The Photographer in Search of Death

by Michael Mirolla

  It was later in the evening. The door to the apartment had been conveniently left open and Becker stumbled in, heading straight for the bed. Something green and slimy twisted the pit of his stomach. He had to lie down or suffer the consequences. The room smelled of unwashed clothes and rotten half-eaten cucumbers. Filthy underwear littered the floor. Things – creatures, microbes, whatever – crawled away to deeper hells. He tied a handkerchief across his mouth and fell back on the bed. His stomach settled, bringing with it a sudden rise in joy. He had witnessed a murder, a cruel and very brutal murder. There was the obvious urge to rush out and grab the first person who chanced by: “Look! Look! I’ve solved it. While all you good citizens shrugged your shoulders and feigned unconcern, I solved it. The Case of the Cripple Killer and Statue Decapitator has been blown wide open.” It was a silly urge. Strangers weren’t interested. They might take him for a madman or worse, ignore him, stepping by his body like they would the ragged lines of homeless sleeping with their heads on the curbstones. Instead, he called the police: “Hello. I want to report a murder. That’s right. Just listen. Are you listening? Who am I? Never mind who I am. Their kisses became less and less frequent as they quickened their pace. Who? The anarchist and his accomplice, that’s who. Out of the side streets… Where am I? Don’t interrupt! Out of the side streets emerged scores of beggars, each asking for a dime, a nickel, some change, anything. It was dark. Many of the street lights had been sling-shotted and never repaired. Cripples in wheelchairs criss-crossed the sidewalks recklessly, taunting him, demanding preferential treatment. You can’t do that with him. You can’t—” Becker slammed down the receiver, waited a few moments and then called once more. “It’s me again. Yes. I’m forcing you to listen. It might very well be a crank call but you can’t take any chances, can you? The cripples didn’t, couldn’t know he was walking among them not out of pity but to choose a victim. Not as a Christ but as an executioner. I saw it, I tell you. She was a beautiful girl with long golden hair and blue eyes. She might have been a mermaid except that her left leg was missing from the hip. She stood among the other cripples like a queen, pulling on a filtered cigarette, occasionally adjusting her tank top to better expose her breasts. Why are you threatening me? He was the one who killed her. He followed her to the dark alley where she entertained her men for a price. Then, with his accomplice holding her down, he strangled her and cut out her tongue. That’s right. Cut it right out. Just follow my directions and you’ll find her.”

  Becker tied the handkerchief once again across his mouth and returned to the apartment. After his eyes accustomed themselves to the dark, the first thing he noticed was the sextant and, beneath it, the notebook. Numbers and crossed-out words covered its pages. There were several errors in the subtraction of one angle from another; also a division by zero and the square root of a negative number. In the closet, piled to the ceiling with musty, moth-eaten clothes, were several sticks of dynamite and detonation caps.

  His instincts had been right all along. Neither returned that night. He waited with the gun beside him on the bed, determined to take both of them in. No resistance would be tolerated. And he knew one slip-up would mean the end of him. His friend had displayed his ruthlessness on many occasions – that night had been only one more example. At first, he tried to study more closely the figures in the notebook, trying to decipher what his friend would do next. But the odour from the clothes was intolerable. Not even the handkerchief kept it out. There was only one solution. He gathered them all and dumped them into the bath tub. A golden cockroach slithered from the faucet but he managed to crush it before it could escape. Then he went to the grocery store to buy Javel water and Spic And Span. The man behind the counter said “Hello” as if he knew him. Becker ignored the greeting, under the assumption there were plenty of people who resembled him. Nevertheless, he was glad to be back in the apartment. He poured the Javel over the clothes and scrubbed the floor till it sparkled in the moonlight. At midnight, he turned on the radio to listen to the High Mass.

  The priest, chanting over the thunder of artillery fire and the occasional sniper bullet, had hardly got past the Kyrie when the service was interrupted by the bulletin Becker had been waiting for. The body of a one-legged girl had been found in a dark alley. But this time there was more – suspects, two former wheelchair athletes down on their luck. The motive was believed to be jealousy, jealousy of the fact she often entertained men in the alley. Plenty of witnesses were willing to testify against them, to say they had seen the ex-athletes mistreat the girl and often chase her from the corner. The two didn’t improve matters by accusing each other of the crime. Becker rushed to the phone booth and dialled the police.

