Frames Per Second (3 page)

Peter laughed and took a sip of his beer. They were sitting in a small bar on Boston’s waterfront overlooking the harbor. From long habit as a reporter, Peter kept his voice low. “So all this hero shit I’ve been hearing is just Ben Harris giving yet another subject a bad case of red eye.”

Ben nodded. “About sums it up. That distance from the flash, he’ll probably have some permanent vision loss.”

“Well, there’s that.”

“The picture was cool, though. Parker is this huge black force erupting from the floor; what you can see of Johansen’s whited-out face has this funny little expression like he’s just getting how much trouble he’s in.”

“I saw it. You might have a career in this business.” Peter touched Ben’s mug with his own. “Congratulations. And when I write the article I’ll make you a hero too.”

“Get in line.” Ben told him that after NBC released the footage, his answering machine at his studio in Fort Point Channel held over twenty offers for interviews. Kurt Tattinger, the new editor-in-chief, had fielded dozens more at the magazine. A literary agent who had unsuccessfully shopped around a book proposal of Ben’s work about two years back had called to say, “Better strike while you’re hot. Time/Life just returned my call, and they want to take a fresh look at you.”

Peter lifted his eyebrows. “Enjoy your fifteen minutes. May work out to a half hour or more, given the TV coverage.”

“Better than last time.”

Peter nodded. “That thing with the priest? That was before I knew you, but I read the articles at the time. Thought you were a sleazeball paparazzi. Same kind that chased Princess Diana into that tunnel.”

“You and several million people. This time, if I can land that book and guarantee some autonomy from Kurt it’ll all be worthwhile.”

“The book, maybe. Kurt, he’s a fact of your life that’s not going to go away as long as you work for
Insider.
Get used to it.”

Peter Gallagher had joined
Insider
shortly after Ben, about three years ago. They had hit it off immediately. Gallagher was about twenty years out of Columbia’s journalism school, and had traveled the world looking for stories ever since. He was tall, lanky, and prematurely gray. A recurring case of malaria he had contracted while covering a story in Papua New Guinea had cut into his health, contributed to his divorce, and forced him into the marginally more sedate pace of a weekly magazine rather than the adrenaline-pumping pace of his
Chicago Tribune
days.

At forty, he looked about fifty.

But none of that dampened the intelligence or curiosity in his steady gray eyes. Along with the publication’s emphasis on photojournalism—one of the few remaining publications as dedicated— Gallagher’s political and criminal investigative reports were the backbone of
Insider’
s growing reputation.

“So what have you got on?” Ben asked.

“Me? Nothing that would interest a man of your caliber.”

“C’mon.”

“Hell, I can’t take you places. Robert DeNiro comes to town to promote his new movie, and I take you up to the Ritz to cover the interview, next thing he’ll be asking you about your motivation, your love life, and all about those shutter speeds and f-stops. And you know I hate to hear about that shit.”

“Like Kurt would send you in to interview someone who could cause him trouble.”

Peter shook his head, marveling. “He’s got a reputation for standing up for his people. That was his reputation at
Boston Magazine.”

“Uh-huh,” Ben said, not wanting to pursue it. Because he knew Peter was right. Kurt was a solid guy, took his hits, seemed to be fair. Ben just didn’t like him, and he had the best of reasons. “Tell me what you’re working on now.”

“Let’s see, we’ve got a politician who can’t keep his pants on, challenged me to prove different.”

Ben made a face. “Leave it for the tabloids.”

“The line gets blurry sometimes.”

“Uh-huh.” Ben sipped his beer.

Peter, ever observant, got the point and moved on. “Another round of women who killed their husbands looking to get out of prison early. Most of them deserve to. Maybe you can come out and improve upon their mug shots for me.”

“I can do that. What else is local? I’d like to stay around long enough to see my kids before they start calling me ‘Uncle Ben.’”

“When do you see them next?”

“Tomorrow. Weekend visitation.”

“That sucks. Beats once a month, though.”

“When are you down to New York?”

“Week after next.” Peter told Ben about his last trip to see his daughter, and the afternoon they had spent at the Museum of Natural History. “That’s all she wants to do. Third time in a row. Whole city of New York I’d give her if I could, and she just wants to go back and see those stuffed animals.”

“She’s four,” Ben said, smiling. Thinking of his daughter, Lainnie, at that age. It struck him how he and Peter still talked freely about their children—Peter’s one and Ben’s two—but how they rarely talked about their ex-wives anymore.

Maybe a late-breaking sign of maturity, he thought.

He and Peter had a fair amount in common in regards to ex-wives. Both women were working journalists. Andi and Ben met when they were both in their early twenties back at the
Portland Press Herald
in Maine; Peter and his ex-wife, Sarah, had been a nationally recognized investigative team before their divorce. Her byline continued to turn up on major stories in the
New York Times.

Ben was glad he and Peter had left off talking about Andi and Sarah. He never slept well afterwards. And Peter needed to be careful when it came to drinking. He swore that he never had more than their two beers here at the bar, and Ben never saw any evidence to the contrary.

“Hey, back to business,” Peter said. “I’ve got a hood who’s a real comer. Out of Southie, but he’s more than a tough Irish kid. Been all the way to Stanford and back. Runs a commercial real estate consulting business supposedly, but the word is that he’s not afraid to get his own hands dirty.”

“Sounds promising.”

“Oh, yeah, but he’s a work in progress. You got some spare time, we could build a file on him.”

“I’ll have my agent call yours.”

“Yeah, you do that.” Peter lifted his glass. “Meanwhile, see if your wife’s new boyfriend will cut you a break tomorrow. Tell him heroes sell magazines.”

