The Girl From Nowhere Read Free Page B

may not be so difficult to accomplish.
    The portfolio consisted of a dozen pages of erotic mini dramas, like frames from some lost Luis Buñuel movie, a sequel to Belle de Jour perhaps. Beautiful and, in a couple of instances, grotesque women were captured in various states of undress. All showed at least a flash of topiary, in keeping with the new parameters of the industry. A near-naked woman crouched over a big view camera, her head hidden by a photographer’s cape, photographing herself in the mirror of a public restroom, a line of urinals reflected behind her. A blonde in stockings and a garter belt cuddled with a boa constrictor and a rabbit under a baby grand piano. A woman wearing nothing beneath an open fur coat, but holding a pistol, watched apathetically as another woman—this one in stiletto heels, a large floppy hat, and not much else—kissed a hotel bellhop. All were beautifully staged and lit, and displayed a blend of elegance and kinkiness that Yari Mendelssohn had down pat.
    The most interesting photograph by far was on the final spread. The setting was what appeared to be the library of a very grand house, the kind that has floor-to-ceiling books the way your mother has wall-to-wall carpeting. The woman in the photo graph—there was nothing girlish about her—was sprawled in a leather-upholstered club chair in a slinky satin number, the skirt of which was hitched up just high enough to reveal the mandatory glimpse of pubic hair. She was generally disheveled. Her hair was a mess, and her dress strategically ripped to reveal one nipple. One of her wrists was fastened to a leg of the chair by a jeweled cuff and a length of fine chain. Standing beyond her, at a respectful distance, were two young women in cocktail dresses. They gazed at the woman in the chair admiringly, almost enviously, while she glowered defiantly at the camera. Her lips and chin were bloody, as if she had been slapped across the mouth.
    This photo hinted at a richer and darker narrative than the others; it seemed to be snipped from a story in which the clues enabled the viewer to interpret the incident portrayed in contradictory ways. It was possible to see the woman in the chair as a victim, or as someone who was doing her own thing and didn’t give a fuck what anybody else thought. The respectful expressions of the witnesses in the library seemed to suggest the latter. The brazenness of the protagonist’s expression as she stared disdainfully at the camera put the observer in the position of feeling like the object of her contempt.
    “You recognize her, of course,” said Danny.
    For a few moments, I thought I must be mistaken—this could not possibly be the girl in the white dress, the artless-seeming creature I had encountered earlier in such melodramatic circumstances. Danny’s painting I could figure, but this was something else again. There was a chance resemblance, but that was all, surely? The more I looked at the picture, though, the more certain I was that this was Sandy Smollett. I found that radically hard to get my head around.
    “Something, huh?” said Danny.
    I didn’t disagree.

    When I hit the night air, I realized how tired I was, so I grabbed a taxi and rode home to 12th Street, stopping on the way to buy a copy of Vamp .
    I looked up Yari Mendelssohn in my Rolodex and called his home number. No luck. I gave his studio a shot. Bingo. I told him I had something I wanted to talk about. He said he’d be there till at least midnight. After a beer, I fell asleep with the television on. As I slept, the Miracle Mets triumphed over and over onscreen, Tommie Agee and Ed Kranepool smacking the ball out of the park a hundred times. The Mets permeated my dreams till I began to believe that I’d been there at Shea instead of sitting in a bar with a woman with an incipient case of split personalities.
    I was woken by the phone. It was her. She apologized for ditching me at the Band Box and sticking me with the tab. I told