“First let me tell you what brings me to New York.”
“First tell me about Etta.”
“She can wait.”
“I can’t,” Jordan said.
Pixley’s giggle touched a raw nerve. “She turned up under a chicken coop in Poultrina.”
“Where?”
“Take County Road 413 north into the Pine Barrens. Poultrina is the wide spot in the road, a socialist farm community founded by Russian immigrants that went belly up after the war. The hen house was being razed to make way for a drive-in movie when a bulldozer scraped up the body of a colored girl in a sleeping bag. They brought a sideman from the Basie orchestra to make the ID. Dr. Melvin says she died around the time she was reported missing.”
“Died of what?”
“Homicide detectives don’t confide in lowly shutterbugs. But I’ve got shots of her up close, what’s left, and ligature marks are visible around her throat. I’ve also got the farm, the dozer jockey, the cops. If there’s ever an arrest, we’re covered.”
“Any new leads?”
“The cops couldn’t care less. I may have something, though,” Pixley said. “I may even have photos on that case out of Virginia Beach. But let Etta rest in peace for a while. My first solo exhibit opens Saturday in Greenwich Village.”
Jordan wasn’t ready to change the subject. It wasn’t up to him.
“It’s a round-up of my best work.”
“Plenty of ice cream?”
“See for yourself. The gallery is counting on a big turnout. Can I expect you to be there? Bring a friend.”
“How do I say no?”
Jordan lit another Lucky and stamped it out after a couple of puffs. He was starting inside when he heard his name, made a big deal of looking at his watch as Mollie came across the street.
“I was beginning to think you’d stood me up.”
“It crossed my mind,” she said. “But I was afraid where the pictures might turn up.”
Jordan put an envelope in her hand. She shook out a contact sheet. “One shot’s missing,” she said.
“The June cover. Very demure. What will you do with these?”
“Destroy them? Use them for Christmas cards? Sell them to sailors?” She dropped the envelope in her bag. “It’s up to me now. I’d be crazy to let you have them.”
Jordan nodded, and lit up again. Then he gave her the negatives, and they went inside together.
A group show had brought out a mob to the first floor exhibit space. Jordan poked his head in, and gazed noncommittally at color field canvases. Upstairs, Chablis and stale cheese drew freeloaders to view Pixley’s photos. Jordan liked the stark German racing cars from his commercial work. Liked them better than the cute children he’d seen first at the photographer’s studio, but not as much as the charred teeth and bone fragments, all that remained of Bess Pomeroy, 26, found in a charcoal pit in the Barrens, which ran with her story in Real Detective.
Men posed heroically on a beach could have stepped out of a Charles Atlas ad, if Charles Atlas had stepped out of his leopard-skin trunks.
“Where’s your friend?” Mollie said. “I want to meet him. If I didn’t know you like I do, I could get the wrong idea.”
She inspected male nudes till Jordan said, “There’s Pix.” A blond man chatting with a woman in a double-breasted suit pricked up his ears, and called them over.
“Adam Jordan, shake hands with Rhoda Sloane,” Pixley said. “Rhoda’s the photography editor for New Journal of the Arts.”
Rhoda squinted at Jordan as she transferred a glass to her left hand.
“Adam’s my other editor,” Pixley said to her.
“We must have crossed paths before,” she said to Jordan, “but I’m sure I don’t recognize you. Who did you say you write for?”
“Real Detective.”
Rhoda laughed, spilling wine on herself. Jordan said, “Pix, Miss Sloane, this is Mollie Gordon, former Miss Delaware Valley, the next Miss New Jersey, future Miss America, and Real Detective’s reigning cover girl. You made a new fan today, Pix.”
Mollie extended her hand. Pixley didn’t seem to know whether to shake it or take a picture. “What do you think of my stuff?”
“Some’s not bad,” Jordan said. “But I’m no authority on art photography.”
“Don’t let him rain on your parade,” Mollie said. “Everything’s terrific, especially the boys on the beach.”
