"Sure, why not?" I said.
"Three hundred bucks for a bar lock. Another hundred or so for an on-the-line tape machine."
"What did he say exactly?"
I told them, then told them what I thought it meant.
That for some reason I'd been confused with another photographer. A photographer who was trying to hold up some people for money.
"And who is this 'other photographer'?" Ramos asked I showed him my composite of the Pentax man.
"Maybe him," I said. "I'm trying to find out who he is." Ramos nodded.
"When you do, let us know."
"Yeah, I'll do that," I said.
There was a pause, and then Ramos leaned forward, as if there was something important he wanted to say.
"Look, Barnett, you and I, we got off on the wrong foot. But the thing you got to understand, I've worked a lot of homicide investigations, and there wasn't one of them there wasn't some trouble with the photographs. The angle the depth, the perspective, whatever-the photographs were always off. So I've learned something: photographs lie; diagrams tell the truth. So, maybe, I saw you were a photographer, I took it out on you. I apologize." I was touched. He was sincere.
"It takes a big man to apologize."
He nodded, we shook hands, then they got up to leave.
Sal stopped me at the door.
"No question you got yourself a problem, Geoffrey. Throwing lye-that isn't funny. Dave and me, we're agreed-we're going to try and help you best we can. But understand: we're working on the Devereux homicide. We don't know if your stuff is connected yet."
After they left I thought about what I ought to do. Usually, when I'm feeling bad, I go out and take pictures the concentration usually straightens out my brain. But now I hesitated. My caller had warned me I might get blinded while shooting on the street.
I'd been a tough guy once. In my photojournalist days I hadn't been afraid of anything. So maybe, I thought, becoming an artist has turned me into a wimp. I considered that awhile and decided that if I wanted to I could be just as tough as I'd ever been.
I spent the afternoon clearing papers off my desk. I owed letters to several friends, there were gallery invoices to send, and lab and other bills to pay.
08/7 07:55 AM Cleveland OH 216 734-3684 14.0 3.44 The phone charge didn't register as unusual when I first saw it on my long-distance bill. It was listed right after a call I'd made to Frank Cordero a couple of days before. But then I took a second look, and then it hit me: At 7:55 A.M., on Sunday, August 7, someone had used my phone to call Cleveland.
The call had lasted fourteen minutes. Kim claimed Cleveland as her hometown. August 7 was the day she disappeared. At 7:55 I was out buying groceries for our breakfast. When I returned, Kim told me that her story about being in danger had just been an acting exercise. I was excited. Actress or not, she really had been scared. The way I put it together, even while I was sleeping she'd been planning her escape. As soon as I went out she used my phone to see if it was all right to come home. When I came back she told me her story was just a story. Then after confirming our date for brunch, she went back to her apartment, did some fast packing up, said a quick good-bye to Jess, and left. But her escape hadn't been so clean. The Cleveland number was on my phone bill. Wherever that phone was, that was where she was staying. I was positive. All I had to do was call.
Rapidly I punched out the number. Then I settled back and listened. I let it ring twenty times before I gave up. Then I called the phone company business office and complained about my bill.
"I never made this Cleveland call," I said.
"I wasn't even in town."
"It's an automated charge, sir. The call was made from your telephone."
"But I didn't make it."
"Very good sir. We'll investigate and correct your bill."
"Can you tell me whose number it is?"
"Sir, you just said you weren't home that day."
"But-"
"Sir, if you weren't home you will not be charged for the call."
"Could you at least give me the address?"
"I'm sorry, sir. We cannot give out that information."
"But surely, with the reverse directory-"
"There is no public access to that directory, sir."
I tried the Cleveland number every twenty minutes. Finally, a little after six, I got an answer.
"Hello?" It was a woman but it wasn't Kim. The voice sounded older, tougher, more working-class. I hesitated. If I asked for Kim I could scare her off.
"Sorry, wrong number," I said, then hung up.
