Portland Noir - Kevin Sampsell [55]
The camera, long lens attached, rests on the desk. My first instinct is to grab the whole rig, but then I realize there’s no need for felony theft when a misdemeanor will do. I slip into the cubicle and open the back of the camera, pop out the CompactFlash card. When I step back into passage, hands in my pockets, the man I assume is Hamilton is coming toward me.
“Can I help you?” Definitely the adjuster’s voice from the phone. He’s an unremarkable specimen, round head, brown sidecar hair, suspicious eyes.
“Restroom?”
He looks into his cubicle, seems relieved. Like I could hide the camera in my sock. Or maybe he was afraid I took a dump on his chair. “It’s out on the landing.” He points with his chin. “To your left.”
He has no idea who I am. Something to be said for doing business strictly by phone.
Back at Ruby Jane’s, I hand her the camera card, ask her if she can download the pics.
“Easy peasy.” She leads me back to her office and plugs the card into the CF jack on her computer. After a moment, a blank window appears on the monitor. Ruby Jane shakes her head.
“There’s nothing there.”
I sit back. It only makes sense they already downloaded the pictures.
“Don’t panic.” RJ snatches the card. “This is a coffee shop. If there isn’t a geek sitting out there right now, there will be before the afternoon is over. I’ll find someone who can undelete whatever was on here.” She leaves me there, stewing in my own techno-cluelessness.
I turn to Google, hoping to redeem myself by trolling for background info among the dot-govs. An hour later, about the time my eyes are boiling out of my head from reading too many poorly formatted web pages, RJ is back with the flash card and a CD. “There were a lot of fragmented files, but we were able to recover some photos from a couple of days ago with intact metadata and one picture from last night.” She inserts the CD into her computer, and this time the window opens populated with thumbnails.
The first dozen or so are of the couple in the cob across from my stakeout. I remember when they started building these cob structures around town, oddly shaped public benches tarted up with ceramic-shard mosaics and glaze. Some guy appeared at my door one day, all breathless as he explained that I, too, could join the cob revolution and transform my front yard into a community living room. I live in the kind of neighborhood where people grow grapes and sweet corn in the parking strips, so a mud-and-straw bench with a thatched awning wouldn’t draw a second glance. But when it became clear I’d be responsible for construction and materials, I told the guy to go sell crazy somewhere else.
Others don’t share my reticence, including the folks who run the kitchen store across from Starbucks. And amazing to an old curmudgeon like me, people actually use the cobs—and not just my humping couple.
As I’d suspected, the photos are murky, but I can make out the guy leaning back on the cob bench, the woman straddling him. Their faces are in a shadow, but that doesn’t really matter. Even in the dark the radioactive cheez framing the woman’s head is unmistakable. I click through the images. In the last, the couple has turned to face the camera. On to me.
I click again and there’s the ninja in front of Starbucks. Better light, better focus. Hair hidden by the hoodie, but it doesn’t matter. The face is clear enough.
“What do you want me to do?” RJ asks.
“Fire up the printer. I got some calls to make.”
I catch Hamilton at his desk, which saves me the trouble of shakedown via voice mail.
“What can I do for you, Kadash?” No Detective, no Mister. His tone suggests it had better be nothing, but I disappoint him. I tell him to meet me at the Night Light at 6. “Ella can tell you where it is.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Don’t be coy.” I hang up without saying goodbye.
The Night Light’s main area is smoke-free until 10, so I