Deadline (26 page)

I crossed the porch on punky floorboards and knocked on the window of a wooden door. I knocked again and waited like a Jehovah's Witness until a gray head appeared behind the glass and a short but very wide woman in her sixties opened the door. When she did, the smell of cat urine billowed out into the cool November air.

“Eh?” she said.

“Jack McMorrow,” I said, matching her for succinctness. “Looking for a guy named Cormier. Lives out here, but I don't know which apartment.”

The woman looked at me like I had asked directions to Zimbabwe. She was wearing a print shift, the kind they used to call a housecoat. In the background a game show announcer was shouting.

“Out back,” the woman growled suddenly. “Up the driveway, then left. A couple doors down.”

“First floor?”

She nodded yes as the door closed. I thanked the door very much for its time and assistance.

Out back
meant another building, another porch. There were trash bags on the steps and more kids, younger this time, but they ran past me. One, a girl about two, fell down on the last step and sprawled in the yard and an older kid came back and helped her up. A flicker of humanity.

There were two doors. I walked past the first one and heard a baby crying inside. It was a manic kind of sobbing, and it hurt to even listen to it. I walked to the next door. Because the glass was held in with duct tape, I knocked very carefully.

I waited and knocked again and the door opened. Cormier looked sleepy. I could smell alcohol.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Need to talk to you,” I said.

Recognition came slowly, but when it did, Cormier turned around and walked back into the apartment. I followed him into a small stuffy room with a cloth couch with ripped arms and a wooden cable spool in front of it for a table. There were four opened Budweiser cans on the table and a bottle of Jack Daniel's. The apartment was
strangely silent. No music playing. No television on. Just a table with beer and whiskey. An Androscoggin ascetic.

There weren't any chairs. Cormier sat down on the couch and put his arms behind his head. His belly showed in an inch-wide strip where his black T-shirt pulled up. His eye patch was gone.

“We going to court?” he said.

“That's one of the things we have to talk about,” I said. I was standing in the middle of the room wishing I had somewhere to lean.

“So talk,” Cormier said.

I looked at him for a second and plunged in.

“So what are they saying about me at the mill?”

Cormier closed his eyes, bored already.

“The mill. He wants to talk about the friggin' mill. Why should I talk to you about anything?”

I couldn't think of a good reason so I didn't say anything at all.

“Oh, man, are we going to court or what? I hope not, 'cause I want to get the hell out of here. Okay, the mill. What are they sayin' about you at the mill.”

“Yeah, you said you picked me out because I was gonna close down the mill. Trying to, I mean.”

“Could be. I'd had a few. I could've said a lot of things.”

“I want to hear more about that.”

“You do. Well, hell, let's see. They say there's this pussy from the newspaper, if you want to call it that. He's gonna take away their bread and butter, you know what I'm sayin'? That is almost enough to piss them off because they got kids and fat-assed wives.”

Cormier hauled his big flabby frame off the couch and walked into an alcove that was the kitchen. I heard a refrigerator door open.
It swung into view. There was a girlie-magazine foldout taped on it. She swung out of sight and the door slammed shut.

He came back with two bottles of Bud. He opened one for himself and handed one to me. I opened it and took a swallow. He drained half of his, his neck muscles undulating like a snake as he swallowed.

“How'd you know who I was that night in the bar? I want to hear it again.”

“I knew. Somebody told me. One of the guys I knew from the mill. He said he's seen you around. His buddy's a cop and the cops knew you, or something like that. But we knew who you were.”

“Why come over and pick a fight?”

Cormier half-smiled.

“Why not?” he said. “Hey, man, I was pretty buzzed. These guys are talking about this newspaper guy and he walks in. It was, like, meant to be, you know. No big deal. Then you go and stick your finger in my eye. That was unfriendly, man.”

“Accident. I was trying to keep from getting pulverized.”

Cormier finished his beer and put the bottle on the wire-spool table. Leaning back, he fished a pack of Salems out of his front pocket.

“So we going to court?” he said, puffing a cloud of smoke.

