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by William Bayer

  Moreover, his work was notoriously cruel.

  The moment Janek laid eyes on him he realized he'd seen him before. Recently. But he couldn't remember where.

  "Just so we know where we stand," Janek said, "you're a suspect in the Ireland case. I'm going to ask you questions. If you want you can call your lawyer first."

  The Great Decadent Photographer was suddenly an innocent little puppy. Rarely had Janek seen a man so quickly abandon a pose. Ellis declined to call his lawyer; he had, he said, nothing to hide. Furthermore, Janek ought to know he fainted regularly at the sight of blood and detested violence of any kind.

  As they talked Janek looked closely at his eyes. They were tight, mean, small-time shrewd, like the eyes of a mediocre estate lawyer. And then Janek remembered where he'd seen those eyes before: a fleeting image while leafing through a book.

  Caroline had photographed Ellis for Celebrities in the same slackening pose she'd been after in all her subjects wherein the famous personality unwittingly revealed "the incipient decay of his public face."

  "What did you know about the girl?"

  "Nothing. I swear."

  "Never looked out and saw her standing there?"

  "Don't look out. People look in at me."

  "You've noticed that?"

  "God yes! They even call up and complain. 'At least buy some shades,' they say." Ellis laughed and shook his head.

  "So why don't you buy some shades?"

  "Don't like shades."

  "And you don't care what people think?"

  "If they don't like what they see they don't have to watch."

  "Enjoy flaunting yourself, don't you, Jack?"

  Big grin. "Sure." Ellis paused a moment, exhaled. "Please understand, Lieutenant, it's all PR. That's the business, the way this city works. I pay a press agent a grand a month to preserve a certain image."

  "What's that?"

  "The sinister photographer. The guy who shoots his models under attack by dogs. I don't use cocaine. Can't stand the stuff. The reason I don't buy shades is I'm putting on a show. It adds to the image when the neighbors start to bitch. Say I'm bringing down the neighborhood. Holding orgies. Terrific!" He looked down and then he met Janek's eyes. "Doesn't hurt, either, that there's been a murder across the way."

  So, Janek thought, a man who wishes to impress. Ellis' public persona fit the crime, but Karp the caricaturist had seen through it. And so had Caroline. Recalling her portrait, Janek realized it was stunningly accurate, much more so than if she'd simply caught Ellis in a candid moment, for it exposed the contrast between his desperate longing for notoriety and the feeble quality of his effort.

  Tommy

  Saturday night Caroline served him a lavish feast of stuffed Cornish hens, endive salad and Italian cheesecake accompanied by a bottle of vintage Amarone. She seemed relaxed, and the way Janek read the dinner she was telling him she wanted to feel close to him again.

  After they ate he went to her bookcase, pulled out a copy of Celebrities, opened it to her portrait of Ellis and asked her what the photo session had been like.

  "Like most of them," she said. "He wanted desperately to be in the book."

  "Think he's capable of cutting off a couple of women's heads?"

  "That's a terrible question." But she thought about it. "Tell you the truth," she said finally, "I'm not sure he's capable of cutting up a steak."

  "Did he come onto you?"

  "I suppose he did." She smiled. "That's what my portrait sessions were all about. Get them to come onto my lens. Make them show me their best stuff. Then catch them just when they realized it didn't work."

  Janek nodded, amused. "So that's how you did it."

  "That's the way. Hey, are you here as a detective? My lover? Or what?"

  There was something then about the way she acted with him in bed that badly disconcerted him, something harsh and taking that canceled out the good feelings he had gotten from her at dinner. It was the same greediness he'd felt when they'd gone to bed after she'd called him from the tennis club to boldly announce her desire: a hard, disturbing, almost antagonistic style, different from the slow, giving, pleasuring sensuality of their lovemaking before their quarrel.

  Afterward, pondering this change as she clung to him, her flesh hot against his back, he decided he couldn't keep his feelings to himself.

  "Before we made love," he said sadly. "Now it seems wejust..."

  "What?"

  "Fuck."

