Who Killed the Pinup Queen?

by Kelner, Toni, L. P.

  “Will do. Now the models may have gotten shy, but not the photographers. I’ve had three invitations to dinner from guys in the camera clubs I used to pose for, plus a marriage proposal. And that’s not the best part. Cooper, would you mind getting that envelope from the desk?”

  He got up long enough to grab a plump cardboard photo mailer and handed it to her.

  She tapped it. “You know what I’ve got here?”

  “More pictures?” Tilda asked.

  “Got it in one. There was this one set of pictures I did where I was dressed as a pirate who’d captured some sweet young thing. I tied her up and made her walk the plank and so forth. These days, they’d probably have crotch shots and tongues and all that. We settled for spanking.”

  “I remember that pictorial—you and Virginia Pure,” Cooper said. “It was great spanking.”

  Sandra smiled indulgently. “Well, this is a batch of pictures from that same shoot.”

  “Really? I thought that photographer died,” Tilda said.

  “Yes and no. Red Connors put the shoot together, and he did pass away years back, God bless him. But this was a special case. The pirate ship setup was pretty elaborate for those days, and Red had to rent props and equipment on top of paying the two of us girls. He was nervous he wasn’t going to be able to sell the pictures for enough money to make it all back, so he invited some guys from the camera clubs to come in and shoot, too, as long as they didn’t get in his way. They paid me and the other girl extra, and paid him, too, so he could be sure of making a profit.”

  Tilda saw that Cooper looked confused, and thought she had better give him a little background. “Back then, there were a lot of camera clubs for amateur photographers. They’d hire models and then all show up to take pictures of them.”

  Sandra nodded. “The pros didn’t always let the amateurs in on their sessions—they didn’t want the competition—but like I said, Red was anxious about the dollars. He made the guys in the club promise to keep the pictures for their own use and not sell them, and as far as I know, they all kept their word.” She tapped the envelope again. “This guy did, anyway. It turns out that he lives just up the road in Medford. He got in touch with me through the site, and asked if I wanted the pictures, and of course I said I did. They’ve never been printed anywhere before, and I’m going to debut them on my site.”

  “Wow!” Cooper said.

  She gave him a coquettish smile. It was honestly coquettish, too, not the parody that was the best most women Tilda’s age could muster. “Would you like to take a look?”

  “You mean it?”

  “Sure, why not? They’ll be on the Web next week anyway.” She opened the envelope and pulled out a stack of photos, and while Tilda and she looked on, Cooper put the camera aside so he could reverently lift each photo.

  Tilda was fascinated by one that showed Sandra and the other model in street clothes. Both were wearing neat suits with high heel pumps, gloves, and cunning hats.

  Sandra saw what she was looking at, and shook her head. “He must have taken that one when we first got there. Can you believe how we used to dress, just to take our clothes off? And those were everyday outfits!”

  “You looked great,” Tilda said, “but I bet what you’re wearing now is a lot more comfortable.”

  Meanwhile, Cooper was going for the skin. “These are amazing,” he said. “I can really see where you and the other model loosened up later in the session.”

  Sandra giggled. “Yeah, we did, didn’t we?” She pulled one photo out of the stack. “The guys gave us a little extra for this pose.”

  “I’ll bet they did! Whatever they paid, it was worth it.”

  “Cooper!” Sandra said in mock shock. “I see that ring on your finger—what would your wife say?”

  “Husband, actually,” he said. “And Jean-Paul wouldn’t mind—he knows your pictures helped prove that I’m gay.”

  “Come again?”

  “The fact is, my whole family knew by the time I hit high school, but one uncle had it in his head that he could ‘cure’ me. One day he showed up and said he wanted to take me out for lunch, but on the way home from the restaurant, he pulled out one of his prized girlie magazines and told me to look at it alone that night. That’s the one that had the pirate spread.”

  “It was one of my more popular ones,” Sandra said modestly.

