Blind Side Read online

  In the morning when I awoke she was still sleeping, breathing heavily in my arms. I got out of bed carefully, so as not to wake her, and went into the kitchenette.

  I was out of coffee-bread and juice as well. I wrote up a shopping list, dressed and went out to shop. A few years ago they closed Nassau Street to traffic, turning it into a pedestrian mall. On weekdays it's a river of people moving between Wall Street, City Hall, the courthouses and various subway stops along the way. But early on a Sunday morning it's as lonely as an empty canyon in the desert.

  When I came out that morning the only other human in sight was a homeless old wino asleep on the corner by the Edgar Allan Poe plaque. All the shops were closed, and the grill of the Isaac Mendoza Book Store was padlocked shut. Though it was not yet 8:00 A.M., the street thermometer read out 80 degrees.

  The nearest delicatessen, at Battery Park City, was a fifteen-minute walk away. I paused, pondering whether to leave Kim alone. I wasn't as concerned about her alleged pursuers as I was about her waking up, thinking herself abandoned and going into another panic.

  I decided to chance it, make the trek, figuring she'd taken enough Valium to keep her calm even if she did wake up. I reached the deti, bought the groceries, and, when I returned, found her curled up on my couch, wearing one of my old shirts.

  "Hi, loverboy." She certainly didn't look desperate; rather she spoke with her usual sultry confidence.

  "Feeling better?"

  "What happened last night?"

  "You don't remember?" I carried my newly bought provisions to the kitchen. She followed, stood behind me @i,, I started to make our breakfast.

  "I remember coming here."

  "That's nice. Do you remember you were scared?" She smiled mischievously.

  "Scared?"

  "Come off it!"

  "Of course I remember. I was putting you on."

  "Don't give me that."

  was."

  "You wouldn't."

  "Shouldn't," she corrected me. I switched on the coffee maker.

  "You were panicked."

  "Just an act." She clung to my back.

  "Honest, Geoffrey -an act, that's all it was."

  I turned to her.

  "You're saying last night was all pretend?" She nodded. I was outraged.

  "How could you do that? How could you be so cruel?"

  "Had to. No, really, Geoffrey. Please hear me out."

  "I'm listening."

  "Mr. Lorenzo, my acting coach-he gave us all an assignment. Call a friend or lover late Saturday night, say you're afraid for your life. Convince the person you're in real trouble." She stood back from me.

  "Honest! That was it."

  "I don't believe you!"

  "It's true!"

  "Disgusting!"

  "Maybe. But wasn't I good?"

  "Yeah, you were good, all right." I looked straight at her. I wanted to believe her. I think she sensed I did,

  because she stared straight back to assure me she was telling me the truth.

  "I'd like to have a little talk with your Mr. Lorenzo," I said, "about a funny little thing called ethics, and a quaint old saying, 'Don't cry wolf'!"

  She flung herself into my arms.

  "Oh, Geoffrey, I really can act. You forgive me, don't you? Please, Geoffreyplease forgive." She planted kisses on my chest.

  I forgave.

  After breakfast she cleaned up the dishes while I went out to buy the Times. When I returned, she was dressed, in her slinky disco outfit of the night before. I found her facing the bathroom mirror, putting the final touches on her makeup.

  "Don't you want to stay and read the paper?" She shook her head.

  "We still have a date for brunch?"

  "Two o'clock. Windows on the World." Sounds great." She came close, whispered in my ear "make you happy afterwards."

  "How about now?"

  "I'd love to, Geoffrey. You know me. But there're things I've got to do." She came close to me, played her fingers on my chest. "Sorry about last night. I know I was a bitch."

  She kissed me, then broke away. At the door she turned. She stood there a moment, as if posing for a photograph. I thought I caught a glimpse of sadness in her face, and sensed, in her hesitation, a desire to tell me something and then a change of mind.

  " Kim! "

  " 'Bye, Geoffrey……… She flashed me a smile. And then she disappeared.

  The view from Windows on the World is terrific. On a good day it takes your breath away. But like any romantic restaurant, it's a lousy place to sit alone. By 2:45 I began to feel bad.

