Lost in New York: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 5)

by J. J. Henderson

  "Only guy I know besides these two with one of those hats is a photographer named Billy Ritz," Vadim said. "I've never seen him without his."

  "Who is Billy Ritz?" said Alyosha.

  "Don't be stupid fool," said Serge. "He is big-time photographer. He makes fashion pictures."

  "He shoots a lot for Vanity Fair," said Simon. "I tried to get an assisting gig at his studio."

  "Traitor," said Lucy.

  "Traitor? You give me two days of work a month, Lucy."

  "Is Billy Ritz a friend of yours, Vadi?" Lucy asked.

  "I know him," he answered. "He's been in my clubs over the years."

  "You mean he's one of your two or three hundred best friends?" she said.

  "I don't have any friends," Vadim said dourly. "I just know everybody. And I have found the more I know people the less I like them."

  "Smile for the camera, boys," Lucy said, staring at a viewfinder full of three dour Eastern European mugs. She sort of liked the gloomy, piss-loving nightclub impresario. And the Russian boys too, in spite of their meddling. They attempted smiles, she snapped. "Man, those are some sorry grins. Serge, give Vadi your hat, and hey, light some cigarettes. Let's get some illegal smoke in the photo. My editor has demanded ambience!" She shot the three of them, then the two designers, then Vadim alone with hat, icon, and smoldering Gauloise. "With the hats and smokes, boys, I'd say we got cover material," she said, gazing into her camera and scrolling back through the images. There were half-a dozen people standing behind her watching. She felt giddy with relief at having finished before midnight. "Let's bag it, Simon. You clean up. I have to talk to Vadim. Listen, Serge, Alyosha, I'll get in touch when the time comes to talk more about the project. But thanks for your input tonight. You were a pair of pains in the butt but that's OK, we got the job done."

  "No problem Lucy Ripken, now let's have some drinks," said Serge. He and Alyosha headed for the bar.

  "So, Vadi, I wanted to ask you—hey, thanks for being so helpful, by the way—"

  "It wasn't so painful," he said, almost smiling. "Having my picture taken, I mean."

  "Have you ever been to the Ritz?"

  "The studio? One time. A publication party for his book. All of downtown was there."

  "So what's the deal? Is he—"

  "When I went up there to see about assisting," Simon said, "I couldn't even get in the door without a recommendation from someone he either knew or who was famous. It sucked."

  "Poor baby," said Lucy. "Barred from the big time. Listen, Vadim," she grabbed her smaller camera, "I'm gonna roam around and shoot some loose stuff, OK? Just in case Nina—that's my editor—decides she wants funkier ambience stuff, you know, with bodies in the frame."

  "No problem," he said. "If anyone doesn't want their picture taken I'm sure they will let you know. Probably break the camera over your head." He grinned. "Just kidding. This is downtown. People love to have their picture taken. Everyone prays their fifteen minutes has arrived." He gave her an appraising look, an obliquely sexual glint in his eye. She couldn't stop the image from coming to mind—of herself, peeing on him. "Stay in touch, and let me know when these pictures are published."

  "OK, Vadim," she said. They shook hands and he headed off into the crowd. "The car should be here any minute, Simon. It's almost twelve. When he gets here you load up. I'm gonna hang out for a while. Take the stuff to my place and if you walk the dog after you take the stuff up I’ll toss in an extra twenty bucks."

  "Deal," he said, and went out to look for the car. Lucy spent half an hour wandering around capturing more images of the same spaces she'd already shot, but this time without concern for lighting, or framing, or keeping the people out of the picture. The place had filled with Manhattan nightcrawlers, and she rather enjoyed finding these trashily elegant downtown characters insistently filling the frame. Design magazine editors and art directors usually hated bodies in their pictures, because people were much more interesting to look at than carpets and chairs, and so would distract from the purpose of the magazine—to sell carpets and chairs and how they're organized. Lucy shot several dozen pictures of frolicking, mugging-for-the-camera club kids. Then she strolled home through streets clogged with traffic at one o'clock in the morning. Simon had already walked Claud, so after greeting the poodle she did her ablutions and went to bed.

