Cockpit (25 page)

As I became more experienced in photographing her, I discovered that, at certain times, she appeared refined and delicate, while at others she looked hard and vulgar. The photographs I took of her became increasingly diverse and, as her desire for them grew, choosing only a few each day became more and more difficult for her.

To earn as many as possible, she began probing for what would bring me to orgasm, with a passion that few of my past lovers have displayed. Just as I focused on every potential of her features, she examined my needs, looking for new ways to excite me.

One day, she asked if I would meet her at her corner, instead of waiting for her at my apartment. She was late, as usual, and I was chatting with another girl when she arrived. She apologized, explaining that the owner of a bar downtown had paid her extra to stay longer. Later, she told me it had upset her to see me talking with the girl and added that, if I liked the girl I had been talking to, she would gladly arrange for the two of them to come to my apartment or, if I did not want both, the other girl could come alone. All she wanted, she said, was my word that I would not photograph the other girls. She assured me that, from now on, she would come to my place any time I wanted her. From then on, we began meeting in the evenings. She would usually arrive late. It was unavoidable, she said, because she could not tell in advance how long an encounter would last. Some clients got aroused slowly, and
those who paid for special services insisted on additional time. Since I worried that she had been arrested or had left me, to find she had been delayed merely by another man’s love-making was a relief.

As I was locking the door one morning, a man holding a revolver stepped into the corridor from the stairwell. He motioned me out to the landing, kicking the door shut behind us. When he announced that he was my model’s brother, I told him there was no reason for the gun. I assured him I was merely a photographer who had agreed to shoot her portfolio pictures so she could get a legitimate cover job. Aiming the gun at my stomach, he muttered that his sister supported him and his girl friend. Since she’d been seeing me, he said, his sister was bringing home less money every night.

He said he had destroyed every single photograph I had taken of his sister. If he ever found out she was trying to start a career as a model, he would sell her to a black pimp, who would mess her up so badly that no one would ever want to photograph her again. I quickly promised not to see her again and mentioned that I had to leave town on the following day. He backed down one flight of stairs with his gun trained on me, then tucked the weapon in his pocket, and raced down the rest of the stairs. That night, instead of meeting my model, I moved to another of my apartments.

Sometimes, I would return to her beat in disguise and mix with the watchers, penniless old men who, in exchange for occasional sex, maintain tabs on an unsuspecting girl for her pimp. A watcher will note every time the whore turns down a potential client, how many coffee breaks she takes, how long she stays with a customer and how often she is harassed by the police or the vice squad. He keeps in contact with the pimp from a public telephone booth.

I once witnessed an episode involving a watcher and a girl who insisted on working alone. He waited until she had
gone off with a customer before summoning a pimp. The girl came back, wearing a low-cut, thigh-length dress. All at once, a band of ghetto boys, paid by the pimp, converged on her with ink bottles and sharp-edged rulers.

As the pimp looked on from his limousine, the boys splashed the girl with ink and slashed her with the rulers until her breasts, arms and thighs were red and indelible blue. While she cried and swore and fought, passersby looked on, fascinated by the spectacle. No one moved to help her.

The attack ended quickly. Before the last boy fled, he punched the girl in the pelvis and snatched her purse. The pimp stepped out of his car, went over to the girl and, whispering to her, tenderly embraced her. He must have convinced her to accept his protection because, after a few minutes, they both got into his limousine and drove off.

A few nights later, I noticed this pimp’s limousine discharge another woman. She was my model.

I watched her walk, her form-fitting clothes advertising her supple body. Many potential customers looked at her but hesitated to approach. Only when she glanced at a man encouragingly would he speak to her. When I approached her, she recognized me but waved me away. Her eyes were glassy and vacant. Before I could move off, her pimp came up behind me and knocked me to the ground. I got up and left.

