Perhaps she was right, perhaps I hadn't been that forceful. Though, in my memory, the violence I'd felt that night was real.
'What else bothers you?' she asked.
'The way we met. Rakoubian said when you saw me that night @ light bulb went off in your brain. He said that's when you got the idea of using me. And then you started to pursue me.' She smiled.
'And you believed him? Do you really think I was wandering around New York looking for a photographer, and I saw you, and I said to myself:
Hey!
There he is! Just what I need! Go for it, kid! Is that what you think?'
Of course she was right. That did sound unlikely. Suddenly I wished I could go off by myself someplace and think the whole thing through. But I was afraid to leave her, afraid that if I did I might never find her again.
'Well?' she said, waiting I shook my head.
'So?'
'He knew about it.'
'Because I told him, dummy, Don't you see? You're both photographers.
If I'd met Irving Penn on the street, wouldn't I have told you?'
'I suppose.
'This was the same sort of thing. I told him after I started posing for you. I said I'd met you, and I was working with you, and then I asked him what he thought.,' 'What did he say?'
'He was interested. He asked a lot of questions. He said he knew your work and that you were good. Now that I think of it, he seemed a little jealous too, maybe because he's always going up to girls, trying to get them to pose, and there I was telling him how I'd chased after you, taken off my clothes voluntarily for you. Really, Geoffrey, talk about light bulbs going off in people's brains! That must have been when one went off in his. You saw what kind of creep he is. A born schemer.
Later, when I told him you and I were getting into something serious-that's when he must have smelled an opportunity. He thought he could set you up to take the rap for him, just in case things went wrong.'
'And he never told you about that little scheme?'
'Why would he? It was his insurance protection plan. He never told me about it because he knew I'd be furious. That I'd cancel everything.
And then where the hell would he have been?' She stared at me, eyes big and innocent.
'Well?'
'Well')'
'Makes sense, doesn't it? For his own reasons, Geoffrey. His own purposes. Can't you see-I had no motive to help him set you up. I stared at her.
'Oh, boy, you're good,' I said.
At Land's End Village by the shrimp docks and tacky stores, we paused beside the Turtle Krawls, pools where sea turtles were kept in the days wh – en Key West supplied turtle meat to the nation. Now the main holding pen has been turned into an old-age home for reptiles., A few ancient inhabitants paddled about listlessly near the bottom.
Kim pointed to a restaurant behind.
'I waitress over there.'
I turned, saw a sprawling low-roofed building with a glassed-in terrace set beside the water. it was long past the lunch hour but there were still cars parked in front. i,d heard of the place.
'I hear it's good,' I said.
'Wouldn't it have been a hoot if you'd wandered in, and I'd been assigned to be your waitress?'
'Most definitely a hoot,' I answered sourly.
She looked at'her watch. shift starts at five. I want to stay with you, clear things up. I'm going in now to find someone to cover for me tonight.'
I nodded, watched her disappear into the restaurant, then turned back to the Krawls. A fortyish woman with the bright eyes of a true believer was showering the turtles with hunks of squid. I peered down into the mossygreen water, saw one old monster attack a mass of tentacles with his jaws.
I thought about Kim. was she lying? Fifty-fifty, I thought. But I hoped she was telling me the truth. After Kim arranged things at the restaurant, we walked into Old Town. She took my arm as she talked:
'Rakoubian came to me. That's how it started. He knew Shadow and I were broken up over Sonya, but he ew I wanted approached me alone because, he said, he kn vengeance. He said he could see that in my eyes.
' 'So what makes you such a big expert on my eyes?'
' I asked him.
' 'Years of experience. I'm a photographer, dearie. Girls your age, they're my stock-in-trade. I know girls and I know their eyes and I know vengeful eyes when I see them. And yours are vengeful. Am I right?' 'He was right. I did want vengeance. He smelled that out. He knew my type, So he said: 'Help me get pictures Of this guy and you'll get your vengeance.' And since that didn't seem like such a bad idea, I agreed.
'We talked. After a while we got onto the subject of money. The Masked Man was rich-that much was obvious. He was a rich old man. 'Just the kind of man,' Rakoubian said, 'who can get away with murder.' 'I asked Adam what he meant. He said, you know, the usual stuff: the rich don't go to jail, they can afford the kind of lawyers who keep you out. they pay off the judge, or bribe the jury, or get a mistrial, whatever-he doubted even if we managed to get pictures, they'd amount to very much. Because what then, really, would we have? Just some pictures of some rich old guy putting on a mask. Big deal! So what?
Who would care? And how would that tie him to a murder? Guys like the Masked Man, Adam said, they always get away with it.
'But then he became expansive. He said he had an idea. He asked me if it wouldn't be a much sweeter revenge if we used such photos, assuming he'd be able to take them, to make the Masked Man pay.
' 'See,' he said, 'that's what it's all about. In the end it's always money. That's the real revenge, dearie, because that's where it hurts them. The pocketbook-that's where they feel the pinch. Look, nothing's going to bring Sonya back. But we can hurt the guy for wasting her.
What we have to do is get our pictures, then threaten him with exposure.
Tell him we're going to turn him over to the cops. Unless he pays us a million bucks.' 'That's when the whole notion of blackmail first came up. And I liked it. I admit that, Geoffrey. I liked it very much. It appealed to me on all sorts of different levels. Yeah, I liked it. And Rakoubian could see I did. He had me figured right, didn't he? I was a tough little bitch. And he knew it. Yeah, he could see it in my eyes…
We wandered up and down Caroline, Eaton and Fleming streets and then through various lanes: Weaver, Finder, Love and Locust. As we walked the houses brooded over us; the sky began to darken, the great palms shivered and cast longer shadows. On one block we passed a porch where a parrot was tethered to a perch. It screeched at us: 'Hi! Fucky-Ducky!
Hi!' And then the crazy little bird cackled like a madman in the dusk.
'What's your name?' I asked her.
She looked at me.
'You know my goddamn name.'
'Yeah, I know your 'goddamn name.' It's your real name I want.'
'Is it so important?'
'to me it is.'
'What does 'real' mean?'
'Come off it, Kim. This isn't philosophy class.'
'You know I'm no philosopher, Geoffrey. You know I'm just a blackmailing little bitch.'
I stopped and peered at her.
'Is that how you define yourself?'
'That's how you define me now, isn't it?'
'Maybe,' I said.
'But I want to know more. Your name, who your parents are, where you went to school, your past. I want to know all that. And I want to hear it straight.'
