Crimes by Moonlight

I

“What am I looking at?”

The little man, Richard Harrows, pushed his thin wire glasses up the bridge of his nose and leaned forward a little. Philip K. Marks looked up at him and kept his face blank.

“A photo, Mr. Marks.”

“Did you take it?”

“No. This was last year, on vacation. I’d asked someone to take my picture.”

Marks hoped the little man wouldn’t launch into a description of the trip. “Okay. Why am I looking at it?”

“Because of him.”

Harrows reached over the desk to point a nail-bitten, shaking finger at the photo. Marks followed it to where a thin man had been caught by the camera, leaning against a railing. Marks glanced up.

“So?”

Richard Harrows was a balding, short man with a precise and nervous air. Marks had seen plenty of people in his time, and his professional opinion of Richard Harrows was that the man was the sort of honest-by-default person you could trust but never rely on.

“Look closer, Mr. Marks.”

Marks sighed and returned his attention to the photograph. The man was tall, and wearing a dark suit and white shirt. He was off to the left side of the framed area, behind Harrows’ shoulder, leaning casually against the railing, one hand in a pocket. Marks studied his blurry form and blinked, looking up at Harrows.

“You know this guy?”

Harrows laughed nervously. “I’ve never seen him. Not in the flesh.”

“Because I would swear he’s looking at you. Or at the camera.” Marks shook his head. It was an odd impression, the more so because the focus of the camera was obviously nowhere near the man.

“Ah, yes,” Harrows said with another little laugh, “you see, Mr. Marks, that was the beginning of the problem. He wasn’t there. He’s never actually been anywhere, but he’s showing up in pictures of me, as if he were.”

Marks glanced up sharply. “Excuse me?”

“Look.” Harrows produced a small stack of photos. “Here are samples from the past year. The one you have is the first, and it is from almost a year ago exactly. Here are others.”

Marks took the stack and examined them in turn. In each photo of Harrows, obviously taken at different times, during different seasons, in different places, the thin man appeared, in the same dark suit, looking directly at the camera, always just off from the actual focus of the picture.

“You’re sure you’ve never met him? That you don’t know him?”

Harrows shook his head. “Mr. Marks, I would swear that he was never there. I would have a photo taken of me somewhere, anywhere-I like to travel, you see-and be sure he wasn’t there. This is more recently, when I became aware of him, you see. Then, I’d develop the film, and there he’d be.”

Marks shook his head. “It is odd how he seems to be following you, and how he seems to know you’re posing for photos, but I still don’t see-”

“Mr. Marks, I came to you because of your reputation-”

“For being someone who believes every line of bullshit that comes through my office,” Marks finished. “I’m well aware of my reputation, Mr. Harrows. I’d like to think I also have a reputation for getting paid to look into things.”

“Mr. Marks,” Harrows said slowly, “I think you will be interested in my story, because if you look at the photos again-they are arranged in chronological order-you will note that he appears to be getting closer.”

Marks looked through the photos again and felt a chill go through him. He could see, over the course of the fifteen or twenty photos, that the thin man was slightly closer to the camera each time.

Marks looked up. “All right, Mr. Harrows-”

Harrows held up a hand. “Finally, Mr. Marks, there is this.” He pulled another photo from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to the reporter. “Taken just two days ago, at my father’s house. Family reunion, of sorts.”

Marks looked at the photo. He picked out Harrows, two men who appeared to be his brothers or close cousins, and an older man unmistakably his father, mixed in with about ten or fifteen men and women. They stood in an attractive and comfortable-looking living room, sporting two large bay windows. Marks almost jumped when he noticed the thin man standing, partially obscured by a drape, outside one of the windows. He appeared to be bending down slightly to see around the fabric.

“Damn near shit myself,” Harrows said.

“I’ll bet.” Marks considered. “May I keep these?”

Harrows smiled. “You’ll look into it?”

Marks smiled and raised his eyebrows. “You’ll pay me?”