  At 3:00 I couldn't take it anymore; I left the table, went out to the lobby, found a phone booth and dialed her number at home.

  The voice on the answering machine was pure Southern honey: "Hi! This is Shadow. We're not here at the moment, but we'll be back real soon. So, please, cher, leave your name and number and we'll get back to you [giggle], you can bet on it!"

  I left my message: "Geoffrey for Kim. I've been sitting here an hour. Am I being stood up?" Then I went back to the table, ordered a Bloody Mary, and stared out across the scorched flatlands of New Jersey, a hundred and seven floors below.

  At 3:30 I'd had it. I summoned the waiter, ordered a club steak rare and a half bottle of wine. Then, determined to enjoy myself, I ate and drank in solitary splendor.

  I was feeling pretty high when I finished. Moody, too. Outside I wandered around for a while. Though the heat was crushing, there were the usual Sunday crowds. At Battery Park I found a place on a bench, stared out at the gleaming harbor and watched the boats pass back and forth. Then I wandered over to the Vietnam War Memorial, raised my Leica and took some photographs.

  I walked home through the empty financial district. I found the same wino I'd seen in the morning by the Poe plaque, shirt off now, taking in the rays. When he saw me walking toward him with my camera around my neck, he held up an imaginary camera of his own.

  I took his picture. He took mine.

  "Gotcha, Shutterbug!" he said.

  Back in the studio, I lay down on my bed. I must have fallen asleep. At 7:00 P.m. I woke up, suddenly feeling scared.

  When she didn't show at the restaurant, I had assumed it was deliberate, an act of calculated contempt. Now I realized that instead of thinking of myself, I should have been worrying about her.

  Had something happened to her? An accident? Or, and the question finally emerged from the shadows, had her explanation for her panic the night before been an attempt to cover up some actual danger she had faced and now had met?

  I phoned her apartment again, and this time, when I heard the message, Shadow's mellifluous delivery rang false. Appropriate perhaps for a downtown disco girl, but a little slick for a serious model. Kimberly, I knew, would never have left a message like that. Kimberly, I knew, had too much class.

  No point in going up to their place-if no one was home there'd be no one there to let me in. I decided I'd have to keep calling until someone finally answered the phone.

  I called again at eight, and then every hour after that until eleven o'clock, meanwhile watching a movie on TV. It was a thriller about cops investigating a pair of bizarre homicides in New York. The lead detective's girlfriend was a photographer; at one point the psychotic killer began to track and terrorize her. The closer the detective came to catching the bad guy, the closer the bad guy came to killing the detective's girl. By the time the show was over I was wild with anxiety. Meantime my messages became increasingly frantic: "Even if you want this sour old photographer out of your life," I told the machine, "Please call to let him know you're safe."

  Later, lying in bed, not knowing what to feel, I decided to give her number a final try. I got the same recording, but this time, after Shadow said ". . . you can bet on it," I found I had no words to say. So I just breathed into the receiver, the way a telephone heavy breather might, and then, I don't know why, I got this feeling there was someone at the other end smiling smugly to herself.
/>   I woke early, dialed the number, and this time there was no recorded message. I let the phone ring and ring, and, when there was still no response, dialed again to make sure I'd dialed right. Still no answer. There was only one thing to do. I gulped down my coffee, dialed one last time, then dashed downstairs and up Nassau to the subway, where I grabbed an uptown express.

  Though I'd never been inside her apartment, I knew her building well. It was similar to a thousand other anonymous dirty-white-brick monstrosities that dot the cross streets of the Upper East Side. There was no doorman; you had to buzz your way in.

  "Stewardess buildings," a friend of mine calls them-buildings where a gang of flight stewardesses will rent a unit for betweenflight shack-ups and rest.

  I found the buzzer marked "Devereux/Yates," rang it, waited, then rang again. No answer. I was sure they were up there. The machine was off, which meant one or both of them were home, probably asleep with the phone unplugged. I gave the button another push, and this time held it down. I doubted anyone could sleep through a blast like that. But still there was no response.

