Blind side

2

The following morning at La Guardia airport, I stopped to call Sal Scotto from a phone booth.

"Where you been?" he asked.

"Trying to get hold of you.

"I got your messages," I said, "but I've been out of town. "

"We need to talk."

"That's why I'm calling. I'm at the airport, about to leave again."

He hesitated.

"Don't think you should leave just now, Geoffrey. Dave and me, we need clarification on a couple things."

"Like what?"

"That super over in Devereux's building-we've been looking into him.

There're a few little items that don't quite add up."

"Forget about him."

"What do you mean 'forget about him'? You're the one steered us to him in the first place."

"I was wrong. He didn't do it."

"How do you know that?" He paused again.

"If you do know something, Geoffrey, you'd better tell me right now. Way I've gone out on a limb for you, wouldn't want to think you're jerking me around."

"You didn't go out on a limb for me, Sal. My life was threatened. I asked you for protection and you refused."

"Protection! That's in the movies! I did everything I could.

"Doesn't matter. Forget it. When and if I have something to tell, I'll tell you, okay? Meantime, my regards to your charming partner. 'Bye, Sal."

"Hey! Don't hang up… He was still sputtering when I did.

It's a three-hour flight from New York to Miami. Any month between December and March is a good time to go, and October and May can be okay too if you're not a nervous sweaty type and don't like to walk too fast.

But if you make the trip when I did, on the last day of August, and arrive a little after noon on what the natives tell you is the hottest day of the year, and if you haven't lived all that perfect a life anyway, and it's occurred to you you may deserve a little stint in purgatory for your sins, you will, upon arrival, have the opportunity to know just how hot the furnaces of hell are going to be.

Actually at first it didn't seem so bad. I stepped off my air-conditioned plane into an enormous air-conditioned airport full of congenial happy people, most of whom were speaking Spanish. From there I took an air-conditioned minibus to the parking lot of the car rental company of my choice, and there transferred into my rented airconditioned car.

It was the few moments in between when I was in the open air that I'll remember all my life. I'm talking about a dank humid ovenhot heat that hits you like a fist. I've photographed in the tropics, been baked and broiled and smelled the smells, but I never experienced such a scalding hotness as I did that August day. It was composed of torrid wind, coming off the Everglades, tainted with decay, then made noxious by aircraft and automobile fumes.

And I was about to drive a hundred sixty miles deeper into the fire. In retrospect, I'm glad I did. It would have been too simple to take the plane. It wasn't that the drive to Key West was all that difficult-I was one of very few maniacs braving the road that sweltering August afternoon. But those three and a half hours on the highway gave me a chance to rest and think, and also a sense of the distance I had to go.

If Key West is, as they say, "the end of the line," then it may be necessary to literally travel a little of that line in order to fully appreciate the meaning of being at its end.

The turnpike led me through the southern suburbs of Miami, then on to the fringes of Everglades National Park. The divided highway ended at Florida City, and from there on it was one long commercial strip of Long John Silver's, Captain Bob's, Bojangles, boat rental agencies and live-bait shops, Once on the Keys I started to move: Key Largo, Islamorada, Long Key, Conch key, Grassy Key, Boot Key, and then the interminable Marathon, after which the honky-tonk gave way to the empty road, an asphalt ribbon crossing the islands, rolling across the bridges. There was hardly another car in sight.

My eyes began to smart as I drove into the sun. Colors were bleached to tones. The roots of the little mangrove islands looked like snakes poised to strike, and the water off the reef took on the flat purple-gray color of a bruise.

A pickup truck passed, going ninety-five. There was a rifle in the window rack, and two shirtless men in back with ragged beards and billed fishing caps, sipping beer from the can. they gave me a sinister wave, a silent greeting that said, We'll be seem' you later, hub, and, when we do, don't mess with us. Then they were gone, and ahead there was only the empty road again, the black baked-out ribbon, rolling south toward heat and emptiness.

Big Pine Key. Ramrod. Sugarloaf. Torch. The scrubencrusted islands called Saddlebunch. Then Boca Chica and Stock Island, a huge automobile graveyard, and thenfinally and at last-Key West.

At first it didn't look like any kind of paradise I had ever seen. There were gas stations and fast-food joints and a couple of shopping malls and an enormous flatroofed Sears. But when I got off the highway and drove deeper into town, a breeze blew forth, the sky began to darken, and I found myself in another world.

There was a special texture to the quiet shady streets, lined with old wooden buildings-shacks, houses, mansions all mixed together, some rotting, others superbly restored. Magnificent tropical plantings too;

I counted banyans, jacarandas, sapodillas and palms, hibiscus, oleander and fountains of bougainvillaea pouring off bal ies. And surrounding everything was a beguiling scent, warm sweet aroma of night-blooming flowers.

I wound my way through this section (which, I rned from my map, was called Old Town), I began to ecompress. I passed a young black girl skipping rope, a group of laughing Cubans clustered on a veranda playing cards. And then I spotted a truly beautiful woman of a certain age, sitting alone on a second-story balcony. I slowed my car, our eyes met, then, slowly, she smiled at me and waved.

I checked into a motel called the Spanish Moss, a little shabby, but a veritable Ritz Carlton compared with my lodgings in Cleveland. Then I took a walk.

I wanted to get a feel for the place, and so headed for the main street, Duval, to join the throngs. Here I merged with sailors, gay couples, bikini-clad adolescents carrying fishing poles, all headed toward Mallory Pier for the famous ritual of Key West-bearing witness to the sunset.

The pier was crowded, with circles formed around various human and animal acts. There was a juggler, and a jazz combo and a bagpipe player. There was a lady hawking cookies, and a sinewy youth, stripped to the waist, cracking open coconuts. I also saw examples of a type I hadn't seen in years: tall, thin stooped young men with gentle eyes and wispy beards, escorting stout young women, in tie-dyed clothes, with waist-length tresses and beauteous smiles.

There were whistles and cheers as the sun sank into the Gulf, and then the mob broke up. I was exhausted. In thirty-six hours I'd traveled between four cities, broken into a house, terrorized a man, and had learned crushing things about the woman I had loved. And so, even though it was only 9:00 P.m., I ate a quick dinner at a cheap Cuban restaurant, then went to bed.

I woke ten hours later, refreshed and eager to stalk my prey. On my way to my car, I ran into my motel-room neighbors, a friendly retired couple from Arizona with Mount Rushmore faces, struggling with two odd-looking machines.

I gave them a hand. The machines were metal detec tors, which they were going to use to scour the beach for coins and rings. After I helped them load the contraptions into their car, the woman took hold of my hands.

"Thank you and God bless you, son," she said.

"May you have good luck with your quest here too."

The Key West Post Office, on Whitehead Street, is a modern building with a normal enclosed section, and also a long grilled-in open-air arcade.

It is in this later portion that the P.O. boxes are situated, in easy view of the parking lot. The only trouble is that occupation of spaces in the lot is limited to fifteen minutes.

I found Kim's box and peeked inside. Nothing there. I certainly didn't expect to find it loaded with mail; she was in hiding, after all. But if Grace Amos was the only person who knew where she was, and if she and Grace spoke regularly on the phone, it could be as long as a week before she showed up to check her box. Could I mount a watch that long?

I had no alternative. Though I knew she was a waitress, it would be madness to track her down aggressively. The moment I started asking questions she'd hear about it, get spooked and run.

The hours for the arcade were 7:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.m., but since I couldn't possibly maintain a twelve-hour-aday surveillance, I needed a control for the times I wouldn't be there.

I entered the Post Office, bought a prestamped envelope, then returned to the arcade and started riffling through the contents of a trash container. It didn't take long to find what I was looking for, a discarded advertising flyer. I folded it neatly, sealed it inside the envelope, wrote "Boxholder" and Kim's box number on the front, then pushed the letter through the slot for local mail.

Once that envelope was in her box, I could check on it whenever I renewed my watch. If it was gone, or in an altered position, I'd know she'd been there while I was away.

That first morning I established my routine. I found a parking space on Whitehead, with a sight line to the arcade. But since the boxes were too far away to observe with the naked eye, I mounted a 135mm. telephoto on my Leica and used it as a telescope.

Even in the best cop movies I've yet to hear a character adequately describe how tough it is to man a stakeout. It's not just a. question of physical discomfort, though being cooped up in a car is excruciating enough. For me the most difficult part was the strain of keeping alert while watching a specific spot for hours at a time.

I had to constantly fight off the wanderings of my mind. I had to avoid moving around too much lest Kim appear from an unexpected direction, notice me and run. I dared not play the radio too long, lest I run down the battery, and although Key West in late summer is very hot, if I ran the engine, in order to run the air conditioning, I also ran the risk of running out of gas.

I coped by varying my position from time to time, and rationing myself to ten minutes of radio and air conditioning an hour. I also ate large quantities of unhealthy food, with the result that the backseat of my car was soon covered with crumpled bags. I tried every kind of crisp_ and salty snack, even purchasing a twenty-bag sampler pack-Corn Twists, Cheese Doodles, nacho and plantain chips, and, of course, plain old potato chips. I tried them "Hawaiian style… kettlecrisped,"

"thick cut… wavy… with 'tater skins," and fried in every sort of oil. It was the need for things that were starchy, salty and crunchy to keep my concentration sharp.

I had another problem too: sitting in a parked car all day would sooner or later attract attention. All I needed was for some Post Office employee to ask, "Why's this guy waiting around out front? Better call the cops."

By the end of my first day of surveillance, I had an upset stomach. I also dozed off twice. My back was sore and my muscles ached, but my control envelope was now safely in Kim's box.

The second day was equally painful, even though I raised my ration of radio and lowered my input of chips. The third day was so miserable I spent a good part of it wondering if I'd do better canvassing restaurants. I also spent some time thinking about how lucky I'd been in Cleveland, an en, with despicable self-pity, about how my good luck never seemed to hold.

It was just before noon, the fourth day of the stakeout, when I finally caught sight of her, and then it was only by a fluke.

