Читать книгу Overexposed - Michael Blair - Страница 7

With apologies to Bob Geldof (Excuse me. Sir Bob.) and The Boomtown Rats, I don’t like Mondays. But who does like Mondays? At least I was feeling more or less human again. In fact, despite having recently turned forty, the dead man on my roof deck, and the unnerving prospect of having to find a school for Hilly, I felt pretty good. It was a beautiful late summer morning, clean and bright and unseasonably warm. The new client was coming in later that morning. My house was floating on an even keel, more or less. And it had come to me in the shower that if Hilly came to live with me for a year, I could put a temporary hold on child support payments.

My good mood was not to last, however. At a few minutes to eight I was shuffling along Johnston Street toward the Aquabus dock by the Public Market, minding my own business, thinking about what I could do with a little extra disposable income. As I dodged a huge blue-and-white ready-mix truck that rumbled through the gate of the Ocean Cement plant, one of the last remnants of Granville Island’s industrial past, I ran into Barry Chisholm on his mountain bike. Literally.

“Sorry,” I said as I picked myself up from the dusty cobbles and Barry examined his bike for damage. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.” If I had been watching where I was going, I wouldn’t have bumped into Barry and his bike; I would have crossed to the other side of the street and avoided Barry Chisholm altogether.

“Everything seems okay,” Barry pronounced with relief.

“It’s a goddamned mountain bike, Barry,” I said. “If you can ride it up and down a fucking mountain without hurting it, you can sure as hell ride it up and down me.”

“You should watch where you’re going,” Barry reminded me in an aggrieved voice.

“Yes, indeed,” I said. I poked at a tear in the knee of my best pair of trousers. My fingertip came away bloody. “I’m all right, by the way,” I said. “Thanks for asking.”

He frowned in puzzlement. “I didn’t.”

Barry Chisholm was a Bike Nazi, one of those fanatical cyclists who apparently believe that every street and path and trail on the planet had been put there for their exclusive use. With no regard for the rules of the road, Barry and his ilk run red lights and stop signs, then raise their fists in righteous indignation at automobile drivers who have the unmitigated gall to honk their horns and swear at them. They ignore crosswalks and ride on sidewalks, thumbing their bells or shrilling their whistles at pedestrians who are too slow to get out of the way. And although they consider themselves to be environmentally enlightened, they ride three-thousand-dollar carbon fibre bikes and wear Lycra shorts, high-tech cycling shoes, and plastic and polystyrene helmets. Most of them have pathetic social skills, if they have any social skills at all. Barry’s were certainly nothing to write home about.

I turned and began to trudge homeward to change into my second-best pair of pants. Barry wheeled his bike along beside me, pedal locks of his cycling shoes clicking on the cobbles.

“Is it true a man died on your roof deck?” he asked.

“No,” I replied.

“That’s what I heard.” “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

“Eddy Porter said there were police and paramedics at your house and a truck from the coroner’s office on the quay.”

“Eddy Porter believes he was abducted by flying saucer people who put an implant in his head, for god’s sake.”

“You shouldn’t do that,” Barry said.

“Do what?”

“Use the Lord’s name in vain.”

“Goodbye, Barry,” I said. “Have a nice day.”

“Was he a homosexual?”

“What? Was who a homosexual?”

“The man who died on your roof. Was he a homosexual?”

“How the hell should I know?” I said, adding, although I knew better, “What bloody difference does it make?”

“Homosexuality is an aberration,” Barry said, expression serious. “It’s against God’s law. You should-n’t associate with those kinds of people.”

“I appreciate your concern,” I said.

“You especially shouldn’t let your daughter associate with them.”

To the best of my knowledge, the only homosexual with whom Hilly associated was Daniel Wu. I’d a damned sight sooner Hilly associated with Daniel and his “kind of people” than with the likes of Barry Chisholm. I was too polite to tell him so, though.

We had reached the entrance to the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, where Barry taught digital photography and computer graphics. Carefully leaning his bike against a wall, he unslung his backpack.

“I’ll pay for your slacks,” he said, taking out his wallet.

