Читать книгу Unmentionables - Laurie Loewenstein - Страница 10

CHAPTER FOUR

TOY LAMB

EARLIER THAT MORNING, shortly after Deuce strolled into the newspaper office, Clay had taken the same route into Emporia’s business district. But unlike Deuce, when Clay turned the corner on State Street, he immediately knew who the fellow in the gray pin-striped suit lounging in the studio’s entrance was.

Clay slowed his gait, making a pretense of fumbling for his pocket watch, while sizing up the stranger. A too-tight suit was stretched tautly across muscled arms, inflating the ruddy flesh of the hands and neck. Fresh off a farm, Clay thought. Maybe this won’t be all that hard. He walked briskly the last few yards to the entrance, pushed past the stranger, had his key in the lock and the door halfway open before awareness registered in the man’s sun-bleached eyes. But Clay wasn’t fast enough. The bill collector’s thick fingers fastened around Clay’s wrist.

“You Clay Lake?”

“Why?”

“Because Mr. Lake has some debts he needs to take care of.” A toothpick, lodged in the corner of the man’s mouth, jerked up and down with his words. “Do you want to take care of this here on the street?”

The Reverend and Mrs. Sieve stepped out of a shop two doors down. “No. No. Let’s go upstairs.”

The two rooms that comprised Lake’s photography gallery were stifling. The bill collector removed his suit jacket and tossed it on a chair while Clay opened a window. Despite the heat, his hands shook and the skinned look of his bony face became even more pronounced.

“Got some pretty fancy equipment here,” the collector said, circling several cameras mounted on tripods. He lifted a black cloth hanging from the back of one and peered into the lens.

“Watch it. Those are expensive.” Clay’s jaw jutted out.

The man drew back and laughed. “Don’t I know it.”

Clay dropped heavily onto a chair. “So, you’re here about the cameras?”

“Yep.” The man flicked the toothpick onto the floor and inserted a fresh one in his mouth. “Those three you ordered from the Chicago Camera Company and never paid for.”

Clay ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I don’t have it. But I will. I just need a little time.”

“You’ve had time. Didn’t you get those notices?”

“Yes, but business has been slow. But now, I’ve got more sittings booked. Just today,” he glanced nervously at the clock, “in a couple of hours. I’ve got a customer coming this afternoon.”

“So you don’t have the money now?”

“No. But if you’d just give me—”

“Not my problem. I’m taking the cameras.” He surveyed the room. “Got any crates?”

“You can’t take them.”

The man paused. “Oh yeah?”

“But how am I going to make a living?”

The man shrugged. “And you’re going to give me that expensive watch tucked in your pocket for my trouble.”

After the downstairs door slammed behind the bill collector, Clay collapsed on a tufted chaise lounge that he’d paid a lot of money for, thinking it would be a nice prop, but none of his sitters wanted to use it. Too fancy, they said. He stared numbly at the ceiling, tracing the random paths of cracked plaster.

He was in the same position two hours later when Tula stopped by on her way to the druggist. Dr. Jack had advised Epson salt baths for Marian’s ankle.

“Are you sick?” she asked.

“No. Yes.”

“Your head?” She started to lay a palm against his forehead but he brushed her away and sat up.

“No. He took the cameras.”

Tula looked around, puzzled. “Who did?”

“The bill collector!” Clay shouted.

Tula blanched, her fingers against her lips. “You owe money for the cameras, besides what you owe Deuce?”

Clay rose from the chaise, flapped his hand irritably. “Yes, yes. I owe money. I’m in debt. We’re in debt.”

Tula’s chin trembled.

Clay kicked one of the wooden brackets holding up a painted backdrop of a marble pillar and the whole edifice collapsed.

“Oh, don’t,” Tula said. She pulled on one edge of the crumpled canvas to free it, then let it drop. “He took all the cameras?”

“No, I’ve still got that second-hand gear.”

“Well then,” Tula said.

Clay looked at the clock. “Christ. Mrs. Johnson will be here in half an hour. Help me set up, will you?”

Clay pulled a rickety tripod and an old camera from a small closet in the corner, fingering the camera’s cracked accordion pleats and wondering if they would hold.

Tula set to work on the tripod. “So, what are you going to do about Deuce?” she asked, tightening the screws on the legs.

“Talk to him. Convince him to give me another extension on the loan. You could help soften him up for me, you know.”

Tula flushed and straightened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turned away, made a show of perusing the gallery of photographs Clay had mounted on one wall. She stopped in front of a portrait of an old couple. The woman was seated, the man standing behind her with his hand on her shoulder. Her arm was crossed in front of her bosom. Their hands were clasped as they smiled into the lens.

“You took this for their twenty-fifth, right?”

Clay was kicking a pile of canvas and strutting off to one side. “The Webbers? Yeah. She looks pretty good there. Who’d’ve thought she’d be dead in six months? And that old Henry would get hitched six months later?” Clay paused. “You know, it’s been what, three years since Winnie died?”

“Two. So?”

“So, I know you’re sweet on Deuce. You have been since grade school. And he seems to be taking an interest now. If you two got married . . .”

Tula pivoted. “It would solve all your problems? Is that what you’re saying?”

Clay held up his hands. “No. Not at all. But, well, that too.”

“I’m not listening to you.”

“Hmm.” Clay turned toward the window. With his back to his sister he continued, “You’re going to have to be more forward. Reel him in.”

