Exposure

by Alan Russell

  Carlos’s head was tucked inside of his protective arms. He kept shouting, but Graham wasn’t in any mood to listen. Only when Graham’s arms grew tired from striking him, and he was doing more heavy breathing than hitting, did he hear what he was saying.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you, man?” Carlos shouted. “Are you fucking crazy?”

  “Yeah,” said Graham. “I’m the one who’s fucking crazy. You all but send two babies to their deaths, but I’m the one who’s crazy.”

  Carlos hazarded raising an eye to look up. Graham’s fists were still clenched, but his hands were at his sides. The Brazilian unwrapped himself, coming out of his shell. Blood was coming out of his nose, and he had a cut on his lip. He rubbed some of the blood away from his mouth.

  Graham turned away from him to the girls. Their eyes were wide, frightened. Graham got down on his knees and examined them. They shied away from him, retreating into each other. The older girl had a bump on her forehead, while the younger one’s lip was puffy.

  “I’m sorry,” Graham said.

  He knew they didn’t understand his language, but he felt compelled to apologize anyway.

  One of the other children turned off the music, and their street festival grew quiet. Carlos broke the silence by saying, “The car barely bumped them. They got their scrapes from the street.”

  Graham knew kids came from the playground looking far worse.

  “So,” said Carlos, “did you get your shots?”

  It sounded as much an accusation as a question.

  Rochelle had come running out of the car and scooped up both little girls, her boyfriend Jack hovering behind her. Rochelle kissed the two girls, drying their tears and hers. She hugged them for at least a minute, holding them close to her body—the same body he focused on. His camera zoomed in on the suspicious bulge in her abdomen, that much more noticeable because of her slender and lissome body. Before leaving, Rochelle pressed money into the hands of the girls and made sure of their safety.

  Graham had caught it all. Everything he wanted, from pregnant Rochelle to maternal Rochelle, was put on display for him. She stayed around long enough for him to get all the shots he wanted.

  “Of course you got the shots,” said Carlos, answering his own question. “I’ll bet you were clicking away even while death was charging down on those little ones.”

  Raised fists wouldn’t have made him step back. Carlos’s words did. “You should have found another way—” started Graham.

  “Your concern for the children is so touching. I’m surprised you haven’t been to one of our favelas documenting the plight of our poor. That’s about half our country, you know.”

  Graham didn’t say anything.

  “Plenty of pregnant women for you to shoot there. But your precious magazines and entertainment shows wouldn’t be interested in those pictures, would they?”

  “You didn’t have to endanger the lives of those children—”

  “They already were in danger,” said Carlos, interrupting. “You know what happens to street children? They used to be target practice for the police. Nowadays the police are more discreet about their hunting, but it’s no less dangerous for the children. And there are plenty of other threats all around them. Is that a pictorial you were planning on doing? If so, we won’t have to pose the action shots. Where these children live, crime, drug dealing, and violence are very much in the open.”

  Carlos reached for his nose and put some pressure on it to stop the flow of blood. His shirt already sported droplets of blood all over.

  “You should have told me what you were planning,” said Graham.

  “Why? I gave you just what you wanted. And if everything had gone terribly wrong, you still would have had your all-important exclusive shots. They probably would have been even more dramatic if things had ended badly. You would have kept shooting—I know you—and then afterward you could have blamed me.”

  “The girls’ parents—”

  “Knew what they were doing. I told them there was risk. When I took the children, I gave them enough money to buy food for a year. They knew only too well that there were—how do you say it?—strings attached.”

  “Strings are one thing. A hangman’s rope is another.”

  Carlos shook his head, then laughed, but it wasn’t his usual boisterous laugh. “If it makes you feel better, then you can pretend you didn’t know.”

  “I didn’t.”

  Carlos met his eyes for a long moment, and finally shrugged. “Then you should have.”

  There it was. Graham knew he was right. He had left all the arrangements, all the staging, to Carlos. That wasn’t how he usually operated. He was always the one who was hands-on, the one who was in control. But he had deferred to the other man’s expertise, had even distanced himself from the setup. A part of him must have known that the orchestration would turn dirty. He had turned a blind eye, but not a blind camera.

  “Did you see Rochelle pushing all that money in their hands?” Carlos asked. “Did you get that picture?”

  Graham nodded. His moral outrage hadn’t interfered with his shutter finger. He had gotten everything.

  “Big payday for us, right?” Carlos’s smile was back.

  “Yes.”

  “We’re not the only ones who benefitted,” said Carlos. “Rochelle pushed hundreds of dollars into those girls’ hands. This is the best thing that has ever happened to them.”

  Graham walked away, but not out of disgust. He left because what Carlos was saying was beginning to sound only too reasonable to him. Behind him, Graham heard the music start up again, but he didn’t turn around and look.

  He feared that if he did, he might turn into a pillar of salt.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  Moving had been a way of life for Graham’s entire youth. Every other year, his father assumed a new posting. When people asked Graham where he was from, he never knew quite what to say. There was no one place he could call home. By the time he went off to college, he had lived in ten countries. His taking a hiatus from LA should have come as no surprise; wanderlust was in the family bones. When friends asked him why he was leaving, Graham said, “It’s a GALA urge: Get Away from LA.”

