I knew Kim had used an assumed name on the plane, but still there was a moment there when I thought about telling Scotto the truth. We'd have to forget the blackmail, we wouldn't get rich, but maybe we'd see some justice. It might even feel good to go on to the law-andorder side.
But the thing had taken on a life of its own. Kim wanted the money, Frank needed it, and I'd brought him in. It would be hard to let them down.
There was something else too: my fascination with the game, which is the way I'd begun to think of it. A
three-cornered game, with three teams of players: Kim, Frank and me; Darling and Mrs. Z; and Ramos and Scotto. The object of the game was to outsmart the other two teams and carry home the loot. And the prospect of doing that, the anticipated high if we won, was, I was beginning to understand, as important as the actual winnings.
I think something had changed in me those last few weeks. I think I gave up my gloomy view. And the possibility that we might really force something out of those monsters had become a lot more exciting than any photograph I could visualize.
I was also, I discovered, as I talked to Sal, finding it easier to lie.
"Okay," I told him, "you're a good detective. I never thought you weren't. I'm going to tell you something now so you don't waste your time. Kimberly's not in New York. As for where I went, yes, I was in Florida and New Mexico, and the reason was to take pictures-which happens to be my profession. As for Shadow, you say you located Mrs. Z. In my opinion that's the place to look. I'll tell you another thing. There was a Swedish girl named Sonya who also worked for Mrs. Z, a friend of Kim's and Shadow's. I never met her, but I hear she disappeared and there're people who think she was killed by someone close to Mrs. Z."
Scotto had been writing in his notebook the entire time.
"That it?" he asked when I finished.
"One more thing, and I swear to you it's all I know. there're some fancy people who live in Soho, a painter named Duquayne and his rich-bitch wife. I think they know something. Before I left I tried to talk to them. they threw me out. Maybe you and Ramos'll have better luck. "
Scotto put down his notebook. Then he stood.
"Okay," he said, "you've told me a couple of things, maybe helpful, maybe not. I think you've been straight with me. If I ever find out you're not, I'm going to sic Dave onto you, Geof. And with Dave there's no mercy. None."
After he left I thought about his threat: he'd turn me over to Dave; Dave would have me designated a material witness. It didn't sound all that bad, More like passing the buck.
Meantime, I thought, I'd tied some good knots. Tomorrow Sal would pressure Mrs. Z, which, added to the pressure Kim was putting on her tonight, should propel her into a state of panic. And if the Du(juaynes could be made to panic too, then Darling would soon feel the force of our attack.
An hour after Sal left, I slipped out of my loft. At first I thought about leaving my lights on, in case his lookout was still around. But it occurred to me it would look more natural if I turned them off-it was getting late, time for the itinerant photographer to go to bed.
Once outside I strode swiftly toward Broadway, hailed a cab, and asked the driver to drop me at Forty-second and Eighth,
It was 1:30 in the morning, but it could just as easily have been noon-the action at that sleazy intersection was still that heavy and fast. The tang of pot, sweat and cheap perfume hung upon the air. There were throngs of tourists, camera-toting Japanese, assorted teenagers, beboppers and a man, dressed in a horned helmet like a Viking-, regaling the crowd on the subject of fleshly sin. Pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers cruised, and a mad shopping-bag lady, with bulging eyes, shouted a string of mindless obscenities to the wind.
As I walked toward Seventh I ran a gauntlet:
"Going out?" a girl asked.
"Date?" asked another.
"Smoke? Coke?"
"Smack? Crack?"
"Grass? Ass?"
"Love for sale," I heard a throaty voice whisper in my ear.
I merged into the crowd on Seventh, paused before a three-card monte dealer, then looked back to see if I was being followed. There was no one lingering, so I walked back to the corner, then quickly descended the subway stairs. I bought a token, passed through the turnstile, found a pay phone and dialed the hotel.
"Mrs. Lynch? This is Mr. Lynch,"
"Geoffrey! I've been worried. I was afraid to call the loft."
I told her about Scotto and the hints I'd dropped. She especially liked my insinuation about the Duquaynes.