  “You fools! You bloody stupid oafs! I know who killed that one-legged girl and I’ll tell you right now it wasn’t any jealous wheelchair guy. What am I talking about? The one-legged girl that was murdered tonight. Incompetent idiots!”

  He hung up and felt the urge to stick his tongue out at them. Why should he give the police the satisfaction of capturing his friend? He had done all the important legwork in the case and deserved the reward – if only moral – for bringing him in. He dialled the house again. The phone rang on and on. He was about to hang up in disgust when a tired female voice answered.

  “Your son is on the verge of capturing the most wanted anarchist in the city,” he said as rapidly as possible. “Anarchist. The one who’s been causing all the havoc. Don’t interrupt! No, I’m not coming home. I want you to get the reward. Didn’t you hear me? That’s right. The reward. Aren’t you going to thank me?”

  She didn’t thank him, but he knew she would later. The clothes smelled very clean; the floors sparkled. In Sydney, Australia, the High Mass was in full progress and the participants – mostly recently-converted aborigines – had just been invited to receive the body and blood of Christ Our Lord. To the accompaniment of dijiridos, Becker picked up the sextant and aimed it at the statue. He marked down the various angles between horse and rider and compared them to those already written on the paper. There was a slight difference between them. He noticed it was the same number as that circled on the top right-hand corner of the sheet. He marvelled at his friend’s ingenuity. He had gone to the trouble of fixing the angles so that anyone checking them would become convinced by his argument that statues moved, even if imperceptibly. But he couldn’t fool Becker. In fact, he was foolish to try. “You couldn’t fool an old pro,” Becker would say as he and his accomplice walked in. “No way.”

  After having slept all the following day, Becker awoke at sunset, positive of his friend’s next crime. He undid the string about his neck – connected to the door so that the slightest movement would be relayed to him – and took up a position near the window. The park slowly emptied of chicory women and hot dog vendors until only one man remained sitting on a bench. He was totally immobile. For a moment, Becker didn’t recognize him – but only for a moment. For wasn’t that his caped accomplice making her way through the park, gliding like a stingray towards the statue? She stopped before it and pulled an object from a shopping bag. The man shielded her from Becker’s view. Then, seconds later, they moved away again, cleverly heading in opposite directions.

  Twenty minutes passed before the statue exploded. Dust rose into the air and a small piece of bronze burst through the window of the grocery store below where Becker stood. When the dust settled, he could see that neither the horse nor the rider had its head. There were sirens; police cars screeched onto the grass from all directions, surrounding the park. Officers with flashlights moved back and forth, examining the severed heads, nudging them with their feet and finally placing them in clear plastic bags. Becker felt a certain pride in having guessed right once again.

  And now they would no doubt be returning. Aha! Speak of the devils. Two shadows moved close to the wall of the building and disappeared up the stairs. Becker scrambled back behind the door, gun at the ready.

  Becker’s notebook IV:

&
nbsp; They came in together and made immediately for the window. Both were laughing hysterically. His hands had already slipped beneath her dirty red blouse. She squirmed in his grasp, reaching into his pants. Their faces, lit up by the police cars, glowed a blood red.

  I let them play out their little game of joy. They would only suffer more for it later. Still laughing, they undressed each other. More dirty underwear fell to the ground. Neither of them removed their socks as they embraced and sank to the floor. I waited nervously for them to begin their copulation so that I could capture them right in the middle of it. But as soon as they fell behind the window, as soon as they were out of sight, they set to kicking and punching each other. She called him a vile name and tried to knee him in the crotch, forcing him to protect himself with his hands. He levelled a blow at her chest. I jumped from behind the door, gun trembling in my hand but the rest of me steady, steady as a rock.

  “That’s enough. That’s quite enough.”