It was Thursday. The Public Library was open late. I took a taxi to Sixth and Forty-second, stopped at a newsstand, bought a Post, then walked around toward the main entrance on Fifth. It was a hot August evening. People were milling about. A drug dealer whispered "Smoke, smoke" as I passed the entrance to Bryant Park.
The main reading room was filled with scholars. Homeless people too were dozing in the seats. I went to the far end where the out-of-town phone books were kept, found the Cleveland book, found a free seat at a table, and set to work.
I expected to spend hours, but I was lucky-I found the number in fifteen minutes.
Amos G 32231 W Loraine….. 734-3684
Amos: Could that be Kim's real last name? I went out to the corridor, found a pay phone, then used my telephone credit card to call Cleveland again.
"Hello?" It was the same woman.
"May I please speak to Mr. Amos?" I said.
A short pause.
"There is no Mr. Amos." And from her tone I gathered that if there ever had been one, she'd as soon not be reminded.
"Sorry," I said.
"Am I speaking to the lady of the house?"
"Who do you want to talk to, mister?"
"Mrs. Amos."
"No Mrs. Amos either. This is Ms. Amos. What do you want?"
"Very sorry, ma'am-I'm working here from a list."
"Selling something?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Take my name off the list, and don't bother me again." She hung up.
At least I knew I had the right name.
Back home I thought about what I ought to do, whether I should drop the whole thing now, let Kim go. Now that there was a homicide involved, going after her would be a major step. If I did manage to track her down I just might land in a lot of trouble.
But Frank had been right when he'd told me I'd never be free of her until I found out who she really was. So, in fact, there was no choice. I had to go after her. I phoned American Airlines, booked a morning flight to Cleveland, then packed a bag. I took along my best Leica, three lenses and six rolls of TMX-400. Then I sat down with the Post to read the latest news on the Model Torture Slaying.
There wasn't much. Numerous police detectives from both New Jersey and Manhattan were working on the case, but so far no progress had been made. Meantime a designer I'd never heard of had given an exclusive interview to the Post, in which he said that Cheryl Devereux, known in the profession as Shadow, was as much of her time, the late 1980s, as the famous model Twiggy had been of hers.
I loaded The Big Sleep into my VCR and tried to lose myself in the plot. It wasn't hard, the story was labyrinthine. When I got to the scene where Bogart finds the blackmail camera hidden in the Oriental head, I remembered Kim's feeling that the blackmail material in the movie wasn't very strong. Which made me think, in turn, of people who "don't pay money to sleazebag crook photographers." What new threat, I wondered, did they now have in store for me?
After checking in at La Guardia, I phoned Aaron Greene to ask how he was doing tracking the Pentax guy. He said he was still working on it and he'd let me know. Then I flew to Cleveland.
What can I say about that rust-belt town? From a purely photographic point of view I found it fascinating.
The very qualities that once made it a talk-show joke were the traits that spoke to me.
The air, for instance. It was thick and smoky. Even dr
iving out of the airport in my rented car, I felt oppressed by haze and stickiness. But I've always liked that kind of oppression. It gives a special quality to light. And the light in Cleveland was extraordinary. All those shimmering particles of industrial waste, catching the sunlight, made the city seem to burn.
I liked the hard look of the people too, the ones I saw outside the plants and mills: men whose eyes were devoid of mercy; young blacks with scornful mouths. And the mills themselves intrigued me, the way they were clustered along the Cuyahoga flats. Here a hundred chimneys spewed out smoke, each trail its own shade of gray or brown. These trails hung in the windless air and were reflected in the molten river. Beyond lay Lake Erie, its steel-gray surface reflecting nothing, a hard, still, clouded mirror.
I'd bought a city map at the airport. The Hertz girl had marked it up for me, the block where G. Amos lived, and the location of a nearby motel. I found the motel first, a stark two-deck sickly green box, fifteen units to a deck. A sign out front identified it as THE DEVORA. When I drove up, a pale old man in an undershirt was trying to mow the lawn.
Inside the office, I was caught in a cross fire between two electric fans. The clerk, a teenage boy with a bad case of acne, explained that the air conditioning was out.