  After Rio, Graham left for Europe. The change of address had helped for a time. Now he was thinking of running away again, his way of keeping a step ahead of doubts. The modern Paladin, have camera will travel. Graham was that rarest of American exports: a paparazzo overseas. Usually it was the Fleet Street snappers who were the émigrés, settling in LA or New York. His latest interim home was London, though he was on the road more often than not. When he awoke in the morning, the first thing he did was figure out where he was.

  Tomorrow morning it would be café and a baguette. He would find a quiet spot for his eardrums to compensate for the workout they were getting tonight, he thought.

  The loud music permeated the room. There was no escape from the noise, and besides, he had to be near enough to the dance floor to have a good vantage point. Graham was trying to make out faces through the pulsating light. He was looking for one in particular.

  He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around. “Voudriez-vous danser?”

  Graham was used to being mistaken for a local. Throughout Europe, he blended in. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. But he wasn’t in Rome. He was in a gay nightclub on the French Riviera, and that was why his would-be dance partner assumed Graham was gay. The costumed Frenchman was wearing a fleece wig. The ringlets appeared to have been newly taken from a sheared sheep. The same soft curls covered his hands. On his backside was a sheep’s tail. It was a club where every night was Halloween optional, and many patrons liked to dress up. That’s why Graham was there. Supposedly one of the Monaco royals was dolling himself up in drag and dancing his nights away in Nice.

  Instead of answering in French
, Graham said, “I don’t dance.” Being an American, he hoped, would be deterrent enough. For many Frenchmen, it would have been. Unfortunately, it only seemed to encourage this one.

  He was smiling now, and Graham noticed there was something different about his teeth. His canines were overlarge and sharp. They were the kind of vampire fangs Goths enjoyed flashing. “Then perhaps you would like to join me for a drink?”

  “Another time perhaps,” Graham said. “I’m going to be leaving soon.”

  The rebuff didn’t seem to sit well with the Frenchman. His eyes narrowed, and he eyed Graham suspiciously. He had used a lot of dark makeup to accentuate his eyes and make them look feral.

  Graham tried to think of something nice to say. “Your outfit’s very clever,” he said. “What are you? Goldilocks?”

  “Goldilocks?” The man spat out the word as if it were something distasteful. “I am a wolf, of course.”

  The teeth. The wool. Now it made sense. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  “The question is,” said the Frenchman, shouting over the loud music, “what are you? You are here as what? A spectator at the zoo? You have come to look at the animals?”

  People were taking notice of them, just what Graham didn’t want. His stock in trade was blending into the woodwork to get anonymous shots. Stealth shooter, he thought of himself, escaping the radar. But apparently not the gaydar.

  “So sorry,” Graham said, trying to step by the wolf in sheep’s clothing. It was time to cut his losses. The prince who would be Cinderella looked like a no-show for that night’s royal ball anyway. By way of explanation Graham added, “I guess both of us were trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes.”

  The Frenchman either found the pun, or Graham, or both, unforgivable. A string of curses followed Graham as he made his way out of the club.

  The pensione where he was staying was six blocks from the beach. From experience, Graham knew that every block closer to the water cost an extra fifty dollars per night. It was a Spartan room, with a thin cot-like mattress that made sleep elusive. Graham wondered, though, if he would have slept any better on a luxurious king-sized bed.

  Another night wasted. He wasn’t sure if he would have felt any better getting pix of the wayward royal. The late-night whispers were in full throat lately. Getting away from LA hadn’t changed that. There was a time when Graham had gotten a charge out of his work. Few people did what he did. Plenty of photographers carried cameras and used them, but most of those just covered events. They snapped pictures of stars at film premieres, and of performers at gala affairs. On the whole, those kinds of gatherings didn’t interest Graham. The real money was for exclusive photos, one-of-a-kind shots that no one else had.

  Like closeted crown princes in dresses. It was a living, dammit.

  He tossed and turned. It was probably the sheep he was trying to count. They all had fangs.

  The next morning he was awakened by the ringing of his cell phone. Graham didn’t even have a landline in his London apartment. Home was where his phone was. Whenever he picked up, callers never had any idea where he was.

  “Graham, my friend.”

  Abdul didn’t need to identify himself. He was an information broker who often called Graham with tips. He was a toady to the jet set, though he sold them out all the time.

  “I’m not ready for another wild bull chase, Abdul.”

  A few weeks earlier Abdul had told him that Channing Tatum was taking bullfighting lessons from a private instructor in preparation for an upcoming movie. The lead had proved to be bullshit.

  “Of course not, my friend.”

  “Madrid was not a pleasant place to be in the middle of July—”

  “And I still feel terrible about that, dear boy, which is why I’m giving you this exclusive.”

  “What do you have?”

  “Gold, my friend. Absolute gold.”

  Gold that was meant to circulate. If the pictures ultimately panned out, Abdul expected to be handsomely compensated.

  Abdul asked, “Where are you?”

  “Nice.”

  “Perfect. What I have for you is springtime in Paris.”

