'So who is he?'
'I think it's the super in their building,' I said. 'He's animal enough.'
'You recognized his voice?'
'No. But it could have been him. He made the same kind of tough-guy grunts.'
'Not enough, Geoffrey. Can't accuse just because of that.'
'I'm not accusing. I'm suggesting you check him out. The guy's got some kind of macho complex. He reads Soldier of Fortune and keeps pin-ups on his wall.' There was a pause. I could hear Scotto breathing on the other end.
'What's the matter, Sal?'
'Like Dave says, Geoffre@you read Screw and you keep pin-ups too.'
'I don't believe I'm hearing this. Why are you looking at me? What about Kim's 'Powerful man'? What about the super and 'Mrs. Z'? Why don't you check on them.'
'Let us worry about all of that. Just stay away from that super, and do something about your door.'
I took his advice. I called in a locksmith and spent three hundred bucks on a bar lock. Then I ordered new prints of Kim, and, when they came, – set to work making up new serialized murals, using the damaged ones as my guide. This time the work went quickly. I finished the first mural at 11:00 P.m. I liked it even better than my original. It seemed sharper, more unified. I hung it, admired it awhile, then pulled out my tape of Touch of Evil and put it in my VCR.
I originally collected my film noir videos so I could study their brilliant photographic effects and their vision that extended beyond mere night photography into deeper 'darknesses' of character. But as I watched them together with Kim, I began to appreciate their stories too.
Now, with her gone, I found myself playing them again and again, a kind of substitute, perhaps, for wandering the streets at night.
Touch of Evil is a special favorite for the way it seethes with an almost palpable corruption. I'd seen it half a dozen times, and was enjoying this latest screening when, just at the point where Janet Leigh was being terrorized by the motorcycle gang, my buzzer sounded from downstairs. I left the VCR on while I answered the intercom.
'Western Union. Telegram for Mr. Geoffrey Barnett.'
I buzzed the messenger in, then checked the new lock on my door. I waited behind the peephole, still enjoying the screams issuing from my TV. A couple of minutes later a young black man appeared in the hall, a can of Pepsi in his hand. I watched him approach. He looked all right, dreamy and spaced-out, but I wanted to be sure.
'Show me the cable,' I said through the door.
He shrugged and held a yellow envelope up to the hole.
'Okay… I slid open the bar lock and opened up.
As soon as I saw him I knew I'd made a mistake. He'd moved back against the far wall and now there was something bright and tense about his face. He was holding his Pepsi can in a strange way too, as if it were a weapon.
I started to shut the door. But I was too late. With a vigorous upward motion he thrust the can toward me, heaving out its contents. Then he turned and ran toward the stairway, so fast I'd have stood no chance of catching him. A moment after the attack I heard the fire door slam, and then my nostrils caught the smell of lye.
The fluid hadn't touched me, but it was a near miss. Noxious fumes was rising from the wall. The lye had hit at face level not a foot from where I'd stood. I watched, horrified, as the paint curled and peeled, then boiled off in a thick foul-smelling smoke. Then I heard my phone ringing, over the screams of Janet Leigh. I shut the door, barred it and picked up the receiver. I recognized the voice.
'Maybe next time he won't miss. Could happen on the street, in the subway, or when you're taking one of your pictures late at night. Think about it.'
'What do you want?'.
'Who do you think you're dealing with? You're making a big mistake.
These kind of people-they don't pay money to sleazebag crook photographers. So think about this: next time we send a boy, we'll send one who'll pitch the juice right in your eyes. You won't be taking many pictures after that. Will you, pigshit?' He chuckled, then hung up.
The cops arrived minutes after I called them. Not Ramos and Scotto, who were home asleep, but two regular officers, a leggy blonde who looked terrific in her uniform and her male partner, soft-spoken and black.
'this is definitely an assault,' the blonde announced.
'Seems like someone wanted to do a hit.'
'You see them throwing lye around up in Harlem sometimes,' the black man said.
'Usually they just throw it on your car. Makes a statement the way it messes up the paint.'
'So who wants to hit on you, Barnett? Got any enemies?'
'The man on the phone. But I don't know who he is.'
She shrugged, filled out her report, advised me detectives would be around in the morning. When she was done, she looked at my wall.
'Nice stuff. I like photography.'
Someone had tried to blind me. to be made blind was the worst thing I could imagine. As I lay in bed, sweating from the heat, my mind kept returning to the image of the lye eating away at the wall beside my door. Another foot and it would have hit my face, burned pitilessly through the delicate tissues of my eyes. It was all connected, of course, this latest attack, the desecration of the murals, Kim's disappearance, Shadow's torture and murder. People were after me, they wanted something from me, and now they had shown me several samples of their power.
It had something to do with my being a photographer, and with their not wanting to pay me money. But there was something else about that threatening phone call that bothered me profoundly. The man had phoned not a minute after the attack, and he had known the boy had missed.
Which meant the boy had been told to miss. Which meant he would have hit me if he'd been ordered to. And if his hand had slipped, or if he'd lost his nerve, or if he'd just gotten his orders screwed up, I'd already be blind-that was how close I'd come.
I was awakened by pounding on the door. I checked my watch. It was 8:00 A.M. I had a fierce headache. Rubbing my eyes, I suddenly remembered the lye attack.
'Open up, Geoffrey. It's Sal Scotto.' There was more furious knocking while I stumbled to the door. I peered through the peephole. It was indeed Scotto and Ramos. My two favorite detectives.
'Go away,' I said.
'We ain't going away. We're here about the assault.'
'What difference does it make,' I said.
'Ramos doesn't believe anything I say.'
'Come on, Barnett. Open up.' Ramos's eyes were serious. I opened the door.
'Excuse the underwear,' I said. 'I wasn't expecting visitors.'
'We're not visitors. We're detectives,' Ramos said. I motioned them in.
'Regular Kojak, are you, Ramos?'
'What's with this guy, Sal? Why's he so fuckin' hostile?'
'Why shouldn't I be hostile?' I said. 'I already know what you're going to say.'
'Read minds, do you? What am I going to say?'
'That I threw the lye at myself.'
'Funny, that's just what I was thinking. Since not a drop got on you, wise guy.'
'Hey! I've had it!' I said to Scotto.
'Somebody wants to call me 'pigshit' over the phone, nothing I can do.
But I don't have to take insults from cops.'
Scotto looked sternly at his partner.
'Why don't you lay off him, Dave.' He turned to me.
'He's a good detective. '
'And I'm a good citizen,' I said.
'I'm also a good photographer. Someone's doing a number on me. I nearly got blinded last night. The reason