I sipped my beer and looked around the apartment. There was nothing on the walls. A cheap stereo sat on top of a wooden crate. Cassette tapes were scattered all over the floor.

“You trash my place?” I said.

Cormier shook his head no.

“When was this?”

“Last week. My place got busted up pretty good.”

“Not by me. You really aren't on my mind that much, I gotta tell you that. No offense.”

“You didn't know about my place getting wrecked?”

“News to me,” Cormier said, and he got up from the couch and went to get another beer, this time only one, and it wasn't for me.

“You know Arthur Bertin?” I asked.

“The guy who took the pictures.”

“Yeah. For the paper.”

“Knew who he was, I guess. Skinny guy, right? Wore weird clothes.”

“Ever hear anything around that he was sort of a pervert?” I said. “Following high-school girls around and all that?”

“Hey, I do that,” Cormier said.

“No, I mean stuff like peeking in people's windows at night. Taking pictures of women as they're getting dressed.”

“Sounds great. Where do I sign up?”

He tilted his beer bottle back and drained another six ounces. I'd lose him if I waited much longer.

“You never heard of this Arthur guy doing that kind of thing?”

Cormier rested the bottle between his legs and put his feet, in black leather boots, on the table. The bourbon bottle wobbled.

“How the hell should I know? Some weird old fart. He diddles himself, he calls me up?”

I waited.

“Okay,” Cormier said slowly. “There was some story. I don't know. The guy, Artie or whoever he was. This was a long time ago. Years maybe. Well, this guy with the camera had the hots for this high-school bitch, some piece of jailbait, and the cops … what did they do? They did something. Like put him on probation or something. I remember being someplace and hearing some guy hassling the camera guy about it. Some bar. No, wait a minute, it was … I can't remember. But the cops did something.”

“Vigue?”

“Vigue, man. That friggin' guy is on a power trip. Big man with the big gun. I'd like to get him without his badge and that goddamn three-fifty-seven. Stick his head up his—”

He caught himself.

“We going to court?” Cormier said again.

I took a swallow of beer and made him wait. The Budweiser tasted pretty good, considering.

“If I say I don't want to sign a complaint, what happens?” I said. “You get off with disorderly conduct?”

“How the hell should I know? Maybe I pay my hundred bucks over at court and that's it. Hey, I just want to get out of here. Armpit of the Earth.”

“That the only thing you remember about Bertin? The photographer?”

“What do you want, the Shell Answer Man?” Cormier said, still leaning back on the couch. “Dirty old man. Wanted to get his rocks off and couldn't. It's going around. Chicks around here are either married, fat, or jailbait. Another reason to hit the road.”

I put my empty bottle on the table.

“Another thing,” I said. “Somebody called my girlfriend up here and said some nasty things to her. You hear about that?”

He shook his head, no.

“Who's your buddy?” I said. “From the driveway?”

“Jimmy Libby. He's a good shit. Just trying to help me out.”

“That's nice of him. Well, listen. I'm probably going to let the thing drop. Probably. You hear anything about the phone call or anything else, if you let me know, it could make a difference.”

“But you're not gonna push this thing with the cops?”

“That's the way I'm leaning,” I said.

Cormier smiled.

“There's some people around here who'll be glad to hear it,” he said.

Roxanne called a little before five that afternoon. I was standing in the window of the office watching a family pile out of their car, a big, black clunker. It looked like foreign dignitaries arriving at the White House. Roxanne asked if there was anything new. She sounded better. Regrouped and shored up. I said there wasn't anything big, but I told her about the enlarger.

“So you go around looking for the right enlarger thing,” she asked.

“I think I know where it is,” I said. “Right in Arthur's studio.”

“What'd the police say?”

“Not much. Not yet. I'll know more tonight. What are you doing?”

“I'm not going home and hiding under the bed. Even though that's what I really feel like doing. There's a new woman in the office. Sort of new. She's from Philadelphia. Her husband is an engineer or something. I think it's an engineer. She asked me if I'd like to go with her up to Freeport. Her husband has meetings or something. Something where he has to go to present plans to town selectmen. We might get something to eat in the Old Port on the way home.”

