Looker

by Michael Kilian

  “We can talk about it later. Not here.”

  The director, a tall blond man wearing a safari jacket and blue jeans, came over.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said, not politely. “We’re shooting some pictures here. You’ll have to go back to your tour group.”

  “He’s a friend, Eddie. It’s all right.”

  “Can’t he meet you back at the hotel, Anne? We still have some work to do.”

  “He won’t be in the way.”

  A.C. nodded pleasantly.

  The man went back to the others, less than happily. His concern seemed to have more to do with Camilla’s being with another man than with unfinished work.

  “How long have you known him?” A.C. asked quietly.

  “Since yesterday morning,” she said.

  “He called you Anne.”

  “I’m working as Anne Claire. I’ve done it before. They’re both my names. I’m one of those Southern girls who carry the names of all their relatives.”

  “Camilla Anne Claire Delasante?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And Delasante is your actual name?”

  “‘Deny thy father, and refuse thy name.’”

  “Sorry?”

  “‘O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father, and refuse thy name; or, if thy wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.’”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “Yes it does.” She smiled again.

  “Okay, let’s go, Anne,” said the director. He had cut the break short.

  She slipped off her jacket, handing it to an assistant, and stepped back in front of the camera. Keeping out of the director’s field of vision, A.C. moved nearer, observing Camilla’s movements as they all were, but far from professionally. Her body was fuller than he had imagined, far from the scarecrow figure that was the fashion model’s stereotype. Her breasts were no centerfold’s, but were beautifully shaped, round and full enough to swell the bikini top as the designer intended. Her waist was very trim, her legs long and slender but well developed. Her feet, like her hands, were long and narrow. Her flesh was flawless—no moles, no freckles save for a tiny scattering on her upper chest, no blemishes of any kind. Her perfection overwhelmed him. He tried to calculate the odds of such a person being born. How many thousands of short, stout people came into the world for every one as tall and slender as she? How many thousands with long noses or pug noses or wide noses for every nose as wonderfully sculpted as hers? How many millions with ordinary eyes for every face as blessed, as enchanted, with eyes the extraordinary color and size and shape of hers?

  The odds in total must be four billion to one. There could be no one on earth as beautiful as Camilla Santee.

  The director began complaining about her poses, making her reshoot the takes. It seemed to A.C. he was deliberately dragging out the effort, prolonging matters in hopes that A.C. would tire of it and leave, perhaps hoping to provoke a scene that would justify his demanding that A.C. leave.

  A.C. backed up and quietly went over to a wall some distance from the shooting scene, near where a few spectators were standing. A couple of other models were sitting on canvas folding chairs nearby. One of them looked up and smiled. Everyone was friendly on Bermuda. Everyone but jealous directors. Finally, Eddie forgot about him and became absorbed by the task before him. Taking pictures of Camilla, with her eyes mating with the lens so lovingly and yet so mysteriously, must be preoccupying, indeed.

  They finished up shortly after four. Camilla pulled a pair of flower print culottes on over her bathing suit bottom, buttoned the matching beach jacket over them, and slipped on a pair of beige espadrilles. When she came up to A.C., she put her arm through his. He imagined she was sending a signal to Eddie: Leave me alone now. I’m not for you to bother with. I’m with him. Stay away.

  They didn’t speak until they reached the parking lot. She took her arm away, gently.

  “I just remembered,” she said. “You can’t go back with us. We have just those two minis and the van. There’s no room with all the equipment.”

  “I brought my own transport,” he said, pointing to his motorbike. “I’ll meet you at the hotel.”

  “No,” she said, touching his arm but not taking it again. “I’ll go with you.” She turned to one of the other models who was coming up. “I’m going back with him. I’ll see you later.”

  The model waved, grinning a little.

  “It won’t exactly be like Hell’s Angels,” A.C. said.

  “I’m glad.”

