“Beach is trying to kill me. He saw me, and I ducked into the room.”
“Just open a door at any old party, and I’m behind it?”
She went to the railing. Jordan pulled her back. He stood on his toes, looking downstairs as Beach led Narvin outside.
“Why Mr. Beach want you dead? I never heard anything like it.”
“Another beauty contestant was murdered after he put her on the card at his theater. I tried to talk to him about her, and had to run to save my skin.”
“Think he want to murder you ’cause he the cause of that girl being killed?”
“What else?”
“You what else. Come bothering him, snooping around his business, he definitely gonna put a licking on you. I ain’t convinced he’d kill you.”
“He convinced me.”
“All right, kill you. I don’t believe he had anything to do with killing a girl. Ain’t in his nature. Killing her, and killing you, two separate items.”
“Do you know how ridiculous you are?”
“Was ridiculous when I was playing Prissy from Gone with the Wind. You ridiculous all the time. Like to play detective, but put two and two together and get a hundred forty-three. Mr. Beach didn’t kill that girl, and you went ahead and give him reason for wanting you out of the picture.”
“Not at all.”
“You a big-time magazine editor in New York, ain’t you?”
“So?”
“Big-time detective magazine editor think he killed that poor girl, what could be worse? He don’t need you accusing him to the police. Easier to take care of you himself than rent a lawyer. Save trouble down the road on the murder he didn’t do.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
“The right way,” Cherise said. “Mr. Beach a sweet man. You should apologize, intrudin’ on his private matters.”
On the stairs Jordan snatched off her bandana.
“Give it back,” she said. “I got another date.”
“Do you always play the same part?”
“White men who seen that damn movie before they grew up never have enough Prissy. Thinkin’ up a juicy role you want me to play?”
“I was born grown up, Cherise.”
“Been regressin’ ever since, have you? Not much I ain’t game for, but no more slave girls please. Had my fill of ’em.”
“I do have a fantasy about you,” Jordan said.
“Don’t be shy. Can’t say it, whisper in my ear.”
“I’m not convinced you’ve got what it takes.”
“Must be sick, sick, sick, you won’t tell me.”
“Some other time.”
“What’s wrong with now? Worst can happen is you get laughed at to your face, and I let on to Beach and Greenie and everybody here that knows you.”
“No,” he said. “No, it’s not.”
A thundershower moving up the coast cleared out the yard. Jordan, pinned beside the food table, took Cherise by the hand. “There’s someone you should meet.”
Squeezing through the crowd, they approached a pretty young woman at the window. Every woman at the party was attractive, most on the arm of an older gent. This one’s escort, slight and smooth-shaven, seemed out of place among adults. A camera was around his neck. Sighting through the viewfinder, he directed the woman with her back to the surf. “Hold the pose,” he said, and she stiffened when she saw Jordan.
“The whole world must be here,” she said while the flashbulbs popped.
A smile bubbled on the little man’s lips as he turned around. “My world. You, me, and Adam. And his friend. Are you going to introduce her, Adam, or are you keeping her for yourself?”
“I told you about Cherise,” Jordan said. “You’re going to help make her famous.”
“Indeed I am. I’ll get off a few shots now.”
“She isn’t dressed for it,” Jordan said.
“ ’Scuse him,” Cherise said. “He don’t own me, just looks that way. How do you want me?”
While Pixley squared her in the viewfinder, Jordan took Mollie aside. “Your roommate says you might not be coming back.”
“Wishful thinking.”
“Hers?”
“Hers and mine.”
“How did you hook up with Pix?”
“He called. If I had to wait for you, I’d never have a portfolio. He’s been very good to me, and knows all the right people. What are you doing here?”
“I’m another right person.”
“Your friend, too? What’s her name?”
“Cherise.”
“I thought you’d brought the maid. I don’t need to see a doctor, do I Adam? To have myself tested for various diseases?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Jordan said. “I don’t know who you’ve been sleeping with.”
“You’re a contemptible son of a bitch.”
Pixley reloaded. He pulled Jordan in front of the camera, and the flash went off.
“You didn’t give me a chance to say cheese.”
“I’ve already seen your smile.”
“Pix is gonna have me at his studio tomorrow,” Cherise said, “after he’s back from shooting Mollie on the beach.”
“The ladies will need a stick to beat back their new fans,” Pixley said.
“Are you on the colored beauty circuit, Cherise?” Mollie asked.
“Cherise is a performer,” Jordan said.
“Has she performed many times for you?”
Jordan glanced at Pixley, who said, “I see Vaughn Rogers from the Boardwalk Commission. You should get to know him, Mollie.” He hustled her away. “I’ll talk to you soon, Adam. And I’ll see you tomorrow at five, Cherise.”
“Nice little fella,” Cherise said. “Shouldn’t’ve smoked when he was a kid. It stunted his growth.”
“Is that what he said?”
“Don’t think I got more tact than to ask? More’n Mollie?”
“What’s wrong with Mollie isn’t tactlessness,” Jordan said.
“Ain’t what you think it is either. Not too much. She tryin’ to get under my skin to get under yours.”
“Is that so?”