  I stepped back to the sidewalk. The sun was beating down furiously. I was thinking I might locate their window and throw something at it that would wake them up when I saw a man in the inner hallway moving toward the door. I went back to the lobby. If he opened up and came out, I would try to slip past him pretending I was a resident. But he didn't come out. He stood in the doorway, looking directly at me.

  "Hey, buddy? You ringing three-A?" He was husky, bearded, dressed in fatigue pants, with a big ring of keys hanging from his belt. He wore a dark green Marine Corps T-shirt wet under the arms, and his biceps sported nautical tattoos.

  "Yeah, that's right," I said.

  "Ain't home," he said.

  "Just up there myself." He was staring at me in a peculiar way.

  "I'm the super," he explained.

  "I think they are up there," I said.

  "Their answering machine's not on."

  "That's 'cause I turned it off. they cleared out most everything, 'cept for that."

  "You turned it off"

  "They're gone, mister. Flown the coop."

  "Impossible," I said.

  "Kim Yate amp;-" He smiled. "She's a friend, uh-huh…… I didn't like his intonation, or the way he smiled either.

  "What do you mean-you turned it off?"

  He studied me a moment before he spoke.

  "they took a powder. Pulled out yesterday. Left the furniture, TVall rented stuff. But the clothes are gone. And so are all the shoes. Those girls had lots of shoes." He shrugged.

  "They're like that, you know. Here one day, gone the next. And no forwarding address neither. Case they owe you money, you want to find them again." He grinned and showed his teeth.

  e was waiting for me to say something, but I was too ned to reply.

  'Want to see the apartment?" I nodded.

  "Cost you some." I pulled out my wallet, peeled off a ten. He sniffed.

  "Quick looksee's all you get for that."

  I gave him another ten, his grin grew a little wider, and he beckoned me through the door.

  We rode the elevator up in silence. At the third floor he motioned me down the hall. The walls were covered with a cheap green flock. The row of identical doors, each bearing a number and a peephole, reminded me of a dormitory corridor.

  The door to 3-A was open. The moment we walked in I knew he was right. The place looked like an empty motel room. The living room furniture, knock-down Scandinavian type, was set awkwardly at one end. There were no books in the bookcase. The wall-to-wall carpeting was beige and nondescript. A small TV, of obscure Korean manufacture, sat beside a cable decoder, a phone and an answering machine in the corner on the floor.

  "Couple days from now, after I paint her up, we'll have this place rented out again. Higher rent too. They'll pay anything these days, girls will, just to be in a nice safe neighborhood."

  He led me through an archway to the bedrooms. Each one contained a queen-sized bed, mattress exposed and bare. All the bureau drawers were cleaned out, and the closets were open and empty. I stepped into the bathroom. Half a bar of soap was melting in a soap dish and a couple of damp towels lay in a tangle in the tub. The toilet seat bore one of those fuzzy pink covers. The medicine cabinet was open. There was a crushed tampon box on the shelf.

  "Cleaned out pretty good," the super said.

  "Swept up most of the garbage myself." He walked me back through the bedrooms.

  "See those?" He pointed, chuckled.

  "Couldn't take those with them, could they?"

  I think I was in a kind of daze because it took me a while to figure out what he meant. I looked at him, and he pointed again, first at the closet doors, which were faced with mirrors, and then at the ceilings above the beds where mirrors were mounted too. He laughed.

  "What's so funny?"

  "Hey, buddy, I'm the super. My job's keep the building neat and clean. they pulled out over the weekend. Neighbors seen one of 'em moving suitcases and crap, yesterday and Saturday too. You gotta expect the old quick exit with girls like that." He looked at me. "they come and go-" The guy was starting to annoy me.

  "Girls like what?"

  "Professionally speaking's what I mean."

  "Kim Yates is an actress."

  "Sure. Suit yourself. Miss Kimberly and the colored girl, one who calls herself 'Shadow' . . . Well, they're all actresses, ain't they?" He laughed again.

  "Listen, maybe you wanna talk to the neighbors. Three-C's seen them moving. And the fairies in three-H, end of the hall-one of them knew your Miss Kimberly pretty well.