I had turned my attention away from the arcade for a moment when I caught a glimpse of someone familiar in my rearview mirror. It was a young woman riding a bicycle up Whitehead Street in the direction of the Southernmost Point.

A quiver of excitement ran through me, and also the thought that perhaps my luck still had a way to run.

I was afraid to follow her by car; I had seen enough of Key West to know there were numerous one-way streets and impassable narrow lanes. So I grabbed up my camera bag and started after her on foot.

At first I thought I'd lost her. I was devastated. But then I saw her standing astride her bike, talking to another girl on the sidewalk in front of the Green Parrot Bar.

I took a position in front of a motorcycle store across the street, where I could see them reflected in the plate glass. When I was sure they were too wrapped up in their conversation to notice, I turned and raised my camera to take a closer look.

No mistake. It was Kim. The wet place where my shirt stuck to my back suddenly felt cold. That telephoto brought her close, right against my eye. I tripped the shutter out of sheer perversity.

A funny thing about a single lens reflex camera: when you use it to watch a person, there's a certain distancing, no matter how powerful your lens. It has to do with the complex system of mirrors, the pentaprism, that stands between the subject and your eye. For this reason many photographers prefer a range-finder camera; they feel the viewing is more sensitive because it's more direct. But I have always liked the distancing makes me feel safer and helps me cast a colder eye.

After I took that picture of Kim, my eye went very cold indeed. I was no longer just following her on the street; I was a photographer using my camera to inspect.

I focused on her hair. It looked different from when I'd seen her last.

She'd cut off a lot of it, and it was lighter, streaked by the summer Florida sun.

I tilted down to her chest: her breasts heaved beneath a dazzling white T-shirt with the words "Key West" emblazoned on the front. I tilted further: she wore matching cotton shorts. Her white clothes made brilliant contrast with her tanned skin. With my camera I caressed her bare legs and thighs. She looked good. But she'd betrayed me, suckered me. I'd been her-"fall guy," her "cover photographer." Yet, for all of that, I longed to reach out to her and touch…

The street conversation was over. The other girl went off. Kim started walking her bike along Southard toward Duval.

I followed. Would she turn around? If she did I'd raise my camera and use it as a shield. I almost smiled when I thought of that; that was what Rakoubian had done when he'd stalked us in New York.

On Duval she reversed direction, headed north. I let people pass, so there were bodies between us, then I too joined the parade.

She was moving less quickly now, slowed down by the crowds. I got her nicely framed between two young men in matching white tank tops. Then we marched along united for a block, she, the guys and I in lockstep, fifteen feet apart.

As I followed her I felt my excitement grow. Stalking Grace in downtown Cleveland-that had been cool, smart, passionless. This was something else.

I felt the bloodiust of a hunter on the track of a rare, seductive game. to follow or to kill-the choice was mine. That hunter's power made me heady; it also reactivated the hibernating photojournalist inside. As we walked I twisted the telephoto off my Leica, mounted on a 35mm.

Elmarit, then raised it to my eye.

Even as I followed I wanted to take a shot at her. But when I looked through the viewfinder, all I could see were the backs of the two guys in front. The place between them where she'd been was empty. My prey had disappeared. It was twenty minutes before I gave up my search for her. Thinking she might have turned into a shop, I checked all the stores on the block. But of course you don't walk into a store with a bicycle, and her bike wasn't parked anywhere around.

There was a little alley she might have used; it was for pedestrians, but she could have ridden through. Or perhaps, in the instant when I'd looked away, she'd spotted me, mounted her bike, turned at the next corner and driven off.

All that seemed so unlikely that I began to doubt myself. Had I really seen her? Had she really been walking just ahead? Or had I gone delusional? Had the heat and all the salty starchy food clouded my brain?

I was standing on the sidewalk, wondering what to do, when suddenly I sensed a presence just behind. I trembled as I felt her breath upon my ear.

"Hello, Geoffrey," she whispered.

She said I should come with her, that she knew a quiet bar where we could talk. And so we walked in silent tension to the end of Duval, all my bitterness held tight inside.

She guided me into the compound of the Pier House hotel, where, the moment we entered, we were cut off from the rowdiness of the street. But the quiet there only added to my stress. By the time we reached a proper little bar called the Chart Room I felt I was about to burst.

Kim ordered a Bloody Mary. I ordered a Perrier. The waiter went away, and then our eyes finally met.

She peered at me.

"You look fit, Geoffrey."

"Do I? I'm not feeling very fit."

She was studying me the way one might study someone one had wounded, to measure how serious the injury was.

"No," she said, "I don't imagine you are."

"You never said good-bye."

"Oh, God!" She shook her head.

"Didn't you owe me that?"

"I'm sure I did," she said gently.

"I'm sure I owed you a lot of things."

The waiter brought our drinks. She smiled at him.

"I hope this isn't going to be one of those conversations, Geoffrey.

"What kind is that?" I asked.

"Kind where we talk about who owed what to whom, and all that sort of stuff."

"Sometimes," I said, pretending to be the soul of patience, "one has to talk about unpleasant things."

She sipped her drink, then picked up some peanuts from a bowl and popped them into her mouth.

"I was in trouble-you know that now. Shadow was killed that Saturday night. I had to get away. So I left. What could I have said? How could I have explained? No, the best thing was just to leave, get out fast and clean. The less you knew the better. You see, I didn't want to drag you into it."

That did it. I felt a rush.

"But I was in it. Right in the goddamn middle of it."

"No you weren't, Geoffrey. You were safe. Anything I told you, any good-byes I might have made-then you could have been implicated. But you weren't." implicated?" Of course I was 'implicated'! Are you really pretending I wasn't?"

There must have been a vicious intensity in my voice; a group sitting at another table stopped talking and glanced nervously at us.

"Try and keep it low, Geoffrey. This bar's not tacky Key West."

"Oh, I can see that," I said, looking around.

"It's just so fucking civilized. It tells me something, that you brought me here."

"What does it tell you?"

"That you're afraid."

"Of what?"

"Of me. My anger and what I might do."

"I'm not one to be afraid of things, Geoffrey. And I'm certainly not afraid of you." She gave my arm a gentle pat, as if we were lovers who'd been parted by nothing more than a weekend business trip.

I stared at her.

"You're-incredible!"

She looked at me as if I were mad. Something was wrong, we weren't connecting, were talking about different things.

"It was all your idea, according to Rakoubian."

"You talked to him?" She snorted.

"He would say that. "

"Then it wasn't your idea?"

"What do you think?" she asked.

"If I'd known. you'd talked to Dirty Adam I'd have left you standing there on Duval,"

"Then what would you have done?"

She shrugged.

"Left town. Since this place is now obviously blown." She peered at me.

"How did you find me here anyway?"

"I found you."

"How?"

"What difference does it make?"

"If you found me, someone else might find me. Someone who could hurt me. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"Arnold Darting? Mrs. Z?"

She exhaled painfully.

"Well, you do seem to know a lot." She squinted at me.

"Why would Rakoubian talk to you anyway? Why would he tell you about them?"

"Because I made him tell me."

"Made him?" She smiled. It was an eager smile, so eager it made me a little bit afraid of her.

"I told him if he didn't talk, I'd throw him out the window."

Her eyes enlarged.

"That's great, Geoffrey. Fantastic! Wow!" She looked at me closely again, then chuckled to herself.

"I wonder-"

"What?" And when she turned cool and didn't reply: "Jesus! Please don't act like that."

"Okay, Geoffrey, if you really want to know, I wonder if I underrated you."

"Oh, you most definitely underrated me," I said caustically.

"was that what this was all about? Rating and underrating? Seeing who could get the better of whom?"

"That certainly was not what this was all about."

"Wasn't it? You get involved in a blackmail schemer don't care whose idea it was-you get yourself involved and part of the deal is to set me up as the 'cover photographer." Then I show up here, find you, and all you can say is 'My, you're looking fit' and 'How did you find me here anyway?" What's with you? How do you hold up your head? Tell me, please. I really want to know."

She smiled.

"Is that really what you want to know, Geoffrey? Did you come all the way down here just to ask me that?"

"What else is there to ask you?"

She shook her head.

"If that's all you care about, you made a wasted trip."

"If you won't answer me, then I guess I did," I said.,Ohl I'll answer, all right, when you get off that fucking high horse of yours. But if all you want to know is 'How do I hold up my head?-go screw yourself, Geoffrey Barnett."

"Jesus," I said, "I can't believe this. You're indignant. You!"

"Yes! Because who the hell are you to track me down here and ask me crap like that?" She finished off her drink.

"If you want to know what happened, really happened-that's something else, That might be worth talking about. But not this guilt trip you're running on me. That's crap."

"Yeah, crap. I said.

We went quiet after that. It was as if we both wanted the anger to subside, wanted, each of us, to cool down and rethink our positions.

I looked at her closely. I felt confused. Clearly there was more to the story than Rakoubian had told me. Moreover, seeing her a ain made me realize how much I still wanted her, no matter what she'd done, what horrible lies she'd told.

I knew I mustn't give in to her, that seduction was her game and if I let her seduce me again I'd be a double fool.

No matter what you feel, don't show it, I thought. Listen to her version, and then attack it. Show her up, if you can, for the fraud that she is. And then demolis@ her with your contempt.

I don't recall the exact sequence that afternoon, just that we spent it together in a variety of places, and that each time we moved, my feelings toward her changed. We walked down streets, stopped at bars, drank, then walked again. Most of the time she talked.

She tried everything-pleading, anger, big droopy-eyed sincerity. She mocked and played humble and gave virtuous high-minded testimony. And all the time she did all that, I just let her go on. It was excruciating to listen to her as she scrambled for a foothold. My stony silence urged her on to greater efforts. When I refused to grant her anything, she turned petulant and sulked. Then I'd say something to start her up again. And then she'd be off and running, again trying to persuade me. For the first time in our relationship, I felt I had the upper hand.