II

Phillip K. Marks was a man in his late thirties, a slight dusting of beard on his face, and a sloppy suit of brown clothes on his broad, tall frame. He smoked cigarettes in a never-ending chain and had a half-full bottle of cheap bourbon in one desk drawer that would be empty within a month. He made a small living doing whatever people wanted to pay him for, relying on word of mouth for advertising. A man lacking any remarkable skills at all, he was proud of himself for having found a niche, even one whose only requirement was a tolerance for pain, humiliation, and dogged relentlessness.

After Harrows had left his small, rented office, Marks pulled out the bottle and poured himself two fingers of liquor, lit a new cigarette off the coal of the old one, and sat back in his chair contemplating the photographs for some time. Without taking his eyes from the newest one, he reached for the phone, dialed by feel, and waited a moment.

“Ralph Tomlin, please.”

He turned the family reunion upside down thoughtfully.

“Hey, Ralph, Phil Marks. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Listen, you think you could squeeze in a favor? Sure, it’s right up your alley. Some photos. Well, I just want to see if they’ve been faked or altered in some way. Ah, peace of mind, you know. You’re handed something and told, hey look at this, you want to be sure you know what you’re looking at. A bunch of photographs-maybe fifteen. You got time?”

He sat up and fished an envelope from his desk. “Great-thanks. I’ll stop by, then. You’re a gem, Ralph. And I don’t forget that I owe you a few drinks-we could meet for dinner tonight, you hand over your findings, I’ll buy, what do you say? Okay, see you then.”

He hung up the phone, slid the photos into the envelope, and stood up.

“Christ,” he muttered, “if I’d known, I would have stayed in school, become an engineer.”

“THEY’RE real, Phil.”

Marks took the crumpled envelope and squinted at it. “You’re sure?”

Ralph Tomlin nodded, eating dried noodles one at a time from his hand. “As far as I can tell, Phil. I did the standard tests-searched for standard stock overlays, pixel differentials, inverted shadings. That’s not 100 percent definitive, but you only gave me a few hours. Give me a week, I’ll take it apart dot by dot. But based on what I did today, it would require serious expertise to have faked those. So they’re either real or absolutely amazing, one-of-a-kind fakes.”

Marks nodded. “Okay. I doubt I need to look that hard at these.” He glanced up at Tomlin, who was a round man, jowly, red-faced, cheerful-seeming. “What did you think of them?”

Tomlin chewed and shrugged, swallowed. “Look like vacation shots to me. Amateur, not particularly inspired-the kind of pictures you get when you hand a cheap camera to random strangers and ask them to take your picture. Sentimental value only, I’d imagine.” He cleared his throat. “Although since you gave them to me, I can only imagine that there’s something not obvious about them.”

Marks held up one at random. “Did you notice the man in the dark suit?”

Ralph squinted. “Okay, I see him now.”

“He’s in every one.”

Ralph nodded. “Okay.”

Marks took the photo back. “No one knows who he is or why he’s showing up every time this guy poses for a picture. That’s the story. So far, at least.”

“Sounds pretty boring, Phil.”

Marks shrugged. “Most stories are. You check out nine to find one that gets interesting. Now, you order anything you want, baby.”

Ralph snorted. “Thanks. You’re a big spender, big boy. So what now with this?”

Marks stuffed the envelope into his jacket. “I’ll talk to the fellow who gave them to me, put a little pressure on him, see what comes out.” He shrugged. “It’s a necessary step. You’d be amazed how many real crazy people approach me, feed me bullshit. Sometimes they come up with some pretty complex bullshit, too.”

Ralph shook his head, holding up a menu. “No, Phil, I wouldn’t.”

III

“Mr. Harrows,” Marks huffed, “thanks for coming.”

Harrows took the offered hand quickly and sat down. Marks wheezed around to the other side of the desk and collapsed into his own chair.

“You have some findings?” Harrows asked.

Marks shook his head. “Not yet, Mr. Harrows. I’ve asked you here to ask a few more questions and to perform an experiment. I spent the last two days doing some basic fact-checking.”

Harrows seemed unhappy. “Checking up on me?”

“You didn’t think I wouldn’t, did you?”

Harrows shrugged and looked down at the floor for a moment. “Well? What do you need from me?”

