"Kim's all right, then?"
"We have no idea. We're here about Cheryl. Hard to believe you didn't know she was dead."
"Been all over the papers last few days. 'Model Torture Slaying." TV too."
"I've been busy. I haven't been reading the papers."
"That's all right," Scotto said.
"No law says you gotta read them. Now before we start, couple things I gotta say. You don't want to talk to us, you wanna consult a lawyer, say so, that's all you gotta do. But seeing as how you claim you didn't know Cheryl was dead, I can't imagine you not wanting to cooperate."
"Of course I want to cooperate," I said.
"I don't know anything. I hardly knew her. Where'd you get my name?"
"You've been sniffing around where she lived, asking questions."
"The animal super told you that?"
"Never mind who told us. It's true, isn't it?"
"No! It isn't true."
"You're saying you didn't go around there asking questions?"
"I'm saying I asked questions about Kimberly:Yates. I didn't ask about Shadow."
they exchanged a look, then Scotto shook his head. Then, for some reason, I started to apologize. I told them the break-in had upset me and the news about Shadow had been unnerving. While I spoke they both gazed at me, as if to determine whether I was telling the truth. "You say Shadow was found in Newark?"
they looked at each other, then Ramos shrugged.
"Go ahead. Tell him, Sal. Been in all the papers anyway."
Scotto leaned forward.
"Like I said-airport cops found her in the trunk of a rented car. New York plates. The renter used a phony credit card. She was in bad shape. Beaten up. Lots of broken bones, fingers, toes . . . like that. Still not clear exactly how she died. But one thing's clear-she was tortured first." :,Jesus!"
'Been dead at least a week. We know that from the condition of the body. And of course we know from the parking lot just when that car was driven in."
"When?"
"You're asking us when?" I nodded. Ramos seemed amused.
"Tell him, Sal. Tell him when."
"Week ago Sunday. In the afternoon. Which is an interesting point in time. Because, according to what we hear, the next day you were all over her building knocking on doors asking when she and her roommate were seen moving out."
they looked at me then, both of them together-two sets of eyes focused on me at once. And then at last I understood: they suspected me of involvement in the murder.
That did it. I woke up, stopped feeling punchy and sorry for myself. I started talking, as fast as I could, describing everything that had happened, how Kim had been my girlfriend, how she'd told me she and Shadow had a modeling session that Saturday evening, and then how she'd come to me in the middle of the night, saying she was scared, babbling about agents of some "powerful man." Then how, Sunday morning, she had denied her story of the night before, and then had stood me up at Windows on the World. I told them about my inquiries the following day, my discovery that they'd moved, and also what I'd learned from Jess, about the escort service and Mrs. Z.
they didn't seem too interested in that. they were much more interested in a detailed accounting of my movements on Sunday afternoon,
I felt pretty confident as I told them again about the restaurant. I described the waiter and how I'd finally eaten lunch alone. I found my credit card receipt and showed it to them. Then I told them how I'd walked back to my loft, stopping first to take some pictures at the Vietnam Memorial in Battery Park, Finally I mentioned the shot I'd taken of the wino on the corner.
I took them to the window, pointed the wino out. He was still there, ag he'd been all summer, ensconced near the Edgar Allan Poe plaque.
"Go down and ask him," I said. "Pretty sure he'll remember me."
"Guy like that, whatever you ask him, he'll say he remembers it," Scotto said.
Ramos asked to see my photographs.
I went to my files and fetched the proof sheets. I even dug out the shots I'd taken of Shadow. I pointed out that some of the tourists at the Memorial were carrying newspapers, which, if blown up, might show the date. And I pointed out a big public clock in the background that showed the time to be 4:25.
As I told them all this, scurrying about, bringing them the documentation, Ramos studied me while Scotto wrote in his notebook.
". . . so," I said, "depending on what time that car was driven into the parking lot, it should be clear I didn't have anything to do with it."
"We never said you parked the car, Geoffrey. One person could have killed Cheryl, and another ditched her body.
