Frames Per Second

by Bill Eidson

  Ben nodded.

  “My experience,” she said, “is that deals like that are almost always made on a political level.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  “We’ll see.”

  Even though Ben drove them to the Old Courthouse building in Government Center, Sarah immediately assumed the lead when they reached the fifth floor. The Registry of Deeds. The ceilings were high, painted a light blue. Maybe thirty or forty people milled about the big room, talking freely as they pulled bound copies of computer printouts off the shelves. In the center a half-dozen clerks stood behind a waist-high desk, dealing with questions. An enormous American flag hung over the desk.

  “Same the world over,” Sarah said. “Let’s see if we get lucky.” She quickly stepped in behind a woman who working at one of the few computers on the side of the central desk. After a few minutes, she left, and Sarah stepped up. “Let’s see if we get a hit on Cheever’s name.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “Sure you are. Paper is not your thing.”

  “How does tracking real estate link us into Greater Harbor contracts?”

  “Oh, naive one. First off, these are public records, so we might as well take a look. And real estate is McGuire’s area of expertise, right?”

  “Supposedly.”

  “And … there’s a long tradition of bumping up politicians’ war chests with real estate purchases … buy a politician’s property for a whole lot more than it’s worth, and you’ve given your guy a lump of cash he can put into the bank. Don’t you remember the story about Kennedy selling his Virginia property to the Japanese that way?”

  “Vaguely.”

  Sarah looked over her shoulder at Ben, and wrinkled her nose. “Liar. If there’s no visual interest you don’t pay attention.”

  Her fingers moved rapidly over the keys and records flashed up. “OK, we search Cheever’s name for the past year.”

  Ben gave her the address on Beacon Street.

  “Hah,” she said. “There we go. He sold it. Three point three million.”

  She quickly did a comparison of similar-sized buildings within four blocks. “Hmm… . It’s hard to say for sure whether his building was simply in better shape than the others—but he clearly did the best of any of them, by a seven-hundred-thousand-dollar margin.”

  “But he still lives there.”

  “So, maybe he made an arrangement. Leased it back or something. Let’s search this buyer, Conant Holding Group, and see what else they bought.”

  She jotted down reference numbers for three purchases that Conant Holding had made in the past year within the Boston area in addition to Cheever’s town house. “Here, you find two, I’ll find two.” She went through the stacks and selected two bound photocopies of deeds. It took him a few minutes longer to find his copies; by then she had already looked through the deeds on her desk.

  “OK, let’s see what you’ve got here.” She flipped quickly to the deeds, tracing through each of them with her forefinger.

  “What are you looking for?” Ben asked.

  “Not sure. But …”

  Ben looked over her shoulder. Mostly it was legal gobbledygook to him. On the surface, anyhow, the three purchases seemed to be commercial properties; Cheever’s was the only residential. The same bank held all of the mortgages.

  She stood straight. “Here we go. See on this one how they qualified ‘Conant Holding Group, right here? ‘G.H. Corp.’ “

  “Uh-huh.”

  Sarah hurried back to the computer. She typed in “G.H. Corporation,” and waited as two more records became available. On the second one, she inhaled sharply.

  G.H. Corporation stood for “Goodhue Holding Corporation.”

  She grinned triumphantly, “We’ve made contact, Houston. It looks like Goodhue purchased Cheever’s town house with corporate funds.”

  “Can we find the broker on this?” Ben touched the monitor.

  “Not here,” she said. “But I can get that from the mortgage company with a little luck. And with a little more, I bet we’ll find that after a few twists and turns, it’ll lead back to Jimbo McGuire, real estate consultant, Atlantic Avenue, Boston.”

  “I guess this is as good a time as any to grovel for a favor,” Sarah said, as they were leaving the building. “Do some more of the research Lucien should’ve done on Cheever.”

  “From who?”

  “My Washington Post reporter friend. Ex-friend. Chas Greer. You remember that one relationship I told you I had? Four wasted months for the both of us?”

  “I still hate him.”