Marks settled himself into the cracked leather of his chair. He placed a large paper bag on the desk and reached into it. “First, I’d like to ask you if you’ve ever experienced anything that could be described as ‘paranormal.’ ”

Harrows shook his head. “I didn’t even realize that this would be considered such until I began noticing… him. In the earlier photos I showed you, he was distant-part of the background, really, and easy to miss. By the time I started to see him, he was… closer.”

Marks nodded. “Okay. Let me ask you this, then, and please be perfectly honest. Do you recognize the man?”

“I’ve wracked my brain, Mr. Marks. Nothing about him stirs any memory at all.” Harrows laughed a little. “Believe me, I was convinced at first that this… ghost, or whatever, was haunting me, so therefore, there must be a connection. I’ve thought about it and thought about it, and have come up with nothing more than pure imagination.”

Marks began pulling cameras from the paper bag. “Have you gone through older photographs, perhaps?”

Harrows nodded. “Sure, sure. Went through fifty years’ worth of family photos, looking for someone who resembled the man. Nothing.”

Marks placed six cameras on his desk, including an expensive digital camera with a wireless instant printer and a small video camera. “Mr. Harrows, in the samples you showed me, you were in all of the photos-most were vacation shots, where you had asked someone to take your picture, correct? Have you ever noticed our friend in photos you yourself took?”

“No. I’ve checked. When I am behind the camera, he is nowhere to be seen.”

Marks nodded. “Hmmph. Well.” He sat up in his seat. “Well, let’s experiment, gain all the data possible. I’ve got here some random cameras. Certainly not a scientific experiment, but it will at least show us some possible guidelines. I propose to take photos of you-lots of them-using different cameras and see if our friend shows up in them. I’m beginning to have a rudimentary theory-not about what or who, but merely concerning some of the rules of the phenomenon’s behavior. Let’s get started, shall we?”

Harrows looked at his hands for a moment, then nodded. “Fine.”

Marks had Harrows stand against one of the walls of the small office. He took three or four photos with each camera, from different angles and different distances. “I noticed,” he said as he snapped them, “that in all the photos you showed me, you never had your back to a wall. I wonder if that will have any impact.”

Harrows looked startled. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Marks continued to snap photos. “May not mean anything-but that’s the point; we need data. Now, when I film you, just act natural. Move about a bit. I want to see if your movement has any impact.”

Marks lifted the video camera to his eye and pointed it at Harrows.

“See anything?”

Marks didn’t stop filming. “Calm down, Mr. Harrows. If I see any ghosts, I’ll let you know. Everything looks normal. But then I assume you did not see this man when you actually posed for the photos?”

Harrows nodded, shifting awkwardly.

“Okay,” Marks continued, “let’s just get enough video to have something to work with, a minute or so, and then we’ll get this film developed and see what can be seen.”

“Okay,” Harrows said with little enthusiasm.

A few minutes later, Marks examined the photographs one by one, passing them across the desk to Harrows, who stared at them with decreasing happiness.

“Well,” Marks said when the last of them had been glanced over. “We’ve managed to ascertain only one more fact of the case.”

“Hmmmn?” Harrows gurgled from his depressed spot in the chair. “What’s that?”

Marks gestured at the photos, each showing the tall, thin man in the dark suit, apparently creeping up behind Harrows. “Well, he’s still getting closer.”

In each of the photos, the thin man seemed to have just entered Marks’s office, and was seen, shadowy and indistinct, striding purposefully toward Mr. Harrows. Almost directly behind Harrows, he was obscured from the camera and appeared only as shoulders, feet, arms, the shape of a head. It was impossible to detect any true details. The figure was a collection of brights and shadows, which coalesced into a human form only when viewed from a distance.

AFTER Harrows had left, Marks sat at his desk and studied the photos one after another. In each, the thin man appeared to be closer to Harrows by a half step, a few inches. In the last one, he was still only halfway between the doorway and Harrows.

“Who are you, then?” Marks murmured, sipping bourbon in the pale pool of yellow light generated by his desk lamp. “Why are you haunting our Mr. Harrows? Are you haunting Mr. Harrows? Are you getting closer to him, or is he getting closer to you?”

The photos remained mute. Marks tossed them onto the desk and sat for a moment, staring off into the shadows of his office. He reached over and picked up the instant camera, turned it so the lens was facing him, and leaned back in his chair.

