Exposure

by James Lockhart Perry

  Lydia wasn't hearing him, but too fucking bad. She had invited herself along on this little excursion. And this was nothing compared to Hue or Beirut or Sarajevo, or any of the fucking little wars that had sapped at Sam's already meager trickle of humanity. But apparently, he was in the minority. When he got back to the car, Rudy handed over the camera. "No offense," he said, "but I think I'll stick to stealing cars."

  "Amen," Sheri added.

  Sam gazed at the three of them, none of them getting his life, the innocent's pity written across their weary features. And it infuriated him, the same way it had always infuriated him. All the cocktail conversation he recalled when he returned from his string of wars, the cozy opinionated civilians who voted and paid for all the carnage, but never expected to dirty their hands with the reality of it.

  Horrified? How could people be horrified at the sight of a dead Lebanese child holding a gun? What did they think happened when a bomb landed in an orphanage or a hospital? Or on a fucking battlefield? The truth was, they thought nothing—that was what their channel changers were for, so they could marvel guiltily over the beauty of those blossoming orange flowers of napalm, before quickly switching to a movie where they could sit, unexposed, and pay an actor to die and reappear in the next thrilling feature at a theater near you. Where the blood, especially the blood, had no smell. But still, they kept sending in guys like Sam, expecting them to shut down their empathy, sanitize the horror, and sell the fucking papers and airtime.

  What did these three think now, that you could protect your family by running over a drug kingpin without starting a war? That Sam, with all of his brother's history behind him, could knock on Abe Smullen's door and talk him out of killing everyone in sight? Lydia especially surprised Sam after her angry, righteous ultimatum on their trip down the Baja. The only way Sam saw out of this mess now, was to keep ratcheting up the tit-for-tat until the Smullens did something truly stupid. And he suspected that Lydia, Rudy, and Sheri would have been perfectly happy with whatever it took, as long as it didn't require them to witness the reality.

  So Sam climbed into the car and spitefully forced the three civilians to drive him every inch of the way back up Western, back to the glittering ring of police cruisers and fire trucks and ambulances. Back to the streams of yellow tape and the four body bags already laid out in the parking lot. Made them sit there and wait, while he got out and went looking for that idiot Crossfield. He found the journalist staring blankly at the notebook in his hand, the same daze on his face that Sam remembered from their last pile of corpses in Sarajevo. Sam handed over the digital card and said, "Forget what I told you earlier. These are from an anonymous source."

  Crossfield just stared at him, as horrified as ever.

  "What?" Sam finally asked.

  "You know what."

  "Fuck you. Fuck all of you." And Sam turned on his heel and walked away.

  Chapter 41

  Sam sat them down in the gloomy living room the next morning and explained how things should work. Lydia hardly heard him. She was still processing the violence of the night before, asking herself over and over how she could have been so immune all those years to the hardened sadness she had finally uncovered in her husband. How she had wallowed in her self-centered alcoholic world, while his entire life beat the humanity out of him. Not just the wars, but this house, his family and history, everything it all represented. She had fingered the scabs, without ever once wondering about the wounds underneath. The night before, Sam had mistakenly identified himself as the object of her revulsion, and she saw no way to explain it to him now. She felt like a total shit, just another sucking parasite on his miserable life.

  "We've got another few days at most," he was saying. "It won't take long. Without his base, Smullen will be finished. I would guess the competition is already moving in on him, as we speak. When he reacts to that, they'll finish him and his brother off. As long as he doesn't find us before the deluge hits, we'll be okay."

  "And if he does?" Sheri asked. She was sitting on the worn sofa with Rudy's protective arm around her, folded into him like a passive, obedient little waif, Lydia wondering how long this latest Sheri incarnation would last and hoping not long.

  "There's no accounting for tempers, but he would find it rough going if he shows up here in South Gate."

  Sheri glanced at Lydia now, but Lydia avoided her gaze. They had already had their own bloody-minded, Sheri-stiffening conversation, figuring out what they would do when the invasion hit. It wasn't the most direct route to enlightenment, but Lydia had ordered Sheri to bludgeon the truth out of Rudy, as far as his limited understanding of Sam's plans allowed. One way or another, Lydia had made up her mind. No longer would she let the guilt-ridden shit magnet of her husband jump in and take everything onto himself.