Wandering around in the tourist swarm at the bottom of Duval, heart of all the honky-tonk and rinky-dink, with the aroma of pot in the air, the smell of grease pouring out of the fast-food joints, the noise of amplified country music gushing out of the bars, and all the time Kimberly, eyes ablaze, swearing to me, pledging, promising, vowing that she absolutely did not know Rakoubian had been tracking us with his camera:

"Until this very moment, I did not know, I swear to you, Geoffrey, I absolutely swear, I had no idea. None!"

"Then how did he know where we'd be?"

"Followed us, I guess." She looked at me.

"What's so funny?"

"Oh, just a little thing I didn't notice at first, that the places where he shot us were all places you wanted to go; places you chose. Like he was tipped off and waiting to ambush us when we arrived."

"I didn't tell him. I swear. That's just a coincidence."

"Is it?"

"Got to be. Tell me again-where did he take all these photographs?"

"South Street Seaport and Battery Park. Also in my loft. Somehow he got into a room across the street. Then he shot us through the window."

"Can't blame me for that, Geoffrey. He didn't need me to tell him your address."

"Who left the blinds up?"

"Who do you think?"

"Must have been one of us." She smiled.

"Well?"

"What about the other places?"

"Just two, Geoffrey. Two. That's no big deal. We went out photographing maybe twenty, thirty times. Sure, most of those times I chose' the locations, but you could have overruled me."

"I didn't."

"You could have." She shook her head.

"You can't make a solid case against me, Geoffrey-not just because of Middle of the afternoon at the Green Parrot, a roughneck motorcyclists' bar, with the kind of open-air windows that lift up and out and are then attached by hooks to the ceiling of the overhangs outside: Kimberly, gazing at me, waiting for me to acknowledge her, while I listened to the pool cues clicking against the balls in back, and the little-shrieks of the teenaged girls passing by on the street.

"Knock, knock! Anyone home?"

I turned to her.

"Look, Geoffrey-what Adam told you doesn't make sense. Why would I need a 'cover photographer'? What possible use could one be to me? He was the photographer. He was the one who needed the cover. Not me. I was already exposed."

"You were in on it?"

"The blackmail@ure. Mrs. Z knew. I went to her, laid it out for her, made all the demands. What she didn't know was that Dirty Adam was stage-managing me from the wings,"

"And she never asked you who took the pictures?" Kim shook her head.

"I didn't tell her either."

"Pretty obvious, wasn't it, since Rakoubian was the 'house photographer'?"

"I don't know if it was obvious. But yes-I suppose in his mind it was.

I guess what happened was he wanted to protect himself, so he stalked us and took those pictures of us, and I had no idea. No idea at all."

I looked at her skeptically.

"How come you didn't see him then?"

"He was clever. He stayed back. You said he used a telephoto, And remember: I was posing for you, concentrating on you. He was in the backgrounds of your pictures, behind me," She had a point-he didn't show up that many times.

"But what about at the restaurant?" I asked.

"What restaurant?"

"That crazy place in Tribeca with the Madonnas and the Statues oi Eiberty."

"The joint we went to that time with Shadow? Yeah, I remember-he was sitting at the bar. We said hello." She It think I took looked at me, shook her head.

"You don you there to meet him, do you?"

Ishrugged.

"Really, Geoffrey, if I was trying to set you up, wouldn't that be the last thing I'd do?"

"Maybe you're perverse,"

"That perverse?" I seesawed my hands.

"Still don't believe me?"

"I'd like to."

"What's the trouble, then?"

"There're a lot of troubles. For one thing, I think Rakoubian was too scared to lie."

"Maybe you didn't scare him all that much, Geoffrey. Maybe you weren't as forceful as you thought. I know you. You're not a violent man.

You're a very gentle guy."

Perhaps she was right, perhaps I hadn't been that forceful. Though, in my memory, the violence I'd felt that night was real.

"What else bothers you?" she asked.

"The way we met. Rakoubian said when you saw me that night @ light bulb went off in your brain. He said that's when you got the idea of using me. And then you started to pursue me." She smiled.

"And you believed him? Do you really think I was wandering around New York looking for a photographer, and I saw you, and I said to myself:

Hey!

There he is! Just what I need! Go for it, kid! Is that what you think?"

Of course she was right. That did sound unlikely. Suddenly I wished I could go off by myself someplace and think the whole thing through. But I was afraid to leave her, afraid that if I did I might never find her again.

"Well?" she said, waiting I shook my head.

"So?"

"He knew about it."

"Because I told him, dummy, Don't you see? You're both photographers.

If I'd met Irving Penn on the street, wouldn't I have told you?"

"I suppose.

"This was the same sort of thing. I told him after I started posing for you. I said I'd met you, and I was working with you, and then I asked him what he thought.,' "What did he say?"

"He was interested. He asked a lot of questions. He said he knew your work and that you were good. Now that I think of it, he seemed a little jealous too, maybe because he's always going up to girls, trying to get them to pose, and there I was telling him how I'd chased after you, taken off my clothes voluntarily for you. Really, Geoffrey, talk about light bulbs going off in people's brains! That must have been when one went off in his. You saw what kind of creep he is. A born schemer.

Later, when I told him you and I were getting into something serious-that's when he must have smelled an opportunity. He thought he could set you up to take the rap for him, just in case things went wrong."

"And he never told you about that little scheme?"

"Why would he? It was his insurance protection plan. He never told me about it because he knew I'd be furious. That I'd cancel everything.

And then where the hell would he have been?" She stared at me, eyes big and innocent.

"Well?"

"Well')"

"Makes sense, doesn't it? For his own reasons, Geoffrey. His own purposes. Can't you see-I had no motive to help him set you up. I stared at her.

"Oh, boy, you're good," I said.

At Land's End Village by the shrimp docks and tacky stores, we paused beside the Turtle Krawls, pools where sea turtles were kept in the days wh – en Key West supplied turtle meat to the nation. Now the main holding pen has been turned into an old-age home for reptiles., A few ancient inhabitants paddled about listlessly near the bottom.

Kim pointed to a restaurant behind.

"I waitress over there."

I turned, saw a sprawling low-roofed building with a glassed-in terrace set beside the water. it was long past the lunch hour but there were still cars parked in front. i,d heard of the place.

"I hear it's good," I said.

"Wouldn't it have been a hoot if you'd wandered in, and I'd been assigned to be your waitress?"

"Most definitely a hoot," I answered sourly.

She looked at'her watch. shift starts at five. I want to stay with you, clear things up. I'm going in now to find someone to cover for me tonight."

I nodded, watched her disappear into the restaurant, then turned back to the Krawls. A fortyish woman with the bright eyes of a true believer was showering the turtles with hunks of squid. I peered down into the mossygreen water, saw one old monster attack a mass of tentacles with his jaws.

I thought about Kim. was she lying? Fifty-fifty, I thought. But I hoped she was telling me the truth. After Kim arranged things at the restaurant, we walked into Old Town. She took my arm as she talked:

"Rakoubian came to me. That's how it started. He knew Shadow and I were broken up over Sonya, but he ew I wanted approached me alone because, he said, he kn vengeance. He said he could see that in my eyes.

" 'So what makes you such a big expert on my eyes?"

" I asked him.

" 'Years of experience. I'm a photographer, dearie. Girls your age, they're my stock-in-trade. I know girls and I know their eyes and I know vengeful eyes when I see them. And yours are vengeful. Am I right?' "He was right. I did want vengeance. He smelled that out. He knew my type, So he said: 'Help me get pictures Of this guy and you'll get your vengeance." And since that didn't seem like such a bad idea, I agreed.

"We talked. After a while we got onto the subject of money. The Masked Man was rich-that much was obvious. He was a rich old man. 'Just the kind of man,' Rakoubian said, 'who can get away with murder.' "I asked Adam what he meant. He said, you know, the usual stuff: the rich don't go to jail, they can afford the kind of lawyers who keep you out. they pay off the judge, or bribe the jury, or get a mistrial, whatever-he doubted even if we managed to get pictures, they'd amount to very much. Because what then, really, would we have? Just some pictures of some rich old guy putting on a mask. Big deal! So what?

Who would care? And how would that tie him to a murder? Guys like the Masked Man, Adam said, they always get away with it.

"But then he became expansive. He said he had an idea. He asked me if it wouldn't be a much sweeter revenge if we used such photos, assuming he'd be able to take them, to make the Masked Man pay.

" 'See,' he said, 'that's what it's all about. In the end it's always money. That's the real revenge, dearie, because that's where it hurts them. The pocketbook-that's where they feel the pinch. Look, nothing's going to bring Sonya back. But we can hurt the guy for wasting her.

What we have to do is get our pictures, then threaten him with exposure.

Tell him we're going to turn him over to the cops. Unless he pays us a million bucks.' "That's when the whole notion of blackmail first came up. And I liked it. I admit that, Geoffrey. I liked it very much. It appealed to me on all sorts of different levels. Yeah, I liked it. And Rakoubian could see I did. He had me figured right, didn't he? I was a tough little bitch. And he knew it. Yeah, he could see it in my eyes…

We wandered up and down Caroline, Eaton and Fleming streets and then through various lanes: Weaver, Finder, Love and Locust. As we walked the houses brooded over us; the sky began to darken, the great palms shivered and cast longer shadows. On one block we passed a porch where a parrot was tethered to a perch. It screeched at us: "Hi! Fucky-Ducky!

Hi!" And then the crazy little bird cackled like a madman in the dusk.

"What's your name?" I asked her.

She looked at me.

"You know my goddamn name."

"Yeah, I know your 'goddamn name." It's your real name I want."

"Is it so important?"

"to me it is."

"What does 'real' mean?"

"Come off it, Kim. This isn't philosophy class."

"You know I'm no philosopher, Geoffrey. You know I'm just a blackmailing little bitch."

I stopped and peered at her.

"Is that how you define yourself?"

"That's how you define me now, isn't it?"

"Maybe," I said.

"But I want to know more. Your name, who your parents are, where you went to school, your past. I want to know all that. And I want to hear it straight."

She met my eyes straight on.

"Oh, I could give it to you straight," she said.