  I knocked on 3-C. The door was opened by a middleaged man who reminded me of a Saint Bernard. He was red-haired, heavyset, unshaven, with hooded watery eyes.

  "Yeah?" He wore a navy blue terry-cloth robe, open to the waist, exposing a heavy gold link chain nestled in curls of coppery hair that carpeted his upper chest.

  "I understand from the super you saw the two girls moving out of three-A," I said. He scratched at his stomach.

  "So?"

  "I'm a friend of one of them."

  "Which one?"

  "Kim Yates."

  He nodded.

  "White girl? Yeah, saw her yesterday. The other one, the black-haven't seen her since Friday P.M."

  "What time did you see the white girl?"

  "Late morning, I think. She came out of there with suitcases. Then later I saw her coming out of three-H." He shook his head.

  "Won't miss them, I can tell you that. Don't mind a couple of pretty girls want to make an honest living. But those two . He shook his head and leered.

  I went down the hall to 3-H. A lean young man, preppie type, with nice even features, opened up the door. He wore jeans and a ribbed black tank top. A Thank of light brown hair hung across his forehead.

  "Hi." He smiled at me, but something in his smile struck me as forced.

  "Sorry to intrude," I said.

  "The super suggested I talk to you. My name's Geoffrey Barnett. I'm a friend of Kim Yates down the hall."

  "Kimberly@ure. But she's gone. Left yesterday. I'm Brent." He offered his hand.

  "One of your neighbors said he saw her coming out of here.

  "That's right. She stopped in to say good-bye to Jess. Jess Harrison, my roommate."

  "Is he here? Could I talk to him?"

  "He's here." Brent lowered his voice.

  "But I don't know-"

  "I'd really like to talk to him," I said.

  Brent studied me for a moment.

  "All right, I'll check." He motioned me inside.

  While I waited I looked around the living room. A potted plant, leaves starting to brown, stood before the window. A framed Diane Arbus exhibition poster was mounted on the wall. A pair of ballet slippers, signed by Heather Watts, hung beside the light switch from a hook. There was a handsome rosewood stereo system and a large collection of compact discs.

  Brent rea
ppeared.

  "Jess isn't feeling all that good, but he'll talk to you a little anyway. He's got AIDS. Wanted me to tell you. If you change your mind, he'll understand."

  "I haven't changed my mind," I said.

  Brent nodded.

  "One thing I ask, seems like he's getting tired, please excuse yourself. He had a pretty rough night last night."

  Jess, older than Brent and starting to bald, waved to me from the bed. He lay on top of the sheets wearing a pair of gray gym shorts and a T-shirt that bore the faded words "West Point." He held a damp washcloth to his forehead and he looked pretty sick.

  "You're the photographer?" Inodded, "Kimberly mentioned you." He gestured toward a chair.

  "I appreciate your seeing me," I said, "because right now i m pretty confused. Kim and I had a brunch date yesterday afternoon. She didn't show, so I called and called. Now her apartment's empty and the guy down the hall says he saw her moving out with suitcases yesterday before she and I were even supposed to meet."

  "was around noon when she left," Jess said.

  "She stopped in to say good-bye."

  "You say she mentioned me?"

  He nodded.

  "Not yesterday. But she spoke of you several times. Said you were taking these fantastic pictures of her. I know she liked you a lot."

  Liked me! "That's nice to hear," I said.

  "But apparently she didn't like me well enough to say good-bye."

  "I'm sorry. . . ."

  "Didn't even call."

  He looked at me.

  "What can I say?"

  I stood, then started to pace.

  "Look, you don't know me, Jess. No reason you should care. But Kim and I, we had something going. Something serious-at least that's what I thought. Now she's stood me up, no reason I can think of except we had a fight on Friday night. But we made it up on Saturday. Meantime she's cleared out her place. And now the slob super and the jerk in three-C, they talk about her like she and Shadow, like they were … I don't know-"

  "What?"

  "Hookers. Or something like that."

  "they said that?" "No. But they made it pretty clear."

  He turned away. There was silence in the room. When he spoke again it was in a whisper.

  " It's true, I'm afraid."