  “It opened my eyes, I can tell you that. If anything would have set me straight, those pictures would have. But though I tried to . . . appreciate them, nothing happened. Uncle Mac asked about it the next day, and when I told him, he just patted me on the shoulder and said that if those pictures wouldn’t do it for me, no woman ever would.”

  “Cooper, that is the sweetest thing I ever heard,” Sandra said.

  Tilda wasn’t sure if sweet was the right word for it, but it did explain why Cooper had been so interested in coming along. Before Sandra and Cooper got the urge to share any more Hallmark moments, she asked, “What happened to the other model? I’ve done a fair amount of research on pinup queens, and I don’t remember seeing many pictures of her. I’m guessing Virginia Pure wasn’t her real name.”

  “Wasn’t that the dumbest thing?” Sandra said. “Her real name was Esther something. Esther Marie . . . Esther Marie Martin, that’s it. What a name to hang on her! She had the cutest Southern accent you ever heard, and used to guzzle iced tea with so much sugar in it you’d think it was syrup. She was from some little bitty town in Virginia, which is what gave her the idea for the name—I don’t think she even made the connection between Virginia and virgin, even though she probably was one. Esther was one of those sweet young things who came to New York to be a star on Broadway, but she wasn’t tough enough or lucky enough. She kind of fell into modeling, but she never did learn to like it. Some people are comfortable in their skin, and some aren’t—poor Virginia didn’t think she was pretty enough because she wasn’t as big busted as I was.”

  “Not many women are,” Tilda said, resisting the impulse to check out her own rack.

  “Big breasts aren’t everything, not even in that line of work,” Sandra said. “Red was really pleased with that shoot, and wanted Virginia and me to do more together, but that day was the last time I saw her. She started feeling sick near the end of the session, and I don’t know if it was because she was really coming down with something or if the modeling had finally gotten to her. Next thing I knew, she’d left New York to go back home, and I never heard from her again. Broke a few hearts, too.”

  “I thought it was ‘look, don’t touch’ with the camera club members?”

  “It was supposed to be,” Sandra said with a little smile. “Most of the guys were too shy to even speak to us outside of shoots. But not all.”

  “And?”

  “And . . . And I could use a tonic. How about you two?”

  Tilda admitted defeat, and both she and Cooper accepted the offer.

  Sandra went into the tiny kitchen to fetch Cokes and a bowl of pretzels, and once they were all settled again, she said, “So, Cooper, do you know who Bettie Page was?”

  He looked at Tilda, but she had no way of giving him a hint of how to respond, so he cautiously said, “I think I’ve heard the name.”

  Sandra rolled her eyes. “Everybody has heard of her, but nobody knows that I taught her everything she knew about posing.”

  “Really?”

  “You bet! It was me who taught her to walk in high heels, too. Do you ever do drag?”

  Tilda leaned in, curious about that herself, since she’d never dared ask.

  But Cooper said, “Just for Halloween, and I stay away from heels.”

  “Well, there’s a real art to wearing them gracefully. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Tilda?”

  “Practice, practice, practice,” she said. “And never wear heels in the snow.”

  Sandra laughed. “That’s a good place to start.” She took a swallow of Coke and said, “Is there anything else y
ou need for your article?”

  As hints went, Sandra’s was remarkably polite, so Tilda took a quick look at her notes. “I think I’ve got it. If I do seem to be missing something, I’ll give you a call.”

  “Hate to rush you two off, but I’ve got company coming and I want to make myself beautiful.”

  “Don’t waste your time,” Cooper said. “You’re already there.”

  Sandra beamed. “Cooper, if you were straight and maybe twenty years older, I’d just keep you and cancel my date.”

  There was a flurry as Tilda gathered up notes and pens, she and Cooper suited up for the winter weather, and Sandra walked them to the building’s front door. The predicted snow had arrived, and as Tilda stepped unwillingly into the quarter-inch that had already fallen, she looked back and saw Sandra waving at them cheerfully.

