Killing Paparazzi

by Robert M. Eversz

  The limousines rolled to the carpet, the attendants dipped and swung open the big black doors to a gowned and heeled or crisply trousered leg, and after a dramatic pause a face made famous by pretending to be someone else ascended to the adulation of fans and the brilliant photo-flash of the paparazzi. When a blonde kid who looked about seventeen stepped out with his mom it was like St Elmo’s fire swept the scene. Cameras clicked out a barrage of photo-flash and across the carpet the fans screamed with teenage love-anguish. He waved and smiled at the cameras, jaunted over to the fans to sign a few autographs, causing at least three dead faint-aways, and when he turned his back to enter the theatre the motorized rewinds in the pen sounded considerably louder than the next limousine to pull up to the curb. As I straightened from my shooter’s crouch a hand grabbed my waist. I’d been pushed and grabbed all I could take for one day and rammed my elbow into ribs I realized too late belonged to Gabe. ‘Sorry, thought you were someone else,’ I said.

  Gabe winced and put one hand to his side. ‘Right, if you knew it was me you would have hit harder.’

  I couldn’t help smiling because he was half right. He took that as encouragement and said, ‘Come on, let’s have a jar together.’

  I glanced around the pen. The fans on the opposite side of the carpet were holding true but the photographers had lost interest. Some rewound film, packed lenses and cameras, and some just walked away.

  ‘A jar of what?’

  ‘Ale for me, I always like to go for a jar after I drop off my film.’

  I was about to tell him not a chance but then he ran his thumb and forefinger along my ear. Involuntary delight shuddered down my back. I had great memories of the time we spent together whenever it slipped my mind that I didn’t want to have anything to do with him again. I bit down hard and smoothed the hair standing straight up on my arms. I was angry that he had touched me, angrier still that my body electrified when he did, but angriest most of all that I said yes.

  11

  The Formosa Café had been a Hollywood haunt since the 1930s, when the Oriental theme of the place evoked almost as much mystery and romance as the celebrities and deal-makers who wandered over from the adjacent Hollywood Studios lot for their two-martini lunches. Like so much of Hollywood, the theme of the place didn’t extend beyond the façade, which had been painted Honk Kong red to fool the blind drunk into thinking the joint looked like a pagoda. One step past the front door, the Orient dissolved into a shrine to celebrity. Behind the bar and above the horseshoe booths hung a photo gallery of Hollywood film and television stars from the 1950s and 60s, some still famous and others no more than a face not even the bartender could pin a name to. The bar itself was black with red vinyl padding at the edges, easy on the elbows and helpful to those with a sudden need to rest their forehead on something soft. The hostess who came to greet me was of the same vintage as the stars on the wall. Save for the conspicuous lack of tobacco smoke, it could have been 1965.

  Gabe handed me a beer when I walked up and introduced the other paparazzo in the booth as Hank Vulkovitch. With pockmarked cheeks and a hook nose, he was ugly as a cartoon villain but his deep-set black eyes glittered with humour and an intelligence that seemed two steps ahead of everybody else. He grinned at me like we were old pals. Right away I liked him. He reached out with his free hand and we shook.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Hank.’

  ‘Most people call me Vulch.’ He had a deep voice and a slow, pleased smile.

  ‘Short for Vulkovitch?’

  ‘Vulture, short for vulture,’ Gabe said.

  ‘Why vulture?’

  He turned his face profile. ‘The beak.’

  ‘Bloody hell, it’s the helicopters.’

  He flashed a chorus line of capped teeth set incongruously in a B-picture face. Even those feeding off the famous were pleased with their own small celebrity.

  ‘Vulch was one of the first to shoot from a chopper. And to use parabolic microphones, cell phone intercepts and electronic tracking systems. If he can get to a car on the studio lot, he can track it anywhere.’

  ‘Tech has its uses but like I was telling Gabe nothing beats legwork and creative determination. I saw your Death Row photographs. Hell, everybody did. How did you hear about it? Nothing went over the police channels and the staff at BHH is notoriously hush-hush.’

  ‘Just got lucky while cruising Sunset. Saw the lights and went to check it out.’

