“You can call me Will.”
“I really want this interview, Will.”
“Tell Larry we can go a thousand each. Best I can do.”
She was gone for a minute. “The checks are being cut, but I need you here real soon.” “Within the hour. I have a couple of guests.”
They ran to Will’s house, and he called his friend Sharon. “Can you hold the office down for a few days?”
“What are you doing?”
“Looks like shooting Marcie Della in Italy.”
“Oh, the suffering. The girls are going to waste you on overtime.”
“We suffer and we pay.”
“All right, I have it. Nat can do court appearances. Everyone loves that.”
“Yes, why not?”
Chrissie pointed at her watch and waved.
Will put on a suit and took Hank and Marie to the TV station. A small woman in a very nice black pantsuit took them to the elevator. “Nice outfit, Ma’am. Elegant. It’s just right for you.”
She basked. “You used to shoot fashion, Mr. Ames?”
“I’ve let myself get talked into doing it again. Shooting Marcie Della for Phillipa.”
“For real?”
“Yes. She called me and asked.”
“You really shoot supermodels?”
“They weren’t called that when I shot them. Google me.”
She took them to a dressing room, and the makeup people started in on him. Clara Hart came in. “I’m asking about the robbery, the DA election, your ideas about vigilante justice, violence, second amendment, and so on. This is OK?”
“I don’t guarantee to answer.”
“We’re on a short time frame, so don’t leave me with anything I need to edit out. We want about 5 minutes, so we will shoot about 10. If nothing newsworthy happens in the next two hours, we might want the whole 10. Here are the checks. I got no end of crap for paying you. Please please don’t make me look bad on this.”
“Making you look bad is far beyond my capabilities, darling.”
She gave a quick smile and led him to the studio. They were seated.
“Mr. Ames, we hear you were involved in an incident at a convenience store near your home.”
“I was.”
“Can you tell our viewers what happened?”
“Well, I went in, and this girl was there behind the counter, and the robber was pointing a gun at her, and he had his finger inside the trigger guard.”
“Why did you notice that?”
“I’ve been a military policeman, a scout/sniper, and a Marine rifle company commander.”
“Are you proud of your military record?”
“I’m proud of the Marines who served under me.”
“What did you do when you saw the robber point a gun at an innocent person?”
“I took it away from him.”
“You dislocated his elbow?”
“It made him let go.”
“And the face bashing part?”
“He continued to resist.”
“Do you believe in vigilante justice.”
“No. A vigilante would have hung him. I prefer that he receive a fair trial with due process, and if found guilty, that he serve an appropriate sentence for what he did, and why he did it.”
“You are not prepared to give your opinion?”
“A rush to judgment? No.”
“Do you think citizens have a duty to do the kind of thing you did?”
“No. I think we have a duty to oppose evil in every moment of our lives. But taking on an armed robber is beyond what most people know how to do. If you look at the video closely, you might see that he was sort of waving the gun around, and I grabbed it when it was not pointed directly at the victim, because it might have gone off.”
“Don’t try this at home.”
“Professional soldiers and law enforcement officers know how to do it. Someone who does not should only act in the most extreme circumstances.”
“Are you going to run for DA?”
“If the office prosecutes me for this incident, I will. Otherwise, I have not decided. This is an idea other people have come up with, not something I have thought out.”
“Why would it matter?”
“In the Corps, we learned to charge an ambush. You mess with a Marine, and he goes after you. If I can take a moment, Ma’am, to all the Marines out there, not everyone knows what you do, but those of us who do know appreciate you, respect you, and care about you. You are the best of the armed services, and the best of America.”
“If you were DA, what would you change?”
“Not much. We are fortunate in having a good office with a lot of good lawyers in it. There may be a few rotten apples who need to be culled. But basically, it’s running pretty well. If I did run, I would not throw mud on the office wall. I respect the janitors, the secretaries and the lawyers. I respect Doug. He does a good job. I could do better, but I don’t know that I want the trouble. It’s a very difficult job for a man who takes the virtues seriously.”