I began keeping track of the pimp’s movements. One night, I saw him park in front of a local restaurant and go inside with some friends. I strolled past the car, and slipped a glassine bag of white talcum powder through a half-opened rear window. Next, I made an anonymous call to the police, telling them that the steel gray luxury sedan parked in front of the restaurant contained a stash of heroin and that the car’s owner, a pimp, was heavily armed.

As soon as I spotted a police car approaching, I went inside the restaurant and asked for the pimp. I was escorted upstairs to a private room, where he and his friends were
eating. I ran to him and whispered that I had seen a man throw a bag of white powder into his car. Before I could finish, the pimp dashed outside to the car and I followed him out to the street. As soon as he peered into the back seat and saw the bag, the police came up and announced themselves. The pimp panicked, jumped behind the wheel, started the motor and hit the gas. The car swung out sharply. The police opened fire and the car veered up over the curb, plunging straight into a wall. I checked my watch while they were dragging the body out of the wreckage; fifteen minutes had passed since I dumped the bag in the car.

During that experience with the prostitute I continued my review of old photographs. I spent days organizing the prints chronologically, although there is one period in my catalogues which seems out of place; directly after photos which show me as a young man, there is a series in which I look much older.

The reason is that I once devised a photographic process that reveals the gradual aging of the human face. When I first perfected this technique, I fitted an industrial camera with special filters and loaded it with film coated with an emulsion I myself prepared. I posed under powerful industrial lights and let each exposure focus on a different part of my face. I processed the negative in several chemical baths that highlighted those parts of the face and neck that age most rapidly. Then I made enlargements, rephotographed them, and copied them again through various filters. The finished photographs showed my face years older than it was.

While organizing my prints and negatives, I set aside several files for documentary photographs. I often carry a small automatic camera and a couple of extra rolls of film in my pocket. If I happen upon an accident, collision, fire or shoot-out, I snap as many shots as possible and later arrange them into a complete photographic reconstruction of the incident.

Recently I saw a young woman slip while crossing the
street, falling directly in the path of an oncoming taxi. Just as she slipped, she screamed, and I raised my camera, getting photos of the entire incident. Her shoulder and neck smashed against the front fender, which dragged her five or six feet. I rushed over to her. While other bystanders tried to comfort her, I began taking pictures from every side. I wanted to establish on film the precise angle and position of the wheels at the moment of the collision, the distance that the woman’s body was dragged and the exact nature of the cab’s contact with the body. By the time the police and ambulance arrived, I had used three rolls of film. When I told the taxi driver that I had photographed the accident, he said he was anxious to have the prints for his defense. He gave me his name and address, and I promised to contact him. Next, I told the police I had photos of the collision and was eager for the woman’s family to see them in case they decided to sue. I was immediately supplied with the name and address of the woman, who at that moment was being lifted into an ambulance.

In my apartment, I developed the negatives and enlarged some of the photographs. I selected shots for the cab driver that could best prove his innocence: according to his set, the woman had crossed the street in the middle of the block and tripped because of her high heels. The street surface had been wet, slippery and slightly inclined, and the traces made by the cab’s sudden braking indicated it had stayed within its lane.

The woman’s set of photos, which I mailed to her relatives, suggested she had been hit by a careless driver who hadn’t noticed her crossing. It looked as if she had waited on her side of the dividing line for the cab to pass, and had fallen only after its fender had knocked her off balance.

I was motoring up the coast, along a scenic highway flanked by the ocean on one side and the bay on the other. A large turn-of-the-century house, towering on a cliff over the water, attracted my curiosity. I decided to explore
it, and turned when I reached a private road leading to a gate.

I saw from a sign on the gate that the property was for rent and started up the drive. The road was overgrown with grasses, and the pavement was buried under a blanket of moss. Farther from the highway, the drive became even more forbidding, and I had to force the car across roots and dense underbrush. The grounds were as unkempt as the road; weeds choked the flower beds, bushes had grown into huge grotesque shapes completely obscuring the windows of the house. I parked the car, got out and walked up the steps to look at the realtor’s sign affixed to the padlocked door. Standing in front of the house as the sun set, I surveyed the huge expanse of land and noticed a small guest house a little way off, set up on a knoll. Anxious to reach the highway before dark, I made my way back through the foliage and drove to the nearest town.

