Good Morning, Killer - April Smith [114]
Yes, said the girl, all the time. Once in a park in Manhattan Beach.
The next upcoming photo day, according to the website, would take place in a Japanese tea garden in Glendale.
They couldn’t bust me for going to a park on a sunny day.
Twenty-four.
The Japanese tea garden was located in a recreation center in Glendale, at the end of a palm-lined street in a neighborhood of nicely landscaped older cottages. The park was tucked up against the Verdugo Mountains, in a shady oasis that included a public library. A table had been set up, blocking the Shinto gate. You had to sign in.
“I’m looking for Moose,” I told the wiry fellow on guard.
“Who’s Moose?”
“One of the organizers.”
“I’m the organizer,” he claimed. He was about fifty, rugged, too-tanned features and shoulder-length hair, wearing a water bottle belt and short shorts to show off his developed legs—one of those deeply California characters whose past would probably read like a parody of West Coast fads: hot tub installer, dope dealer, surfer, yoga teacher.
“Moose said he’d be here.”
There was a beat of numbskull silence, and then a mountainous person who had been standing nearby said in a deep announcer’s voice, “I’m Moose.”
“Great!” shaking his hand enthusiastically. “Just as great as you said it would be.”
So was he. About six foot four, three hundred pounds.
“See, we’re fenced in here,” said Moose, indicating the manicured garden. “No looky-loos.”
“Are all these photographers full-time professionals?”
“Amateurs. The word for this is amateurs,” he admitted reluctantly and sighed.
“They all have other jobs?”
“Like me. I have another job.”
“What’s your line of work?”
“Cleaning supplies.”
“Ahh. So, Moose, how do you become a member?”
“The models get in free. The photographers pay twenty dollars at the door.”
I had seen them in the parking lot unpacking their equipment, overweight middle-aged men wearing fishing hats and elaborate vests with dozens of pockets. Some were sporting lenses the size of the Mount Palomar telescope, others had tiny digitals. Half were white, half Asian, and they all seemed to know one another in the forgiving, easygoing way of hobbyists.
“Anybody can walk in here with twenty dollars and a camera?”
“We are totally legal,” interjected Mr. California. “We have never had an incident. Who are you?”
“She just wants to look around,” mumbled Moose.
Mr. California became distracted by trouble with a barbeque and I took the opportunity to lose myself in the strangely peaceful garden. I had already picked up flyers for other photo days from other clubs and saw there was a circuit. You could find one of these shoots every weekend at some public location somewhere in the Southland. Although that expanded Brennan’s hunting field considerably, it brought the comfort of a plan: I would go to every single shoot. I would show Brennan’s picture to everybody there. If someone turned up a credible lead, I would pursue whomever I had to pursue, at the Bureau or the local level, I didn’t care, in order to set up surveillance for the next time Brennan showed. I would do this meticulously, until my trial was over, until the last appeals were spent, until they put me in jail.
The photographers lumbered slowly and with prerogative along the winding paths, while the female models—young made-up faces bright as flowers—waited under the ginkgo trees, with their mothers, to be picked. They were all picked. This was a dance where everybody danced. Someone would position a girl and half a dozen men would shoot over his shoulder, paparazzo-style.
“Give me that laugh again!”
“Would you guys mind if I moved her into the shade?”
For twenty bucks you could get a sixteen-year-old to bend over a pagoda and stick out her butt.
It was supposed to be clean family fun. A young lady with seductive eyebrows, wearing a cheap strapless evening dress, was wrapping and unwrapping a shawl around her body, liking the attention, while a bunch of sad sacks stood around snapping. One of them, who wore a dirty baseball cap and a big bushy