Speak for the Dead

by Rex Burns

  “Why don’t you do something else?”

  “Half a loaf, and all that; the girls pay fair prices, but I have to kick back 50 percent to Famous Faces. Still, I don’t know what I’m complaining about. If I wasn’t doing that, I probably wouldn’t be doing anything. The world has only so many olives. Which Jeri, bless her heart, knows.”

  Wager glanced out a large window at the surrounding neighborhood, one that long ago changed halfway from single-family homes to the neighborhood’s commercial block before the money ran somewhere else. “It’s kind of a long way for the models to come, isn’t it?”

  “Low overhead. I underbid the competition. I even underbid myself. But when I get rich, friend, then you’ll see a real studio.”

  “When did you do the pictures for Miss Crowell—Tommie Lee?”

  He scooted his chair on squealing casters across the concrete to a small shelf of ledgers, “In”—his fingers ran up one page and down another—”April of this year. The twelfth through the fifteenth.”

  “It took a whole week?”

  “Four days—Monday through Thursday.”

  “Do they all take that much time?”

  “The school tuition pays for two days—the first is a dry run, then one day of real shooting. Black-and-white only. The third day’s optional: some color work as well as more black-and-white, offered at reduced rates for students of Famous Faces only. Almost all of the girls want the option; Jeri talks them into it. For half.” One dark eye winked at Wager. “And to tell you the truth, I don’t hurry the girls through. I have more time than I do film.”

  “Why the extra day for Tommie Lee?”

  “She didn’t like the ones we did Tuesday and Wednesday. And I can’t blame her. They were as lousy as anyone else’s.”

  “Couldn’t she pose in front of a camera?”

  “Not as poorly as some, but not very well. Even she saw that. That was one thing about her.”

  “What was?”

  “She did have a good eye—even for herself, which is one of the hardest things for a would-be model to learn. Most of the people when they see themselves think the picture’s great. It can be god-awful, but if they recognize their own face, it’s great art. If people weren’t like that, Famous Faces would be out of business. And I’d be a tax burden.”

  “So you gave her an extra day’s work?”

  “Gave? She paid for it, friend. Cash.” He put the ledger back. “But don’t tell that to Jeri, will you? If one of the girls wants extra shots, I knock off 10 percent and tell her to keep quiet about it—what Jeri doesn’t know about, she doesn’t collect on. But if she ever does find out, there’ll be no more gohan for old Tanaka-san.”

  “Gohan?”

  “Japanese for ‘rice.’”

  “Why did Tommie Lee switch over to Bennett?”

  “I told her to. Well, I told her to try another photog. She didn’t like any of the shots, and she wouldn’t believe that it wasn’t the camera. It’s my business to make cameras lie, but I can only do so much.”

  “Do you tell a lot of the students to try someone else?”

  “Hell, no! Fortunately, I don’t have to; most of them are happy with what they see because they see pretty pictures of themselves.”

  “But you told Miss Lee?”

  “Some models do come out better for different photogs, and Tommie was very serious about this modeling crap. More so than most of the ones I’ve seen. So I suggested that perhaps she could do better work for another person.”

  “And you mentioned Bennett?”

  “Among others. I don’t know why she picked him. Perhaps because he’s at the head of the alphabet. I wonder if I should change my name to Akido?”

  “Did she do any better for him?”

  “There’s your answer.” He pointed to the photograph Wager held. “She’s pretty, she’s smiling, she’s boring. A model’s got to do better than that. The best really come alive in a picture.”

  “The photographer can’t do that for them?”

  “Perhaps—if they have the time and patience. But I don’t think there’s a photographer in Denver who’s that good, including me. No, it saves a lot of time and expense if the model’s got it to start with. Then anyone can work with her. That’s why the top models make so much.”

  Wager remembered someone else talking about the special vitality that was missing from Crowell’s pictures: Pitkin. Who, in his own way, was something of a photographer. “Did she ever tell you about any of her friends or acquaintances?”