  From all that she had heard of The Ritz studio, Lucy sensed that she'd do better talking her way into the place in person rather than trying to set something up on the phone. This was a guy—an operation—that took him/itself very seriously, Manhattan style. And so the next day she headed up there, notebook in hand, ready to play sycophantic celebrity journalist if that's what it took to get in the door. She stopped first at a coffee bar on Prince for a latte and the paper, then walked straight up Broadway to 17th Street, where the Ritz occupied the two top floors in a Photo District loft building on the west side of Union Square.

  Lucy found the building and hit the Ritz intercom button. "Ritz." A somewhat precious male voice.

  "Lucy Ripken."

  "Lucy Ripken?"

  "Here for the shoot."

  "Right." With that he buzzed her in. There were large, black-and-white fashion photos in the elevator. She checked them out as she rose. Ritz was one of the instigators of the wasted waif modeling trend. The elevator pictures featured a couple of these waifs, modeling overcoats on a cold, windswept beach, looking forlorn under threatening skies. They were dramatic, evocative, and utterly devoid of—what was it they lacked? Lucy couldn't quite get a handle on what it was that irked her about pictures like these. The self-importance, perhaps. The scene, the models, the composition—everything was produced with an enormous sense of mission, of significance, of substance. You could see that in the ominous, existential tone of the images. But nothing was there but a couple of skinny teenagers wobbling around on a beach, trying to convince a million not-so-skinny ladies they needed to spend large sums of money on overpriced overcoats.

  They said Billy Ritz billed a minimum $15,000 a day. Lucy had switched to a red shirt and red shoes and clean underwear, but otherwise wore last night's uniform. The elevator door slid open, and she walked into the Ritz.

  The first thing she saw was the current top waif—Lucy couldn't recall her name, but she was irrefutably the model of the moment—standing in scrawny, life-size black-and-white glory on the wall opposite the elevator, wearing jeans, a blank expression, and nothing else. Lucy took in the room. From the rubbed metal paneling on the walls to the tiny little downlights sunk into the ceiling, and the perforated steel and sandblasted glass wall behind the curved, black granite reception counter, the space reeked of design. As did the lad behind the counter, a pretty boy of twenty or so with his white shirt buttoned way up high, and his head shaved on the sides. He sat so perfectly still, watching her, he could have been placed there by the designer. A living, breathing accessory. She approached. "May I help you?" he asked.

  "Hi, yes. I'm Lucy Ripken, here to do a story on Billy Ritz for The Seattle Weekly," she said, wondering why she hadn't planned her entry more carefully. "I'm just in—oh, fuck this," she stopped. "Look, I need to see Ritz for a couple of minutes. Is he around today?"

  "Yes, but he's shooting. It's a Do Not Disturb situation until at least six today."

  "I see. Well, could you let him know that I'm a friend of Laurie Ellen Jameson's, and I need to talk to him about setting up a portrait session?"

  "I'm sure Carlos—he's the business manager—can handle the booking. Let me get him for you." He picked up the phone.

  "No, you don't understand. I need to see Billy for ten minutes. Look, kid, you're here to answer the phone and control the door. There's no need to play cop. Use your own judgement. You picked out that shirt, right? It's great."

  "Thanks," he said, flattered.

  "So just let me slip into the studio for a minute. I won't be in anybody's way. There are probably twenty people up there already, am I right? I'll wait till Billy
's on a break."

  "Actually, there are seventeen people on the shoot," he said. "Don't ask me what they all do," he grinned, suddenly complicitous, "Because I don't have a clue. But they sure do act important, I'll tell you that much." He pointed, and lowered his voice. "It's that door to the right of the elevator. I buzz you in, walk up one level. You'll see where to go. If they ask who let you in tell them you told me you were here for the Elle shoot, OK?"

  "Thanks." He buzzed her in and she went up a spiral staircase made out of steel painted bright red. Up one flight she passed through double doors into a white anteroom, and from there went through another set of doors into the bright light of the studio.

