Deviation, Breaking the Pattern #1

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  IT WAS DARK WHEN there was a knock on Henry’s door. He was getting ready to go out, and it startled him. No one should be coming to his apartment so late. Probably just someone knocking on the wrong door. Ignore it, and they would go away. He waited.

  A louder knock, more insistent this time. Henry bit his lip.

  “Go away,” he muttered to himself, and waited some more.

  The next minute, the door was kicked in. Henry stood there for an instant, stunned, before looking for cover. His feet froze to the floor. He dragged himself behind the couch in slow motion. It was stupid to be climbing behind the couch with the two of them standing there watching him. But he did it anyway.

  “That our bird?” one of the boys questioned.

  The other boy walked around the couch and looked at him.

  “Yeah,” he said with a laugh, “that’s our bird.”

  “Stand him up.”

  Henry stood up when the boy put his hand under his arm. He swallowed, trying to find his voice.

  “What are you doing here?” he squeaked.

  The other boy shut the door quietly.

  “We’re just here for a little visit, Henry,” he said gravely, “or should I call you Specs?”

  “Specs?” Henry repeated hoarsely.

  They were Marty’s boys.

  “Yeah. I’m Richards. This is Hans.”

  Richards and Hans looked around the apartment, and without asking leave, started looking through drawers and checking out the rest of the suite. Henry watched, lost, unable to comprehend what was going on. Why were they here? What did they want?

  “Yeah, in here Richie,” Hans called from the bathroom. Richards joined him. Henry followed them, and watched helplessly as they pulled down his latest pictures from the strings they were each clipped to dry.

  “Mmm,” Richards murmured. “Not bad, Specs. So what direction are you going with these lovely candids? Porn? Blackmail? Both?”

  “No,” Henry protested, suddenly understanding Marty’s and Sandy’s strange behavior on finding out he was a photographer. “No, they’re just—” how could he explain them? He became suddenly aware of his dark clothing and the camera around his neck. “They’re personal,” he finished lamely.

  “They’re all the same girl, Richards observed thoughtfully. He studied them each carefully. “You stalking her, or what?”

  “Of course not,” Henry said, shocked.

  Richards put the pictures down on the counter abruptly.

  “We got a job for you,” he said.

  “I don’t want a job,” Henry said.

  “Did I ask if you wanted a job? We got a job for you.”

  “What?” Henry asked.

  “Say you’ll take it.”

  “What is it?” Henry insisted.

  “Say you’ll take it,” Richard repeated firmly.

  “No. Tell me what it is.”

  Richard put his arm around Henry’s shoulders and squeezed them in a friendly gesture.

  “You’re gonna take it, Specs. Marty says you’re taking it, and Richie says you’re taking it. So you’re taking it.”

  Henry stood there and said nothing, just looking at him.

  “So you’re doing it,” Richards prompted.

  Henry shrugged morosely.

  “We just want you to take a few pics,” Richards said, framing his face with his hands and smiling. “That’s all.”

  Henry doubted that was all.

  Henry dropped Bobby at the school daycare and went to his first couple of classes. Then he approached one of his teachers.

  “I’m going to go home for a bit…” he started out.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m not feeling too well,” Henry explained.

  “You don’t look so hot,” she said sympathetically.

  Henry was sweating and felt flushed. Probably looked like he had the flu. But he didn’t.

  “Why don’t you leave Bobby here and get some sleep? Come back for him at the end of the day,” she suggested.

  “Do you think it would be okay?”

  “Of course.”

  “That would really help.”

  “Go ahead,” the teacher urged.

  “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  He didn’t go home. He went nervously to the apartment at the address Richie had directed him to. He rang the bell, his heart pounding, and pasted on a smile. A man with a couple day’s growth of beard answered the door.

  “I’m the photographer,” he explained.

  The man motioned for Henry to come in, not saying a word. He went into the back room.

  “Katie, he’s here,” the man announced.

  Henry stood awkwardly in the front room, until the man turned to him.

  “In here,” he said impatiently.

  Henry followed him. Katie was a young girl, twelve or thirteen. She was lounging on the bed in a robe. Henry just stood there staring at her.

  “Take it off,” the man told Katie. Who was he, her father or boyfriend?