  He didn’t believe me, but then, I didn’t expect him to. He dropped a ten and stood to go. Like most paparazzi he was tall. It gave them an advantage in crowds, but as most actors are short, the resulting perspective never balanced to my eye. ‘I’m tracking a very major star involved in a torrid affair with his podiatrist. I’d tell you who but you two jackals would just steal it from me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t steal it. I’m an honest girl,’ I said.

  He laughed at that. ‘We’re all honest. It’s just that none of us can be trusted. Never tell another photographer what you’re working on, not even a friend, because you’ll lose both the exclusive and the friend.’ Before he left he punched Gabe on the shoulder and said, ‘You’re luckier than you deserve, bud.’

  I asked, ‘Why are you so lucky?’

  ‘I told him we were married. Do you mind?’

  ‘Yeah, I mind.’

  He shrugged like maybe that was important to him, and maybe not. ‘When I saw your byline this morning I knew I’d see you again.’

  I rubbed at the ring of condensation left by my beer on the table. ‘We’re both in the same business. Bound to happen.’ I downed the beer and ordered whiskey from a passing waitress. Some nights just aren’t meant to be taken with sobriety.

  ‘I’m sure I put my foot in the pie but I still don’t understand what made you so angry. Las Vegas was the most fun I’ve had since coming to the States.’

  ‘You expecting a visit from the immigration authorities, need me to play wifey for you, is that why you’re making so nice?’

  ‘You have a lot of attitude.’

  ‘I know, and most of it bad.’

  ‘I don’t need anything. I just happen to have missed you.’

  I didn’t want to go into it. I wanted to enjoy a few drinks with him and who knows what might happen after. I wanted to hear him talk and watch his lips when he smiled. But I didn’t want him to con me. You can’t miss something you never had. I said, ‘Whatever. What are you working on now?’

  ‘A story.’

  ‘What kind of story?’

  ‘A story about greed.’

  ‘Great idea. Wish I’d thought of that.’

  ‘I’ve burned out as a photographer.’

  ‘I thought you were doing pretty good.’

  ‘You’ve seen how brutal the business is.’

  ‘You mean the fact that we act like jackals?’

  ‘We serve the public,’ he asserted. ‘The public wants to see gashed throats and ripped entrails. If we’re jackals, we’re jackals in public service.’

  ‘It’s just a pay-cheque. No reason to get hung up about it.’

  ‘Don’t get me started on the money.’

  ‘The money is good.’

  ‘The money is a pittance compared to the sums celebrities make. Five, ten, twenty million a picture, unbelievable amounts of money for two to three months of half-talented work. The bastards think fame and wealth put them above the very same public that elevate them. They believe themselves entitled to live like bratty little gods. And along come the paparazzi, the dark side of that public craving, demanding more than carefully crafted fictions, clamouring for bones, blood and the viscera of the soul.’

  Strong passion in a man is both attractive and frightening; attractive because strong opinions can be evidence of strong character and frightening because the guy can turn out to be a crank. ‘Maybe it’s not that complicated,’ I said. ‘Maybe we’re just taking pictures of famous people.’

  ‘It’s more complicated than either of us know. Ce
lebrity is a Faustian bargain and paparazzi the hounds from hell.’

  I let out a howl like I was a demon dog and Gabe thought that was funny so he howled too. And that should have been it, right, two pros talking shop and getting silly over a couple of drinks. I have a habit of drinking too much when there’s something I know I shouldn’t do but want to do anyway. And Gabe was an attractive drinker; the more he drank the more handsome he looked, with his flushed porcelain skin and green eyes dancing like the devil. Or maybe I only thought so because the more I drank the lower my standards dropped.

  When a couple of whiskeys later he mentioned some papers from immigration had come in the mail and did I mind coming over to look at them I was disappointed but not surprised. He had to want something. I didn’t figure him going to the trouble of drinking with me unless he had some pay-off in mind, my signature or sex or maybe both. Not that I didn’t trust him, but he seemed the kind of guy who always had a secret agenda hidden behind his ulterior motive.

