Blind Side Page 7

I stared at him.

  "Now, what the hell, Jess! I mean, how the hell can that be?"

  "It's awkward for me to be the one-"

  "I understand." I sat down again. I felt as if I'd been kicked.

  "Please, you got to tell me what you know."

  He shook his head, as if to clear his brain.

  "Kimberly told me she and Shadow did tricks. She also told me they'd been lovers once. I assumed they still were. At least sometimes. Of course there's nothing wrong with being gay."

  "Of course not. But 'tricks'?" He shrugged. I could see the word made him uneasy.

  "She told me they were actresses, models-"

  "they are. Shadow's a very successful model, and Kimberly's extremely serious about her acting. She didn't talk all that much about herself, even when we dished the dirt. I know she's from Cleveland, upper-middle-class family, and that she quit college to come here and study. She met Shadow in one of her classes. Shadow introduced her to a lady who ran an escort service. Shadow was working for the woman, so Kimberly started working for her too. Just to make extra money. Part time at first. Then, I gather, she and Shadow-they became sort of famous as a team." Jesus!

  He shook his head.

  "I know it sounds bad. But maybe not as bad as you think."

  "I think it's pretty bad," I said.

  "Well, it's not like she was out hooking on the street." He removed the washcloth from his forehead and carefully wiped his brow.

  "Look, I know guys . . . I mean I used to hustle occasionally myself when I needed the bread., At least her way was safe. Prescreened clientele. Rich guys, tycoons, big-shot attorneys. Not sleazy salesmen from out of town."

  "Jesus, Jess! was she really so goddamn desperate?"

  "It wasn't like that. I don't think desperation had anything to do with it. Way she explained it to me, she did it for the experience."

  "Experience!"

  "She told me she liked the acting part, that was what turned her on. Also the novelty, and what she called 'the risk." But what she liked best, she told me, was the whole notion of sex for money, that there existed this marketplace where, if you did it well, you could sell it very high. She took great pride in the price people paid to be with her, even for a little while. 'I'm very expensive, Jess,' she said. She and Shadow, as a team, she told me, they could earn up to fifteen-hundred dollars."

  I'sat down.

  "She actually told you that?"

  He nodded.

  "Like I said, we were pretty close. Maybe because she knew with me she didn't have to pretend, me being ill the way I am." He paused.

  "I'm really sick.

  Doubt I'll make it through the fall. Brent's been great. Stuck by me. Sleeps in here right by my side." He pointed to a sleeping bag rolled up on the floor.

  "But Kimberly was special. Having her in my life, dropping by when she could, that meant an awful lot. Maybe it's because I was never really close to a girl before. And, I like to think, I also meant something to her."

  "I'm sure you did."

  He nodded.

  "When I got sick, she started coming around. Not much lately, though. Lately she's been pretty busy." He stared at me.

  "Guess she's been with you."

  "Yeah."

  "Anyway, she used to come by and talk. She was very loyal that way. Month or so ago she told me she might have to leave suddenly, and she wanted me to know so I wouldn't worry if one day she disappeared. Yesterday she came in. 'This is it. I'm off,' she said. Wanted me to know she'd be thinking about me, even if she didn't write. When she left"-his voice broke-"she kissed me on the lips.

  Back out on the street I felt dizzy-hurt, confused, furious too. I felt the anger grow as I walked up Lexington Avenue in the heat. Kimberly Yates had been a liar, a fake-and me . . . well, it was pretty clear what I'd been: the biggest fool in all New York.

  I think that's what angered me the most, not just her deception, or the way she had disappeared without a word-though those things were crushing enough. No, what infuriated me was the knowledge that I, a photographer, who prided himself on his ability to unmask and see, had looked at her so closely, gazed at her so deeply, and had failed so utterly to see what was there.

  How she must have laughed, I thought, at all my talk about revealing character, when I had failed to penetrate even the most shallow layer of her disguise.

