Trick of Light

by Hunt-David

  "One of the names Rusty came up with sounds familiar," Dad says. "But I can't place it."

  "What're the names?" I ask.

  Rusty tells me apartment 5

  at 4106 Capp is not rented out. According to the resident manager, it's kept tenant-free by the property-owner company for occasional use by friends and associates. The company is CFJ Realty Corporation, a firm with numerous holdings, commercial and residential, in numerous San Francisco neighborhoods. CFJ is named for the last initials of its three principals: J. Ramsey Carson, Chaplin D. Fontaine and Orrin R. Jennett.

  "Good research," I tell him. "So who's this Mr. Carroll with his name beside the bell?"

  "That's the interesting part," Rusty says. "When I couldn't match him to anyone at CFJ Realty, I decided to check with the utility companies."

  "Smart move," Dad says. "Rusty would've made a fine detective."

  Rusty demurs. "Too much office work. Like your dad here, I liked the street." He pauses. "Anyway, I found out there's no phone currently connected in the apartment, which seemed odd and made me mildly curious. So then I checked with PG&E. Bingo! The electricity account's listed under the name of one Vincent Carroll, with a post office box address up north in Mendocino County."

  Dad nods solemnly. I know why he finds that interesting. Mendocino's the principal marijuana-farming district in California, which strengthens his theory that there's drug activity taking place in the apartment.

  "Is it Carroll's name that's familiar?" I ask.

  "Uh-uh, Ramsey Carson's," Dad says. "I've heard of him someplace or maybe read about him in the papers. When I remember I'll let you know."

  "Don't know what you're after, Kay," Rusty says. "But whatever it is, keep on it. You need any more help, don't hesitate to ask. I'll always be there for you."

  "Oh, she'll keep on it," Dad says. "Kay doesn't give up. Never has."

  "Kind of girl I like," Rusty says.

  But then, when I leave, I wonder why, with Dad always trying to dampen my investigative enthusiasms, Rusty was so encouraging.

  * * * * *

  Tonight, sitting here in the dark studying the streaked window across the way, I'm as bored and fatigued as I've been all week. I can't read because a reading lamp will reveal me, and if I pull the shade, I won't be able to keep watch. Now I understand why cops view surveillance work as hard duty, and why those who engage in it tend to get fat. Boredom, I've discovered, increases hunger. It takes all my willpower to keep from devouring my entire store of snacks. Luckily, I brought only apples and wafers, not pizza, potato chips or any of those other starchy goodies cops like so much.

  There are times, I know, when I doze off in my chair. Then suddenly my head will slump to my chest and wake me up. It's not a pleasant awakening, more like the way one wakes on an airplane during an overseas trip, stiff, groggy and annoyed, as opposed to the sublime experience of waking up on a feather bed beside one's lover because his hand has gently grazed one's breast or a moonbeam has lightly danced across one's eyes.

  I've tried various methods of staying awake, such as listening through earphones to taped books and music. But then after the novel or music's finished, I fall asleep. It's the tedium that's so tiring, also the darkness and quiet. I think I understand now why convicts, kept in solitary, sleep twelve to fourteen hours a day.

  Suddenly I'm jarred from one of my semisleep states by the appearance of light in the apartment window. I crane forward, heart pounding. Something's happening! I check my watch. Eleven-thirty. But then after a few minutes the light goes off.

  Someone was there. Now perhaps he or she's in another room. Trembling, I wait, eyes fixed upon the dirty glass, hoping he/she will enter again — even, hopefully, appear.

  Maybe they're sitting in darkness watching me?

  No, that's paranoid! I can't possibly be seen. There's barely any ambient light in the alley. And if the people across the way are concerned about being watched, all they have to do is cover their windows and black me out.

  I never considered cleaning the windows here for the same reason, I'm sure, Maddy never did — fear of signaling that the apparently uninhabited room on the top floor is now in use.

  I catch some light again, dimmer this time, yet filling the window with a subtle glow. Perhaps someone over there has opened a door, allowing light to seep into the room.

