Steiner-Dawson wedding?”

  The bride was the client from hell—Angelica Dawson, as tyrannical as Cecil B. DeMille and no less determined to make every detail perfect, regardless of the carnage.

  I was doomed. Even if I hadn’t lost Alfred’s prized Leica, any encounter with the old man within spitting distance of Angelica Dawson would go very badly. Could I avoid it? I imagined strolling into the lab, switching off the ventilation fans, and stretching out on the chemical tanks for a permanent nap.

  Tricia must’ve seen something in my expression because, surprisingly, her face softened. “Look, I don’t give a shit what you guys do back there in the dark, but what happened to make Alfred spout the filthiest obscenity ever to pass his lips?”

  I didn’t follow.

  “Ass. He said to get your ass over there.” She smiled. Another surprise.

  She’d find out eventually. I explained taking the Leica, the train station breach, our capture, my dustup with Tony Drax, and my release that afternoon.

  As I spoke and Reuben eyed the exit, Tricia listened, her expression registering the same what-a-bunch-of-idiots disgust as usual, but with one exception. She winced when I mentioned Tony Drax. Tony’s reign of terror affected everyone at Queen City High, even Tricia.

  “You performed a public service by laying him out,” she said.

  I ended my story with Alfred’s five thousand dollars of bail money. Tricia tightened her brow and placed a porcelain coffee cup full of pens and pencils on top of her notepad, declaring it off limits. “You’re in luck,” she said. Another surprise from the ice queen.

  “I don’t feel very lucky.”

  She plucked a pencil from the cup and twirled it in her fingers like a majorette’s baton. “Let me tell you about my grandfather.” That statement was rare enough; she always referred to him as Alfred or “the old man,” as if denying family ties. “The minute you think you’ve figured him out, forget it. You haven’t. He’s a devious old fart who never does anything without a good reason.”

  “I think I knew that already.”

  “And when it comes to money, he never does anything without a damn good reason. So think about it. He just shelled out five thousand bucks for you when he should’ve fired you instead.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “He’s up to something and he needs you for it.”

  “Like what?”

  She opened the cash register with a ch
ing and began arranging bills. “I have my theories. Go to the reshoot and find out for yourself. And then don’t tell me about it, because I don’t want to know.”

  CHAPTER 6

  When Reuben and I arrived at the Hyde Park Event Center, the only cars in the parking lot were Alfred’s Oldsmobile and Chuckles’ Corvette. My fellow lab tech stood by a dumpster near the service entrance smoking, his head bent forward. Chuckles was one of those guys who smoked with great intensity, studying the glowing tip for the origin of the universe. Women dug this gloss of soulfulness, until they struck up a conversation.

  Reuben pulled up alongside and I rolled down my window. “Hey man, Tricia said you might’ve gone to the hospital.” Chuckles wore a collared shirt, khakis, and no-slip shoes, standard issue for Alfred’s male employees. His left eye was puffy and red.

  “It’s better if Tricia doesn’t know where I am,” he said, his voice anemic and sandpapery from smokes. He flipped his hair off his neck with the back of his hand. As usual, every lock was in place, permed into tight blonde curls and long enough to touch his shoulders.

  “Don’t you think you better get that eye checked out?”

  Chuckles snorted. “Keeping my job is a little more important right now.”

  “Than keeping your eye?” I considered Chuckles a friend, but he was Reuben’s opposite. I tried to offer a sympathetic ear. Reuben’s trials and tribulations were Wagnerian operas. Chuckles’ were three-minute pop tunes.

  He thumbed his cigarette against the dumpster and let the butt bounce on the asphalt. “What’re you guys doing here?”

  “Trying to help out. What’s up inside?”

  “Blumenfeld’s been waiting two hours, but Her Highness is late, just to be a bitch, if you ask me.”

  A dark Lincoln Mark III rocked to a stop by the main entrance. Maybe it was a wedding present from the bride’s father, an orthodontist in North Avondale. A young man in a tuxedo climbed out, scurried to open the passenger side door, and stepped back. An attractive woman in a wedding dress emerged. Angelica Dawson. She was hunched over, muttering and complaining, forced to gesture with her head because her bare, slender arms held the billowing layers of fabric off the pavement. Her words were inaudible except for the occasional obscenity and one crystal clear “Because he knows I’d take him to court!”

  “Showtime.” Chuckles held open the side door for us.

  I looked at Reuben, beseeching. “Safety in numbers?”

  Reuben sighed and climbed out.

  Inside, Alfred stood erect in a dapper houndstooth sport coat, razor-creased slacks and a bow tie. He held the Hasselblad close to his chest with both hands, his eyes trained on the front door except for a sideways glance to inventory our arrival. A triple-decker wedding cake waited on a table nearby. After a moment, the bride and her gown filled the doorway.

  “Miss Angelica, we have everything ready,” Alfred said. He would never refer to a client by first name only, but ladies’ last names were troublesome because they changed mid-project. So he resorted to calling women Miss followed by their given names. Most clients found the practice endearing. Angelica Dawson found nothing endearing.

  “I have thirty minutes,” she said curtly and tramped across the room, tipping her head in our direction. “Who are these people?” For the way she said it, people could’ve been things.

  Alfred blinked twice. “Members of my staff, Miss Angelica. I insisted they join us to help out in any way possible.” Reuben’s expression was frozen in unremarkable neutrality, like a desert lizard blending into the sand. Alfred continued. “We are so very sorry that—”

  “Their names?” she demanded, perhaps building a roster for later depositions.

