Frames Per Second

by Bill Eidson

  He was thinking about the difference of a day.

  About the drugs his body must be releasing into him to make him feel this way. He had still hit Kurt in front of Jake; he was still out of a job; the police had pretty much confirmed that the bomb that had killed Peter had been meant for him. There would probably be articles about it in the morning editions of the Globe and Herald.

  Sleeping with Sarah should’ve only compounded his problems. Probably did compound them.

  But he didn’t feel that way.

  He probed himself lightly, looking to see if the euphoria was going to fade. He hadn’t had all that many relationships since his divorce— two, exactly—and he knew this morning-after felt entirely different.

  In both cases, he had driven away from those first nights together with regret seeping into his system.

  The first was with a woman he met at a bar in Boston. They parted amicably at the end of a month.

  The other was with Janine Gold, a longtime photographer friend at the Boston Globe. She had left Ben at the end of three months, with tears and recrimination.

  Ben still mourned their ruined friendship.

  But what had happened between him and Sarah felt good, felt right. In fact, Ben was feeling at the moment that he could deal with whatever came his way: Johansen, McGuire, and any of their minions. Even Andi and Kurt.

  And so it was in this mood that he swung into his parking lot, just as the sun began to rise. He was only faintly aware that there was an unfamiliar car parked next to his space, and that the windows were fogged from the inside.

  He was three steps away from his van, heading toward his apartment building when the implications of that clicked. By the time he’d turned around, a big man had climbed out of the black Ford sedan.

  “I came for it,” the man said. “Give it to me, you spying son-of-a-bitch.”

  Ben didn’t even recognize him at first.

  Instead, Ben took in that the man was wearing an expensive blue suit, and clearly quite drunk. That even though the man was striding forward with a heavy belligerence, he held no weapons—other than his balled fists.

  Ben started to say something, but thought better of it. Then he said it anyhow. “Senator Cheever, what the hell are you doing?”

  Cheever stepped forward. Staggered forward.

  “Shut up. Fucking snoop.” The senator’s voice was thick. Ben could smell the bourbon on his breath.

  “Came to get it,” the senator said. “Then sat here the whole goddamn night, waiting while you’re out spying on some other poor son-of-a-bitch. I figured I’d save somebody else the shit I’ve been going through.” He stepped closer to Ben. He was equal in height and probably weighed another twenty pounds. Some of it was soft, but the way the blood was pumping in the senator’s face, Ben knew it wouldn’t be easy to stop him once he got started. “Maybe I’ll shove your face in,” the senator said. He put his hand on Ben’s chest and pushed.

  Ben stepped back. The senator almost fell. He regained himself, looking around the parking lot in some surprise. Carefully, he refocused on Ben. “After I go to work on your career, you’ll be lucky to cover weddings.”

  Ben said. “Senator, I don’t know what you think I have. But come on up and we’ll talk about it.”

  “Don’t bullshit me! You’re trying to ruin me with that fucking camera. What the hell did I ever do to you?”

  Then the senator waved away that last bit, apparently disgusted with himself. “Stupid-ass question. I can take my battles in public … but doing it like this. I don’t get it. You didn’t seem like that kind of guy. Then I checked up on you, found you were the guy who took down Father Caldwell.”

  Abruptly, the senator staggered over to Ben’s van and braced himself against it heavily. He squinted at the morning sunlight and said, “I’m so fucked up.”

  “Come on.” Ben took him by the arm. “I’ll make you some coffee.”

  The senator leaned against the back of the elevator as they rose to Ben’s floor. His lower jaw was slack, and he rubbed his face often.

  Once inside the studio, Ben waved the senator toward the easy chair near the balcony.

  The senator sat down heavily. He was still wearing his suit coat and looked uncomfortable. He picked at his jacket for a moment, then apparently realized he’d have to stand to take it off, and gave up on it.

  “Just curious.” Ben slid open the balcony door to get some fresh air. “You just didn’t strike me as the drinking type.” Ben put a cup of instant coffee in the microwave to heat.

