Blind Side

by William Bayer

  "Better get your butt over here, pal." He hung up without saying good-bye.

  I splashed cold water on my face, threw on some clothes, then noticed that the keys to the rental car were gone. The car wasn't in the motel parking lot either. Kim had obviously taken it.

  I walked a mile down Cerrillos to Guadalupe Street, then another half mile toward the Plaza. Traffic was heavy, the trucks spewed out fumes. A teenage girl, in a lose Alamos T-shirt, leaned out of a car window and snapped my picture with a "point 'n' shoot."

  I was sweating by the time I reached Frank's gallery. And then I was annoyed-the door was locked. I knocked and peered in through the glass. No sign of Frank. And no note telling me when he'd be back.

  I was about to give up when he came out of his darkroom, saw me and let me in.

  "You said get over here. Then you lock me out."

  "Hey! Calm yourself." He motioned me toward the darkroom.

  "You're just in time to watch me print."

  He hustled me inside, closed the door, shushed me when I tried to speak. He had an excellent darkroom. There were three enlargers, including a monster 8 x 10 loaned to him by Leo DeSalle. At the moment he was working with a Beseler. He had a strip of 35mm. negative locked in the negative stage. He motioned me back- ' checked his focus, set his grain magnifier aside. Then he slipped a sheet of paper into his easel and fired off an exposure.

  I followed him as he removed the sheet, carried it across the room to his sink. He glanced at me, then dropped it facedown into a tray of developer. He poked it with a pair of tongs, flipped it over, and then, as he began to agitate, we both bent forward, waiting for the image to emerge.

  It didn't come quickly. Frank didn't use rapid developing papers; he liked only the heaviest most silver-laden varieties. And so it was a good minute before I was able to see that the subject of his picture was Kim.

  She wasn't alone. I couldn't make out the other woman. But I could see they were conferring in what looked to be a garden. As the print grew clearer I saw a numbered door in the background. It wasn't our door at the Seek And Ye Shall Find.

  "When did you take this?"

  "About an hour ago."

  "Where?"

  "A motel called the Alamo, half a mile from where you're staying, I shot it through the bushes from the other side of the pool. Rooms that border on the pool have these secluded patios in front."

  I understood then why he'd avoided meeting Kimhe'd wanted to be able to watch her without being recognized.

  I turned back to the print, looked closely at the second woman. Her features, tough and Slavic, were finally coming clear.

  "Who is she, Geof?"

  I recognized her-though I couldn't quite believe my eyes.

  "That's Grace Amos."

  "Yeah." Frank sighed.

  "I thought so. But I needed to be sure. "

  I looked at him.

  "What's she doing here? What the hell's going on?"

  He picked up the print, ran it through the stop bath and then into a tray of fix.

  "I think something pretty bad is going on," he said.

  I stayed with him while he printed out his surveillance shots, waited patiently until he developed each sheet. It was a tortuous way to find out what he'd seen, but for me, that afternoon, a slow tortuous way was best. I could have inspected all his negatives at once; I preferred to watch the situation unfold.

  And unfold it did. The sequence of shots, which he'd grabbed very cleverly from a concealed position beside the motel pool, showed Kim and Grace talking, embracing, then kissing. The last shot showed them disappearing into Grace's room, arms wrapped about each other like lovers.

  "Blackmail wasn't Mrs. Z's idea. And it wasn't Kim's. Grace was the brain behind everything. She had to be."

  We were in Frank's Land Rover, driving south, on our way to inspect the payoff site. I was still in a daze, reeling from the darkroom, but Frank kept calling our destination "the battlefield," and, like a warrior anticipating combat, spoke in sharp clipped phrases while clenching a cheroot between his teeth.

  "I even think it was Grace's idea to set you up as the 'cover photographer." She had Kim plant it with Rakoubian, and he fell for it@f course. Got to hand it to the dyke. She had a terrific plan. Get Rakoubian and Mrs. Z to do the dirty work, and you to take the blame. Get Darling to kill off Rakoubian, then have Kim kill off Mrs. Z. Not hard to figure out what they've got in store for us, once we get the money out of Darling. Get rid of us, scoop up the loot, then go off hand in hand into the sunset. Shit! It's so fucking Byzantine, Geof. Double crosses within double crosses within one enormous fucking double cross."

