"I must be high on the excitement." She kissed me. "The power too."
She unbuttoned my shirt, lightly clawed her nails down my chest, then slowly ran her tongue across the red lines she'd made. "I think it's you, Geoffrey. The way you smell, taste. You know how I love your skin." She licked at me again.
"Can't get enough." She stroked my arms with her thumbs.
"I'm crazy for you. You know that. Your… hardness. She fell back upon the bed, pulled up her dress, spread her legs. She wore no underwear. "Geoffrey, I'm so wet down there. Put it in me.
Please…
Arnold Darling lived on upper Fifth Avenue in an old apartment house just north of the Metropolitan Museum. It was a Stanford White building famous for its high ceilings, well-proportioned rooms and celebrity residents, including two rival talk-show hosts, and the sister-in-law of the former dictator of Indonesia.
When I arrived a little before 8:00 A.M., there were two Cadillacs and a Bentley double-parked in front. It was a beautiful morning, the first decent one of the season. For e straight months the city had suffered through one the great heat waves of the century. Now, at last, the was clear and there was a cool autumnal breeze. stationed myself across the street, on a stone bench against the wall that defines the eastern edge of Cc raF Park. From there I watched the entrance to the building through my old Key West Post Office spying device, my R-4 mounted with a 135mm. lens. My second "Leica," the one with the barrel of the Beretta concealed in the lens housing, hung from a strap around my neck and rested just below my heart.
At 8:15 a distinguished-looking gentleman with wavy gray hair and a crocodile attache case exited the building and got into one of the Cadillacs. I recognized him as the former CEO of a major aerospace manufacturer, indicted and awaiting trial for bribery and conspiracy to defraud the government.
A few minutes later a genuine celebrity came out, the Italian-American film star Tony Demarco, known for his stupendous physique, sad spaniel's eyes and winsome groans while undergoing torture. Interrogation scenes, during which he hung half naked by his wrists while being 'Soviet military officer, tormented by one or another evil were the inevitable centerpieces of his movies. People went to see a Demarco picture as much for the pleasure of watching him suffer as for the stunning brutality of his revenge.
I watched him get into the Bentley, then was distracted by the arrival of a tall skinny young woman, easily six feet two, who wore a Knicks T-shirt, a Mets baseball cap backwards, and held eight leashes attached to an equal number of dogs She was that peculiar creature of Manhattan's Upper East Side, a professional dog walker. Each of her dogs was of a different size, shape and breed. There was a wrinkled-faced boxer, a proud poodle, a high-strung Dalmation, and the star of the pack, an elegant Afghan, who, prancing, led the others, all panting and slobbering, forcing their walker to lean backwards as she pulled them to a halt in front of Darling's building.
She had stopped, it was clear, to pick up another animal. The doorman recognized her and retreated to the by. She stood ramrod-straight as she waited, her wards settling down before her in various postures, some sprawling on the sidewalk, the boxer sniffing lasciviously at her crotch, the Dalmatian snapping viciously at the legs of an innocent passerby.
A few moments later the doorman emerged, holding a leash attached to a russet-coated English setter. The walker took the leash, joined it to her others, then flicked them together like a cat-o'-nine-tails.
Suddenly all the dogs stood, poised to proceed with their walk, and, at that same moment, through a welter of leashes and canine flesh, I spied the figure of Arnold Darling as he stepped out of the lobby into the brilliant morning light.
He was wearing a sober dark pin-striped suit and a shirt so white it glittered as he paused outside the door. He stared curiously at the dogs, muttered something to the doorman, then took off fast walking south.
By this time I'd twisted the telephoto off my camera, slapped on a wide-angle, and was making my way through the gridlocked traffic across to the other side of Fifth.
My plan was to get ahead of him, then turn and confront him before he reached the corner. I was just stepping between a stalled commuter bus and a Jaguar when the light changed and the traffic began to surge.
The bus driver honked, I leaped, then was nearly run over by a taxi.
Plunging forward to avoid it, I tripped and skinned my knees on the curb. When I recovered and looked up, I found myself not three feet from Arnold Darling, under inspection by his penetrating eyes.
Even as I knew I had bungled my entrance, some old instinct from my photojournalist days took over. I had stumbled up to subjects before, had many times assumed awkward positions to obtain a vital shot. So by sheer rote I raised my camera and started firing away, and the moment I did that I regained my poise: my camera, analogous to his fencing mask, protected me from his scrutiny, and my big Leitz lens had a power his naked eyes did not-it could eat him up alive. Whap! whap! whap!
Whap-whap! Whap-whap! The whir of my motor-drive drove him back. Take that! And that!
And that! it seemed to say, and even as it did his cheeks began to flush.
I moved closer, thrust my camera at him, shot him five more times. When he continued to back off, I pressed my advantage, and the feel of my gun-camera swinging back and forth against my chest didn't harm my confidence.
"My name's Barnett," I said, "I'm a photographer. You tried to have me blinded. I'm here to show you I still can see.",,Get away from me!
Get away!"
"Fuck you, Darling. I've got you cold. I didn't take those nasty pictures of you, but I've got them now, and you're going to buy them back."
Whap! whap! whap! whap! I hit him four times hard, noting he had no eyebrows, Then I lowered my camera and smiled at him over its top.
"You're dead meat, sucker. Because before I take those nasty pictures to the cops I'm shopping them around to the press. Star. National Enquirer. Whoever'll pay the most. Imagine the headlines: 'Famous Architect Likes to Make Girls Scream." 'SM Sex Parties at Mrs. Z's.'
'Sonya and Shadow Slain by Prominent Architect." 'Architect in Deep Shit!'
All the time I was speaking he'd been looking around, meantime using his hands to protect his face. I liked that. It told me I was getting to him. I pressed on. Whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap!
And then, as he was staggering backward, I saw my opportunity. The dog walker was approaching fast, her nine dogs fanned out in front. A perfect trap: he was caught between my relentless camera and that ninesome of frothing beasts. Push him forward, my best instinct told me. And so I did, thrusting my camera at him, not even looking through it, just shoving it into his face as I pressed the shutter to make the film whir through.
Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap!
He panicked, stumbled, lost his balance and fell. The timing couldn't have been better-the dogs were just behind. As he dropped they parted into two groups, and, when he was down, closed in. He was flat on his back, his head at the feet of the dog walker. She, meantime, had yanked back on her leashes, bringing her dogs to a chaotic halt.
A moment later they were all stepping over Darling, sniffing at him, pressing at him with their snouts. they panted and drooled on his pin-striped suit. It was a very pretty sight.
I knelt and continued to shoot, finishin2 out my roll. I got several great shots of him iithering-up against the dog walker's knees, writhing to escape the muzzles of her dogs. He had by then lost all his dignity.
And I had the shots to go with the ominous ones taken by Rakoubian.
"Call Mrs. Z," I told him.
"From now on we'll be dealing through her." My last memory of the scene was of the tall girl in the backwards baseball cap trying to help him to his feet, while her barking wards, all high-strung and overbred, tangled their leashes into a Gordian knot.