" I, meantime, have spoken with Mrs. Z," she said.
"It got pretty hairy there for a while. I told her the photos were back in play and she'd better get the money and pay up. I told her Rakoubian had taken the pictures, then had tried to pin them on you. I told her you were in the thing now, you and I were partners, that someone had tried to burn out your eyes, you didn't like that, and next time any lye was thrown, you'd be doing the throwing. I told her if she didn't think you had the balls, she should check you out with Rakoubian."
"Jesus!"
"Yeah, I really hit on her. She stayed quiet the whole time. I told her she may have thought the business was finished but as far as I was concerned it had just begun. I didn't give her time to answer. Just told her she and Darling had forty-eight hours to make up their minds. She thought little Kimberly was out of her life. Now here I am, back again, talking like a bad-ass too." She paused.
"I'm feeling good, Geoffrey. Real good. Why don't you come on up and see old horny Mrs. Lynch?"
"Nothing I'd rather do," I said.
"I have to call Frank first.
"I'll be waiting," she panted.
I had no trouble getting hold of Frank; it was only 11:00 P.m. in New Mexico. when I'd told him "Good moves with Scotto@," he said, everything.
"Of course, now you can't go back to the loft."
"What about the hotel?"
"Probably okay. But be careful. Take the subway shuttle to Grand Central, get off, then get right back on. Anyone else does the same thing you'll know you're being followed. But I don't think you are. I think what happened was Scotto slipped a twenty to someone in your neighborhood to watch your windows and call him when the lights went on. I doubt he has the manpower to follow you, and I doubt he has the motivation." That was pretty much what I'd been thinking, but it was nice to hear it confirmed.
"How do you like the way they traced my airline tickets?"
"They're methodical guys. We should have thought of that. When you come back out you'll buy your tickets under another name. And no connecting flights. Spend the night in Dallas, then fly Dallas-Albuquerque the following day under still a third name. Pay cash, of course."
"Maybe there's other stuff we should have thought of, Frank.
"Maybe. But things are breaking good. Feels like we're on a roll.
"What do I do about Scotto?"
"Keep your contacts to short calls from public phones."
"He won't like that."
"He won't mind so long as you keep in touch. Hey! Relax, Geof! The best part's still to come. Round-trip the shuttle, then get yourself back to that lusty girlfriend of yours. But not too much excitement. You still got big things to do………
Mrs. Lynch was lusty indeed. She was all over me the moment I entered the room.
"Don't know what's wrong with me," she said, pressing herself against me.
"I must be high on the excitement." She kissed me. "The power too." She unbuttoned my shirt, lightly clawed her nails down my chest, then slowly ran her tongue across the red lines she'd made. "I think it's you, Geoffrey. The way you smell, taste. You know how I love your skin." She licked at me again.
"Can't get enough." She stroked my arms with her thumbs.
"I'm crazy for you. You know that. Your . . . hardness. She fell back upon the bed, pulled up her dress, spread her legs. She wore no underwear. "Geoffrey, I'm so wet down there. Put it in me. Please………
Arnold Darling lived o
n upper Fifth Avenue in an old apartment house just north of the Metropolitan Museum. It was a Stanford White building famous for its high ceilings, well-proportioned rooms and celebrity residents, including two rival talk-show hosts, and the sister-in-law of the former dictator of Indonesia.
When I arrived a little before 8:00 A.M., there were two Cadillacs and a Bentley double-parked in front. It was a beautiful morning, the first decent one of the season. For e straight months the city had suffered through one the great heat waves of the century. Now, at last, the was clear and there was a cool autumnal breeze. stationed myself across the street, on a stone bench against the wall that defines the eastern edge of Cc raF Park. From there I watched the entrance to the building through my old Key West Post Office spying device, my R-4 mounted with a 135mm. lens. My second "Leica," the one with the barrel of the Beretta concealed in the lens housing, hung from a strap around my neck and rested just below my heart.
