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.'
