Sylvia wants Rita Hayworth to appear out of the blackness of the darkroom’s corner, done up in that dress from Gilda. Wants her to step in front of the dry-line and say, “This is a place for vengefulness, Sylvia.”
But Rita, all of this is taking me away from the more important questions.
Hugo Schick called on the phone to say that the pictures existed. Schick’s biggest enemy is Reverend Garland Boetell. And Boetell’s point man, his newest tool, his latest creature, is Perry Leroux.
Hugo and Sylvia need to have a talk.
30
Back upstairs Sylvia unplugs the phone, lies down on the couch, relieved the sky is overcast, turns the TV to the Peter Lorre Festival and watches They Met in Bombay and Invisible Agent, then dozes off halfway through Hotel Berlin.
At seven-thirty she gets up and it’s dark outside and she’s still alone in the apartment. She goes into the bathroom and throws water on her face and pulls her hair back. She puts on jeans, a pair of ankle boots and a sweater. She grabs the Canon off the counter and a new roll of film from the fridge, then pulls a very old yellow rain slicker from the hall closet.
She heads outside just as the Wolcott Street bus pulls up. It’s one of the ancient, small and boxy, green-and-red buses with the porthole-style windows and the antiquated exhaust system that belches black clouds every time the driver accelerates.
She gets on, drops the change in the fare box and moves all the way to the rear bench seat. The driver grinds gears and they start to roll downtown. She takes the Canon out from under the slicker, loads the film and sets the speed, brings the camera up to her eye. She starts to focus on the framed advertising placards hung near the bus ceiling. She shoots
Attention Lonely Bachelors
Why go it alone?
We have a wide selection of mail order brides
All shapes, sizes & colors
Write for our free catalog
Vixens & Virgins Unlmtd.
Box 99
Bosnia — Herzegovina
and
Yat-sen Footbinders Inc.
“Over A Century of Tradition”
Prager Plaza, Little Asia
Walk-ins Welcome
and
Eddie Gein’s Discount Upholstery
Custom Orders Our Specialty
Call 1-800-COVER-ME
She moves her focus from the advertisements to the spray-painted graffiti and street art marking every free foot of wall space. And it starts to feel like she’s being overloaded, attacked by images, messages, signals, until none of them make any sense and she pulls the camera from her face, closes her eyes and rubs at them. She takes a breath, brings the camera back up, but this time focuses on the backs of human heads. She wonders if the other riders can feel her looking at them, magnifying the rear of their skulls, pulling in the wet, slightly matted hair, enlarging the flecks of dandruff, the patches of scalp that show through the thinning spots.
She puts the camera down in her lap and looks out the window. The rain has obscured everything and as the bus starts to approach the business district, the colored lights from neon signs are fragmented across the windowpane, made to sparkle more, to flare out and pinwheel a bit.
When Sylvia looks back to the other passengers, she comes eye to eye with an old woman who’s turned around and is staring at her. The woman is bundled inside a tan raincoat with the collar turned up. Sylvia smiles at her but the old lady just gives this dour, threatening look, then reaches and pulls on the stop-cord and the bus lurches into the curb to let her off.
Sylvia looks out the rear window and finds the woman still staring, standing motionless in the rain, hands pushed into the pockets of her raincoat, waiting for the bus to pull away.
When Sylvia turns back around to face front, three other riders are perched sideways in their seats looking at her. All of their faces have a kind of beaten quality to them. One is gaunt and bony, another puffy, and another bland, nondescript. But all of them seem tired and angry and most of all, worn-out, as if energy has been chronically stolen from them in small doses but over a long period of time.
She looks out the window, watches a black limousine pass on the left, looks back a second later. More faces have joined the trio. They all look malign, like they wish her harm, but they’re too listless to actually attack. And yet it’s as if their bad intentions were adequate, as if their sluggish malevolence was enough to bring her down and cause her trouble.
“What?” Sylvia blurts out, loud and annoyed and scared. She focuses on one young guy in a leather jacket and bristly flattop and matching ear and nose rings connected by a silver chain. They stare at each other until he lets a horrible grin break slowly over his face.
Sylvia pulls on the stop-cord and there’s a frantic moment when she wonders if the driver will let her leave, but the bus cuts in to the curb and she grabs the camera tight and slides from the back bench, runs down the aisle as all the other passengers start to laugh in unison. She jumps to the curb as soon as the doors spring open.
She stands for a minute and catches her breath, then wipes the rain from her face. She’s on Maddox, just a couple of blocks from the Canal Zone. She starts walking quickly toward Rimbaud Way, rounds the corner and starts running for the Rib Room Diner. The windows are all steamed up ad the Open sign is glowing in the door.
She goes in, finds a booth midway down the aisle, slides in, her back to the door, pulls the zipper down on the slicker and dries her hands on her jeans. Tacked to the wall of the booth is another Jenny Ellis flyer and the huge, black letters that form the question Have You Seen This Child? feel like they’re demanding an answer from Sylvia. She looks away from the poster, puts the camera on the table and an old guy with an unruly mane of white hair bounces up to the booth with a coffeepot in one hand and a mug in the other. And Sylvia knows from all the photos in the Spy over the years that it’s Elmore Orsi himself, owner of the Rib Room and legend of the Canal Zone.
“You look,” he says, filling the mug and sliding it in front of her, “like you need a mug.”
She nods and says, “Thank you,” and he smiles and lingers. Part of the Orsi legend is that Elmore, now in his mid-seventies by most estimates, still has a weak spot for the young boho women who hang around the diner.
Sylvia sips the coffee and says, “Delicious.”
He’s pleased. “Hazlenut mocha,” he says. “Pain in the tush to get, but, you know, anything to keep my children happy.”
She knows that Orsi is thought of as this eccentric godfather to the art crowd and she wonders how much of his oddball shtick is genuine and how much is made up. He’s a vision here in front of her, done up in pleated white wool pants, black silk shirt opened wide to reveal a forest of chest hair and a fat, gold crucifix dangling by a chain around his neck, and red paisley vest.
Maybe because she can’t judge the artifice factor, she’s got no impulse to photograph him.
“You’re Mr. Orsi,” she says and he takes this as an opportunity to slide into the seat opposite her.
“In the flesh,” he says. “And you are not a regular. New to town?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve lived in Quinsigamond my whole life.”
“That’s wonderful. A real native. That’s tremendous.”