“What else would you do?”
“Do you know who is going to be the ‘point chick’ for Phillipa?”
“Marcy Della. There must be a few women on the planet who don’t know that.”
“I’ve agreed to shoot her.”
“I hope not with a gun.”
“William Ames goes digital. The most beautiful woman in America is going to show off some really nice shoes, and I’m going to shoot it.”
“Are you going to get me some?”
“Something in a high heeled strappy sandal that is almost too sexy for television?”
She blushed.
“Size seven?”
Chapter 5 A Heavy Confused Sea Musical Theme; Roads to Moscow by Al Stewart Will came back from the office. He had done the usual stuff. He went into the house. Marcy was there, entertaining Hank, Chrissie and Marie with some sort of story. There were cameras all over the table, extension cords plugged into battery chargers, packing material and such everywhere. Marcie picked up a large Canon camera, and dropped a battery in it. “This, I think is going to be your favorite. That big grey box is the accessories. Lenses, filters all that kind of stuff you like. Phillipa got it at a discount. We’ve already insured all this stuff with that strange guy you buy your car insurance from.
This one is the star of the show, and we have just enough light outside to try it out.” Will put the cord around his neck, and put the camera itself under his shirt.
It would be safest there. “I won’t have time to read the manual. We’ll just pop off some shots for the heck of it.” She was wearing tight black Capri pants and a white cashmere sweater that was probably reasonably priced at about the net worth of Ethiopia. The pants you could have picked up at a factory outlet for the price of a small car. She was wearing some high heeled sandals, and looked quite fetching.
She posed them, and Will shot a dozen frames. She went in and changed shoes, and came back out, and they did it again. She put on some suede boots, and they kept at it. She got some thong sandals and they took some more shots. She posed on the chaise lounge, on the lawn, standing up, laying on her back playing with the straps, and looking over her shoulder at the camera with playful poses. She dangled pumps from her fingertips, and mules from her feet. She pretended to be very pleased opening a box with some sling backs in it, and admired over some of the the knee boots as she wore them. She inspected a pair of shoes with her knees just far enough apart to let the viewer think it was his idea that she might be ready for some sex. She doodled around with a dozen boxes of shoes, accidentally showing the Phillipa label with each of them. The light failed, and they went in. Will loaded a viewer, shamelessly overpriced. It did what the Windows fax and photo viewer did in the same way a full race Ferrari does what the bottom of the line Chevy does. They looked at the pix. Marcie sat behind Will, resting her arm on his shoulder in the strange intimacy models and photographers have. It’s not necessarily sexual, a
lthough models often expect photographers to jump their bones on demand. If they need to have verification that they are foxy, they may want to get it from the photographer. Marcie was not playing that game. Hers was more complicated. She could lay on Will, rest her arm on him, or whatever, because of their professional relationship. A photographer can smooth out a model’s bra because the pic needs it. A model can take the bra off, and ask for another size because he’s her photographer. Her body is something they are using to make pix.
Marcie pretended that was what was going on. Oh, sure. As if a woman vain enough to want to to be called the most beautiful woman in the world would not want admiration. Will zoomed in on her feet. If there had been an aphid on her toenail, Will could have looked at its antennae. “This looks pretty good. Maybe we should touch up your toenails for tomorrow.” “You don’t mind doing it?”
“No. Take too long to go to the salon. You know, Marie could probably do it as well as me.”
“Well, Marie, you have the job. $200 sound all right? “I do want your best work.”
Marie, who had not seen $200 in the last month, stared in disbelief.
“Marie, I will want them just so. I’m very fussy. But I’m sure you can do it.”
“I am, too, Marcie.”
Marcie leaned over. “Will would do it because I asked, but he doesn’t, uh, you see? He shoots us, but he doesn’t understand us. He knows kind of what we need to look like, but there is a special thing a woman can see, and it goes into the pic. Women buy these shoes, not men. So.”