  I stared out the window. The shrub grass was starting to redden; autumn was coming to New Mexico.

  He laughed.

  " . . always worried about Grace. The trail to her was just too slick. You see that Cleveland number on your phone bill, fly out there, find the house, follow her to the topless joint, manage to wangle yourself a date. She offers you a massage, giving you just enough time first to find the photograph of Kim upstairs. Then there's the friendly neighbor woman conveniently posted next door to help you get the little doggie back inside the neighbor woman who hasn't spoken to Grace in years, but knows in just which particular potted plant she hides her extra key. See: they made it seem hard, but it wasn't hard at all. And diverting you through Cleveland was a brilliant stroke-it gave Grace the chance to look you over, see if you were right for what she had in mind."

  Crazy as it sounded, it made sense.

  "But why me?" I asked.

  "they needed a photographer."

  "There're plenty of photographers."

  "Sure, but you're special, Geof. Somehow they found out about you, that you were a portraitist who couldn't take portraits anymore. That's how they got to you. And you didn't see it happening because they came at you from your blind side. That's what they counted on-that you wouldn't see."

  My blind side. Sure. I'd have been a sucker for anyone who'd have come along and helped me overcome my block. There'd been several times when I'd been ready to stop chasing Kim, when I knew I'd been a fool. But still I kept coming, afraid that if I didn't find her again I'd slip back into the hole she'd found me in.

  Frank paused to relight his cigar.

  "It's Grace who's been pulling the strings. Everyone's, including ours. She works through Kim."

  "But why? Why does Kim do it?"

  "Oldest reasons in the world, Geof. Love and money." He laughed again. We drove on in silence for a while.

  "What happens now?" I asked.

  "No way are we going to let them take away that money! We've come this far, we're not tossing in our jocks."

  He had it figured out. Darling was due in Santa Fe the following morning. Assuming he showed up, and Frank was sure he would, we'd proceed with our original plan. Kim would contact Darling, arrange the pickup out to the payoff spot. Then, while Kim and I made the exchange, Frank would confront Grace. They'd have, he said, a little talk.

  "What kind of little talk?" I wanted to know. "Sufficient to discourage her."

  "And if she doesn't get discouraged?"

  "She'll get neutralized."

  "How?"

  "That's my problem. Yours is keep hold of the money."

  "What if Darling tries to kill us?"

  "He probably will. So we'll have Kim do a little wetwork.

  Wetwork-what the hell is that?"

  "Hey, Geof! Don't go soft on me. I told you up front there could be killing in a deal like this. Anyway, it's Kim you should worry about. Once that money's in her hands, things'll get dangerous. Whatever you do, don't turn your back on the lying little bitch……

  He turned off the highway, then drove along a dirt road. He followed a stony track, then cut cross-country. He pointed ahead as we came around the side of a hill. I looked, saw a cluster of half-finished wooden buildings.

  "There's our battlefield."

  But they weren't buildings, t
hey were fagades, the ruins of an old movie set. Low-budget Westerns had been shot there years before. Now the place was abandoned.

  "These days, when they make a Western, producers want an entire town," Frank explained.

  "Not just Main Street, but side streets too, a hotel, a second saloon, a courthouse, a big white church with a steeple. There's no water or electricity here, and it's hard to get to. No one's shot a movie here in years."

  Frank, however, had shot many still pictures there. After he found the site he'd been haunted by it, and had come back numerous times to photograph. One day when he was shooting, a couple from Albuquerque drove up.

  they turned out to be the owners, who'd recently inherited the land. When they found out Frank liked the place, they asked if he'd be interested in buying it. He offered them thirty-five hundred dollars, they haggled for a week, and finally sold it to him for four. He showed me around, and, as he did, I understood why he liked it for the payoff. It belonged to him, he controlled the access, so if Darling brought along goons and they tried to follow him in, we'd spot them in time to get out.

