'Okay, it's a gun. It really shoots. Two shots. Twentytwo caliber.
But this is not an offensive weapon.'
'It's such a cliche, Frank. I mean, Jesus! the gun hidden in the camera, It's like a cheap spy novel or something. '
'You think this is like a cheap spy novel-is that what you think?'
'Don't act insulted.'
'I am insulted. I was up half the night putting this together, to accommodate your delicate sensibilities.'
I shook my head.
'Yeah, yeah, I know-no weapons. You only carry a camera. So when you went to see Rakoubian, planning to clobber him, you took along your old Nikon to do it with. Tell me something: What's the difference between using a camera as brass knuckles and using a camera as a gun?'
'You're shaming me, Frank.'
'Good. That's what I want to do.'
I looked at him and then I remembered Kim's advice, to let danger and the possibility of violence excite me, to go with it rather than resist.
'Okay, Frank,' I said, 'why don't you show me how it works.
He opened the back and showed me the mechanism. He'd chopped down the handle of a single-action Beretta semi so it could only take a two-bullet magazine. He'd installed the gun in the shaft of a 90mm.
Leitz Elmarit lens, whose diaphragm closed to the very edges of the barrel opening. A piece of molded plastic, easily pierced by a fired bullet, acted as the concealing front 'lens' element.
It was a clever little toy, especially the way the depth of field lever acted as the cocking mechanism and 'trigger.' I hung it around my neck beside my own Leica. The two camera bodies were indistinguishable. 'You start carrying this as a second camera. You're an old photojournalist-nothing odd about that. You usually use a @5mm. lens, so carrying a second camera with a 90 is only logical.'
'I wouldn't want to get the two mixed up.'
'You won't,' he assured me.
'When you raise the gun-camera you can't see anything through the finder. But notice the little notch at the front of the accessory shoe.
That's your sight. When you fire, don't hold the camera too close-it'll kick a little and you don't want to damage that million-dollar eye.'
I tried out the sight.
'See-ms simple enough.'
'It is. Just aim and fire. There won't be much recoil. The gun's fixed inside the body with a small version of a Ransom rest. That holds it in place and allows for recoil and muzzle lift. The springing's set so the barrel's brought back into alignment for the second shot.'
'Is it loaded?'
'Not yet.' He opened it up again and showed me how to load it.
'If and when you fire it, you'll be amazed at how quiet it is. There's steel-wool packing between the gun barrel and the lens shaft, with just a little room left in the back for the first ejected shell. There'll probably be more noise when the bullet hits than from the powder explosion. '
He watched as I played with it.
'Well?' he asked.
'Well, what?'
'Still think it's corny?'
'Of course it's corny. It's also Pretty goddamn ingenious.' it!'
'Will you carry
I'll think about it.'
'Fine. You do that, Geof. Remember, you only use this up close, eight feet or less, and you only use it if you have to. It's awkward to fire.
It's not very accurate. It won't knock anyone down or blow anyone away.
But you can put a bullet into a person, and a bullet in the body isn't a treat. It's a last-ditch defensive weapon. People kin pictures. So, for all its are used to seeing you ta 9 draWhacks, it'll give you one not inconsiderable advantage -the element of surprise.'
He started up the car, pulled out of the lot, and drove me to the airport.
'I'd like you to carry this when you go after Darling, in case he tries anything, and because I think carrying it will help your confidence. But that's up to you. Naturally, you can't carry it past airport security, so if you decide to take it with you, you'll have to stash it in your check-through I ies for carrying a concealed weapon 'There're big=,' in New York.'
'The biggest penalty I know of is death.'
'What happens if I'm caught with it?'
'Plead innocence. You didn't know'you had it. Your -gun freak out in buddy gave it to you, this crazy camera New Mexico. Don't worry-I'll back you up.'
I knew he would too. But still I hesitated.
'After a while you'll get used to it. Your camera and your gun-camera@they'll both be standard equipment. it'll b-e just like your credit card, Geof-you won't want to go anyplace without it.' d it at a taxi I held the thing up to my eye again, aime just ahead. It had a nice feel, a nice weight. it would make a good souvenir when we were finished.
I told him to pull over,. and, as he watched I smiling, I wrapped the gun-camera in my dirty laundry and stuffed it in a bottom corner of my bag. s the middle of September, two and a half weeks It wa since I was last in New York, but the city was still as hot and damp as it had been the day I left for Miami. I taxied from the airport to the Howard Johnson Hotel on Eighth Avenue and Fifty-first Street.
We'd chosen the place because it was middle-class and nondescript, full of large in and out, the kind of place where they groups moving aon't remember you at the desk, where they don't even look you in the eye.
I found the house phone, asked the operator to connect me to Mrs. Lynch.
'Hello?'
'Mrs. Lynch? This is Mr. Lynch.'
A pause, then a throaty 'Well, hello there, Mr. Lynch.'
'May I come up?'
'I would surely love it if you would, Mr. Lynch.'
She was waiting for me on the bed, naked and spread-eagled, surrounded by a scent of lemon and musk.
'Geoffrey, Geoffrey! Come do me. Quick…
I tore off my clothes.
'Hurry,' she said. Her arms, above her head, gripped the top of the headboard. As I lowered myself upon her she arched her back.
'Yes, Geoffrey! God! Yes!'
We took showers after we made love, then sat in easy chairs and gazed at each other. Then I called Frank at his studio in Santa Fe, told him we'd arrived and were together. Then we got dressed, went out and walked. I told her she looked great in her big-city clothes, with her Florida tan and her bleached-out hair. She said I looked pretty good myself.
'Weathered, kind of like a cowpoke,' she said.
We walked down Eighth toward Forty-second. It was dusk and the whores were just coming out. The crack dealers had been out for hours.
'Great to be back,' she said.
'Feels like I've got this city by the hairs.'
'The way you've got me, Kim?'
'The way we've got Darling,' she corrected me. She smiled.
'We're going to be rich, Geoffrey. Rich!'