“You around?” he murmured. “You want to chat?”

A twitch of his finger, and the flash exploded, filling the room with a second’s worth of blue light. Blinking in the aftermath, Marks plucked the emerging photo from the tiny printer and shook it back and forth, letting it develop. He turned it over and squinted down at it, a strange, languid grin spreading across his face. “Well, hello there,” he said quietly.

The photo was of an out-of-focus and off-center shot of Marks, his nose seemingly too large, his eyes shut against the flash, unattractive and distorted. Over his left shoulder, seeming to lean directly over Marks’s shoulder, was the thin man, clearer than before but still grainy, more a collection of dots than a solid figure. In one hand, held oddly toward the bottom of the frame, he held a white square, indistinct. Marks squinted at it, held the photo alternatively near his eyes and far away, finally setting it down on the desk, unsatisfied.

He whirled and put the phone to his ear.

“Ralph? I know it’s late. Sorry. Listen, I have another favor to ask you.”

IV

“Phil, I damn near shit myself.”

Ralph Tomlin led Phillip K. Marks through gray, unmarked corridors. Marks paid no attention to the fake cubicle walls, didn’t acknowledge anyone they passed. With his oversized raincoat and unshaven demeanor, he stood out. People stared.

“Well? What is it?”

Tomlin shook his head. “Sit down at my desk here. Take a look. You have to see it yourself.”

Marks sat down at the small desk, which was dominated by a huge computer monitor, bigger than any Marks had ever seen. On it was displayed a clear scan of the Polaroid: Marks, blurry, crushed against the camera lens, the Thin Man, dark and skeletal, grinning over his shoulder, holding something awkwardly in his hand.

“Okay.” Marks said testily.

“Now, here’s a blowup and clarification of the lower right-hand corner of the photo, where that guy’s ‘hand’ is. I use the air quotes because that really isn’t a man, Phil.”

“I knew that, considering that he wasn’t in the room when I took the photo.”

“No, I mean nothing was there, Phil. The figure we see there is an optical illusion, a collection of dots: white and black. He’s a black-and-white halftone, is what he is. But here’s the disturbing part: the blowup. He’s holding a card, Phil. For want of a better term, I’d say it was a business card.”

Ralph clicked a key and stepped back as the picture on the screen changed to a detail of the photo: a rectangular, white space, surrounded by the blurred and indistinct lines of the Thin Man’s hand. The card, at this magnification, and with the aid of clarifying software, had words printed on it:

I AM DEATH

Marks leaned back in the chair, let out an explosive burst of breath. “Oh, shit.”

Tomlin nodded, staring raptly at the fuzzy image. “Oh shit is right.” He grinned. “Phil, ever since you started down this weirdo path of yours, you’ve shown me some really odd things from time to time. This one gave me chills. So, what do you think?”

Marks shook his head dazedly, his eyes locked on the fuzzy words on the screen. “About what?”

Tomlin snorted and glanced down at Marks. “Is he coming for your subject,” he asked, “or you?”

Marks finally tore his eyes from the screen. “Is that supposed to be helpful in some way?”

Tomlin shrugged happily. “I’d just get your subject into an emergency room, if I was you, buddy. If Death’s following him around like that, there’s got to be a reason.”

Marks’s smile was barren. “Unless he’s after me now, right?”

V

Marks walked the dark streets after hours, smoking ill-advised cigarettes and pondering his new concern. As the sun disappeared and the shadowed streets stopped looking cheerily familiar, he wondered unhappily if he was being stalked by a specter, if a photo taken by a helpful stranger might reveal a companion. They were not cheering thoughts. He stopped in a favorite bar, the Full Moon, and ordered a double bourbon on ice, sat in the back by himself, and sipped it slowly, staring at the wall.

“What’s the story, Phil?”

Marks glanced up, surprised, and found Jerry, the jowly owner. “Sorry, Jer, I was woolgathering.”

“Can see that, Philly. Everything okay?”

“Sure.” Marks paused, studying his drink, then looked up again. “Jer, what if you had to tell someone something bad. Something… sad. Something that maybe they didn’t need to know, but you felt duty-bound to tell them.”