  Katie obeyed, sliding the robe off. Henry raised his camera, blanking his mind, trying to concentrate on technical stuff, camera angles and body form. The man owed money to Marty’s boys, and some of the debt would be written down for pictures. It was a business deal; that was all. Just business. One photo session and it would all be over. Henry would be out of the picture.

  Richards showed up at Henry’s apartment before the pictures were done drying. Henry let him in with a shrug of irritation. Richie went into the darkroom and examined the hanging pictures.

  “Aw Specs,” he groaned. “What’s this garbage? You trying to be artsy, or what?”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Henry questioned.

  “Sheesh, just look at it! We don’t want sensitive treatment and cute positioning. We want skin. Explicit. Provocative. Nothing left to the imagination. This… I dunno, you can try to pass it off as kiddie stuff, but she’s pretty old for that bunch.”

  Henry shrugged.

  “You said just snap some pictures,” he said.

  “You knew what we wanted.”

  “I guess I’m not your guy.”

  “Oh that’s it, is it? You figure you botch this job we won’t give you another? Nice try. You’ll do it ‘til you get it right.”

  Henry shook his head.

  “I can’t do this stuff.”

  “Where’s your negatives?”

  Henry pointed. Richards picked them up. He pulled out a card and wrote on the back of it. Another address.

  “This one tomorrow,” he said.

  “No.”

  “You do this one right; you’ll get paid for both jobs.”

  “Keep your money,” Henry snapped.

  Richards put the card into Henry’s shirt pocket.

  “You do it. Or you’ll be sorry,” he warned.

  Richards left, slamming the door. Henry heard Bobby stir and cry. Henry waited to see if he was going to wake up all the way or not. But Bobby settled again and went back to sleep.

  Henry decompressed by going out to take pictures. Real art, not pornography. He followed Adrienne from her apartment to the bus. He couldn’t follow her further than that. She would see him, maybe recognize him if he got on the bus. Henry wasn’t exactly unobtrusive, with the camera around his neck.

  He snapped a couple of pictures of her as the bus pulled away. There was a big, firm hand on his shoulder, startling him. Henry tensed, trying to pull away.

  “What are you up to, son?” a gruff voice questioned.

  Henry turned. A cop. Big, heavyset, in uniform. Henry swallowed and broke out into a sweat. His heart raced, and he looked for some escape route. He swallowed again. There was no need to run away. He wasn’t doing anything against the law.

  “Just taking some pictures, for an assignment at school,” he explained.

  “Yeah, sure,” the cop countered sarcastically, “dressed like a cat burglar.”

  “I like black.”

>   “You’re out late. If you’re going to take pictures, take them during the day. Don’t go lurking around in the dark.”

  “Okay,” Henry said, shrugging.

  The cop studied him, frowning.

  “Let me see the camera,” he said, holding out his hand. Henry hesitated, staring into the cop’s eyes. He acted friendly enough, but his eyes we unwavering, steel. Henry reluctantly handed the camera over.

  “It’s my camera,” he said tentatively. “Not stolen or anything.”

  The cop took it and turned it over. Before Henry realized what he was going to do, the cop popped open the back and ripped out the film. Henry gasped in shock.

  “That’s mine! You can’t do that!” he protested, his voice going up in a squeak.

  The cop dropped the film on the ground and pushed the camera into Henry’s hands

  “Stay out of my neighborhood with that. Or next time it will be the camera you lose.”

  Pictures of Adrienne. That cop had destroyed pictures of Adrienne. Henry bit his lip, holding back tears. No cop had any right to destroy his pictures. His property. His Adrienne. It felt as if the cop was trying to destroy Adrienne. Destroy what Henry had with Adrienne.

  “You had no right to do that,” Henry said lowly, his voice quavering.

  “This is my beat,” the cop said evenly. “I don’t put up with young punks causing trouble on my beat.”

  “I’m not causing any trouble,” Henry’s voice cracked. “You can’t do that!”

  “And who are you going to complain to? Who do you want to tell that you were out sneaking around in the dark snapping pictures?”

  Of course there was no one he could go to. And the pictures of Adrienne were lost forever.

  “Don’t come back here again,” the cop warned, when Henry couldn’t answer. Henry looked down the street towards Adrienne’s apartment building. He couldn’t stay away. The cop caught the look.

  “I’ll be watching for you,” he warned. “You just stay away.”