  I'm alert now, vibrating with awareness, the way David described Maddy when she was about to go on a shoot. It's similar to the hyperaware state Rita works to instill in us in aikido class, except, she teaches, for martial arts reasons, it's often better to appear sleepy to one's opponent.

  I move my chair a little closer to the window. Maddy's tripod-mounted Pentax looms just above my head. She was clever with the Pentax, covering the shiny metal parts with matte black tape so they wouldn't reflect and give her away.

  The glow in the room across the alley becomes more intense, as if someone has turned on a lamp. Then I detect rapid changes in the lighting level as if someone is moving between the light source and the window.

  I squint to sharpen my vision, ready to fasten on the first person to show himself. I also want to gain a feeling for the space. Since Maddy shot with a telephoto, she didn't pick up anything except people in an extremely narrow plane just behind the window.

  I make out a chair and what might be a portion of a bed. I'm also pretty sure that there's an open closet on the opposite wall, which could account for the changing light values in the background: flashes created by someone shoving hangers inside or pulling out a garment.

  A woman steps into frame. Naked, back to the window, she stands before the closet as if contemplating what to wear. Movement, more flashes, then a tall dark-figured person appears near the window, blocking out the woman and half my view.

  Waiting for this person to move, I have a sense it's a man. Maybe it's the line of his shoulders, or the fact that all the clothed figures in Maddy's photos appeared to be male.

  He moves toward the woman, stands beside her, touches her. Then I see another male-female pair facing them. The woman could be Asian, I think. I blink several times. I don't understand why people would stand inside a closet looking out.

  The first couple, the one with their backs to me, move slightly, at which point I catch a similar movement in the other pair. Are they dancing? They seem to mimic one another. Then I get it: it's the same couple, the man touching the woman, regarding themselves in a full-length mirror.

  So now I know the room's probably a bedroom with a closet and mirror on the inside of the closet door. A Caucasian man and an Asian woman are in the room. The woman is naked. The man is caressing her. Perhaps they're lovers. Perhaps he's whispering to her, telling her how beautiful and seductive she is.

  A perfectly innocent scene. Nothing sinister about it. So why did Maddy work to instill such a strong sense of menace?"

  The man moves toward the window, then turns his back, again partially blocking my view. I catch glimpses of the woman as she approaches him. Then she disappears.

  Impossible! She was there a moment ago. She must be standing directly in front of him, out of my line of sight. Suddenly I catch a flash from the mirror — something moving near his waist. It's her head, I think, bobbing rhythmically, one of his hands controlling her, grasping her hair, while the other strokes her cheek.

  She's on her knees performing oral sex — that's the only explanation. Nothing shocking about that... except there's an element of force suggested by their pose which doesn't sit well with me. And there's something else. I keep catching flashes of movement in the mirror that don't coincide with the motions of the couple in the center of the room.

  Suddenly I understand. There're other people watching. The couple — the man dressed and dominant, the woman naked and on her knees — are performing for a group. There's some sort of sex party going on.

  This revelation, which I feel I should have grasped when the couple first appeared, throws the scene into another category
: exhibitionism and scopophilia in the room, while I, hidden here across the alley, am no longer merely a watcher, am now a voyeur.

  I don't like this role, am disgusted to find myself playing it, so much so that now I must force myself to continue watching. It's one thing to scrutinize an intimate scene through a viewfinder, another to observe it with the naked eye. I'm not sure why this should be so, except that, camera in hand, I may allow myself the title of artist. But here, now, I can't convince myself I'm anything but a female Peeping Tom.

  So... there they are, a woman giving a man head in a demeaning way while others stand around and watch. And yet there's more, another level of activity, which I can barely make out, something so curious, out of the ordinary, as to nearly defy belief.