  Chapter 4

  The cowboy is the ultimate American archetype. Literally and figuratively negotiating the boundaries between nature and humankind, lawlessness and civilization, he rides the range of our imagination, adding nuance to our definitions of good and evil with every story, every serial, every song. Embodying both the rugged individual and the citizen capable of constructing and maintaining a community, the cowboy—and cowgirl—reflects the essential American desire to be both a leader and team player, with the qualities of toughness, fairness, resourcefulness, and self-sacrifice.

  —AMERICANS IMAGINED: IDENTITY AND ARCHETYPE FROM ROY ROGERS TO BATMAN BY LORINDA B. R. GOODWIN, PHD

  IN between amiable cursing at the snow, Cooper mentioned that Jean-Paul was working late, so they decided to stop at California Pizza Kitchen for dinner, partially for the food and partially for the amusement of being able to look out the wall of windows and watch people trudge through the snow while they ate in flake-free warmth. While waiting for their order, Cooper said, “In all the excitement about your newly employed status—”

  “My possibly employed status,” Tilda said.

  “Negative thoughts give you wrinkles. I saw that on the Web.”

  “Then it must be true.”

  “As I was saying, in the excitement about which I shall not go into detail, I forgot to ask what the big meeting was about. I’m assuming Jillian didn’t bring in all those other people just to offer you a job.”

  “No, the tentative job offer was an afterthought. The meeting was about a nice, fat assignment. Do you remember the show Cowtown?”

  “It rings a very vague bell.”

  “Way before our time. It was set in a Western town with the usual crew of kindly doctor, cranky shopkeeper, virtuous farmer, aristocratic rancher, and saloon gal with a heart of gold. But those were only the backdrop. Since the town was along a regular cattle trail, there were always cowboys coming through, bringing their stories of adventure to trade for free drinks with the golden-hearted saloon gal. It was almost an anthology series—lots of guest stars, and generous use of stock footage of stampedes, Indian attacks, and so forth.”

  “Sounds eminently forgettable.”

  “Some of the episodes were decent, but it varied a lot with the guest stars and the guest writers. If you like Westerns, that is.”

  “And you don’t?” he asked.

  “Are you serious? Did it never strike you how bogus the whole cowboy mythos is? John Wayne and Matt Dillon? The Cartwright brides on Bonanza dying off like bimbos in a slasher flick? The way Indians are portrayed is horrible, and women don’t come off much better. Then there were the spaghetti Westerns, where suddenly everything was grubby and the women got raped instead of being menaced in some nonspecific way. That’s how the world sees the United States, as a bunch of cowboys.” Tilda noticed that Cooper had one eyebrow raised. “What?”

  “How old were you when you had your cowboy birthday party?”

  She sighed. “When I turned eight.”

  “Did you have a cowboy hat?”

  “A cowgirl hat, thank you very much. Red, to match the vest.”

  “Boots?”

  “Just for dress-up. They were no good for actually playing cowboys and Indians.”

  “I bet you used to watch Rex Trailer on TV.”

  “Please. Boomtown had gone off the air long before I was interested in cowboys.”

  “And yet you recognized Rex Trailer’s name.”

  “He is a Boston celebrity. I’ve seen him at parades, once or twice.”

  “What’s his horse’s name?”

  “Goldrush,” she said, defeated. “Okay, I had a secret addiction to Westerns.”

  “Had?”

  “Correction. I have a secret addiction to Westerns, which is why I recognized Cynthia Barth, the actress who used to play Arabella Newman, the saloon gal on Cowtown. And I forgot to tell you the best part of the show. At the end of every episode, Arabella would do a voiceover with the episode’s moral. Stuff like, ‘A real man never harms a woman—any man that does is nothing but a snake.’ And the end was always, ‘That’s the Cowtown Code.’ ”

  “You have got to be kidding me!”

  “Cowboy’s honor,” she said. “A true cowboy never lies. That’s the Cowtown Code.”

  “Stop it!”

  The pizza arrived before Tilda could quote more, and while they ate, she explained the plan for a Cowtown resort.

  “With the economy the way it is, it seems like the worst time imaginable to build a tourist trap,” Cooper said. “Is there a market for something like that?”

