'And here's another thing. I've had a look at your suspect's passport and it says he's only five-eight. Weighs around one-ten. Unless Gleig was kneeling down in that elevator car, there's just no way he couid have hit him. Or unless your man was standing on a box. Like Alan Ladd.'
Bragg noticed the look of disappointment on Curtis's face.
'If he was involved then he must have had someone else with him. Someone taller and stronger. A man of your build, perhaps. A man who likes cream and two sugars in his coffee.'
Curtis showed them the picture. 'So why have I got a picture of just one suspect?'
'You're the detective, Frank,' said Bragg.
'My suspect reckons this is a fake, Charlie.'
'Did a computer generate this?' asked Seidler.
Curtis nodded.
'Not my bag I'm afraid,' shrugged Seidler, 'but I can try someone.' He picked up the telephone and punched out a number. 'Bill? It's me, Charlie. Listen, I'm in the lab with someone from Homicide. Could you come in a minute and give us your head on something? Thanks a lot.'
Seidler replaced the receiver.
'Bill Durham. He's our photographic expert.'
A little man with a dark beard came bustling through the door. Seidler made the introductions and then Curtis showed him the picture. Durham produced a magnifying glass from the pocket of his white coat and examined the picture carefully.
'A traditional photograph is easy to test, and easy to prove,' he said.
'You've got exposed films, negatives, prints, all very physical stuff. But something generated by a computer — well, that's a very different story. You're dealing with digital images.' Durham looked up. 'I couldn't say whether this is a fake or not.'
'But it's possible?' said Curtis.
'Oh sure, it's possible all right. You get two base digitized images…'
'Wait, wait,' said Curtis.
'They're numbers. A computer can store anything as a series of binary numbers. You have one image of the black guy and another of the Chinese guy, right? You silhouette the Chinese guy out of whatever background he's in and then place it on top of the picture that includes the other guy. Then you mask the two figures out of the surrounding area so that the background can be evened out without affecting them. If you're clever you alter the shadows to make them consistent and maybe add a few random pixels to help degrade the image of the black guy, maybe match the grain of the other picture. Not much more to it than that. You could store it on disc, on computer tape, whatever, indefinitely. Hard copy it whenever you liked.'
Curtis pulled a face.
Durham smiled. Sensing the detective's technophobia, he added for good measure, 'The fact is, Sergeant Curtis, we're swiftly approaching an era when it will no longer be possible to regard a photograph as something unquestionably probative.'
'As if the job wasn't already hard enough,' growled Curtis. 'Jumping Jesus, this is a fuck of a world we're building for ourselves here.'
Durham shrugged and looked at Seidler.
That all?'
'Frank?'
'Yeah, thanks a lot.'
When Durham had left Curtis returned to the pages of the p.m. and sifted through the photographs of Sam Gleig's body.
'As if someone dropped an object on his head you say, Janet?'
Doctor Bragg nodded.
'Like what?'
'A refrigerator. A TV set. A piece of the sidewalk. Like I said, something flat.'
'Well, that sure narrows it down.'
'On the other hand,' she sighed, 'well, it's just a thought, Frank, but you might check and see if that elevator car is working properly.'
Book Four
'Let us conceive, consider and create together the new building of the future that will bring all into one single integrated creation; architecture, painting and sculpture rising to heaven out of the hands of a million craftsmen, the crystal symbol of the new faith of the future.'
For an architect there was only one place to live in LA and that was Pacific Palisades. It was not the exclusivity of the area, so much as the fact that it was the location for many of LA's more famous examples of modernist architecture. For the most part these were square, steel constructions, Mondrian-coloured, with lots of glass, and which resembled Japanese tea-houses or German worker bungalows. Mitch did not care for any of them, although as an architect he understood why they were significant: these were houses that had influenced multiple housing throughout the whole of the United States. For him they were fine to look at in books, but to actually live in one was a different matter. It was surely no accident that Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House in Griffith Park was virtually derelict. Just about the only house he thought he could have lived in around here was Pierre Koenig's house in the Hollywood Hills, although this preference owed more to the spectacular view than to the building's architectural merits. On the whole he preferred the quasi-rural houses that characterized that part of the Palisades known as Rustic Canyon, with its log cabins, horse paddocks and beautiful gardens.
Not that Rustic Canyon was without its own examples of modern architecture. On one of the uppermost slopes of the Canyon stood what Mitch considered to be one of the finest private houses ever built by Ray Richardson: his own.
Mitch drew his car into the curve of a honey-coloured concrete wall broken by a pedestrian entrance bridge that spanned a small creek and led up to the front door, facing the distant ocean.
A man and a woman whom Mitch vaguely recognized as English popmusic stars came down the lane on horses and wished him a good morning. That was another reason Mitch liked the Canyon. Up here money was friendlier, apparently unaffected by the obsession for defensible, post-holocaust-style architecture that characterized the rest of LA. There was not a security camera or a length of razor wire in sight. Up here people relied on the height of the hills, the distance from the inner city and discreet armed patrols to protect them against the perceived threat from LA's underclass.
Mitch crossed the footbridge. He disliked giving up his Sunday morning to talk about work, even if it meant a rare offer of brunch at Richardson's house. Ray had said they were just going to relax and spend some time together, but Mitch didn't buy that. The only time Ray Richardson ever relaxed was when he was asleep, and of this he seemed to require very little.
The invitation had also included Alison. But Alison's dislike of Richardson was so acute that she could not bear to be in the same room as him. At least, Mitch reflected, he would not have to spend his Sunday afternoon lying to her about where he had spent the morning.
Mitch knocked and slid the frameless panel of glass to one side. He found Ray Richardson in his study, kneeling on the blue slate floor, inspecting the drawings for yet another project that were still spilling out of the wide-body laser printer — a new heliport in the centre of London — and dictating notes to his green-eyed secretary, Shannon.
'Mitch,' he said brightly. 'Why don't you go upstairs to the living room? I won't be a minute. I just have to check these E-mail drawings from the London office for a meeting they've got tomorrow morning. Want a drink, buddy? Rosa will get it for you.'
Rosa was Richardson's Salvadorean maid. Mitch encountered her on his way back to the living room, a small, skinny woman wearing a pink uniform. He thought of orange juice. Then he thought of an afternoon at home.