  “Well then, walk around the block.” She took out her phone and said, “Wish me luck.”

  “I’ll stay here.”

  He stood at the top of the escalator of the big semicircular Center Plaza, and watched her make the call.

  It took a few minutes, but she got through to him. Her body was tense even though her voice was friendly. “Chas … it’s Sarah …”

  Ben took the escalator down. Suddenly he didn’t want to see her do her act with an ex-lover.

  After a few minutes, she came riding down after him.

  Her shoulders were relaxed now, and she was smiling. “Good news. Chas is engaged and has forgiven me for dumping him.”

  Ben smiled. “That is good news.”

  “And, he was just the guy to talk to about your friend Senator Cheever and the New England Software Foundation.”

  Ben waited.

  “He said that if he were Teri Wheeler at the NESF, he would be very unhappy with the senator’s performance—on software related issues. The man has made virtually no significant legislation or concessions in that area.”

  “No?” Ben cocked his head. “Let me guess.” He pointed at the expressway behind them, the stalled traffic on the elevated highway.

  “That’s right,” she said. “Cheever heads the Greater Harbor committee. He’s the man you have to convince if you want a big, lucrative contract.”

  On the way to the boat, Ben pulled a sudden left toward the Design Center.

  “What’s this?” Sarah said.

  “Old warehouse that’s been converted into individual studios. Artists, ad agencies, few photographers that I know.”

  “That’s fascinating, Ben. Why are we here now?”

  “You’re not the only one with old friends. I want to see a photographer. Leonard Penn. One who learned how to make serious money.”

  “And?”

  “And one who’s taken Goodhue’s portrait more than a few times. One who knows him better than me.”

  “OK, so he’s taken the man’s picture. What will he be able to tell us?”

  “Don’t know,” Ben said. “But some of these photographers are pretty insightful guys, you know.”

  She looked at her watch. “Long as he can be that way in no more than ten minutes.”

  Leonard was in the middle of a shoot.

  There were motorcycles all over his studio. High performance bikes, classic hogs, and mopeds. Bright lights flooded a small stage where two male models in business suits each sat on a motorcycle. One bike was a powerful BMW racer with clip-on handlebars and an integrated fairing. The other was a hopelessly dated-looking Triumph tricked out with a long extension fork, lots of chrome, swastika mirrors. An assistant was working with the first model to attach a monofilament line to his tie to pull it back as if it were flying in the breeze. A makeup woman in tight jeans worked with the second biker’s helmet to make it look as if it had been blown askew by the wind stream of the first bike. The model on the second bike kept working on his own expression, apparently striving for indignant confusion.

  Leonard turned when Ben and Sarah walked in. He was over six foot three, with a completely bald head. He wore jeans, sneakers, and a doctor’s green hospital shirt.

  “Ben Harris,” he said. “Come for some photo tips?”

  “Just to watch the master at work.”

  Leonard turned to look at his models. He put hi
s hand on his chin. “Don’t think they’re going to do anything newsworthy, but I’ll call if they do.”

  “Got a minute for some questions?”

  “I won’t tell you how much I’m making here.”

  “Who’s the motorcycle client?”

  Penn laughed. “You’re too literal for this side of the business. The image is Performance. Motorcycles represent performance, get it? Corporate account.”

  “Goodhue?”

  Penn shook his head. “Haven’t done anything for them for a few months. Fuckers pulled their ad campaign, want a different look. I’m out.”

  “How about portrait work? Goodhue himself.”

  Penn looked at him sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Can we talk privately, Mr. Penn?” Sarah said.

  “Who’re you?”

  Leon’s back was to the models now. His body was still, and his eyes went quickly between Ben and Sarah.

  “Leon,” Ben said. “Calm down. Can we talk in your office?”

  Penn looked back at the shoot, and then said, irritably, “Two minutes.”

  He led them back to a tiny glassed-in office area where he could see the studio. “All right, what’s this about?”