  The scene was hectic. The room was enormous, fifty feet wide and probably a hundred feet long. The photographer, recognizable from behind by the Russian fur hat perched on his head, sat with several other people in director's chairs in front of her, their backs silhouetted against the brightness of the shooting space beyond. Three cameras on tripods were arrayed to his left, and several other cameras were strewn on a worktable to the right. Half a dozen assistants and gofers busied themselves around the mounted cameras. Different backdrops—some made of paper in primary colors or patterns, others of canvas painted with clouds, fish, mountains—hung at intermittent intervals down the length of the room. The backdrops, and banks of lights, were suspended from 20 foot ceilings. Lights on stands were set up on both sides. To the left of the shooting area, heavy shades covered a row of enormous windows, reaching from just above floor level almost to the ceiling. To the right, a five foot high buffed metal partition separated the shooting zone from a corridor off of which opened dressing rooms, workshops, a production kitchen, and other functional spaces. Several skinny half-dressed girls, obviously models, wandered in and out of the area, following by stylists, make-up artists and other lackeys. Reggae music throbbed in the background, jacking up the energy level. Anytime the "creative process" is fueled by deadlines, large amounts of cash, and pretty girl bodies, the energy level is high, and here at the Ritz, people were pumped. Lucy told herself this, piling on the observations as she struggled to hold a cynical, or at least objective, edge—but she was impressed and a little envious as she came up behind Billy Ritz, the eye at the center of this self-important cyclone. This was definitely the big time. She knew she had the talent but that she'd never have the chops—the ambition, the hunger, the drive—to get this far with her work. This didn't matter at all to her, 99.9 per cent of the time. Here with the big time in her face was the point one per cent when it mattered, when she felt worthless and inadequate. But she had her own job to do.

  Ritz got to his feet and approached one of the cameras. He was a thin little man, and rather than making him taller the tall fur hat made him seem even smaller. He looked through the viewfinder. "Looks good," he said. "Let's do it."

  A shiver of excitement rippled through the room; stylists scurried out of the way, art directors stopped gossiping and focused on the action, models grabbed a last look in a bank of brightly-lit mirrors set up along part of the metal partition, and photo assistants checked cameras and lights, taking final readings. Ritz picked up a digital Hasselblad off the table, bypassed the tripods, and approached the foreground backdrop, which was black and white zebra-striped paper, about twenty feet wide. Two models—one black, one white, both skinny to near-anorexia—strolled in front of the backdrop in retro-sixties garb, and started making moves. Ritz began shooting, and almost immediately stopped. "There's too much light here, goddammit," he said. "Jackson, what the fuck is the problem?"

  "Sorry, Billy," said Jackson, a bespectacled man at least ten years older than Ritz, who appeared to be about 35. " I thought you said you wanted it like, way up and—"

  "I didn't say I wanted it fucking washed out," snapped Ritz. "Christ." The models, poised like a pair of gaudy birds on the zebra-striped backdrop, twittered nervously. "Take a break, everybody," Ritz said; and the room relaxed. "We have another fuck-up here." He headed back to his director's chair. He was wearing faded jeans, sneakers, a white t-shirt, and the hat. Lucy had a look at him. He had the face of an ex-nerd, even if he was flanked by the Art Director of Elle Magazine on one side, and a Senior Vice President from Calvin Klein on the other. Lucy approached him from behind.

  "Ah, excuse me, Billy—" she stopped. He turned and looked up at her. "I was wondering if you had a minute."

  "Who the fuck are you?" he said, hostility immediate and overt.

  "My name's Ripken. Lucy Ripken," she said.

  He waited for more. She waited, too. After a few seconds, he said, "Lucy Ripken. Is that name supposed to mean something? Ring bells? Or—hey, Randy," he said to the man sitting on his right, "You invite this enigmatic lady in here?"

  "Never seen her before," the man said. "But I like her beret. Who's is it?"

  "St. Mark's. Five bucks on the street," Lucy said.

  "Cool," said Randy from CK. "I like street fashion myself." He was wearing a thousand dollar suit and a hundred dollar haircut. But no matter.

  "I like your hat," Lucy said to Ritz. "I met these guys the other night from this design firm Kremlin—I was shooting Parkistan, and they—"

  "You know Vadim?" said Ritz. "He's a good friend of mine." He was calming down.

  "Right, that's what he said," Lucy said. "But the boys from Kremlin were wearing your hat, Billy."

  "Damn," he said. "So you were shooting Parkistan. That's a cool place. You been there yet, Bennie?" he said to the art director on his other side.