  “I’m not supposed to be,” Cheever said. “I’m supposed to be a fucking paragon of virtue. Usually don’t even swear. I say that profanity shows not only a weak vocabulary but a weak mind. Fucking pompous ass that I am.”

  “Uh-huh,” Ben said, coming to sit across from him. “The coffee will be ready in a minute.”

  The senator continued. “My dad was a drinker. It looks like I got his genes there. That’s why I don’t usually have more than a glass of wine at fund-raisers, maybe one at dinner or with friends. I get drunk, I get just like he’d get. Like this. My mom held us together, brought me up right.”

  “So you’ve done this sort of thing before?”

  Cheever snorted, caught somewhere between amusement and dismay underneath his drunkenness. He raised his right arm and pointed, as if responding to a question at a press conference. “Ah, I’d have to say to the reporter in the front, this is my first and only time I accosted a journalist at his home. And I will certainly reprimand my driver for leaving a pint of bourbon in the glove compartment— although I, of course, take full responsibility for my own actions, regrettable though they may be.”

  The senator burped. “How’s that? If you’ve got your quote, maybe you’ll give me that fucking picture and the negative and call me a cab so I don’t kill anybody on the way home.”

  Ben saw the coffee was ready and he put the mug into the senator’s hands. “Drink this.”

  Cheever took a couple of sips and carefully set the coffee on the end table. “You know, I’m not a rich man. My dad went through what we had. He left me the town house and that’s it. Beyond the campaign funds, it’s Mariel’s family that had the money, the connections that primed the pump to get me where I am.”

  “And so, upsetting Mariel would play hell with your career.”

  The senator looked at Ben sharply. “I love my wife. My kids. Maybe you think that’s some sort of joke, that a politician is just a robot that says platitudes … and sometimes that’s true. But with me it’s not. Not when it comes to Mariel and the boys …” He rubbed his face again. “I don’t know how it happened, exactly. Teri and I were working together so closely … young woman, so attractive, so smart. She’s a power in her own right, yet she admired me. I lost my head.”

  “Sure.” Ben believed Cheever meant what he was saying. At least for the moment. The senator’s expression was turned inward and Ben could imagine the surge of maudlin feelings: the powerful rush of self-pity, twisted affection, and remorse.

  Soon, Ben would be crying right along with the guy.

  Ben said, “So exactly what pictures do you think I have? Lucien and I showed you everything.”

  Cheever shook his head and then raised his right hand angrily, and then put it down again on his knee. Apparently trying to control his temper. “Look,” he said, “let’s just cut the shit here, OK? I can’t figure you out, mister, I really can’t. You don’t seem like a bad guy. That thing with Johansen … I meant it when I said I admired you. But then I found out you were also the one who screwed Father Ray. Hounded him until he killed himself.”

  “Let’s stick to the present,” Ben said. “What do you think I have?”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  Ben shifted gears. “Did you send somebody after Peter?”

  “I don’t know a damn thing about your precious Peter Gallagher.”

  “Well, then both you and I are confused,” Ben said. �
�So why don’t I call the cops and the FBI and maybe they can come help sort this out for us.”

  Fear flashed into Cheever’s eyes, but his chin lifted slightly. “We can do that,” he said. “I guess I ruined my career. I’ll take the hit. But you’re going down with me, too. Frigging hero photojournalist is really a frigging blackmailer.” Suddenly he swept the cup of coffee at Ben, but his aim was so bad that most of the coffee sloshed on his own leg and the cup missed Ben and smashed on the floor.

  Ben sighed. “Let’s try this again. The photo. It’s of what?”

  Cheever looked at the smashed cup in some surprise, then started to wind himself up into indignation again. As he started to get on his feet, Ben stood up and put his hand on Cheever’s shoulder and shoved. “Sit down, Senator.”