  She pulled back abruptly, stared at him, her eyes showing bewilderment, then hurt. She got up, found her robe, put it on and tightened the sash.

  "Yeah," she said, speaking carefully, "you're right." And then, after a pause: "What did you expect?"

  "Please, Caroline, don't start going hard-boiled."

  "When you use words like 'fuck,' I'm sorry, I start feeling hard."

  "Last weekend you talked about 'tearing one off.'"

  "Maybe that's the way it felt."

  He stood up and began pulling on his clothes.

  "Going home?" she asked.

  "Dressing for battle. Want to watch me strap on my gun?"

  "Fuck you, Janek!"

  He turned to her. "I like direct anger. Better than having you take it out on me in the sack."

  She gaped at him. "You weren't satisfied?"

  "Come off it. That's not the point."

  "What is the point? I seem to have lost it."

  "Instead of punishing each other, why don't we try and talk."

  "I wish that were possible. But you're so"—she shook her head—"stubborn."

  "Me?"

  "You. With your solemn duty to the dead."

  Dressed now, he stood over her, staring down into her sullen eyes. "What about your duty?" he asked. "Don't you have a duty to yourself?"

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "That you can't let a little matter like the fact your father was murdered go because 'I'm sick of it, I can't deal with it,' and a lot of selfish crap like that. You stand aloof and declare it turns you off, and now you're pissed because I won't go along. Tuesday night I started to tell you something, but you wouldn't let me finish. I went over to Hoboken and talked to a detective, the one working your father's case. Turns out there were loose ends. Turns out Al was onto something real. That's important, to be confronted even if it hurts. I don't see why you don't understand that, considering the sort of work you do."

  "What's my work got to do with it?"

  "Every day you go out with your camera hunting for aggression. Okay, here's some real aggression, you see it and you turn away." He paused. "Maybe because you don't have the luxury of looking at it through a lens."

  She gazed at him hard. "That's rough, Janek. Really rough. And suppose you're right. Suppose I do distance myself. So what? I told you aggression frightens me. Which is why I'm working on it. I told you that."

  Watching her carefully, he saw a tremor in her eye and suddenly had a thought: that there was a connection between her fear and fascination with male aggression and her resistance to dealing with her father's death.

  "What was he like?"

  "Who?"

  He softened his voice. "Why's it so hard for you to talk about your dad?"

  "I thought I did."

  Janek shook his head. "You said he was a failure and he called you on your birthdays and he drank and you smelled liquor on his breath. That's not enough. The guy was your father. You must have more to say about him than that."

  "What are you now? My therapist?"

  He ignored her sarcasm. "Obviously you have some grievance against him, but you've got to know that whatever lousy thing he may have done he didn't deserve to be killed."

  She looked at him in wonderment, then tears started pulsing from her eyes. She didn't wipe them away. He put his arm around her, brought out his handkerchief and tenderly dabbed her cheeks.

  "Talk about it," he urged.

  "So damn difficult." She was weeping now.

&nb
sp; "You'll feel better."

  "Don't know where to start."

  "Start anywhere. Just let it out."

  Her anguish upset him. He went to the galley to make coffee and give her time to settle down.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I know I've been acting like a bitch."

  "You've been hurting. There's nothing wrong with that." When he came to her she took the mug of coffee gratefully, then settled back onto the couch. He watched her, feeling she was ready, waiting patiently for her to begin. "He was real good-looking. A handsome guy."

  "I could tell that from the snapshot."

  "When he was young, I mean; later he wasn't so handsome. But always charming. He was a charmer. He could charm anybody out of anything." She paused, took another sip, then gulped. "He was a bastard too. Terrible temper. It came out when he was drunk. All his anger came out and then he was dangerous. He'd make threats: 'One of these days I'm going to snap. Going to go into work, pull out the old thirty-eight and kill them, mow them down.' Never knew who he meant. The other officers. The bad guys. Or just anyone who rubbed him wrong." She paused. "He hit us, Frank. My mother, my older sister and me. I'm not claiming we were battered women. He didn't beat us up, but when he was mad he'd slap us. A single hard stinging smack across the face. So maybe we were battered. I remember once he knocked my mother down. Then he got remorseful and promised he wouldn't do it again. But still he'd warn us: 'Don't push. Push too hard and I'm not responsible. No telling what I'll do if I'm feeling pushed.'