  There I was holding a photograph and looking at it. And so far as I could see it didn't mean a thing. I knew it had to. I just didn't know why. But I kept looking at it. And in a little while something was wrong. It was a very small thing, but it was vital….

  2

  The days passed I felt increasingly haunted. I stayed inside, in my studio , surrounded by my images of her, spending hours contemplating them, trying to read her face.

  There were times when I wanted to tear those prints off the walls. Times too, I think, when I wanted to be tortured by them. One thing I knew-I had to work her out of my system. If I could find a trace of her falseness in any of my pictures, then, I thought, I could begin to deconstruct my pain. But the pictures did not reveal her; they revealed me. they told me nothing . . . except that I had loved her.

  Finally, in an attempt to relieve my stress, I called Frank Cordero in New Mexico. I told him everything. He listened sympathetically.

  "It's like first she built you up," he said, "and then, almost deliberately, she tore you down."

  "I know. That's what's so awful. It's as if she were two completely different people. So here I am pining for her. Am I crazy, Frank? Or what?"

  "No, I don't think you're crazy," he said.

  "But I don't think you're going to be free of her-not until you find out who she really is."

  "Who is she? Jesus! I ask myself that almost every hour."

  "If your pictures can't tell you, Geof, you'll have to find out some other way."

  "Like how?"

  "You've been a journalist. Check out her story. She gave you leads. Track them down."

  I spent that evening considering Frank's advice. There a side of me that wanted to let her go, be done with her forever. She'd misrepresented herself, which, as far as I was concerned, was among the worst forms of betrayal. to lie to me, her lover, for whatever reason, and then to disappear without coming clean-by any rational standard she deserved no further attention or concern. But I wasn't rational. I was hurting. I was obsessed and I was confused. Frank's advice sounded right: follow up on my leads, track her down if possible, and then confront her. If I could do all that, then I might be able to rid myself of my obsession and get on with my life. There was another reason I wanted to find her. I wanted a conclusive parting. I've always been one for final ringing curtain lines. For all her deceptions, she had helped me break through my block. So, as much as I wanted to cut her, I also wanted to thank her, express my gratitude along with my contempt.

  And there was still another reason, which, with a certain amount of shame I confess, had to do with sex. I longed one last time to look into her eyes, stroke her skin, feel her touch, breathe in her incredible scent. . . .

  The next morning I began to work the phone. I called every acting school in New York. Not one had a teacher named Lorenzo, nor a student actress named Kimberly Yates.

  I called directory assistance in Cleveland. There were three doctors named Yates. I called them all. Not one had a daughter named Kimberly. Not one had a wife who played the viola. Not one knew of any other person who filled that description.

  I called the dean's office at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The school did have a female instructor in viola. I got her name, called her, and though she did not have a daughter named Kimberly, she was kind and tried to help. She said she knew almost all the serious violists in northern Ohio. She described several women to me. None fit Kim's description of her mother.

  I called the registrar of Oberlin College. There was no record of a Kimberly Yates ever having been a student at Oberlin.

  She had lied, it seem
ed, about everything. I felt as if I'd been turned inside out.

  That morning I walked up to Spring Street, and rang the buzzer to the Duquaynes' loft.,The maid gave me a suspicious look, then had me wait at the door.

  Amanda Duquayne finally appeared, slender and stunning in tan pants tucked into soft black riding boots. Her white silk blouse, open wide at the throat, exposed a galaxy of freckles.

  She slowly and blatantly looked me up and down.

  "This is a surprise," she said, in her best Social Register voice.

  "Sorry to intrude," I said.

  "You're unlisted or I would have called."

  "We have to be unlisted," she explained.

  "Too many cranks around."

  She didn't offer me her telephone number, but she did invite me inside. As I followed her to the sitting area, I admired her straight and haughty back. She spread herself on one of the leather couches, then casually crossed her legs.

  "Now, what can I do for you, Geoffrey Barnett?" For the first time in our acquaintanceship, I actually saw her smile.

  "Kim has disappeared," I said.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  "Kimberly? Has she? Really?"

