Image Decay

by Mark Lisac

  Ostroski looked at the print he had been about to flip quickly. He had already turned over two much like it. “Don’t know if you’d have any reason to know what she looked like. This is Hesperia Tindall. She was the lieutenant-governor. Not all that long ago but long enough to be ancient history for you. You were probably in high school.”

  “Oh,” Radescu said. “I think I’ve heard of her. She looks like she wasn’t used to smiling.”

  “She wasn’t. That was back in the day when lieutenant-governors had a choice. They could be smiley and read stories to kids or they could be in more serious pictures that people saw occasionally in newspapers. Tindall didn’t smile much. She probably thought it would clash with the old-fashioned military-style uniforms she liked wearing. Why do you ask?”

  “She just looked familiar.”

  He didn’t look at her and didn’t hear any more questions. It was the first time she had asked him about anyone in any of the thousands of photographs they had seen so far.

  The rest of the day passed without that kind of excitement. His right arm was tired and he had started alternating, turning the prints for about ten or fifteen minutes at a time with one arm and then using the other. After they left the clutter for the night she walked back to her office and filled in time looking at papers from her desk drawer. She said goodnight to Helen, who worked at the desk opposite her own, and looked around. No one was within earshot. She punched the number buttons for Frank Jeffries. It was his direct line.

  “Mr. Jeffries? It’s Ginny Radescu.”

  “Oh, Ginny, how are you holding up? It must be a boring routine by now.”

  “Fine. I guess I’ll last until it’s over. I called because I saw some pictures of Hesperia Tindall today. You said that was one of the things to watch for.”

  “Yes. And how were they?”

  “There was nothing special about them. There were a couple of portraits with her by herself, and a few more of her in crowds. Some like what you said to look for.”

  “She was alone or with a formal group in all of them?”

  “Mostly it was the usual type of occasion. There were two photos where she was with another woman, holding hands in one of them and with her arm around the woman’s waist in another.”

  “The same woman in both?”

  “Yes. But on different occasions.”

  “All right. Did you make a note of which box these were in?”

  “Number forty-nine.”

  “Thank you, Ginny. I have confidence in you. Please keep watching and pay attention to everything you see.”

  “I will. I’ll call again when there’s anything to report.”

  “That will be fine. Have a pleasant evening.”

  “You too, Mr. Jeffries.”

  She hung up and stared at papers in the in box on the right-hand corner of her desk. She looked at her watch and realized she was hungry. She decided to have a quick salad on the way to her Jazzercize class and heat up something from the freezer when she got home. The rest of the evening went routinely. She felt herself smiling during her workout. Moving around was a treat after a day spent mostly sitting. She knew she fidgeted in her chair and wondered if Ostroski noticed. She did the dishes and watched the late-night news, mostly to see if there was anything she should be aware of happening at the legislature.

  It had been a quiet day. Nothing much beyond the petition against wearing turbans in the RCMP. She didn’t see why people had to insist on dressing like foreigners when they moved to a different country. She moved into her bedroom, hung her dress in the closet, put on her pink and mauve pyjamas and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. The telephone rang. She sighed, wondering who would call after eleven, and walked back into the living room, flipping on a light on the way.

  She said hello and heard the deputy minister’s molasses-like voice: “Hello, Ginny. Sorry to bother you at this time of night. Hope I didn’t wake you up.”

  “No, Mr. Jeffries, it’s fine.”

  “Good. I wanted to check with you on the number of the box containing the photos of Hesperia Tindall. You said it was forty-nine. Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I remember it clearly because my youngest uncle is forty-nine and has his birthday next week. He’s saying turning forty was no problem but fifty has him looking for grey hairs.”

  “I see. Absolutely no question then.”

  “No. It was forty-nine.”

  “Ah. You see, I was curious about those photographs and thought I’d have a look at them myself. Hesperia and I were friends, you know. I went downstairs and had security open the door for me and looked through box forty-nine. There were no pictures of Hesperia Tindall in it.”

  She paused and said, “I don’t know how that could be.”