  "He could also be gentle." She smiled. "I remember some terrific times. Like playing hide-and-seek with him between the sheets hanging on the laundry lines in our backyard, and him walking me to school in his uniform, taking my hand as we crossed the street. There was a time, I remember, when he seemed to have a lot of money. Then, later, he was broke. That period when he was flush he rented us a house for the whole summer down on the Jersey shore. The first day he took me into the water and held me up in front of the waves. I started to cry and he said, 'It's all right. Trust me. I'm holding you. I'll never let you go.' But I couldn't trust him, could never be sure, never know when he'd turn furious. Whenever he started to drink I knew there might be trouble. But then sometimes he'd get drunk and turn sweet, almost maudlin." She shook her head. "I never knew."

  "He said, 'Trust me,' but he wasn't dependable."

  "That's right. That was the whole damn trouble."

  "What's your best memory of him?"

  She laughed. "One time when I was little and it was winter, really cold, I came home from school, my toes so frozen they were numb. He scooped me up and carried me to my room, put me down on the bed, peeled off my socks and slowly massaged my toes till they were warm."

  "And the worst?"

  She looked away. "Seeing him hit my mother, hearing her cry, then the anger on his face as he turned away, the sound of the front door slamming and the car roaring off. Then his curses hours later when he came home from a bar. Being afraid to go to sleep, afraid of what he'd do."

  "A violent man. The worst kind of cop."

  "But he could control it."

  "Sure. That's why he became a cop. A cop carries around a big burden of menace. But he's disciplined. There're all these rules. I've known a lot of men like your dad."

  "I loved him. Even the last years. I was disappointed in him, hated the way he lived, but I loved him anyway. He'd smile and when he did, it just lit up his face. And then it didn't matter that he was a loser and a drunk. He was almost…"

  "What?"

  "Irresistible."

  "So you cried a lot when he was killed."

  "Yes," she nodded. "I cried."

  "And you were relieved too."

  She nodded again. "Because I didn't have to be disappointed in him anymore."

  Janek sat back and studied her. "When did you start Aggression?"

  "Oh, some of those shots go back a long time." She gestured toward the walls. "I did that chess player five years ago."

  "When did you decide to do the book?"

  "It was just one of maybe four or five ideas."

  Janek smiled. "You're not answering my question."

  "Okay. It was sometime in July."

  "And you don't think there's a connection?"

  "Sure there is. Of course."

  "This idea you have about men and violence, the way it attracts you and also turns you off—you must know that comes from your experience with your father, the way you could never be sure if he'd be loving and warm your toes or turn on you and slap your face."

  She nodded slowly, then looked up at him. "You're such a different kind of cop."

  "What kind am I?"

  She thought awhile before she answered. "You're the cop I wished he could have been. Hey, come over here." He went to her on the couch. "You're confident and competent." She began to trace her forefinger upon his face. "Not a blusterer or a hothead. Not like him at all. You know how he strapped on his gun? Angry. And he wore it in the house. He never drew it even when he was drunk, but it was always there, strapped to his waist, a threat. He could have pulled it out anytime and shot us all in his awful rage."

  Janek did his best to soothe her, holding her, rocking her gently back and forth, lightly kissing her hair.

  Lou

  He parked in front of the house. This was the third of the last four Sunday mornings he'd driven here. Perhaps a reprieve from the puzzle of Switched Heads, but Janek had the feeling he was about to complicate his life.

  The air was still as he approached the door. He rang the bell, heard the chimes go off but no footsteps. He walked around to the side. The blue Honda was in the garage. He went to the back door and looked into the kitchen. There was a half-empty bottle of vodka on the counter.

  He rang the backdoor bell. No chimes this time—just a loud shrill ring. The gracious amenities were confined to the front of the house; the rear was functional and brash.

