'You said Darling and Mrs. Z 'have to pay.
She laughed.
'Pay money, of course.'
'Would that really do it for you?'
'it would be reparation.'
'Doe s money repair?'
'Of course not, but it can help.' She gazed at me.
'If a person feels injured and sues for damages and wins and is paid, that helps to even up the score. That's why people looking for equity always ask for money.'
'You sound like a lawyer.'
'I'd have made a good one. I have a lot of indignation. I think you've noticed that.'
'So you want Darling to pay us a million dollars?'
'That wouldn't be so bad now, would it?' She smiled.
Later at the beach, as she was oiling my back, I brought up the subject again.
'Why would he pay this time, when he refused before?'
'Because of Shadow. The case against him is stronger now. '
'But he's made it clear he won't pay. That's what Rakoubian said.'
'Rakoubian's stupid. He doesn't understand. Of course he'll pay if he's got no alternative.'
The way she was sitting on me, rubbing in the oil, reminded me of the massage I'd gotten from Grace. I liked the feel of her weight on my body. Suddenly I felt aroused.
'We'd have to do it differently this time,' I said.
'Yes, we'd have to be much more clever. And now that we know where Mrs.
Z stands, we wouldn't be falling into any traps,'
'What about that affidavit you signed?'
She played her fingers on my neck.
'Who cares? It confirms my story. I signed it under duress. It was a fake anyway, just a way to make me think they'd let me go.'
'Blackmail isn't all that easy, Kim. Sooner or later you have to show to collect your money.'
'Between the two of us, Geoffrey, with all our brains, I'm sure we can figure out a way.'
I turned, looked up at her.
'Then what happens? What's to prevent them from killing us afterwards?'
'The same thing that kept them from killing us in the first place.'
'What's that?'
'The photographs.' turned my head back to the sand.
'We wouldn't turn them over-is that what you're saying?'
'I wouldn't, would you? But even if we did, we'd keep back copies. they know that. Mrs. Z said as much.'
'In that case, what would they be paying for?'
'Silence.
'You've thought this through.'
'I've spent a-month thinking about it.' She bent forward, lay her face against my back, kissed my spine.
'Do you think it can be done, 'Geoffrey? You know, done properly?'
The next two days, while I tortured myself over the problem, she acted as if she didn't have a care. It was as if, having transferred the burden to me, she finally felt she could relax.
We went about our routine, swimming and snorkeling in the mornings, then she would go to work, and I would walk around taking pictures and feeling agonized.
Though we spoke of many different things during our times together, our brief exchanges about the blackmail ran through our conversations like a thread:
'What do we do about Rakoubian?' I asked her. We were lying in bed in my motel. She was fondling me through my clothes.
'Ignore him.'
'What if he wants a cut?'
'He gave up his right when he chickened out. Jesusl Why worry about him?' She stroked my cock.
'Now, here's something worth discussing,' she said.
Afterwards, resting together, my hands cupping her breasts, I asked her what I should say to Scotto.
'Tell him anything you want.'
'I suppose we could take their money, then turn the pictures over to him anyway.'
'Totally impractical. We'd have to give the money back.' She crawled onto me and began to lay a line of passionate kisses across my stomach.
'But, God, Geof frey, I love you just for thinking of a thing like that!'
'Is the money really so important?' I asked her, as we dressed to go out to eat.
'It's the idea of making them hurt that's best. But the money helps, doesn't it? I mean it kind of softens the thing. It's like, I don't know'@she put her arms around me-'like getting a reward.'
We spoke about it as we took a shower crowded together in my tiny motel shower stall. She was slowly soaping my back.
'If we do blackmail them, and they do pay us, and we get away with it-then what do we do?'
'My goodness, Geoffrey, what do you think?' She stopped soaping me, 'We live high off the hog, on easy street…
'How dangerous is Mrs. Z compared to Darling?' I asked her. It was early in the morning. We were jogging along Roosevelt, on the northern curve where the houseboats are tied up.
She squinted. Her T-shirt was soaked through. Her forehead was flushed.
'She may be even more dangerous,' she said.
'Why?' I was panting,
'Because it's new to her. Because she's just discovering it. Because it's not clear yet just how far she'll go.'
'She's already been party to two murders. How much further can she go?'
'I'm not sure, but I think there's always another level. The pit's always bottomless, don't you think?' She ran ahead.
'Race you to the end,' she yelled. I chased after her, but failed to catch up.
Perhaps she, was right, the pit is bottomless, for I was then in a kind of pit myself. Art photographer turning blackmailer: that was the route I was on.
And, strangely, it seemed appropriate, as if photography, this fine and moral art I practiced, somehow led naturally to blackmail. There was a tradition to it-perhaps a thousand stories had been written in which people who possessed incriminating or disgracing photographs demanded payment from those who could be incriminated or disgraced. Blackmail, it seemed, had been an ignoble offshoot of the trade, ever since the invention of the camera.
That night, after dinner, as Kimberly and I walked through the quiet sweet-smelling streets of Old Town, I told her I'd come to a decision.
'Yes, Geoffrey?' I could feel her tension as she took my arm.
'I want to bring in my friend Frank Cordero, the one who lives in New Mexico.'
I felt her grip tighten.
'Tell me why.'
'I don't think we can do this without him.'
'Tell me about him. How did you meet?'
'We met in Vietnam,' I said.
'He was a lieutenant, Special Forces A-team commander. One night, when I was staying at his camp, we got to talking about photography. He was an amateur, modest about his work, but serious-he even had a darkroom set up out there in the bush. After we talked awhile he asked if I'd critique his pictures. I said Sure, thinking that was the least I could do. So then he brings out the most extraordinary stuffpictures so sensitive that at first I didn't