“Don’t play ignorant. She don’t want under it ’cause it black. She think you in love with her, and she entitled to make you sweat.”
“I’m not in love with her, Cherise. Take my word for it.”
“Stopped takin’ it before Mollie did. Didn’t I say?”
CHAPTER 13
It wasn’t her place to tell Pixley how to do his job, but he was missing a terrific shot: a self-portrait in an apron several sizes too large with the three little pigs across the chest, the photographer using a bone-handled fork to poke a pig that wasn’t pink and cuddly on a platter. An apple in the pig’s mouth didn’t alter a pained expression that Pixley had taken for his own.
“Do you know anything about pork, Cherise?” he said.
“Trick question?”
“Aren’t you sly? No, I’m serious. Have you ever prepared roast suckling pig? This looks dry.”
“I like mine with his eyes lookin’ away,” she said. “I didn’t expect dinner.”
“We’ll have it at a restaurant,” he said. “But before I get to you I’ve got to finish this shoot. I’ve been toying with the presentation for so long, he dried out.”
“Sweet pet startin’ to shrivel. Long as we ain’t gonna eat him, got baby oil?”
“I should.”
“Whyn’t you give him a rubdown? Works wonders on my skin.”
Pixley kissed her cheek, tickling her with a sparse moustache she hadn’t noticed the night before. Sad excuse for a moustache. The baby pig had stiff dark bristles around his snout.
The platter—no surprise—was picture perfect. But the loft wasn’t nice at all, most of it given over to Pixley’s camerawork. He slept and ate inside his darkroom. There were few books, no TV or Victrola, and the chairs, the bed, and floor were littered with photographs. Someone—not her—might find the set-up rom
antic. Pixley was an artist, after all, and she expected artists to be eccentric, though he gave her the creeps.
“Not too much,” she said as he slathered the pig in baby oil, “or he gonna look like he come in from an afternoon sunnin’ on the beach. Reminds me, seen Mollie?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Get good pictures?”
Pixley squirted oil onto the back of his hands, which were scratched, crusting in fresh scabs.
“Nothing special,” he said. “She’s nothing special, a pretty girl who’d be advised not to stray far from her clothes. Seeing her in her bathing suit...well, I knew what I was getting. I did her strictly as a favor to Adam.”
“Shootin’ me as a favor to him also.”
“A favor for myself.”
“How do you mean?”
“I’ve always wondered what results I would get using a colored girl.”
“Some around,” she said. “What were you waitin’ for?”
“The right one.”
He washed his hands fastidiously. Patting them dry, he reminded her of a surgeon preparing to operate. He mounted a camera on a tripod, and looked through the viewfinder shaking his head, and then he put up a tea kettle on his hotplate, filled three cups, placed them behind the pig where they wouldn’t be seen, and squeezed off several shots with steam from the hot water rising over the platter.
“Lost my appetite for roast pig,” Cherise said.
“Certain things are not meant to be seen until the photographer is done in the darkroom. Fix your hair. I’m ready for you.”
He took her comb and brush away, and made her over again to his liking. When she asked for a mirror, he refused.
“When you sit for me, you put yourself completely in my hands,” he said.
“Like Mr. Pig?”
“That’s not how I’d choose to put it. But yes.”
She anticipated the flashbulb that suddenly went off, and had a smile waiting. Pixley wasn’t pleased, but needed to understand that she never let her guard down completely.
He positioned her in front of a white screen, and asked for emotion. He didn’t say what kind. She flashed anger, which she had plenty of, and the coyness she believed showed her off well. Then she let her feelings run wild, vamping the little man who looked through the viewfinder shouting encouragement.
“That’s fine,” he said. “Excellent. Now let me see the face of an innocent schoolgirl.”
“Talkin’ to me?”
“You can do it.”
“Wouldn’t count on it.”
He got her best wide-eyed look with her mouth slightly agape. “Terrific,” he said, “you don’t know what an actress you are.”
It made her laugh. He got that, too. She liked being in his hands so long as she retained a say in how they shaped her. He popped out the roll of film, threaded another, and caught her unprepared, winking to let her know it was a shot he wanted all along.
“Let’s try something different,” he said.
“You the boss.”
“Not really. I just work here.”
She gave him another laugh. He liked it so much he snapped it twice.
“Sit on the bed.”
The linens were rumpled, and she thought she smelled them across the loft. It was hard to picture the shot he had in mind, but she wouldn’t object to something that might turn out great. She held still while he sighted through the camera lens, and then he reached over and opened her blouse.
“Don’t need advertisin’.”
“What’s that?”
“Jokin’ with you,” she said. “You didn’t hear it.”
“Hike up your skirt. Let’s see some leg.”
“This much?” She stopped an inch or two above the knee. “How high you want to go?”
“Let me have all you’ve got.”
The portfolio was her ticket to a new life. Showing too much flesh in an unmade bed meant punching it for a round trip. Pixley was the artist, but she had the final word. She lifted the skirt to the middle of her thigh, which seemed to disappoint him and excite him at the same time. It was as much as he was going to get.
“Bunch the pillow behind your head, and lie back.”