  “No. Models aren’t paid to talk. Not in front of a still camera, anyway, and except for the video-tape rushes that I don’t handle, Famous Faces didn’t offer much training in motion work.” He paused. “Perhaps that’s why she went to Bennett—he does audio stuff as well as still and motion photography. If she was interested in voice-overs and motion, Bennett would have all the equipment in one studio.”

  “Did you ever see her after she went to him?”

  “No.”

  “Did you talk to him about her?”

  “I try not to talk to him about anything. Frankly, I don’t like the guy.”

  “Why?”

  Tanaka smiled. “He refers to me as ‘the inscrutable unscrupulous.’”

  “What do you call him?”

  “Ah, that’s very good—and you’re right: I’ve responded to an epithet with an epithet. In my mind, he’s ‘the aperture man.’”

  “Aperture man?”

  “He’s always trying to adjust his models’ apertures.”

  “Doesn’t messing around like that hurt business?”

  Tanaka looked puzzled. “What does that have to do with business unless someone gets raped? This is the exciting world of low fashion, and a lot of the girls like to feel excited. They think it’s the fashion. And Bennett’s one of those low ones who develops more than film in his darkroom.”

  “Did he have something going with Tommie Lee?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s possible. I hear that every woman he meets receives a standing offer.”

  “Do you know any of Bennett’s friends?”

  “He has mistresses and ex-mistresses. I’ve never met anyone who was his friend.”

  “Why?”

  “In this racket everyone uses everyone else, but Bennett’s a little worse than most. He uses people in a way that leaves them feeling … insulted.”

  “Can you give me the name of an ex-mistress?”

  “Perhaps.” Tanaka squeaked back across the floor and thumbed the pages of one of the ledgers. “You might talk with Ginger Eaton—I hope that’s a professional name—her number’s 761-0574.”

  “Can I use your phone?”

  “Why not? No one else wants to.”

  Ginger Eaton was waiting when he pressed the doorbell at the condominium on South Washington Avenue. “I saw you drive up.” She reminded Wager of Julie—she had the same easy movement when she walked, the same self-assurance in her gaze. And though she was a little shorter and heavier than the blond woman, Miss Eaton seemed a few years younger. “I never met Tommie—I only read about it in the paper yesterday, so I don’t know what I can tell you.”

  “I was more interested in hearing about High Country Profiles.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “She had some pictures made there before she was killed. I’m trying to find out all I can about everything she did. Maybe something will turn up somewhere.”

  Miss Eaton led him to an overstuffed couch and sat on one end of it. “Well, ask away.”

  He sat at the other end. “I understand you had some work done there?”

  “Yes. I certainly did.”

  “Was that with Mr. Bennett?”

  “Yes to that, too.”

  “Is he a good photographer?”

  The voice had a more decided tone this time: “One of the best in town.”

  “Has he been real successful in training models for better jobs?”

  The woman tugged a cig
arette from a round canister made to look like a small Coor’s beer can and tapped it on the coffee table. “Who gave you my name?”

  “Les Tanaka.”

  She lit it and looked at Wager through the thin smoke. “Why?”

  “He said you had been friendly with Bennett.”

  “I see. Good old Les; he tries so hard to be casual.” There was no ash yet on the tobacco, but she dragged it across the small ashtray. “Phil and I screwed, Detective Wager, but we weren’t friends. Not for very long, anyway.”

  “I’d like to hear more about it.”

  “Again: why?”

  “He may have been screwing Tommie Lee. It might tell me something about her.”

  “I’m sure he was—or at least tried to.” Another deep pull on the cigarette. “Do you think it might tell you whether or not she was a whore? She was a model, so she might as well be a whore, is that it?”

  “No. But it might tell me who killed her.”

  “Do you mean Phil?”

  “I don’t mean anybody right now. I’m just trying to learn what I can about Rebecca Crowell and everybody she knew.”

  “Crowell—that was her real name, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mmm.” Another drag and she stubbed out the long butt. “All right. I’ll be a good citizen—Phil Bennett is a son of a bitch. If that’s what Les wanted you to hear, he sent you to the right person.”

