Chapter 24

I was keeping an eye on the clock. I figured I’d head out a little before nine, be down by the university twenty minutes after that, at the latest. Paul was up in his room doing, to my astonishment, some homework. I popped my head in, told him I’d be going out in a few minutes.

“Where?” he said, still looking at something he was writing on his computer screen.

“It’s a work thing.”

“A work thing?”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head. “I dunno. I think I need more details.”

I was heading down the hall when the phone rang. Paul grabbed the extension in his room, and when he didn’t call me immediately, I figured it was for him. But by the time I was down to the kitchen, he shouted, “Dad! Phone! It’s Mom!”

I grabbed the kitchen extension. “Hey,” I said.

“Isn’t it awful about Stan?” Sarah said.

“What?” I said. “What about Stan?” I assumed she was speaking of Stan Wannaker, the Metropolitan photographer. I don’t think either of us knew any other Stans.

“Oh my God, you haven’t heard? I’m up here, at this thing, and I hear about it, and you haven’t?”

“Okay, you’re connected. You’re plugged in. What happened to Stan?”

“Okay, you’re not going to believe this. He’s dead.”

“What?”

“Stan. He’s dead. I just found out like five minutes ago. We’re all coming back home tonight. Nobody’s in the mood for any more of this touchy-feely management bullshit after something like this has happened.”

“He did that thing with me yesterday,” I said, feeling very cold. “That photo shoot at the car auction. What happened to him? Did he have an accident?”

“Someone beat him to death. Right behind the Metropolitan building, in the lot where the photogs park. Someone smashed his head in his car door.”

I didn’t say anything. I was numb.

“I mean, the guy goes all over the world, Sarajevo, Afghanistan, fucking Iraq, and he gets killed in our parking lot.”

“There was that guy,” I said.

“What guy?”

“Remember, when I called you from the auction, and Stan got in a fight with this guy? Uh, I know his name, Cheese Dick told me.”

“How would Cheese Dick know anything about this?”

“He was looking at Stan’s pics, the ones he took yesterday at the auction, and he said, he said, ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘that’s Barbie Bullock.’ That’s what he said. That’s what he said the guy’s name was.”

“Barbie Bullock?”

“Yeah. Stan wasn’t even taking a picture of him, I guess Bullock was just kind of in the picture, you know? And he tries to tear Stan’s camera away from him.”

“Did he know who Stan was?”