Baltimore Noir - Laura Lippman [45]
“My shy one,” murmured Gary. “Popular because she’s shy.”
“She looks like me,” Tania said.
Gary glanced up from the screen at her face. “Not a surprise, really.”
Tania looked at him.
“Sweetie, you come from the same tribe.”
“Everywhere,” he told her. “They’re from everywhere. Gloria is from Sandy, Utah. Melanie—I didn’t show you her—lives in Froid, Montana. Stacy hails from Balm, Florida—”
“Are those real places?”
Gary laughed. “Yes, and there’s a million more just like them. All filled with girls desperate to get out.”
Tania thought about that. “So all your other models are from small towns?”
“Uh-huh. Big-city girls cause too many problems.” Then he shook his head. “Well, Jane lives in Milwaukee, but she’s the exception to the rule.” He smiled. “Just like you are. The same exact kind of exception.”
He gave a fond laugh at the confusion on her face. “Where did your family come from, Tania? Russia?”
“The Ukraine.”
“Same thing.” His hand touched her knee for emphasis, withdrew. “Look, sweetie, I know about Jews. Immigrant Jews. They don’t move here looking for big-city lights. Wherever they settle, even if it’s New York or L.A., they build their own small town.”
Again that quick touch. “Take you. Your address says you live in Baltimore, but I know that you’re really from the village of Park Heights. It might as well be a thousand miles from anywhere. You shop at your own stores, eat in your own restaurants, keep with your own kind. It’s true, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“Especially for the girls,” he said. “I mean, you don’t even get to have a computer. Too busy learning to cook while the men read the Bible, right? You wouldn’t even know about me if your uncle hadn’t broken away from the tribe and told you.”
He smiled at her silence. “Let me ask you something,” he said. “Those jeans, that sweatshirt—is that how you get to dress at home?”
“No,” she said.
“Of course not. You have to, like, cover up everything, right?” He frowned, on her side. “And do they ever tell you you’re beautiful?”
She shook her head.
Radiating warmth, he leaned toward her, reached out and rubbed the back of her neck. “Well, you are,” he said. “I love Blooming Tania, my girl from the Baltimore shtetl.”
He pronounced it “shteedle.”
There would be enough money for everyone to be happy, he said.
“You’ll earn fifty dollars an hour for the shoots, which will usually take two or three hours.” He looked up from the camera he held on his lap. “Imagine—a hundred dollars, two hundred, for just an afternoon’s work! Have you ever had that much of your own?”
She said no.
“But that’s just the beginning. Just the beginning, Tania! Once I set you up in your own site, you’ll get ten percent of each membership fee. Right now, memberships go for twenty-five dollars a month, but it’s heading up up up.” His face lit up. “Think of it! Starlight Stacy has almost twelve hundred members—I write her a check for almost three thousand dollars every month from memberships alone. And, Tania, I think—I know—you’ll do even better.”
He put the camera down on the bed, stood, came over, and clasped her hands in his. “And even that’s just the start. Then there’s CD collections, DVDs, webcams—so many opportunities,” he said. “You’ll have more money than you ever dreamed of, enough to go out to restaurants, to buy the clothes you want—and wear them without anyone telling you otherwise.” His grin was full of eager complicity. “I’ll even buy you your very own computer.”
He released her. “Now, sweetie, let’s get to work.”
So here it was at last.
“When you take my pictures,” she asked, “will anyone else ever be … there? In the room?”
He shook his head. “No. Never. I promise. Just you and me—” He bent over and unzipped the larger of the two bags and pulled out a camera. “And our little witness.” He pushed a button and the camera made a whining, dissatisfied sound.