Bleeding, screaming with pain, he rolls on the cell floor.
Suddenly calm, I turn my back, go to the front door and open it.
Nadia’s standing there. I look at her and start to shake.
‘You didn’t answer so I came up,’ she says. ‘Detective Scarpaci sent me to change the locks.’
I’m still trembling when Scarpaci shows up. The last few minutes have been wild. A herd of cops came in, cuffed Clarence, and dragged him off. Now that they’re gone Scarpaci holds me tight, working to calm me as I quiver in his arms. After I settle down, he listens carefully as I repeat everything Clarence said.
I tell him too that I don’t know where I found the nerve to go on attack.
‘My kickboxing skills are pretty meager,’ I tell him.
‘Maybe not so meager,’ he says. ‘You messed him up pretty good. You have fighting spirit, Tess. Fight-or-flight – your systems get elevated and you become a fighting animal. Now you’re coming down from it. It takes a while.’
He insists I lie back. He warns it may take hours for my pulse and blood pressure to return to normal, and that I’ll likely experience headaches and fatigue.
‘It’ll pass,’ he promises. ‘You’ve got a good shrink. She’ll know how to treat it.’
He leans down, kisses me, then tells me about his arrangement with Nadia.
‘I had her do something illegal tonight – slip into the building, locate the Wi-Fi router, hack into it and then into Clarence’s computer. I began to wonder about him when I asked myself why Chantal felt she had to flee the building. If Clarence was spying on her and she found out, that would be a very good reason. Nadia called me an hour ago. She discovered a huge amount of video of Chantal doing sessions. That’s when I told her to come up here and change your locks.’
He shakes his head. ‘Once I made a deal with the ADA and the perp’s attorney, the perp squawked. He’d heard on the street that a pair of Chinese gang boys were boasting that a couple months ago they got a call to go over to the Buckley, pick up a body, and dump it. Ramos is out looking for them. When he finds them I’m pretty sure they’ll rat Clarence out.’
All this was happening while I was talking to Carl Hughes! When I tell Scarpaci how it hit me the so-called blackmail photographs sent to Carl could be the key, we marvel that we were each closing in on Clarence from different angles at the same time.
‘Actually,’ I tell him, ‘Carl’s description of the blackmail photos pretty much convinced me they’d been sent by Josh. The moment I saw Clarence sitting here in the dark I knew it had to be him.’
Scarpaci congratulates me for coaxing Carl into describing the photos in detail.
‘I should’ve done that,’ he says. ‘Chantal was smart. Soon as Carl described those pictures she realized someone had access to her cameras. Clarence had keys to her loft so he was the obvious suspect.’
Looking at him I sense there’s more. When he hesitates, I insist he tell me everything. He peers at me, then shakes his head.
‘Clarence had video of you from your early days in the loft. Good thing Lynx told you about those cameras and you taped them off.’
Hearing this I start to shake again.
‘Hey, we caught the guy.’ He comforts me. ‘It’s over now.’
It’s been four days since I found Clarence on my couch. Scarpaci tells me how yesterday, with his lawyer present, Clarence calmly told his story.
‘He’d been snooping on Chantal, she found out, moved out of the building, then came back two nights later because she forgot something, maybe her strongbox. She found Clarence sitting in the dark in the loft the way you found him when you came back from meeting Carl. She confronted him, accused him of spying on her and sending the blackmail photos to Carl. When he claimed he didn’t know what she was talking about, she took a swing at him, he deflected it, they fought, and during the struggle he strangled her.
‘Clear case of self-defense according to his lawyer. But then Clarence panicked, called a Chinese drug dealer he knew, who sent over a pair of goons to haul off Chantal’s body. Meantime Clarence, on his own fight-or-flight high, found her motorcycle parked outside, drove it to the bay, dumped it, then using a room key he’d found in her pocket, went to her hotel, cleaned out her room, and brought everything, including her laptop, back to the Buckley and stashed it in a closet behind his office.