“Keep your money,” I said, and kept walking.

“It’s about time you showed up,” Bobbi said when I finally got to the studio.

“Lemme alone,” I grumbled.

Roberta “Bobbi” Brooks was my business partner. She’d started out as my assistant, but the year before I’d sold her a twenty-five percent share in the business. I’d have given it to her, to keep her from going out on her own, but she’d insisted on everything being legal and above board. I’d got the better of the deal; Bobbi was a fine photographer, maybe better than me. At thirty, she was prettier than the average girl next door, with large brown eyes and long brown hair she wore in a ponytail that stuck through the back of her baseball cap. In addition to the cap, she habitually wore jeans, which she filled out very nicely indeed, and a T-shirt, which she filled out hardly at all. In cooler weather, she added a faded jean jacket, sometimes a fleece vest. In the depths of winter she wore a waxed cotton Australian stockman’s coat over the jacket and vest. Sometimes, in summer, she traded the jeans for cut-offs, a sight that required a robust cardiovascular system.

“What’s eating you?” she asked.

“Nothing.” I handed her the single-use cameras from the party. “Is Wayne in?” Wayne was D. Wayne Fowler, our tech.

“He’s in the lab.”

“Have him send these out to be developed as soon as possible.” Although we had an old Wing-Lynch C41/E6 processor for developing colour negative and transparency film, it was less expensive, and a lot faster, to have casual snaps developed and printed at the photo finisher around the corner.

“What’s the big hurry?” Bobbi asked. “It wasn’t that great a party.”

“The police haven’t talked to you?”

“No. Why? Don’t tell me I missed something.”

I told her about the dead man on the roof deck.

“Whoa, spooky,” she said. “Older guy? Grey hair? Dressed like Bill Clinton?”

“I don’t know how Bill Clinton dresses,” I said. “But, yes, that sounds like him. Do you know him?”

“Nuh-uh.” She raised the cameras, dangling from their rubber band straps. “You think there might be a photo of him?”

“It’s a long shot,” I said. “Get doubles. The police may want a set.”

“Okie-dokie,” Bobbi said. “They should get a kick out of the one you took of Kevin grabbing your sister’s ass. Although she really shouldn’t have wriggled it in his face like that.”

Bobbi went into the lab to give the cameras to Wayne and I went into my office. It occupied a corner of the studio. The two interior walls were mostly glass, on which Hilly had pasted large cut-outs of tropical fish. I dumped Bodger, the old tabby who lorded it over the mice in the studio, out of the ergonomic chair I’d received as a gift when I’d left the Sun. As usual, he hissed irritably at me, so I fed him a couple of the cat treats I kept in my drawer in a futile attempt to regain his favour. He then curled up in a corner of the ratty old leather sofa opposite my desk and went back to sleep. I put my feet up and contemplated the photograph on the office wall, a night shot of the fifty-foot mural of the blue-jean-clad blond that had once adorned the south facade of the Hotel California on Granville, across Davie from my office window. The Hotel California was no more, replaced by a Howard Johnson’s. It wasn’t an improvement. At least I’d preserved the California girl for posterity. She was the stuff of fantasy, so I indulged myself for a moment or two, before putting my feet down and waking my computer.

At eleven Bobbi stuck her head into my office. I looked up from my computer, on which I had been preparing an estimate for a shoot, between hands of solitaire.

“Show time,” she said.

I coaxed Bodger off my lap, to which he’d relocated after cadging a couple more cat treats. He thumped to the floor with an offended mew. I stood and brushed at the cat hair on my second-best pair of khakis, straightened my collar, then followed Bobbi into the outer office. Beneath my feet I could feel the floor planking vibrate as the passenger elevator rattled and groaned up from the ground floor. A moment later, the door clanked open and a man emerged, dragging a cardboard box bungee-corded to a small hand truck with an extensible handle.

Willson Quayle was tall, well over six feet, slim and broad-shouldered and male-model handsome. He had a lot of thick, artfully tousled dark hair, and an easy, slightly lopsided smile that revealed perfect white teeth. His smile somehow never quite reached his eyes, though, which were a rich, chocolaty brown beneath craggy, immobile brows.