  He was about to leave when she appeared in the kitchen. She was wearing a pastel-pink robe, her hair was disheveled and there was a look of panic on her, the panic of a woman who was tearing herself apart.

  "Frank!" He saw her mime his name. She opened the door and forced a smile.

  "Sorry, Lou, I should have called—"

  "Whyyoucomearoundtheback?"

  "Did I wake you?"

  "Big surprise you coming by." This time she spaced her words.

  She poured him a cup of coffee, asked if he wanted anything else, and when he said he didn't she led him into the living room, where they sat side by side on the couch.

  "Want to show you something." He pulled out the snapshot of Al, Tommy Wallace and Hart. "Ever see this before?"

  She nodded.

  "Torn out of one of Al's old albums, wasn't it?"

  She nodded again.

  "Mind getting it for me, Lou?" She stared down at the rug. "What's the matter?"

  "Where did you get this, Frank?"

  "We'll get to that. Why don't you get me the album first." He watched her as she moved solemnly up the stairs. When she came back she was holding the album in both her hands. He didn't like the way she was walking, as if she were in some kind of trance. She handed him the album, sat down, then folded her hands neatly in her lap.

  She looked at the rug while he turned the pages until he found the one from which the snapshot had been torn. The patch of glue matched the patch on the picture's back.

  "Know this was missing?" She began to jiggle her foot. "Why are you so nervous, Lou?"

  "I'm not. Want some toast?" She stood then, abruptly, and moved toward the kitchen. He followed, found her scurrying about slapping slices of bread into the toaster, opening the refrigerator, pulling out butter and jam, shutting it, then opening it again to take out a carton of orange juice, which she shook vigorously before she put it back.

  She dug out a tray from a cupboard, arranged a plate and silverware on it, poured him a second cup of coffee with a trembling hand, and though he'd drunk his f
irst black she went to the refrigerator to fetch her creamer and added a sugar bowl from the breakfast table beside the door.

  He watched in silence. This wasn't going to be easy; her wind-up-doll behavior told him that. Their eyes met, she turned away, then they both smelled the burning toast. She leaped back to the counter, yanked up the toaster lever and feverishly plucked out the burnt bread with a fork. She gazed at the remnants, flung them into the sink, then raced to the breadbox, grabbed up two fresh slices, stuck them into the toaster, plunged down the lever again and gave the machine a punishing slap.

  "Forget the fucking toast, Lou. You're not going to put me off with that. I'll take the juice and the coffee and then we're going to sit. We got some things to talk about."

  She tried to lead him back to the living room, but this time he wanted to sit across from her, not side by side. He maneuvered her to the dining table and when they were finally settled she looked at him directly for the first time since he'd come into the house, and he could see that she was scared.

  "What's the picture all about?"

  "It's just Al and Tommy Wallace and Dale Hart."

  "I know who's in it. I didn't ask you that. I asked you what it's all about."

  "Where'd you get it, Frank?"

  "I'm asking the questions, Lou. You asked me, as a personal favor, to find out if Al was working on a case. Okay, I did, and now I've come up with something and now you start acting like you're sorry that you asked." He looked at her sternly. "Time to cut the crap, Lou. You got something to say—spill it out."

  She glanced at him, then bowed her head. A shaft of light hit her face; her nose cast a triangle of shade upon her cheek. Janek thought he saw stored-up tears. He waited, silent. She glanced at him again. And then she began to pour.

  As he listened he realized that although he had heard many stories in his life, many long confessions, he had never reacted quite like this. It was not that the things Lou confessed were in any way extraordinary, but that he felt aroused by them to an unusual degree.

  "...they were grand friends, the three of them, Al, Tommy and Dale. They were pals, though Dale was a sergeant and Al was ten years older than the other two. We saw each other socially, six of us—me, the other two wives and the three of them. They had all been partners at one time or another—Al and Dale, then Tommy and Dale, and finally Tommy and Al. We had a lot of good times together before things went sour on account of what they found.