Jerry laughed, his belly bouncing within its tight shirt. “I do, every night, Phil, round closing time.”

Marks smiled faintly. “What if you had to tell someone they were going to die?”

Jerry looked away. “Jeez, Phil-”

Marks shook his head, leaned back in his chair. “Shit, I’m sorry, Jer. Just got a lot of stuff on my mind. Don’t pay any attention to me.”

“Easy enough.” Jerry turned away and then hesitated, looking back over his shoulder. “You weren’t going to tell me that, were you, Phil?”

Marks shook his head. “No, no, Jerry. Not you. Just someone I’ve been working with.” He paused, and just as Jerry was about to turn back, Marks continued. “Hey, Jer, you got a camera around here?”

Jerry started walking back to the bar. “Yeah, actually. Keep an old Polaroid on hand for when we get troublemakers and have ta ban ’em. I got quite a wall of shame in my office.” He glanced back as he walked away. “Why, Philly?”

Marks gulped the last of his drink. “Take my picture, okay?”

Jerry retrieved the camera from behind the bar and hefted his bulk back toward Marks’s table. “Sure, sure. Why not?”

Marks nodded absently, pushing his hands through each of his pockets until he’d recovered a small pad of paper and a black-ink pen. He wrote quickly and tore a sheet off, holding it up under his chin as Jerry approached.

“Ready?”

Marks nodded. The flash went off, and Jerry lowered the camera as the picture was spit out. “Who’s this for? With the note and all?”

Marks crumpled the piece of paper up and tossed it on the table. “I’ll know in a moment, Jer. Let me see the print.”

Jerry tore it from the camera and handed it gingerly to him. Marks took it between two fingers and shook it carefully, drying it in the air, then held it up and studied it, silently, for a few seconds.

“You see something strange?” Jerry asked. “I’m prepared for anything, after the last few times you brought your work in here.”

Marks laughed, a grim bark that made Jerry frown. “Jer, sometimes I guess I ought to just leave everything alone, you know?” He stood up and tossed a bill on the table. “I gotta go track down my subject.”

Jerry let Marks push past him and watched him walk out of the bar purposefully, head down. Then he turned back to the table and plucked the photo from it. Looking down at it, squinting in the bad light, he gasped. Sitting at the same table as Marks was a tall, thin man in a dark suit… or at least that’s what it looked like to Jerry. The man was shadowed and indistinct.

Jerry’s eyes flicked to the table and then back to the photo. In his bar, the table was gouged by a million nervous hands and a few serious vandals. In the photo, words had been carved onto the table:

I LIKE YOU BETTER

VI

It was an innocuous-enough apartment door, but Marks gave in to instinct and looked the whole hallway over before stepping forward and knocking firmly. After a moment, there was a shuffling from inside and then:

“Who’s there?”

“Mr. Harrows, it’s Phillip K. Marks.”

The metallic sounds of locks being undone, and then the door cracked open slightly. Marks waved sardonically at the eye that appeared to look him over. The door shut again and reopened quickly.

“Mr. Marks. I’m sorry, I’ve been a little on edge since we had our discussion. I apologize.”

“No need.” Marks said smoothly. “I think I’m beginning to understand.”

Harrows nodded pleasantly, then looked around the hallway. “Mr. Marks-why are you here?”

Marks looked around. “I don’t mean to be rude, Mr. Harrows, but I have to ask you for two favors.”

“Favors?”

“First, and most importantly, do you have anything to drink?”

Harrows studied Marks for a moment, and then nodded. “Yes, Mr. Marks, I think I have a bottle of Old Smuggler in the kitchen. It’ll give you one hell of a headache in the morning.”

Marks nodded. “Thank you. I’ll take a double.”

Harrows shrugged his eyebrows and turned to enter the kitchen. “You said you had two favors to ask of me, Mr. Marks?”

“I’d like to take your picture one more time.”

Harrows paused and then continued into the kitchen. “May I ask why?” he called back.

Marks glanced around the room. “Let’s just say I need to confirm an unfortunate suspicion. The good news is, I’ll probably be able to set your mind at ease about the whole situation in a few minutes.”

Harrows returned with Marks’s drink. “Jelly glass, sorry.”

