St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(59)
‘Get your act together, Delvene, for God’s sake. We need to know you’re naked but we can’t see your bits, remember? Not in The Herald, at least. Use those fans like I showed you.’
The girl lifted her foot off the ground again and one fan went up and one went down but she stayed covered. The lights popped and the camera crank turned. A younger man was standing to the right of the model, waving a large square of plywood quickly up and down. The upward motion of the plywood directed gusts of air towards the feathers, making them flutter and lifting the girl’s long blonde hair away from her face and out behind her. The flashes fired again.
‘Groovy, baby, I love it! More wind, Derek, more wind.’ The photographer fired again and turned the crank on the right side of the camera. The crank just kept turning, making a ratcheting noise.
‘New film magazine, Derek, when you have a moment. And you’re supposed to tell me when I run out of film, I’m not supposed to tell you, so get it together.’
The young bloke who had been waving the board put it down and moved towards the camera. ‘You got it, Beast.’
The photographer turned towards the model. ‘And you can take a break too, baby, while I talk to our visitors. But don’t sit down, we don’t want to see any creases on your ass. Well, no more than you’ve got already.’
The model dropped her arms to her sides, the white ostrich feathers bending at the tips on contact with the floor. She was wearing a G-string, like the strippers at the George Hotel, and nothing else. The photographer looked at her and shook his head.
‘Oh, put them away, for God’s sake, Delvene. I’m sure these guys have seen more and better. And can you touch up your lipstick? You must have something redder in that big makeup bag you lug around.’
The girl walked off the background and towards a small room set off to one side. Inside the doorway Berlin could see a long mirror above a bench and above the mirror a row of small round light bulbs. The girl walked languidly despite the platform shoes and she seemed quite comfortable in her semi-nakedness.
The assistant was fumbling with the back of the tripod-mounted camera and the photographer shook his head. ‘Let’s move it, Derek, if it was a bra you would have had it off in two seconds.’
The accent was definitely American. A beer belly pushed at the front of the man’s T-shirt and bulged over the belt that was holding up his blue denim jeans. He was wearing cowboy boots, the Cuban-heeled ones that gave a short man that extra inch or two of height.
Berlin walked across the studio and studied the camera on the tripod. ‘Nice-looking camera. It’s a Hasselblad, a 500C, right?’
‘My goodness, a flatfoot who knows his cameras.’
‘Flatfoot?’
The photographer smiled at him but didn’t mean it. ‘Back in Brooklyn where I’m from, flatfoot is a term of endearment for our cops.’
Berlin smiled back with equal insincerity. ‘Not in any Yank gangster film I’ve ever seen it doesn’t, but right now I’ll take your word for it. My wife is a photographer; she’s got a Hasselblad on her wish list.’ The photographer put his hand on top of the camera. ‘It seems a lot of the ladies are playing around with photography these days. She does understand the Hasselblad is a very sensitive and expensive piece of professional equipment, doesn’t she? And really quite complicated.’
‘That’s okay, my wife is quite complicated too. And sensitive.’ And Berlin knew if she was here right now Rebecca wouldn’t let the comment go by. If she got her dander up he knew she wouldn’t be beyond suggesting they test the Visual Beast’s own sensitivity by shoving that Hasselblad up his arse, sideways.
‘This camera chat is nice but we’re in a bit of a hurry right now Should we call you Mr Beast or just Beast? Or would you have a real name?’
There was a pause before the photographer answered. ‘I was born Sheldon Shapiro but it’s my relentless, almost animalistic pursuit of ethereal beauty and feminine perfection through the camera lens that has made me the Visual Beast.’
‘I guess I’ll take your word for that too.’
Roberts was standing behind the photographer. He looked at Berlin, shook his head and made a wanking gesture with his right hand.
‘So tell me, Sheldon, what did you mean when we came in, when you said it was about time?’
The photographer walked past Berlin to a refrigerator standing against the wall and took out a bottle of Coca-Cola. Yellow boxes of Kodak colour film were stacked up in the fridge. Both Berlin and Roberts declined the offer of a soft drink.
The photographer pulled the cap off his bottle with an opener attached to the wall on a short chain. ‘We had a robbery here a few weeks back. The uniformed coppers who turned up said they’d be sending detectives to have a look but nobody ever came by.’
‘Did you lose much stuff?’
‘That was the funny part – they just kicked in the front door and knocked over a few light stands and things, but as far as we could see nothing was taken. Might just have been kids, I suppose. We have a lot hanging around, because of the recording studio out front.’
‘I just saw a bunch of hardened criminals hanging around when we arrived, real hard cases. You’re lucky nothing got nicked, but we’re not here about a robbery. I need to talk to your assistant Derek there about something else.’