  Again I blink. To be sure I'm seeing what I think I'm seeing, to make certain my color-blindness isn't deceiving me, I turn my head to the side to utilize my good peripheral vision... and still I can't be sure. It's that damn mirror that could be distorting things, or the dirty window glass in my room or theirs. It could also be my imagination, overstimulated by the empty hours I've spent waiting here. Probably, I think, it's just a trick of light. For what I believe I see (though I cannot be sure) is that the naked woman on her knees is not actually performing oral sex upon the standing, dark-suited man, rather she's sucking on the shiny metal barrel of a handgun he's forcing deep into her throat.

  * * * * *

  One-thirty in the morning: The lights have finally gone out across the way. No more movement over there, no more activity. Everything's as it was before.

  Except for me. I'm different. My eyes are sore from gazing so long and my mind's a whirlpool of half-resolved images. I'm reminded of my dream, the one in which I could barely see or hear the play. Tonight I felt the same frustration: my angle of vision was too narrow, my view clouded by two layers of dirty glass, the light was too dim to properly illuminate the scene and I couldn't hear a single word.

  There's also something else — my terror of guns, which goes back to my mother's suicide. She used my father's spare service revolver, thrust it into her mouth, then pulled the trigger while lying on their bed with her head hanging upside down over the foot end. I've feared and hated guns ever since, refused to touch them, recoiled whenever I've seen them, even when secured in the holster of a friendly cop.

  So I wonder: Was it some kind of mirage, a trick of light, or did I actually see it? And if so, is that what Maddy, who also hated guns, saw as well?

  The ink drop may not be whole as yet, but threads of ink, previously unseen within the glycerine, are starting to appear. Meantime, the play I've constructed out of the bits that reached me is turning rapidly into a Grand Guignol.

  * * * * *

  Two a.m.: No point hanging around. Clearly the evening's festivities are over. I use my new cell phone to call a taxi, then go downstairs. Hearing deep rhythmic breathing as I pass the Wongs' bedroom door, I tiptoe so as not to wake them up.

  After letting myself out, securing the green door behind me, I pause. Is it really wise to walk to Mission Street

  ? I could have arranged for the cab to meet me here, but didn't want to attract attention. Now I must walk three blocks in a bad neighborhood at night.

  I stand still, listen, can hear nothing but the sound of occasional distant traffic. I start to walk... then freeze.

  Varoom! Varoom! The deep growl of a motorcycle rends the air. It's not close, perhaps a block away, but it's loud, it pulsates and it's closing fast. Scared, I slip into a narrow space between the back wall of the Wongs' house and the neighboring garage, pressing my back against the concrete.

  The motorcycle doesn't sound as if it's moving, rather as if the driver is gunning his engine while standing still near the corner of Cypress and Twenty-fifth. Then he takes off. I hear him circle the block. He roars down Capp, pausing this time at the other end of the alley, the intersection with Twenty-fourth.

  I peer out. I hear him, but can't see him; he must be just out of sight. I get out my key to the green door, prepare to quickly reenter the house. But then, just as I'm about to step into the alley, I hear the noise louder than before.

  Varoom! varoom!

  I withdraw again, then cautiously peek out. He's dead center now at the end of the alley, gunning his engine with such ferocity that the machine rises on its rear wheel like a sharply reined-in horse.

  The roar's enormous. He wants to attract attention. Impossible to make him out. Dressed totally in black, he wears a black helmet with visor that completely covers his face.

  Varoom! varoom!

  Front wheel back on the pavement, the machine lurches forward, blasting straight down the center of Cypress like a rocket. I shrink back, press my body hard into my little niche. He streaks by so fast I catch nothing of him but a blur. After he's gone I feel a rush of air, inhale the sharp gasoline smell of his exhaust. He thunders to the end of the block, then, with a squealing of tires, turns the corner and roars off.

  I remain still. Before stepping out again, I want to be sure he's not coming back. To my surprise no one appears in any of the windows or leans out to see what's going on. The alley seems even quieter than before, as if terrorized to silence by the display of power.

  Finally, convinced he's gone, I jog all the way to Mission Street

  , where I find my taxi hovering before the bookstore where David used to drop Maddy off. The driver, a black guy in his fifties, is annoyed at being delayed.

  "'Round here I don't wait for fares," he tells me. "Next time best git here first."