“Are you an authority?”
“I’ve also taken my clothes off for men with a camera. What does that make me?”
“The ultimate authority. Oh, absolutely. Would you model for me?”
“Do you do women, too, Mr. Pixley? I wouldn’t like being your first.”
Rhoda went for water to wash out her stain as Jordan took Pixley aside. “You said you’d learned something about Etta’s death—”
“There’s Thom Whiteside from the Trib, the most important tush I’ve got to kiss. I’ll talk to you later.”
He was angling toward a man in a corduroy jacket when Jordan saw him pulled into a corner by a teenager with a camera around his neck.
“What do you really think?” Jordan said to Mollie.
“He’s a sweet little fairy. Since I’m not an authority in that area, I’ll reserve judgment.”
“You know how to play to his ego.”
“I meant most of it. He lets his camera fall in love with his model. If he could do that with a woman, I’d be happy to put myself in his hands.”
“Does a photographer have to love you to make you look good?”
“Looking good is for second runner-up. Looking great, that’s what makes a beauty queen. I need a great portfolio.”
“I’d take him up on his offer.”
“De Costa loves me. Can’t you put in a good word with him?”
“De Costa doesn’t lift a finger without something in return. He doesn’t love anyone but himself.”
A peroxide blond with a thin moustache, a short, slender man, came up on Pixley from behind with a peck on the cheek. The photographer nudged him away, and Jordan heard, “You’re embarrassing yourself, Marcel. Embarrassing both of us.”
“Would Pix do it for nothing?” Mollie said.
“It wouldn’t be for nothing. Nothing is.”
Pixley was by himself now, counting the house beside the picture of a little girl with her back to a lion cage holding tight to a balloon on a string. The big cat was pressing against the bars, huge, dripping jaws wide apart as the child erupted in tears. Jordan went over, leaving Mollie alone with the nudes. “You were lucky to be there just when the lion roared,” he said.
“I don’t have luck,” Pixley said. “I make it. The lion is yawning. When her grandmother was distracted I told the tot that the cage had come open, and the beast was going to jump out and eat her up. I also snapped her from behind running away, two adorable shots of her peeing down her legs.”
“The poor kid’ll have nightmares till she’s a grandma herself.”
“What of it? I made her immortal. We all sacrifice for the sake of art. There are no free passes,” Pixley said. “Look at the crowd. This is the greatest day of my life.”
“Make it great for both of us,” Jordan said. “What did you find out about Etta?”
“It could come to nothing. Or it could break the case wide open. It was staring hundreds of thousands of people in the face. But no one knew what to make of it, but me. Assuming it isn’t simply a coincidence—”
“Are you going to tell me or play Hamlet?”
“It’s not Shakespearean. The egg farm where Etta was killed—”
“Where she was found. We don’t know where she died.”
“That egg farm,” Pixley said. “Hub Chase was born there.”
“How do you know?”
“The Sporting News named him to their pre-season all-star rookie team with a nice write-up. A three-hundred hitter in two seasons of triple-A ball with good power and speed on the base-paths.
Six-foot, two hundred pounds, throws right, bats left, hometown Poultrina, New Jersey.”
“You remind me of myself,” Jordan said, “when I was ten.”
He hadn’t meant it the way it came out. But then what did he mean? Pixley never showed an angry side. Jordan wasn’t even sure he’d recognize the signs. But on the greatest day of the photographer’s life this wasn’t the best moment.
“I’m a big baseball fan,” Pixley said, “always have been.”
“Does the Sporting News know where to find him?”
“He’s at spring training with the A’s in West Palm Beach. They break camp next week.”
“I—uh-huh.” Someone off the street in a beat-up leather jacket was homing in on Mollie. “You’ll set up a shoot in the meantime with my friend?”
“That has to wait, too. My best equipment is locked in my studio.”
“She’ll be disappointed.”
“I know a thing or two about beautiful women,” Pixley said. “They don’t carry a grudge in front of the camera.”