  “You left at the same time as Mr. Ostroski?”

  “Yes, we locked the door and the security man was down the hallway. He would have seen if one of us had gone back.”

  “Was there ever a time after you saw the pictures that you left Mr. Ostroski alone with them, or turned your back on him for some time?”

  “Yes,” she said hesitantly. “I made a quick trip to the washroom late in the afternoon.”

  “Ah, and that was the only time?”

  “Yes. Should I not do that?”

  “It’s all right, Ginny. I’m just keeping track of what’s happening. Those photographs form an important record, you know, and we’ve paid a lot of money for them. We agreed to let Mr. Ostroski remove some, but we want to know which ones. You saw him remove a few of that starlet?”

  “Yes, the starlet, and he wrote down what he was taking.”

  “But nothing else?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you, Ginny. Please don’t mention anything about this to Mr. Ostroski. I’m sure we can straighten everything out. You’re being a big help with this project. I’ll remember it.”

  “Thank you. Good night, Mr. Jeffries.”

  “You won’t let me down, will you? I would hate to be let down.”

  She felt suddenly queasy and said, “No, Mr. Jeffries.” He hung up.

  She walked into her bedroom, slipped beneath the covers and turned off the table light. This was one of the times she was happy to be at a pay grade low enough that she didn’t have to worry about why anyone was strangely interested in meaningless old pictures. But now she was worried, after hearing what she interpreted as menace in the deputy’s closing words. She fell asleep thinking about the vodka and dancing that would reward her for getting through another work week and hopefully getting clear of this task. She dreamed that she was walking along a Mexican beach with John Becker. It was hot. The surf made murmuring sounds. She felt like she was smiling. Then she turned her head toward him and saw he had grown a drooping black moustache and was wearing a sombrero.

  Jeffries was still awake, staring out the living-room window of his penthouse apartment at the amber dots of sodium-vapour street lights and the occasional cars moving up the road with pools of light sliding across the pavement in front of them like floating ghosts. His eyes gleamed and his jaw clenched tight. He was certain now that he would have to go further than he’d originally planned. But he was comfortable in the knowledge that he had always been willing and able to go as far as necessary to impose his will.

  15.

  THE CROWD WAS WELL DRESSED, IN A SECOND-BEST WAY. Enough glossy finish to show money, not enough to suggest that this event was the highest rung on the social ladder where they thought they belonged. Not enough to suggest they didn’t have a better suit or dress in the closet.

  Arlene’s gaze swept around the room. She smiled as she remembered the last time she had seen a truly high social event. That one had more prestige attached to the invitation—a speech by British Prime Minister Gladys Harcourt. Officially, she had been on a state visit to a thriving and dynamic corner of the Commonwealth. Unofficially, the tour had been a thinly veiled political insurance effort, an exercise in solidifying local support for test
ing of cruise missiles over the northern part of the province. Harcourt had been well briefed. She lavished flattery. Her speech had praised the local boldness and entrepreneurial spirit and forward-looking attitudes. The crowd had lapped it up. Arlene remembered not being surprised. What made her smile was remembering the scene in front of the hotel with Harcourt’s three-car motorcade and accompanying police escort on motorcycles. One of the police riders had squeezed the brakes a touch too late and crunched his front tire through a tail light on one of the cars. Arlene had savoured the lack of reaction—the feeling from the uniforms on the bikes and the plainclothes in the cars of “Oh, that egg dropped on the floor, good thing there’s another in the carton.”

  She looked at her husband’s profile. His chin and jawline were still good. No wattles or jowls yet, although she could see where they would start. She wondered what she would think of him then. She wondered whether he was already seeing her that way—a fading, middle-aged reminiscence of someone he had met and once fallen in love with, a woman with a prominent aquiline nose and hair that had started to need help staying a medium brown.

  Beads of condensation stood on the water jug near the centre of the table. A buzz of conversation hung in the air. She had never before met the man on her right who had introduced himself as Gerald Furyk. He looked confused and a little intimidated by the setting. She decided she should turn to him and add to the buzz of conversation but he excused himself, saying he should visit the little boys’ room before dinner.