  The senator tried once more, and Ben shoved him down again. The third time, Ben simply leaned hard on Cheever and got his face up close and said, “I don’t want to dance with you anymore, Senator. Tell me what photo you’re talking about. Now.”

  Cheever looked confused. He shoved Ben’s hand away and this time Ben let him. The senator felt inside his right pocket and pulled out an envelope. He handed it to Ben.

  Ben took out a folded five-by-seven black and white photo. Ben flipped it over. It was on standard black-and-white photographic paper, dog-eared from being folded and smoothed many a time. Ben had a sudden image of Cheever studying this shot in private, anguished by the implications.

  It was from the same scene as those that Peter had shot—through the window of Cheever’s town house. Only in this frame, Cheever was behind Teri Wheeler, his hands pulling her hips back against him. He was kissing her neck, as she arched her head back, laughing. Though it wasn’t the clearest shot, there was no doubt it was the two of them. And while they were both fully clothed, there was also no doubt that this was an intimate moment between them, nothing that could ever be construed as that of a casual kiss between friends.

  Ben reached back in the envelope. There was a white sheet of paper with a stark laser-printed message:

  You have to ask yourself three questions:

  1. What will Mariel and the kids think?

  2. What will divorce and scandal do to your career?

  3. Isn’t avoiding questions one and two worth a one-time $200,000 investment?

  Get the cash together, Senator.

  We’ll let you know when and where.

  “I see,” Ben said.

  “Yeah, you see,” the senator said. “Fuck you and your two hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Senator,” Ben said, quietly. “Look at me.”

  When he was sure he had Cheever’s attention, Ben said, “I didn’t take this picture. I’m not blackmailing you.”

  Cheever held his gaze for a moment and Ben saw doubt flicker across the senator’s face. And then he rolled his eyes away. “Ah, cut the crap. You and that little shit reporter walked into my office with all those other shots you took, and it’s obvious they were taken at the same time. I should’ve known better than kissing her like that in front of the window, but she was right there and I’d had a couple of glasses of wine and I just did it.”

  Ben looked at the picture again. “It does look like it was shot from the same angle,” he said. “But I didn’t take it. I didn’t take the others, either. I was on vacation in Maine when these were taken. Lucien and I let you think I took them when we came in on the interview to add a little pressure. But the truth is, Peter took the shots we showed you himself. And this one wasn’t in it.”

  “You’re lying.” The senator’s voice was harsh, but Ben could read the uncertainty in the man’s eyes.

  “I’m not,” Ben said, mildly. Not that he felt that way inside. The shot did look like it came from Peter’s series.

  “When did you get this?” Ben asked. “And how?”

  The senator’s stared at him, clearly debating whether or not answering would be participating in a charade. “In my mailbox at the town house. Marked ‘Personal.’ After I got the call.”

  “What call?”

  “Your call. Or your buddy’s. Whoever ‘we’ is.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “That I’d been indiscreet and he had a picture to prove it.”

  “How’d he get through to you?”

  “Told my secretary he was Senator Atkins from Missouri. So naturally, I took the call. Said that I should go downstairs and open my own mail to find out what he meant.”

  “Was this before or after Lucien and I interviewed you?”

  “After.”

  “How long after?”

  “Three days,” Cheever said. “What’d you want to do, look me in the face first? See if I’d fold? Well, I won’t.”

  Ben took his calendar from the wall and tossed it onto the senator’s lap. “Show me.”

  Cheever sniffed, and then studied the calendar. “Right here,” he said.

  Ben looked over his shoulder. The senator’s forefinger was resting on the date two days after Dawson had been waiting for Ben in his apartment.

  “You’re sure?” Ben said.

  “Positive.” Cheever fumbled inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a leather day timer. “See, right here. I had two speaking engagements the day before. I was in the office this day, and that’s when he called.”

  Ben leaned forward. “There was a man waiting in my apartment who tried to kill me—and then tried to burn every photograph in those file cabinets, Senator. What do you know about that?”

