The Book of Fate - Brad Meltzer [106]
“God, I remember seeing this on the front page the next day,” Lisbeth says, sitting in one of the armchairs as he lowers the binder onto her lap. “This’s . . . it’s history . . .”
“What paper?” Kenny asks.
“Palm Beach Post,” Lisbeth replies, looking up.
“Yep, that was me. Another few thousand dollars I’ll never see.”
Reading the incomprehension on Lisbeth’s face, I explain, “Since Kenny was working for the AP at the time, they made all the money from the reprint sales.”
“Hundreds of newspapers and forty-nine magazine covers—all for bubkes,” Kenny says. “Meanwhile, that college kid NASCAR hired to take some shots for their Web site? He was freelance, lucky schmuck. Made $800,000—eight hundred thousand—and he missed the shot!”
“Yeah, but who’s the one who got the Pulitzer for the full sequence?” I point out.
“Pulitzer? That was a pity vote,” Kenny interrupts. “I didn’t squeeze the shutter in a hail of gunfire. I panicked at the noise and accidentally hit the button. Manning’s only in three of the frames.” Turning back to Lisbeth, he adds, “It happened so fast, if you looked away and then looked back, you missed it.”
“Doesn’t look like you missed anything,” Lisbeth says as she turns past the first page of the book and stares down at the double-page spread of contact sheets filled with sixty or so tiny black-and-white shots, each one barely bigger than a postage stamp.
“If you keep flipping, there should be six more—eight rolls total, including reaction shots,” Kenny says. “I’ve got most of them blown to 8 x 10, but you said the library was looking for some new angles, so . . .” From his pocket, he pulls out a photographer’s loupe—a small, round magnifier to see the details of the photos—and hands it to Lisbeth.
For a half second, she forgets that she introduced herself as library staff. “No . . . no, that’s great,” she says. “With the ten-year anniversary of the shooting coming up, we just want an exhibit that does more than reprint the same old stuff.”
“Sure, that makes perfect sense,” Kenny says dryly, his Popeye eye narrowing as he calmly stares me down. “With two years to go, it’s much smarter for you to come all the way to Key West than to have me make a few copies and mail them to you at the library.”
Lisbeth freezes. So do I. The Popeye eye is barely a sliver.
“No bullshit, Wes. This for you or for him?” Kenny asks. He says him in that tone that people reserve for God. The same tone we all used during our days in the White House.
“Me,” I say, feeling my throat go dry.
He doesn’t respond.
“I swear, Kenny. On my mom.”
Still nothing.
“Kenny, please—”
“Listen, that’s my phone,” Kenny interrupts, even though the house is dead silent. “Lemme go grab this call. I’ll be upstairs if you need me. Understand?”
I nod, holding my breath. Kenny pats me on my scars like a godfather, then disappears up the staircase, never looking back. It’s not until I hear his upstairs bedroom door close that I finally exhale.
Lisbeth pops open the notebook’s binder rings with a metallic thunk. “You take the loupe—I’ll take the 8 x 10s,” she says, unlatching the first eight sheets and sliding them my way.
Kneeling over the cocktail table, I put the loupe over the first photo and lean in like a jeweler studying a diamond.
The first shot is a close-up on the limo just as we pulled into the pits of the racetrack. Unlike the video at Lisbeth’s office, the background here is crisp and clear. But the camera’s so close up on the car, all I see are the backs of a few NASCAR drivers’ heads and the first row of people sitting in the stands.
One picture down . . . 287 to go . . .
62
We’re looking for Kara Lipof,” Rogo said, stepping into the messy room that was as wide and long as two side-by-side bowling lanes.
“Two to the right,” a male archivist with a phone number written on his hand said as he pointed his thumb two