“Hey, Tom,” he said. His smiled widened, creasing his close-shaved cheeks but leaving his eyes untouched. “Mornin’, Barbie.”

“It’s Bobbi,” Bobbi said.

“Oh, god, is it? Geez, I’m lucky I can remember my own name sometimes. Sorry.”

“Yeah, okay,” Bobbi said.

“Just don’t let it happened again, eh?” He grinned. Bobbi glowered, but he didn’t seem to notice. He looked around the studio, as if sizing the place up.

“What’s in the box, Will?” I asked.

“Right,” Quayle said. He unsnapped the bungee cords securing the box to the hand truck, picked up the box, and carried it to the big table against the north wall of the studio. With a dramatic flourish, he tipped the contents of the box onto the table. “Ta-dah!”

A dozen or so garishly printed blister packs of varying size and shape spilled onto the tabletop. The larger packages contained action figure dolls. Some were human, startlingly female, dressed, if that’s the right word, in scanty sci-fi gladiator-like costumes, and armed with long pistols and short swords. The other action figures were creatures straight out of a nightmare, bipedal but grotesquely alien. I couldn’t tell if they were dressed or not, but all were equipped with harnesses hung with all manner of strange weaponry. The smaller packages contained more miniature weaponry, futuristic-looking handguns and rifles, as well as crossbows, swords, shields, and spears. Anachronism is alive and well in Toyland, I thought. The remaining packages contained additional costumes, obviously intended for the female action figures.

Willson Quayle selected one of the female figures and opened the blister pack. “I’d like to introduce you to Star,” he said, setting the figure on its feet on the table.

Although about the same size, height-wise, at least, as a Barbie doll, Star bore no resemblance at all to the willowy Barbie. Star was a squat, awesomely endowed creature, broad of shoulder, deep of chest, narrow of waist, and powerful of thigh, with straight, waist-length, coal-black hair and a fierce expression on her small face. Her costume, which didn’t look especially comfortable, consisted mainly of strategically placed faux leather straps and tiny silvery buckles.

“Of course, the physical proportions are somewhat exaggerated,” Quayle explained.

“No kidding,” Bobbi said, half under her breath.

Quayle opened another package and stood a second female figure beside Star.

“This,” he said proudly, “is Virgin, Star’s sidekick.”

Virgin was equally powerfully built and well endowed. She was dressed in a skimpy black vinyl outfit that might have been a cheerleader’s costume designed for Madonna. Or Barbarella. It consisted of a sturdy uplift bustier — it needed to be sturdy, given what it had to support, or would have, in a real woman, should such an unlikely creature actually exist — a sort of miniskirtcum-breechclout thing cut high on the hips, and knee-high boots. A Batman-like mask obscured the upper half of her face.

“Of the two,” Willson Quayle said, “Virgin’s my favourite.”

I thought I heard Bobbi groan, but it may have been my stomach growling. Personally, I respect a man who takes pride in his work.

“Have either of you seen Star Crossed?” he asked.

I shook my head and Bobbi said, “No.”

“It’s been described as Xena: Warrior Princess meets The Terminator,” Quayle explained. “Star and Virgin are time-travelling bounty hunters who have come to present-day Earth to track down and capture a group of evil shape-shifting alien outlaws. It’s quite original, sexier and more tongue-in-cheek than Xena. Very popular with the twelve-to-twenty-four demographic.”

“I can certainly see why boys like it,” Bobbi said. “Of all ages.”

“Actually, girls like it too. Star and Virgin are, well, quite liberated.”

“I bet,” Bobbi said.

“I’ll leave you some tapes,” Quayle said.

“Oh, goodie,” Bobbi muttered.

I jabbed her with my elbow. Quayle didn’t notice. He looked at his watch.

“She should be here any time now.”

“Who?” I asked.

His face did odd things, as though he were trying to raise his eyebrows, but they remained frozen in place. “You’ll see,” he said mysteriously. Willson Quayle busied himself setting up more action figures on the table, Star and Virgin in different costumes, and a selection of creepy alien outlaws, even more squat and powerful.