  Ben looked around the office and out at the studio. At the ads up on the walls. Almost a whole wall devoted to the work Leon had done for Goodhue Corporation. The same stuff that had been up the last time Ben had visited Leon at his studio, more than a year back.

  Ben looked back at the shoot. It was a good-sized effort by most standards. But Ben remembered when Leon would have had more than a half dozen assistants, plus agency types and a client or two eating and drinking on the sidelines while he held court.

  “How’s business?” Ben said.

  “Peachy,” Leon said. “Thanks for asking.”

  Both Ben and Sarah were silent.

  Leon picked at some invisible lint on his jeans, and then rolled his shoulders. “So what’s up?”

  “We’re looking at Senator Cheever,” Ben said. “And possible links between him and Goodhue Corporation.”

  “So, I’ve taken Goodhue’s picture. We talk about sailing when he poses, not politicians he’s bribed.”

  “OK,” Ben said. He waited. Leon seemed like he wanted to say something. Sarah waited as well.

  Leon looked up at the walls, at the ads, back through the glass at the shoot. “Look, if I tell you something, can you keep it to yourself? At least that it was me that told it to you?”

  “Sure,” Ben said.

  “Absolutely,” Sarah added.

  Leon sighed. “My business took a major hit when I lost Goodhue. You know how it is. All this …” He made a vague gesture to the studio. “It’s like the entertainment business. Hell, it is the entertainment business. You’re hot, and then you’re not.”

  Ben waited, and Sarah did the same.

  Leon said, “The way I hear it was that Goodhue himself suddenly didn’t like my work. Told the agency the concepts, photography, everything, had to change. And suddenly Doug Stillwell has the great new look.”

  Ben looked askance. “Doug Stillwell? Dougie Stillwell, your photo assistant?”

  “You knew he had ambitions.”

  “Who doesn’t? But I never saw the talent. Former model, right?”

  Leon shrugged his shoulders. “Look, I’m not one to knock anyone’s lifestyle. I’m gay, everybody knows it. Who cares? Same with Doug. But Goodhue? Circles he moves in, that’s bad news.”

  “You think Doug was involved with Goodhue?”

  Leon nodded. “That was my impression. Nothing obvious, but at first Doug made a few jokes, that the guy was eyeing him. Then Doug suddenly stopped smirking and shut up about it. I got the impression there were dinners afterwards, some things going on. Hell, I didn’t care. It was very discreet, the guy’s a hawk, a captain of industry. But I think there was something there.”

  “You think he just handed off the business because of that?”

  Leon made a face. “No, actually I don’t. I’ve always had the impression Goodhue was a straight shooter business-wise. But I know Dougie can be a mean, manipulative piece of shit when he wants to be. And one day he’s living on what I pay him … and then he doesn’t show up to work. Next thing I hear, he’s invested almost twenty-five grand in Hasselblad equipment and he’s setting up his own studio. Took a while, after that, and I hear the work I’d been doing for the past three years isn’t ‘good enough for Goodhue’ anymore. And once one agency shut me down, the others fell off. I’m not making half of what I once was.”

  “Let me ask you something,” Sarah said. “Do you know Teri Wheeler?”

  Leon looked at her. “You know all this already?”

  “No.”

  “Because, yeah. I know Teri Wheeler. She was here during a couple of shoots we did for the Foundation. Including one with Goodhue himself. She was the one who introduced Doug to Goodhue.”

  He gestured to the walls, the ads that were already beginning to yellow inside their frames. “Yeah, I know Teri Wheeler.”

  CHAPTER 37

  TERI FLIPPED THE CURTAINS BACK AND LOOKED OUT ONTO THE dock. She said, “I think this is a bad idea, Jimbo.”

  They were in the cabin of his sportfisherman. He patted the cushion beside him. “Let’s stop thinking altogether.”

  She gave him that look. Icy, impatient, but a touch of humor under it all. Made him want to slap her, made him want to screw her. So far he’d done the latter a half dozen times, but never the former, so he had to give her credit there. She knew a thing or two about controlling men.