Early the next day, I visited the realtor. He was an older man, proud of the community in which he had lived all his life. I asked if I could lease the property for a year, explaining that I was attracted by its privacy and easy access to the beaches. I explained I was an investor whom ill health had forced into early retirement, that I had no family or relatives and that I was anxious to enjoy a year of uninterrupted rest. I offered to pay the year’s rent in advance, and casually indicated that, if I leased the property, I would also rent, through his firm, a sailboat, a motorboat and a car. Intrigued by the prospect of an additional commission, the realtor hurriedly assured me he foresaw no problem in obtaining the lease.

I learned that the property was called the Park, and consisted of over two thousand acres. It was controlled by the estate of a woman who had died in her nineties, about a year earlier. She had lived alone all her life, but toward the end she had shared the place with dozens of cats, all of whom were provided for in her will. A small residential
community had grown up next to the property. The Park was protected on one side by the ocean and on the other by the bay, as well as by one of the largest Indian reservations on the Eastern seaboard. The old woman had left the property to her nephew with the strict provision that it be maintained exactly as it had been. The heir was legally prohibited from selling the property or any part of it.

The real estate agent revealed that, when the nephew found himself in financial trouble, he had used the property as collateral with his bank. Now the bank was stuck with it until his death, being bound by the terms of the will. The small property owners of the adjacent community were pleased that the Park had remained intact, even though they were not allowed to enter it. Yet, they were all afraid that the bank might win its court case and sell the property to land speculators, who would turn it into a gigantic development.

Two days later, the lease was ready for my signature. The realtor told me that the bank was pleased he had found a tenant, even if only for a year. My presence would calm the neighbors, he said, and reassure them that the bank had no intention of selling.

In looking over my copy of the lease, I noticed that the realtor had provided bogus references, listing me as an associate of various firms with which he claimed to have done business. I signed the papers with the realtor’s wife and son-in-law as witnesses, and paid the year’s rent in cash.

I took possession of the estate at the end of the week on a hot June day, the air buzzing with insects. Parking my newly rented convertible in the driveway, I set out to inspect the property. On the ground floor of the main house were several drawing rooms plus a dining room and kitchen. The second floor consisted of numerous small bedrooms and bathrooms, furnished with a mixture of good antiques and cheap patio furniture. The heating was primitive and the wiring archaic.

The guest house was more livable. Compact and comfortable, it had a living room and den with beamed ceilings, modern kitchen and bathrooms, two bedrooms, an attic and an attached garage. Since it stood on the highest point of the property, from the attic windows I could see the entire length of the long driveway, the Indian reservation, the expanse of land sweeping out toward the bay, the high dunes on the ocean beach and, with the help of binoculars, the outlying Park grounds. I felt like a lookout in a fortress, able to observe and be ready to receive any unwanted intruders. I decided to use the guest house as my base.

The first night I slept there, I was awakened by headlights shining into my bedroom. Through the window, I could see a young couple emerge from a car parked near the main house and disappear into the woods. Later, I was awakened by the sound of a boat approaching the beach. When its engines stopped, I heard the voices of drunks singing army songs.

During the day, I inspected the Park and came across tire marks, footprints, used prophylactics, traces of recent picnic fires, discarded liquor bottles, crushed beer cans and several empty rifle cartridges.

I drove into the city and bought a camera and military field glasses, both equipped with infrared attachments, a pellet revolver, a wooden replica of a submachine gun from a theater supply company and a dictionary of the language spoken by the neighboring Indians. I also acquired several sets of powerful sound detectors specifically designed for outdoor use.