  Ben had been reading people’s faces through the lens for years. Reading fear, anger, happiness—and reading the truth and lies. There were all sorts of ways to lie. The bad ones shifted their eyes away and made deprecating gestures with their hands, their bodies denying the truth of their words. Or they took on an overly casual tone and delivered pat, well-thought-out answers with honeyed sincerity to every question.

  The good ones could look you straight in the eye and with a catch in their voice tell you a whopper that was full of the details and inconsistencies that were often representative of the truth.

  Because Cheever was a politician, Ben expected him to be good.

  But when he saw the senator’s reaction, Ben decided abruptly that he might be actually hearing the truth. There was a sudden sallowness behind Cheever’s ruddy skin, something that was probably impossible to fake. A blank look crossed his face, and he said, “Oh shit, this can’t be getting worse. Somebody tried to kill you?”

  “And burn all my pictures,” Ben said. “So who’d you tell that you had a little indiscretion problem?”

  “No one! Besides, you said this happened two days before—I didn’t even know I had a problem then.”

  Ben looked at him skeptically. “Even so, you’re telling me that you don’t have anyone assigned to your security that you could turn to with something like this?”

  “I do. Brad Cole. But I wasn’t going to get into that with him. Then he’d own me. Anyone you tell owns you.” The senator’s eyes flashed. “You may think it’s a joke, but I’m an honest man. As honest as I can be and still get the job done. Either you or I worked it out between us, or I was going to tell you to screw.”

  Ben considered the senator. He was sobering up fast.

  Cheever winced when he looked out at the sunlit balcony. “Jesus, my head hurts.” He looked over at Ben ruefully. “You really didn’t take that photo, did you?”

  Ben shook his head.

  Cheever laughed, shortly. Without mirth. “God, I’ve just dug myself a deeper hole here, haven’t I?”

  Ben ignored that. “Tell me something. Did you ever hear from Peter on any of the photos? Not just this one, but the others, the ones Lucien and I showed you.”

  Cheever shook his head. “I told you, I thought you had taken them. First I saw of them was when your reporter laid them out on my table. When Gallagher came to me, he just had rumors. No pictures.”

  “Did he say where the rumors came from?”

  “O
f course not.”

  Ben looked at the shot again and then got up and went to his bag and pulled out his file folder of photos. He ran through the ones Peter had taken and the senator lumbered to his feet and looked over Ben’s shoulder while he laid them out.

  Ben went through the shots of McGuire. “Do you know this guy? How about these two people with him at the table?”

  The senator studied them carefully. He was still swaying on his feet slightly, but his concentration appeared good. “No,” he said, finally.

  “You’re sure?” Ben thought there was something there.

  “I don’t know any of these people.”

  Ben looked at him closely. “The name Jimbo McGuire mean anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “Because he’s most likely the one who sent a man by the name of Dawson to find a photo in my files and kill me. And when Dawson didn’t succeed, McGuire either killed him or had him killed.”

  The color was gone from Cheever’s face now. “You think he’s the one who’s blackmailing me?”

  “I don’t know,” Ben said. “It seems like a hell of a coincidence. Do you know Patrick Clooney?”

  “Of course I know of him,” Cheever snapped. “But I don’t see him here. Don’t tell me you’re setting me up with him now.”

  “I’m not setting you up for anything.”

  “Oh, you’re a paragon of virtue.”

  “Listen, Senator, if I’d been on the shoot with Peter and I’d captured this shot of you and Teri, then Peter and I would’ve been on your doorstep the next morning asking for a quote right before the shot ran. You’re a public figure and got elected largely on the character issue—so that makes your infidelity news. That’s one of the things you signed up for when you ran for office.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Cheever said. “That’s why I’m here now. Either publish the shot or don’t. But I won’t stand for blackmail.”

  Ben considered it all while looking at the blackmail picture. “Let’s take this one step at a time,” he said. “I want to look at the negatives for the roll that Peter took. See if this shot is on there and ask a few questions.”