“Well, Will, I need to call in. Jaqueline? Marcy. We’re playing with the new camera. Want to see some pix? Oh, like half an hour. He has several hundred, and I want to just send them all, not sort.”
She nodded at Will. He made a zip file and sent it.
“It’s coming, but it’s a huge file. All those high resolution pix. They did? Well, that is good for Phillipa, isn’t it? We do. It’s a great line. Will loves them. His girlfriend is a size 9. Just by mistake? Well, the boots, you can’t tell if they are loose. Really? Uh, 1123, 1134, 1145, 1254, 1307, 1450, 1455, 1457, and 2204. The knee high knit stockings and maybe some of the ones that have patterns like embroidery. You’re sure Paul is cool with this? I will, and Will is not going to fuss over the frame count. We love the Canon. We haven’t even tried them yet. Well, get the stuff from the Canon. We did a twilight rush shoot. Well, I want to be Imelda Marcos and keep them all. We’ll puff Phillipa, believe it. It’s easy when they have such nice stuff. Love you too. Bye.”
“Pauli Nathan Phillipa is going to let me keep all the shoes from the job.”
“You have like 300 pairs, at say, $100 a pair, so thirty thousand.”
“You got the wrong figures. About 1,000 pairs at like, $250 a pair.”
“You make a phone call, and you get a quarter of a million dollars worth of shoes.”
“Welcome to the big time, Will. You deserve it. If it wasn’t for your push when I was a little girl, I would be a drive in carhop today.”
“I doubt that.”
“I don’t.”
They went into the living room.
“Well, Chrissie, Phillipa made a boo boo. They are sending some boots in size nine. I’ll have to wear two pairs of socks to shoot them. Fortunately they are sending lots of those, too. And they will not want them back, because they never sell used stuff. So there there will be nine pairs of designer boots, and I’m going to have to ask you to get rid of them for me.”
“This sounds like there is something wrong with it. Thanks, but.”
“Pauli Nathan Phillipa said it was fine. Know who he is?” “The old man.”
“He let me have a thousand pairs of shoes. The entire line in every color. You know what we are going to do for him?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“We’re going to go to New Orleans and I’m going to put on hundreds of dresses, and Will is going to take tens of thousands of shots of his shoes, and we are going to sell them like hotcakes.”
Will called Sharon Isabel, the lawyer he knew from school. She agreed to take on the added tasks of going to his office and having her calls forwarded there. She would take care of routine business. He would be in New Orleans for a few days, and if he was not back that soon, she would take his work or let some other lawyer do it.
As he packed, Marcie informed him that they would not be taking his car. Phillipa would take them to the airport in a car, and then to the jet she really did have. They got to her place in New Orleans, and he shot thousands of pix. He shot Marcie in pumps, mules, boots and sandals. She wore shorts, skirts, negligees, pantsuits, business suits, jeans, overalls, bikinis and leotards. They got so bored with the outfits that she started changing right in the studio. Will was so tired of looking that he could ignore the most beautiful woman he had ever seen as she changed her underwear. Marcie’s agent had promised 4,000 shots. Will took 6,451 pix. Phillipa was ecstatic. Pauli Nathan Phillipa said “We have several hundred pix that are at the masterpiece level. It’s like Michelangelo and Leonardo got together to photograph our shoes.” He told Chrissie that she could order anything from the catalog. Every time it came out she could order any item she liked, and it would be free.
Phillipa’s sales doubled in the next month.
* * *
Will went home and went to sleep. He awoke groggy, and saw Marie sitting on the bed. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, just about everything.”
He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “What happened?”
“You went to New Orleans with a high priced whore. Chrissie is here, but she is sleeping in the living room. Hank won’t even talk to me.”
“Looks like everything is fucked up.”
“Hank? Why won’t you talk to Marie? What’s going on?”