“I’m leaving,” Tula said, gathering up her pocketbook and hat and heading for the door. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

“Why do I always have to be the practical one?” Clay asked himself aloud, after the street door slammed behind Tula.

* * *

Twenty-three minutes late for their appointment, Mrs. Johnson and her son could be heard mounting the gallery’s narrow stairway. Clay listened from behind the studio door as they entered the outer waiting room. He let his hand rest on the doorknob for a count of twenty before giving it a brisk turn and greeting his subjects.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Johnson. Please come in, I’m almost all ready for you. It’s been a busy morning.”

“I’m sorry we’re late.” She sharply yanked the boy by his arm.

Mrs. Johnson, an attractive young matron whose only flaws were a short upper lip and high waist, swept inside. Her four-year-old son Samuel followed, tugging uncomfortably at the short pants of his blue and white–striped suit.

“I just have a few more adjustments to make with the camera. Please take in my photo gallery while you’re waiting,” Clay said.

Mrs. Johnson approached a photo on the far left of a portly woman with an open book on her lap, gazing abstractly off to one side. “Isn’t this Flossie Batt?”

“Yes, I was privileged to capture her likeness shortly after her husband was appointed county judge. And in the photo beside her is Judge Batt himself.”

Mrs. Johnson squinted at the heavy jowls and drooping mustache.

The next photograph, twice the size of the others, was a full-length view of a well-fed, carefully dressed man in his early fifties. He stood comfortably with one foot thrust forward and two fingers wedged in the small pocket of his vest, the pouches under his eyes and his large nose suggesting fleshy satisfaction.

“Oooo. This is wonderful.” She tapped the brass nameplate screwed into the frame just like those on a painting. E. Mummert—Mummert Power Shovel, it read.

“He has one just like it hanging over his desk,” Clay said.

“Do these nameplates cost extra?” Mrs. Johnson asked.

“Yes. The cost depends on the size and the number of letters, of course. Many of my patrons believe it’s worth it. Let me just check in my price book . . .” Clay started to move toward a small desk near the door but Mrs. Johnson stopped him.

“Never mind. I don’t think Mr. Johnson would agree to the added expense.” She was turning away from the photo wall when an image caught her attention. The subject’s folded hands were resting on a papier-mâché balustrade while, in the artificial distance, the Leaning Tower of Pisa could be glimpsed.

“Is this Jeannette Bellman?” Mrs. Johnson asked.

“Yes. That was taken a couple of years back.”

“Poor thing! Look at how lovely she was. It’s just heartbreaking.”

The image showed a girl of about fourteen wearing a middy and pleated skirt. She was not pretty, but an appealing, eager expression played across her wide mouth. Her dark eyes caught the light in a way that reminded Mrs. Johnson of a sequined trimming she had ripped off one of her hats because it seemed too bold.

Mrs. Johnson clucked her tongue. “I passed her just last evening as we were walking to Chautauqua. She and her parents were sitting on the porch. She’s lost so much flesh. It’s a pity.”

As his mother exclaimed over the town notables pointed out by the man in the white smock, Samuel slipped silently backward. Among some props in a far corner, he spotted a toy lamb mounted on a little wheeled platform. It had a gilt collar from which a tiny bell dangled. As soon as he was clear of his mother’s reach, he ran to the corner and hugged the lamb’s woolly body to his own. It emitted a dusty smell. He set the toy down, preparing to pull it across the floor, but then noticed the animal’s rigid glass eyes. They were disproportionately large, with enormous black pupils. The irises were tinted an unnatural shade of blue. Samuel wailed in fright. The lamb wobbled on its wheels and tipped over.

“Here, here. You’re not to have that.” Clay snatched the animal from the child’s grasp, placing it on a high shelf. Samuel bellowed more loudly.

Mrs. Johnson rushed over, handkerchief in hand. “What did I tell you about mussing yourself?” she scolded, blotting his dampened collar. “Stop bawling this instant.”

Samuel promptly shut his mouth but continued to sniffle as his mother tugged on his clothing.

“If this continues, I’ll have to tell the Story Hour Lady you won’t be participating in the Chautauqua pageant,” Mrs. Johnson said. Samuel inhaled in preparation for renewed wails but then thought better of it. “Mr. Lake, did I tell you that Samuel has the part of Old King Cole’s page in the Mother Goose Festival? He’s to wear real velvet breeches. They passed out the costumes yesterday. There was a little white shirt too, but it smells something awful and he refuses to wear it.”

Mrs. Johnson turned to smooth her son’s hair that had sprung loose from its anchoring of hair cream.

“I’ll get everything aligned so we’re ready to go,” Clay said, retreating under the black cloth draped over his camera, making unnecessary adjustments to the eyepiece. This kind of disruption was one reason he hated photographing children. The sessions took twice as long and almost always seemed to involve tears. What he would have liked to do was pinch little Samuel smartly on the fleshy part of his arm. But I need this sitting, he thought. And about fifty more like it.

After the photographs were taken, and as Clay was ushering the mother and son out, Mrs. Johnson paused at one of the portraits near the door. A young woman with a slight, knowing tilt to her lips and an assured expression in her eyes clutched Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s The Solitude of Self closely to her breast.

Mrs. Johnson snorted. “That Helen Garland has always read way too much for her own good.”