"We could go through all that crap, and then what would you know? And who's to say anyway what name is really real, the name you're born with or the name you give yourself? Is it 'Bob Dylan' or 'Robert Zimmerman'? 'Cary Grant' or 'Archie Leach." Or take Lauren Bacall-you say I remind you of her. Well, I read she was born 'Betty Perske." So is that her name? Or is her real name 'Lauren Bacall'?"

As we walked along Margaret Street a light tropical wind blew through Kimberly's hair. She looked good. Maybe too good, I thought. I decided to step up the interrogation:

"Why did you lie to Jess Harrison?"

"I don't know that I did."

"You told him you did tricks."

"That wasn't a lie."

"Rakoubian says you didn't."

"He's the biggest liar around."

"He said Mrs. Z never ran an escort service."

"She didn't. But some of us actresses made side arrangements with her clients."

"Jesus, Kimberly-do you know how hard you sound?"

"I never pretended I was soft."

"You did with me."

"N, Geoffrey. With you I didn't pretend."

Good, I wanted to believe her! "Why didn't you tell me you liked doing sex for money? ' My question came out almost like a wail. From the way she looked at me, I think she understood my pain.

"Because you never asked me, and I stopped doing it before I met you, and what I did with you wasn't for pay. She caught her breath. "There was another reason too.

"What was that?"

"I didn't think you'd understand."

I shook my head.

"I understand a lot of things. But not unnecessary lies."

"The only lies I told you were necessary ones."

"I see." I groaned.

"What about the Duquaynes?"

"What about them?"

"Did you make it with them?"

"Yes.

"In performance? Or privately?"

"Both."

"God damn you! Why didn't you tell me?" "Right… like: 'Gee, Geoffrey, I'm taking you to these people's home for dinner, and, by the way, I've had sex with the wife while the husband was tied up in a chair. ' "

"Whose idea was that?"

"Harold's. "Fun!"

"Actually it was."

"You like girls, don't you?" "Sometimes. Don't you?"

"You and Shadow were lovers.",'We had been. Occasionally."

"Yet she knew nothing about the blackmail?",'That's right."

"So she suffered for what she didn't know?"

"Yes, Geoffrey, she did. She certainly did. And that's the reason I'm not done with this yet."

At the intersection of Angela Street and Passover Lane, the city cemetery spread out before us. The white graves, as in New Orleans, were set a 'bove the ground, and the bordering palms arched high against the clouds.

Kim was panting. I grabbed her. Then I pushed my mouth hard against hers and kissed her viciously. She took it from me, even when I cut her lip with my teeth.

"Why did you do that?" she asked, breaking away to spit out blood. "I felt like it."

"Good enough reason." She looked at me, smiled.

"I liked it. You knew I would."

"I didn't give a damn whether you'd like it or not."

"Why then, Geoffrey?"

"I wanted to see how tough a little bitch you really are. "

"And? Well?" She eagerly awaited my appraisal.

"You're tough enough," I said.

Walking south on Truman Avenue, the last stretch of U.S.I, the cars and trucks jammed up and honking, the leaves of the palms thrashing heavily in the early evening summer wind: "Where do you live?"

"Catherine Street. I share an apartment with two other girls.

Waitresses."

"Bother you-being a waitress?"

She shrugged.

"No big deal. I've done it before."

"Why Key West?"

"why not?" u knew the place?" She nodded.

"And I liked it too. It's a kind of re ge. 'The end of the line."

"Maybe that's the trouble with it."

"What do you mean?"

"One way in and one way out. It's like a box canyon. Not the best place to hide." We walked in silence for a block. Then I turned to her.

"You never really cared for me, did you?"

"No, that's wrong. I did."

"But not very much."

"A lot more than you think."

"But you weren't honest with me."

"I couldn't be."

"Damnit! You keep saying that. Every time you do, I feel like kicking you in the shins."

She stopped walking, stood still, then balanced herself on one foot and stuck out the other.

"Go ahead," she said, exposing her shin. "Go ahead, Geoffrey. Kick!" :'I'd like to." 'Do. No one'll stop you. In Key West people beat up on people all the time."

"Put your stupid foot down," I said.

"I wouldn't want to damage your precious tattoo."

"You remember!" She looked pleased as she lowered her foot.

"I got it here, you know."

"Figures."

"This Chinese-"

"Woman did it. She's probably gone now too. Tattoo artists are always on the move."

She looked at me curiously.

"You're a funny guy. I didn't realize it until today."

"You 'underrated' me, didn't you?"

She looked at me, then laughed. Suddenly I wanted desperately to make love to her right There, most emphatically there in Key West, in the shadow of all the lush decadence of that little island, with the hot stifling air carrying a hint of rot, while the palms thrashed and the gays cruised and the rednecks drove by in their pickup trucks and the six-toed cats in the Ernest Hemingway House shrieked and screwed violently in the night.

While I was unlocking my door at the Spanish Moss, my neighbors from Arizona pulled in from one of their metal-detecting expeditions at the beach. When they saw Kimberly, they turned to each other and smiled. I could read their minds: they thought I too had found a kind of treasure.

As soon as the door was closed and we were alone in my room, I grabbed hold of her T-shirt and ripped it open down the front.

"Jesus!" she said.

I reached through the torn flaps of cotton and seized hold of her breasts. they were warm and her chest was damp. I stared at her.

"I'm going to fuck your brains out," I said.

She was amused.

"Is that my punishment?"

"I'll be doing it for me, not you."

"Fine, go ahead," she taunted. "We'll see whose brains end up on the floor."

I shoved her roughly toward the bed.

"Won't be mine."

She stumbled back upon it.

"Nor mine," she said.,

She gazed at me, smiled her most sultry smile, then undid the clasp of her shorts.

I watched. When she had them down to her knees, I grabbed hold of her ankles, flipped her over, fell upon her, and, placing my hand on the back of her neck, pressed her face down hard against the mattress.

"Geoffrey! Stop! I can't breathe!"

"You'll manage,"

She turned her head to the side and gulped at the air. The down on her back sparkled wet. I pulled her panties to her knees. The smell of her body rose and filled my head. Then I fucked her as violently as I could. She came almost immediately. Then she came again.

I grabbed hold of her hair.

"You're just a little whore. Aren't you? Aren't you, bitch?"

"If you say so, Geoffrey."

"Say it!"

"I'm just a little whore," she sneered. Then she looked back at me.

"And you? What're you?" She gazed at me with mocking eyes.

I shook my head.

"You're a big manly rapist who uses his cock to make the girls scream.

Right, Geoffrey? Hmmm? Hmmm?" Then she thrust herself hard against me, and then she came again.

I was shocked at the way I'd attacked her. But also I was thrilled. It was the same sensation I'd felt the first time I hit Rakoubian-letting go and then a feeling of being cleansed inside.

We settled down after that, screwed a little more, and then, when we were exhausted and our flesh was hot and damp, we broke apart and fell asleep.

When I woke it was dark. She wasn't in the bed, and for a second I was frantic. Then I saw her on the other side of the room, sitting in a chair beside the window, her face and breasts glowing from light cast by the streetlamps filtered through the restless leaves of the palms outside.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi. "

"I didn't hurt you, I hope."

She smiled.

"Of course you didn't. I loved every minute of it. Did you?"

"Yes. Unfortunately."

"Oh dear…"

"I want to hate you. I don't."

She stood and yawned. She was wearing just her shorts.

"You called me 'whore' and 'bitch." But still you must like me pretty well. You smiled in your sleep."

"Must have been dreaming."

"Of what?"

"A girl I knew."

"What did she look like-this girl?"

"Like you," I said.

She laughed. Then she came to me and kissed the center of my forehead.

"Yeah, that's me, Geoffrey. Just an illusion, just a dream." She smiled and floated back across the room.

Her kiss disarmed me, it was gentle, not what I expected at all. I felt confused again, about her and us. What's happening between us? I asked myself. What's our new relationship?

"Neither of us has been totally straight with the other, Geof."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"You concealed things."

"What things?"

"The reasons behind your block. Why you couldn't shoot people anymore."

She turned to me.

"You bullshitted me. The way I saw it that gave me the right to bullshit you a little too. "

"What do you know about my block?"

She spoke softly.

"I know plenty. Rakoubian asked around about you. He found out what happened in Guatemala.

I stared at her.

"You gave me this romantic phobia line, that it was deep and psychological, and you were just like some famous pianist who mysteriously loses the use of one of his hands. But that wasn't the reason. The real reason was much more prosaic." She looked at me, whispered, "Wasn't it, Geoffrey?"

I turned away, but she went on.

"At first, when Adam told me, I thought he was jealous, that he wanted me to think less of you so I'd think a little better of him. But today, when you told me how he set you up, I realized he'd had other reasons for checking you out. Why didn't you tell me? I'd like to hear about it. I really would, if you'd care to tell me now."

"What's this supposed to be, Kim? Truth night? We'll level with each other and henceforth never tell another lie?"

"Why not?" she asked.

"You level with me, I'll level with you. What do you say?"

"Great," I said.

"Except how will I know if you're telling me the truth?"

"How about if I pledge?" she asked. She raised her hand.

"I hereby pledge. How's that?"

That sounded pretty good, so I told her about Guateala, and, as I did, wondered why I'd held the story back. I'd gone down there on assignment for the Sunday Times to shoot portraits of human rights advocates. It was a time when the government down there had been extremely repressive, and it took a special kind of bravery to speak out and protest. I photographed some very brave people, a surgeon, a lawyer from one of the wealthy Guatemalan families, and a housewife whose husband had "disappeared." Each of them had the composed features of people who hate injustice, eyes bright with indignation and fortitude. I worked hard to catch the common quality between them, and in the end I was pleased with my work.

Later, when my pictures were published, right-wing Death Squad maniacs clipped them out. they mailed them to my subjects with holes punched in the eyes, and later, when these same subjects were all killed on a single night, it was pretty clear my pictures had been used to draw up an assassination list.

My photographer friends tried to comfort me. they said the same thing could have happened to them, and from now on we'd all have to be more careful. Colleagues who disliked me said much meaner things. But in the end my worst enemy was myself.

