Cheating at Solitaire(101)

Carl Frank closed the door to the stairs and looked around for a chair. There was one, but not a comfortable one, because Linda didn’t like people to stay too long in her office.

Carl Frank took the chair anyway and brought it as close to Linda’s desk as he dared. Then he sat down in it. “I know you don’t run stories about the movie,” he said. “I know you didn’t run much of one on the murder. But you’re not the only one here. You have a full-time photographer, and he takes a lot of pictures. I’ve seen one of them.”

“He won’t be taking any more pictures anytime soon,” Linda said flatly. “He’s in the hospital. He’s going to be there for a while.”

“In the hospital for what?”

Linda almost said it was none of his business. “He was attacked by somebody who mangled his hand,” she said. “He was drugged, with one of those date rape drugs. Drugged enough to get knocked out cold.”

“Really? You can die that way, taking that much of those things.”

“I know.”

“Do the police know who did it?”

Linda treated this with the contempt it deserved. By now, Carl Frank had to know that Jerry Young was the only policeman in town, and that he’d hardly be in a position to “know who did it” almost as soon as it was done. Except, of course, that in other circumstances, in the normal way of life, he would know. That was part of what it meant to live in a small town. You got to know people too well. You got to understand them.

“I’m sorry about your photographer,” Carl Frank said, “but it’s you I wanted to talk to. He takes pictures. I understand he takes pictures for you.”

“He takes pictures for himself,” Linda said, “and I get first crack at them. I don’t publish stories on the movie, Mr. Frank, and I’m not interested in using those pictures. Jack sells them where he can for the extra money, and I’m happy to let him.”

“He took pictures on the Vegas trip,” Carl Frank said. “Did you see those pictures?”

“I saw the one everyone’s seen,” Linda said. “It’s impossible to avoid it, especially since the murder.”

“He took other pictures.”

“I’m sure he did,” Linda said, “but he wouldn’t have bothered to show them to me. If I’m not going to be interested in pictures of Arrow Normand and Marcey Mandret and Kendra Rhode right here on the island, I’m not going to be interested in them in Las Vegas. It’s beyond my comprehension why anybody’s interested in them.”

Carl Frank stared at her for a long moment, long enough to make her uncomfortable, and Linda Beecham was never uncomfortable. Then he turned around and looked out the big plate glass window onto Main Street.

“You can see everything from here,” he said, turning back. “I envy you. Almost everything I need to keep track of is just out of sight. Is your photographer hurt too badly to talk to me about a proposition?”

“When I left him, he wasn’t even awake.”

“All right. Then I’ll wait a few days,” Carl Frank said.

“But I’ll be back. And I’ve got the impression that you have some influence here, so I’ll leave the message with you. He did take other pictures on the Vegas trip. Do you know why he hasn’t sold any of them to the tabloids?”

“No,” Linda said. “Do you?”

“No,” Carl Frank said. “And I have to admit, I think it’s odd. But odd or not, it’s the fact, and I can work with the fact. I want to buy the pictures. Negatives, digital memory resources, whatever. I want them all, and I want all the possible avenues of reproducing them, and I’m willing to pay a lot to get them. Say, something on the order of one hundred thousand dollars.”

“What?”

Carl Frank stood up. “I told you I was serious,” he said. “One hundred thousand dollars. But I’ve got to have them all, and I’ve got to have a signed contract attesting to the fact that I have them all, because if one of them surfaces after I’ve paid for them, I have every intention of filling the world’s biggest bitch of a lawsuit. I don’t know what he’s saving them for. I don’t care. I’m pretty sure he’ll never do any better than what I’m offering. I’ll make the offer to him myself in a couple of days, when he’s feeling better. In the meantime, it would be good of you to mention my offer to him when you’ve got a chance.”

Linda Beecham rubbed her hands together. Carl Frank was taller than she’d originally thought. Either that, or he had the ability to loom when he wanted to. She felt as if she were standing under a vulture. She was also suddenly cold again, although she shouldn’t be. Jack was always warning her that windows provided no insulation.