Kath Naguchi made a slight face but she didn't bother to look up. She was sitting in one corner of the room in front of a complicated-looking piece of machinery which I recognized from my Death in Drydock movie days as a flatbed editing table with a small viewing screen and numerous levers, knobs, and digital readouts. Three separate reels of film were loaded on the table. A long snarl of film rested in her lap and trailed across the floor under and behind her chair. The edge of the table was lined with a fringe of cut pieces of film. Trims, they call them in movie lingo.
'Watch where you step,' she ordered sharply. 'I'll be through here in a minute.'
We waited patiently while she rewound the tangled film in her lap and hung the trims on clips over the trim bin at her elbow. She worked quickly and silently, with such total concentration that she could just as well have been alone. Only when she was completely finished did she light another cigarette, pick up her cup of coffee, and turn to face us.
'So you guys want to see the Masters Plaza film, do you?' she drawled.
'Yes, that's right.' I answered for all of us. 'The whole series of frames both before and after the one that was in the paper.'
She shrugged. 'Okay. No problem. Wait here.'
Heaving her massive frame out of the chair, she huffed out of the room with the cigarette in hand. She was gone several minutes. When she returned, she was carrying another reel of film under her arm, a full coffee cup in one hand, and the cigarette in the other.
Effortlessly she cued up the film. 'I think it's pretty close to the beginning of this one,' she said. 'I'll just run it.'
We watched in fascination on the viewing screen while the building seemed to grow, floor by floor, before our eyes. The four-minute intervals between shots gave the movement of cranes and other machinery a jerky, fast- forward look, while shadows marching across the screen showed the rise and set of the sun. Five or six days must have flashed by like that before Kath Naguchi stopped the film.
'Here it is,' she said.
At first all I could see was the building. Squinting, I moved forward until I was leaning directly over Kath Naguchi's ample shoulder. At that distance, I could see Angie Dixon-barely. She was hardly more than a pin-sized figure on the gray face of the building.
'Are you sure this is it?' Kramer asked. 'The picture in the paper was lots closer than this.'
'I can make it bigger,' Kath Naguchi said. 'But not here. This table is just for mixing. The blowup was done from a zoom shot we did down at Cine-tron.'
'Where's that?' Kramer asked impatiently.
'Just up the street.'
Kramer seemed to be antagonizing her, so I stepped in with the voice of sweet reason. 'Could we go there? This might be very important.'
'Maybe. It depends on whether or not the equipment is free. I don't usually schedule it until late at night.'
'Would it be possible for you to check?' I asked.
'All right,' Kath Naguchi agreed reluctantly. She wasn't going to offer anything on her own. We'd have to coax her every step of the way.
She picked up the phone and dialed a number. 'This is Kath,' she announced flatly into the phone. 'Are you all booked up at the moment or could I come over and use the machine for a few minutes.' She paused. 'They're due at four o'clock? We should be done long before then. See you in a few minutes.'
Without a word, she unwound the film and lurched out of the chair. She swept out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the building, leaving us to follow. She walked at a surprisingly rapid pace back up Second to Bell and then down to First Avenue where she led us into a derelict-looking building.
Derelict on the outside only. Inside, the reception area was comfortably if not lavishly furnished. Kath waved briefly at the receptionist then led us through an open door into another dimly lit room, one half of which was filled with a huge console complete with knobs, dials, buttons, and monitors, several showing wave forms only. The centerpiece was a massive television screen.
A man was seated on a high stool in front of the console. He turned as we entered. He too was holding a coffee cup in one hand and a cigarette in the other. They must be film-editor occupational hazards.
'Hi, Jack,' Kath Naguchi said. 'Thanks for working us in.'
'What's up?' Jack asked. 'It sounded pretty urgent on the phone.'
Kath handed him a videotape. 'These gentlemen are interested in seeing some of this. It's the Masters Plaza tape.'
Jack looked at us questioningly, but Kath Naguchi offered no introductions, and we didn't volunteer any of our own.
He shrugged. 'Okay. If you say so. It's not a freebie, though. It's gonna cost you.'
'You guys are paying?'
I nodded.
Jack got up and headed into another small room that opened off the one we were in. As the door swung open, I felt the cool rush of air-conditioning and glimpsed several stacks of humming electronic equipment that filled the room with a low-pitched semi-silence.
'Have a seat while we get set up,' Kath ordered before she disappeared into the other room behind Jack.
Looking behind me I discovered a raised platform with two short love seats on it, love seats with ashtrays on or near all available flat surfaces. We sat waiting until Kath and Jack emerged from the other room.
For some reason I had expected Kath would be the one actually running the film, but Jack resumed his seat on the stool while Kath stood at his side. Paul Kramer had evidently been under the same impression.
'You mean you're not going to run it?' he asked.
Kath Naguchi laughed, a hoot that was half chuckle and half smoker's rattling cough. 'Are you kidding? Nobody touches this baby but the master or one of his authorized disciples.'
Jack laughed at that. 'Where is it, Kath?' he asked.
'About six minutes in,' she told him.
Jack twirled knobs this way and that, adjusting for light and color. At last he was satisfied. 'This should be pretty close,' he said.
Once more shadows raced across the screen, showing the passage of a day until the same frame was again frozen on the screen. Once more Angie Dixon, a tiny pin of a figure near the bottom right-hand corner of the picture, was an ungainly bird caught in a deadly free-fall toward the sidewalk far below. I tried not to think about that.
'Zoom in on the lower left-hand corner,' Kath ordered.
'Like this?'
The figure of Angie Dixon grew larger. 'Again,' Kath said. Twice more the process was repeated. Each time Angie Dixon grew larger, and each time there was a pause while Jack adjusted the light and colors. As soon as he did it the third time, I recognized the picture that had been in the paper.
'Again?' Jack asked.
Kath nodded.
Once more the process was repeated. Now Angie Dixon filled the entire screen. At that level, there was some fuzzing of the picture, but not enough to disguise the look of horror on the woman's face as she plummeted to earth. Sickened, I turned away. I live with death far too much to want to see a detailed portrait of it in living color.
'Isn't that what you wanted?' Kath asked with as much emotion as a saleslady selling a pair of shoes. The picture was just that to her-a picture and nothing more.
'Can you do the same thing to some of the other frames just before and just after this?'
'Sure,' she said. 'No problem.' She turned to Jack. 'Let's try just before.'
Jack nodded and called up another frame. 'This is the one. See anything you want me to zoom in on?'
Kath moved closer to the large screen and scrutinized one corner of it intently. 'Try up here near the top,' she said.
He did. Once the adjustments had been made for light and color, it was possible to make out that there were
