Ed McBain_Matthew Hope 12 (26 page)

“Lainie?” I said. “I’m assuming there are other…”

“I’m sure there are,” she said at once.

“Huh?” Frank said.

“Copies,” she said.

“In which case,” he said, “what
is
that photographer’s name?”

T
he photographer’s name was Edison Alva Farley, Jr., and he told Guthrie at once that he had been named after Thomas Alva Edison,
the man who’d invented—among other things—the incandescent lightbulb and the motion picture camera.

Farley’s great-grandfather—John Winston Farley—was living in West Orange, New Jersey, when the great man moved his laboratory
there in 1887. The two men became fast friends, and John Winston’s son Arthur—who was twelve at the time, but who would later
become Farley’s grandfather—had idolized the inventor. At the turn of the century, when Arthur was twenty-five, his young
wife Sarah gave birth to a baby boy whom they promptly named Edison Alva, avoiding the more obvious Thomas Alva Edison, which
when attached to the family name would have become Thomas Alva Edison Farley, a somewhat cumbersome handle. The first Edison
Alva Farley later grew up to be the father of the current Edison Alva Farley, Jr.

“Such are the wonders of naming babies in America,” Farley told Guthrie, “though everybody calls me Junior now.”

Guthrie, no stranger to the transmogrification of given names, not to mention surnames, took the photographer’s extended hand,
and said, “Everybody calls me Guthrie now,” which was true.

“So what can I do for you?” Farley asked. “A passport photo? A portrait photo to send to your fiancée in Seoul?” and here
he winked. Guthrie winked back, though he didn’t get the joke.

“What I need, actually,” Guthrie said, “is some information about a video you made back in March sometime.”

“Was this a wedding?” Farley asked. “A graduation?”

“No. This was a private session with a woman. Just her and the video camera.”

Farley looked at him.

“Would you remember making a video such as that?” Guthrie asked.

Guthrie already knew that last March Farley had shot a video of Lainie Commins, aka Lori Doone, in a half hour interlude that
could have been construed as compromising, not to mention dirty. He gave Farley a little time to think things over. It was
always best to get the percolator boiling before you started pouring the coffee.

There was, in fact, a percolator bubbling away on the little hot plate in one corner of Farley’s studio, though the photographer
had not yet offered Guthrie a cup. The studio was in what was called a “cluster unit” on Wedley and Third, close to the Twin
Forks Shopping Mall in “downtown” Calusa, such as it was. The mall had been a disaster. There was talk of turning it into
a huge multilevel parking lot that would service the entire “downtown” area, though everyone in Calusa knew there was, in
reality, no true “downtown” now that all the shopping had moved further south on the Trail into far more successful malls
than Twin Forks.

The studio was somewhat small, as was true of most spaces in these beautifully but sparingly designed cluster buildings that
had become the vogue over the past few years. One entire wall was composed of floor-to-ceiling windows that slid open onto
an interior courtyard spilling good northern light. Another wall was covered with standing bookshelves that held an array
of cameras, boxed film, and a stereo system complete with a tape deck, tuner, CD player, turntables for both 78 and 45 rpms,
and a pair of giant speakers. Guthrie had never been in a photographer’s studio that didn’t have its share of very expensive
stereo equipment. Many junkie burglars broke into photography studios not to steal the cameras, which were often etched for
identification, but to steal the audio equipment, which was easier to fence. Along a third wall a battery of lights was set
up to illuminate a seamless backdrop against which a stool was positioned.

“Does the name Lori Doone ring a familiar note?” Guthrie asked.

“Mr. Lamb, I do hundreds of videos,” Farley said impatiently. “I really can’t remember the names of all my subjects.”

Sounds like a ruling monarch, Guthrie thought, but did not say.

“During the Gulf War,” Farley went on, “I must have shot a hundred videos. In January of ′91, when things really heated up
over there, I couldn’t keep count. I don’t know how they played them, they must’ve had VCRs there in the desert, to show them
on, don’t you think? Otherwise why would all these women be coming to a professional photographer to have videos made? I had
girls in here who wanted to talk sexy to their boyfriends on camera, wives who wanted to look glamorous for their men far
far away, even mothers who wanted to send something more personal than a letter. I had all kinds coming to me.

“This wasn’t the Gulf War,” Guthrie said.

“I know. I’m only saying.”

“And Lori Doone didn’t come to
you,
” Guthrie said.

“She didn’t? Then why…?”

“
You
went to
her.
”

Farley looked at him again. Long and hard this time.

“Are you a policeman?” he asked, sounding suddenly cautious.

“No, I am not,” Guthrie said, and took out his wallet to show his private investigator’s ID card. “I’m working this privately,”
he said, and winked as Farley had when he’d mentioned the future bride in Korea. “Anything we say is privileged and confidential.”

“Mm,” Farley said, not winking back, and managing to convey in that single mutter an iciness as vast as a Norwegian fjord.

“Perhaps I can refresh your memory,” Guthrie said.

“I wish you would.”

“Lori Doone was modeling lingerie at a place called Silken Secrets on the South Trail?”

Ending his sentence in a question mark. The prod.

“Don’t know it,” Farley said.

“Last March?”

“Last March or anytime.”

“You came in one night…”

“I did
not.
”

“…and asked her if she’d care to pose in her lingerie for a video you were making? “You said you’d pay her…”

“People pay
me
for making videos, not the other way around.”

“Pay her a thousand dollars,” Guthrie went on, undaunted, “if she’d…”

“Ridiculous.”

“…masturbate for the camera for a half hour.”

“You have the wrong…”

“While you taped her.”

“I’m sorry, your information is wrong.”