‘That’s his story,’ Scarpaci tells me. ‘Maybe true, maybe not. He strikes me as more of a psycho-voyeur than a stone-cold killer. But once he got his hands on her neck, he couldn’t stop. We found all Chantal’s stuff in that closet plus hundreds of stills of her pinned to the walls. I felt like I was in one of those TV cop shows where the detectives break into the room behind the false wall where the weird killer’s set up a shrine. You’ve seen the scene a dozen times. The detective partners stare in wonder, then the young one turns to the older and says something like, “Gee, this guy was really obsessed!” I’ve been waiting for years to find an actual little room like that. Never thought it’d happen.’
He pauses, looks into my eyes. ‘I know what’s disturbing you, Tess.’
‘He strangled her in here. I’ve been living for weeks in the very place where she was killed. I’m having trouble getting my head around that.’
‘Think you can handle it?’
‘Not sure,’ I tell him.
TWENTY-FIVE
It’s March now, eight months since Clarence’s arrest, four since he pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to eleven years in Corcoran. In that time I’ve completed my play, The Luzern Photograph.
I’m still living in the Buckley. It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that Chantal was murdered in my loft. Dr Maude helped me deal with it. She says she’s not one for paranormal interpretations, but thinks the sense I had that Chantal was guiding my hand as I wrote may have been based on some sort of vibe. I don’t know whether she’s right about that, but it’s true I spent a good amount time trying to imagine what went on in the loft before I moved in. Also Chantal’s hidden strongbox never felt right to me. It was as if she’d left it for me to find, examine the contents, puzzle over them, then put them together to tell her story.
I’ve changed things in the loft, had the cell door and St. Andrews Cross removed, and the whole place repainted. The landlady, Mrs Chen, has appointed a new building manager. Occasionally when he runs into me he mutters vague threats about raising my rent to market rate. Then we both smile, mutual acknowledgement I’m grandfathered in.
I’ve signed up at a new gym, Oakland Kickboxing, just off Jack London Square. My coach there, an ex-Marine named Deb Dawson, specializes in training female fighters. She’s a lot more open than Kurt but no less rigorous. ‘We’ll figure out together how far you want to go with this,’ she tells me, ‘then I’ll help get you there.’
Josh has moved to LA to be near his kids. There he continues to create paintings in the styles of famous modernist artists for restaurants and cafés. Sometimes when I’m alone in the elevator I miss the guy in the black watch cap and overalls with FUCK BAD ART stenciled on the back, wincing as the apparatus goes through its weird lighting changes.
Because of cutbacks at OPD, Scarpaci’s workload is even heavier than before. And since I’ve been so immersed in writing, we’ve restricted our time together to three nights a week. I believe this has made us especially ardent lovers.
After we make love we rest, then talk, laugh, and share tales from our lives.
Tonight, in a mellow post-coital mood, I confide my anxiety.
‘Remember,’ I ask, ‘how you used to worry that you wanted to solve Chantal’s murder too much?’
‘I was haunted. I tried not to let on, but it drove me crazy.’
I tell him that’s the way I now feel about my play.
‘It’s like I’m in a high-stakes game, I’ve gone all in and now everything in my life is riding on the next turn. It could take months or even years to raise production money. C
an I bring this project to life or will it end up as just an interesting script?’
Scarpaci tells me he’s wary of my poker imagery. ‘All in, high stakes – I hear desperation in your voice. You’ve been on a creative high. May be time to take a break.’
He suggests we take off for a week, fly to Hawaii. He knows a guy who rents basic beach huts near Kaanapali. We could unwind there, he says, laze around, grill fish, swim and snorkel. It sounds idyllic, but I tell him I’m afraid if I take time off I’ll lose momentum.
‘I need to fix the play, make it better. The characters have taken on fictional lives of their own. I’ve written scenes as I imagined they took place, made others up. I’ve reconceived it as drama, not the docudrama I set out to write. Now I wonder if it’ll work.’
‘I’m sure it will,’ he tells me. He leans over to kiss me. ‘Your friends believe in you and so do I. Now all you have to do is believe in yourself.’
