Blind Side

by William Bayer

  Darling had rented a car and driven to Saiita Fe. As instructed, he'd taken a casita at the posh Rancho Encantato. As soon as he'd checked in, Kim had called him on the house phone, told him to present himself at the front gate at 5:45. She'd pick him up no later than 6:00. If anyone was with him, or if he wasn't carrying the money, or any attempt was made to follow her car; the deal was off. He had only one shot at buying our photographs. Blow it, she told him, and he'd be out of luck.

  Now she wanted to rest until it was time to pick Darling up.

  "Got to come down from the high," she said.

  "See you on the battlefield." She kissed me at the door.

  Once we were back in Frank's car, he turned to me.

  "Play kissy-pussy games with Grace-that's what she means by 'rest."

  " I asked him what he thought of her.

  "Attractive and seductive. Can't blame you for falling for her, Geof.

  "But you wouldn't have-is that what you're saying?"

  "No, I'm not saying that. I might have fallen for her too. "

  "So, I haven't been a total fool."

  "The only fools in this game," he said, "will be the guys who end up dead."

  Out at the site we went over everything, walking through the exchange three times. I played Darling's part, Kim's, and then my own. I understood my most important task was to give Kim and Darling the impression that Frank was hidden behind the storefront watching my back.

  When Frank thought I was sufficiently rehearsed, he presented me with a chocolate bar and a thermos of water. He suggested I take some pictures. He thought using my camera would help me pass the hours until Kim and Darling arrived.

  He wished me luck with Kim, and I wished him luck with Grace, then he got into his car.

  "So, now it's just the two of us," I said. "Yep. Just like a buddy picture, Geof."

  I didn't use my camera to pass the time. At that point photography seemed irrelevant. There were two cameras around my neck, one of which wasn't a camera but a gun. But, on that particular afternoon, it was the phony camera that seemed most real.

  I strolled about, the afternoon wore on, the shadows lengthened and the light started turning sweet. When I sat down on the saloon porch to eat my chocolate bar, I heard a sound that made me jump. A rattlesnake slithered out from beneath the steps. After that I kept clear of the set.

  At 6:15 I started watching the valley, alternately looking at my watch. By 6:30, when our rental car had not appeared, I began to worry. Had something gone wrong? Maybe Darling had changed his mind, or maybe he'd pulled a fast one in the car. What if he'd decided to take Kim hostage, only agreeing to release her when we handed over the photographs?

  Finally, on the verge of despair, I spied a trail of dust. It was the car. The sun was behind me; its rays caught and glittered off the chrome. If it was Kim, she was driving extremely fast. I watched awhile to be certain it was really she, then retreated to my position behind the saloon doors.

  She drove straight to the place where I'd been standing, then stopped hard, creating a little storm of dust. I saw Darling sitting beside her wearing his blindfold. He didn't look animated. Then, when I saw her leave the car clutching his brass-cornered attache case, I realized something was wrong.

  She set the case down in the dust, then continued around to the passenger side. I remember thinking how curious it was that she was wearing an evening dress. Then, when she opened the door and Darling fell out, I knew right away that he was dead. I rushed out of the saloon. By that time she was backing the car away. I stared down at Darling, then pulled his blindfold off. Even in death his tight thin lips were pursed and his chin tilted up with arrogance.

  Kim had parked a hundred feet away. Now she rushed toward me, looking radiant.

  "Geoffrey! I did it! It's over!" She plunged into my arms.

  "'What happened?"

  " I shot him as soon as he put on the blindfold. It wis spooky driving out here sitting beside him, but I couldn't just dump him on the road. Open the briefcase, Geoffrey." I stooped and opened it. It was stuffed with neatIy arranged bundles of fresh currency bound by rubber band."

  "See! I got it! Frank's idea. I mean, why go through that whole dumb payoff routine? Just see that he had the cash, then let him have it. He said you wouldn't do it, you'd hesitate. 'Do your wetwork as soon as you can,' Frank said. So that's just what I did."