  “Why should Les want that?”

  “Because he was losing business—and other things—to Phil.”

  “A lot?”

  “From what Phil told me, he was taking away about half of Les’s customers.”

  “When was this?”

  “A year ago. A year last week.”

  “That’s when you went to Bennett? Were you with Tanaka before that?”

  “Yes.”

  He wasn’t quite sure how to get to the next point, and Miss Eaton offered no help; she sat on the couch with one leg folded beneath her and waited with the kind of blank expression that, Wager thought, gynecologists must recognize. “Did Bennett help you with your work?”

  “Yes. I’ll have to say he did. He is a good photographer.”

  “What makes him so good?”

  She gazed across the compact living room with the serving counter between it and the kitchen, the sloping ceiling of the stairway, the tiny electric fireplace set down in what Wager thought was called a “conversation pit” but which looked more like a shallow foxhole. “I guess it was the way he could bring things out of you. Most of the time, you’re over here, the camera’s over there, and it’s a real struggle to force yourself into that lens. With Phil, you know the camera’s there … but he makes it welcome you. I guess that’s not too clear. I’m sorry.”

  “What’s he do that’s different from, say, Tanaka?”

  “Les’s sessions are more … poised, cool. He makes you feel like one of those very still Chinese statues, and then he does a lot with the lights. Phil is just the opposite. He moves, he talks, he sings to you. You just feel … high. You feel like you’re unfolding, opening up.” The intensity faded from her voice. “It’s a little like falling in love,” she said flatly.

  “Is that how it happened?”

  “It?” Her lips twisted and she reached for another cigarette. “Yes, Detective Wager, ‘it’ happened that way.”

  “What went wrong?” He held the lighter for her.

  “I unfolded. He pretended to. I suppose you could say he was like his own little camera—take, take, take. Except that when he was through, he laughed.”

  “Laughed?”

  “It was as if all along he had been playing a trick—trying to see how much he could make a woman—me—care for him. How many things she would do for him.” Her mouth smiled prettily. “Would you like to hear the particulars?”

  “No.”

  She looked away again. “Anyway, he has his methods of degrading a woman. Emotionally, I mean. It’s as if he wants to see how far he can stretch those emotions before they break, as if he wants to make you know he can do anything with you. And he never stopped twisting and pulling.”

  “Has he done this to a lot of people?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, one too many.” Again the long butt was snuffed out. “If he did it to this Tommie Lee, I feel sorry for her.”

  “Did Les Tanaka have anything going with Tommie Lee before she went to Bennett?”

  “I don’t think so. If he did, it couldn’t have been much.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “He still likes me. Good old Les.”

  Wager closed his notebook and stood. “Thanks for your help, Miss Eaton. I’m sorry I had to ask some of those questions.”

  Her voice was only half-mocking: “An old-fashioned gentleman!”

  “My Hispano heritage,” he said, and paused at the door. “Did Bennett’s portfolio work help you get better jobs?”

  “Not exactly. But I manage to make ends meet.” She leaned against the half-closed door. “I still do some modeling, Detective Wager.” And that was all she would say.

  CHAPTER 14

  THIS TIME IT was the snap of the clock radio’s timer that woke him. The green figures said 10:00—he had slept for ten hours, and to judge from the stiffness in his neck, most of that time had been without moving. And he was hungry. Turning on the television to let the scratchy voices of Friday night’s John Wayne movie echo off the room’s walls, he set a chicken breast under the oven grill and began boiling rice. Half a red onion for a little fuerza, a bit of garlic para la corazón, and a dish of those round peppers that look so cool and green but explode like cannon balls between the teeth. It was a bigger meal than he had eaten in days, and more sleep, too; so that when he called in to the division headquarters, he sounded almost happy.

  “Great God—it’s the Man of the Hour. Superdick himself.” Ross’s voice was loud over the background noise of a country-and-Western station.

  “The one and only.”

  “Did you write that story yourself?”

  “What story?”

  “What story! The one in the Post tonight. By your good friend Gargan.”