  The notion of Abe Smullen lying down and waiting for the world to walk over him didn't exactly dovetail with Lydia's memory of the man. Too much beauty and vanity there. And the sheer balls to come out of the ugly South Central gangs, clean up his act, and take over the Hollywood drug market. The smart, gorgeous man Lydia remembered struck her as just the gambler to dive immediately into the middle of his enemies, his finger on the big, red mushroom of a nuclear self-destruct button.

  But she went along with the more or less comforting little fantasy Sam constructed, all of the way through cooking and eating breakfast. No one said a word through the meal, Lydia picturing each of them preoccupied with the tortuous route that had brought their lives limping together into this hideous outpost. She found herself staring at Rudy in particular, a thought forming in her mind.

  So as Sheri washed and wiped the dishes, and Sam withdrew into his gloomy, still resentful and wordless shell on the living room daybed, Lydia climbed the stairs to Henry's bedroom in the front of the house and found Rudy sitting in a folding chair by the window.

  "Don't you need a little fresh air in here?" she asked. She went to the crusted old window, forced the lock open, and wrenched it up. "Maybe not so fresh," she said, as the Los Angeles smog hit her nostrils. She glanced down at the boy sitting uncomfortably there, cradling his camera with the telephoto lens, and realized that she had exchanged no more than a handful of words with him since they picked him up at the clinic on the Baja.

  "You taking pictures?" she asked. She had intimidated her share of young men in her life and knew the signs.

  "No."

  "Sam told you to bring it up here?"

  "If they show up, he wants me to photograph it. For insurance or something."

  "I'll bet he does." Give the angry old cowboy a dusty hat and a pair of spurs.

  Lydia climbed out through the window onto the roof of the front porch. "Well, you might as well come out here, before that room suffocates you." Rudy did as he was told and climbed out and sat next to her in the shade of the wall, the hard shingles underneath them. And with the boy's attention finally captured, Lydia got around to her point.

  "Did you know that I forced him to go digital?"

  "You forced him?" Rudy asked, skeptical. "Somebody actually forced Sam Spaulding into something?"

  "Yep, it was all me. I was buying the supplies and equipment and saw the new technology coming. I bought the computer and the cameras and the cards and all that, but Sam refused to use them. He thought it was cheating. He thought there was something immoral about sanitizing and cleaning up a photograph. You can imagine how he went for that."

  Rudy nodded from the mouth of his cave, so Lydia continued, "He took on a photo project of sorts, photographing Henry and the gang down on the beach. You've seen the famous shot?"

  Rudy nodded reluctantly. "Hasn't everybody?"

  Lydia laughed. "It was Mischa's idea. Your uncle could be a little sentimental at times. Henry was already dying from the melanoma and some other skin disease, and he looked awful. Sam asked me to bring the equipment. When I showed up with a brand new digital Hasselblad, he nearly took my head off."

  Rudy laughed. "I can ima
gine."

  Lydia nodded and continued. "Sam was perfectly happy to ruin the photograph with all the stuff on Henry's skin—you know, the whole war photographer thing, unflinching, life at its ugliest, so forth. But then, with Mischa pressuring him for a pretty picture, and me refusing to help him, he finally sat down at the computer and worked it out. You've seen the photo. It took him a month, and he gagged every inch of the way, but he turned it into a truly beautiful thing."

  Rudy nodded, still noncommittal, evidently wondering what she was getting at. "I've seen it."

  "Sure. The point is, for all Henry's mean ugliness, there was something there worth looking for, some human quality, and Sam, God bless him, found it. Which is why you can't give up."

  "Excuse me? I think you just lost me."

  Lydia hesitated. Was she putting the speech too on the nose? Rudy had never struck her as particularly subtle, but you never knew with children. "I've seen your stuff, and so has Sam. You don't need a computer to bring out the human in the people you shoot. They radiate warmth. I might not know a thing about photography, but if you give up on that talent now, you'll break his heart."

  Rudy snorted, "You could have fooled me."