  She had no choice but to ride close to him, her knees touching his thighs, her arms around his waist, her chin nearly touching his shoulder. When he slowed suddenly, or went over a bump, she’d come up hard against him, her breasts and the warmth of her flesh richly felt through the thin material of his shirt. After thumping over Watford Bridge and zooming up to speed on smoother pavement, he found she was staying close, holding tightly to him, resting her head against his shoulder.

  The biker and his lady. It was a silly thing to think, ticking along on the little motorbike, but he enjoyed the image. Until it reminded him of the man now dead called Bad Biker Bobby.

  They passed the beautiful Sonesta Beach Hotel, sprawling like a castle keep over its shoreline foundation of rock. Just beyond, the road dipped and swerved toward the waves itself. He felt her hand on his arm and turned to see her pointing to a grassy area off the shoulder just ahead.

  “Stop here!” she shouted, into the wind.

  He nodded and slowed. With some expertise now, he steered the moped along the shoulder and up onto the thick, matted grass, coming to a rest under a tree near the lip of a rocky outcrop. He turned off the engine. Waves were slapping and sloshing just beneath.

  Camilla separated from him quickly, hopping off the bike and leaping onto the rock. She looked about her a moment, then led him on down to a coral mound nearer the water. There were several dry, smooth places to sit. The one she chose had room for him.

  Her eyes, taking in the wide expanse of sea, were very serious. He wanted to touch her again, but sensed this was no time for that.

  “Who told you I was here?” she said coolly.

  “An old friend of yours who saw you at the airport, someone you thought you could count on for anything. I imagine you asked her not to tell anyone where you were.”

  “My dear friend Honey. She always did talk too much.”

  “She didn’t mean to get you in trouble. She was just trying to get back in my good graces.”

  “She had incurred your wrath?”

  “My wife’s. Social climbers are not her favorite people.”

  “I’d forgotten you were married.”

  A.C. glanced at his wedding band. “At the moment, we seem to be separated.”

  “I’m sorry.” She hunched forward, slightly away from him. “Tell me what you learned,” she said. “About the videotape.”

  He hesitated. Once this small gift of information was delivered, he would no longer be of any use to her. He’d be an impediment, perhaps even a liability.

  “Pierre Delasante has the videotape,” A.C. said, sounding as though he were testifying in court. “He’s the one who’s been asking the others for money.”

  Her mouth went slack. “You’re quite certain?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know this?” She was watching the oncoming waves as though one of them might be bearing a message.

  “The police told me. Detective Lanham.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “Yes. I went to Belinda St. Johns, and to that Jimmy Woody. I rather muffed it. I wasn’t able to get them to tell me anything. But I think Belinda has something going with one of the cops. That’s how it got back to Lanham. He said she’d paid Pierre more than ten thousand dollars.”

  “She’s having an affair with a policeman?”

  “I think so.”

  She sighed and pulled up her legs, re
sting her elbows on her knees and her chin upon her hands.

  “Everything you say, Mr. James, makes perfect sense. Pierre would take money from a bag lady. Belinda has a serious boyfriend—a hoodlum. He’d kill her over something like this. Or he’d hurt her. Have someone cut her face up the way those awful men did Marla Henson. That would scare her as much as death.” She paused, brushing her hair away from her eyes. “Belinda’s as addicted to sex as she is to everything else she does, but if she’s sleeping with a policeman, it must be because he makes her feel safe.”

  “Not safe enough.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Did this hoodlum have something to do with Molly Wickham getting killed?”

  Camilla stared straight ahead, thinking, but not about her answer.

  “No,” she said. “I’m sure he never even met her. He’s a very old-school hoodlum. Honor, family, ethnic pride. He has nothing to do with blacks except to make money off of them.”

  “I don’t know what newspapers you’ve read out here. The police have all but closed Molly Wickham’s case.”

  “Why?”