She inched away from a grimy sack leaking feathers. She had come to the loft to pose for glamour shots, but Pixley viewed her as a creature of bed. She didn’t care how desirable he made her look. Nothing was gained in bed. Didn’t she know?
“How about tryin’ something else?”
“I know what I’m doing, Cherise. If you’re going to get ahead in show business you have to present yourself as poised and attractive, yet attainable.”
“Lyin’ in bed makes me feel too attainable, you get my drift.”
“Everything will be tasteful,” he said. “Trust my judgment.”
“I trust mine more.”
Her foot was on the floor when he pushed her back. The flash went off in her face, and as her eyes slammed shut he jumped her. His hands were between her legs, and inside her blouse. Another—he was on her so fast that it felt like he had three, three at least—squeezed her cheeks as his mouth came down over hers.
She snapped at his tongue, tossed a wild haymaker under his eye as he pulled away. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to rape her. Wouldn’t be the first time she made him pay a heavy price.
He wasn’t expecting a fight. She slithered away as he sized her up again, was almost out of bed when she was dizzied by a blow to the side of her head.
Other men hit harder, but none had fooled her as well. She’d thought she could let down her guard around Pixley. Thought he was a fairy, and had been wrong about that also. He wasn’t muscular, but knew how to hurt her. Probably he’d been picked on as a kid, and learned never to stop hitting back. She was like that herself.
“Lie still,” he said. “Do you want me to break that pretty face?”
“I’ll bust you up worse, you don’t lay off.”
The schoolyard posturing came with a purpose. Without letting him know he was in for a fight, she might as well give in now.
She swung a lamp. He blocked it with his arm. As she ducked away from flying glass, he pinned her shoulders.
“Don’t you think I know what you are?” he said.
“Never claimed to be nothing else.”
“You’ve had hundreds of men. What difference does one more make?”
“Overstatin’ it,” she said. “But it ain’t about numbers.”
“If I offered money, you wouldn’t say no.”
“Little bitty squirt like yourself, what can you do with a woman?”
“Shut up, you stupid cunt.”
“Don’t think I don’t know what you are? A weasel pretendin’ to be a sissy? Imagine a man so low to the ground he’d do that to get close to women.”
He hit her in the belly. The breath went out of her, and she thought she’d die. Clawing at his face, she got a thumb in his eye, twisted it while he howled. There was a chair beside the bed, and nothing to stop her from braining him. Maybe if she wasn’t in a hurry. She needed to get out of the loft right away, and put this awful experience behind.
As she ran for the door, he hooked a foot between hers and brought her down on all fours. The chair was out of reach; she was furious with herself for not using it when she had the chance. He made a grab for it himself, showering photos and negatives and contact sheets over her back, and was ready to bring it down on her when she snatched up his camera.
“Be careful, Cherise, I’ll kill you if you damage it.”
“Rather you did than let you touch me.”
“I’m not exaggerating. Put it down.”
“I ain’t either. You don’t let me out, the camera gonna be like Humphrey Dumpty, won’t be no one can put all the pieces back together.”
She drew back her arm, freezing him.
“Let me have it,” he said.
“It’ll be waitin’ by the stairs.”
“I want it now.”
&nb
sp; “Okay, you asked for it.”
Her arm was coming forward when he put down the chair. She walked away keeping an eye on him, moving faster as he trailed after her. At the door he lunged for her, and she fired the camera into his chest.
It bounced away, and he caught it at his knees, bobbled it before he had it securely in his hands. Cherise ran down one flight of stairs to the dance studio where half a dozen couples were exploring the mambo. No one broke step when she barged in. She had an idea that she wasn’t the first refugee from Pixley’s loft to take cover with them.
An old man in powder blue pants came over after the music stopped, and pressed a handkerchief to her forehead. “You’re bleeding,” he said.
“Wasn’t paying attention when I should’ve been.”
“You have to be more careful.”
The music started again, a lame rhumba, and he returned to his instructor. Cherise stood at the window, watching the street. When the class was over, the old man came by for his handkerchief, and she left the building on his arm.
It was too bad that she’d never see her pictures. Pixley seemed to know what he was doing behind the camera.
The elevator jockey had a discreet case of the giggles. His eyes were red and glassy, and he was tapping his foot to a tune that only he could hear. “Whatever you’re smoking, I’d like some,” Jordan said.
“You mean these Old Golds?” He slid a pack from his breast pocket. “Get some from the machine in the lobby.”
He made a swipe for them as Jordan grabbed them out of his hand. Under the lid were two hand-rolled cigarettes. They were thin, not wrapped tight, leaking seeds and greenish flecks.
“They’re all I’ve got,” the elevator jockey said. “Have to last till I score more, and who knows when that will be?”
“How about I buy them from you, and we smoke them together?”
He wanted five dollars, but settled for three. It wasn’t bad dope. Jordan, coming down the hall in time to the unheard music, saw light under his door. He thought he’d killed the lights before he went out, but wasn’t sure of anything now. He let himself inside, crawled across the bed a moment before Cherise came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel.
“How’d you get in?”
“Ain’t the first time I sneaked inside a hotel,” she said. “In or out.”
False Negative (Hard Case Crime) Page 22