‘Wonderful work, isn’t it?’
The voice was soft and friendly.
Creed turned to the girl and smiled his Mickey Rourke smile. ‘Wonderful,’ he said.
She was as tall as he, and close to being beautiful; an ideal mate for any hero. Maybe a little too good for Creed, though.
‘You’re Joe Creed, aren’t you?’
He nodded. ‘We’ve never met before.’
‘No. But I’ve seen you around.’
‘And you’ve been dying to introduce yourself.’
She hadn’t smiled yet, nor did she then. ‘I couldn’t hold back any longer. Goodbye.’
He straightened from the wall he’d been leaning against as she turned away. ‘Hey, wait. Can we start again?’
The girl paused. ‘Will it be an improvement?’
‘Could it be any worse?’
At last a smidgen of a smile appeared. ‘I came over because you looked thoroughly bored.’
‘That obvious?’
The smidgen bloomed to a full smile. ‘You’re not part of this scene. But don’t be put off by what you see around you. Most of these people have incredible talent, and they work fast and hard in a business that’s as cut-throat as you can get.’
‘It couldn’t be that you’re also in the business?’
She laughed, a small cough of a sound. ‘Guilty. But I needn’t defend myself or them.’ She flicked her head towards those behind her.
‘How did you know my name?’
‘I asked one of the gallery’s girls before I came over. You have a reputation, you know, and a dubious one at that.’
Creed looked genuinely aggrieved.
‘Am I stopping you from working?’ she asked then, quickly stepping aside as if apologizing for blocking his view.
‘Are you kidding? Unless old George throws a wobbly there’s nothing here to brighten the breakfast table. You want a drink, you want to tell me your name?’
‘No to the drink and my name’s Cally.’
‘As in . . .?’
‘As in Cally.’
‘Oh.’
Creed pretended to survey the white-walled, picture-hung room again, but when she too looked around as if to help him find someone interesting to shoot, he quickly and surreptitiously eyed her up and down.
The girl caught his sneaky appraisal, but pretended she hadn’t. ‘I wonder if I could ask you a favour,’ she said.
It was disappointing to realise it hadn’t been his charisma nor that she had really wanted to relieve his boredom that had brought her over. ‘My body’s sacred,’ he said lest she see his disappointment.
‘It’s quite safe, too. The favour isn’t really for me – it’s for a friend of mine. Well, my boss, actually.’
Creed had already lost interest. He drained the rest of his wine and waggled the empty glass at a nearby waiter. The young man, whose uniform was loose black trousers and equally loose white shirt (buttoned at the throat, of course, with no tie), quickly came over and offered his tray of drinks. Creed took a claret without returning a thank-you.
The girl, Cally, waited patiently for his attention.
‘I work for a production company,’ she said, realizing after a while he wouldn’t prompt her. ‘Page Lidtrap. We make TV and cinema commercials, prestige shorts for big-name companies, management films – all kinds of things really.’ She was aware she hadn’t caught his attention. ‘We’re just putting together our first feature movie. It’s a major step for us.’
‘Parker and the Scott brothers are way ahead of you.’
‘We’d like to catch them up.’ She didn’t like the mocking in his eyes, but she persisted. ‘The thing is, we need some media attention. We’ve got a certain amount of financial backing, but we need more, and you know how a recognisable name helps on that score.’
‘Nope, I don’t know. It’s not my field.’
‘Take my word for it then. It definitely opens a few doors even if you’re soon kicked out again.’
If she hadn’t been such a looker, Creed would have told her to get lost there and then; but her body was appetizing and the more you studied her face, the more beautiful it became. He liked her hair too – darkish blonde, medium length, swept back. ‘You think I can make you famous?’
‘Not me. Our director, Daniel Lidtrap. And it hasn’t got anything to do with making him famous – I know that isn’t possible. But if his face started showing up in the gossip columns and the glossies, well, that might just help the process.’
The request wasn’t unusual. It wasn’t unusual at all. Most celebs and pseudo-celebs went out of their way, even begged, to get their names and pics in print; it was only when they reached superstar status that they pretended otherwise. Creed scarcely knew of any big name who didn’t secretly – or overtly – love, even crave, the attention, for publicity was like a drug and there was nothing that the famous loathed more than cold turkey. On the scandal side, too, many so-called ‘clandestine’ affairs had been carried on at the most popular restaurants and nightclubs for the paparazzi and gossip columnists to suffer guilt over the exposure. What this girl obviously failed to understand, though, was that he, Creed, had no influence at all as to what appeared on the page. He merely supplied the shots and the picture editor and writer decided what should be used. The fact that this guy – what was his name? Traplid? – was a total unknown as far as the rest of the world was concerned meant he hadn’t a chance in hell of making an item.
His smile was warm. ‘Well, I might be able to do something . . .’
Her face brightened and he noticed that her front teeth were slightly crooked, a tiny flaw that strangely enhanced her attractiveness. If Creed had thought harder about it he would have realized that this was because that small imperfection somehow made the girl more accessible; it held her beauty to realistic terms, rendered it more natural, less sublimely classic.