  “You could ruin everything I’ve set up,” Teri said. “He’s just one guy.”

  “He’s my guy,” Jimbo snapped. “And it’s time he knows it.”

  The fact was it pissed Jimbo off that Teri very likely saw Jimbo himself as her guy. She was discreet about it, but across the country she had other men like himself in place.

  Teri had a couple years on him, maybe three or four. He liked that. Woman looking as good as she did, but just that bit of an age difference, that experience level. He figured in a few years he could move in the circles she did, work on a national level.

  “Come on,” he said, smiling at her. “Let’s pass the time.” She was wearing the cutoffs and halter top that she left on the boat from last time. So different from her usual look, and he liked to think she was being herself when she was with him.

  She walked over and put a knee onto the cushion beside him. Her voice softened. Trying to work him. “Listen, why don’t you just let me do this myself, all right? You stay up at the helm and be the hired captain. He’s the type to find religion. Better that I break down, tell him I’ve got a confession. That I took some liberties helping him out with the town-house deal, that there were more strings attached than I let on before. That he’s got to save me by playing ball. Stock- ard’ll get this last contract and you’ll stay hidden.”

  “Hmmm,” he said, letting her think he was considering it. As if she called the shots in his town.

  She straddled him. God, the heat that came off her for such a cool-looking piece. She whispered, “You’ll see, I know what I’m doing.”

  She kept sliding back and forth on him, kissing him, making him lose himself in the scent of her hair. Then she pulled back like some sort of high school tease. “Hey, you take care of that photographer?”

  This too pissed off Jimbo. She thought she was riding him so tight she could set the pace.

  “Better than you,” he said, keeping the huskiness out of his voice. “Got the guys sweeping up and down in front of the club, looking for that scabby old van. Besides, the guy doesn’t know shit.”

  “I guess.” She shrugged. “Sounds like we overreacted before.”

  He caressed her hair, and then took a handful of it and twisted. That had to hurt some, but he saw no fear in her eyes. Just impatience. He said, “What do you mean, we?”

  “Tough guy,” she said. “A gen
tleman would let me forget.”

  “Who said I’m a gentleman?”

  “Not me. Never.” She smiled a little now as he released her hair and smoothed it along her shoulders. He unfastened her halter top.

  “I don’t care if he walks in on us,” McGuire said, hoarsely. “Hell, it might even be a real good way of letting him know.”

  She leaned forward to give him a taste, and for a time, McGuire was truly lost. Recalcitrant senators, stalled construction contracts, and even the question of who was running who slipped out of his mind with the hardening of her small pink nipples.

  But then she pulled away. A sound on the dock, footsteps. When Jimbo looked past her, through the slit in the curtains, he saw the guy walking down the ramp from the pier to the dock, wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap down low over his eyes. Windbreaker with the collar turned up even though it was almost eighty goddamn degrees out there. Should’ve been wearing a sign that said, “I’m wearing a disguise.”

  Jimbo sighed. “He’s here.” He reached down and handed Teri her halter top.

  She stood, looking down at him. “You’re sure you want to play it this way?”

  “Positive,” lie said.

  She straightened herself out, and tossed her hair back. “All right. It might be for the best. Not having to dance around him so much.” She lifted her eyebrows. “Been a while since I just cut the bullshit and snapped on the leash. Used to be fun.”

  Jimbo grinned. He remembered the first time she dropped her mask on him. This cool little number who had come to Stanford to teach a graduate-level workshop on the use of foundations as marketing tools. He thought he’d been seducing the teacher only to find she’d been setting up the student. She had hinted about it then, but it wasn’t until months later that he worked the entire truth out of her—that for all her Nordic good looks and sophistication, her roots were as twisted and vulgar as his own.

  That first time together with Jimbo, she had simply suggested there was a story to be told. “I think we’re in a unique position to help each other,” she said, lying beside him in bed. “Between your contacts and mine, we can make a fortune.” She smiled that quirky little smile she kept for only her closest friends.