Rex meets me for coffee at his favorite hangout, Tartine Bakery & Cafe on Guerrero. We grab a corner table, place our orders, then look at one another with very serious expressions until I break down and start to giggle.
‘It’s brilliant, Tess,’ he says. ‘And, yeah, it needs work. Never read a play that didn’t. It’s complex and ambitious and it’ll cost a bundle to stage. All those rooms with different things happening at once, the banks of TV monitors, the audience wandering through, you leading them, then disappearing, then reappearing in another scene on another floor. You’ve done what you set out to do, written an immersive theater piece.’
‘What’ll it cost?’
‘My guess – three hundred thou. With sets, costumes, cast, it could easily come to more. And that’s just to open. To break even with payroll and rental you’d have to gross seventy-five a week. The show would have to run two to three years before investors got their money back.’ He pauses, takes a breath. ‘Not saying you can’t do that. You could go on Kickstarter and try to raise money there. Or try and line up a production partner, maybe a single wealthy investor like Grace Wei. I could go on.’
‘Please,’ I urge, trying not to sink into a funk.
‘You know all this and you know the odds. Say you find a deserted warehouse and spend six months transforming it into something resembling the labyrinth in your script. Then you’d have all the worries that come with managing a big production. ’Til now all your pieces have been one-woman. This is different. For this you’d need a staff.’
I peer at him. ‘Got another idea?’ He nods. ‘I came here to hear what you think. Whatever it is … I can take it.’
Rex draws himself up. He looks at me closely, then lets loose.
‘Forget the total-work-of-art concept. Think of Luzern another way. Cut back on production values. Give up your notion of immersive promenade theater. Instead go minimal. You and maybe five other actors. Simple wardrobe. A few key props. Brilliant lighting design. Fabulous sound plot supplemented by Luis and his cello. The original Luzern photograph and its reenactments projected onto a section of wall. I imagine a black box production, the audience seated on three sides. No sets, just a few tables, chairs, a platform or two.’
He pulls out a drawing to show me his plan.
‘You won’t have to rewrite much. Just take out all your production ideas and pare the script down to bare-bones scenes. If you’re willing to go that route, we could start soon as we find space. It wouldn’t cost much. I could cast it in a week. Rehearse it for four. If we luck into the right venue we could open in two months. If we do it well, as I know we can, word’ll get around and people’ll fly in to see it. From LA, Chicago, New York. Maybe someone’ll approach you and say: “Hey, this is great, let’s sex it up and go immersive.” Then you can go back to your original idea or blow them off because you like it just fine the way we’re doing it.’
My head is reeling. Why didn’t I think of this? Was I so taken by the fad for immersive theater I forgot the kind of theater I like best?
‘Think it’d work pared down?’
‘It’d be stronger. I love what I think of as your Citizen Kane concept: the more you learn about Chantal the less you know. I also like that you start with the Luzern photograph then keep circling back to it. The three versions and the way they connect up suggests a three-act structure – the original 1882 picture, Hitler’s drawing, and Chantal’s reinterpretation. It’s all about obsession. Your final scene pulls it all together. I love the way you step forward to address the audience, recounting the circuitous route by which a photograph taken over a hundred thirty years ago led to the murder of an Oakland dominatrix. The first time I read it I thought you’d structured it as a circle, but after rereading I see it more like a variation on a Möbius strip, a story that twists several times as it circles back upon itself. I think a big production would detract. I think we should put our energy and commitment into creating a series of short powerful scenes that will accumulate and become an avalanche. You know my work, Tess, and I know yours. At heart we’re minimalists. Let’s do what we do best …’
I nod as he talks on, all the while rethinking my play.
‘… for Chantal’s studio all we need is the cross, cell, and chariot. But no walls, no alcove. Build a four-sided cage and erect a free-standing cross.’
‘Yeah! And for the Lou/Young Man scenes, just a café table and a couple bentwood chairs set up in a pool of light.’
‘Lots of shadows. The actors walk from one light pool to another.’