  His apartment wasn’t bad on the outside, one of four in a pre-war Spanish two blocks south of Melrose, but when he opened the door I saw right away he wasn’t the kind of guy I wanted to live with; from the shirts, socks and pants strewn on the floor it looked like a small army had been vaporized. Gabe had the decency to be embarrassed. I waited safely behind while he kicked, plucked and tossed a clear path into the living-room.

  ‘Coffee?’ he asked.

  ‘Not if the kitchen looks as bad as this.’

  He took that for yes and left me with an envelope from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. I swept a pair of tennis shoes off the only chair in the room and sat down to read the forms but the words staggered across the page like little drunks and when I did catch one it wouldn’t hold still long enough for me to focus down on it. I decided to freshen up and got out of the chair to wash my face with cold water. The only towel in the bathroom was on the floor. I dried my hands with toilet paper. The best thing would be to sober up, sign the papers and go before I had some fun I’d later regret. On my way back to the living-room I saw a half-open door and pushed it open. The only photograph in the room hung above the bed. That he’d hung that particular photograph at all surprised me more than any of the other surprising things Gabe had done.

  I leaned against the kitchen door and watched him put together a plate of cheese and crackers. He glanced up once, asked, ‘Find everything you need?’ and buried his head in the refrigerator. When he emerged he noticed I hadn’t moved. He set down the knife, turned to me like maybe he had done something wrong to deserve such close scrutiny and asked, ‘What is it?’

  I went up to him, put my hand on his chest, brushed my lips across his cheek, his eyes, his mouth. He stood as still as a deer encountered in the forest. ‘You’re a hard one to understand,’ he whispered. ‘I know,’ I said. And then he kissed me all passionate and I kissed him back with an angry tenderness. It didn’t have to mean anything. I didn’t want a serious relationship. I just needed somebody who would return my call the next morning. I took him by the hand, led him to the bedroom and we fell together to the bed below an eight-by-ten taken when Gabe and I had been married. In the shot, I’m riding Gabe piggyback, framing his face with my hands and resting my chin on the top of his head. I’m looking straight into the camera with a serious expression on my face that makes me look like I’m about seven years old. I couldn’t remember ever looking so young. Gabe is smiling up at me like he’s the happiest man in the world.

  Pictures lie, I told myself. Pictures lie all the time.

  I woke before dawn. Gabe sat on the edge of the bed, fingering something in the circle of light around his hands. I sat up, drank half the glass of water on the night stand and asked what time it was.

  ‘Three.’

  Beneath the light he held the amulet from Papua New Guinea he’d given to me on the day we were married. ‘I’m surprised you still wear it,’ he said.

  ‘If women threw out everything given to them by their ex-boyfriends, the country would need a dozen new land-fills.’

  He fastened the clasp around my neck and gently laid the amulet between my breasts. ‘If anything should happen to me, look closely at this and remember. Then smash it against the wall and forget you ever met me.’

  That sounded pretty weird. I got out of bed, started looking for my clothes. ‘Why do I get the feeling that you’re not telling me something here? Are you expecting trouble?’

  ‘Not at all. If I did, I’d simply leave the country.’ He pointed to the far corner of the room. ‘Your socks are over there. But why are you leaving? Stay for breakfast.’

  I kissed him on the forehead and put on my shoes. ‘Thanks for the invitation but I don’t do sleep-overs. If you want to spend the night with me, you’ll have to do it at my place.’

  ‘Name the night and I’ll be there.’

  ‘What are you doing this weekend?’

  ‘Working on the story. This weekend isn’t good for me.’

  ‘Fine, we’ll call each other next week.’ Why did he say name the night if he didn’t mean it? I drove home slowly enough to pass for sober. It was one thing to be emotionally unavailable but something else to be deceptive and I didn’t know if Gabe was just hard to get or playing some game with me. He wanted me to think he put special value on the time we’d spent in Vegas to fool me into coming over to sign his immigration forms. If he knew I was coming over to sign the forms, he’d prepare. He’d anticipate my anger and lack of trust. He’d frame our wedding photograph and put it on the wall above his bed, knowing I’d consider that photograph proof of his feelings.