  Also, the set was remote. The tracks that led into it didn't appear on maps. There were no farms around, or ranches, or Indian burial grounds-nothing to attract a stranger or a tourist.

  But its best quality was the special mood created by those rotting old faqades. Set up in the middle of nowhere, they constituted a kind of ghost town (a false ghost town, to be sure, since there had never been a human settlement there)-haunted, otherworldly, and thus psychologically intimidating.

  Frank sketched out the scenario:

  "Say you're a guy who's never been out here before. You've brought your cash, you're ready to deal, and late in the afternoon this gorgeous babe picks you up-at your hotel. She takes a look at your money, gives you a quick weapons search, then drives you out into the countryside. It's almost twilight, you're thinking you're driving into wilderness, then she turns off the main road, hands you a blindfold and tells you to put it on.

  "Okay, you can tell by the feel of the car that she's driving along on dirt. But you don't know which direction she's going, and when she finally stops, and you take off the blindfold, you find yourself in this weird environment.

  "There're these strange deserted storefronts behind you casting long shadows on the dust. Could be armed men behind them ready to shoot you if you make any fancy moves. Meantime it's getting cold and dark and you can't see all that well. And, on top of everything else, no one's there-you have to wait.

  "After a while, a good long while, this guy steps out through the creaky old saloon doors. He's this photographer guy who ambushed you a few days before in New York, and now he's walking toward you, confident, taking your picture as he comes. You show him your nioney, he shows you his incriminating photographs, you make the exchange. He walks back into the saloon, you get back in the car and the girl drives you back to your hotel. So'@Frank looked at me-"how do you like it so far'."' "So far it's fine. What happens to me?"

  "You walk right out through the back of the set. Come on, I'll show you."

  I followed him to the saloon doors, he pushed them open, then I followed him through. they creaked as they swung closed behind us. In back the faqades were unpainted wooden walls, held up by a network of supports.

  "You walk through here carrying the money, then you follow the path around to the other side of the hill. My old Volvo's parked back there. You get in and follow the back road out. Kim doesn't know about the Volvo or the back road. She only gets one dry-run ride out here with me tomorrow morning. She won't have time to come back and check around. Plus she'll have no reason to suspect you. "What if I run into her on the road?"

  He shook his head.

  "You'll be driving the opposite direction. You go back to the Madrid road, then follow the track along Galisteo creek. You stop at my place, drop off the money, then drive back to Sante Fe, where the three of us meet to split the loot."

  "And by that time, hopefully, you'll have persuaded Grace to leave." Frank nodded.

  "One way or another."

  "And Darling? What about the 'wetwork'? When does that take place?"

  "We'll leave that up to Kim."

  We approached the Volvo. I got in, turned the ignition switch. The car started up. The gas gauge showed the tank was full.

  "Okay," I said, "it's a good plan. So tell me: what's the flaw?"

  "The only flaw is Kim may be tempted to kill you after the exchange. Darling too, of course."

  "Both of us?" That sounded impossible.

  "to make it look like you killed each other," he said.

  "Jesus, Frank!"

  "It's a possibility."

  "What's my defense?"

  "First, she doesn't know I'm not behind the storefronts covering you. Second, she likes you. Third, she's not afraid of you. She's only afraid of me."

  "Why only you?"

  "Because I'm ex-Special Forces. I'm a mercenary. I'm in this deal for the cash. You're not likely to go on the warpath if she and Grace steal the money. But I am, so I'm dangerous. When we're together for the split-that's when I figure they'll try and take us out."

  "And if you're wrong, if she tries to take me out right here?"

  "You have your gun-camera, Geof. If she tries anything -use it. Don't even hesitate."

  I nodded, then turned away, waiting for that idea to sink in. Such a thick aura of treachery had come to surround the enterprise that at that point no betrayal seemed impossible.

  Betrayal: the word was in my mind.the rest of the afternoon, as I walked about Santa Fe.

  "You need time to think it through, put it together in your head," Frank said, as he dropped me off at the Plaza.