At 8:15 a distinguished-looking gentleman with wavy gray hair and a crocodile attache case exited the building and got into one of the Cadillacs. I recognized him as the former CEO of a major aerospace manufacturer, indicted and awaiting trial for bribery and conspiracy to defraud the government.
A few minutes later a genuine celebrity came out, the Italian-American film star Tony Demarco, known for his stupendous physique, sad spaniel's eyes and winsome groans while undergoing torture. Interrogation scenes, during which he hung half naked by his wrists while being 'Soviet military officer, tormented by one or another evil were the inevitable centerpieces of his movies. People went to see a Demarco picture as much for the pleasure of watching him suffer as for the stunning brutality of his revenge.
I watched him get into the Bentley, then was distracted by the arrival of a tall skinny young woman, easily six feet two, who wore a Knicks T-shirt, a Mets baseball cap backwards, and held eight leashes attached to an equal number of dogs
She was that peculiar creature of Manhattan's Upper East Side, a professional dog walker. Each of her dogs was of a different size, shape and breed. There was a wrinkled-faced boxer, a proud poodle, a high-strung Dalmation, and the star of the pack, an elegant Afghan, who, prancing, led the others, all panting and slobbering, forcing their walker to lean backwards as she pulled them to a halt in front of Darling's building.
She had stopped, it was clear, to pick up another animal. The doorman recognized her and retreated to the
by. She stood ramrod-straight as she waited, her wards settling down before her in various postures, some sprawling on the sidewalk, the boxer sniffing lasciviously at her crotch, the Dalmatian snapping viciously at the legs of an innocent passerby.
A few moments later the doorman emerged, holding a leash attached to a russet-coated English setter. The walker took the leash, joined it to her others, then flicked them together like a cat-o'-nine-tails.
Suddenly all the dogs stood, poised to proceed with their walk, and, at that same moment, through a welter of leashes and canine flesh, I spied the figure of Arnold Darling as he stepped out of the lobby into the brilliant morning light.
He was wearing a sober dark pin-striped suit and a shirt so white it glittered as he paused outside the door. He stared curiously at the dogs, muttered something to the doorman, then took off fast walking south.
By this time I'd twisted the telephoto off my camera, slapped on a wide-angle, and was making my way through the gridlocked traffic across to the other side of Fifth.
My plan was to get ahead of him, then turn and confront him before he reached the corner. I was just stepping between a stalled commuter bus and a Jaguar when the light changed and the traffic began to surge.
The bus driver honked, I leaped, then was nearly run over by a taxi. Plunging forward to avoid it, I tripped and skinned my knees on the curb. When I recovered and looked up, I found myself not three feet from Arnold Darling, under inspection by his penetrating eyes.
Even as I knew I had bungled my entrance, some old instinct from my photojournalist days took over. I had stumbled up to subjects before, had many times assumed awkward positions to obtain a vital shot. So by sheer rote I raised my camera and started firing away, and the moment I did that I regained my poise: my camera, analogous to his fencing mask, protected me from his scrutiny, and my big Leitz lens had a power his naked eyes did not-it could eat him up alive. Whap! whap! whap! Whap-whap! Whap-whap! The whir of my motor-drive drove him back. Take that! And that!
And that! it seemed to say, and even as it did his cheeks began to flush.
I moved closer, thrust my camera at him, shot him five more times. When he continued to back off, I pressed my advantage, and the feel of my gun-camera swinging back and forth against my chest didn't harm my confidence.
"My name's Barnett," I said, "I'm a photographer. You tried to have me blinded. I'm here to show you I still can see." ,,Get away from me! Get away!"
"Fuck you, Darling. I've got you cold. I didn't take those nasty pictures of you, but I've got them now, and you're going to buy them back."
Whap! whap! whap! whap! I hit him four times hard, noting he had no eyebrows, Then I lowered my camera and smiled at him over its top.
"You're dead meat, sucker. Because before I take those nasty pictures to the cops I'm shopping them around to the press. Star. National Enquirer. Whoever'll pay the most. Imagine the headlines: 'Famous Architect Likes to Make Girls Scream." 'SM Sex Parties at Mrs. Z's.' 'Sonya and Shadow Slain by Prominent Architect." 'Architect in Deep Shit!'