I blamed myself for being naive, for forgetting that a camera can be a dangerous weapon. I imposed my own punishment: I would not shoot people for a while. A childish idea, but it made me feel better. Except that what started out as an act of self-denial soon evolved into a phobia.

From the day of the killings until the day I started shooting Kim, I could not bring myself to photograph a human face.

"Oh, Geoffrey, you could have told me. I would have understood. I wouldn't have thought you were CIA, or whatever people said. I gave you lots of chances to tell me. But when you kept your secret, it seemed like… I don't know-like you wanted a dishonest relationship."

That did it. I actually felt embarrassed, which greatly softened the effect of her deceits.

"Anyway," she said, "I'm very proud that I helped you break through the way you did."

"You've been a powerful force in my life. My best friend thinks so. The first time I told him about you, he said 'Don't give that girl up."

"Then I gave you up. At least that's what you think, isn't it? One thing I want you to understand, Geoffrey, no matter what happens between us now: if, as you say, I've been a powerful force in your life, that's a power I won't ever abuse."

She held my eyes for a moment, then glanced at her watch.

"Heyl It's late."

"Hungry?'; She nodded.

"Get dressed and I'll take you out." She picked up her torn T-shirt and waved it gently before my face.

"Love to, Geoffrey, but, unfortunately, I haven't a thing to wear."

I loaned her a shirt, then we walked a couple of blocks to a dark funky place called the Full Moon Saloon.

We took a corner table, ordered crabs, then Kim started pointing out the regulars. There was the happy-go-lucky sunbu@ed shrimp-boat skipper who'd made a fortune smuggling marijuana, and the intense, shifty-eyed, young black dude who was the biggest coke dealer on the island.

She looked happy as she regaled me with all this Key West lore. Though she'd been in town for only a month, she knew a lot. I let her talk, and then I told her I was sorry, I knew she needed to relax, but there were still things I had to know.

"Don't apologize," she said.

"Ask me anything."

"What happened that Saturday night when you came running to me at two A.M.?"

She paused, looked down at her food.

"I think that was the scariest night of my life."

She started to talk, and as she did I felt this sickening feeling growing in my gut.

After Sonya was killed, Kim heard rumors about the Masked Man, stories that told her he was a lot more dangerous than the benign spectator he'd appeared to be. The stories concerned professional call girls. Kim managed to trace one of them back. She met the girl in a coffee house in the Village. The girl wore dark glasses and wouldn't give her real name.

"Just think of me as your informant," she said.

She told Kim she'd been hurt. She'd known that she would be, she'd been told up front, and on that basis an extremely high fee had been negotiated and paid.

What will happen exactly'?" her informant had asked the call girl service manager, worried because the amount offered was so many times larger than what she usually received. The answer she got was candid and complete:

"You'll be tied up and gagged and mildly drugged, and then certain minor bones will be broken by a man who likes to hear them break. It won't be nearly so bad as it sounds; the drugs will alleviate much of the pain.

But not all of it-don't say you weren't warned. Your fear and anguish are important. They're what this man is paying to see.

"Afterwards medical attention will be provided. Anything broken will be expertly reset. For a while you'll have to wear a cast; you can tell your friends you were in a skiing accident. Out of the dozen or so Herms scarfs you'll receive, you'll be able to make a handsome sling… ."

During the recuperation period, there was an onslaught of gifts: not only scarfs, a different one sent each day, but also a matching set of Vuitton luggage, a little fur hat and muff, various and sundry earrings and pins, and finally a gold Cartier watch.

But neither the extraordinary fee nor the generous gifts could wipe out the memory of the horror. The girl told Kim that even if she were desperate and broke she would never go through such a scene again.

So how bad had it been? The pain was real enoughnot severe, as promised, although the girl had definitely wanted to scream. No, it wasn't the pain she was afraid of, it was the terror-the sense of helplessness, of powerlessness, of being at the mercy of this person she couldn't see. Because he wasn't just some kinky guy who got off hurting girls; most of the guys who did that were rather sweet, once the session was done. The Masked Man was different. In this business one became highly sensitive to people, and the signals coming off him were very, very bad.

What signals? Kim asked her. After all, since he was masked, you never saw his features. Oh, but she did, the girl said, she caught little glimpses through the mask, a hint of the thin tight set of the lips and the sharp predatory eyes. And then there was the feel of him, his touch, his smell, the little sounds he made, the way he moved, like a mechanic fixing the motor of your car, whistling slightly under his breath as he worked, half humming this cheery little tune…

There was-how to put it?-no consideration, no human connection, no sense that you were a human being. And he wasn't human either. There was something hor@ible about him that was impossible to describe. His touch was cold. He radiated malevolence. When he touched you it was like being touched by a snake.

Kim picked up a crab, sucked'out the meat, wiped her mouth. All the time she was speaking she had stared past me at the room. Now her eyes met mine.

"Sonya was special," she said.

"I loved Shadow, but Sonya was someone I adored. Everyone in our group felt the same way. All of us in Mrs. Z's 'ensemble.' "She was a real beauty, you have to understands true live Nordic goddess. She was from Sweden, came to New York as an all pair, then decided to stay on. Precisioncut blond hair, cold blue eyes, she had this great little accent. She was nice too. She loved to joke and make us laugh. And onstage she was terrific, especially as a dominant. Cruel countess, pitiless equestrienne-Sonya loved those kinds of roles.

"And that was what the Masked Man liked to see: one girl being cruel to another. Mrs. Z spun all sorts of scenarios, including one in which Sonya played this empress who puffed on long gold-tipped cigarettes while her female rivals, and I played one, were tortured slowly before her eyes.

"Then one night Mrs. Z prepared a surprise. That was her method-to suddenly reverse the roles. She'd turn us regular submissives into dominants and make the dominants submit. It made for good theater, shock value, but there was something else working too, something we mentioned sometimes among ourselves. That Mrs. Z liked doing it. That she got off on it. That she liked to bring down the mighty and the proud. And that coincided with the Masked Man's fantasy, this thing he had about seeing haughty girls brought to their knees and made to beg "Look, for all I know, it wasn't a surprise. they could have discussed it on the phone. Maybe the Masked Man said, 'I'd like to see Sonya crushed." And Mrs. Z replied, 'Oh, yes, that can be arranged…

"Which brings up my relationship with Mrs. Z. When I first came to New York, and I heard about her, I wanted desperately to join her class. She was a cult figure. She took very few students. It was extremely difficult to get in.

"I was on the waiting list, and when an opening came up I auditioned for it and she accepted me. The first year was great. Two full afternoons a week. I worked my ass off as a waitress to pay the fees, because I felt it was a privilege to study with her-a possible route to becoming a star.

"She had this idea about releasing the actor through uninhibited sexual play. There was a lot of that in class, and talk too of 'triggers,' nude work, stripped down psychodrama, the sacred ceremonial role of the actor as he who bares his naked self.

"She experimented with us. The sex stuff seemed to fascinate her, and we loved it-we knew it was daring and felt it put us on the cutting edge. Then one day she seemed to change, as if what we were doing released something dark inside, As if, in a single day, this fairly classy woman became, well… evil.

"Because, you see, a woman like her would never do what she did unless she enjoyed it."

"You're saying she got corrupted?"

"I think the corruption was already there."

"So suddenly the legendary acting coach became a sex-show impresario?"

"Yeah. And the shows were fascinating, Geoffrey. Very well done. Mrs.

Z couldn't do them any other way. I loved being in them, There was this extraordinary feeling afterwards. Exhilaration and release."

She smiled, picked up her glass, slowly drank off her wine. For a moment there was a sparkle of Just in her eyes. Then it faded as she thought of something else.

"The first time the Masked Man asked for a private session with Sonya, Mrs. Z got very huffy, as if such a thing was too outrageous even to consider. Now I think it was a setup, that she knew from the start that Darling would make that request, and that her refusal, her huffiness, and the negotiations that followed were just a charade for Sonya's benefit.

"You know what happened-Sonya was paid ten thousand dollars. Cash!

Incredible! Then the two of them went down to Mrs. Z's apartment on the floor below."

"What did Sonya agree to do?"

"The same as the call girl I told you about, Be tied up, drugged, then have a few bones broken. And because Sonya knew the threats were real, she expected to beg and cry and offer to do all sorts of awful things if only the Masked Man would relent."

"Sexual things?"

"More like degrading things, the more degrading the better. He wanted to see the Ice Maiden crawl. And she did-I'm sure of it. She spoke to me briefly be fore she went down.

" 'I'm going to do everything he asks,' she said, 'because I don't want to get messed up.' " 'But you will get messed up. You know that. That's what all that money's for,' I said.

"She said she knew that, but still she thought she could avoid the worst of it if she conducted herself in a certain way. She had this idea that if she debased herself enough, she could satisfy him without having to be hurt. Poor Sonya! She thought she could wear him out. She didn't understand. She was going to have to pay for all the times she'd played the queen. The fact that he was accustomed to seeing her as dominant made her all the more valuable as a slave.

"While it was going on, Shadow and I waited upstairs to take her home.

Mrs. Z just sat there playing solitaire. We never found out exactly what happened. God knows, Darling wasn't touched by her submissiveness.

In fact, too much of it may have pushed him out of control. The way it ended up, he broke her neck."

Kim wept as she told me this; tears streamed down her face. And I felt the same hollow sickening feeling in my stomach. I pushed my food away.

"Which brings me finally," she said, "to that Saturday night when everything fell apart. I told you how Rakoubian approached me, what we agreed to do. After he got his pictures, I went to Mrs. Z. I was nervous, but I was a good enough actress to cover up.

"I laid it out for her: the Masked Man was Arnold Darling. I had proof, including a picture that showed him taking off his mask.

"She asked to see it. I showed it to her. She shook her head, pretende she was surprised. S e'd maintains all along she didn't know who he was, but I knew she was lying.; her reaction was so obviously feigned.

'So what do you want?" she asked. I told her a million dollars. She said that was absurd, that; the material didn't justify anywhere near that kind of money.

"I told her the amount didn't seem so large to me, not with a homicide involved.

