Chapter 5

I waited outside the office, and pulled the door shut behind Cecelia when she followed me out. Leaning on the wall, I reached out and took Cecelia's hand. "I didn't expect you to do it that way – and of course we hadn't been able to plan. Also I don't know what the reaction's like for you. But we gotta hold it together until we're down the road."

She nodded, her lips tight. I knew she was holding herself together, just as I was – I hate confrontations, and this was new stuff to her.

I let go of her hand, and turned to the next door. It was a supply closet – there were mops and mop buckets, rags, an electric buffer, other things of that nature. The next door was an empty room – nothing in it at all. I went down the line – an empty office, a storage room for cameras and lights, and a laundry room. The last puzzled me until I realized that they'd want the sheets and things at least semi-clean.

When we came out of the laundry room, I saw that the red lights over the "bedrooms" were all off. I presumed that meant they'd suspended filming, which pleased me – I was going to barge in, but I really didn't relish the thought of seeing a couple of people, or a crowd of people either, on a bed or sofa or the floor or whatever pretending they were having fun. And it would be pretense – women almost never feel pleasure during the act on camera, and while an essential part of the "business" is the man's release, I have to believe that the presence of the cameras and lights and people takes away from the matter.

Gritting my teeth, I opened the first door – the one closest to the rear of the building, since we were now heading back up the hall. There was a crowd, most in ordinary clothes, but two men and a woman in robes. I didn't bother to introduce myself, just held out my hand for The Terrified Child, and when Cecelia put it in my palm held it out as I walked around putting it in front of people's faces. "Have you seen this girl?" I asked.

Each person in turn shook his – or her – head. Again I thought quickly, and came to a decision. "Ms. Johnston, do you think any of these people might be dissembling?"

She went around the circle as I had, looking at each one in turn. "No, sir."

I nodded, and led the way out. It went much the same way in the other two "studios," except that the oily man from the office was in the last one. I gave him what felt like a wolverine's grin, and asked, "Have you been telling people about kissing the desk?"

He nodded, and made sure to stay away from Cecelia.

"Good." And I showed the picture around, with negative results.

We didn't bother to say goodbye when we left, and once we were out of sight of the building I pulled over and parked, while Cecelia and I shook and wiped cold sweat from our faces.

I'd forgotten, in the stress of things, to see if there were any other places the "studio" could refer me to. It wasn't a big deal, though – Sloan would give me what we needed. He'd know a ton of them, ranging from actual companies to guys with a camera and a bedroom. But it did tell me something of just how tough the invasion had been on me.

When I was ready for life again, I looked over at Cecelia. "That wasn't easy, was it?"

"No."

I nodded. "I can tell it wasn't – a one-word answer from you is like good sense from a crook."

She smiled – weakly, but it was a smile. "When I lose my predilection for multisyllables, it does mean that I've suffered a shock, doesn't it?"

"Yeah." I put my hand on her shoulder. "I know I'm gettin' repetitively redundant, but anytime you want out, you can get out an' I won't hold it against you."

"No, I don't wish to abandon this investigation. I am sure that I will find other things in this work which upset me, and if I ever can't take it anymore I'll notify you. But for now I believe that most of my shock is simply the fact that I did, today, a thing which I have never done and indeed had never contemplated doing."

"Which leads me to ask," I said, "why did you do that?"

"It seemed the right thing to do."

"What – no long-winded analysis?"

She smiled, more naturally this time. "Not yet. Perhaps I have learned from you – I acted instinctively. I knew that I needed to impress upon him the necessity of actually examining the photographs, and before I had time to consider possible courses of action I was using my muscle to make that impression."

"Well, it worked, whatever the thinking or instinct behind it. If you're gonna be that kind of assistant, I'm gonna be a real effective PI." I looked at her for a moment. "You look perfectly normal now, but when you grabbed him by the neck you looked like Jack the Ripper about to slice someone apart."

"I felt more like a small child under the necessity of climbing, without ropes, a cliff miles high. I was terrified – although it was my own instinct which led to the action."

"Well, however you felt, your looks were probably part of what convinced him. Whatever works..." And I pulled away from the curb.

We managed to get to two more outfits that afternoon and evening – one shooting video, and the other doing stills only. Of course it didn't much matter which kind of pictures they took, it would all wind up on the Web. One of the downsides to such a free forum for saying whatever you please is that a lot of people please to say things that are untrue, hateful, destructive, and just plain nasty.

At least we didn't have to get physical at either of the two places. Criminals, by and large, are not brave, not even those who perhaps aren't strictly criminals according to the law. There's a reason gangbangers run in packs – they're afraid to be so vicious all by themselves. Burglars don't operate in places or at times where there's less likely to be someone to see them just because they don't want to go to jail – if that was their only aim they'd get jobs. When you see video on TV of violent, brutal convenience store robberies, it's hard to avoid the feeling that the reason the thugs are being so flamboyantly violent is that they're afraid of the clerk behind the counter and are both intimidating the clerk, and psyching themselves up for the robbery.