False Negative (Hard Case Crime) (21 page)

De Costa gave her a second look through the viewfinder of a Nikon. “You’ve been startled,” he said, “and are trying to locate the source of a disturbing sound.”

Her head canted toward the camera. At the ideal angle her eyes narrowed, and she retreated into herself.

De Costa fired off a handful of shots, then removed the camera from the tripod. “Let me see you cognizant of danger, but not panicky, prepared for anything.”

Expression flickered across her face, and was extinguished at de Costa’s command to clear the slate for their next experiment. Jordan knew the edgy look he wanted from the shooting on Park Place, when Mollie had walked past the dead body on the floor. De Costa would refine it into something glamorous, keeping readers in mind that they were paying for a detective magazine.

De Costa changed lenses and came close, barking commands. Jordan saw tears on Mollie’s cheeks. De Costa ordered her to stop crying, mocked her, browbeat her while he captured each drop. Then he unloaded the camera, and gave her a towel to dry her face, brewed a cup of tea for her, and thanked the other girls for their time.

“That was a terrific impersonation of quiet fear,” Jordan said when she was dressed.

“What impersonation? I was scared to death I wouldn’t get the job. Thank you, Adam.”

“I had nothing to do with it. You were great.”

“Thanks anyway.”

He walked her out of the office, and they waited for the elevator on the empty bench. “Are you living in the city?” he said.

“I have a place with a roommate in Brooklyn by the Botanical Gardens.”

“Give me the address.”

“It’s far, almost an hour on the IRT.”

He had his pen out. “...also your number.”

“They’re on the release Mr. de Costa had me sign,” she said. “But nothing’s changed since Atlantic City. I’m grateful to you for giving me a chance, but I don’t want to get involved with you again.”

“Were we involved?”

“If you have to ask, what was I doing in your bed?” She carried her portfolio to the elevator, and pressed the button.

“Turner Pub puts out a lot of magazines, and I’m making new contacts in the industry every day. I can do a lot to help your career.”

“I’m not a prostitute. I won’t sell myself even for the cover of
Life
.”

“Not even for
Life
?”

“We’ll discuss it when you’re in a position to do that for me.”

“I’m trying to make up for what happened.”

The car came. She stepped inside dodging a kiss. “By trying to make it happen again?”

The doors slid shut. Jordan pulled his head back just in time.

The closets were filled with cartons he’d never get around to unpacking. He ransacked them till he had his novel, and put it beside the typewriter. He was off to a solid start with the magazines. A good time to push his luck in other directions.
Including Mollie’s. Till he needed her for another shoot he’d make excuses to call. Even apologize, if he didn’t think she’d see through him.

The phone rang as he was getting into bed. No one called after midnight unless it was murder. Maybe Mollie was surprising him again. A huge surprise. His number was unlisted.

“Hello?”

“Who’s this?” a woman said.

If it was Mollie, she’d caught a bad cold on the ride to Brooklyn.

“What do you want?”

“It’s you, after all,” the woman said. “You didn’t sound like yourself, but now you do. Must be the long distance.”

“Brooklyn is hardly—Cherise?”

“Who’d you think, dearie?”

“Someone from the magazine,” he said. “What’s new?”

“What could be, stuck here like I am? I wouldn’t know you were alive, only a card came with your number.”

“You can’t believe how busy I am. I haven’t had time to unpack.”

“Couldn’t take ten minutes to call?”

“
You
called,” he said. “What’s the difference?”

“I’m paying. Long distance ain’t cheap, you know.”

“Hang up. I’ll call right back.”

“Ain’t getting away that easy,” she said. “This one’s on me.”

His old life had no business intruding on the new, Mollie—though he also knew her from Atlantic City, had known her before Cherise—being part of the new. He wasn’t bothered by flaws in that logic. The rules of logic were superseded by the rules of Adam Jordan every time.

“Still there?” she said.

“Where were we?”

“You were telling me how happy you are, hearing my voice, and can’t wait to have me for a visit.”

“It’s going to be a while. Like I said, I’m not settled.”

“I told Greenie I was gonna stay with you in New York. He laughed in my face, said you were selling me a bridge there.”

“Greenie doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“What I told him,” she said. “Why you making so I gotta say he was right?”

“Just a little longer.”

