Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [84]
Inside, the store was as I remembered it: a photographer’s dream, with case after case full of the widest variety of cameras, lenses, supplies, and darkroom equipment I’d ever seen. Back in the days when I considered myself a budding professional photographer—before I discovered that I had absolutely no eye or originality when it came to taking pictures—I would spend a good deal of every visit home in Gooden’s, composing mental shopping lists. Now I recalled exactly where the telephoto lenses were kept and headed straight there.
It took me about twenty minutes to determine that the lens that best suited my purposes was a Meade 1000 that converted to a long-distance spotting scope, with eyepieces that would magnify up to eighty-three times. Light and portable, it would give me great resolution, even when photographing in substandard light. Not that I expected to take many pictures; I wanted the lens more for its spying capabilities, and when mounted on a camera it would lend me the protective coloration of your basic overequipped tourist.
The young clerk with the neo-Nazi haircut who was helping me seemed to sense an easy sale to an ignorant but affluent customer. He said enthusiastically, “With that lens, ma’am, you’ll be able to count the pinfeathers on a baby bird’s head at two hundred yards.”
Baby birds and their pinfeathers were the last thing on my mind. Perplexed, I stared at him.
He colored. “I just assumed you wanted it for bird-watching.”
“Do I look like a bird-watcher?”
“I didn’t mean any offense.”
“No, I want your opinion. Do I?”
“Well … no. Whale-watcher, maybe.”
I had to smile at his pathetic effort to extract his foot from his mouth. “Okay, I’ll take the lens. I’ll need a camera and some film, too.”
He beamed, then began steering me toward the new-camera department. Firmly I shook my head and pointed him toward the used equipment. My own camera is a twenty-three-year-old Nikkormat that I bought used; I like a single-lens reflex with as few automatic options as possible. The Canon that I selected was even more primitive than my Nikkormat and cost less than a quarter of what I paid for the lens and all its attachments.
“I don’t know,” the clerk muttered as he carried my merchandise toward the film counter. “It’s like dressing up a warthog in a diamond necklace.”
I didn’t reply; I was wondering how the hell I’d pay back the cash advance I’d taken from RKI, knowing I’d have no job when I returned home.
* * *
I’d forgotten to eat lunch, so I stopped at a restaurant a few blocks away, had a quick sandwich, and used the phone to call Gary Viner at the SDPD. Viner didn’t sound surprised to hear from me; I suspected there was very little that did surprise him.
“Have you gotten an I.D. on that body that was found on the mesa?” I asked.
“We have.”
“And?”
He was silent.
“Are you going to make me guess?”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
“Stanley Brockowitz, late of San Clemente and Blossom Hill.”
Now his silence had a different quality. He finally said, “Thought you had no idea who he was.”
“I didn’t—then.”
“And now?”
“He may have something to do with my case after all.”
“Then you better come in and make a statement.”
“Can’t. I’m … not in San Diego.” My association with RKI had turned me into a paranoid