The suspendered assistant stared at Carver, making the intense-looking guy aware of his presence. He turned around, waved Carver over toward him, then went back to instructing the model, who fluffed her hair and glanced at Carver with disinterest.
“. . . can’t just look surprised, gotta put a little fear into your expression, Jane. Shock. And remember, there’s just been an explosion.”
Jane said, “Look at me! I’m all fucking wet.”
“You’re at the beach, baby,” the intense guy said. He had to be Kirk. He was skinny enough to look unhealthy and resembled a young Sinatra except his face was badly pockmarked from long-ago acne.
The assistant grinned at Carver. He was in his twenties and already had terrible teeth. Carver saw now that he wore a silver skull-and-crossbones earring in his left ear. That and the long hair and the yellowed stump-toothed grin made him look like a pirate.
Carver leaned on his cane and watched. He noticed that the bottle in the model’s hand had a champagne label, and a cork stuck on a thin wire that extended straight up from it was bouncing around about two feet above the neck. A clear plastic hose ran from the side of the bottle over to near the assistant with the earring. Carver noticed the model was standing in a shallow metal tray about five feet square. A hose ran from the tray over to a drain. Carver was spellbound.
The pirate switched on a large floor fan and the model’s blond hair took on the desired windblown look, a strand of it trailing seductively across her face.
“Good. Just that way,” Drew Kirk said. “Drop your arm a little more so it hides the hose. Okay, good. Perfect. Remember-shock, fear, all the while smiling.”
The woman glanced at him curiously.
Kirk flitted around with a light meter, then crouched behind the camera. “Hit it, Wilbur!”
Wilbur the pirate turned a handle over at the sink and water rushed through the clear plastic hose. A little compressor kicked in and churned it up with air. Wilbur ran to the compressor and punched a button.
Air-foamed water burst from the neck of the bottle in a mini-geyser that made the cork on the end of the wire dance. It was impossible to see the wire in the rush of water. Water kept fizzing out of the bottle to meet the bobbing, suspended cork. The model kept smiling. The camera kept clicking and whirring. In the photo, it would appear that the woman had just popped the cork on the bottle and foaming champagne was gushing out, propelling the cork before it.
“ ’Atta baby!” Kirk yelled. “Don’t hide the label with your fingers. Good.” Click, whirrr. Click, whirrr. “Good, good, good. More shock!” The blond widened her eyes over her dazzling white smile. Click, whirrr. Click, whirrr. Click, whirrr.
“Good, good. Perfect! Got it, Wilbur,” Kirk said, straightening up from peering through the camera.
Wilbur turned off the compressor and the fan, then the spigot at the sink, and the only sound was water draining from the tray where the model stood ankle deep in mock champagne.
“I’m all fucking wet!” she pointed out again.
“You did a great job, Jane,” Kirk told her.
“Right on, babe,” Wilbur concurred. “We all did a great job.”
The model stepped out of the water and wrapped herself in a white terrycloth robe, then walked toward the room Carver had assumed was a darkroom. Wilbur began disassembling the set.
Kirk grinned at Carver and said, “Sorry to make you wait, but we were in the middle of a shoot.”
“That’s okay,” Carver said, “it was interesting. I’ll change my brand of champagne.”
“The company’s gearing up for a big promotion.”
“I meant to a brand different from that one,” Carver said, tilting his head toward the bottle. “That one will always taste like water to me now.”
Kirk grinned again. He looked amazingly like a pockmarked Sinatra when he did that.
Carver told him who he was, where he’d gotten his name, what he wanted.
Kirk rubbed his chin. “If Walton sent you over here, it must be all right.”
Carver didn’t tell him that Walton hadn’t exactly sent him. He said, “Walton told me you use one of his models a lot. Enrico Thomas.”
“I did at one time. But Enrico hasn’t been around for quite a while. Last time I requested him, Walton told me he wasn’t available.”
“Enrico ever give you any problems?”
Kirk raised his eyebrows. “Me? Naw! I know what you’re talking about, though. I heard some stuff about Enrico.” He turned toward the busy Wilbur. “Hey, Wilbur, Enrico ever give you any trouble?”
“Not me,” Wilbur said, coiling a cable.
“Do you have an address or phone number on him that might be different from Walton’s?”
“I don’t have that kinda info on any of the models. We deal direct through the agency. That’s how this business works. Walton wouldn’t like it if we started cutting deals on the side with his employees. Not that we’d do such a thing.”
“Never ever,” Wilbur said.
“Enrico ever say anything that might lead you to know what he did when he wasn’t modeling, where he hung out?”
“No. Not as I can recall.”
“Nightlinks,” Wilbur said.
Kirk and Carver stared at him.
He stood there with the coiled cable and repeated, “Nightlinks. I don’t know what it is, but I remember Enrico mentioning to one of the other models about working at Nightlinks.”
“Walton told me Enrico didn’t work a second job,” Carver said.
Kirk smiled. “I suspect a lot of the models don’t tell their agencies everything about their lives away from the camera. Agents can be pushy and demanding if another job gets in the way of their commissions.”
“Is all of your work with Walton models?”
“Nope. Jane there”-he made a vague backhand motion toward where Jane had posed with the champagne bottle-“is with an agency over in Orlando. We deal with half a dozen agencies. It all depends on the types our clients want.”
Jane came out of the room wearing jeans and a sleeveless blouse and carrying a flowered duffel bag. She seemed much shorter, and Carver realized she must have been wearing high heels in the water to make her legs look longer, even though they obviously wouldn’t be visible below her ankles in the champagne photograph. All of her makeup had been removed and she looked like a teenager. She waved and said, “See you, Drew. Take care, Wilbur.”
They both waved back, and all three men watched her stride from the studio, a shapely little woman who didn’t at all resemble the sleek blond beauty who’d be uncorking champagne on the beach in the photograph. So much of life and love and advertising was illusion.
Carver left his card with Kirk, and Kirk assured him he’d phone and let him know if Enrico showed up at the studio.
“Let’s set up for the sailboat shoot,” Kirk was telling Wilbur as Carver left. “We’ll need more wind to make spray.”
Photography in Florida, Carver decided, could be a wet business.
As he crossed Sunburst toward the Olds, he looked around for Jane but she was nowhere in sight.