In Taos we ate burritos, and all the while I continued to talk. Then Frank drove me around Mount Wheeler, past the D. H. Lawrence shrine, on to the ruins of "E-town," where Edward Weston had taken his famous series.
"Funny about these places," I said. "The spot where I took the PietA-1 doubt I'd recognize it today."
"Because that picture wasn't about a place. It was about people." He paused.
"I'll say one thing for this Kimberly of yours-she's got you shooting people again."
He pointed out something else to me too-that I'd returned to the Leica, the camera of my youth.
"It's like you went into this slow phase for a while, Geof, when you needed to use a view camera. But now your life has speeded up and you have to react more quickly. Maybe Jim Lynch was right-maybe you still are a photojournalist. Maybe the quick incisive look is your thing, not the slow examining gaze."
There was something special Frank wanted to show me, more important to him and more vivid than the subjects of other photographer's famous images. It lay just a few miles south of Eagle Nest.
He didn't say much as we approached, but I could tell by the way he was handling the wheel that a special emotion was brewing inside. Then, when I caught sight of the place, a soaring modern structure that seemed to grow out o the earth, I recognized it as a building I'd seen in several of the photographs on the walls of his gallery in Santa Fe.
As we turned up the drive he told me what it was, a Vietnam Veterans;
Chapel built by the father of a marine killed in the war. It had since been taken over by the Disabled American Veterans, who now maintained it as a permanent memorial. There was only one other car in the parking lot, and th sat down not a single person inside the chapel. We bo on a semicircular bench that faced the tall narrow window at the high end.
Then we stared at the only visible artifact, a tall cross bearing an eternal flame.
I was impressed by the purity of the interior, the opposite of the heavily decorated mission churches we'd been looking at. But what really moved me was Frank's reaction. He focused on the cross with enormous concentration, then his shoulders began to shake. After a time I decided to leave him alone. Later, when he rejoined me, his eyes were red.
"Gets to me," he said. "Don't know why. Feel it every time I come. it could be the design, the site. Maybe just the idea that a kid got killed and -his dad wanted to make a chapel to remember him, and when it was built it became a place to remember all the kids who died. How many years has it been, Geof? Twenty since we met? Fifteen since I finished my final tour'? And it still hurts, you know. Maybe because I got a Vietnamese wife, half-Vietnamese' kids, it's with me all the time. Maybe too because I don't want to forget it, not a single brutal moment… around the exterior, he told He was calmer as, walking me how much he wanted to take a picture that would all he felt about the place. But he found the C= t mes, c difficult to photograph. He'd ried many times shooting in different seaons, and he'd even tried to put some people in his pictures, visiting veterans he'd posed against the stone.
"But that didn't work out," he said, "and anyway I'm no good at setting stuff up. Remember what you taught me, GeoP That basically there're only two ways to approach photography: you roam the world searching for images or you make your own."
"You like film noir, Geof. Remember The Woman in the Window?" I nodded. We were driving back to Santa Fe by the new road that runs along the Rio Grande.
"Edward G. Robinson explains blackmail to Joan Bennett. He makes a nice little speech.
" 'There are only three ways to deal with a blackmailer,' he tells her.
'You can pay him and pay him and pay him until you're penniless. Or you can call the police yourself and let your secret be known to the world.
Or'-and here old Edward G. pauses for effect-'you can kill him." I remembered that nice little speech.
"That's what you're up against. I should say 'we' -because I want in if you'll take me after you've heard what I've got to say. I have some reservations. The girl bothers me a little. But even if she's not as straight as you think, I can deal with her unless she's very bad news."
"Whatever she is, she isn't that," I said.
"Trust her?"
"I do now-yes."
"But then you're not the best person to judge her, are you, Geof)"
I had to agree with him about that.
"Okay, I got maybe nine points I want to make. First, normally I'd say double the demand to show we mean business, But we can't do that here because the original demand for a million was way too much. Still, now, we've got to stick to it. Show the slightest sign of weakness and we're dead.
"Second, we have to enforce compliance by giving the enemy (and that's what they are, Geof, the enemy-don't ever forget it!) a whole array of unpleasant alternatives. Fine to threaten them with the cops, but that isn't enough. Murder rap's good, but not sure. Find their other weak spot, threaten them there. That's how we make them pay." o what's their other weak spot?" I asked. xposure. The tabloids.
That's what'll make Darling Guy wears a mask, he's afraid of being seen.
So for that. We got pictures, we can show the world he is. See, there's our basic threat: disgrace. n this same area, call it point three, we exploit that weakness to unnerve him. I'd like to see you stake him out, then ambush him with your camera. Even money says he won't be able to take it, that you can make him cover up. Do that-and you're in charge. Then you'll hold the whip."
"That means going back to New York."
"You're going to have to do that anyway. Thing is, Geof, if you shoot him like I say, he gets to look you in the eye and see you're serious.
Easy for him to come to a meeting prepared to stare you down. But take him by surprise, and every shot will be like a blow across his face.
I smiled. I liked that. In fact I liked Frank's whole approach. He had a grip on the thing, which made me feel good, and that I'd been right to bring it to him.
"This Mrs. Z-she's another weakness. As are the Duquaynes, if they're as fashionable and well known as you say. they didn't do any murders, but they don't want to go down with people who did. If we approach them right, we can get them to pressure Mrs. Z. And that may help us divide her from Darling." f didn't get what Frank was saying.
"Darling and Mrs. Z are accomplices."
"Yeah, right now they are. But for how long? He's got money, she doesn't, which means he's got to pay for both of them, and that breeds resentment-on both their parts. If he hadn't whacked Sonya, she wouldn't be in trouble. If Kim hadn't gotten ideas, he wouldn't be getting blackmailed. Doesn't matter that they're allies, each has got a problem with the other. The more we can exploit that, the more we weaken them and increase our chances."
"What next?"
"Send them a message. they have to understand what happens if they don't comply. The best message is a demonstration-like sending that kid to throw lye at your door. We're going to have to do a violent act to make them see we're serious, something comparable to breaking Rakoubian's lenses. That was a stroke of genius, Geof. Best move you made."
"What kind of violent act?"
"We'll think of something."
I must have moaned, because, when Frank glanced at me, his eyes were a little sharp.
"This isn't a game."
"I know that."
"Intellectually maybe, but not yet, not in your heart. What old Edward G. said in that movie-that's the way they're going to think. They're going to give very serious consideration to killing you, Geof-to killing all of us. Which brings me to point number five: Play for keeps. I'm talking now about mental attitude. This is combat, and they're the enemy, and there's no middle groundit's us or them. Go into this, you're going into lawless territory where you have to be prepared for treachery and also to kill. I mean really be ready to do it, Geof, because that split-second when you're thinking, Should I kill this guy or is there some other way? will be the split-second when, without compunction, he'll be killing you.