"But we expect it on by tonight," he assured me. Meantime the nightly rate was twenty-six dollars. The place was dismal, but my finances weren't in the best shape, so I signed the register, got my key, brought my car around to my door, and moved in.
The word "depressing" merely begins to describe my room. The air was stale and muggy, the rug was worn through on either side of the bed, and the bed itself was covered by a thin gray bedspread textured with even grayer ribs. The only wall decoration was an old Eastern Airlines calendar. The TV set, bolted to its table, wore a film of dust. The easy chair was cracked. The closet wasn't deep enough to hold my jacket. In the bathroom the shower curtain was ripped, the stall smelled dank, and the toilet coughed like a dying fish.
It was awful, but I almost liked it, perhaps because it suited the way I felt, bespoke being on the run and down and out. The'Devora motel was a place where the terrible people who wanted me blind would never find me. Here, for a time, I would be safe.
I changed my shirt, then went out to my car. I was on the south side of the city, on the edge of a working-class area of Poles and Greeks. I drove around for a while, slowly, absorbing the feel of the place. Then I went to a supermarket, bought an egg salad sandwich, got back in my car, drove until I found a grade school, parked across the street, and ate.
Though it was summer and school was out, the playground was crowded with kids. I tried to imagine Kimberly Amos, if indeed that was her name, playing here too when she was a girl. I imagined her skipping rope in this schoolyard, or striding up and down the corridors inside. I even had a vision of her furrowing her brow, worrying over a word on a spelling quiz.
I found the Amos house, circled the block several times, then parked inconspicuously across the street. I arranged my car so that I could watch the door through my adjusted rearview mirror.
It was an ordinary house among other ordinary frame houses, each with a small lawn in front and a narrow driveway leading to a detached garage in back. The houses varied in state of upkeep and each had its own distinctive feature-a lar er than ordinary TV antenna on one, a has, t above the garage door of another. the Amos house, a lack of movement best, and the fact that all the downstairs windows were shut, told me nobody was home. So I just sat in my car absorbing the sounds and sights of the neighborhood, willing myself inconspicuous.
Occasionally a child appeared, riding a bike, or carrying a baseball glove and bat, moving toward the school. Several times I saw women leave their homes, get into cars, drive off and then return with bags of groceries. At 3:30 a UPS truck appeared, and slowly worked the block.
en a patrol car drove by; I didn't pay any attention to it, just buried myself in my newspaper like a man waiting patiently for his wife.
After five there was more traffic as the men started coming home. Burly and barrel-chested, dressed in stained and sweaty clothes, they looked as if they spent their days doing hard physical work. With their arrival the sound level started picking up. I heard radios, TV sets, people talking, arguing too. One man came out and began to water his lawn. Another brought out a set of wrenches, and, after setting his car radio to a Cleveland Indians baseball game, threw open the hood of his Pontiac and began working on the engine.
A little after six a blue Chevrolet with a dented fender entered the drive of the Amos house. It didn't go as far as the garage, but stopped parallel to the front door. A woman got out. She had short hair, wore sandals, slacks and a blouse. She went to the door, unlocked it and disappeared inside.
Five minutes later she came out again, this time in sneakers, close-fitting shorts and a khaki tank top. A yapping little Yorkshire on a leash tugged her toward the lawn.
The dog must have been cooped up all day; it took a long piss against a tree while the woman lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, then distractedly surveyed the street. She looked right at me, but she didn't react-the setting sun was in her eyes. When the dog was finished she gave the leash a yank, and started walking down the block.
Through the mirror I watched her walk to the corner, then cross the street and start back toward where I was parked. She was following the sidewalk that ran right beside my car, was moving up on me at a steady pace. I stopped watching the mirror, – afraid of catching her eye. I just sat, pretending to read my paper. Then, just as she strode by, I turned to look.