‘But a favour for a favour,’ he told her.
Her expression became guarded, but still she smiled.
‘We have dinner, you pay.’
‘Daniel is over there.’ She pointed to a spot beneath one of the television screens. ‘The tall man. The one with curls next to the man with the beard.’
Creed hated him on sight. He was too tall, too handsome. His clothes were no doubt Armani or whoever the in-vogue designer happened to be at that moment in time, and his ‘natural’ curls had been persuaded to sweep back over his ears and hang in hi-lited ringlets around his shirt collar. He and Cally made the perfect couple, and Creed wondered about that.
‘A commercial of his has been nominated for an award tonight,’ she told him.
Wouldn’t you know it, thought Creed, not altogether impressed. ‘I’ll catch a snap before I leave,’ he promised the girl, ‘but you’ll have to get him into more interesting places than this. We can discuss that over dinner.’
She hesitated only for a moment. ‘That’d be great. But not tonight. We’ve already arranged to go on somewhere after the awards ceremony.’
‘That’s okay. Look, here’s my number.’ He took a dogeared card from his camera bag and handed it to her. ‘Give me a bell when you get a chance, okay?’
‘I don’t know how to . . .’
Creed’s usual smile was not unlike a leer, so the girl couldn’t be sure. At least he was shrewd enough not to give an obvious response. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said.
She held up the card as if it were a prize ticket. ‘I’ll call you.’
He nodded and she weaved her way back into the crowd which had now become wall-to-wall, more bodies still drifting down the stairway from the street.
Possibilities, he thought, staring after her. Definite possibilities . . .
Creed strolled the length of the long bar at Langan’s until he was behind the stairs and out of sight from the main restaurant area, winking at one of the black-waistcoated barmen as he went. The barman followed him down.
To anyone knowing no better, the paparazzo could h
ave been a patron of the restaurant, despite his general dishevelment, for he had left his camera bag in the jeep parked opposite the brasserie. He leaned against the bar and kept his voice low. ‘He’s in?’
‘Twenty minutes ago,’ the barman confirmed. ‘He’s still on the first course.’
‘Anjelica with him?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘What d’you mean, you’re not sure? She either is or she isn’t.’
‘He’s with a lady, but she looks different. Maybe she’s changed her hairstyle, I don’t know.’ The barman shrugged.
Creed looked around, tapping the bar top thoughtfully. ‘Anyone else?’
His informant shook his head. ‘No one worthwhile. You having a drink?’
‘Coffee. Let me have an Irish with it.’
‘Straight?’
‘Yeah, and no ice. I’ve been cold all day.’
The call had reached Creed while he was still at the gallery – he always made sure his answering service knew where he would be at set times during the day or night. The word was that Jack Nicholson was in town and had reserved a table for five at Langan’s Brasserie for that evening. It was the same barman who now served the photographer his coffee and whiskey who had given him the tip-off.
Creed had wasted only a little more time at the gallery, taking a couple of frames of Cally’s curly-mop boss on the way out. At least the girl looked grateful, so the moderate effort might pay dividends later on. Traplid or Pratlid had looked suitably bored by the intrusion, but Creed noticed that the director offered the obviously preferred side of his face to the lens, his jawbone tensed to make his chin appear even firmer.
The whiskey enlivened Creed’s gullet and he quickly gulped coffee to tone it down. The barman had moved on to serve another customer, leaving the photographer to ponder his plan of action. It was important to discover if the woman Nicholson was with really was Anjelica Huston. These two, both respected stars in their own right, had been carrying on an on-and-off relationship for years now, but the story was that John Huston, the renowned film director and father to Anjelica, had, on his deathbed, made Nicholson promise to make an honest woman of his daughter (the story was untrue, incidentally, but it was the kind of legend the media loved to promote). Hence the actor and the actress had apparently put their last exceedingly stormy break-up behind them and were back on line again.
So, this was the shot: the couple had to be shown together, a reunified unit. The plain evidence of the physical link would help the newspaper diarist confirm the story. That might seem a somewhat flimsy connection to someone outside the profession, but to a paparazzo or newsman, it represented rock-solid proof.
The problem was that Nicholson was a ‘devil’ and of course, a multimillion-dollar joker, and he loved playing games with newshounds and snappers. He liked to tease. The only vulnerable moment would be when the two walked out of the brasserie door together. Once outside, Creed knew they would separate, if only for the fun of it.
A hand brushed his shoulder and he glanced round to see two paparazzi heavyweights, Richard Young and David Benett, saunter past into the inner sanctum beyond the bar area. They sat at a small round table, a discreet position from where the main door could be observed but sufficiently tucked away so that their presence would scarcely be noticed.
Creed groaned inwardly. The word was out. Other paps, the underprivileged who were not allowed to set foot on the premises, would soon be gathering like buzzards outside on the pavement. The mere fact that Creed, Young, and Benett were loitering inside meant something was going down and the cowboys would want some of the action. There was bound to be a skirmish outside when they all jostled for position as the targets left. Shit!
To make matters worse, Bluto had just appeared and was chatting to the girl on duty by the reservations podium.
