The City When It Rains

CHAPTER

FIVE

THE CITY ROOM of the News was on the fourth floor. Hugo Pike was the paper’s picture editor, and he played the part exactly, everything from the half-lens reading glasses perched on top of his head, to the smoke-filled betting parlor where he gulped his egg salad sandwich.

“What you got for me, bub?” he asked, as Corman walked into his office.

Corman draped his camera bag over the metal peg beside the door, took out an eight-by-eleven manila envelope and sat down in a chair opposite Pike’s desk. “I took some pictures of that woman who jumped out of a window in Hell’s Kitchen last night,” he said, as he drew out his contact sheets and offered them to Pike.

Pike waved them away. “We had our own people over there, but there was nothing we wanted to use.”

“There may be an angle,” Corman said.

“Yeah, I know,” Pike said dully. “She took her Barbie doll with her.”

Corman pulled out the picture he’d taken of the doll, playing it like a trump card. “She was feeding it,” he said.

Pike was not impressed. “So, she was a nut case, so what?”

“She was starving herself to buy the baby formula.”

Pike shook his head. “I don’t think that’s enough,” he said. He returned everything to the envelope and then handed it back to Corman. “Better luck next time.”

Corman remained in his chair, the envelope dangling from his hand.

Pike looked at him closely. “What’s the matter, you coming up short this month?”

“Maybe a little.”

“You need to work the nights more,” Pike advised him. “We don’t even have a staff shooter after two in the morning.”

“I can’t do that,” Corman said. “I have a daughter.”

“So what does that mean, you don’t have a life?”

“It means I have two lives,” Corman told him.

Pike shrugged. “What can I say, Corman? All the great shooters were loners. In your racket, other people just smudge the lens.”

Corman nodded, said nothing.

Pike studied him carefully. “Ever think about a steady job?” he asked tentatively.

“Doing what?”

“Well, this is not for publication, you understand,” Pike said. “But Harry Groton’s got a serious condition.”

Corman looked at Pike questioningly.

“Cancer,” Pike added reluctantly. “It could be chemotherapy for a long time. We would need a quick replacement if that happened.”

“When will you know?”

“He’s supposed to tell us how he is by Monday,” Pike said. “It could be a six-month thing, or, if he goes down …”

“Permanent,” Corman said.

Pike nodded. “Interested?”

“I’d be shooting the same stuff Groton does?”

“Light stuff, you know that,” Pike told him. “Society shit, but it’s day work, all of it, just the kind you say you need. And it’s steady.”

Corman continued to think about it.

“Used to, Groton hung around your neighborhood,” Pike added. “If you see him, you could have a word. Just don’t let on you know anything.”

Corman nodded.

“What are you, Corman? Thirty-nine? Forty?”

“Thirty-five.”

“In the ballpark,” Pike said. “Anyway, you’re not getting any younger. Maybe you’re getting tired of sleeping next to a police radio.”

“I’m not sure.”

“How about being poor, then?” Pike asked. “Are you getting tired of that?”

Corman drew in a long, slow breath. “Maybe something else will break.”

Pike laughed. “Like what? Lotto?” He shook his head. “All the free-lance shooters end up the same, Corman, looking for something steady. In the end, they all want to come in from the rain.”

Corman said nothing.

“They all figure it out, believe me,” Pike added. “That they can’t keep it up, that life has a downward pull.”

Downward pull, Corman thought as he returned the envelope to his bag, incremental fall, toward the abyss. The whole world was beginning to sound like Julian Carr.

There was an old Automat not far from the newspaper. Corman found himself going through its revolving glass doors a few minutes after his meeting with Pike. It was his favorite place on the east side of the city. He liked the furious speed with which the attendant scooped up exactly twenty nickels when he gave her a dollar bill. No matter how empty the place was, she jerked up the coins with the same flashing speed, her whole attention narrowed to the green bill, then the tray of faded gray coins. It was a focus Corman could understand. Since going free-lance, he’d come to realize that watching money was a way of seeing. Suddenly the price of a magazine loomed larger than the cover story. Lately he’d even begun to compare the prices of various brands of laundry detergent and tuna. Edgar didn’t have such worries. He was kept by a big law firm, and because of that there were times when Corman envied him, not because he was rich, but because his security gave him an aura of dignity, competence, even mastery. Hustling for a dollar made you look like a kid, froze you in an adolescent pose. If you didn’t own property, had no broker, figured your taxes on the short form, your voice never changed and your shoes squeaked when you walked.