She was moving too fast; I didn't catch her face. But she didn't look at all like Kim from the back. She had a good figure, maybe a little stout, but shapely and defined. Her bare arms looked strong and her legs were good. I had the feeling she worked out-she carried herself that way. Her short hair, dark brown and thick, was brushed back, hutch style, on either side. She was far too young to be Kimberly's mother. I estimated her age at from thirty-three to thirty-five.
I watched her cross the street, mount her lawn, then allow the dog a final piss. She lit another cigarette, took a couple of puffs, then, pulling at the dog, reentered the house.
Nothing happened for an hour. The sky darkened. I could see the flicker of TV sets through windows up and down the block. Finally a TV went on in the Amos house. I was getting pretty tired of sitting in my car, but decided to wait the situation out. My hope was that Kim would drive up just in time for dinner. If she did, I wasn't sure what I'd do. Probably nothing-but at least I'd know that she was there. I ended up waiting until 10:30 P.m. Very little happened. At 9:30 the woman came out again with the dog, waited just long enough for it to piss, then pulled it back inside the house. Lights went out in the downstairs rooms, and then finally in the bedroom on the second floor. I was hungry and tired, and everyone in the neighborhood seemed to be going to bed, so I found my way to Buckeye Road, then found a White Tower restaurant at the edge of a parking lot. I used the men's room, then ate alone at the counter, listening to the cook, thin and pasty-faced with bad skin and a broken nose, tell me how AA had saved his life.
I was exhausted when I arrived back at the Devora. The vacancy sign flashed vigorously on and off. My room smelled musty, and the air conditioning wasn't working as promised. I took a quick shower, crawled naked upon the upper sheet, then lay sweating in the hot night air asking myself what I was doing in this dreadful place.
I was back on the block at 7:00 A.M. It seemed a smart move to vary my routine, so I parked a little farther away this time, facing the house instead of setting myself up to watch it in the mirror. The woman emerged with her dog a little after nine, and this time I was able to see her face. She wasn't ugly, but wasn't handsome either. She had tough squat Slavic res that seemed to go with the tough tone she'd used with me on the phone. Still there was something attractive about her. I tried putting my finger on what it was. Perhaps it was "presence." She walked with confidence, like a woman at ease
with herself. She was not at all sultry, nor in any other way did she resemble Kim. But still, in her moment of need, Kim had called her. I wanted to know why.
I also had the feeling she didn't care much for the dog. She handled it as if it were a nuisance. She always lit a cigarette when she exited the house. Then she stood taking deep draws while the dog took its pee, giving me the impression her thoughts were far away.
She came out again at 10:30, and this time she was dressed in a blouse and slacks. She seemed irritable as she gave the dog a quick perfunctory walk. Then she put it back in the house, shut the door, got into her car and drove off down the block.
No question in my mind that Kim wasn't living in the house, so there seemed little point in continuing to stake it out. When the woman left, I waited until she reached the corner. Then I started up and followed.
We drove for about ten minutes to a shopping mall not far from my motel. She parked in the lot, walked to a building and entered a door between two shops. There was a big glass window on the second floor, and a sign that said SOUTH SIDE HEALTH CLUB. I parked, got out of my car, and walked to the door. It opened directly onto stairs that led up to the gym.
I went back to my car and repositioned it. I wanted to see what was happening on that upper floor. The light was perfect-the sun poured directly into the front part of the room. After a few minutes I saw Ms. Amos, dressed in exercise clothes, working out on a Nautilus machine.
She must have done a standard Nautilus circuit, for she emerged, her hair wet from a shower, slightly more than an hour after she'd gone in. She got back into her car and drove out of the mall. Again I waited, then followed.
This time the task was a little more difficult, for she turned onto a busy street, congested with buses and trucks. Soon we were out of the residential area, moving rapidly toward downtown Cleveland.
As I followed her I kept back as best I could: it would be better to lose her than have her recognize my car. But again I was fortunate. When she drove into a parking lot on East Ninth, I found another lot directly across the street. The attendant at her lot greeted her like a regular customer. We both parked and emerged at the same time. She strode by me, then turned and started walking toward Euclid Avenue. I took off after her on foot.
Blind Side Page 10