William Bayer - Blind Side

A little before dawn I stole out of our room, took the car, and drove down to Galisteo. The house was quiet when I drove up, so I sat in one of the deck chairs in front and waited for the sun.

It rose out of the mountains, triumphant light, burnishing Mai's sculptures turning them into images of broken dinosaurs. By the time Frank sat down beside me I was starting to wonder if things were as bad as I'd thought.

He surprised me: he already knew Mrs. Z was dead.

"Kim phoned from St. Louis, told me everything. f told her to call Darling and what to say. After she spoke with him, she called me back and we talked for quite a while. "

"About what?"

"You, mostly, Geof. I told her she had to tell you the truth. Told her if she didn't, I probably would. She said she'd think about it. Thanked me for my advice."

I looked at him. His eyes were spectral, fracturing the rising sun. "I'm frightened of her, Frank."

"She's crazy about you."

"Is that what she says?" He didn't answer.

"What the hell am I going to do?"

"Wait till this is over, then decide."

"Let's get the money first-right?"

"We're close now. You don't want to mess up the deal. "

"Two more people are dead, Frank."

"Two very bad people." He shook his head.

"Look, Geof, you didn't 'kill' Rakoubian. He was always going to get killed. As for Kim's little bonfire, if you look at it a certain way, it was a pure act, a justifiable act of revenge.

"Does that make it okay?"

"Maybe not 'okay." But human. Very human."

"You don't think she's a monster?"

"What's a monster? I don't think you have to be afraid of her, if that's what you mean."

I turned to him.

"Why wouldn't you see us yesterday? You didn't want to meet Kim. Why?"

"I'll meet her eventually."

"But not now. This idea the three of us can't be seen together-that's bullshit." He shrugged.

"Why?" He didn't answer.

"Don't you trust me, Frank?"

"Course I trust you. And now I want you to trust me. Sometimes, in this kind of an operation, it's better to keep a few things compartmentalized."

I didn't quarrel with him, but I was upset, which is why, when he urged me to stay for breakfast, I turned him down. Also, I wasn't in the mood to face Mai and the kids. Our parting was cool when I left to drive back to Santa Fe.

In our room at the Seek And Ye Shall Find, I found Kim breathing heavily, evidently asleep. When I got into bed she reached out for me, then molded herself against my flank.

I don't know how long I slept or what I dreamt about; I remember only that I was awakened by a harshly ringing phone. Groping for it, my eyes still closed, I could feel she was no longer in the bed.

"It's Frank. I'm at the studio."

I opened my eyes. Kim was gone. The room was filled with blinding light. I looked at my watch-it was almost one in the afternoon. Kim probably woke up, saw I was sleeping, then walked down to the Plaza to shop, I thought.

"What's up?" I asked Frank. "Developments. I think you should come over here."

"Developments?"

"Better get your butt over here, pal." He hung up without saying good-bye.

I splashed cold water on my face, threw on some clothes, then noticed that the keys to the rental car were gone. The car wasn't in the motel parking lot either. Kim had obviously taken it.

I walked a mile down Cerrillos to Guadalupe Street, then another half mile toward the Plaza. Traffic was heavy, the trucks spewed out fumes. A teenage girl, in a lose Alamos T-shirt, leaned out of a car window and snapped my picture with a "point 'n' shoot."

I was sweating by the time I reached Frank's gallery. And then I was annoyed-the door was locked. I knocked and peered in through the glass. No sign of Frank. And no note telling me when he'd be back.

I was about to give up when he came out of his darkroom, saw me and let me in.

"You said get over here. Then you lock me out."

"Hey! Calm yourself." He motioned me toward the darkroom.

"You're just in time to watch me print."

He hustled me inside, closed the door, shushed me when I tried to speak. He had an excellent darkroom. There were three enlargers, including a monster 8 x 10 loaned to him by Leo DeSalle. At the moment he was working with a Beseler. He had a strip of 35mm. negative locked in the negative stage. He motioned me back- ' checked his focus, set his grain magnifier aside. Then he slipped a sheet of paper into his easel and fired off an exposure.

I followed him as he removed the sheet, carried it across the room to his sink. He glanced at me, then dropped it facedown into a tray of developer. He poked it with a pair of tongs, flipped it over, and then, as he began to agitate, we both bent forward, waiting for the image to emerge.

It didn't come quickly. Frank didn't use rapid developing papers; he liked only the heaviest most silver-laden varieties. And so it was a good minute before I was able to see that the subject of his picture was Kim.

She wasn't alone. I couldn't make out the other woman. But I could see they were conferring in what looked to be a garden. As the print grew clearer I saw a numbered door in the background. It wasn't our door at the Seek And Ye Shall Find.

"When did you take this?"

"About an hour ago."

"Where?"

"A motel called the Alamo, half a mile from where you're staying, I shot it through the bushes from the other side of the pool. Rooms that border on the pool have these secluded patios in front."

I understood then why he'd avoided meeting Kimhe'd wanted to be able to watch her without being recognized.

I turned back to the print, looked closely at the second woman. Her features, tough and Slavic, were finally coming clear.

"Who is she, Geof?"

I recognized her-though I couldn't quite believe my eyes.

"That's Grace Amos."

"Yeah." Frank sighed.

"I thought so. But I needed to be sure. "

I looked at him.

"What's she doing here? What the hell's going on?"

He picked up the print, ran it through the stop bath and then into a tray of fix.

"I think something pretty bad is going on," he said.

I stayed with him while he printed out his surveillance shots, waited patiently until he developed each sheet. It was a tortuous way to find out what he'd seen, but for me, that afternoon, a slow tortuous way was best. I could have inspected all his negatives at once; I preferred to watch the situation unfold.

And unfold it did. The sequence of shots, which he'd grabbed very cleverly from a concealed position beside the motel pool, showed Kim and Grace talking, embracing, then kissing. The last shot showed them disappearing into Grace's room, arms wrapped about each other like lovers.

"Blackmail wasn't Mrs. Z's idea. And it wasn't Kim's. Grace was the brain behind everything. She had to be."

We were in Frank's Land Rover, driving south, on our way to inspect the payoff site. I was still in a daze, reeling from the darkroom, but Frank kept calling our destination "the battlefield," and, like a warrior anticipating combat, spoke in sharp clipped phrases while clenching a cheroot between his teeth.

"I even think it was Grace's idea to set you up as the 'cover photographer." She had Kim plant it with Rakoubian, and he fell for it@f course. Got to hand it to the dyke. She had a terrific plan. Get Rakoubian and Mrs. Z to do the dirty work, and you to take the blame. Get Darling to kill off Rakoubian, then have Kim kill off Mrs. Z. Not hard to figure out what they've got in store for us, once we get the money out of Darling. Get rid of us, scoop up the loot, then go off hand in hand into the sunset. Shit! It's so fucking Byzantine, Geof. Double crosses within double crosses within one enormous fucking double cross."

I stared out the window. The shrub grass was starting to redden; autumn was coming to New Mexico.