  Alfred gestured a manicured hand. “This is Charles Dahlgren, Lucas Tremaine—”

  “—and Reuben Klein,” I interjected. “Our lab intern.”

  The bride singled me out. “Did you destroy the film from my wedding?”

  Alfred was quick on his feet. “That particular employee has been dismissed, which explains our lab intern in training, here to learn what’s most important to our business, our valuable clients.” Alfred spoke this with velvety calm, bowing slightly at the waist.

  Angelica’s icy expression defrosted a few degrees. “All right then, Mr. Blumenfeld. I require five minutes to touch up my makeup.” She shuffled toward the ladies room with her skirts still suspended above the linoleum. The groom tagged along.

  “That… woman,” Alfred whispered to none of us in particular, “possesses not one iota of humility or generosity. That’s the result of life served on bone china.”

  Chuckles raised both eyebrows. “I think it’s the result of being a bitch.”

  Alfred glowered. “That, Mr. Dahlgren, is why I do the talking around our customers.”

  “Pretty impressive performance, Mr. Blumenfeld,” I said. I’d always admired Alfred when he smooth-talked his clients. “Like defusing a bomb.”

  Alfred squared his shoulders. “That is known as kissing up, and kissing up to me won’t improve your situation, Mr. Tremaine.”

  “Oh—not my intention, Mr.—”

  Alfred held up his hand to silence me. He turned his attention to Chuckles. “A flower arrangement for Miss Angelica needs to be picked up from Friedman’s. Make sure the note uses apologetic language as I requested, not happy retirement. Understood?”

  Chuckles looked worried. “Is it already paid for?”

  Alfred stared back without blinking. “No.”

  Chuckles seemed to turn this information over in his reptile brain, no doubt wondering if he’d get reimbursed. But he caught himself. “Okay.”

  Next, Alfred singled out Reuben, as if everyone within reach were instant employees. “Go with Mr. Dahlgren to keep the bouquet from bouncing around in that thing he drives.” Reuben nodded and followed Chuckles out the door.

  Alfred faced me. “Momentarily, Miss Angelica will require our utmost attention, so I suggest you answer the following question with dispatch. Where is my Leica?”

  Could he see the guilt like sunburn on my cheeks? “Temporarily detained at the corporate headquarters of Drax Enterprises.” My answer felt incomplete. “Sir.”

  “You better hope it’s temporarily.”

  “If not, I will pay for it.”

  “That’s not possible. It’s priceless. Did you ever look at the underside of the camera?”

  I remembered. “Yeah. Scratched on the aluminum.”

  Alfred shook his head with disapproval. “That’s not a scratch. It was engraved with an electric device many years ago.” He watched for my reaction. I fell short. “You don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, do you?”

  “I know what an engraver is,” I said, which suddenly sounded moronic.

  “That scratch is the signature of Ernst Leitz, the man in charge of the Leica Company during World War II.”

  “A German? You’ve never seemed fond of Germans.” Alfred’s Teutonophobia was legendary around the lab. Shooting with Agfa film instead of Kodak or Ilford could get you fired. Blumenfeld once spotted me popping a BASF cassette tape into my music player. “Use Memorex, dumbhead.” He slapped the eject button and dangled the cassette from his fingers like a dead mouse. “These whoresons made the poison for the gas chambers.”

  Alfred glanced toward the hall. No Angelica yet. He went on. “Leitz was a saint among vermin. He smuggled hundreds of Jews out of Nazi Germany. They called it the Leica Freedom Train. That’s why I paid many times market value for that camera, and why we must get it back.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What film did you shoot?”

 
“What? Kodak…”

  Alfred glanced skyward and exhaled. “What kind of Kodak?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “This is some kind of professional secret with you? Answer the question.”

  “Panatomic-X, but—”

  “Meet me in the lobby of the Drax building tomorrow at nine a.m.”

  “Okay.” What was he planning, and why hadn’t he mentioned my run-in with the law? “Sir, about posting my bail. I just want you to know—”

  “I’m ready.” Angelica Dawson rounded the corner, her new husband in tow.

  “Nine a.m., and not one minute later,” Alfred said to me before spinning toward the bride with a freshly minted smile on his face.

  . . . . .

  In spite of the past twenty-four hours, I still had classes and assignments and exams I had to pass. If I failed, Tony Drax would be right. I’d remain a dirt poor river rat.

  So, after the reshoot and a cheap supper at Skyline Chili, Reuben dropped me at the main library on the Xavier campus. But instead of studying, I stewed about how my legal troubles could drive a wedge between me and my master’s degree in architecture.

  I took the bus home and slipped through the front door of our house around one a.m., hoping Mom would be asleep. She wasn’t.

  The only light came from the bulb over the kitchen sink. She lay on the couch, legs straight out, an unopened magazine on her belly. Reading had become laborious. Her doctor once told me tapering could reduce concentration to that of a three-year-old.

  “Mom? How’d it go?”

  Our orange tabby cat sprang from the floor to the back of the couch and curled up. Dad had adored the cat, now into her teens, so we adored her too.

  Mom turned her head slowly. “What?”

  “Your shift.”

  She waved dismissively and let her hand flop back on the cushion. “Oh, just fine, just fine. Becky Livingston had her baby so everyone celebrated and wrote cute little things on cards. I’m so happy for her.”