"Marc Laidlaw - The Diane Arbus Suicide Portfolio" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laidlaw Marc)

тАЬFuck you, Morrissey. IтАЩm shooting 35--thatтАЩs a 120 wrapper.тАЭ
тАЬWhereтАЩd you pick that up from?тАЭ Schaeffer said.
Morrissey suddenly looked pale and stupid. тАЬIt was under the tub. 1-1
remember right where.тАЭ
тАЬYou fucking idiot.тАЭ Schaeffer raised a hand as if to strike him. тАЬShe was a
photographer, too.тАЭ
Morrissey scurried backward into the bathroom, Schaeffer right behind him.
Brovnik looked around the room at all the prints; most were square,
two-and-a-quarter format, would have been shot on 120 roll film. Nice big negatives,
real sharp. He had this little Pentax, light and quick, good enough for police work
though it always felt too small in his hands.
He looked around the room for her camera while Schaeffer bawled out
Morrissey, and finally found it in an open case behind the couch. He shivered when
he saw she had a Pentax too.
How did rumors get started? How did they leak? Brovnik could never figure
those things out. On the strength of a foil wrapper, the tabloids were claiming that
the lady had somehow managed to photograph her own suicide. The press had
called all day asking if the police planned to release the photographs. Denying their
existence didnтАЩt help. If the department said it didnтАЩt have the photographs, the
reporters asked who did. WhoтАЩd been in her apartment to take the shots? Did they
have any leads?
Leads on a suicide? He had to laugh.
 Brovnik was surprised that there had been any interest at all in the womanтАЩs
death. HeтАЩd never thought of photography as тАЬart.тАЭ But apparently she was known,тАЭ
and all this was just making her knowner. He wondered if sheтАЩd ever have guessed
that sliding into a warm bath and opening her wrists would prove to be such a canny
career move. Whatever her reasons, she hadnтАЩt wanted to flub the attempt; what was
left of her blood had been rich in barbiturates.
Reading the papers, he learned a few things himself. Her name was--had
been--Diane Arbus. SheтАЩd had a few shows, some critical success, though mainly
sheтАЩd made her living as a fashion photographer. Hard to imagine how a mind like
hers would portray glamorous models . . . wrap them in funeral shrouds, black veils?
In the lab, he looked over his own photographs with a more critical eye. The
glaring flash had burned out the water in most of the shots, hiding the lines of her
sunken body; hard to avoid that. He remembered how harsh the flash effects had
been in her photographs. Deliberate? It must have been. SheтАЩd worked to get an
effect like the one he came up with accidentally. That made him feel better about his
pictures. She mightтАЩve liked police work. Her interest in freaks and death and all that
crap . . . reality. It wouldтАЩve been more than just a job to her. And how happy heтАЩd
be photographing gorgeous models all day instead of bloodbaths, car crashes,
double homicides. God, give him an opportunity like that and he wouldnтАЩt waste it
on dwarves.
Seeing things afresh, he felt inspired to go through some of his backfiles.
Torso murders, decapitations, stabbings, mob killings. Not half bad, most of them.
He kind of liked the grainy effects, the harsh lighting that sent deep shadows
sprawling like duplicate corpses. Weegee had gotten famous with pictures like these.
Not too surprising, really. People fed on this stuff. Consider the popularity of public
executions.
A secretary opened the door and told him there was a call for him. No name.
She put it through to the lab phone.