  I believed Frank had told her that, that there'd been more than one part of the plan he'd kept compartmentalized. I was angry with him for that, but not half so angry as I was afraid. For now I was truly afraid of Kim. If she was capable of assassinating Darling as he sat right beside her in a car, she was perfectly capable of killing me.

  "What did Grace tell you to do?" I whispered.

  "Grace? What are you talking about?"

  I exploded: "Don't try and fake with me, Kim! Frank spotted you. He took pictures of the two of you kissing in her patio."

  "Pictures! Why, that prying little sneak!"

  "You're the sneak. Whose idea was it anyway, hers or yours?"

  She shook her head and glared at me.

  "Fuck you, Geoffrey! Whose do you think?"

  "Tell me!"

  "Hers, of course. She thought up the whole thing."

  "Yeah. So now that you've got the money, what does she expect you to do about me?"

  She lowered her voice.

  "Kill you, of course."

  "Of course. Then make it look like Darling and I killed each other, right?"

  "Oh, Geof!" she moaned.

  "What about Frank? He'd fol ow you to the ends of the earth if you pulled a stunt like that."

  "I know, I know . . . . "

  "So? Are you going to kill me?"

  Tears formed in her eyes.

  "Do you really think I could?"

  "I can't be sure. Can I, Kim?"

  She nodded, as if to acknowledge that was true. Then d me.

  "I'm a bad person, Geoffrey. I make My ON Sometimes I think – . ." She lowered her voice"Sometimes I think I'm really evil." She pulled back, placed her hands on my shoulders, then linked them behind my neck. "We'll have to kill Grace. We won't be safe until we do. She'll want the money. She'll come after us. We'll never breathe free with her alive."

  "What about Frank?"

  "Kill him too. Then there'll be more for us."

  "He's my friend!"

  She squinted at me as if I were some kind of fool.

  "Fine, Geoffrey, if you feel that way, you can split your share with him."

  "So long as you get half?"

  "That's my deal with Grace."

  "And I'd better match it. How can I ever trust you now?"

  "I don't know, Geoffrey. I don't suppose you really can:" She pressed herself against me, forced her mouth against mine.

  "I want you, Geoffrey. I want to make love with you-right here. Now. In the dust. With Darling's body on the ground. And the money … the money very close. The light playing on us, spotlighting us. How do you call it, Geoffrey? The 'splendorous failing light." That would be great. The look of it, I mean. The splendor of it. The baroque effect. With the shadows long and ominous. Like the end of an opera. Or those weir(ifilm noir movies you like. Wouldn't that be something? Wouldn't it?"

  She kissed me again, then rolled her tongue across my lips. Then she burrowed her mouth into my shoulder and nibbled on my skin. I could feel the bite of her teeth, smell the lemon-and-musk scent of her hair.

  ere's something I have to tell you," she said, speaking softly against my chest.

  "Frank's dead. Grace killed him, walked into his studio an hour ago and shot him in the face. It was fast. Frank never even knew. But she's crazy, you see. That's why we have to get rid of her."

  I felt something go weak within me then-my best friend dead, Mai a widow, four kids orphaned on account of me. This was worse than Guatemala, worse than anything. Now the whole enterprise was meaningless.

  "Where's Grace now?"

  "Bac
k at our motel."

  Grace was waiting back in our motel, because she knew Kim was coming back alone. I took a step, backwards. I knew then what I was going to do.

  "What's the matter?"

  "I want to take your picture," I said.

  "You always want to do that when you're afraid. Think I'm going to kill you, Geoffrey? That I'm a black widow spider or something? Are you really still afraid of me?"

  I raised my camera.

  "Sure. Maybe a little bit."

  She brushed my camera aside.

  "Later."

  "Now, Kim. While there's light. Before we make love. A shot of your … eagerness." She smiled. She liked that. She stepped back from me. We stood six feet apart.

  "Afterwards we'll make love in the dirt. Promise?" I promised.

  She stood looking at me.

  "How do you want me to pose?"

  "You're fine the way you are."

  "Isn't there some special thing you want me to do?" She placed a hand on her hip, stuck out the other and assumed a self-mocking sultry pose.

  She should do something.

  "Tell me you're evil, Kim. Whisper it just the way you did."