"So I'm not off the hook?"
"Never sai you were on it," Ramos muttered.
"Course we'll be checking out your story with the restaurant and looking close at all the pictures you took. But I got to tell you now, there's one thing bothers me."
"What's that, Dave?" Scotto asked.
"Fact that Barnett here's even got these alibi photographs."
"I never called them that," I said.
"I'm a photographer. I take pictures. 'that's what I do."
"Maybe so," Ramos said.
"Iling is, if we're sure a guy did something, all the alibis in the world don't mean squat." He gave me a hard stare.
"See, most people, they don't have alibis. they aren't out conveniently photographing people carrying dated newspapers with a big clock in the background at A, the same time a car with a body in the trunk is being stashed in a parking lot at But What I want to know is why you think you needed these pictures."
"Now, wait just a minute!" I said.
"No. You wait!" Ramos rose from his chair.
"You wait, and see what happens. 'Cause I got to tell you, there's something weird I feel coming off of you, and it don't smell all that sweet."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying how I feel. First I see you striding down the hall holding a copy of Screw. Then you tell me your apartment's been broken in, even though there's a good ten grand's worth of cameras sitting around in here untouched. Then you say the only thing that's different is someone's scrawled 'cunt' on these strange cutups you made of your girlfriend. And all around the place what do I see? More photos of the broad. Everywhere I look, pictures, pictures, pictures, a fair percentage of them in the nude. Now, what does that tell me, Barnett? Maybe that you're"-he snickered-"a sex pervert. Which isn't inconsistent with the pictures you show me of the homicide victim, strutting around here in her nifty black underwear. You think maybe I don't think that's a little strange? I'm not sure I believe a word of it. So let's leave it like this: Cheryl Devereux has been killed and her roommate is missing, and you've been involved with both of them in some kind of kinky way I haven't figured out yet. When I do figure it out I'll be back. Meantime my advice is get yourself a good attorney."
He motioned to Scotto that it was time to leave. Then he strutted out. Scotto smiled weakly at me from the door, but this time he didn't roll his eyes. After they left I set to work on the murals, trying to clean them up. I couldn't. The spray paint was indelible. Then I lay down on my couch and started thinking about Shadow, about her bones being broken. Then I thought about Ramos and what he'd said, and I decided that though he was undoubtedly a slob, and his speech was uncouth, and he was definitely wrong in his assumptions, he could not be called a fool.
I was in my darkroom, making up a new print of the PietA. The smell of the chemicals relaxed me. I knew the exposure and dodging and burning program for that negative by heart. I got several requests for prints of it every month. It was my bread-and-butter negative, my sinecure, my capital. I had just finished the exposure and had put the paper in the developer when the telephone rang. Using one hand to agitate the solution, I picked up the darkroom extension.
"Like the damage, Barnett?" The male voice on the other end sounded tough.
"Who is this?"
" 'Who is this?… He mimicked me in a nasty falsetto.
/>
"Who the fuck you think it is?"
I dropped my print into the solution.
"You're the bastard who broke in."
"Yeah, I'm the bastard, you're the pigshit, and youknow-who's the cunt."
There was someth ' ing horribly aggressive in his tone that scared the hell out of me.
"What do you want?" I asked.
There was a pause and then he spoke.
"Next time I come I hope you're there. Then instead of tearing up your shitty picture, I'll tear you up." The phone went dead.
I called Scotto, told him what had happened. He said I shouldn't worry about it, that it sounded like a freak acting big.
"One thing I'd suggest though-if you were really broken in."
I was incredulous.
"You still don't think I was?"
"What Dave and I think are two different things. Meantime my suggestion is get a locksmith up there and have him put in something unbreakable. Like a good bar lock, something like that. Then you won't have to worry anymore."
"Fine. I'll do that," I said.
"But you're not getting my point. "
"Which is?"