  “They killed the man who was their chief suspect. Bobby Darcy, who used to be her pimp when she was working the streets. He was black, but light skinned. He was a motorcyclist. He hurt his girls when they tried to leave him. The mayor, the newspapers, they’ve all but convicted him. Lanham and the others have been assigned to other cases.”

  She looked at him. “So it’s all over?”

  “Not exactly. Lanham doesn’t want to let it go. He knows Darcy didn’t do it. He still wants to talk to Pierre. He wants to talk to you. He still wants me to help him. He, seems pretty sure that I’ve been in contact with you.”

  It suddenly occurred to A.C. that he had done a very foolish thing, bolting off to Bermuda. Lanham might have had him followed. Lanham might be waiting now, back at the hotel.

  “This Bobby Darcy could have done it,” Camilla said. “He didn’t. But it’s reasonable for people to believe that he did.”

  “Yes. But not Raymond Lanham.”

  “Just what is his problem?”

  “He’s the officer who killed Darcy. They cornered him in a hotel down by Wall Street. He came at Lanham with a razor. Lanham shot him. He’s unhappy about that. Very unhappy.”

  “Detective Lanham is a black man.”

  “I suppose it’s something to do with that. But Lanham is a very straight cop.”

  She rubbed at the corner of her eye.

  “There’s something else,” A.C. said. “The attorney you were with at Mortimer’s—Cyrus Hall. He thinks you broke into his office and looked at Pierre Delasante’s will.”

  “How do you know what he thinks?”

  “We belong to the same club. He spoke to me there about it. All very privately.”

  “Why would he think I would do such a thing?”

  “Someone quite like you was seen there. With the cleaning women.”

  “I guess I’m not much of an actress.”

  “I don’t know how you could have disguised yourself.”

  “What is he going to do about it?”

  “He said he only wants to talk to you. He hasn’t gone to the police. He told me he wouldn’t. But the police could go to him.”

  She sighed again, shaking her head. “So it doesn’t go away.”

  He didn’t know what to say. He took her hand. She let it rest in his, then gently squeezed, her fingers curling around his.

  “Was Molly the first person you ever saw get killed like that?” she said.

  “No. I was a police reporter once. I’ve seen a few victims.” The serenity of the sea seemed so foreign, so out of place. “And I killed someone myself once.”

  Camilla stiffened. “In Vietnam?”

  “In Korea. I was in the army there for a year. A few of us from the officers’ club went hunting one weekend in the mountains east of Seoul. We surprised a North Korean infiltrator and he fired at us. It was stupid of him. We shot back. I was the one who hit him.”

  She was holding his hand very tightly. “Did you see his face?”

  “Yes. We went up to the body and turned it over. He was very young, or looked young, anyway.”

  “Does it bother you? Do you still see his face in your dreams?”

  “No. It was a long time ago. I have different dreams.”

  “All the time I’ve been here I’ve been thinking about Pierre, thinking about what it would be like to kill him. Just now I’ve been picturing his body floating out there in the water, face up. I wonder how long I’d have to live with that.”

  Her words unsettled him, though he couldn’t imagine Camilla hurting anyone, least of all kin. She seemed someone terribly serious about family.

  “Where is Pierre?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. He left New York. He may be in Washington. My brother probably knows where he is—or will soon.”

  “Pierre’s your cousin. Can you hate him so much?”

  “Yes, I can. He’s my cousin and he is also vile and despicable and scum. What you’ve just told me is the last piece in the picture. He’s lied about everything. He’s cheated and stolen and behaved like a pig. I used to tell myself it was just because of the alcohol, but the drinking only brings out what’s already there. There are evil people in the world, bad people who deserve no mercy. Pierre’s one of them.”

  He held her very close, trying to ease the stiffness of her body. “Camilla. What happened to Molly wasn’t your fault. The police will take care of Pierre.”

  “No they won’t. He’ll get away with it—all the trouble he’s caused. Just like he always does.”

  “You’ll be all right, Camilla. I won’t let anything happen to you.” He kissed her hair.