  I nodded.

  "No forwarding address."

  She did some upper-class thing with her mouth to show feigned concern. "Oh dear," she said.

  "I thought you might help me find her."

  "Me? Whatever made you think of me?"

  "Since you know her, since you're friends, I thought-"

  "But really we aren't, you see. I really hardly know her at all."

  I looked at her quizzically.

  "The other night, when we came in, the way the two of you kissed-I just assumed-"

  "A social kiss, Geoffrey. That's all it was."

  I peered into her eyes.

  "Maybe I shouldn't have come, Amanda. Maybe you're not supposed to talk to me."

  She smiled.

  "I'm very sorry, Geoffrey, but I have no idea what you're talking about."

  We gazed at each other, with frozen smiles. Then I had the feeling she wanted to hear me beg, that it would turn her on to sit coolly with her legs nicely crossed while I squirmed in my seat.

  It isn't my style to importune, but that particular morning I was desperate for information.

  "I really need your help," I said.

  "If you know anything, or know somebody who might know something, or can help me in any way-I'd be grateful, I really would. . . ."

  A sudden coldness in her stare told me this was not the way to her heart, so I shut up and gazed at her, woefully and imploringly, and as soon as I did the ice began to melt. She studied me with such a searing intensity that I felt forced to lower my eyes. The moment I did, she spoke to me again, her way of telling me that silent submission was what she'd wanted all along.

  "Can you sit a moment, Geoffrey, while I go and hunt up Harold? He hates being disturbed when he's painting. But I think the two of you should talk."

  While she went to search him out I examined the "investment collection" of photographs. Among the classic images, several unusual ones caught my interest. There were two excellent and kinky Mapplethorpes, and a curious work from the late twenties by Man Ray, showing a woman, head encased in a tight-fitting mask, whose gloved and handcuffed hands were suspended by a chain above her head. Another extraordinary and very rare carbrocolor print by Paul Outerbridge showed a woman in high heels wearing nothing but a top hat, a domino mask and a single black fishnet stocking.

  "Barnett!" Duquayne pranced across the wide expanse of floor, his paint-spattered sweatshirt catching the late morning light. We shook hands while Amanda watched us coolly from the side.

  "Now, what's all this I hear about a disappearance?" He enunciated the word with relish."

  "Kim's gone. Her roommate too.

  "Roommate too! Oh ho! The plot thickens!"

  "Except for you and Amanda, I never met any of her friends."

  "But I'm sure Amanda's told you-we barely knew her. She was more like an acquaintance. Friend of a friend. That sort of thing."

  I looked at Amanda.

  "I remember your mentioning that she brought around other men. I thought for sure-"

  Duquayne turned to her.

  "Wasn't that at our big drink party, darling? Who ever meets anyone at a thing like that?" He turned back to me.

  "Want a drink, Barnett?" He headed toward a built-in bar. Since I couldn't read his eyes, I glanced again at Amanda. She was studying me in an aloof and pitying way, the way I imagined she might gaze at a cripple on the street.

  "Perhaps you'd tell me the name of the friend."

  "Who's that?" Duquayne handed me a gin and tonic.

  "You just said Kim was 'a friend of a friend'?" He glanced at Amanda. I looked toward her too, just in time to catch an exchange of complicity. I had suspected her of lying from the first; now I was certain her lies were calculated. "Really, Barnett-people don't want to be involved. Not in a thing like this."

  "Like what?"

  "Whatever."

  "But, you see, I don't know what kind of thing it is. All I know is my girlfriend's missing."

  He sipped from his glass.

  "Is she? Or did she walk away? See, that's what's bothering us. Now, if you think she's actually missing, in the 'missing person' sense, my advice would be to go to the police."

  I Of course she'd walked-I knew that already. I had no claim on her; I only wanted to find her for myself. I stared at him.

  "So that's your advice?"

  "We really don't know anything, Geoffrey," Amanda said.

  I turned to her.