All the time I was speaking he'd been looking around, meantime using his hands to protect his face. I liked that. It told me I was getting to him. I pressed on. Whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap!
And then, as he was staggering backward, I saw my opportunity. The dog walker was approaching fast, her nine dogs fanned out in front. A perfect trap: he was caught between my relentless camera and that ninesome of frothing beasts. Push him forward, my best instinct told me. And so I did, thrusting my camera at him, not even looking through it, just shoving it into his face as I pressed the shutter to make the film whir through.
Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap!
He panicked, stumbled, lost his balance and fell. The timing couldn't have been better-the dogs were just behind. As he dropped they parted into two groups, and, when he was down, closed in. He was flat on his back, his head at the feet of the dog walker. She, meantime, had yanked back on her leashes, bringing her dogs to a chaotic halt.
A moment later they were all stepping over Darling, sniffing at him, pressing at him with their snouts. they panted and drooled on his pin-striped suit. It was a very pretty sight.
I knelt and continued to shoot, finishin2 out my roll. I got several great shots of him iithering-up against the dog walker's knees, writhing to escape the muzzles of her dogs. He had by then lost all his dignity. And I had the shots to go with the ominous ones taken by Rakoubian.
"Call Mrs. Z," I told him.
"From now on we'll be dealing through her." My last memory of the scene was of the tall girl in the backwards baseball cap trying to help him to his feet, while her barking wards, all high-strung and overbred, tangled their leashes into a Gordian knot.
It was 2:00 that afternoon when Kim and I hit the Duquaynes. Kim had their private number-the three of them had had, after all, a very private relationship-and so we stopped at a phone booth on the corner of West Broadway and Prince so she could call and make sure that they were home.
As soon as Amanda Duquayne answered, Kim hung UP.
"I know Harold's there. He always paints in the afternoons," Kim said.
We walked down to Spring Street, found their building. Kim pushed the buzzer.
"Yes? Who's there?" I had no trouble recognizing Amanda's fancy whine.
Kim grinned at me, then brought her mouth to the intercom.
"Hi, Mandy. It's me-Kim."
There was a pause and then an intake of breath.
"Oh, dear!" Amanda moaned.
"
Buzz me in, Mandy. It's important."
"I don't know. This is so … unexpected.
"Mandy! Push the goddamn buzzer!" Kim spoke as if she expected to be obeyed. And sure enough, after an involuntary sigh of resignation over the intercom, the buzzer gave a long and splendid sigh of its own.
Harold, unshaven, in his paint-flecked sweatshirt, was standing beside Amanda when we walked-in. She, in her at-home equestrian outfit, looked the perfect spoiled little wife.
"You didn't say he was with you." Amanda glared at me. Again I noticed her freckled chest. :'Geof and I are partners now, Mandy."
'I think you'd both better leave," Harold said.
Kim didn't bother to look at him.
"Pretty hard to take you seriously, Harold, considering I've had you licking the bottoms of my shoes." Harold recoiled like a man who'd been slapped, while Amanda tried valiantly to regain control.
"You can't just burst in on us like this!" she sputtered.
"You have no right! And to come with him!" She moe tioned toward in . "He insulted Harold. Said awful things to both of us."
"Oh, can it, Mandy!" Kim used the dominant tone again.
"Stop playing the offended party."
"But we are offended," Amanda whined.
"We're old friends. Don't be silly." Kim turned to me.
"Did I tell you Harold likes to play doggie?. And little Mandy here has drunk deeply of my-how do you call them, Mandy?-'vital juices'?"
Even as I felt for them in their moment of humiliation, I couldn't help admiring Kim for the way she'd taken command. Suddenly both Duquaynes were docile. Harold hung his head, and Amanda, who'd played proud princess last time I'd seen her, wore an expression of deeply injured pride.
"We didn't come here to insult you, Mandy." Kim's tone was soothing again.
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