"She listened, and then she asked: 'What do you want of me?' "I told her I wanted her to act as go-between, and for that she'd get ten percent,

" 'And if I refuse?" she asked.

" 'You won't,' I said. 'Because you're guilty too for Sonya's death.' "She understood, She said she'd give it some thought. I told her not to think too long, because if I didn't @ear from her soon, I'd take the pictures to the cops.

"She looked at me quite strangely then, and then she kind of smiled. 'Be careful, my pet. You're playing with fire." Then she kissed me on both cheeks.

"The next week or so was pretty tense. Adam was calling me every day. I tried not to let on to you that anything was wrong. I brought Shadow down to meet You. I was glad you two got along.

"The only odd thing was the call from Amanda Duquayne, and that was only strange in retrospect. I told you we'd done these little numbers together. But I hadn't heard from her in quite a while. Anyway, you know what happened. We went there, quarreled, then I went home to discover someone had broken into my apartment.

"But not really, you see, because the lock wasn't broken. Someone got in with a key, then tore the place apart. Dresses slashed. Shoes clipped in half. Like he went through all our stuff with a gardening shears." She made quick scissoring motions with her hands.

"He must have been looking for the photographs."

Kimberly shook her head, "I'd given-Mrs. Z the standard line: the pictures were 'deposited' with a friend, and if anything happened to me, such as an 'accident,' they'd be released immediately."

"they were deposited with Rakoubian, of course." She nodded.

"Still, you must have been scared?"

"Out of my mind. So right away I called Adam and he said 'Stay cool,' we had to expect a move like this, it was just a negotiating tactic, their way to soften me up so they could whittle down the price. I asked him if he thought the Duquayne invitation was a ruse to get me out of the apartment. He said it probably was. Then he told me again not to worry, that it only meant they were getting ready to close on a deal.

"But I was worried, and when Shadow didn't show, I became very concerned. Sure, she stayed out sometimes, but she always called me when she did. I barely slept. Then, when you woke me up, I started cleaning the apartment just so I wouldn't have to think."

"You told me you and Shadow had a modeling session."

"What we had scheduled was a rehearsal."

"At Mrs. Z's?" She nodded.

"It was to be just the two of us late that night, preparing a scene for a new client, someone we hadn't met."

"What happened?"

"I always knew I'd have to leave New York, no matter I'd told Rakoubian, of how the blackmail turned out. course, and Shadow too, my explanation being that since Sonya's 'accident,' I'd grown so fearful of Mrs. Z, I was afraid to stay in town. I also told Jess Harrison, the guy down the hall with AIDS. But I never told any of them about Key West. And I was careful when I bought my ticket. Even though it cost me more, I bought one with open dates and used a phony name.

"I spent most of that day getting ready to leave. I out the apartment and packed up the finished cleaning ent a lot of time few things that remained. I also sp thinking about how I could explain it all to you."

"I thought you weren't going to explain it."

"I was. Later I changed my mind."

"Why?"

"Because of what happened, the trap I walked into later that night."

Shadow finall called late in the afternoon. Kim was relieved to hear y from her. Shadow said she'd slept over at one of her friend's, and when Kim told her about the break-in and the damage to their clothes, Shadow sounded upset, but not so upset, Kim thought later, as she should have been.

Anyway, they had a normal enough conversation, and agreed to meet at midnight at Mrs. Z's. Then Kim went down to West Seventeenth to see Adam Rakoubian.

She told him s he was scared, she was going to leave New York, hide out where she couldn't be reached. No more face-to-face meetings with Mrs.

Z; from now all the dealings would have to be by phone. llwfiat about the money drop-off?" Rakoubian asked.

She assured him she'd be there for that. She also told him she thought it was time to lower their demand. If they cut it in half, she said, Darling would think he was getting a bargain. they quarreled. Rakoubian stonewalled on the money. She, in turn, accused him of talking big while she took all the risks. Both of them,got angry, and nothing was resolved. When she left she began giving serious thought to dumping the blackmail idea and going to the cops.

There was an actor's trick Mrs. Z had taught her: to really consider a certain option, so you can voice it with conviction on the stage. So she actually did consider that as she started downtown to Mrs. Z's. I have to mean it, she told herself. Only by meaning it, will I be able to compel belief.

When she arrived at the loft, Shadow wasn't there, just Mrs. Z alone.

The acting teacher, seated in the spectator's throne, got directly to the point.

In the first place, she said, no intelligent person pays blackmail, because he knows, no matter how much he pays, it's only an installment against future demands. Furthermore he knows that even when pictures are turned over, copy negatives have invariably been made.

Therefore the Masked Man (she refused to acknowledge his name) had considered her proposition and refused. Yes, he had once tried on the mask, and yes, he had attended various performances. But he had had nothing to do with any homicide, and could alibi his whereabouts the night the alleged crime had taken place.

This having been said, Mrs. Z continued, the Masked Man wanted to rid himself of the nuisance. He was prepared, therefore, to pay twenty-five thousand dollars for the photographs, and (this was the most important part) a sworn notarized statement from Kimberly in which she would admit to having attempted extortion.

That was it, his final offer, and there would be no further discussion.

It was a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. So, did Kimberly accept? Or not?

No, she most certainly did not accept, she said, but she agreed there would be no more discussion. Her offer to sell the photographs for a million dollars was hereby withdrawn. She would take them and her story to the cops.

Mrs. Z looked at her closely.

"That is not a credible threat."

Kimberly responded that it seemed credible to her, as, at the very least, the performance loft would be closed, and the involvement of prominent people, such as the Duquaynes, would be exposed. Furthermore, Sonya's disappearance could easily be verified, and regardless of any phony alibis, there would be considerable interest in Kimberly's claim that Darling had murdered Sonya in a violent sex-for-money scene brokered by Mrs. Z.

As Mrs. Z began to show distress, Kim was feeling pretty good. She felt she was handling the situation well, and the time to strike a bargain was at hand.

But then Mrs. Z said quietly that she'd like to show Kimberly a videotape. She turned on a VCR and a monitor, and when Kim saw what was on it, she began to scream.

We were on Duval. It was 11:30, we'd finished dinner, and were walking toward the Post Office to pick up my car. The bars of downtown Key West, filled and boisterous, poured country music into the sticky summer night..

"It was awful, what she showed me," Kim said, clutching my arm.

"they had Shadow naked and tied up. They'd grabbed her the night before; when she'd phoned me she'd been in their hands. The tape showed her writhing and terrified. It wasn't acting-I knew her too well to be fooled." :'Was the Masked Man there?" 'You couldn't see him. The camera was focused on Shadow. But you could see these hands moving in and out of the frame, doing all these awful things. I thought they were his. I felt they were, on account of the look in Shadow's eyes."

"What kind of look?"

"Total terror. The look of someone who knows she's going to die."

"Jesus!"

"After about a minute, Mrs. Z turned it off. 'She's halfway now to going the way of Sonya,' she told me. 'She'll go the whole way unless you do what I say.' "I was to sign the extortion papers and then retrieve the photographs.

If I didn't come back in a couple of hours, Shadow… well, she didn't have to spell it out.

"There was no choice. I signed, then left the building. My legs were trembling. I don't think I'd ever been so scared.

"My plan was to go to Rakoubian and make him give me all his negatives.

If he refused I'd threaten to turn him over to Mrs. Z.

"There was a taxi waiting up the block. It started toward me, then something told me I shouldn't get in, that it was too convenient to find it sitting there in that deserted area that time of night.

"I ran across the street. That's when I noticed two men, one on each end of the block. They'd been waiting in the shadows. When I ran, they started running too. I darted down a side street, then through an alley, and then into that disco, Lil's, on Desbrosses, near where you and I met. No trouble getting in. they knew me there. I ran straight through the place, then out the fire door in back.

"I knew then I couldn't return to Mrs. Z's, no matter the threat to Shadow. Whatever I did, they'd kill us both. They'd have to, to shut us up."

"Why didn't you go to the cops?"

"You kidding, Geoffrey? I was up to my ears in it. I'd withheld evidence on a murder and I was party to a blackmail scheme. And even if I did go, I was sure I'd still get killed. That's how scared I was."

"So you came to me?"

She nodded.

"There wasn't anyone else. I caught a cab coming out of the Holland Tunnel, rode it down to Park Row, then ran down Nassau to your corner and phoned." She took hold of my arm again, squeezed it, then brought my hands to her lips.

"Thank God, you were home. You Saved my life. And you were so damn nice. When you saw I didn't want to talk, you didn't insist. And then I did what I always do when I'm overwhelmed-closed my eyes and went to sleep."

"The next morning you decided to run?"

"Yes. But I couldn't tell you then. Now you see why, don't you, Geoffrey? Don't you?"

"Yeah," I said.

"I guess I do."

I knew most of the rest of it, how she left my place, went back to hers, picked up her bags and said good-bye to Jess. Then she taxied to the airport and called Rakoubian while waiting for her plane.

She told him what had happened, that Shadow had probably been killed, and that she was getting out of it now, was going away.

He tried to persuade her to take another crack at Mrs. Z, or at least wait to see if Shadow reappeared. She hung up on him, boarded her flight, flew to Miami, then took a bus to Key West. In just two days she found an apartment and a job. She wanted to bury herself; she thought she had until I showed up that afternoon.

"Funny," she said, "now that I think of it, Adam should have sounded a lot more frightened than he did. Now, of course, I know the reason: he thought he was safe; he'd set you up to take the rap for him."

We found my car, and when she saw the mess in the back, she shook her head and smiled. She helped me clean out the discarded snack bags, then we drove to the Spanish Moss, where we fell asleep in each other's arms.

I think it was around three in the morning when I woke up and saw her sitting across the room. She was in the chair staring out the window, sobbing almost silently.

"Hey, what's the matter?" I went to her, put my arm around her, tried to wipe away her tears.

" Scared," she said.

"Why? It's over now."

"It's what you said about Key West."

"What did I say?"

"That it's like a box canyon, one way in and one way out. "

"That was just talk," I said.

"I think you're safe here, very safe."