“I told her you’d have her looking stunning.” The man in the leather jacket had his own opinions about Pixley’s work. Mollie was nodding agreeably while he expounded on them. “Gotta get back to her,” Jordan said. “Call me before you leave town.”
“I’ll give her the full treatment,” Pixley said after him. “She won’t be able to complain about a thing.”
The cheese and wine were gone with most of the crowd when a girl dressed all in black walked in. She was nineteen or twenty with a serious expression, and an expensive camera around her neck, an Exakta Varex with a Pentaprism viewfinder favored by pros who could afford one.
A lap around the gallery ended at a portrait of stoop laborers bringing in the melon harvest at a Vineland truck farm. She put her nose close, then stepped back with her fingers squared in front of her eyes. Pixley made her for a rich kid, the arty type hungry for Bohemian life in the Village. An NYU coed, if he wasn’t mistaken, with a major in the social sciences. There wasn’t much he couldn’t tell about some women from a single look.
Mrs. Coopersmith, the gallery owner, came by to answer her questions. “Seventy-five dollars, yes, and signed by the photographer. That’s him over there by the window. We close in ten minutes.”
“Mr. Pixley,” the girl said to him. “I’m Gail Aubrey, a big fan of your work.”
She brushed a tendril curl behind her ear. A pretty girl on the wrong side of the camera.
“My first fan,” Pixley said. “I’ll always remember the name. You never forget your first.”
Gail Aubrey’s cheeks, which were peaches and cream, went heavy on the peaches. If he had her in his viewfinder (a primitive contraption next to her Pentaprism), he’d shoot her with Kodachrome. Pixley hated the garishness of color. But Gail Aubrey’s lovely complexion would be squandered in shades of gray.
“Your subjects look into the camera without knowing it’s there,” she said. “How do you consistently achieve that effect?”
“You misunderstand my intent. They know it’s there. They’re playing to it.”
Gail nodded uneasily. Something else Pixley knew instantly about most women: Which of their insecurities to exploit first.
“It’s the photographer they’re not cognizant of. That’s the secret. They forget all about me till I have what I want from them. What excellent equipment you have.”
She patted the Exakta against her breast. “Greenwich Village is chockablock with interesting faces. I can’t walk to the store without shooting off a roll of film. Walker Evans is my favorite photographer. What’s your opinion of him?”
Evans’ sharecroppers, the smudged aristocracy of Southern poverty, depressed him. Shooting a coroner’s slab for Real Detective was more uplifting.
“We’re all in his debt. Walker is looking over my shoulder every time I set up a picture.”
“That’s how I feel, too,” Gail said.
Such a good-looking girl. He pictured her in sharp resolution on black sand, creamy skin against volcanic ash. A beach far from the yellow grit of the Jersey Shore. Black sand and black sheets.
She was a junior at NYU, an anthropology major, and anthropology bored her. What she wanted to do was to take pictures. He asked to see her camera, and fired off three shots before she could get herself together. A quick finger on the trigger was indispensible. He told her it was the first thing she had to learn.
“I can’t wait to see how they come out,” she said.
“They’re not art, just something to remember you by besides your name.” He gave her his address on a matchbook. “Send me the one you think is second best.”
“Oh, they’ll be art,” she said. “I know your time is valuable, but I’d love to hear what you think of my recent pictures. I live nearby, right off Washington Square.”
“How can I say no? My hotel is on the way.”
She brought him to a fifth-floor walkup. The kitchen had been converted into a darkroom. Her photos were what he expected. A naïve eye for Bowery bums and the Italian pushcart vendors on Bleecker Street portrayed them excruciatingly as exotics.
“Be brutal,” she said.
“I can’t. You’re definitely on the right track. I’m going to keep one or two to show Mrs. Coopersmith.”
“You’re a dear.”
“May I take your picture again?” he said. “Something more revealing of you?”
“I study photography at night at the Artists’ League. My instructor says a camera is a knife that cuts through our subjects’ defenses.”