“Sounds good.”

“I can't hide away, Jack,” Roxanne said. “I've got to live my life. I really do. But I'm not going to live it in Androscoggin. Not for a while. Do you understand?”

“Sure. The Welcome Wagon hasn't been all that great up here.”

“It doesn't have anything to do with you.”

“Sure it does.”

“No, our relationship, I mean,” Roxanne said.

“You mean the way we can't keep our hands off each other?”

“Yeah. That's the same. But that place and everything that happened. I can't.”

“I know. I'll call you. After ten.”

“I'd like that.”

“Next best thing to being there,” I said.

“Not what I would call a close second,” Roxanne said.

“Nope.”

“Jack, be careful. Really. For my sake. I want you all in one piece. Don't do anything foolish. Let the police take care of it. They get paid for doing that.”

“Underpaid, they say.”

“I'm serious. You remember.”

“I will,” I said.

And I did remember.

I was careful when I pulled into the vacant lot diagonally across the street from Arthur's studio. It was eight-thirty by the digital clock, three bucks at Kmart, glued to the dash. I forced myself to wait until nine. Nobody came or went. A few cars drove by, but nobody seemed to pay any attention to the old black car parked with the rest of the wrecks.

The building was owned by a guy who had run a paint and wallpaper store in the space next to Arthur's. I remembered that Arthur had told me the guy lived in Zephyrhills, Florida, that he had a mobile home in a park. Arthur had been worried about sending his rent money that far.

At two minutes after nine, I got out of the car and walked to the studio door. I looked both ways, like all kids are taught, then took out a screwdriver and removed the screws on the padlock hasp. I left the padlock hanging and slipped inside.

The same musty odor hit me before I flicked on my flashlight and moved the pale beam over the cardboard cartons and piles of newspapers. I crossed the room and swung the blanket aside. The air was close in the darkroom and there was an odor of mildew. I stood for a minute and listened. The faucet dripped slowly but steadily.

Sinks were on the left and the counter was on the right. The room was ten feet deep and about seven feet wide. There were two enlargers on the counter. One was partly dismantled.

I looked at it closely.

It stood about three feet high, with a print holder at the bottom and a black paper bellows for moving the light above the negative tray. The lamp and condenser had been removed and sat at the back of the counter with some empty coffee cans. The enlarger, the parts, and the cans were covered with a fine layer of dust.

The second enlarger was about the same vintage but intact. It wasn't covered with dust. How much dust would accumulate in the week since Arthur had died?

A car passed outside. I switched off the flashlight and listened. When the sound faded, I looked for wall switches until a chain brushed my face. I pulled it and the safe light came on with an amber glow.

I needed photo paper. In most darkrooms, the paper would be within easy reach of the enlarger. I scanned the counter, then opened a cupboard below. There was a box of eight-by-ten paper. Where the box had been slid onto the shelf, there was a dark patch cleared in the dust.

The box was half-full. The wastebasket was empty. It was possible that Arthur had emptied it before he died, but unlikely.

I put a sheet of paper in the tray at the bottom of the enlarger and slid an empty negative holder under the condenser. When the condenser, a black cylinder, was pressed against the negative holder, I set the timer for fifteen seconds and pulled the cord to shut off the light. Then I hit the switch.

The light from the enlarger lamp showed pale in the darkness; the photo paper glowed white and blank. I turned the focusing wheel and bent closer to the rectangle of light as the lamp moved down and up in its carriage.

And there it was.

It was in the lower right corner of the paper. The same feathery line. White in the photo of Roxanne and the other pictures, it showed gray on the undeveloped blank sheet of paper.

I moved it in and out of focus. There were dust particles and what looked like tiny hairs. The line was darker and thicker. I moved the paper left and right and the line moved across the paper, one way and the other, as permanent and recognizable as a fingerprint. I put my hand under the light. It showed faintly on the skin of my palm.