  She saw Kendall Stratton approaching. He was wearing a spotted tie in this year’s colours and a blue ultrasuede jacket. His face blared with the certainty of a man who owned a motel and two fried-chicken franchises and had parlayed that into a seat in cabinet.

  Stratton nodded to her as he stepped up. “Mrs. Becker. Looking lovely as usual.” He turned to John and said, “Looking forward to the chicken tonight? Don’t drop a piece on the floor or it might bounce back up on your lap. I should have brought a basket of my own. All these brown faces on the serving staff, they probably don’t know the difference between a juicy piece of fried chicken and the stuff they feed the crowds here.”

  Becker said, “Jealousy doesn’t become you, Ken.”

  “Hell, I don’t care if this hotel does more business than my little operations. I’ve got enough to get by with. And I can afford to be more picky about who I hire. More picky than the RCMP, anyway.”

  “Someday you’ll be happy to see those folks coming into your stores. A customer is a customer.”

  “Maybe. But I hope I’ve sold out by then. Want to make enough on the deal to set myself up in a sunny place in Mexico. I hear there’s a little colony of retirees from this part of the world starting to form down there.”

  “Amazing the Mexicans will let in all those white faces.”

  “They don’t care about the colour of the faces. Only about the colour of the money we bring with us.”

  Arlene considered the colour of his perfectly symmetrical false teeth, tinted off-white just enough to avoid a dazzling brightness. She caught herself staring and looked away.

  Stratton pulled a chair over from a nearby table, leaned closer and spoke in a lower voice: “You hear about cabinet in the morning?”

  “No. A meeting? On a Thursday morning?”

  “I’ve been asked to spread the word but Waschuk will be in touch with you to make sure. Just half a dozen of us. Notice a peculiar smell in the air before you came into the hotel?”

  “Not to speak of. The usual downtown mix of exhaust fumes and a bit of garbage.”

  “You will by the time dinner’s over. A faint aroma of rotten eggs. A sour gas well blew out near Broken Pines. It’s an old railway whistle stop a couple of hours’ drive west. Sounds pretty bad. The well’s a big producer. The gas caught fire. Between one thing and another it could be burning a week or two before it’s capped. That’s two weeks of news stories about people gagging on the smell and everyone asking why we aren’t regulating better so that these things don’t happen. The boss wants to get on top of it first thing in the morning. We’ll have to control the news flow and set up communication channels so that we’re first to know of any developments.”

  Becker said that sounded like the right response.

  “Anyway,” Stratton said, “a morning meeting is a good reason to get out of here early. Between the chicken and the boring crowd this is one of those times you wonder why cabinet salaries aren’t higher.”

  Arlene fought back an urge to ask why he’d need a higher salary when he already had enough to plan an escape to Mexico. She studied her bread plate and water glass as Stratton went on.

  “That’s just today’s crisis. We gotta do something about the way this country’s getting taken over. I mean, turbans on RCMP officers? Next it’ll be forcing the Queen to record her Christmas message in French as well as in English. I know you’re kind of on the fence about it but me and a couple of others have an idea for a court case. I’d like to talk to you about it. Not here. Want to step over to the Palm Court as soon as dinner is finished? They’ve got some American trumpeter playing there tonight. I know you like jazz, and a trumpet will be loud enough that no one will be able to overhear us.”

  Becker thought for a second and then said he’d walk over ten minutes after dessert was finished. That was staying long enough to count as a respectable attendance at a charity event.

  “See you a little later, then,” Stratton said as he stood up. “Nice to see you Mrs. Becker.”

  She nodded to him as he turned to leave. Then she said to her husband, “You didn’t ask me if I wanted to stay here instead. Or does he expect me to stay anyway and leave you boys to your private talk?”

  “I don’t think Kendall cares one way or another. I’d be happy if you’d come along. In fact, I’d be interested to hear what you think about whatever idea he and the others are cooking up.”

