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= FOTO FINISH =

a Night Shots short story (Suspense)

by John Argo

3.

I stopped at a fast food place, ordered a large cola, and washed down several amphetamines. I meant to get the most of the next three days, and sleep was not part of the agenda. That night I let myself into the main C.M.I. office. I sipped sugar water, sitting in an island of sixty watt light at a wooden desk, and pored over stuffed file folders, some with photos. I found a loose photo that had no label, evidently thrown into the file. It was a sun-washed snapshot of a young Hispanic woman in a bikini, with one foot up on the bumper of a classic dark tan roadster. She vaguely resembled Liana, and I wondered if it were a sister or cousin. The photo was signed in a big scrawl: "Ana Love You Maria." I stuffed the photo into my shirt pocket (who was Anna?) and began to work on the file, initialing things, checking things.

In the morning (coffee, another pill) I called Harry Grimacher. "Who is Anna, Harry?"

Harry said in a low voice, like someone carefully pouring medicine: "She is a sister of Liana."

"Of Maria, you mean." A rectangle of morning sunlight fell on the photo, where she smiled with careless affection in the lights and shadows of some earlier day. Dust motes whirled. From dust to dust, I thought, and somewhere inside my universe there exploded a tiny galaxy of grief. I forgot Harry.

"She was special," he said gruffly in my ear, and I nearly dropped the phone. He emitted a long sigh that was half wheeze, and I could hear his heavy hand rasping over his unshaven face. "Oh yes," he said wearily, "Conlon had to go far to find her. I believe she came out of the jungle, though people have said her accent was straight Tijuana. She was sweet, and innocent, and we all tore her up. The Business tore her up."

With my fingertip I traced the shadow lines defining her cheek bone, her nose, her forehead. The photo was slightly grainy, and totally uncomposed, but even there her personality shone through. Yes, I was beginning to be sure the girl in the photo was Liana.

"I never liked that bastard Conlon," Harry said. "He had some spell over her that nobody could figure out. She was fragile, you know. Self-esteem. She'd try to go out on her own, and the world would chew her up, the Business would do a number on her, and before long she'd be back with Conlon. It was kind of like he'd put her back together again."

I interrupted: "Did Conlon own a roadster?"

Harry laughed after a moment's reflection. "How the hell do I know? I told you, I wasn't Conlon's agent, much less was I interested in what he drove."

"Thanks, Harry," I said. We rang off cordially, almost like old friends. I went back to the files, trying to get done with the tedious stuff so I'd have some time left. I'd never met Liana, but maybe I'd get to meet her sister just once, probably a pale imitation. The address was in the file. Investigators had already been there during the previous year.

Boy was I in for a shock. Anna Doyle was totally unlike her sister, which made me completely sure about the photo. I found the Doyles in an alley apartment along the edges of Barrio Logan. It was one of those aging places where the yard is muddy and stinks of decay whenever it rains. They had a view of telephone poles, Coronado Bridge pylons scrawled with gang graffiti, and gray Navy ships. A burly man answered my knock. "What is it?" I was surprised he didn't slam the door in my face as I explained. "One more go-round," he said walking away from the open door, which I took as an invitation to enter.

Inside it smelled of dogs, old couches, cat food, and cigarette ashes. In the gloom, a TV flickered. Yellowed drapes were drawn, and a section of dark paneling leaned loosely.. The floor creaked when we walked; in places it did not creak, but made a soggy give under my feet. An enormous young woman sat in the love seat, eating popcorn and watching a game show. She ignored me. I saw the Esquivel resemblance in her nose, a small wide one that had looked cute and girlish on Liana, but looked like a button with two thread holes on Anna's face.

The angry man shook my hand and had me sit. I took a plastic-cushioned kitchen chair, hoping nothing lived inside of it. "What is it this time?" he asked. He had a reddish beard with a speck of food trapped in its edge. His baggy khaki pants, his tank top, his white socks and torn slippers, all had stains in them. He'd seen a dozen of me come and go since his sister-in-law's death. I explained as briefly as I could that it was just a formality, the payoff was just around the corner, I was just checking one last time to see if all material facts were still the same.

"They are," he said, sucking in his lower lip and jutting his chin beard at me. He grabbed my sleeve and whispered: "When do the checks start coming?"

"Soon, I'm sure."

"That's good." He lit a cigarette. "The fucking roof leaks, and with a kid on the way I gotta do something."

I had hoped to get to shake Anna's hand or something, but when we yawed and pitched across the deck into the living room, Anna rose up, her Hawaiian muumuu fluffing like a parachute. She squalled broken-heartedly, holding tiny white hands over her moon face.

"She's still taking it hard," Doyle rasped in a cloud of smoke. "That's why I wish you fucking people would quit jerking us around and cough up the money."

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