  "Of course you do. You knew Kim pretty damn well. Otherwise you wouldn't have invited her to your intimate little dinner party, and when we arrived you wouldn't have greeted her the way you did. Now, if there's some special reason you don't want to own up to that-fine, just be straight enough to say so. But don't feed me any more crap. 'Barely knew her." 'Friend of a friend." Spare me more of that."

  Duquayne put down his glass.

  "You don't want to talk to Amanda that way, Barnett."

  "Don't I, Harold? I think I do."

  "Hey! You're out of line here, guy!"

  "Am I? I know this much, Kimberly was bisexual. She also liked to have sex for money. That wouldn't be how you two met her, would it? Hired her through an escort service? Paid her to get into bed with you? Played all kinds of kinky games?"

  "Why, you vile little shit!" Amanda said.

  "Well, well-Miss Perfect loses her cool!"

  "Get out!"

  I laughed. Their anger told me I was right. I moved to the door.

  "Know something, Duquayne? Your paintings suck. "

  He shrieked after me: "Loser!" But I was already on the stairs. Descending, I heard something smack, then break; I think he threw his drink at the wall.

  I went back to my studio, brooded awhile, then started looking through my proof sheets, searching not for portraits that explored or revealed character, but for shots that were just good likenesses.

  I selected three, separated out the negatives, then handcarried them to a lab on Church Street. I ordered fifty commercial 8 x 10 blowups of each. Then I headed back uptown.

  This time, when Brent let me in, his young face was creased with concern.

  "Another bad night," he said.

  "But he refuses to go to the hospital."

  "His choice, isn't it? Is he well enough to talk?"

  Brent motioned me toward the bedroom.

  "Five minutes tops, okay?" I agreed not to stay any longer.

  Jess lay beneath the sheets, the same wet rag across his forehead, his chest hair curled and wet against his skin. At first I thought he looked smaller, as if he'd shrunk in the past three days, but then I realized it was his eyes that were enlarged.

  I told him what I'd discovered: that all the background facts Kim had given us were false. As I described my various telephone calls he began to show
concern.

  "Can't imagine why she'd lie," he said.

  "She had no reason to lie to me."

  "Maybe like a lot of people who move to New York, she wanted to re-create herself."

  "Maybe. So who is she, Geoffrey?"

  I shrugged.

  "At this point I don't even know if Kimberly's her real name. But I have to find her, Jess. There was too much between us to let it just end like this."

  He nodded.

  "How will you find her?"

  "By finding out who she is. I was hoping you could help me. was there some little thing she let slip in your talks, something that didn't fit? A revealing detail? Anything?" Jess shook his head.

  "What about that escort service? You said Shadow introduced her to a woman."

  'Mrs. Z."

  "That's her name?"

  "That's what Kimberly called her: 'So then I went to work for Mrs. Z.' That's about all she said."

  He was getting tired. I checked my watch; I'd overstayed my time. "The first time I saw her she was with a bunch of kids. Did she ever mention any friends?"

  "No one except Shadow. And you, of course."

  I suppose, if I'd been in a different kind of mood, I might have taken some comfort in that.

  I found the super in the basement, sitting in a swivel chair. He was dressed in camouflage fatigues and a khaki undershirt, and there was a hunting knife in a scabbard on his belt.

  He had carved out a little office for himself down there, from a mess of old beds, trunks, broken bicycles and bins of light bulbs and spare plumbing parts. There were centerfolds from Hustler taped to the wall, and, to complete the executive motif, a battered desk that looked as if it had been scavenged off the street.

  He glanced at me over his copy of Soldier of Fortune magazine.

  "You again?"

  "Didn't think I'd come back?" He shrugged.

  "Because she was a call girl?"

  "What do you want?"

  "Information."

  He grinned.

  "Ain't got no information."

  "Look, they lived here. You must know something about them."

  "I keep to myself. Don't pry into other people's stuff."

  I laid a twenty-dollar bill on' the desk. He glanced at it, stared at the centerfolds on the wall. Then he shrugged again.