Fritz Leiber - Horrible Imaginings

‘Look here, you never modelled for a photographer in your life. You just walked in here cold.’

Well, she admitted that was more or less so.

All along through our talk I got the idea she was feeling her way, like someone in a strange place. Not that she was uncertain of herself, or of me, but just of the general situation.

‘And you think anyone can model?’ I asked her pityingly.

‘Sure,’ she said.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘a photographer can waste a dozen negatives trying to get one half-way human photo of an average woman. How many do you think he’d have to waste before he got a real catchy, glamourous pix of her?’

‘I think I could do it,’ she said.

Well, I should have kicked her out right then. Maybe I admired the cool way she stuck to her dumb little guns. Maybe I was touched by her underfed look. More likely I was feeling mean on account of the way my pix had been snubbed by everybody and I wanted to take it out on her by showing her up.

‘Okay, I’m going to put you on the spot,’ I told her. ‘I’m going to try a couple of shots of you. Understand, it’s strictly on spec. If somebody should ever want to use a photo of you, which is about one chance in two million, I’ll pay you regular rates for your time. Not otherwise.’

She gave me a smile. The first. ‘That’s swell by me,’ she said.

Well, I took three of four shots, closeups of her face since I didn’t fancy her cheap dress, and at least she stood up to my sarcasm. Then I remembered I still had the Lovelybelt stuff and I guess the meanness was still working in me because I handed her a girdle and told her to go back of the screen and get into it and she did, without getting flustered as I’d expected, and since we’d gone that far I figured we might as well shoot the beach scene to round it out, and that was that.

All this time I wasn’t feeling anything particular in one way or the other except every once in a while I’d get one of those faint dizzy flashes and wonder if there was something wrong with my stomach or if I could have been a bit careless with my chemicals. Still, you know, I think the uneasiness was in me all the while.

I tossed her a card and pencil. ‘Write your name and address and phone,’ I told her and made for the darkroom.

A little later she walked out. I didn’t call any good-byes. I was irked because she hadn’t fussed around or seemed anxious about her poses, or even thanked me, except for that one smile.

I finished developing the negatives, made some prints, glanced at them, decided they weren’t a great deal worse than Miss Leon. On an impulse I slipped them in with the pix I was going to take on the rounds next morning.

By now I’d worked long enough so I was a bit fagged and nervous, but I didn’t dare waste enough money on liquor to help that. I wasn’t very hungry. I think I went to a cheap movie.

I didn’t think of the Girl at all, except maybe to wonder faintly why in my present womanless state I hadn’t made a pass at her. She had seemed to belong to a, well, distinctly more approachable social strata than Miss Leon. But then of course there were all sorts of arguable reasons for my not doing that.

Next morning I made the rounds. My first step was Munsch’s Brewery. They were looking for a ‘Munsch Girl.’ Papa Munsch had a sort of affection for me, though he razzed my photography. He had a good natural judgement about that, too. Fifty years ago he might have been one of the shoestring boys who made Hollywood.

Right now he was out in the plant pursuing his favourite occupation. He put down the beaded can, smacked his lips, gabbled something technical to someone about hops, wiped his fat hands on the big apron he was wearing, and grabbed my thin stack of pix.

He was about half-way through, making noises with his tongue and teeth, when he came to her. I kicked myself for even having stuck her in.

‘That’s her,’ he said. ‘The photography’s not so hot, but that’s the girl.’

It was all decided. I wondered now why Papa Munsch sensed what the girl had right away, while I didn’t. I think it was because I saw her first in the flesh, if that’s the right word.

At the time I just felt faint.

‘Who is she?’ he asked.

‘One of my new models,’ I tried to make it casual.

‘Bring her out tomorrow morning,’ he told me. ‘And your stuff. We’ll photograph her here. I want to show you.’

‘Here, don’t look so sick,’ he added. ‘Have some beer.’

Well I went away telling myself it was just a fluke, so that she’d probably blow it tomorrow with her inexperience and so on.

Just the same, when I reverently laid my next stack of pix on Mr. Fitch, of Lovelybelt’s, rose-coloured blotter, I had hers on top.

Mr. Fitch went through the motions of being an art critic. He leaned over backward, squinted his eyes, waved his long fingers, and said, ‘Hmm. What do you think, Miss Willow? Here, in this light. Of course the photograph doesn’t show the bias cut. And perhaps we should use the Lovelybelt Imp instead of the Angel. Still, the girl… Come over here, Binns.’ More finger-waving. ‘I want a married man’s reaction.’

He couldn’t hide the fact that he was hooked.

Exactly the same thing happened at Buford’s Pool and Playground, except that Da Costa didn’t need a married man’s say-so.

‘Hot stuff,’ he said, sucking his lips. ‘Oh boy, you photographers!’

I hot-footed it back to the office and grabbed up the card I’d given her to put down her name and address.

It was blank.

I don’t mind telling you that the next five days were about the worst I ever went through, in an ordinary way. When next morning rolled around and I still hadn’t got hold of her, I had to start stalling.

‘She’s sick,’ I told Papa Munsch over the phone.

‘She at a hospital?’ he asked me.

‘Nothing that serious,’ I told him.

‘Get her out here then. What’s a little headache?’

‘Sorry, I can’t.’

Papa Munsch got suspicious. ‘You really got this girl?’

‘Of course I have.’

‘Well, I don’t know, I’d think it was some New York model, except I recognized your lousy photography.’

I laughed.

‘Well look, you get her here tomorrow morning, you hear?’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Try nothing. You get her out here.’

He didn’t know half of what I tried. I went around to all the model and employment agencies. I did some slick detective work at the photographic and art studios. I used up some of my last dimes putting advertisements in all three papers. I looked at high school yearbooks and at employee photos in local house organs. I went to restaurants and drugstores, looking at waitresses, and to dime stores and department stores, looking at clerks. I watched the crowds coming out of movie theatres. I roamed the streets.

Evenings I spent quite a bit of time along Pick-up Row. Somehow that seemed the right place.

The fifth afternoon I knew I was licked. Papa Munsch’s deadline—he’d given me several, but this was it—was due to run out at six o’clock. Mr. Fitch had already cancelled.

I was at the studio window, looking out at Ardleigh Park.

She walked in.

I’d gone over this moment so often in my mind that I had no trouble putting on my act. Even the faint dizzy feeling didn’t throw me off.

‘Hello,’ I said, hardly looking at her.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Not discouraged yet?’

‘No.’ It didn’t sound uneasy or defiant. It was just a statement.

I snapped a look at my watch, got up and said curtly, ‘Look here, I’m going to give you a chance. There’s a client of mine looking for a girl your general type. If you do a real good job you may break into the modelling business.