Robert Randisi - It Was a Very Bad Year

We were in the kitchen.

‘He’s got to have an office here,’ I said. ‘Maybe a darkroom in the basement.’

‘I’ll take the basement,’ Jerry said.

‘OK,’ I said, ‘I’ll snoop around up here.’

The living room was cheaply furnished; the linoleum had worn through to show the wood floor beneath it. The furniture was marked with cigarette burns, rings, scratches. I didn’t find an office or a desk on the first floor. As I got to the basement steps Jerry called up, ‘Hey, Mr G. You better get down here.’

I went down the steps, found Jerry standing among some file cabinets, trays of chemicals, and clotheslines for drying photos. There was a black light in the ceiling.

‘This is where he develops his photos,’ Jerry said. ‘And look here.’ He opened the top drawer of a file cabinet, reached inside and came out with a handful of photos. He spread them out on the table. They were all of nude, young girls who looked anywhere from sixteen to nineteen. Some of the pictures themselves were older than others.

‘The whole drawer?’ I asked.

‘Filled to the brim.’

‘Any of Abby?’

‘Not that I can see.’

‘We’ll have to go through them all,’ I said.

He shrugged and said, ‘OK with me.’

We started leafing through photos of skinny girls, full-bodied girls, tall, short, blondes, brunettes, redheads. Hundreds of photos, but none of Abby Dalton.

‘He’s got ’em,’ I said. ‘He’s got ’em with ’im.’

‘So he is gonna sell them to you tonight,’ Jerry said.

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘I’ll find out when I see him.’

‘I’ll come along.’

‘He doesn’t want you there, Jerry,’ I said. ‘If he sees you, he might not show up.’

‘He won’t see me.’

‘Look, Jerry,’ I said, ‘Danny’s gonna be inside. Irwin’s never seen him.’

‘I’ll be outside, Mr G.,’ he said. ‘Irwin won’t catch on and neither will the dick. I won’t come in unless there’s shootin’.’

‘You didn’t bring a gun with you on this trip, did you?’

‘No,’ Jerry said, ‘but I can get one.’

‘Look, Jerry, I’ll tell you what I told Danny. This guy’s a middle-aged photographer, not a hard guy. There’s not gonna be any shooting.’

‘And I’ll bet I’m tellin’ you what the dick told you,’ Jerry said. ‘You never know what kind of a guy somebody is. Sometimes, you find out too late. So it’s better to be ready.’

‘He didn’t tell me that.’

‘Well, he should’ve.’

‘He told me a simple swap is not always a simple swap.’

‘He’s right about that.’

I looked down at the photos in my hand.

‘What do we do now?’ Jerry asked.

‘I don’t think we’re gonna find any photos of Abby here,’ I said, ‘but let’s keep looking, just in case.’

‘Fine by me.’

We spent a good hour searching the whole house. We found more nudes in a bedroom closet, in a cardboard box, but they were more than nude. They were porn, showing men and women engaged in many different types and positions of sexual activity.

‘Man, that’s gotta hurt,’ Jerry said, of one photo in particular.

‘These are not just photos,’ I said. ‘They look like stills.’

‘From blue movies, you mean?’

I nodded.

‘But this isn’t what we’re interested in. Let’s put ’em back and go back downstairs.’

On the way down I said, ‘I’m thinking we missed something in his studio.’

‘Maybe he just kept the pictures of Miss Dalton all someplace else,’ Jerry said. ‘Maybe he’s really gonna give ’em all to you tonight.’

‘You believe that?’

‘No. Blackmailers are the worst. They’re never satisfied.’

‘We’ve got to satisfy this one, Jerry.’

‘I’m ready, Mr G.,’ Jerry said. ‘I love squeezin’ blackmailers.’

‘Well, let me talk to him tonight, and then we’ll see about squeezin’ him.’

‘With me outside and the dick inside, we gotcha covered.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I appreciate it.’

‘We gotta clean up here.’ We were in the basement again, the nude photos still spread out on a table. ‘Or he’ll know we was here.’

‘No,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘I want to take all these with us.’

‘All of ’em?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ I said. ‘If he’s plannin’ to blackmail anybody else, I want to throw a monkey wrench into the works.’

Jerry went back to the file drawer and looked inside.

‘We got negatives here, Mr G.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘We’ll take all the copies, and the negatives.’

‘Then he’ll really know we was here.’

‘He’ll know somebody was here,’ I said. ‘He won’t be able to prove it was us.’

‘OK,’ Jerry said. ‘You’re the boss.’

We found some brown envelopes, stuffed them full of photos and negatives, then went out the back door to the Caddy.

Jerry looked around as he got behind the wheel.

‘I don’t think anyone saw us, or the car,’ I commented.

‘Unless somebody came out of the clubs to get a blowjob behind the building.’

I looked over at the parking lots of both clubs as we pulled out. Only a few cars, probably belonging to employees.

‘I think we’re in the clear,’ I said, with more confidence than I felt.

‘Don’t worry, Mr G.,’ Jerry said. ‘Even if somebody saw the car we can just say we were lookin’ for Irwin.’

‘For over an hour?’

Jerry shrugged. ‘So we decided to wait a while to see if he came home.’

‘That sounds plausible.’

‘It’s all plausible,’ Jerry said, ‘just as long as when you lie, you stick to it.’

I walked into Clipper’s just before six. I wondered why Irwin had picked this place. One of the strip clubs near his house might have been better for him.

I saw him first, didn’t spot Danny right away, but then saw him sitting at the very end of the bar. Beyond him I could see the foyer with pay phones, and restrooms. I don’t even know how I missed him. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, with vivid yellows, oranges and reds. But I figured he must know what he was doing, because I did miss him, at first.

Clipper’s was a typical neighborhood joint, the same as in Brooklyn, LA, or Vegas. A worn bar, chafed wooden floors, the smell of booze, smoke and sweat. The locals would all turn whenever the door opened, greet regulars or stare at strangers for a few moments before turning back to their drinks.

Danny saw me, played it so relaxed he almost looked sleepy.

Irwin spotted me and jerked his head. He got up from the bar with a beer and walked to a booth. I got a beer from the bartender, and joined him. His clothes were still glaring. I mean, who ever wears white shoes? Except Pat Boone.

‘I put this on your tab,’ I told him, sitting.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said, sourly. He was wearing a short-sleeved, button-down shirt, and I could smell that he didn’t use deodorant. It was hot, but it was more sweat from nerves than from heat.

‘You got something for me?’ I asked.

He looked around the place, then raised his hand. The bartender came out from behind the bar carrying a brown envelope that looked like it had been used as a coaster.

Irwin put the envelope on the table and slid it across to me.

‘This is what you want,’ he said.

I pushed my beer aside and opened the envelope. We were out of sight in the booth so I pulled the contents out. Photos and negatives. I put the negatives back into the envelope. The photos were all eight by tens of a young Abby Dalton. They were cheesecake, mostly bathing-suit shots, all one piece, but revealing. I stuffed them back into the envelope, pushed it aside and grabbed my beer.