After Peter headed off in a taxi, Ben decided to walk to his studio. The city lights alone would clear his head and evoke a certain amount of magic. He stopped to look back when he was halfway across the bridge. When Boston was placed as a lighted backdrop to shifting water, and vaguely threatening black pilings, the effect was visually fascinating—both ominous and beautiful.

He counted the interesting view as one of the few—maybe the only—benefits of his new life. Because going home alone to the empty loft was just as dreary as it was cracked up to be.

As he slid the key into the lock, he placed his hand on the door, feeling the dead silence behind it. No sounds of Lainnie and Jake playing or arguing. No sound of a television or radio. No Andi telling the kids to calm down, that their father was home.

He swung the door open.

Everywhere he looked, he saw himself. On the white painted brick walls hung with his own work and that of other photojournalists and fine art photographers he admired: Robert Capa, Eugene Smith, Eddie Adams, Koresh, Stieglitz. Powerful images all, Capa’s black and whites of children in wartime Paris, Ben’s own shots taken throughout the U.S. and all over the world: Mexico, Bosnia, Rwanda, Liberia, Columbia. Mostly of people. People in war, people in trouble, people experiencing joy, people at work, caught mid-step in their daily lives.

Ben’s answering machine was blinking, and when he played the messages back, he had three more offers for interviews and another call from his agent saying Time/Life had called again on the book idea and were moving “from a nibble to stretching their jaws for a fairly good bite.”

Ben played all of the messages back from the beginning, ostensibly because he wanted to write them down, but truthfully, because he was hoping he had somehow missed a call from Andi.

He hadn’t.

He consciously ignored his feelings about that and smiled again at the message from his agent. Ben moved to his light table and thumbed it on, feeling a bit like a midnight alchemist as the fluorescent light flickered. He began pulling out transparencies, fingers moving quickly through his files. He laid a sheaf of them across the table and colors and shapes began to spring to life in front of him, each a visual story that played before him when he bent to look through the loupe. He did the same with the black and whites, pulling out file after file of contact sheets. Soon, if the book possibility became a reality, he would need to organize his thoughts and images into a consistent theme. And truly, there were genuine patterns in his work, and nothing would delight him more than to pull it all together. But for the time being, he simply looked at his past.

And because it was all intertwined, and because it was late at night and he was lonely, he pulled out the file of family pictures. These were the better shots culled from more than a thousand rolls he had taken over the years: his and Andi’s first apartment in New York, their dog, Burglar, long since gone. Jake’s birth. Andi looking not much older than a teenager in the hospital gown. Exhausted. Wonderfully happy. At home, he and Andi holding their fat little baby in front of the old mirror with the cracked frame. It came back to him standing there over the light table, the exhilaration of those days: equal parts of fear and euphoria.
The baby is healthy, my wife is safe. How the hell am I going to feed them?

And remembering that brought up the contrast, the difference between then and now.

I fed them, he thought. I clothed them, I housed them, and I loved them. I still love them. And yet I’m alone.

This book that his agent was calling about was something he and Andi had talked about for years. A project they could work on together: his images, her writing and editing.

Maybe now he would ask Peter if he was interested in writing it.

When Ben looked up at the clock, he was surprised to see it was almost two in the morning. “Oh, Christ.” Ben didn’t need much sleep, but he needed more than four hours. He filed the transparencies away and turned out the lights on the images surrounding him on the walls.

He was suddenly tired of his own thoughts and those who thought like him.

CHAPTER 3

ANDI MET KURT AT HER FRONT DOOR.

God, she was beautiful to him. Rich auburn hair, carelessly brushed. When she stepped out of the shadow of the doorway, the morning light brought out the gold in her green eyes, in her hair.

Like him, no longer a kid. Faint wrinkles at her eyes and mouth just added character. Her intelligence was there to read, right in those eyes. She smiled, which made him euphoric and more than a bit scared. There was no denying it, he was shaking inside.

What have you decided?
he wanted to say.

Instead, he asked, “Have you been watching the recap on the news this morning?” His voice sounded perfectly calm. Sounded like him.

“As if I had a choice. Both of them hauled me in front of it every time they played that tape. Ben, the hero.”

He smiled. “Come on, now. It was pretty impressive stuff.”

“I’m just glad you’re here.” She came down the steps and draped her arms around his neck. She kissed him so sweetly that he was convinced that they were all right.

“You thought about what I said?” Kurt whispered.

“All night. And the answer is yes.”

He had to look away. He wanted to look at her so she could see his happiness, his outright exultation. But he felt so wide open he couldn’t show it. Instead, he said lightly, “No worries?”

“I’m a little nervous,” she said. “But I’m happy. So happy.”

He held her tight, feeling in her heat against him the new life opening before him with her and the children. “I love you, Andi.”

She pulled her head back so that she could look at him, her eyes welling with tears. “I love you too, Kurt. Let’s go in and tell them the real news around here.”

“Sure,” he said, looking up at his new home. Ben’s former home. An old colonial that Ben and Andi had carefully restored. Beautiful piece of property in Sudbury, up against conservation land.

Kurt wanted to take them away from it. As soon as possible. Andi, Lainnie, and Jake. He loved them all. More than he knew how to show them. He wanted to take them away and put them in a house he had built just for them. Start from scratch. He said, “Let’s go in.”

CHAPTER 4

KURT OPENED THE DOOR FOR BEN TWO HOURS LATER.

Even though Kurt had had plenty of time to figure out what to say beforehand, he was still at a momentary loss.

Apparently, so was Ben. Finally, he said, simply, “The kids ready?”