“Can I speak with you for a minute?” Bobbi said quietly. We went into my office. “I think we should send this bozo on his way,” she in a low voice.

“We need the work.”

“Not that bad.”

“Oh, yeah? Look, I know they’re kind of tacky, but a job’s a job.”

“Tacky is an understatement,” Bobbi said sourly. “The damned things are practically pornographic. It wouldn’t surprise me if he took them home at night and undressed them.” She heaved a resigned sigh. “Fine, but if he calls me ‘Barbie’ again I’m gonna poke one of those little plastic spears into his eye.”

We went back into the outer office just as the door to the stairwell opened and a woman came into the studio. I didn’t recognize her at first. She was wearing a baggy plain white T-shirt tucked into a faded denim miniskirt. Her legs were long and straight and strong. Her straw-coloured hair was drawn back in a short ponytail, emphasizing her striking, chiselled features. Her deep-set half-moon eyes, surrounded by smile lines, were a bright cornflower blue. She was carrying a shoulder bag that looked large enough to hold most of my wardrobe.

She smiled hugely, eyes crinkling and flashing. “Hi, Tom.”

“Reeny!” I said. “Hey, it’s great to see you.” Irene “Reeny” Lindsey was an actress — pardon me, an actor — I’d known for a couple of years. I hadn’t seen her in almost a year, though, not since I’d helped her move the old sailboat on which she lived from the marina in Coal Harbour to its winter mooring on the Fraser River, where the fresh water killed the saltwater toredo worms that invaded the wood hull during the summer.

“You two know each other?” Willson Quayle said, surprise in his voice if not his face.

“Sure,” Reeny said. “We’re old friends.” She put slight emphasis on the word “old.”

“Wait a second,” I said, having noticed that Reeny looked quite buff, much more so than when I’d last seen her. She wasn’t as developed — some would say overdeveloped — as a female bodybuilder, but it was obvious that she’d been working out. A lot. “Reeny, you aren’t — are you?”

“Tom, Barbie,” Willson Quayle said. Did Reeny stiffen slightly as he laid his arm across her wide shoulders? If so, he didn’t notice. “Meet Virgin.”

“His Botox injections haven’t just paralyzed his face,” Bobbi said later, after Willson Quayle had left. “I think they’ve paralyzed his brain as well.”

Reeny giggled. Giggly women usually annoy me, but Reeny’s giggle was throaty and full of mischief. “I know what you mean,” she said. “He is rather dense, isn’t he? Ricky — that’s Richenda Rice, who plays Star — she calls him One-Way Willie. Lots of stuff comes out, but nothing much goes in. Not to his face, of course. His company is a major sponsor.”

“His company?” I said.

“The company he works for,” Reeny amended. “Rainy Day Toys. He’s the senior account manager in the marketing department. Most of the women I work with think he’s drop-dead gorgeous, but, well, he creeps me out. Maybe it’s the Botox,” she added with an exaggerated shudder.

“You don’t use that stuff, do you?” Bobbi asked.

“Botox?” Reeny smiled, cheeks dimpling, eyes crinkling. “Does it look like it?”

“You look great, actually,” Bobbi said.

“Yeah, you do,” I added. “Very, um, fit.”

“You guys are great for the old ego,” Reeny said, colouring slightly. “How ’bout I take you to a late lunch?” she added. “My treat.”

“Uh, I wish we could accept,” I said. “But we’ve got a shoot this afternoon.” I looked at my watch. It was almost one. “We should get cracking.”

“I’ve got nothing on this afternoon,” Reeny said. “Do you mind if I tag along? That is, as long as you’re not going to be hanging from a helicopter under the Lions Gate Bridge or anything silly like that.”