"This creep's focused on Kimberly. He gets off calling her names. I say he's the guy who killed Shadow, now he's after Kim, and he thinks he can get to her through me.
"So who is he?"
"I think it's the super in their building," I said. "He's animal enough."
"You recognized his voice?"
"No. But it could have been him. He made the same kind of tough-guy grunts."
"Not enough, Geoffrey. Can't accuse just because of that."
"I'm not accusing. I'm suggesting you check him out. The guy's got some kind of macho complex. He reads Soldier of Fortune and keeps pin-ups on his wall." There was a pause. I could hear Scotto breathing on the other end.
"What's the matter, Sal?"
"Like Dave says, Geoffre@you read Screw and you keep pin-ups too."
"I don't believe I'm hearing this. Why are you looking at me? What about Kim's 'Powerful man'? What about the super and 'Mrs. Z'? Why don't you check on them."
"Let us worry about all of that. Just stay away from that super, and do something about your door."
I took his advice. I called in a locksmith and spent three hundred bucks on a bar lock. Then I ordered new prints of Kim, and, when they came, – set to work making up new serialized murals, using the damaged ones as my guide. This time the work went quickly. I finished the first mural at 11:00 P.m. I liked it even better than my original. It seemed sharper, more unified. I hung it, admired it awhile, then pulled out my tape of Touch of Evil and put it in my VCR.
I originally collected my film noir videos so I could study their brilliant photographic effects and their vision that extended beyond mere night photography into deeper "darknesses" of character. But as I watched them together with Kim, I began to appreciate their stories too. Now, with her gone, I found myself playing them again and again, a kind of substitute, perhaps, for wandering the streets at night.
Touch of Evil is a special favorite for the way it seethes with an almost palpable corruption. I'd seen it half a dozen times, and was enjoying this latest screening when, just at the point where Janet Leigh was being terrorized by the motorcycle gang, my buzzer sounded from downstairs. I left the VCR on while I answered the intercom.
"Western Union. Telegram for Mr. Geoffrey Barnett."
I buzzed the messenger in, then checked the new lock on my door. I waited behind the peephole, still enjoying the screams issuing from my TV. A couple of minutes later a young black man appeared in the hall, a can of Pepsi in his hand. I watched him approach. He looked all right, dreamy and spaced-out, but I wanted to be sure.
"Show me the cable," I said through the door.
He shrugged and held a yellow envelope up to the hole.
"Okay……… I slid open the bar lock and opened up.
As soon as I saw him I knew I'd made a mistake. He'd moved back against the far wall and now there was something bright and tense about his face. He was holding his Pepsi can in a strange way too, as if it were a weapon.
I started to shut the door. But I was too late. With a vigorous upward motion he thrust the can toward me, heaving out its contents. Then he turned and ran toward the stairway, so fast I'd have stood no chance of catching him. A moment after the attack I heard the fire door slam, and then my nostrils caught the smell of lye.
The fluid hadn't touched me, but it was a near miss. Noxious fumes was rising from the wall. The lye had hit at face level not a foot from where I'd stood. I watched, horrified, as the paint curled and peeled, then boiled off in a thick foul-smelling smoke. Then I heard my phone ringing, over the screams of Janet Leigh. I shut the door, barred it and picked up the receiver. I recognized the voice.
"Maybe next time he won't miss. Could happen on the street, in the subway, or when you're taking one of your pictures late at night. Think about it."
"What do you want?" .
"Who do you think you're dealing with? You're making a big mistake. These kind of people-they don't pay money to sleazebag crook photographers. So think about this: next time we send a boy, we'll send one who'll pitch the juice right in your eyes. You won't be taking many pictures after that. Will you, pigshit?" He chuckled, then hung up.
The cops arrived minutes after I called them. Not Ramos and Scotto, who were home asleep, but two regular officers, a leggy blonde who looked terrific in her uniform and her male partner, soft-spoken and black.
"this is definitely an assault," the blonde announced.
"Seems like someone wanted to do a hit."
