Photoplay Read Free Page B

he realized just how soused he was. He’d lost count after the fifth shot. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose.
    The girls were getting to their feet. With Joelen holding Deirdre up, they started for the house. Now that was a picture. But before Duane could get out his camera, the outdoor lights went out and the girls disappeared in shadow. A few moments later, a rectangle of light flashed—­the front door opening and closing. The lights in downstairs windows of the house went out. At last only a bank of upstairs windows was lit.
    Duane sat on the lawn. He yearned for sleep. He lay down and closed his eyes. He’d rest just for a few moments, until the world stopped spinning and he’d regained his bearings. Then he’d drive home and close himself into his darkroom to develop the proofs he’d promised for tomorrow.
    He shut his eyes. Past a cricket’s chirp, Duane heard raised voices. Sounded as if Bunny and Tito were picking up where they’d left off.
    A T FIRST D UANE thought the headlights that woke him were searchlights, strafing the sky—­he’d been dreaming that he was taking pictures at a movie premiere.
    He propped himself up on his elbows and watched as a sports car with its top down turned around in front of the house. Tires screeched as it peeled off down the driveway, close enough for him to see that the driver was a man before its taillights winked out over the horizon. Moments later, a dark sedan came up the driveway and pulled around to the back of the house. A car door slammed.
    Duane sank back down onto the grass. The moon, which had been directly overhead, was now midway to the horizon and seemed much larger. What was the word for that? Parallax. Of course. He knew full well how much camera angle mattered.
    He lay there a few minutes longer. Not completely sober but nearly there, he lumbered to his feet and rubbed his face. God, what he would have given for a glass of orange juice. His mouth tasted like old tires. It took him a moment to remember that his own car was parked down the driveway by the pool. He picked up his camera bag, yawned, and gazed across the stretch of lawn at the house.
    That was when he noticed that the front door was wide open, and lights were on in all the upstairs windows. Duane checked his watch. It was three in the morning. Were Bunny and Tito still fighting? He made his way up to the house. At the open front door, he listened for voices.
    What he heard were sirens, far away and growing louder. He turned his back to the house, facing down the hill and looking in the direction of Sunset Boulevard, the direction from which the Beverly Hills PD or Fire would be coming. The sirens grew steadily louder until strobes lit up the horizon.
    Duane thought of the photo ops he’d missed. He’d been out drinking with friends and arrived too late to capture the fires that engulfed a block of houses in west Beverly Hills where Howard Hughes crashed a prototype army plane. He’d been in Vegas when Eddie Fisher headlined at the Tropicana, but it hadn’t occurred to him to get a picture of the singer with Debbie Reynolds on one arm and Elizabeth Taylor on the other. He’d raced north from Encino but arrived too late to get a picture of the wreckage of James Dean’s lethal crash.
    The tops of the cypress trees that lined the driveway flashed light and shadow. Any moment emergency vehicles would be at the house. Something had happened to call them here, and this time Lady Luck had anointed him cameraman. Maybe he’d capture the final act in Tito Acevedo’s and Bunny Nichol’s tumultuous affair. Tito Acevedo being led off in handcuffs. Bunny in tears.
    Duane slipped inside. The downstairs was dark, the only voices from overhead. He raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time, his camera bag banging against his side. At the top landing he paused and listened. A man’s voice was barely audible