Hank came out. “Marie was just saying the same things over and over. I will talk to her. They think you took off with Marcie Della.”
“I did a job with Marcie Della. I’ve known Marcie since she was a chickadee. She got a hot job with Phillipa. She’s sending a bunch of fashion boots to Chrissie.”
Chrissie came in. “That must be what is at the post office.”
“I suppose it is. She got them to send them in size 9 so you could wear them. Then we shot her in them, and she sent them to you.”
“I wish I could believe you, Will, but a private detective gave me some pictures. Of you sitting around and Marcie in her birthday suit.”
“Doug. That son of a bitch.”
“He is, but it doesn’t get you off.”
“She is as modest as the cat. Where is the cat?”
He went to the door and called her. She came in. “Poly. At least I have one friend left.” He fed the cat.
“We shot six thousand frames. I shot her in bikinis, lingerie, underwear. She was trying to get the job done. She got tired of pretending modesty to a photographer who knows every detail of her body. Did you ever do figure drawing? Artists and photographers see it, and yeah, they might like it. But after a while it becomes banal. It’s like trying to get a gynecologist interested in looking at pussy. Marcie is as close to perfect as any woman I have ever seen. But I’m tired of looking at her, Chrissie. It isn’t even that I want to look at you. I want to hold you, cuddle you and caress you. If that’s not what you want, then leave. Marcie and I made a completely ridiculous amount of money from Phillipa in the last few days. So if you want to leave, I’ll give you ten thousand dollars. You can find another apartment with that. And when I take Doug’s job, you’re fired.” “You aren’t lying.” “I am not lying.”
“I was going to give up on you. And you weren’t lying. Oh, Will, please forgive me!”
She held him as close as she could, crying. When she was cried out, Will called the office, and found out everything was fine.
He called Jeff Alan, who told him the auto auction was on that day. “Will you take my gangstas to the auction? We have some money. We want a car for my niece, and we’ll pu
t some money into a few others, my niece will detail them, and Jeff can make some commissions.”
“Music to my ears.”
“You have to look out for my little Marie, though. We can’t have her lose on this.”
“I have it. Your niece is my niece. No way does she end up on the wrong.”
“I have her, my girl, my dad. Can we fit in your car?”
“I have a van, so there that problem goes.”
“When do we go?”
“Not long.”
“We can buy you lunch.”
“I’ll be there real soon.” The doorbell rang, and Marie let Jeff in. “You must be Will’s niece.” “I am. The hot babe is Chrissie, the girlfriend. Hank is his dad.”
Will was on the phone to the elections commission. He was reading a credit card number to them.
“Doug fucked up. He hurt the princess’ feelings. That’s going to cost him his job. Do we need to get going, Jeff ?”
“Yeah.”
“Is everyone ready?”
They went out to the van. “Your call, my treat, Jeff .”
He was on the phone again. “Clara Hart please.”
“Hi Clara. Want an exclusive? I think they do. I’m declaring for DA.”
“Jeff , where are we eating?”
“Ron’s.”
“I am going to meet up with Clara Hart from Channel 2. So I can go out in the lot if y’all don’t want to be on TV.”
“I don’t want to be.”
They all shook their heads. “Clara, it’s Ron’s outside just me and your latest cute outfit. We’re going to lunch, so you set up and I will come out and stand where the light is right for you and all. We’ll be there in about 5. The haps is, Doug hired a private detective, it appears. And this guy told my girlfriend I was cheating on her with Marcie Della. I was working with Marcie. I’ve known her since she had to ask her daddy if she could pose in this short skirt. I didn’t cheat on the princess, and I would not. I can’t prove Doug did it, but it must have been him. Not for attribution.”
They went to the restaurant and ordered. A roadie from Channel 2 came in and told him they were ready. Will went out. Jeff went with him but stayed out of the camera.
Clara put Will in place, and the camera started. “Will, you have something to tell us.”
In Love and Law Page 5