  * * * * *

  Ten a.m.: The telephone rings. I clutch for the receiver, bring it to my ear.

  "Hello?"

  "It is Maria Quintana."

  "Yes, Maria. Good morning."

  "Maybe not so good," she whispers.

  I sit up. "What's wrong?"

  "You must not come anymore."

  "I don't understand—"

  "I cannot speak now. I am at work. Please meet me this evening at Mission Dolores. Wait in the garden at six-thirty. Will you come? Please. This is important."

  I tell her I'll be there.

  "Thanks to God," she says.

  * * * * *

  At noon I call Joel, find him in his office at the News. He's in a cheery mood.

  "Hey, kiddo! What can I do for you today?"

  I tell him I've got a hypothetical question. "Suppose you can see people but can't hear what they're saying — is there a way you can snoop?"

  "Listen in on them?"

  "Something like that."

  "You into some kind of heavy shit?"

  "Can it be done?"

  "Of course it can. Ever see The Conversation ?"

  He reminds me of the movie, set in San Francisco, in which an obsessed audio expert uses exotic equipment to bug the conversation of a couple as they walk around crowded Union Square

  at noon.

  "Shotgun and parabolic mikes, sound filters, stuff like that. And remember, the movie was back in the seventies. There's far better, smaller equipment today. You can probably buy it under the counter at one of those counterspy shops, but you won't know how to use it and it'll cost you a bundle. Another approach is to hire a surveillance expert. There're a couple good ones around. They generally work for attorneys and charge accordingly, and because they're legit, they won't do anything illegal. The sleazy types who'll do an illegal tap or plant an illegal bug will charge you even more. So unless you've got a lot of money, your best bet is just get close and use your ears."

  "You wouldn't be trying to discourage me, Joel?"

  "I'd certainly discourage you from committing an unlawful act. Electronic eavesdropping can land you in jail, which isn't to say it isn't done. But it's not something to fool around with unless you know what you're doing and unless there's a hell of a lot at stake."

  "You've never done it?"

  "Oh, I've been tempted. But you know me, kiddo — I'm from the hard-ass school. Some of my tabloid col
leagues aren't so scrupulous. But when they play those kinds of games they insulate themselves real good."

  "How?"

  "Like, say, hire a sleazy private eye, tell him what they want without asking how he's going to go about it. It's understood the guy'll use a bug, but that never comes up in the conversation... which is also being recorded, by the way. They're paying for a result. It's up to the sleaze to get it."

  "Now I am discouraged."

  "Good. You won't do anything stupid."

  "Like—"

  "Like put on a disguise, try and talk your way in someplace, and then plant a miniature transmitter."

  "Why's that stupid?"

  "Because you'll probably get caught. Because the person you're bugging will probably have the room swept. Because the bug'll have a serial number and be traceable back to you. Because it's Nancy Drew time. Because life isn't like the movies." He pauses. "I wish you'd tell me what you're up to."

  "I will... one of these days."

  Hurt that I'm holding back, he cuts our conversation short. "Yeah, I'll look forward to that."

  * * * * *

  Walking to Marina Aikido, I ask myself whether I have the nerve to do what Joel's just told me I shouldn't. Yes, I decide, I most certainly have the nerve, but not the necessary stupidity or money. In fact, I make my small living from royalties on my books and sales of prints through my gallery, which I supplement with savings accumulated when I did advertising and fashion work, before I turned full-time to art photography.

  After class, Rita calls me aside. She asks: "How 'bout a commitment on the shodan exam?"

  "Please," I ask her, "give me a little more time. I'm distracted right now. When I go for it I want to concentrate a hundred percent."

  "More like a hundred and ten," she says. "Okay, we'll wait awhile. But not too long, girlfriend. Remember, when your time comes, you seize it." She grins. "'Course I wouldn't want to intimidate you... or anything like that."

  Having watched others face their moments of truth, I know exactly what she means. To prepare for the shodan is to be highly intimidated, by one's sensei of course, but also, ultimately, by oneself.