‘Sharply honed blackout sketches. Lights snap on, the characters walk into a lit area from opposite sides, perform the scene, then blackout. They walk away, a pause … then—’
‘—the lights bathe another area. Actors emerge again. No wardrobe changes.’
‘Maybe a few for the women.’
‘OK. Then …’
In an hour, excited, we’ve talked it through.
‘I’m sold,’ I tell him. ‘We’re going minimalist.’
Dr Maude likes my script.
‘You pulled it together and best of all made it your own. You’re more relaxed today. Last week I was worried. You seemed edgy.’
I tell her I was until I talked things through with Rex.
‘I was trying too hard to go big. He convinced me there’s more power in stripping it down to the core story.’
‘What I like best about your script,’ she says at end of session, ‘is the way you worked your material through. Successful psychotherapy is story-telling. We take a lot of mixed-up material – feelings, dreams, events from the past – then weave it all together into a coherent story the patient can live with. You’ve been through some rough patches. This latest adventure of yours – I know at times it’s been tough. Now you’ve structured it into a play.’ Her eyes glow as she meets mine. ‘I find that very admirable!’
It’s been six weeks since we leased our venue: the same San Francisco warehouse where Scarpaci took me for Pretty Boys’ Beat-Down Night. The fight club’s been closed. Scarpaci, who knows the landlord, helped us negotiate our lease.
We’re deep into rehearsals now, working twelve-hour days. I’ve never seen Rex work so hard. We quarrel about script changes, and, occasionally, I give in. So far we’ve had only two screaming fights. I imagine we’ll have a few more before we open.
This afternoon we break early from rehearsal to prepare for the arrival of Antonio DaCosta, the famous transgendered fetish photographer known for his images of rock and movie stars in bondage. Rex describes DaCosta’s vision: ‘Helmut Newton meets Annie Leibovitz.’ Since his pictures have graced the covers of Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair, it’s a coup for Rex to have lured him to San Francisco.
Emerging from my dressing room, wearing my red Weimar/Vertigo dress, hair down so it flows around my shoulders, I find everyone in our troupe assembled on our stage: cast, stagehands, electricians, even our accountant and volunteer ticket takers. Two of DaCosta’s drop-dead gorgeous female assistants are setting up lights, illuminating my chariot, while a th
ird is fitting out two hunky young men, naked but for loincloths, with gold papier-mâché comedy and tragedy masks, the smile and the grimace, symbols of theater.
Rex brings DaCosta over to meet me. I’m surprised by his appearance. I expected a gaunt haunted artist type, not the courtly guy with flowing white hair who bends to kiss my hand.
‘A pleasure, señora,’ he says. He speaks with a charming Spanish accent. ‘I have come a long way to take your picture.’
Before I can thank him he tells me he’s read The Luzern Photograph, liked it very much and conversed about it at length with Rex.
‘It’s kinky and I am kinky,’ he says. ‘I think we make a good match.’
I glance at Rex, who nods to assure me DaCosta’s not being ironic. I don’t know much about him, only that he’s famously mysterious about his private life and has a hissy fit if anyone tries to take his picture. There’re rumors he’s asexual and lives with his mother in a villa outside Marrakech where he hosts sex parties attended by the rich and famous. The one thing everyone agrees on is that he has an uncanny ability to convince well-known people to strip off their clothes then allow themselves to be tied up, often into awkward stress positions. His pictures are instantly recognizable on account of the pained expressions on his subjects’ faces. He’s been quoted as saying: ‘I like to apply duress. My aim is always to photograph struggle.’
‘My conception for you is simple,’ DaCosta tells me. ‘We will put you in the chariot, harness up the boys,’ he gestures toward the masked young men, ‘put some wind in your hair,’ he gestures toward a pair of enormous fans, ‘then let you loose upon the world.’ He smiles. ‘I have brought you a beautiful whip.’
He snaps his fingers, says something in Spanish. One of the assistants hurries over with a tan cloth bag. DaCosta opens it and withdraws a long black single-tail leather whip that bears a strong resemblance to the one Chantal named ‘Blackspur.’
The Luzern Photograph Page 30
