William Bayer - Blind Side

"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."

"Will you carry it!"

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."

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.

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!"

We had a feijoada complete in a Brazilian restaurantnightclub on West Forty-fifth. I ordered champagne, and after we ate we danced a few sets. She felt good in my arms.

"to getting even," she said, toasting me with her glass.

"And to money," she added.

"This time it's going to work. I know it. . . ."

At eleven o'clock we split up. She went back to our room to call Mrs. Z, while I went downtown to collect my mail.

I hesitated outside my building. Nassau Street at that hour was as deserted as it should have been, and I didn't notice anyone lingering about. I emptied my mailbox, stuffed to its top, then rode up in the elevator. Upstairs I checked around my door. The ruined paint from the lye attack was prominently visible, but the door itself looked to be intact.

When I opened up, there were two slips of paper lying on the floor. Messages from Scotto: "Urgent I talk to you. Call me when you get back." and "Still waiting to hear from you!" I crumpled them up, locked the door behind me, then rewound my answering machine. I dumped my mail on my desk, and, as I listened to my messages, started to sort it, throwing away the junk.

In my wastebasket there were remnants of the Chinese carryout dinner I'd eaten just before I'd gone to see Rakoubian. The bag was swarming with roaches. I carried it to the hall and dumped it down the compactor chute.

My phone messages weren't all that interesting. One from my gallery, another from a collector who wanted to buy a print of my PietA. Nothing, thank God, from the goon who'd threatened me before. But there were four messages from Scott@the first two pleaded, the third was slightly irritable, and the last, left two days before, expressed considerable anger that I hadn't called.

I was deep into my mail, sorting the -bills, when my telephone rang. The sound startled me. I switched on my machine to screen the call. It was Scotto, and the first words he said were: "I know you're there. Pick up."

I hesitated.

"Pick up, goddamnit!" He sounded mean.

I picked up.

"Hi, Sal," I said. "Just got in."

"I know."

"How do you know?"

"Guy works for me saw the light go on."

"You've got my place watched? What the hell's going on?"

"A murder investigation's going on. When're you going to stop playing dumb?"

Okay," I said.

"Now, why don't you cool down?"

"I mean it, Geof-Aon't mess with me. I'll be there in half an hour. Buzz me in."

I considered calling Frank for advice, but he'd warned me not to call him from the loft. Kim was only to make her initial calls from our motel; after that we were to use public phones. Well, I thought, maybe it's better this way, since I have to deal with Scotto anyhow. But he sounded pissed off, which made me wonder if there'd been developments and if I was in some kind of trouble.

It was over an hour before he showed up, and when he did he came on like a bully.

"Where have you been?" he snapped.

"I don't think I have to answer that." He glared at me.

All right, I've been hiding out."

"Someplace pretty nice, looks like to me. Nice dark tan you got.

"What's the trouble, Sal?"

"I already told you."

"You told me there's a murder investigation. I already knew about that."

"Dave Ramos wants to go to the D.A., have you designated a material witness."

"Which means?"

"You go before the grand jury. Then you talk or else."

"Fine. I'd like to talk. I'll tell them what I told you: my girlfriend's missing since the night her roOMmate's murdered. In the meantime my life's threatened, and someone throws lye at my eyes. When the investigating officers refuse me protection, I feel I have a right to leave town and hide o-ut."