Marks shrugged and took the drink eagerly. “Christ, that’s terrible.” He drained it with a grunt and a grimace, and handed it back, pulling a small camera from his pocket. “Smile!”

Harrows blinked in surprise at the flash.

Marks tore the photo from the camera and began shaking it in the air. He smiled a thin, sickly smile at Harrows. “Well, we’ll know in a moment.”

They stood facing each other as Marks fanned the print. When he stopped and turned it over, they both glanced down. Harrows blinked again.

“He’s gone.”

Marks nodded glumly. “So he is.”

“Why, that’s good.” Harrows said in a muted tone. “I think that’s good. Do I have you to thank for this?”

Marks nodded again. “I am afraid so. Thank you, Mr. Harrows. I don’t think I’ll have to trouble you again.”

He squinted at Marks, who just stood there carelessly, numb. “Mr. Marks, what’s wrong?”

Marks shook himself. “Nothing, Mr. Harrows. I’ll bid you good night. I would tell you to keep my number and call me if you need anything else, but I somehow doubt I’ll be around much longer. Keep the camera.”

“Mr. Marks?”

Marks turned and let himself out. Harrows called after him one last time but did not follow.

MARKS headed toward the nearest bar he knew, feeling rusty inside. Half a block away, he noted a convenience store and turned for it impulsively. Inside he bought a pint bottle of bourbon and another thing of film, which he unwrapped while standing there before the bemused, dark-skinned man behind the register. He loaded the film and held the camera up to his eye, stretching a grin across his face.

“Smile!” he hissed. Startled, the dark-skinned man flashed a brief grin. Marks captured it with a bright flash. A motor whirred. A gummy print erupted from the front of the camera. Marks flapped it in the air and then studied it eagerly. His skeletal grin faded.

“Thanks,” he muttered, handing the print to the puzzled man. “I’ll need more film. As many packs as you have.”

Marks made his way up and down the streets, a stiff, permanent smile fixed to his face. He stopped everyone he saw and repeated the same pitch to them:

“Excuse me, let me take your picture? It’s a public service, and it’s free. A few seconds, and you can keep it if you like it.”

Most of the people he approached allowed him to photograph them and posed awkwardly, cheerfully. Marks would snap the photo with a minimum of fuss, would shake the photo out recklessly, would glance at it, and would hand it to his subject wordlessly, his smile more brittle each time, and would move on wordlessly.

He did this hundreds of times, wandering the streets randomly, moving rapidly from person to person. After several hours of this, his voice was rough and cracked, his gait was shuffling, but he persisted, often bullying people into allowing him to photograph them.

At four in the morning there weren’t many people left on the quieted streets, and Marks finally allowed himself to lean against a parked car, slumping in exhaustion.

“Who knows? Could be anything,” he muttered to himself. “No rhyme or reason. None that we would understand.”

He shook his head, trying to clear it. He worked his stiff hands, clawed from clutching the camera.

“Who knows why? Bad luck. Been doing this stuff for too long.”

“Move it on, buddy.”

Marks glanced up sharply and found a uniformed policeman standing across from him, pointing his club at Marks’s chest.

“What?”

The cop waved the club up the sidewalk. “Move it on home, pal. Had a good time, and now you can go sleep it off.”

Marks stared at the cop as if he didn’t understand.

“Now, pal.”

From somewhere, Marks produced a smile, palsied and faint. He held the camera up to his eye and squinted. The cop’s stern face resolved in the lens.

“Just a photo before I go, please.”

The cop frowned sourly when Marks pressed the button and the flash went off tiredly. Marks held up a placating hand as he plucked the print from the camera and began waving it in the air.

“I’ll go. I swear, Officer. And I’ll give you the photo. It’s just a hobby.”

Eagerly, he peered down at the picture. Stood still for a moment, and then slumped back against the car, his eyes closed.

The policeman took a hesitant half step forward. “You okay, buddy?”

Marks opened his eyes and smiled an easy, happy, glintingly predatory grin. The cop blinked in the face of its hard, bright cheeriness.

“I’m fine now, Officer. You have a good night.” Marks pushed away from the car and paused to study the cop for a moment. “Enjoy it.”

Whistling, he turned and walked away.