She shook her head.

"If you found me, they'll find me, and they kill people, don't forget. I think they're still looking for me and they still want to kill me and now I don't know where to go."

"they won't find you, I promise," I said. Then I tried to coax her back to bed.

"they will find me! Of course they will. You did! So why not them?"

"they won't," I said.

"they can't. You see, I really missed you. And I had a clue."

"What clue, Geoffrey? What are you talking about?"

She looked so frantic then, so sad and desperate, that I thought it only fair to tell her what I'd done. I went through it all: the unexplained number on my telephone bill, my research at the library, my trip to Cleveland, finding Grace, tracking her to the topless joint. Then our date, the massage, and how, the following morning, I'd broken into her house and found the return Key West address on the envelope.

Kim nodded at me through it all. She smiled at my surprise when I first saw Grace topless, and giggled as I recounted my misadventures with Heidi the dog. When I was finally finished, she shook her head.

"Did you know I was that girl?"

"Which girl?"

"The one Grace fell in love with," she said wistfully. was a waitress in that bar in Shaker Heights…" I looked at her. There was still something that knotted My stomach: the ever-loving tone in her letter to Grace.

"Are you still in love?" I asked.

Kim laughed.

"Me and Grace?" When I nodded, she turned serious.

"I think maybe she's still a little in love with me. And certainly I feel something for her, though I wouldn't exactly call it love."

"What would you call it?"

"I care for her. She launched me. Loaned me the money so I could go to New York, even though that meant I'd be leaving her forever. I feel about her the way you probably feel about your friend in New Mexico-that she's my closest friend, a sister almost. Did you read my letter to- her?"

"It wasn't in the envelope," I lied.

We woke early, kissed, made love, showered, ate breakfast, then drove to Smathers Beach. There was hardly anyone on that southern crescent of the island, just a few joggers running along Roosevelt Boulevard and a couple of purveyors of soft drinks and tacos positioning themselves for the mobs that would descend later on.

I parked behind a van with a map painted on its side showing its owners were in the midst of a five-year drive around the world. Then we walked out onto the sand, actually ground coral, and strode along the water's edge.

"Oh, Geoffrey, Geoffrey…" She spun around on her heel.

"How the hell am I going to get myself out of this?"

I took off my shirt. Though it was only eight o'clock, the sun felt wonderful on my back.

"Seems to me there aren't too many choices," I said.

"I'll call Scotto, tell him what happened, and turn over the photographs."

She stopped whirling.

"What are I you talking about?"

"I think that's the best solution.'

"What photographs?"

"The ones of Darling." She looked stunned.

"You've got Rakoubian's photographs?"

"I took them from him. I thought I told you that."

"Where are they, Geoffrey?" Her voice was urgent.

"In my suitcase back at the motel."

"Jesus!" she said.

"I can't believe this! You've got the pictures. Oh my God!"

She broke away from me, ran into the water, then high-stepped through it like a drum majorette.

"We've got the pictures! We've got the pictures!" She sang out the phrase like the refrain of a song. She must have noticed me staring at her because she ran back out of the water, and took hold of my hands.

"Don't you see?" she said as she pulled me along the sand.

"We've got them, Geoffrey. Now we've got them! Now we're really safe!"

It took me a while to calm her down, get her to explain what she meant.

When finally she did, we were sipping tea in the loggia at the Casa Marina Hotel, looking toward the gardens and the sea, and she was stone-cold serious.

"When Sonya was killed, they covered it up, made it look like an accident. The pictures of Darling don't prove all that much, just that he's a kinky guy who likes to wear a mask. But Shadow's different.

She's a 'Model Torture Slaying." There's a real police investigation going on. And the pictures tie into it because, really, they're the reason she was killed."

Ceiling fans slowly revolved above us, while elderly hotel guests, in straw hats and lime Bermuda shorts, shuffled by complaining of the heat.

"Fine," I said.

"I know all that. Now what does my having the pictures have to do with us being safe?"

"Don't you see? We have something to bargain with. It's the pictures that made them hesitate. If they didn't care about the pictures they would never have let me go-they would have killed me then and there. And they would have killed you too, Geoffrey, since they think you were the photographer. But they didn't. they threatened you, broke in, threw some lye, talked tough to you on the phone, but they never harmed you."

"All right," I said "so they care about the pictures."

She nodded.

"A lot more than they pretend. Mrs. Z says, 'Oh, they're not important, you've probably made copy negatives, the pictures are just a nuisance." But now that Shadow's been killed they're no longer just a nuisance. They're valuable because they're the motive. Give the cops the pictures and they start looking very hard at Darling and Mrs. Z.

Eventually somebody talks or makes a deal, and then the two of them go on trial for murder."

"Which is why I want to call Scotto." She shrugged.

"That's one way to go."

"Is there some other way?"

"Yes… if we have the guts." I knew then what she was about to say.

"No way! Forget it, Kim. Absolutely not!"

She touched my arm, stroked it.

"Think about it. In the first place, the way it looks, Darling isn't soiling his hands anymore. He's brought' in pros. That guy who called you, the boy who threw the lye, the people who parked the car at Newark Airport-they sound like hired goons.

"Doesn't that worry you?"

"Sure. Because once you go to the cops, both of us are targets. The pictures don't mean anything without the story. And you and I are the only ones who know it."

"There's Rakoubian."

"He won't talk, He doesn't want to die."

"Neither do I," I said.

"Really, Kim, haven't you had enough of blackmail? Your best friend was killed. You're stuck down here. Isn't it time to lead a normal life?"

She stared at me, then shook her head.

"Not yet," she said. "See, Geoffrey, this isn't finished yet. Darling and Mrs. Z-they have to pay."

We didn't talk about it anymore, just spent the morning lying lazily on the beach. Then I took her to her apartment, waited for her to change, and drove her on to her restaurant, as she had to work a double shift. I spent the afternoon by myself, walking around Key West. After three and a half days of staking out the Post Office, I needed to break out and move.

Toward the end of the afternoon, I wandered up to the Southernmost Point. It was a curious place, a dead-end intersection with a large striped concrete buoy bearing the words: SOUTHERNMOST POINT CONTINENTAL U.S.A. Beside the buoy stood an old black man behind a display of shells and sponges. That was it, there was nothing else.

The understatement appealed to me. This was the tail end of the nation.

It was pathetic, and there was no reason to make anything more out of it. I stationed myself there, then started taking pictures of people taking pictures of one another as they posed before the buoy.

It seemed to me that the premise behind their picturetaking was their conviction that by freezing selected moments from their lives they could somehow cheat aging and death. That seemed poignant to me, well worth trying to express. But it was an elusive idea, and, though it U amp;I IN @ @ I – @ d photography, was perhaps too deep to be exin photographs. , as the afternoon waned, I strolled down to Mallory Pier to attend the sunset. I ate by myself at a Cuban restaurant, and then went back to my room to rest. The moment I lay down I felt empty and forlorn. I'd found Kim, heard her story, and believed in her again. I had, moreover, held her in my arms, and I no longer felt the anger that had brought me to this strange tropical little town. I didn't even think it was important anymore to know her real name; she was who she was, authentic to her vision of herself.

But I was bothered greatly by her idea that we should Continue with the blackmail. That she thought I'd even consider a thing like that disturbed me very much.

She came to me that night after she finished work. She used my bathroom to wash away the sweat and the smell f food, then crawled into bed beside me and molded her body against mine.

"Did you call him?" she asked.

"Scotto. No."

"Why not? I was sure you would."

"Maybe tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's a new day," she said.

"Are you working?"

"Yeah, but I'm free until five." She hugged me.

"Would you like to go snorkeling out on the reef? It's really a lot of fun. One of my roommates has a boyfriend who has a boat. We can borrow masks and tubes."

It was fun. The roommate, Pam, a frizzy-haired blonde, was from South Carolina and spoke with a spunky Southern drawl. Her boyfriend, Doug, who owned the boat, was a genial beachcomber type.

With their lean bodies and gorgeous tans, Kim, Pam and Doug looked the embodiment of sun-worshiping American youth. But they were nice to me, didn't make me feel apart even though I was pale and middle-aged. As soon as we were out on the water the girls took off their tops. Then Doug showed me how to snorkel. The reef was fascinating, the corals beautiful and delicate. I learned the names of different varieties: elkhom, staghorn, pillar, flower, brain.

I liked the schools of tiny fish that darted between the corals, and the occasional moray eel that wriggled its way among the underwater trees.

Doug pointed out sponges on the ocean floor and an encrusted cannonball from an ancient wreck.

The girls had brought along a hamper of sandwiches.

We ate, I took portraits of them, and then we headed back. The whole trip, spent with attractive friendly kids, made me feel good burned by the sun, washed by the sea.

After Kimberly went off to work, I returned to my room, stared at the phone and thought about calling Scotto. But I decided to put it off – I knew that once I called him, my life would be changed. I wasn't ready to break m Kev West idyll yet.

The next day Doug picked us up in his ratty jeep and drove us up to Sugarloaf for flats fishing. Again the girls took off their tops. Kim's anointings of my skin with suntan oil finally began to take effect.

When Kim caught a bonefish, I immortalized her victory with a photograph showing her holding up her catch and grinning like Ernest Hemingway, When we got back to Key West and she went off to work, I thought again of calling Scotto, and again I put it off. I studied Rakoubian's pictures for a while, to see if they contained something new. The shots of Darling in his mask were frightening, but the hurried pictures of him going into buildings seemed almost innocuous.

Several times on my various walks I'd passed the Key West Public Library. At two the next afternoon I entered the low pink-hued building, found a chair in the small reference section, and spent the afternoon researching the mysterious architect.

He appeared, from the pictures I found of his various homes, to be as rich as Rakoubian had said. In a spread on his Manhattan town house in Architectural Digest, I saw two paintings by Gauguin on the dining room walls and a portion of his priceless collection of Japanese scrolls and screens.

But it was his remarkable vacation house in Jamaica that intrigued me most, a building he had designed himself. In this elegant structure, made of bleached wood and great expanses of glass, he had tried, he said, "to combine the majesty of a Palladian villa and the austerity of a traditional Japanese house."