“There are three other girls on the tape, Mr. Farley.”

“I don’t know anything about such a tape.”

“I have their names. They all work for Buttercup Enterprises. I can track them down.”

Farley said nothing for several moments. At last, he said, “What are you looking for, Mr. Lamb?”

“I told you. Information.”

“Gee, and here I thought it might be money.”

“Wrong.”

“What kind of information?”

“How many copies of that tape did you make? How many did you sell? And have you still got the master?”

“None of that is any of your business.”

“Right, it isn’t. Miss Doone says one of the girls on that tape is only sixteen years old.”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Oh, you remember the tape now?”

“How much are you looking for, Mr. Lamb?”

“Say that one more time, and I’ll find it insulting.”

Farley looked at him.

Guthrie nodded encouragingly.

Farley kept looking at him.

At last, he sighed.

Guthrie waited.

“I made and sold fifty copies,” he said at last.

“For how much a copy?”

“Twenty bucks. Which was very reasonable for an hour-long video.”

“I feel certain.”

“Of professional quality.”

“Who’s complaining?”

“
I
am. I expected to sell five hundred.”

“You made only fifty copies, but you expected…”

“I made copies as the orders came in. Stupid I may be, but dumb I’m not. I had a four-thousand-dollar initial investment,
a thousand to each of the girls who posed.
Plus
the cost of the raw stock.
And
my time.
And
the black vinyl cases. I printed the photo insert for the cover myself. Even so, you add all that up, I was maybe in for
five thousand bucks. I figured if I could sell five hundred copies of the tape, that would’ve been a hundred-percent return.
Espresso
joints make ten times that.”

“Who’d you sell the tapes to?”

“Who knows? I took ads in all the girlie mags. That’s right, I forgot the cost of the goddamn ads. I was probably in for six,
seven
thousand. Man.”

“Sell any of these copies to locals?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, did you or didn’t you?”

“I’d have to look at my files. I’m pretty sure most of the responses came from states where there’s more livestock than people.
You’d be surprised what evil lurks in the heartland.”

“How’d you like to cut your losses?” Guthrie asked.

“How so?”

“Sell me the master at cost.”

“Nossir.”

“How much then?”

“Seven grand.”

“Why do I keep thinking of that sixteen-year-old?”

“Nobody on that tape is sixteen.”

“Try a girl named Candi Lane.”

“Seven sounds reasonable.”

“Five sounds even more reasonable.”

“Make it six.”

“Done.”

“Cash.”

“Forget it.”

“Is she really only sixteen?” Farley asked.

“I didn’t know how high I could go,” Guthrie told me, “and I didn’t want to lose it by having to check with you first.”

I was wondering what he’d have done if it had been his own money.

“That’s fine,” I said. “I told you to get the master, and you got the master.”

I still hadn’t heard that there were fifty copies out there.

I heard that now.

“Yeah,” Guthrie said, and shrugged.

Six thousand dollars, I was thinking. With fifty copies still out there alive and kicking.

“Twenty bucks a throw, he got for them,” Guthrie said.

“Should have met us first,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Could’ve sold us the whole batch, plus the Brooklyn Bridge.”

“I thought six was a bargain,” Guthrie said, somewhat petulantly. “This tape ever showed up in court, Miss Commins would’ve
sizzled.”

“What if one of the
copies
shows up in court?”

“That isn’t likely.”

“It’s possible.”

“Anything’s possible. Genghis
Khan
could show up in court. But it isn’t likely. Especially since only
one
of the tapes is in Calusa.”

“What are you saying.”

“I’m saying only one of the copies is here in Calusa.”

“How do you know that?”

“I got a list from Farley.”

“A list of what?”

“The people who ordered the tape from him. Guys from all over the country. Even some women. Only one of the customers was
from Calusa.”

“May I see the list?”

“Certainly,” Guthrie said, and took several stapled and folded sheets of paper from his inside jacket pocket. “I highlighted
the one we’re interested in.”

I looked down the first page of typewritten names and addresses. Some twenty or so. None of them highlighted.

“It’s on the third page,” Guthrie said.

I flipped to the third page.

“Near the top,” he said.

The name was highlighted in yellow.

“Some Spanish guy,” Guthrie said.

Robert Ernesto Diaz.

Evensong II was one of the older low-rise condominiums on Sabal Key, built some twenty years ago when restrictions were still
in force and before builders began reaching for the sky. Clustered around a man-made cove and canals that afforded entrance
to the Intercoastal, the shingled two-story buildings in their wooded setting looked cloistered and serene, an image reinforced
by the boats bobbing beside the canal docks and in the cove. A breeze was blowing in off the water. A white heron delicately
picked its way along the border of the walk leading to unit 21. It took sudden startled flight as I approached. I had called
ahead. Bobby Diaz was expecting me.

He told me at once that he had an early dinner date and he hoped we could make this fast. His urgency gained credibility by
the fact that one side of his face was covered with lather, and he was wearing only a towel. He showed me into the living
room, told me to make myself a drink if I cared for one, and then said he wouldn’t be long.

His apartment overlooked the condo swimming pool. Young girls in thong bikinis lay on poolside lounges or splashed in the
water. An old man wearing red boxer trunks sat on the edge of the pool, his legs dangling in the water, watching the girls.
I watched them, too. Diaz was back in ten minutes, buttoning a cream-colored sports shirt, tucking it into trousers the color
of bran. He had trimmed his black mustache and neatly shaved the rest of his face. His long black hair, still wet from the
shower, was combed straight back from his forehead. His dark eyes looked suspicious, but the wary look fled before his welcoming
smile.

“No drink?” he said. “Can I make you one?”