“I couldn’t put it better myself,” Pixley said. “If you’ll change into something less prim, we can cut through some of yours.”
“I’m in your hands.”
“I’ll go easy,” he said, with a smile. “My knife is dull.”
Any other man she’d met twenty minutes ago trying to talk her out of her clothes Pixley knew she wouldn’t be so eager to please. What did she have to fear from a harmless pixie? Something else he could predict about women was a quick yes when he asked them to undress in the interest of art. It was nothing to brag about. He wanted them thinking hard before they answered, to have second thoughts.
The bedroom door remained open while Gail pulled her sweater over her head. Pixley watched her try on a filmy blouse, then take it off, unhook her brassiere, and slip into the blouse again with nothing underneath. She grinned when she saw him peeking. A peasant skirt completed the outfit.
“Is this what you had in mind?”
“Even better,” he said.
“How do you want me?”
“I’ll leave it up to you.”
She sat on the couch with her legs crossed under her while he fiddled with the flash attachment. When he continued to ignore her, she ran her fingers through her hair, and let the stiffness out of her spine. The flashbulb went off immediately.
“I wasn’t ready,” she said.
“That’s the point.”
“What should we try now?”
“It’s still up to you.”
She moistened her lips, parted them slightly, slitted her eyes. “How’s this?”
“Ridiculous,” he said, and got the picture he wanted when she went into a pout.
“You don’t miss a beat, do you?”
He popped out the burned flashbulb, replaced it, and advanced the film. “What? I didn’t hear.”
She repeated herself leaning into the camera, exaggerating the words. “I said you don’t—”
He pressed the shutter again. “You don’t have to shout,” he said. “I can’t afford to miss anything, because it won’t be there again. What else have you got for me?”
She tossed her head, spread her arms across the back of the couch, showing off her breasts inside the thin blouse. In the glare of flashbulbs Gail Aubrey wasn’t the proper young lady he’d encountered strolling through his show. He opened her top button, got the picture, and was hiking her skirt around her hips when she caught his wrist. “Uh
-uh.”
“If you don’t like the shot, I’ll destroy it.”
“I said no.”
“You’re being childish, Gail. Your instructor would be the first to say so.”
“He didn’t tell us to make our subjects do things that make them feel cheap.”
“So much for cutting through defenses.”
“That’s enough.”
He pressed the shutter.
Gail covered herself, though it hardly seemed necessary. He was less than a man, pathetic once you got past the fey charm. Many big names in photography were misanthropic, she saw it in their work. Pix Pixley’s art was humanitarian, but she couldn’t say that about him as a person. She was buttoning up when he shoved her onto the couch. Had she ever misjudged anyone so badly? He was a maniac who would do anything for a picture.
“I want you out of here,” she said, “or I’m calling the police.”
He dropped beside her, bent his arm across her face, and pushed her onto her back. His other hand slid under her skirt. She heard stitches pop, and saw her panties in shreds on the floor.
He was all over her now. A finger crooked inside her blouse, and buttons scattered across the room. What was happening would almost be comical if it was happening to someone else. An elf was tearing off her clothes, and she was helpless to stop him. In this crazy part of the city you had to choose your friends carefully. A girl wasn’t safe even with a fairy.
He twisted onto his side, and zipped open his fly. Gail looked away into the face of a demented little boy. If she lived to be a hundred she wouldn’t be able to make sense of him. This wasn’t the time to try. She pulled his hair, slapped his ears. A knee slicing between hers made space for the other, pried her legs wide, opened her, announced her vulnerability before he forced himself inside wriggling and grunting, his heart hammering against her dead one, tearing her apart. She dug her nails into the sweaty back of his neck. She felt herself blacking out, and prayed that she would while she concentrated her hate on him, cursed the rotten chain of events that had brought them together going back to the day she was born.
“You vile piece of shit,” she said when he was done with her.
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“How could you...?”
False Negative (Hard Case Crime) Page 17