Each piece of furniture was a handmade original, every object exquisitely chosen, every flower perfectly arranged. Floating above the fireplace was a gilded medieval sculpture of an angel. It seemed improbable that a man who had created such a paradise could be so awesomely corrupt.

But as I read other articles I found subtle indications.

"A tough boss, incredibly demanding, he doesn't suffer fools gladly," an associate said.

"He's quite capable, when displeased, of treating you as if you don't exist."

Another architect, a rival, said, "We are what we build, and Arnold Darling's buildings reflect his soul. Sharp, hard-edged slashes against the sky, there is no comedy in them, no wink of complicity. His is a brutalism that conceals its brutality. Darling diagrams the cruelty of our corporate age."

I believe in the efficacy of photographs, that a welltaken picture can often tell you more about a subject than even a firsthand look. So I pored over photographs of Arnold Darling's work, searching for keys to the man, and by the end of the afternoon I began to understand a lot.

He was secretive. The articles told me that, but his buildings expressed it too. No question that he was an artist who channeled his feelings into structure and form; the buildings were strong, sometimes even magnificent, but there was also stealth and cunning in them, a clandestine rage and a taciturnity that matched his tight-lipped face.

Walking from the library down to Mallory Pier, I thought about Darling in his mask. Why, I asked myself, does he wear a fencing mask, instead of one made of rubber, or one of those fetishistic black-leather jobs you see in sex boutiques?

There was a reason he liked the fencing mask, and the more I pondered it, the more clearly I saw how that was connected to his designs. Such a mask does not cling to the contours of the face; rather, it acts as a second skin. Darting's buildings were like that, seamless, self-protective. Their vauttlike doors gave an impression of impenetrability and their deep-tinted windows hid their occupants from sight.

But there was more. A fencing mask, designed to protect the face from the consequences of combat, is, by its nature, aggressive. It's the mask of the warrior, the man who attacks, and who, while so doing, conceals his eyes.

At the bottom of Duval, I paused before a person I'd noticed several times before, an old man, sitting against a wall, quietly playing a harmonica. When our eyes met, he gestured toward a tin cup by his feet.

I put five dollars in it and asked if I could take his picture. He nodded, then began to play again.

As I focused on his face I was struck by its vulnerability, the very opposite of what I'd seen in I)arling's. There was pathos there, and pain, and the ravages of life. Nothing in his countenance was masked.

I think it was at that moment, the moment I took that picture, that all the anger I'd previously felt toward Kim was suddenly transferred to D-arling. I hadn't cared about him before, but now, on my way to the sunset ritual, I began to care very much. This was the man who had murdered Sonya and Shadow, and had ordered lye thrown at my eyes. He was rich and secretive and evil, and now I too began to hate him.

The hatred seethed in me all that nip-ht. but if Kim @Me' to me after sensed it, she didn't let on. When she c work, she was gentle and loving. She stroked and fondled me and whispered endearments in my ear.

The next morning, when we were eating breakfast, I asked her what she meant by "pay."

She looked at me curiously.

"You said Darling and Mrs. Z 'have to pay.

She laughed.

"Pay money, of course."

"Would that really do it for you?"

"it would be reparation."

"Doe s money repair?"

"Of course not, but it can help." She gazed at me.

"If a person feels injured and sues for damages and wins and is paid, that helps to even up the score. That's why people looking for equity always ask for money."

"You sound like a lawyer."

"I'd have made a good one. I have a lot of indignation. I think you've noticed that."

"So you want Darling to pay us a million dollars?"

"That wouldn't be so bad now, would it?" She smiled.

Later at the beach, as she was oiling my back, I brought up the subject again.

"Why would he pay this time, when he refused before?"

"Because of Shadow. The case against him is stronger now. "

"But he's made it clear he won't pay. That's what Rakoubian said."

"Rakoubian's stupid. He doesn't understand. Of course he'll pay if he's got no alternative."

The way she was sitting on me, rubbing in the oil, reminded me of the massage I'd gotten from Grace. I liked the feel of her weight on my body. Suddenly I felt aroused.

"We'd have to do it differently this time," I said.

"Yes, we'd have to be much more clever. And now that we know where Mrs.

Z stands, we wouldn't be falling into any traps,"

"What about that affidavit you signed?"

She played her fingers on my neck.

"Who cares? It confirms my story. I signed it under duress. It was a fake anyway, just a way to make me think they'd let me go."

"Blackmail isn't all that easy, Kim. Sooner or later you have to show to collect your money."

"Between the two of us, Geoffrey, with all our brains, I'm sure we can figure out a way."

I turned, looked up at her.

"Then what happens? What's to prevent them from killing us afterwards?"

"The same thing that kept them from killing us in the first place."

"What's that?"

"The photographs." turned my head back to the sand.

"We wouldn't turn them over-is that what you're saying?"

"I wouldn't, would you? But even if we did, we'd keep back copies. they know that. Mrs. Z said as much."

"In that case, what would they be paying for?"

"Silence.

"You've thought this through."

"I've spent a-month thinking about it." She bent forward, lay her face against my back, kissed my spine.

"Do you think it can be done, 'Geoffrey? You know, done properly?"

The next two days, while I tortured myself over the problem, she acted as if she didn't have a care. It was as if, having transferred the burden to me, she finally felt she could relax.

We went about our routine, swimming and snorkeling in the mornings, then she would go to work, and I would walk around taking pictures and feeling agonized.

Though we spoke of many different things during our times together, our brief exchanges about the blackmail ran through our conversations like a thread:

"What do we do about Rakoubian?" I asked her. We were lying in bed in my motel. She was fondling me through my clothes.

"Ignore him."

"What if he wants a cut?"

"He gave up his right when he chickened out. Jesusl Why worry about him?" She stroked my cock.

"Now, here's something worth discussing," she said.

Afterwards, resting together, my hands cupping her breasts, I asked her what I should say to Scotto.

"Tell him anything you want."

"I suppose we could take their money, then turn the pictures over to him anyway."

"Totally impractical. We'd have to give the money back." She crawled onto me and began to lay a line of passionate kisses across my stomach.

"But, God, Geof frey, I love you just for thinking of a thing like that!"

"Is the money really so important?" I asked her, as we dressed to go out to eat.

"It's the idea of making them hurt that's best. But the money helps, doesn't it? I mean it kind of softens the thing. It's like, I don't know'@she put her arms around me-"like getting a reward."

We spoke about it as we took a shower crowded together in my tiny motel shower stall. She was slowly soaping my back.

"If we do blackmail them, and they do pay us, and we get away with it-then what do we do?"

"My goodness, Geoffrey, what do you think?" She stopped soaping me, "We live high off the hog, on easy street…

"How dangerous is Mrs. Z compared to Darling?" I asked her. It was early in the morning. We were jogging along Roosevelt, on the northern curve where the houseboats are tied up.

She squinted. Her T-shirt was soaked through. Her forehead was flushed.

"She may be even more dangerous," she said.

"Why?" I was panting,

"Because it's new to her. Because she's just discovering it. Because it's not clear yet just how far she'll go."

"She's already been party to two murders. How much further can she go?"

"I'm not sure, but I think there's always another level. The pit's always bottomless, don't you think?" She ran ahead.

"Race you to the end," she yelled. I chased after her, but failed to catch up.

Perhaps she, was right, the pit is bottomless, for I was then in a kind of pit myself. Art photographer turning blackmailer: that was the route I was on.

And, strangely, it seemed appropriate, as if photography, this fine and moral art I practiced, somehow led naturally to blackmail. There was a tradition to it-perhaps a thousand stories had been written in which people who possessed incriminating or disgracing photographs demanded payment from those who could be incriminated or disgraced. Blackmail, it seemed, had been an ignoble offshoot of the trade, ever since the invention of the camera.

That night, after dinner, as Kimberly and I walked through the quiet sweet-smelling streets of Old Town, I told her I'd come to a decision.

"Yes, Geoffrey?" I could feel her tension as she took my arm.

"I want to bring in my friend Frank Cordero, the one who lives in New Mexico."

I felt her grip tighten.

"Tell me why."

"I don't think we can do this without him."

"Tell me about him. How did you meet?"

"We met in Vietnam," I said.

"He was a lieutenant, Special Forces A-team commander. One night, when I was staying at his camp, we got to talking about photography. He was an amateur, modest about his work, but serious-he even had a darkroom set up out there in the bush. After we talked awhile he asked if I'd critique his pictures. I said Sure, thinking that was the least I could do. So then he brings out the most extraordinary stuffpictures so sensitive that at first I didn't believe he'd shot them. But he had.

This commando type, who killed and laid booby traps and ambushed enemy patrols, spent his spare time taking sympathetic pictures of Vietnamese kids.

"We became friends. He taught me about war, and I taught him about photography. He was with me when I shot my Piet@.

"Since he lives out West we don't get much chance to see each other. But the friendship's very close. He's become a professional photographer, he's married to a Vietnamese girl and he's got a houseful of terrific kids. I want to go out there now and see him. He's the only person I know who can tell me whether this thing can work. If he thinks it can, I'd like him to participate. Of course I need your permission for that."

She didn't say anything for a while. Then she asked me how good he was.

"The best," I said.

"Straight. Fearless. First-class strategic mind. If he joined us he'd be like a hired gun, which, considering Darling's resources, is something I think we need."

"What would we give him?"

"A full third share-. I can't see offering him less."

"A third-that's a lot of money." She hesitated, "On the other hand, a hundred percent of zero is zero, isn't it?"

"What do you think?" I asked.,I think you should go see him, the sooner the better." She stopped walking.

"Hold me, Geoffrey." I held her.

"Now kiss me the way you did that time at the cemetery."

I kissed her.

"Harder, Geoffrey. Please, as hard as you can."

I kissed her hard.

"Bite me."

I bit her.

"Oh, that's good," she said, "very good. Now take me back to your room and screw my brains out."

As we started back to the Spanish Moss the palms swayed wildly in the wind.