  Becker had wanted it to be a basso-voiced command, but it came out a falsetto plea.

  “Stay exactly where you are. Don’t move.”

  The girl shifted to cover her massive body. Becker could see now she wasn’t more than a teenager.

  He turned to his ex-friend.

  “Recognize me?” Becker asked, aiming the gun right in his mass of pubic hair.

  The ex-friend shook his head.

  “How about now?” Becker said, leaning closer. He shook his head again. “Oh, I see. That’s the little game you’re gonna play. Well, that’s fine. That’s just fine. Maybe a quick trip to the police station will jog your memory.”

  “Police station?” his ex-friend said defiantly. “What for? We haven’t done anything. This is a free country, you know.”

  “You might be able to fool others with that ‘why me? what have I done?’ look of innocence – but not me. Don’t you dare try it on me.”

  The girl began to sob, her entire body heaving with the effort. Her breasts slapped up and down wetly; her flabby thighs flattened against the floor, leaving an outline of moisture. Becker liked her very much at that moment. Almost to the point of letting her go. Almost. He turned to his ex-friend again.

  “Pretend I’m not here. Pretend I don’t exist.” His ex-friend didn’t understand. For an anarchist, Becker could see he was a bit of a fool. “Come on. I’m going to sit back on the mattress now and put my feet on the windowsill. I want you to act as if you were alone, just the two of you, enjoying yourselves after another productive night of crime and general mayhem. First, turn on the light.” The room regained its orange glow. “Very good. Now you. Yes, you. Come over here and massage your breasts in front of the mirror. That’s right.”

  Becker was completely dissatisfied with the mechanical, uninspired way they did things and so had them do it again. And again, for a third time. They were like toys going through their rounds. His ex-friend picked up the sextant; she massaged her breasts to the beat of the Agnus Dei; he put down the sextant; she inhaled; he marked his findings in the notebook; she exhaled.

  “Now, there is one last thing we’ll do before I turn you in to the proper authorities. Call it a humanitarian gesture, if you like. But don’t try to escape because the gun will be right here in my pocket and I won’t hesitate to shoot. A citizen’s arrest is entirely legal, as you well know. Besides, I don’t think too many would have much sympathy for someone who kills helpless cripples, now would they?”

  He told them to get dressed. Then he handed his ex-friend the stick of dynamite and timing device he’d found in the closet. The three of them made their way uptown on an almost totally empty bus. Becker sat one seat behind them with his gun trained on his ex-friend’s back. The girl made several attempts to attract attention by crying but a jerk of the gun cut her short. They got off the bus and walked several blocks. Becker tried to lighten the situation by making small talk but the two of them were curiously quiet. Almost morose.

  “Well, here we are. You recognize the neighbourhood? No? That’s good; that’s very good. Defiant to the end. I like that. Okay. Get busy. I think you’re familiar with the routine.”

  But his ex-friend couldn’t do it. His hands trembled; his knees buckled. With a sigh of disgust, Becker took the dynamite from him, wrapped it himself about the neck of Cronos and set the timer at 30 minutes. Then he hailed a cab for the trip back to their room. Neither of them looked at him, although he was anxious to get their attention and even made an attempt at a joke. It was the one about why anarchists can never call a meeting. Becker wasn’t insulted by the fact they didn’t laugh. I’m terrible at jokes, he told them. Always have been. He paid the cab and ushered them back into the room.

  “You probably thought you’d never be caught, didn’t you? Well, truthfully, you probably wouldn’t have been if it weren’t for me. I worked hard at discovering you and even harder at capturing you.” They stood nervously against the bed, holding hands. Becker considered shooting them on the spot but that wasn’t quite the ending he wanted, not this liquidy, oily finish. Then he had what he felt was a tremendous idea.

  “Undress her! Undress her and make love to her. Quick! Right now! If you’re really good I might even change my mind.” They stared like two wax figures. “Come on!”