  “You’re a very dear man, Mr. James. You’ve done everything I asked of you, without knowing why, without really asking why. You’ve kept my trust, even though I suspect it’s gotten you into trouble. You were attacked because of me. You could get killed because of me. Yet here you are. There aren’t many like you, at least that I’ve ever met.”

  She leaned against him. He lowered his head to kiss her, but she faced away.

  “No, please. Just hold me a moment longer.”

  He put both of his arms around her. Her leg came against his. He fought back a desire that came close to overwhelming him.

  “What will you do?” he said finally.

  “What will I do? Whatever will I do? I’m going to go back to my life. Somehow. Just as soon as I possibly can.”

  “You mean back to New York?”

  “Not that. I want no more of that. I have another life, Mr. James. My own private wonderful life that I made for myself all by myself. I’m going to go back to it, and I’m not going to let anyone take it away from me. That’s what Pierre has been trying to do, but I’m not going to let him do it.”

  “And me?”

  “I’m not really someone you want to know, Mr. James.”

  A tension came between them. He held himself motionless, hoping it would pass, but it didn’t.

  “I’m very grateful for what I do know about you,” he said. “I’m not going to ask for anything more. I’ve no intention of imposing myself on you, Camilla. I wouldn’t do anything you don’t want me to do. Please understand that. I really mean it. But you’ve become a very special person to me.”

  “You don’t belong in my life, Mr. James. And I don’t belong in yours.”

  “I’ll help you, however I can. I’ll help you get back to your life.”

  She moved in his arms and lifted her face to kiss him, very gently, very sweetly, but very briefly. She sat up.

  “Merci bien, cher ami,” she said, her voice very soft, with sadness.

  “When are you leaving here?”

  “They can finish tomorrow, if the weather holds. Then I must go. They’re paying me three thousand dollars Canadian for the shoot, plus expenses. I’ve received half. Very uncomplicated. Everything in traveler’s check
s. When I get the rest, I go. Then I must leave you.”

  She made it sound so final.

  “I took a room at your hotel. I hope you don’t think me presumptuous.”

  “I think you’re very logical.” She found a smile to give him.

  “Can we have dinner?”

  “Oh yes, please. These Canadians, they’re very nice, but I don’t want to be with them. I don’t want to get involved with any new people now.”

  “We can go into Hamilton.”

  “On your little bike?”

  “Yes.”

  “That will be very nice.”

  He stood up, and helped her to her feet.

  A.C. chose a restaurant on the second floor of one of the buildings on Front Street. It wasn’t particularly fancy, nothing at all in the way of a local version of Le Cirque or any other of the haut monde New York eateries she was used to, but its veranda overlooked the harbor and the menu was full of tasty local specialties.

  It was a friendly, cheerful establishment, made all the more so when the lights of the town came on to welcome the evening. Their table was at the veranda’s railing, and they could see all the way past the mouth of the Great Sound out to the darker water of the open sea and the Granaway Deep.

  He ordered a gin and tonic, surprised to realize it was his first drink of the day. He was more surprised when Camilla chose a strong rum punch, asking for another before A.C. was half done with his.

  She had changed into a pretty, short-sleeved dress, much like the one Bailey had worn in A.C.’s dream, except that Camilla’s was a pale blue that set off the light tan she had already acquired. He was surprised by that, too. Models in Camilla’s league were very careful to avoid that kind of exposure to the sun. The damage that could eventually cause was measured in very large amounts of money.

  Their waiter was a young, very dark-skinned black man who, like many Bermudians, addressed them in a well-mannered, deferential way. Somewhat to A.C.’s surprise, Camilla was equally deferential to the waiter, calling him “sir” several times. He lingered a bit after bringing their drinks, departing only when summoned by someone inside.

  A.C. leaned against the rail, his eyes fixed on Camilla’s face. She glanced at him curiously, but quickly looked away.