for posing stood in front of it facing a Nikon perched on a tripod.
Lights, a reflecting umbrella, and assorted props stood and leaned and lay about like soldiers off the line. What looked like a genuine human skull grinned from the lap of a department-store mannequin without arms, dressed for the beach. An old steelcase Nikon, larger than the one on the tripod, wallowed in a morass of nylon straps on an oak desk that looked as if it had done time in a service station. Bare metal showed through chips in the black enamel. That would be the camera he carried up snow-capped peaks to photograph endangered species. His kind of photographer belonged on the same list.
He transferred a stack of trade magazines from the desk to the floor, snapped on a gooseneck lamp, and placed the picture in the center of the circle of light. For some time he bent over it, peering through a glass like a jeweler’s loupe, placed directly on top of the photograph. He grunted once more and straightened.
“The girl’s head came from somewhere else. The skin tones are close, but you won’t get an exact match one time in a million; too many variables. This is a very nice job. Whoever did it air-brushed the join so well you’d think it was a crease in the skin if you didn’t know what to look for. You came to the one guy in southeastern Michigan who knows what to look for.”
“You can skip the commercial. I’m sold. What about the guy?”
“Oh, it’s all him. He was in bed with nine-tenths of someone.”
“That puts him in on the frame.”
“Either that or he’s just about the coolest son of a bitch who ever did a candid in his birthday suit. When did you say this was done?”
“I didn’t, but it was about eight years ago.”
“Well, one of your possibilities is dead, but last I heard his son was still running the family studio in Flint. I can think of two others who are this good with an airbrush. I’ll make a list, but you’ll have to look them up yourself. I’m not the telephone company.”
I said swell. He made it out on a scratch pad with a happy face in the corner with a bleeding wound in its forehead, tore off the sheet, and traded it for a hundred of Jay Bell Furlong’s dollars. As I was leaving I told him to watch out for snow leopards.
“They’re pussycats. It’s the fucking solid citizens you have to watch out for. They won’t be rare in my lifetime.”
Seven
I T WAS PAST quitting time, but I was still going, like a battery commercial.
I stopped back at the office to look up the names Quarrels had given me. Two were listed in the metropolitan area, which was a break, and Information had the number of the studio in Flint. But with any luck and thanks again to the squat Indiana Jones from Birmingham, I might not need any of them. I called Imminent Visions in Allen Park hoping for an appointment with Lynn Arsenault, the genuine half of the picture that had shot down Lily Talbot, and got a recording informing me the offices were open from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. Monday through Friday. Not to be outdone because of a mere six-figure difference in annual revenues, I closed up and went home.
The teenager next door had bought a street rod, a blaze-orange ’69 Roadrunner with a jacked-up rear end and twin scoops punched into the hood. For forty-five minutes every morning and every evening for three days he had been gunning the big 389 in his parents’ driveway, cleaning the carburetor for cruise night Saturday night on Jefferson. He’d rammed a broomstick up each of the twin glass-packs to clear out all those pesky baffles, just in case they couldn’t hear it in Toronto. I had considered and discarded several plans, the best of which involved going over there under the first new moon and slipping a Clark bar into the gas tank.
Hamtramck was a quiet town back when there were Polish names on all the mailboxes, clean and safe and well-tended; even the trash cans in the alleys sparkled. Then the last administration
Lights, a reflecting umbrella, and assorted props stood and leaned and lay about like soldiers off the line. What looked like a genuine human skull grinned from the lap of a department-store mannequin without arms, dressed for the beach. An old steelcase Nikon, larger than the one on the tripod, wallowed in a morass of nylon straps on an oak desk that looked as if it had done time in a service station. Bare metal showed through chips in the black enamel. That would be the camera he carried up snow-capped peaks to photograph endangered species. His kind of photographer belonged on the same list.
He transferred a stack of trade magazines from the desk to the floor, snapped on a gooseneck lamp, and placed the picture in the center of the circle of light. For some time he bent over it, peering through a glass like a jeweler’s loupe, placed directly on top of the photograph. He grunted once more and straightened.
“The girl’s head came from somewhere else. The skin tones are close, but you won’t get an exact match one time in a million; too many variables. This is a very nice job. Whoever did it air-brushed the join so well you’d think it was a crease in the skin if you didn’t know what to look for. You came to the one guy in southeastern Michigan who knows what to look for.”
“You can skip the commercial. I’m sold. What about the guy?”
“Oh, it’s all him. He was in bed with nine-tenths of someone.”
“That puts him in on the frame.”
“Either that or he’s just about the coolest son of a bitch who ever did a candid in his birthday suit. When did you say this was done?”
“I didn’t, but it was about eight years ago.”
“Well, one of your possibilities is dead, but last I heard his son was still running the family studio in Flint. I can think of two others who are this good with an airbrush. I’ll make a list, but you’ll have to look them up yourself. I’m not the telephone company.”
I said swell. He made it out on a scratch pad with a happy face in the corner with a bleeding wound in its forehead, tore off the sheet, and traded it for a hundred of Jay Bell Furlong’s dollars. As I was leaving I told him to watch out for snow leopards.
“They’re pussycats. It’s the fucking solid citizens you have to watch out for. They won’t be rare in my lifetime.”
Seven
I T WAS PAST quitting time, but I was still going, like a battery commercial.
I stopped back at the office to look up the names Quarrels had given me. Two were listed in the metropolitan area, which was a break, and Information had the number of the studio in Flint. But with any luck and thanks again to the squat Indiana Jones from Birmingham, I might not need any of them. I called Imminent Visions in Allen Park hoping for an appointment with Lynn Arsenault, the genuine half of the picture that had shot down Lily Talbot, and got a recording informing me the offices were open from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. Monday through Friday. Not to be outdone because of a mere six-figure difference in annual revenues, I closed up and went home.
The teenager next door had bought a street rod, a blaze-orange ’69 Roadrunner with a jacked-up rear end and twin scoops punched into the hood. For forty-five minutes every morning and every evening for three days he had been gunning the big 389 in his parents’ driveway, cleaning the carburetor for cruise night Saturday night on Jefferson. He’d rammed a broomstick up each of the twin glass-packs to clear out all those pesky baffles, just in case they couldn’t hear it in Toronto. I had considered and discarded several plans, the best of which involved going over there under the first new moon and slipping a Clark bar into the gas tank.
Hamtramck was a quiet town back when there were Polish names on all the mailboxes, clean and safe and well-tended; even the trash cans in the alleys sparkled. Then the last administration
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