  Becker’s notebook V:

  He wasn’t very good. In fact, it was an utterly disgusting display. He sputtered and rolled on to her, struggling limply to penetrate. I sat on the windowsill and looked out, contemplating the useless vanity of human life. The girl tried to use her fingers to guide him but it didn’t help. She closed her eyes. All the light vanished from her face. The last police car roared away in search of the vandal responsible for the wanton destruction of city property. I wrapped the gun in the girl’s underwear and pressed the muzzle against his rocking back.

  “Please,” my ex-friend begged, coming to a standstill halfway from the ground. “I don’t know you. I haven’t done anything.”

  I ordered him to continue, promising not to kill him unless he stopped. I scanned their bodies, knowing the moment I came to their socks that I would go back on my word. He moved faster against her and there were even signs of genuine desire coming from them, the hint of a moan, the echo of a sigh.

  Too late. The girl opened her eyes bright and wide at precisely the moment Becker squeezed the trigger. Her face was truly angelic, frozen by his bullet. The two bodies thudded together against the mattress and spasmed. Similar trickles of blood flowed from the corners of their mouths. It was then that Becker realized it had been his intention all along not to subject them to the processes of law and justice. It would have been immeasurably cruel for an anarchist and his accomplice and he was inexorable but not cruel.

  He pulled the covers over them so that only their faces showed. There were four minutes left. He turned out the light but left the radio on. The Mass was being held in Los Angeles, gospel singing from East L.A. Once again he dialled home. This time a male voice answered. He tried to imagine it wasn’t his stepfather, his bald tax accountant stepfather at that very moment working over the receipts, trying to squeeze more blood out of them, to induce deductions; he tried to imagine a lover maybe, a bullfighter, a mountain climber, a porno-flick star – but he couldn’t.

  “Hello, pseudo-dad? The city is safe at last. No more anarchist menaces running loose. Who’s this? Your son. Drunk? I’m not drunk. I never drink. You really know a lot about me, don’t you? I bet you sleep with your socks on, too, don’t you? Listen, Dad. I called to tell you that in…in two minutes… Listen! You know that statue in the backyard? The bird bath, idiot! Well, I left something there for you and Mom. It’s a surprise. A little something to help you pay those nasty tax bills. Hurry or you might miss the fun.”

  There was static in the air and particles that looked like soot floating down from the sky. Becker slammed down the phone. It was then he noticed that his hands, also covered with soot, needed cleaning. With a feeling of utmost satisfaction for a job well done, he pus
hed open the door of the underground public washroom and stepped in. Applause came from all the stalls and booths. There were statues leaning against the walls clapping their hands so quickly the human eye couldn’t follow; there were others sharpening swords and putting on armour. He recognized Hephaestus, ugly and lame, but with his golden assistants all about him. And Cronos, preparing once again to dethrone his father. Then the statue of a blond-haired girl with one leg hopped over and pushed herself against him.

  “Congratulations,” she said huskily, before a tongue fell out of her mouth and she could speak no more.

  Becker smiled and his face cracked. Things were speeding up around him, whirling faster and faster in the dense light. Or he was slowing down. It made no difference. As the first strains of a final High Mass rang through the washroom and out into the world, he was already well on his way to composing an appropriate epitaph, the words with which to protect himself.

  Becker's notebook VI:

  From myself.

  THE BOX

  The three scientists – two males and one female, all dressed in traditional white lab coats – stood around an opaque coffin-like box, opened at the top. A laser beamed down on the box from the ceiling. Aside from a computer terminal, a printer and several chairs, there was nothing else to attract the eye. Unless you counted a red light across the top of the door that blinked on and off: Electronically Sealed. Authorized Personnel Only. Illegal Entry Punishable Under the Canadian Security of Information Act.

  “I don’t know how much longer we can keep this up,” Dr. Levitt, the older male scientist, a distinguished-looking man with hair greying at the temples, said.

  “We’ve tried everything, Dr. Levitt,” Dr. Pedersen, the female, said. “Nothing so far has affected it in any way—”

  “That we can measure,” the younger male interrupted.

  “Of course, Dr. Greshner,” Levitt said impatiently. “That’s understood. We can’t very well measure what our instruments can’t measure, now can we?”