  I raised Frank's gun-camera to my eye, cocked it by pulling the depth-of-field lever.

  "How did I say it?"

  "Softly. You smiled at me in a way I'd never seen you smile before."

  She smiled then, that same special way, and, when she did, I plugged her. There was a little pop, nothing loud at all, and simultaneously a neat little hole appeared in her throat. She raised her hand instinctively to protect herself, but she was a good two seconds too late. She looked at me surprised, then fell to her knees, then rolled onto the ground. The setting sun painted her red. I watched as the blood spurted from her wound.

  "I'm going to die," she said.

  I stood and watched her. She was pressing her fingers against her throat.

  "I'm afraid, Geoffrey. Help me. Help me. Please . I looked down at her. She was still pressing the wound, trying to stop the flow.

  "Find a phone. Call an ambulance."

  I shook my head.

  "Please," she begged. She was trembling and her eyes were clouding up with pain.

  "Going to watch me die, that what you want to do?" She looked over at Darling's attache case, then smiled knowingly.

  "The money. You did it for the money. Sure."

  "I never gave a shit about the money, Kim."

  She tried to laugh at that, but she was too weak and could only smile. "You really were going to kill me after we made love," I said.

  She nodded.

  "You got me first. Didn't think you had the balls for a move like that." She swallowed hard. I could hear the blood gurgling in her throat.

  "I always underestimated you."

  She looked at me curiously then, as if she were seeing me for the first time. Then another wave of pain swept across her face.

  "Finish me off. Please, Geoffrey."

  "No more bullets," I lied.

  "My gun. In my purse in the car." I didn't move, just watched her.

  "Please, Geof. Please. It hurts so bad."

  I knew it hurt, but I wasn't going to shoot her again. Instead I let my gun-camera drop, picked up my working Leica and focused in on her eyes. She didn't turn away, stared straight at my lens. She looked truly evil then, like a dying reptile. Maybe this time, I thought, I'll get her right. I took her picture. Afterwards I picked up Darling's attached case.

  "Please," she whimpered, "stay with me. Don't leave me alone."

  I didn't stay with her. When I left she was still alive. the sun was sinking, and there wasn't anything I could do for her, no purpose I could serve. Walking to the car, I saw a pair of vultures, black forms circling slowly against the darkening sky. When I reached the car, I turned for a final look. The sun was gone. I couldn't see Kim; she was lost in the shadows cast by the set.

  I looked up. Four more vultures were perched on the roof line of the movie-set facade. That old rattlesnake will finish her off, I thought. And then those ugly birds will have their dinner. She and Darling will be white bones in a couple of weeks.

  6

  The night I killed Kim, I drove down to Mai's house in Galisteo, then phoned my room at the motel. Grace picked up. I told her I'd executed Kim, was going to give the money to Mai, and that if she ever bothered me or Frank's family again, I'd kill her too. Then I ordered her out of Santa Fe. There was a pause after I said all that, as if she was thinking out a reply. But she didn't say anything, just breathed into the phone for a while. Then she hung up. Which was just as well, I thought.

  The following morning Frank's body was found. The police speculated he'd been shot by a robber. There were no fingerprints or clues of any kind. Anyone with information was urged to contact the authorities.

  Two days later there was an article in the Santa Fe Register, a small item near the bottom of the second page. The well-known New York architect Arnold Darling had checked into the Rancho Encantado several days before. His luggage and clothes were still in his casita, but he had disappeared. Again: anyone with knowledge, etc.

  Darling's disappearance was worth a mention, but things like that had happened before. It seemed that people often choose New Mexico as a jumping-off point when they decide to disappear or change their lives.

  After Frank's burial, I stayed on with Mai for several weeks. She was a strong woman even in her mourning. Every day she went out to her studio behind the house, put on her welder's mask and worked on her sculpture.

  Jude and the girls took Frank's death hard, so I spent a t of time with them.

  Two weeks after the killings I bought a sturdy shovel and a pair of rubber gloves. Then I drove back out to that rotting movie set.