She was referring to a photograph I had taken in the spring of a pair of workers dangling by their safety lan-yards beneath the Lions Gate Bridge after their scaffold had collapsed in sudden high winds. It had been shot from Wes Camacho’s helicopter from under the bridge. I’d been contracted to take some aerial photos of the harbour area, the bulk yards on the north shore, and had hired Wes and his chopper. We were calling it a day because of the winds when we saw the scaffolding collapse and plummet into the water two hundred feet below. Wes hovered under the bridge, while the winds beat at the helicopter, relaying information to the rescue crews. The photograph had earned me an award and a fair bit of free publicity. Wes and I had also shared a citation for bravery from Vancouver Fire & Rescue. Truth be known, though, I’d been scared half to death, had kept shooting simply as a distraction.

“Nothing like that,” I said. “We’re shooting the board of directors of West Coast Hotels for their annual report this afternoon. In their boardroom.”

“I could schlep for you.”

I looked hopefully at Bobbi.

“Why not?” she said with a wry smile. “Save me from having to do all the schlepping.”

Thank you, I thought gratefully.

“But, um,” Bobbi said.

“What?” Reeny asked. Bobbi was looking at Reeny’s long, bare legs. “Oh.”

“I might have a pair of sweats that will fit you.”

“Not to worry,” Reeny said, and pulled a pair of jeans out of her huge bag.

“Will Quayle implied that your show’s pretty popular,” I said. “You’re not worried about being mobbed by your fans? Or being seen in the company of dull normals?”

“Speak for yourself,” Bobbi said.

“Star Crossed isn’t that popular,” Reeny said. “Not yet, anyway. And I doubt it’d have many fans on the board of directors of West Coast Hotels. Besides, I’m not very recognizable. In addition to my character’s, um, physical enhancements, she wears a mask in a lot of scenes, and when she isn’t wearing a mask, her hair is short and red and her eyes are yellow. We’re only just starting our second season and, so far at least, I’ve managed to retain my anonymity. If it takes off, though, that might not last. I’m not sure how I feel about it.” She looked at Bobbi. “Tom can tell you, I’m a very private person.”

Reeny changed into the jeans and Bobbi loaned her a spare vest, so she’d look the part. We gobbled a quick lunch from the Chinese bakery across the street, then loaded the cameras, tripods, light stands, reflectors, cables, and portable seamless backdrop into the van and were on our way by two.

“What happened to your old Land Rover?” Reeny asked. She was sitting up front with Bobbi while I sat on the equipment case welded into the back of the big Dodge Ram van, clinging for dear life to the seat backs.

“I let Bobbi drive it,” I said. “She killed it.”

“Put it out of its misery, more like,” Bobbi retorted.

“And your Porsche,” Reeny said. “Do you still have that?”

“Yes,” I said. The Porsche was an ’84 fire-engine red Carrera 911 that I’d acquired a few years earlier in lieu of payment from a client whose “pre-owned” luxury car business had fallen on hard times. It was great fun to drive, especially on the winding roads of the Sunshine Coast, but it was totally impractical for work and spent most of its life in the lock-up I rented in the boat works shed at the west end of Granville Island. “I’m thinking of selling it, though. Know anyone who might be interested?”

“I might be.”

“Oops,” I said.

“What?”

“I have a rule, never sell a used car to a friend, especially a friend you want to keep. Anyway, it’s never been quite the same since Vince Ryan stripped the gearbox.”

“Too bad,” Reeny said.

During the shoot someone did in fact recognize Reeny. Not from Star Crossed, though, but from a recurring minor role she’d had in The X-Files, when it was still being shot in Vancouver. I’d worried a little that Reeny might prove to be more hindrance than help, but I needn’t have. She seemed to know her way around cameras, which shouldn’t have surprised me, but did.

“I enjoy the technical aspects of filmmaking,” she told us later. “I’d like to go into production someday. Acting is fun, most of the time, but I’m no Kate Hepburn. When my looks and my figure, such as they are, are gone, so is my acting career. Who cares if the producer or director is wrinkly and grey with sagging boobs?”

“I like her,” Bobbi said after we dropped Reeny off on our way back to the studio.

“Me too,” I said.

“No kidding.”

“Do you still want to send One-Way Willie packing?”

“Him, yes. The job, no. I have a feeling working with Reeny could be fun.”

“Me too,” I said.