  "Yeah, well that's your age talking. Nothing would crush my husband worse, than if you followed him down the path he took us on last night. All of that rage he's spewing is just so the rest of us never have to."

  Rudy rolled his eyes at that one. "You guys must have some interesting conversations, guru to guru."

  Lydia laughed and turned to find Sheri in the room behind them. The girl was actually smiling and nodding along. "I think Rudy's a wonderful photographer."

  Leave it to Sheri. Rudy jerked his head around to both of them, finally smelling what he no doubt read as a naked female sales pitch. "Of course he is," Lydia agreed anyway. "But I don't think he'll ever make it as a lookout."

  Rudy and Sheri both glanced out at the street, alarmed. At the mouth of the cul de sac, a pair of sedans had pulled up. Even from this distance, Lydia could make out the beautiful face of Abe Smullen staring out at them from an open rear window. The man was in no hurry apparently, and this made sense. A sudden blind attack would favor the defenders, and no way could he send any of his people wandering around this Latino neighborhood to reconnoiter.

  Sam wasn't so dumb in moving back to this fortress, even if the suicidal old fool underestimated the suicidal tendencies of everyone around him. Lydia stared out at Abe staring back at her and felt a burst of confidence that wasn't nearly as phony as she would have thought. After all, she had been expecting something like this ever since that child's body tumbled out of the van outside the Redondo apartment. She knew her husband, and she thought she knew the black-hatted cowboy dusting off his chaps and adjusting his gun belt at the other end of the corral. Anyone else would have sent in the minions to take the brunt of an assault, but not one of these two egomaniacs. After the initial shudder, the steel in Lydia's nerves surprised her. She knew what she had to do.

  "You ready, girl?" she asked. Sheri at least managed a nod. Rudy started for his feet, but Lydia stopped him. "You do what he told you. Stay up here and shoot it all with your camera. We timid women folk are going down to hide in the bunker."

  Sheri held out her hand to help Lydia back through the window. Lydia clambered to her feet just in time to hear the front door open beneath them and Sam's voice shout, "Come on up, Abe! I've been expecting you!"

  Chapter 42

  Rudy set his camera on autofocus and took a test shot of Sam out in the street, watching the two sedans approach. The cars stopped twenty feet away from the old geezer. The doors opened and spilled out six of the gangsters, all in wary slow motion, spreading out to the trees on either side, guns in their hands, watchful, waiting. The big, beautiful kingpin himself climbed out last, with his brother behind him on crutches handed out from the car. Rudy sighted on the enormous, gleaming revolver in Abe's hand and shot the picture. Then sighted on Sam and recognized the damaged camera with the bullet hole in his hand. What the fuck was that? Sam brought the camera to his eye and pressed the shutter release. What was he doing, deliberately provoking the drug dealer?

  The two lunatics converged, an unevenly matched pair of gunfighters. Or so it seemed. Just as Smullen brought his revolver to eye level, a burst of shots rang out from the bungalow on Rudy's left, followed by another quick burst from the porch on the right. The first shots kicked up the tarmac at Smullen's feet. He handled that okay, but when the tree leaves from the second round fell around him, he danced and shuddered. And it pissed him off.

  "What the fuck is this?" he shouted, but quickly held up his free hand to stop his troops from opening fire and getting him killed.

  Sam turned back to the bungalow on the left. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  "Mister Smullen," Rudy heard Lydia call out. "Nice to see you again."

  Rudy climbed to his feet and looked over the roof edge to see the muzzle of an automatic rifle protruding from the next-door porch. He went the other way to find another rifle pointing out from the right hand porch. "Sheri! What the—"

  "Shut up and let her talk!"

  "Fuck," Rudy swore. He glanced out at the gangsters. The troops had taken cover behind the cars and trees, their handguns apparently no match at this distance for the rifles in the bungalows. Just Sam, Abe, and the unarmed Gus stood out there, tough, not giving a shit.

  Lydia was talking. "Take a good look at my husband, Mister Smullen. Does he look like he gives a damn if you shoot him? He has terminal cancer. My guess is, he was planning on getting a photograph of you murdering an unarmed cancer patient. Just to put you away, in case you survive this morning."