"You see them throwing lye around up in Harlem sometimes," the black man said.
"Usually they just throw it on your car. Makes a statement the way it messes up the paint."
"So who wants to hit on you, Barnett? Got any enemies?"
"The man on the phone. But I don't know who he is."
She shrugged, filled out her report, advised me detectives would be around in the morning. When she was done, she looked at my wall.
"Nice stuff. I like photography."
Someone had tried to blind me. to be made blind was the worst thing I could imagine. As I lay in bed, sweating from the heat, my mind kept returning to the image of the lye eating away at the wall beside my door. Another foot and it would have hit my face, burned pitilessly through the delicate tissues of my eyes. It was all connected, of course, this latest attack, the desecration of the murals, Kim's disappearance, Shadow's torture and murder. People were after me, they wanted something from me, and now they had shown me several samples of their power.
It had something to do with my being a photographer, and with their not wanting to pay me money. But there was something else about that threatening phone call that bothered me profoundly. The man had phoned not a minute after the attack, and he had known the boy had missed. Which meant the boy had been told to miss. Which meant he would have hit me if he'd been ordered to. And if his hand had slipped, or if he'd lost his nerve, or if he'd just gotten his orders screwed up, I'd already be blind-that was how close I'd come.
I was awakened by pounding on the door. I checked my watch. It was 8:00 A.M. I had a fierce headache. Rubbing my eyes, I suddenly remembered the lye attack.
"Open up, Geoffrey. It's Sal Scotto." There was more furious knocking while I stumbled to the door. I peered through the peephole. It was indeed Scotto and Ramos. My two favorite detectives.
"Go away," I said.
"We ain't going away. We're here about the assault."
"What difference does it make," I said.
"Ramos doesn't believe anything I say."
"Come on, Barnett. Open up." Ramos's eyes were serious. I opened the door.
"Excuse the underwear," I said. "I wasn't expecting visitors."
"We're not visitors. We're detectives," Ramos said. I motioned them in.
"Regular Kojak, are you, Ramos?"
"What's with
this guy, Sal? Why's he so fuckin' hostile?"
"Why shouldn't I be hostile?" I said. "I already know what you're going to say."
"Read minds, do you? What am I going to say?"
"That I threw the lye at myself."
"Funny, that's just what I was thinking. Since not a drop got on you, wise guy."
"Hey! I've had it!" I said to Scotto.
"Somebody wants to call me 'pigshit' over the phone, nothing I can do. But I don't have to take insults from cops."
Scotto looked sternly at his partner.
"Why don't you lay off him, Dave." He turned to me.
"He's a good detective. "
"And I'm a good citizen," I said.
"I'm also a good photographer. Someone's doing a number on me. I nearly got blinded last night. The reason the lye didn't touch me was because it was a warning. All of which I told the cops. So why don't you read their report? Meanwhile I'm going to take a shower."
I took my time cleaning up and getting dressed. When I came back out they were waiting for me, ensconced in the chairs they'd used the day before.
"We're going to be checking out that super like you suggested," Scotto said.
"We don't think it'll take us anywhere, but we'll do it to show good faith."
I started feeling better.
"I appreciate that," I said. "What about Mrs. Z?"
"You actually think there's someone called 'Mrs. Z'?"
"No," I said, "but maybe someone whose name begins with a Z. See, if it were just some woman and Kim didn't know her name, I'd think her natural instinct would be to call her 'Mrs. X.'
'Very shrewd," Ramos said.
"If she really runs an escort service, it shouldn't be too hard to track her down."
"All right," Ramos said.
"We'll look into that."
I nodded to him, and he nodded stiffly back. I gathered we were starting afresh.
"What else?"
"I'd like protection."
"You mean round-the-clock bodyguards like we give the Mayor?" He laughed.
"Forget it."
"What about tracing my calls?"
"Unlikely to work and difficult to do. But you can buy yourself a phone tape device. If he calls again, you tape his voice. That way you got evidence when and if he's caught. "
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