Now not many in the business were too fond of Creed, but they all detested Bluto.
He was a thickset oaf of a man who always dressed in black. Not tall, but very broad – very. His chin was set into a short fat neck, this itself grimed by a dark wiry beard. His nose was stubby, thick black eyebrows meeting at the bridge, with but an inch (or so it seemed) of forehead above. His hair was as short and wiry as his beard. He resembled Popeye’s old adversary (although his vocabulary was less extensive than the cartoon character’s), hence the nickname. He looked Japanese, a Sumo-wrestler type, and his real name was quite unpronounceable.
He spied Creed at the bar and glared. The pair of them had crossed swords on too many occasions for there to be any civility between them. Creed lifted his glass towards the foe and it took a skill not given to everyone to make it a gesture of contempt rather than greeting.
Bluto disappeared through the swing doors and the place brightened up considerably.
Creed had plenty of time to think while the movie stars and their companions enjoyed their meal and, where normally he would mentally run through the next day’s list of events or locations, this time he brooded on what had happened that afternoon: namely, the blackening image in the developer tray. No matter how he tried with other bromides, he could not stop that curiously spreading shadow; even a fresh developer mix failed to halt the process. All he was left with each time was a totally black sheet of glossy paper. It was inexplicable. And bloody irritating.
Only when he tried another negative did he achieve a result.
He did another. Fine, no problem. Another. Fine again. Then he went back to the original. As before, the blemish refused to be contained: it expanded like an ink stain until it reached the very edges of the paper.
He randomly chose one of the others again. It printed correctly.
Only then did Creed realize something that was completely absurd, but which was somehow relevant: the shot that constantly failed to print properly was the only one in which the subject was looking directly into the lens. The one that had been taken at the precise moment Creed’s cover had been blown.
Did that make any sense? Naturally, not.
So what the hell was going on?
‘They’re on their coffees.’
Creed looked up in surprise.
‘They’re on their coffees,’ the barman murmured again. He drifted away, looking busy but doing nothing in particular.
Creed’s mind was immediately back on the job. He rose from the bar stool, noting that his two colleagues (rivals might be more appropriate – colleague wasn’t a comfortable word in their trade) had already departed. Although he appeared casual enough, Creed’s stomach muscles were beginning to knot. No matter how many years in the business, every paparazzo or news photographer changed up a gear when the big moment approached. It was too easy to get it wrong, you see, too easy to miss that vital moment. And if you did, it meant that all that waiting had been for nothing, all the planning down the tube. A missed opportunity didn’t help your own self-esteem either.
At the same time, this tension was undeniably heady, for adrenaline began to pump, the nerve-ends began to tingle. The body was getting itself ready.
The experienced along with the inexperienced, the old hands along with the young Turks, became nervous at this point, although they would never mention it to each other. A successful snap was all they asked for; a momentously candid classic was what they prayed for. And one other thing: that the camera was loaded (you think that never happens to pros?).
Creed headed for the door and quickly scoured the huge L-shaped dining room. As usual, it was packed to capacity, but he found his target. Nicholson was about halfway down; even the back of his head was recognizable. And there, across the table from him, was his lady, Anjelica. Her hair was different, more orange than brunette, but that handsome face was unmistakable. The tension in his belly took the next flight up to his chest.
Ignoring the disdainful glare from the maître d’, who had just finished his farewells to a valued customer (it was a mutual dislike between Creed and the other man, but fortunately the maître d’ appreciated the kudos of a men
tion in the gossip columns), he stepped out into the night. Most of the paparazzi had gathered on the opposite side of the street and were chatting and grumbling to one another, telling stories but no secrets. Creed went straight to his Suzuki, unlocked the passenger door, and reached in for his camera bag. After checking exposure settings (he rarely used anything other than F8 at a 60th of a second on 400 ASA which, as far as he was concerned, covered most eventualities) and recharging flashes, Creed hung both Nikons around his neck. Then he joined the herd.
Bluto was on his own, skulking like some disconsolate troll in a shadowy doorway, his silver Celica Coupé parked nearby.
Creed was greeted by the others without much enthusiasm; in truth, he had only made his way over to ascertain who was there. As usual, a rough mixture of cowboys and pros. The younger ones were quicker and more physical, but less artful (in the sense of cunning) than the older members of the click clan. They also hadn’t the instinct for the right moment, not in photographic terms, but in ‘caption’ terms. Help the picture editor, that was the idea; get the pic that had a storyline, no matter how slight or meaningless that line might be. It was this lack of judgement that often loused things up for the veteran snappers. For instance, the kids – and that was anyone under thirty to Creed – wouldn’t understand that the shot had to be Nicholson and Anjelica together, preferably arm-in-arm; half this bunch would be popping as soon as the first person in Nicholson’s party hit the street. It was important for Creed to be at the front of the scrum, with no arms, shoulders and heads blocking his view. He exchanged banter, then strolled away, keeping an eye on the restaurant as he went.
Benett was leaning against his red Porsche talking quietly to Young. These two knew the score – they’d make sure they were at the front too. Bluto snorted the contents of his nose as Creed passed by.