  The bastard set me up and shot me down like a clay pigeon.

  12

  If Southern California’s reigning literary form is the screenplay, its favourite category of non-fiction is the self-help book. The bookstore near my apartment contained a section the size of fiction devoted solely to self-improvement guides. I spent the morning thumbing though titles like The Conscious Heart: Seven Soul-Choices that Create Your Relationship Destiny; and When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times; and then a book with a title almost longer than the book itself, Men are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships. Each author claimed to have a secret formula for self-fulfilment: within weeks readers could heal family wounds a quarter-century in the making, find the ideal partner and in some cases shed excess pounds at the same time. With so many books to guide them, Californians had to be the most self-improved people on earth. I bought a half-dozen of the most promising titles and read through the afternoon, scribbling notes in the margin when I thought something applied to my situation, reading and re-reading key passages in a furious attempt to learn how to be normal again.

  Gabe called the next afternoon. I was home when he called. I let the answering machine pick up. I understood Gabe wasn’t the problem. The moment I began to trust someone I panicked. I was the problem. I figured to return the call after the weekend, when I didn’t have to compete with the story he was writing.

  At sunset I packed a cell phone into my camera bag, jumped into the Caddy and cruised toward West Hollywood, the mid-point between Beverly Hills and Hollywood proper and my central launching point. Whenever I spotted a newsstand I pulled over to chat up the attendant. Celebutants are media junkies, known to drop by the local newsstand a couple times every week to check the magazines for proof of their celebrity. You read the publications, I’d say to the attendant, you know who’s hot, you ever see anybody like that come to the stand? Most earned minimum wage. They were happy to make an extra buck. The same with busboys and waitresses. A good tip rated a C-note. When a call from an informant came in I chased it down, Thomas Brothers Guide spread open on the seat to map the fastest route. Half the job was racing around town to catch somebody walking away from a newsstand or restaurant and the other half waiting around for the phone to ring. I answered a half-dozen or more calls a night, s
ome legitimate tips and some cranks, but I never expected to hear from Cass late on Saturday night, particularly not with the news that she had something to share with me. I hadn’t spoken to her since our lunch together but she couldn’t have missed my exclusive on the Death Row photographs.

  ‘I’ve got a floater up here in Lake Hollywood,’ she announced. ‘Beat, stabbed, strangled and then dumped in the lake. You want it?’

  ‘I thought you’d be angry at me.’

  ‘Yesterday I was angry. Today I need you.’

  People were killed so often in Los Angeles a body wasn’t news. I’d learned a lot in a few days. ‘Unless there’s some hook, I don’t see how I can sell it.’

  ‘The show is the hook. We’ll pay you our standard still photographer’s fee and if you can sell something to the tabs you can keep the commission.’

  That sounded like a good deal to me. I drove up Beechwood Canyon and then wound through the maze of hillside streets to Lake Hollywood Drive. At the top of the lake police lights flashed red and blue amid a stand of eucalyptus trees. Despite the romantic name Lake Hollywood was purely utilitarian. It wasn’t even a lake. Surrounded by an eight-foot chain-link fence, it served as a reservoir of fresh water for the city below. Because people drank from it the city wouldn’t allow anyone near enough to spit. Still, the reservoir and surrounding hillsides were among the last open public spaces in a heavily developed city. A Department of Water and Power access road that ran just outside the chain link fence made it a popular destination for joggers, strollers and the occasional killer with a dead body to dump.

  I parked the Caddy and slung the camera gear across my shoulder, watched by two uniforms whose job was to stand at the entrance to the access road and keep the curious at bay. When I told them I was there to shoot publicity stills for Meat Wagon the older of the two advised me to watch my step, clicked on a torch-sized flashlight and led me down the path toward a circle of lights at the edge of the lake. ‘We cleared the site but you should exercise caution and good judgement. Don’t touch anything you don’t absolutely have to and if you so much as pick your nose put the goods in your pocket. Don’t drop anything – and that means nothing – on to the ground. But you’ve done this a hundred times so I don’t have to tell you.’