  “It’s August, Abdul. Paris is a sauna.”

  “But there’s still not a more romantic city. The Lady Godwin is already on her way to the City of Lights. She will be meeting with her lover.”

  “Good for Lady Godiva.”

  Lady Anne Godwin—now known to the world as Lady Godiva—had made herself a household name by posing in the nude for Playboy earlier in the year. The Lady was a stunning twenty-three-year-old woman with one of the most aristocratic pedigrees in England. Just as Lady Godiva had shed her clothes for good reason in the eleventh century, so had Lady Godwin almost a millennium later. Lady Godiva rode naked to reduce the taxes on the people of Coventry; Lady Godwin took her paycheck from Playboy and turned it over to a soup kitchen that she operated through her foundation. The infusion of funds saved the kitchen from having to be closed down. The resulting publicity had brought millions more in charitable contributions to her foundation, and worldwide attention to Godiva and her good causes. There was even a movie in the works. Graham knew the Hollywood mind-set. He imagined the picture would be short on Mother Teresa and long on cheesecake.

  “What kind of shots am I going to get of Lady Godiva that the world hasn’t already seen?” Graham asked.

  “You haven’t asked me about her lover,” said Abdul.

  “I’m listening.”

  “He is famous, someone very recognizable. That’s why she has to meet him in secret. I think he’s married.”

  “Think?”

  “The Lady Godwin bared some, but not all, of her soul to the Countess of Wickham. She is a discreet woman.”

  “Real discreet. What she didn’t bare to the countess, she did to the world.”

  “She did that so as to feed the unfortunate.”

  “Please.”

  “She is called the Naked Saint for good reason. Before she bared all, she went through her own personal fortune trying to make the world a better place.”

  “Yeah, I know. She gave the shirt off her back.”

  Like many immigrants to England, Abdul’s accent was more English than the English. In a highbrow tone he said, “What she gave away was her own personal fortune, reputed to have been several million pounds. Her pater, Lord Geoffrey, wasn’t pleased at her largesse.”

  “Can you think of a better way to kick off a PR campaign? Ever since the pictorial, she’s been turning up everywhere—TV, movies, magazines. I would say it was money well spent.”

  “You are a cynic, dear boy.”

  In his best Sinatra, Graham sang: “She’d never bother, with people she’d hate. That’s why the lady is a tramp.”

  “Bravo!” said Abdul. “But would that your reasoning was as good as your singing. Lady Godwin is no tramp.”

  “I don’t understand you, Abdul. You keep singing this woman’s praises, and yet you’re setting her up for me to wave her panties on a flagpole.”

  “Lady Godwin is a rose, but every rose has a thorn. That’s what makes roses so interesting. Many have tried to woo this English rose, but she was not to be plucked. I am interested in the man that succeeded.”

  “So who is the lucky fellow?”

  “Isn’t that your business, dear boy? To ferret out those kinds of things? I know where she will be staying, and that you had better move chop-chop if you want to get this story.”

  “Maybe it’s Channing Tatum.”

  “This one is big, my friend. I feel it. You know that I seldom steer you wrong.”

  There was no better chop-chop transportation than France’s TGV bullet train, the train à grande vitesse. Graham left from the Ville Station in Nice carrying his usual two bags. One held his clothes, the other his tricks.

 
The ride on the TGV belies the speed at which the train travels. While looking out at the passing blurred landscape, Graham made a call to Emile Rousseau. Even though it was ten in the morning, he woke him up. Catting around again, no doubt. Rousseau seemed to think women were his real job, but the young man had a good pair of eyes and a fast set of wheels.

  “I need you for a job,” Graham said. “Can you start right away?”

  Rousseau offered a noncommittal grunt, clearly unexcited about having to get out of bed.

  “Lady Godiva’s flying into town this morning.”

  “Oui?” Suddenly Rousseau sounded ready to work.

  “She’ll be staying at the Victoria Palace Hotel. I need you to be my eyes and ears. I won’t be arriving for a few hours still.”

  “I am on it.”

  Graham considered making reservations at her hotel. It would probably make the shoot easier, but the expense wouldn’t be inconsiderable. This was a freelance job, and he didn’t have the dole of one of the tabloids. If Abdul’s tip looked on the up-and-up he might try and book a room for the night, but in the meantime he flipped through his notepad and found the notation he was looking for. Father had given him a “just in case” address to an empty apartment in Paris. Like any self-respecting Parisians, father’s old friends from the French foreign service, Pierre and Odile Thierry, fled their hometown for most of August, a month when tourists took over the city. Staying at the Thierrys’ apartment would save Graham from having to scramble for lodging in prime-time tourist season, not to mention having to rent a car. The Thierrys had left a car behind for their guests to borrow.

  From the train station, Graham took a cab to the apartment. The concierge provided him with a key, and as promised, the car keys were hanging in the front hallway. It was an older Citroën. Graham navigated the vehicle along the Left Bank and found the Victoria Palace on a quiet street just off rue de Rennes. He parked a block away from the hotel, went in search of Rousseau, and found him slumped down in the driver’s seat of his Renault scouting out the hotel. He looked despondent.