  Arlene smiled at a couple walking two tables away as she said, “Even the jazz would probably be more interesting. I might walk over for that. The blowout sounds serious. Oil just makes a mess. Sour gas is dangerous.”

  “The politics are probably more serious,” he said. “Billy wants things to quiet down for a few months. This won’t help his plans.”

  “Will a court challenge about RCMP uniforms help his plans?”

  “We’ll see about whether to go ahead with that. But it ought to be entertaining to hear what the boys have in mind. Maybe they ought to have uniforms of their own—lumberjack jackets, and baseball caps with oil company logos on them.”

  He looked over to the table holding the paintings and wine that would be going up for auction after dinner. The town was getting sophisticated.

  Furyk stepped quietly into view and sat down. He still looked tentative. Arlene turned to him and said, “Tell me, Mr. Furyk, have you lived here long? I haven’t seen you at events like this before.”

  “Oh, I’ve been running a small auto glass business for years. Finally got far enough ahead that I thought I could start supporting some of the people who do good work around the community.”

  “You’re here by yourself?”

  “That’s right. Mrs. Furyk died two years ago. I didn’t like to go out by myself at first but I’m starting to get used to it. You can’t shut yourself up from the world.”

  She said, “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Don’t worry. Can’t be helped.”

  “Still, it must be a trial, and a shock. I hope you’ve recovered well.”

  Becker heard their words droning on and began registering what they were saying. He looked at his wife. From the side and little behind he could see her concentrating on Furyk with her head inclined slightly forward, the way she looked when she took something seriously. He remembered that he had fallen in love with her because somewhere in the depth of her countryside aristocratic bearing he had seen a glow of empathy. He saw it again now, almost a visible warm light behind the glitter of her diamond earrin
gs.

  They sat through the event responding automatically to a well-established routine—politely warm applause for the university president, careful handling of plates and bowls by the wait staff to avoid splashing sauce on their clothes, friendly nods to familiar faces, neutral conversation with the strangers at their table, discreet glances at watches after dessert to determine when leaving would not be rude.

  “Would you rather walk over Palm Court or drive?” Becker asked.

  “Drive if you think there will be parking spaces,” Arlene replied. “These aren’t really walking shoes.”

  They drove to the lot half a block from the club and walked to the door. Arlene said, “You won’t need me to talk to Stratton. It looked as if he wants to discuss business anyway. I think I’ll take a stroll to the outlook and take in the night view of the river.”

  “All right. It will probably be dull. I see Santa in there with Stratton. They may feel more comfortable talking at that if we’re not there together. You’ll be missing Phil Woods, though. You won’t be cold?”

  “The wrap will be sufficient. If I get chilly I’ll come back to the club but take a seat away from your table if it looks like you’re still dealing with weighty and secret affairs.”

  She turned and strolled away, glancing up occasionally to see how many stars were visible despite the glow from the city lights.

  Becker pulled the door open and felt the gust of warmer air and the almost physical force of the trumpet notes carried on thick waves of drum and bass vibrations. He skirted past two tables to one on the far side, occupied so far by Stratton and by Santa, known more formally as Claus Ellerman. He didn’t look at the crowd because he was absorbed once again by the contrast of the strangest pair of friends in cabinet. Stratton was broad and shiny like a 1956 Oldsmobile, right down to the row of false teeth that looked like a chrome grille. Ellerman was a stringy, tall farmer from the dry lands in the southeast. His constituents and fellow legislators in the party called him Santa because of his skill in wresting money out of the capital budget for community halls, roads, rinks, hospital improvements, water infrastructure and anything else that might satisfy voters that they were listened to and respected. But the nickname was a standing joke as well, and not just because he was tight-fisted with any spending beyond the borders of his constituency. Ellerman was not just thin, he was skinny. His round eyes perched over sunken cheeks that stretched down to a small mouth gathered in what looked like a perpetual pout. The funereal effect made his frequent jokes endlessly surprising, even to those used to hearing them.