  “Hard to say. There used to be an attraction based on Bonanza outside of Lake Tahoe and it did pretty well. It only closed because the owners wanted to sell the land. Nostalgia is big, and cowboys are always big. I don’t know if this will fly or not, but the Ambrose brothers seem pretty gung ho on the idea, and I’m just happy to get the work.”

  “Something to tide you over until you start at Entertain Me! full time,” Cooper said.

  “Changing the subject now,” Tilda insisted, and they moved on to talk forthcoming movies for the rest of the meal. When they left the restaurant, the plan was for Tilda to hit the subway while Cooper hoofed it toward his apartment, but before they separated Tilda said, “Wait. I need my camera back.”

  “I thought you had it.”

  After several minutes of searching, it was obvious that neither of them had it.

  “Shit!” Tilda said.

  “Sorry, kiddo. I must have left it in Sandra’s apartment.”

  Tilda pulled her cell phone out to dial Sandra’s number, but the line was busy. “At least she’s home. I hope she doesn’t go anywhere before I can get back there.” She looked out the window into the snow, and sighed. “Once more into the breach, dear friend.”

  “I’ll walk with you.”

  “That’s okay. No reason for you to go that far out of your way and then still have to get home.”

  “But it’s my fault for leaving the camera.”

  “So you can buy me dinner next time.”

  “Are you sure?”

  In response, she shoved him in the direction he needed to go and said, “Good night, Cooper!” before heading outside into the muck.

  The temperature had dropped while they’d been eating dinner, and the snow was falling even more heavily. Tilda’s commentary as she trudged would have been wildly unsuitable for Cowtown. She was tempted to grab a cab, even if it put her in the hole for the story, but naturally there were none in sight, so there was no choice but to walk. She tried to call Sandra again along the way, but the line stayed busy.

  Finally she made it back to Sandra’s building, and was about to ring the bell when a delivery man on his way out paused to hold the door for her. After stamping her feet to shake the accumulated snow off of her Doc Martens, she went to Sandra’s door and knocked.

  There was no response.

  Surely Sandra hadn’t gone out since she tried to call last. Besides, hadn’t she said that she was expecting company?

  Tilda knocked again, harder, and when there was no answer, pulled out her cell phone to dial S
andra’s number yet again. It was still busy, so presumably the woman was inside, but Tilda didn’t hear sounds of conversation.

  Now she pounded on the door, but there was still no reply, and when she checked the doorknob, she found that it was unlocked. Hesitantly, she pushed the door open and peered inside the room. “Sandra?”

  The first thing she saw was the telephone. When she’d been there before, it had been on the desk next to the computer. Now it was on the floor with the receiver off the hook, which explained the busy signal. But it didn’t explain where Sandra was. It didn’t make sense—like one of Cooper’s picture puzzles, it felt as if some of the pieces had been confused somehow.

  The only thing Tilda could imagine was that the older woman had had a stroke or a heart attack, and had been trying to reach the phone when she succumbed. So Tilda stepped inside, and wasn’t even surprised to see Sandra lying on the floor, facedown, on the other side of the couch.

  She later wondered why she didn’t panic, but somehow the shock gave her the illusion of complete control. Since she knew she couldn’t handle anything more serious than a paper cut herself, obviously professional help was needed. She still had her cell phone in her hand. Then she remembered that the police would be able to track the call more easily if she used Sandra’s landline, so she picked it up from the floor to call 911. In a calm, collected voice, she explained that an older woman had fallen ill and needed an ambulance. It was only when the operator asked for details about the patient’s condition that Tilda actually looked at Sandra. And saw the blood. Too much blood.

  It had run down the woman’s velour top to soak into the rug, and there were spatters across the couch and on the mirror. The back of Sandra’s head was . . . misshapen.

  Tilda’s mind stopped working, and she dropped the phone and started panting in an effort to keep from screaming. She couldn’t bring herself to move Sandra, or step over her, so she stepped around the couch to where she could see her face, to try to see if there was any chance that the woman was still alive. Sandra’s open, unblinking eyes gave her the answer she’d already known to be true.