  "What is this?" Abe still talking to Sam. "You let your women do your killing?"

  Lydia replied, "You're not getting it, Mister Smullen. It's you who's supposed to be doing the killing today." Then to Sam with a snort of sarcasm, "Isn't that right, honey? Wasn't that your brilliant master plan?"

  "What the hell are you doing?" Sam asked again, but Lydia ignored him.

  "I have no intention of letting anyone die today, Mister Smullen," she said instead. "Especially someone as beautiful as you and your brother. But I can assure you, you'll look pretty hideous trying to eat without your right hand."

  Abe glanced at the gun in his fist, then at Sam, who sighed and offered, "Don't underestimate the woman. She'll shoot out your right eyeball if she has a mind to." Sam looked behind him the other way, apparently finding a weak drizzle of humor in it. "The other one I can't speak for. She tends to empty the gun into whoever's available, and that would be you, your brother, and me."

  Abe actually laughed, but his brother finally noticed Rudy snapping away on the roof and shouted, "There he is. Gimme a fucking gun!" Rudy hesitated, but no one rushed to do Gus's bidding.

  "Shut up, Gus!" Abe ordered. He shrugged at Sam and gazed up at Lydia, weighing and assessing. No question who had control of either side here.

  "Well?" she asked.

  Finally, Abe flipped on the safety and dropped his gun to the pavement. Sam started forward to pick it up. Another burst of bullets spat out and kicked up the tarmac at his feet.

  "Did I tell you to move?" Lydia shouted.

  "What the fuck is the matter with you?"

  "You two is what. You're both a menace. Now shut up and let me think!"

  Rudy nearly missed the new arrivals, melting like the initial trickles of a flood out of the far bungalows into the street, moving quickly, silently disarming the thugs behind the trees. When the last had given up his gun, a limousine turned into the street behind the Smullen cars, and out stepped Sam's friend Carlo. Rudy tossed his camera through the window and heard it clatter to the floor. He followed after it, ran down the stairs, and came out the front door. Lydia and Sheri stood on either side, both looking much too determined.

  Carlo ambled up the street, passed Gus with a nod, and grinned at Abe, Sam, and Lydia, taking it all in. "So who
should I be talking to?" he asked with a laugh.

  "Fuck you, buddy," Sam said.

  "Thank you for coming, Carlo," Lydia offered. "I was just trying to work out an accommodation."

  "Accommodation!" Abe spat. "You blew up my business!"

  "You blew up my studio!" Sam shouted.

  "You ran over my fucking brother!"

  Carlo shook his head and pointed at Sheri, speaking to Lydia. "Isn't that the Baja shooter? I heard about her. Don't you think she better put down her gun?"

  "Sheri, do as he says," Lydia agreed. Sheri's rifle clattered to the porch floor, leaving just Lydia armed and dangerous. Carlo edged off to the side, out of her line of fire. Rudy beckoned to Sheri, and she came running off the porch and around to him. He started to pull the tiny woman behind him, but she batted away his arm and ran her own around his waist.

  "Looks to me, Missus Spaulding—" Carlos started.

  "Lydia, please. You came to my wedding."

  "And unlike your cranky old man, you're as beautiful as ever, Miss Lydia. But it looks to me like you're gonna have to shoot one of them." He pointed at Abe and Sam. "Couple of tough gunslingers don't give a shit who they take with them."

  "I know. I'm thinking."

  "Or you could all just go home and mind your own business and stay the fuck out of my neighborhood."

  "No argument out of me," Lydia said. "What about it, Mister Smullen? You in a hurry to wreck everything you built for a miserable little personal spat like this?"

  Abe snorted. "What do you men, personal?"

  And that, Rudy realized, was the crux of it. From the beginning, Abe had assumed that Rudy's photographing the Western operation and his attack on brother Gus were the first moves in a business-related invasion. How dumb was that? Didn't he know a punk outburst when he saw one? Because that was how Rudy saw it now, from the other side of his flight down the Baja, from the other side of four body bags laid out on a bleak Western Avenue night. Strangers fighting strangers over nothing—but only Lydia had grasped the overall picture.