  Kim's and Darling's faces had been pretty much pecked away, but the bodies lay just where I had left them. I put on the gloves, tied on a bandanna to cover my nose, then stripped the clothes and jewelry off them both. I dug a pit and buried them together. Then I burned their clothes, and scrubbed out the rental car just in case any of Darling's blood had gotten on the seats.

  When I thought it was about time to go back to New York, I had Mai drive me out there again to pick up the Volvo. I followed her back, and, when we got to the house, I presented her with Darling's money.

  I had counted it, of course, and was surprised to find there was only a hundred thousand dollars in the attache case. Evidently Darling had thought he could bargain us down to 10 percent. He had no idea of the kind of vipers he was dealing with.

  At first, when I told Mai it was Frank's share of our venture, she was hesitant about accepting it. She still refused when I told her it was "reparations," but she finally accepted when I persuaded her that she had to ensure the children's educations.

  A week after I got back to New York, Sal Scotto came by my loft. We talked for a while. He told me he and Ramos were about to give up on the Cheryl Devereux case.

  "Funny thing," he said, "this Mrs. Z you sent us to-evening of the day we talked to her, her place caught fire with her inside. Fire investigators think it was arson. My guess is it was self-immolation. She had some kind of weird cult thing going down there. Must have been what the killings were about."

  "What about the Duquaynes?" I asked.

  "Did you ever talk to them?"

  "Tried, but they wouldn't talk. Had these fancy lawyers warn us off. If we'd had something on them we would have hauled them in. But all we had was your hearsay."

  So-all the killings explained themselves, and none appeared to be connected. Rakoubian "jumped" and Mrs. Z "self-immolated," and Darling "disappeared" in New Mexico. Frank Cordero was killed by "a party unknown," and as for an obscure actress named "Kimberly Yates," no one missed her, because no one knew who she really was.

  "I'll tell you something," Scotto said to me.

  "The first time we met I told Dave Ramos afterwards: 'This guy's in over his head." I think I was right. Except you got out clean." He loo
ked hard at me.

  "Least you say you did. . ., . "

  He asked me if I'd be willing to swear out an affidavit stating everything I knew about the case. I told him I didn't much feel like swearing out anything, at least not until I consulted with a lawyer.

  "Figures." He nodded. "I always knew you knew more than you told me. Wanna know my opinion, I think you were up to your ears in it. Maybe even a member of the cult. But like I said, you seem to have got out clean." He looked hard at me. "Funny. You're different now. Can't quite put my finger on how. Like you're more clearheaded. Focused, directed. Like you know what you want out of life. You were pretty weird before."

  "Hey, Sal-I told you everything."

  "Forget it, Geoffrey. Nobody gives a shit. Cheryl Devereux, a.k.a. Shadow, victim of a torture slaying-little splash in the media that's all that was. I can't even find anyone who's heard of this Sonya you told me about. Girls like that, they disappear all the time. Which doesn't mean I'm giving up. Figure they'll pull Dave off in a couple of weeks. But not me. I'll ask to stay on it for a while. I need the free time. Some personal stuff I've been wanting to do. Being a lone detective on a dead-end case like that-you can spend your time pretty much the way you want."

  So Sal and I made an agreement-I wouldn't tell anyone he was goofing off, and he'd keep his suspicions of me to himself. It worked out pretty well for both of us.

  Gave me the peace of mind I needed to get back into the game.

  I sold my view cameras to Aaron Greene. Once I was nd of them I felt relieved. I decided to give up fine-art holography and go back to photojournalism. p I phoned Jim Lynch to give him the news.

  "Hey! Great, Geof! Now how about Beirut?"

  He was so ecstatic when I told him I'd go, he invited me to lunch.

  I flew out to the Middle East two weeks later, took a lot of pictures, and, strangely enough, had a fairly pleasant time. There were bodies around most everywhere, and, when I happened to be near when a big car bomb exploded, I was able to get to the site and shoot three rolls before they picked up the dismembered limbs.

  Bloody stuff, brutal stuff-but I'd seen it all before. And thanks to the reflex viewin2 svstem of my Leica I was able to cast a cool eye. F@a@kly, I don't think I caught much that was new, but Jim was thrilled when he saw my proofs.