“I understand,” she said. “Next week? Next week’s good for me, too.”

“Longer than that.”

“Understand everything.”

“I’m rushing four magazines to the printer. They take all my time.”

“Take as much as you need,” she said. “I gotta go now. Oh, I almost forgot. They found Etta dead late last night.”

He listened to the dial tone while the words sunk in, and then he called back Atlantic City.

“Pix Pixley’s.”

It was a woman, breathy and inviting. Just the way she sounded, she belonged on the bench outside de Costa’s studio. Even if she wasn’t anything much, he wondered what she was doing with Pixley.

“Put him on, please.”

“This is Mr. Pixley’s answering service.”

“It’s an emergency.”

“I’m sure, but he can’t be reached.”

“Okay, tell him to send me the latest on Etta Wyatt, and pictures of her corpse, and everything that goes with it. Got that?”

“If you say so, sir.”

“And have him send along some of you.”

An interoffice envelope was on his desk when he got in. The flap was sealed with layers of heavy tape. Inside was a contact sheet, thirty-six miniature portraits of Mollie playing peek-a-boo behind the curtain. The best were marked with a crayon pencil
for de Costa’s crop. Jordan hated to see the pictures cut. He could sell millions of magazines using Mollie in the raw, and collect his bonus in federal prison. Only the nudist and sun-bather’s newsletters sold under the counter in Times Square had the nerve to take on the postal inspectors.

He was at the breakfast cart when Mary called out, “Mr. Pixley on the line.”

“Accept the charges.”

“It isn’t a long-distance call.”

Jordan hurried back to his desk via a trail of confectioner’s sugar. “How are you?”

“Not bad, you?”

“Trying to get used to an office job. Why didn’t you tell me you were in town?”

“I just checked in. Heard about Etta Wyatt?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did,” Jordan said. “What’s available?”

“First let me tell you what brings me to New York.”

“First tell me about Etta.”

“She can wait.”

“I can’t,” Jordan said.

Pixley’s giggle touched a raw nerve. “She turned up under a chicken coop in Poultrina.”

“Where?”

“Take County Road 413 north into the Pine Barrens. Poultrina is the wide spot in the road, a socialist farm community founded by Russian immigrants that went belly up after the war. The hen house was being razed to make way for a drive-in movie when a bulldozer scraped up the body of a colored girl in a sleeping bag. They brought a sideman from the Basie orchestra to make the ID. Dr. Melvin says she died around the time she was reported missing.”

“Died of what?”

“Homicide detectives don’t confide in lowly shutterbugs. But
I’ve got shots of her up close, what’s left, and ligature marks are visible around her throat. I’ve also got the farm, the dozer jockey, the cops. If there’s ever an arrest, we’re covered.”

“Any new leads?”

“The cops couldn’t care less. I may have something, though,” Pixley said. “I may even have photos on that case out of Virginia Beach. But let Etta rest in peace for a while. My first solo exhibit opens Saturday in Greenwich Village.”

Jordan wasn’t ready to change the subject. It wasn’t up to him.

“It’s a round-up of my best work.”

“Plenty of ice cream?”

“See for yourself. The gallery is counting on a big turnout. Can I expect you to be there? Bring a friend.”

“How do I say no?”

Jordan lit another Lucky and stamped it out after a couple of puffs. He was starting inside when he heard his name, made a big deal of looking at his watch as Mollie came across the street.

“I was beginning to think you’d stood me up.”

“It crossed my mind,” she said. “But I was afraid where the pictures might turn up.”

Jordan put an envelope in her hand. She shook out a contact sheet. “One shot’s missing,” she said.

“The June cover. Very demure. What will you do with these?”

“Destroy them? Use them for Christmas cards? Sell them to sailors?” She dropped the envelope in her bag. “It’s up to me now. I’d be crazy to let you have them.”

Jordan nodded, and lit up again. Then he gave her the negatives, and they went inside together.

A group show had brought out a mob to the first floor exhibit space. Jordan poked his head in, and gazed noncommittally at
color field canvases. Upstairs, Chablis and stale cheese drew freeloaders to view Pixley’s photos. Jordan liked the stark German racing cars from his commercial work. Liked them better than the cute children he’d seen first at the photographer’s studio, but not as much as the charred teeth and bone fragments, all that remained of Bess Pomeroy, 26, found in a charcoal pit in the Barrens, which ran with her story in
Real Detective
.

