William Bayer - Blind Side

It had something to do with my being a photographer, and with their not wanting to pay me money. But there was something else about that threatening phone call that bothered me profoundly. The man had phoned not a minute after the attack, and he had known the boy had missed. Which meant the boy had been told to miss. Which meant he would have hit me if he'd been ordered to. And if his hand had slipped, or if he'd lost his nerve, or if he'd just gotten his orders screwed up, I'd already be blind-that was how close I'd come.

I was awakened by pounding on the door. I checked my watch. It was 8:00 A.M. I had a fierce headache. Rubbing my eyes, I suddenly remembered the lye attack.

"Open up, Geoffrey. It's Sal Scotto." There was more furious knocking while I stumbled to the door. I peered through the peephole. It was indeed Scotto and Ramos. My two favorite detectives.

"Go away," I said.

"We ain't going away. We're here about the assault."

"What difference does it make," I said.

"Ramos doesn't believe anything I say."

"Come on, Barnett. Open up." Ramos's eyes were serious. I opened the door.

"Excuse the underwear," I said. "I wasn't expecting visitors."

"We're not visitors. We're detectives," Ramos said. I motioned them in.

"Regular Kojak, are you, Ramos?"

"What's with this guy, Sal? Why's he so fuckin' hostile?"

"Why shouldn't I be hostile?" I said. "I already know what you're going to say."

"Read minds, do you? What am I going to say?"

"That I threw the lye at myself."

"Funny, that's just what I was thinking. Since not a drop got on you, wise guy."

"Hey! I've had it!" I said to Scotto.

"Somebody wants to call me 'pigshit' over the phone, nothing I can do. But I don't have to take insults from cops."

Scotto looked sternly at his partner.

"Why don't you lay off him, Dave." He turned to me.

"He's a good detective. "

"And I'm a good citizen," I said.

"I'm also a good photographer. Someone's doing a number on me. I nearly got blinded last night. The reason the lye didn't touch me was because it was a warning. All of which I told the cops. So why don't you read their report? Meanwhile I'm going to take a shower."

I took my time cleaning up and getting dressed. When I came back out they were waiting for me, ensconced in the chairs they'd used the day before.

"We're going to be checking out that super like you suggested," Scotto said.

"We don't think it'll take us anywhere, but we'll do it to show good faith."

I started feeling better.

"I appreciate that," I said. "What about Mrs. Z?"

"You actually think there's someone called 'Mrs. Z'?"

"No," I said, "but maybe someone whose name begins with a Z. See, if it were just some woman and Kim didn't know her name, I'd think her natural instinct would be to call her 'Mrs. X.'

'Very shrewd," Ramos said.

"If she really runs an escort service, it shouldn't be too hard to track her down."

"All right," Ramos said.

"We'll look into that."

I nodded to him, and he nodded stiffly back. I gathered we were starting afresh.

"What else?"

"I'd like protection."

"You mean round-the-clock bodyguards like we give the Mayor?" He laughed.

"Forget it."

"What about tracing my calls?"

"Unlikely to work and difficult to do. But you can buy yourself a phone tape device. If he calls again, you tape his voice. That way you got evidence when and if he's caught. "

"Sure, why not?" I said.

"Three hundred bucks for a bar lock. Another hundred or so for an on-the-line tape machine."

"What did he say exactly?"

I told them, then told them what I thought it meant.

That for some reason I'd been confused with another photographer. A photographer who was trying to hold up some people for money.

"And who is this 'other photographer'?" Ramos asked I showed him my composite of the Pentax man.

"Maybe him," I said. "I'm trying to find out who he is." Ramos nodded.

"When you do, let us know."

"Yeah, I'll do that," I said.

There was a pause, and then Ramos leaned forward, as if there was something important he wanted to say.

"Look, Barnett, you and I, we got off on the wrong foot. But the thing you got to understand, I've worked a lot of homicide investigations, and there wasn't one of them there wasn't some trouble with the photographs. The angle the depth, the perspective, whatever-the photographs were always off. So I've learned something: photographs lie; diagrams tell the truth. So, maybe, I saw you were a photographer, I took it out on you. I apologize." I was touched. He was sincere.

"It takes a big man to apologize."

He nodded, we shook hands, then they got up to leave.

Sal stopped me at the door.

"No question you got yourself a problem, Geoffrey. Throwing lye-that isn't funny. Dave and me, we're agreed-we're going to try and help you best we can. But understand: we're working on the Devereux homicide. We don't know if your stuff is connected yet."

After they left I thought about what I ought to do. Usually, when I'm feeling bad, I go out and take pictures the concentration usually straightens out my brain. But now I hesitated. My caller had warned me I might get blinded while shooting on the street.

I'd been a tough guy once. In my photojournalist days I hadn't been afraid of anything. So maybe, I thought, becoming an artist has turned me into a wimp. I considered that awhile and decided that if I wanted to I could be just as tough as I'd ever been.

I spent the afternoon clearing papers off my desk. I owed letters to several friends, there were gallery invoices to send, and lab and other bills to pay.

08/7 07:55 AM Cleveland OH 216 734-3684 14.0 3.44 The phone charge didn't register as unusual when I first saw it on my long-distance bill. It was listed right after a call I'd made to Frank Cordero a couple of days before. But then I took a second look, and then it hit me: At 7:55 A.M., on Sunday, August 7, someone had used my phone to call Cleveland.

The call had lasted fourteen minutes. Kim claimed Cleveland as her hometown. August 7 was the day she disappeared. At 7:55 I was out buying groceries for our breakfast. When I returned, Kim told me that her story about being in danger had just been an acting exercise. I was excited. Actress or not, she really had been scared. The way I put it together, even while I was sleeping she'd been planning her escape. As soon as I went out she used my phone to see if it was all right to come home. When I came back she told me her story was just a story. Then after confirming our date for brunch, she went back to her apartment, did some fast packing up, said a quick good-bye to Jess, and left. But her escape hadn't been so clean. The Cleveland number was on my phone bill. Wherever that phone was, that was where she was staying. I was positive. All I had to do was call.

Rapidly I punched out the number. Then I settled back and listened. I let it ring twenty times before I gave up. Then I called the phone company business office and complained about my bill.

"I never made this Cleveland call," I said.

"I wasn't even in town."

"It's an automated charge, sir. The call was made from your telephone."

"But I didn't make it."

"Very good sir. We'll investigate and correct your bill."

"Can you tell me whose number it is?"

"Sir, you just said you weren't home that day."

"But-"

"Sir, if you weren't home you will not be charged for the call."

"Could you at least give me the address?"

"I'm sorry, sir. We cannot give out that information."

"But surely, with the reverse directory-"

"There is no public access to that directory, sir."

I tried the Cleveland number every twenty minutes. Finally, a little after six, I got an answer.