  I wandered the central part of the city, the area of expensive galleries and boutiques. Everywhere there were tourists gawking at Navaho rugs, Santa Clara pottery, necklaces, rings, belts embellished with silver and turquoise. And all the while two phrases echoed in my brain: I've been used; I've been betrayed.

  Over and over I asked myself how I'd fallen into such a vortex. Did she love me? Apparently not. Had she ever? I doubted it. Had I loved her? I definitely had. Did I now? I couldn't.

  When, weeks before, back in New York, we had lain in my bed watching Double Indemnity, Kim had told me she was sure Phyllis Dietrichson decided to use Walter Neff the minute he walked into her house.

  Had she known she was going to use me from the moment she spotted me on Desbrosses Street, and then with a sultry confidence asked, "Are you iin alien creature?"

  It seemed she had, that that meeting between us might not even have been an accident. And the irony of it was that though she'd apparently known all about me from the start, I still knew nothing about her. Not even her real name.

  The next twenty-four hours were extremely tense.

  That night Kim and Frank met for the first time, when the three of us had dinner in the atrium of the Villa Linda shopping mall. It was a perfect spot for such a meeting. There were a dozen fast-food outlets ringing the walls, with tables and chairs set under a skylight in the middle. People walked by, but no one lingered. The place was totally anonymous.

  Frank was highly attentive to Kim. She couldn't possibly suspect he knew her secret. Watching them together, listening to them talk and plot, I still couldn't quite believe what he'd uncovered.

  But he'd shown me photographs, and generally speaking photographs don't lie, no matter what Dave Ramos thinks. Grace was in Santa Fe. She and Kim had met. They'd conducted themselves like lovers. And the feeling I'd had very early that morning-that Kim had still not told me the entire truth-was well home out by Frank's analysis.

  He was right about another thing too: the trail through Grace in Cleveland to Kim's hideout in Key West had been much too easy to follow. I'd congratulated myself on what a shrewd detective I'd been. Now I understood I'd been a fool.

  I made love to Kim that night. I had to. I was afraid that if I didn't she'd suspect that I knew. At first it
was awful. Her lies were so abundant, calculated and ensnaring, I quivered at each caress. She misunderstood my trembling, mistook it for passion. And when that seemed to arouse her, I played along. Then I actually started to enjoy it. It was so easy to play false, revel in deceit. Perhaps I was beginning to understand her.

  was Frank right? was she motivated only by love for race and money? Or was there something more-some actual pleasure she took in perfidy? I tried to put myself in her place, understand how it felt to have done what she had done, to plan the things that she was planning-as if life were a game in which to play was to cheat, to speak was to lie, and the only purpose a lover had was to be used and then betrayed.

  Frank came by early in the morning, first to show Kim the way out to the battlefield, then to drive her to Albuquerque to see if Darling came in on the plane.

  I stayed in our room at the Seek And Ye Shall Find, trying to make sense out of what was happening. I even considered walking up to the Alamo to have my own little talk with Grace. But what could I say to her, when, it seemed, I had totally misinterpreted our encounter? And then it struck me that even as she had pretended to be my friend, I had betrayed that "friendship" when I broke into her house.

  Lies, lies … everywhere mendacity. And now all our individual lies, reaching a critical mass, were about to converge and to explode.

  The phone rang a little after 1:00 P.m. It was Frank, calling from the airport.

  "He's here!" he said.

  Not only had Darling arrived, but he was exerting an especially tight grip on an oxblood leather attache case.

  "It's even got brass corners," Frank said.

  "That's where the money is."

  There was, he said, no sign of accompanying goons. He was sure the man had come to deal. And Darling hadn't spotted Kim. After she'd pointed him out, Frank had kept her in the background. Even if Darling suspected he was being watched, he had no knowledge of who his watcher was. He put Kim on the line.

  "God, it's exciting! I've been dreaming about this for weeks. Just a few more hours, Geoffrey.

  "Yeah. Then easy street," I said.

  they returned to the motel a little after 3:00 P.m. to give me their report.