Men posed heroically on a beach could have stepped out of a Charles Atlas ad, if Charles Atlas had stepped out of his leopard-skin trunks.

“Where’s your friend?” Mollie said. “I want to meet him. If I didn’t know you like I do, I could get the wrong idea.”

She inspected male nudes till Jordan said, “There’s Pix.” A blond man chatting with a woman in a double-breasted suit pricked up his ears, and called them over.

“Adam Jordan, shake hands with Rhoda Sloane,” Pixley said. “Rhoda’s the photography editor for
New Journal of the Arts
.”

Rhoda squinted at Jordan as she transferred a glass to her left hand.

“Adam’s my
other
editor,” Pixley said to her.

“We must have crossed paths before,” she said to Jordan, “but I’m sure I don’t recognize you. Who did you say you write for?”

“
Real Detective
.”

Rhoda laughed, spilling wine on herself. Jordan said, “Pix, Miss Sloane, this is Mollie Gordon, former Miss Delaware Valley, the next Miss New Jersey, future Miss America, and
Real Detective
’s reigning cover girl. You made a new fan today, Pix.”

Mollie extended her hand. Pixley didn’t seem to know whether to shake it or take a picture. “What do you think of my stuff?”

“Some’s not bad,” Jordan said. “But I’m no authority on art photography.”

“Don’t let him rain on your parade,” Mollie said. “Everything’s terrific, especially the boys on the beach.”

“Are you an authority?”

“I’ve also taken my clothes off for men with a camera. What does that make me?”

“The ultimate authority. Oh, absolutely. Would you model for me?”

“Do you do women, too, Mr. Pixley? I wouldn’t like being your first.”

Rhoda went for water to wash out her stain as Jordan took Pixley aside. “You said you’d learned something about Etta’s death—”

“There’s Thom Whiteside from the
Trib
, the most important tush I’ve got to kiss. I’ll talk to you later.”

He was angling toward a man in a corduroy jacket when Jordan saw him pulled into a corner by a teenager with a camera around his neck.

“What do you really think?” Jordan said to Mollie.

“He’s a sweet little fairy. Since I’m not an authority in that area, I’ll reserve judgment.”

“You know how to play to his ego.”

“I meant most of it. He lets his camera fall in love with his model. If he could do that with a woman, I’d be happy to put myself in his hands.”

“Does a photographer have to love you to make you look good?”

“Looking good is for second runner-up. Looking great, that’s what makes a beauty queen. I need a great portfolio.”

“I’d take him up on his offer.”

“De Costa loves me. Can’t you put in a good word with him?”

“De Costa doesn’t lift a finger without something in return. He doesn’t love anyone but himself.”

A peroxide blond with a thin moustache, a short, slender man, came up on Pixley from behind with a peck on the cheek. The photographer nudged him away, and Jordan heard, “You’re embarrassing yourself, Marcel. Embarrassing both of us.”

“Would Pix do it for nothing?” Mollie said.

“It wouldn’t be for nothing. Nothing is.”

Pixley was by himself now, counting the house beside the picture of a little girl with her back to a lion cage holding tight to a balloon on a string. The big cat was pressing against the bars, huge, dripping jaws wide apart as the child erupted in tears. Jordan went over, leaving Mollie alone with the nudes. “You were lucky to be there just when the lion roared,” he said.

“I don’t have luck,” Pixley said. “I make it. The lion is yawning. When her grandmother was distracted I told the tot that the cage had come open, and the beast was going to jump out and eat her up. I also snapped her from behind running away, two adorable shots of her peeing down her legs.”

“The poor kid’ll have nightmares till she’s a grandma herself.”

“What of it? I made her immortal. We all sacrifice for the sake of art. There are no free passes,” Pixley said. “Look at the crowd. This is the greatest day of my life.”

“Make it great for both of us,” Jordan said. “What did you find out about Etta?”

“It could come to nothing. Or it could break the case wide open. It was staring hundreds of thousands of people in the face. But no one knew what to make of it, but me. Assuming it isn’t simply a coincidence—”

“Are you going to tell me or play Hamlet?”