  "Yeah, sure," Bennie said, bored. "It's the club of the month."

  "So, hats and clubs aside," said Billy Ritz, bristling again. "The question remains: what are you doing in my studio in the middle of a photo shoot?"

  "Zane Smithson," Lucy said.

  "What kind of answer is that?"

  "A guy I'm looking for. A bad guy. A real dickhead, matter of fact. About 45, handsome like a model, says he works on Wall Street but doesn't, says he met you recently at a CK shoot here with Monika, says—"

  "Wait a minute," Billy said. He sounded excited. "Smithson. I think I might know who you're talking about. Hey, Carlos," he called out. Carlos came running. "See if you can dig out my celebrities and fakes book. I gotta check something out." He stood. "Hey, gang," he said loudly, "time to take five. I need to do something."

  Randy from CK conspicuously checked his watch. "Hey, Billy, are you sure we have time for this? it's almost eleven and we—you haven't—"

  "Lighten up, man," Billy said. "We'll get the job done. Don't worry, Randolph, you know I always get the pics. Come with me," he said to Lucy. She followed him to the corridor and through a doorway into a room full of photo files.

  Carlos was thumbing through an oversized portfolio. "Here it is, man," he said, handing the portfolio to Billy Ritz.

  Ritz put it down on top of the file cabinet and turned to Lucy, a lively gleam in his eye. "Here's the story. I've been shooting celebrities, and also a lot of these Park Avenue types the last couple of years—for VF, Fortune, whatever, some portrait commissions—and I've gotten to know a lot of them—the rich and famous. You can't believe how much money there is in this town, even after the Big Fall."

  "Yeah, I saw your picture of the Jamesons in Vanity Fair."

  "Oh my God, with those horrid dogs. Do you know that woman feeds those creatures fresh crabmeat twice a day, everyday, and that they have their own butler? I'm talking full time. Can you imagine having that job? It's like France before the fucking revolution. Anyways, they invite me to their parties to, you know, add a little Bohemian flair, whatever. It's fun, actually. La Dolce Vita, baby. But what's amusing to me about these parties are the walkers, these guys that escort single rich ladies, and the—I don't know what you call them—these people that seem to turn up at all the big money events and parties that nobody really knows. They're like, professional party-goers, I guess. They look like they belong—they have the style, the manners, the looks, all the stuff—excep
t they're nobody. Not rich, not famous, not really even connected, but they somehow manage to hear about every damn event, and to get invited—or get in somehow. So I got this idea of taking pictures of some of these characters, alongside celebrities, as a way of commenting indirectly on the ridiculousness of the money and celebrity culture in New York. Like, here are two pretty people, one's famous or rich or both, one's neither, why and how come. You get my drift?"

  "Yeah, I guess," said Lucy. "Sounds like an interesting project."

  "Hey, it was something to do, break the monotony of these fucking fashion shoots. But check this out." He opened the portfolio to a double black and white page. The photo on the left was Mick Jagger with a guy who looked like he should be in the Stones, but wasn't. Just some guy with perfect rock n’ roll looks, but no rock n’ roll fame or fortune. In the picture on the right, a gorgeous, famous African model in an evening gown with a blank expression on her face stood next to a suave, self-possessed man in a tuxedo. The man was Zane Smithson.

  "Jesus Christ, that's him," she said. "That's the guy."

  "I knew it," Billy said triumphantly. "I fucking knew it. I can still remember every single person I've ever photographed, I swear to God. So what's the story?"

  "You read about the Society Drug Queen in the papers last week?"

  "Yeah. The woman that overdosed. I'd never heard of her."

  "Well, the quote unquote drug queen was my friend, and she never took drugs. She was on a date with this guy"—she stabbed at his face with her finger—"the night she died."

  "You mean you think he doped her?"

  "Accidentally or otherwise, yes. But the cops aren't even looking. That's why I'm here. So when did you see him last?"

  "We did this shoot in June, Lucy Ripken. I haven't seen or heard of him since."

  "Damn. Do you remember anything about him? What did he call himself? Did he come here alone?"

  "Actually I shot these pictures in my studio in Westhampton. I have a house out there and—I think I must have met him at a begin-the-summer bash at, God, I don't know."