CHRISTINE IN BLUE--Chapter 2

When I walked out of the bar, evening had come. The sun was close to setting and had tinted the world pink. It was that time of day when things seem unreal, as though there is a pause in the fabric of life and from there you could step into another world. To paradise or hell. It gave you that sense of ominous peace. The calm before the storm.

I stepped off the curb and onto the crosswalk, my mind playing over each word that he had said to me. I'd left him still sitting there, the tears running down his face as he poured the last of the bottle of scotch into his glass.

I climbed into my old car, grasped the steering wheel tight, and waited to calm down before attempting to drive. I chewed on a couple antacids hoping to calm the roller coaster in my gut. My hand went to my chest as it often does these days, and I felt her picture on the inside pocket of my coat. Hell with it, I thought, and pulled the picture out. As I stared at the image of Christine, folding back the corners my fingers had almost worn through, I tried to understand. So many times I'd stared at that picture, asking it these questions over and over--why? --How? But the woman with the mysterious half-smile and sad eyes held her secrets closely.

I ran my fingers over her image, dusting a piece of lint off her cheek. Her hair was loose and flowing in the picture, and it showed only her face, on partial profile. She looked straight into the camera from an angle, that half-smirk making her look like she held the punch line from some great joke inside her.

Jesus, what the hell was I doing? 54-yr-old men didn't go around half-cocked and following the most threadbare of leads, all in the hopes of finding out what happened to a woman he hadn't seen for years. I loved her. Love her, present tense. Great, they could write that on my fucking grave, cause if I kept at this, that grave was not long in coming. I rubbed at my eyes, at my face, then shook my head, tucking her picture back into my coat. Sleep, that's all you need, my brain said to me. Sleep, yeah right. I drove back to my hotel.

From the entry of the hotel, you could see where she lived. It wasn't by accident I had picked this hovel in which to camp. My eyes were drawn to the old building even as I walked inside the hotel. I was almost to the elevator when the desk clerk stopped me.

"Sir, wait, excuse me, Sir, but you have a message," he called to me in a thick Puerto Rican accent. "A man, he called, he says he's with the police, and that you should call him. I don't want no trouble in my hotel, Mr." he said, wagging his finger at me. I flashed my 'I'm-just-a-harmless-old-guy" smile and the useless badge from my wallet at him, and assured him there was no trouble. Great, checkout is tomorrow that means.

Up in my room, I showered again, one of the many showers I seemed to be taking a few times daily. I should have known better, this kind of dirt, this residue, can't be washed away, but still I scrubbed and scrubbed.

A quick call downstairs had more booze on its way up to me. Not much more to get done tonight, might as well get sauced, if I could. I still hadn't managed one good drunk since all this shit happened. I also hadn't stopped drinking since I came back to Philadelphia. I eyed up the message the lieutenant had left for me, then wadded it up, scoring two points into the trash can across the room. I threw on my robe and pulled out my briefcase, waiting until my new bottle arrived before opening it.

A videotape inside its case rested on top of a stack of manila folders. I pulled the tape out and set it aside, reaching for the top folder and opening it. I've looked at these time and time again, but still I hoped to find the one thing I'd overlooked which would make everything else somehow make sense to me. Top of the pile sat a small article, pulled by me from the Philadelphia Inquirer:

"The body of an unidentified young woman was found floating in the Delaware river last Sunday morning," it read. "Lieutenant Jackson, of the Philadelphia Police Department, stated that the woman appears to have been between 20 to 30 years of age, with dark brown hair and blue eyes. She was found nude and her body bore several marks, which police believe may have been inflicted shortly before her death. Anyone with possible information as to the identity of the woman, or anyone who was in the vicinity of Pier 38 on Saturday night or early Sunday morning, is being asked to step forward."

I folded the article in half, then stuck it back into the folder, thumbing through the papers, The second folder contained a series of photos, all grainy and of low quality, but obviously taken by a professional. I should know--I'd taken them. During the last two weeks of the girl's life, I'd managed to get a few rolls of film of her around her building, as well as at the diner. The diner shots were even worse than the others, the bag I'd had to hide the camera in had all but obscured most of the pictures.

At the bottom of the stack was my favorite picture of her. She was laying on a bench, at the park, the sun streaming down on her. The fountain in the background, which I had pretended to be taking pictures of, was fuzzy, but she was clear and crisp. A dark blue dress flowed down her body, spilling its skirt off each side of the bench. Her feet were tucked up under her knees, all under the skirt, and her arm rested above her head.

She had her head turned to the side and appeared to be staring right into the camera, that half-smile on her lips. I'd been certain she knew I was photographing her when that picture had been developed. Still, that night in the diner she hadn't seemed to recognize me at all. Perhaps time had washed me out of her head; perhaps I'd aged more than I thought. Could be she never looked back, tossing my image aside as one more useless memory. If only I could do the same. I ran my finger over the picture, then kissed at her face, before tucking them all back into their folder. I put everything back into the briefcase except the video.

Taking a healthy swig off the bottle, I popped the tape into the VCR I'd bought at a pawnshop down the street.

As the sounds of moans and yelps and screams filled the run-down room, I drank, forcing my eyes wide open, forcing myself not to miss a single moment. I knew the film by heart, but I needed this pain, I had earned it.

The television picture jumped and skipped, then focused. Low-quality, 8-mm tape, home job. A woman's body appeared, shaking as the camera moved. I drank a large swallow as the whip landed its first blow. The body twisted and tightened, the camera panned out further. The whip landed again, a bright white line appeared on the woman's back, then turned angry red. The camera panned out further. White wrists cut into roughly by hemp ropes, then the whip again, the woman twisting.

I held my breath for a heartbeat, and then there she was. She turned her head and looked into the camera, her eyes wide and flashing for a moment, as the stinging pain of another whip-strike across her back brought a crying moan from her lips. A pause, before the next blow lands, and then there it is, that little smile again.

I fell asleep to the movie, sitting on the bed with the bottle in my hand. The VCR's auto-replay kept the movie playing, looping it over and over, providing a nightmarish soundtrack for my dreams.