'I'm just starting to get used to the idea.'
'I saw your show over at the Emerson Gallery, it's dynamite. But all the color here--why aren't you into color?'
'I don't know how to use it. I feel safer with black and white.'
'You selling anything?'
'A few more street shots than portraits.'
'Well, what do they know. Right? Fuck 'em. You have to do what you do.'
'You have to get mad?'
'If it helps. Why not? It's good to be hungry, too. You do better work.'
She had a healthy build, tan arms, traces of dark hair. She would go about one-twenty, LaBrava judged; not the least bit drawn, no haunted, hungry-artist look about her. Gold chain. Rings. The white blouse was simple and could be expensive. But you never knew. He said, 'You want some lunch? We can go across the street, the Cardozo. They got a nice conch salad, good bread.'
'I know, I've seen you over there. No, first I have to see about new digs. I'm not going back to that fucking cell I've been living in. You have to go in sideways.'
LaBrava looked up at the sound of the elevator cables engaging, the electric motor whining. He said, 'You may be in luck,' staring across the lobby at the elevator door, a gold sunburst relief. The door opened and he said, 'You are. That's the manager.'
Maurice said, even before reaching the desk, 'Where the prints? They didn't come out, did they? What'd I tell you last night? I said stop it down.'
'I've got an idea,' LaBrava said. 'Why don't you take care of this young lady--she's looking for a respectable place, no roaches, no noise--and I'll go see about the negatives I got hanging in the dryer.'
'How they look?'
'Just tell me if you want 'em printed soft or crisp.'
'I want 'em now is what I want. While she's still hung-over, ashamed, kicking herself.'
LaBrava said to the girl, 'Did I tell you he was a sweet old guy?'
'You didn't have to,' the girl said, smiling at Maurice. 'Mr. Zola, it's a pleasure. I'm Franny Kaufman.'
A pair of dull amber safelights recessed in the ceiling gave the darkroom form, indicated shapes, but nothing more. LaBrava hit the negative with a squirt of Dust Chaser, slipped it into the enlarger and paused. He added a yellow filter, feeling sympathy for the woman upstairs in 304, Maurice's guest suite. The exposure was timed for twelve seconds.
He moved to the long section of the L-shaped stainless steel sink, dropped the exposed eight-by-ten sheet into the first of three trays.
An image began to appear, lights and darks, the curve of a woman's shoulder, arm touching the lower part of her face. He had not seen her clearly through the viewfinder; only a glimpse in that part of a moment as the flash exploded. He didn't know what she looked like and was intrigued now, the way he had been curious about her in the car last night.
LaBrava lifted the print from the solution, dipped it into the second tray, the stop bath, drew it through and placed it face up in the third tray, in the clear liquid of the fix solution. He leaned his arms on the narrow edge of the sink, low and uncomfortable, hunched over to study the face, the eyes staring at him through water and amber darkness.
Someone he had seen before.
But he wasn't sure. It might be the look, an expression he recognized. He couldn't see her features clearly.
He lifted the print from the tray, staring as water ran from it, dripped from it, became single drops in the silence, and he was aware of a curious feeling: wanting to turn on the light and see the woman's face, but hesitant, cautious, on the verge of discovery and wanting the suspense of these moments to last a while longer. Then thought of a way.
He set the eight-by-ten aside and printed the second and third exposures of the woman's arm and face against the mattress, this time without the softening effect of the yellow filter, and ran them through the baths. When there were three images, three pairs of eyes set in pale white staring at him from the counter top, he walked to the door, turned on the light and walked back...
He stopped and could do nothing but stare at the familiar gaze, knowing why darkness, before, had given him a feeling of recognition.
Because he had seen her only in the dark. Had watched her, how many times, in the black and white dark of movie theaters, up on the screen.
Jean Shaw.
Dark hair parted in the middle, the awareness in her eyes even half awake. Why hadn't he thought of her in the car yesterday? He had seen her for a moment in his mind, without a name, and by then they were looking for Northeast Fourth Street.
She had changed. Well, yeah, in twenty-five years people changed, everybody changed. She hadn't changed that much though. The hair maybe, the way it was styled. But she was pale in black and white as she had been on the screen and the eyes--he would never forget her eyes.
Jean Shaw. Upstairs, right now.
The movie star he had fallen in love with the first time he had ever fallen in love in his life, when he was twelve years old.
Chapter 5
CUNNO REY SAID TO NOBLES, 'Let me ask you something, okay? You ever see a snake eat a bat? Here is a wing sticking out of the snake's mouth, the wing, it's still moving, this little movement like is trying to fly. The snake, he don't care. You know why? Because the other end of the bat is down in the snake turning to juice, man. Sure, the snake, he don't even have to move, just lay there and keep swallowing as long as it takes. He don't even have to chew,' Cundo Rey said, watching Richard Nobles eating his Big Mac and poking fries in his mouth a few at a time, dipped in ketchup. 'Mmmmmmm, nice juicy bat.'
They were in the McDonald's on Federal Highway, Delray Beach, the place crowded with local people having lunch. Nobles had on his two-tone-blue Star Security uniform, but not the hat. Here he was from a family whose men spent their lives outdoors and wore their, hats in the house and he hated 'em. No, he liked to leave his golden hair free and run his fingers through it from time to time. Give it a casual look.
He said, mouth full of hamburger, 'I ate a snake. I've ate a few different kinds. You flour 'em, deep-fry 'em in some Crisco so the meat crackles, they're pretty good. But I never ate a bat. Time you skin it what would you have?'
There--if the Cuban was trying to make him sick he was wasting his time. If the Cuban had something else in mind and was leading up to it, Nobles did not see it yet.
Ah, but then the Cuban said, drinking his coffee, not eating anything, 'You understand what I'm saying to you?'
So, he would be making his point now. Fucking Cuban hotshot with his wavy hair and little gold ring in his ear. Cundo Rey was the first nigger Richard Nobles had ever seen with long wavy hair. It was parted on the right side and slanted down across his forehead over his left eye. The hair and his gold chains and silk shirts gave Cundo Rey his hot-shit Caribbean look. The way they had met last summer, ten months ago:
Nobles was making night rounds in the company Plymouth with the official Star Security stars on the doors-- cruising past shopping malls and supermarkets, shining the spot into dark areas of parking lots, dying to see some suspicious dark-skinned character in his beam so he could go beat on him--came to the Chevy dealership out Glade Road and got out of the car. It was one of the places he had to go inside, turn off the alarm with a shunt key they gave him, and look around. This night when he came out there was this dinge standing by the Plymouth. The dinge goes, 'What about you leave the door open, sir, so I can get my car keys?' Telling Nobles he was supposed to pick up his car in for the free five thousand mile checkup before the place closed but didn't make it. See, all he needed