Corman dropped the coins in the slot, pressed the lever and watched as the coffee cascaded into the plain white mug. When it was full, he walked to a table by the window and sat down.

Outside, the rain had started again. The street looked dark and slick. Traffic moved slowly back and forth, while people darted through it, their umbrellas flapping in the wind off the river.

He turned from the window, took a quick sip of coffee, then riffled through his camera bag again and took out a stack of pictures, searching for one he could sell. Slowly, meticulously, he went through them one by one, staring closely, combing his mind for some way to place each one. He was still doing it when Eddie LaPlace came through the door a few minutes later.

“Yo, Corman,” Eddie called from across the room.

Corman waved to him.

Eddie bounced energetically up to the table, pulled out a chair and sat down. “Been up to the City Room?”

“Yeah.”

“Sell anything?”

“No.”

Eddie shook his head. “Hey, it’s a tough life, am I right?”

“For the last few weeks, anyway,” Corman admitted.

Eddie looked at the pictures Corman had spread haphazardly over the table.

“Some of this stuff looks pretty good,” he said.

“Only to you, Eddie.”

Eddie looked surprised. “Oh, yeah? Really?” He picked up a long shot of the old man on the balcony. “Holy shit,” he said with a chuckle. “Where’d this go down?”

“Brooklyn,” Corman said. “He’d just shot his wife.”

“No shit,” Eddie said. The photograph slipped from his fingers, fell back down on the table. “You don’t sell pictures with dicks in them, my man. Pussy hair, that may get by, and tits and ass, they’re just fine for everything but the dailies. But dicks? Forget it.” He smiled. “You know why?”

Corman shook his head.

“Because editors are usually men,” Eddie said, “and they feel embarrassed for the guy. For a fox, no problem. They’ll spread woolly pink cover to cover. But for a guy, they’re embarrassed.”

“You may be right,” Corman said dryly.

“I’m absolutely right,” Eddie said. “That’s why I if I get a dick, I airbrush it right out. I cover it with leaves.”

Corman said nothing. It was good advice, and Eddie was no moron when it came to human motives, either. He was probably right about everything. And yet?

Eddie snapped up another photograph. It showed the body of a teenage boy lying faceup on the sidewalk. He was clothed in blue jeans, running shoes and a dark peacoat. “What’s the story with this one?” he asked.

“Cops figure it for a drug burn.”

Eddie nodded thoughtfully. “Couldn’t sell it?”

Corman shook his head. “It’s a common sight, Eddie. Nobody needs a stringer for a shot like that.”

Eddie continued to stare at the picture. “Looks like the East Side.”

“That’s right.”

Eddie’s eyes peeped over the edge of the photograph. “Forty-ninth Street, right?

“Yeah.”

“Well, there it is then,” Eddie said with a sly smile. “The way you sell the picture.”

“What are you talking about?”

“For Christ’s sake, man, that’s Katharine Hepbum’s block. This hit went down practically right in front of the old broad’s window.”

“So what?”

“That’s your angle, asshole,” Eddie said triumphantly.

Corman stared at him silently.

“You play that up,” Eddie said insistently. “You play the shit out of it.” He leaned forward, planting his elbows on the table. “The editor looks at the picture, says nothing, unimpressed, you know?”

Corman nodded.

“He says no, right?” Eddie said. “You say, okay, fine, no hard feelings. You start to pick up the picture, then you say, ‘Nice block, huh? Hepburn lives on it.’ You tap the print. ‘Right there,’ you say. ‘Jesus,’ you say, ‘imagine that. A drug hit right on Hepburn’s block.’ You slap your forehead. ‘What a city?’ you say. ‘Drug burns even on Hepburn’s block.’ You shake your head at the thought of it. ‘My God,’ you say like it’s just hit you, ‘what if she’d been passing by,’ you say. ‘She coulda caught some lead.’ It doesn’t change the picture, but it gives the editor an angle on the story. The angle goes with the picture. You give him both, but you act like you don’t know it.” He leaned back again, his arms folding proudly over his chest. “You make the sale.”

Corman stared at him, wonderingly. “You actually make sales like that, Eddie?”

“Do I?” Eddie cried. “Do I? Jesus Christ, man, I got a map of the city tacked to my wall.” He spread his arms out wide. “Big fucking thing. Big as you can get. I got little numbered pins that tell me where every celebrity in this town lives.” Again, he smiled proudly. “So what do you think?”

“It’s good, Eddie,” Corman said quietly, with a small, very slender smile. Anything seemed better.