  Wager didn’t feel quite as happy. “I haven’t seen it.”

  “I reckon your press agent has a few copies.”

  “Is there anything for me on the board?”

  “Well, let’s see… . There’s a movie contract, and the F.B.I. telegraphed to say they need some help with a tough case… .”

  “Is there a report on an interview, Ross?”

  “Underneath all these TV offers, yeah.”

  “Would you be kind enough to read it, please?” The Spanish inflection was back.

  “How can I say no to such a renowned officer of the law, Detective Wager?” In the pause, he heard the crackle of a sheet of paper. “To: Denver’s Most Famous Detective; From: Detective Hall, Peon Third Class; Subject: Interview with one George Brock, 1308 Garfield, Apartment 1.” Ross waited for Wager’s squawk.

  He kept his mouth shut.

  Ross continued, “Said Detective Hall interviewed said witness at his home at said address at 2:45 P.M., 29 October 1976. Said Witness stated that yes, Mr. Nick Mauro had been at home on Tuesday, 19 October. Witness remembers because he and Mr. Mauro did some work on the yard that morning. Mulching roses. Witness thinks Mr. Mauro ate lunch at home, but is not certain because he took his wife shopping just before noon, and when he came back, he did not see Mr. Mauro. The next time the witness saw Mr. Mauro that day was around four in the afternoon when Mr. Mauro came home from somewhere.”

  “Does he say whether Mauro owns a car?”

  “No. And he doesn’t say whether Mauro came home walking or driving. My, my—I’d better have a word with young Detective Hall; that kind of work is not up to your high demands.”

  “That’s the whole report?”

  “Filed sixteen-forty-five hours, Friday, 29 October.”

  “Thanks.”

&nb
sp; “Any time, Officer Wager. The detective bureau is eager to assist you in any way we can.” Ross sounded happy that Wager sounded mad.

  He had planned one stop on the way to work, but now added another: the local supermarket newsstand. Under a four-column picture of Rebecca Crowell bending backward in a drapery-like evening dress, the story was headlined “SOUGHT FAME, FOUND DEATH.” It began, “She had just turned 23 and came to the City with one overriding ambition: to be a model.” Gargan’s article ran on from there, quoting Mr. Crowell’s puzzlement during a telephone interview that anyone would want to kill his daughter, and describing this reporter’s shock to discover that no one had told the bereaved parents about the mutilation of their daughter’s body. A smaller photograph showed the rounded shape of the conservatory; next to it was a shot of an abandoned car. The part of Gargan’s feature story that pissed Ross off—and that would bring the bulldog down on Wager’s neck again—came in the second long column of print: “Detective Gabriel Wager, who brings to the Homicide Division an outstanding reputation won in the Organized Crime Division of the District Attorney’s office… .” Gargan kept referring to him as the “renowned” or the “widely acclaimed” or the “greatly respected” police officer in charge of the investigation who had “promised an early solution to the crime.” Readers were also told that this reporter was fortunate enough to lend some assistance in locating Miss Crowell’s former employers, the New Faces Modeling Agency. “Ms. Jeri Roberts, owner and manager of the agency, expressed shock and telephoned the girl’s parents to express her sympathy.” An earlier employer, Mr. William Pitkin of the Rocky Mountain Tax & Title Service, also expressed shock and said he remembered Miss Crowell as an attractive and hardworking employee who could have been whatever she wanted to be.

  Folding the paper neatly into a compact pad, he slid it into a trash bin and headed for Elton’s Place. Right now he had more to worry about than what the bulldog might make of Gargan’s story.

  The tavern was located eight blocks from Mauro’s rooms in the middle of a series of single-story shops—cleaners, drugstore, shoe shop, hobby crafts. Its front window was painted blue with a hole left for a neon Budweiser sign. The door opened onto one end of the bar along which a Friday-night crowd of six customers sat staring at the television set over the far end. In the picture, a uniformed cop was busily thumping his riot stick on a black man’s skull; Wager waited until an ad for men’s cologne danced on, then caught the eye of the woman behind the bar.