فصل بیست و نهم

CHAPTER 29

Francis Dolarhyde had to leave his own territory at Gateway Film Processing to get what he needed.

Dolarhyde was production chief of Gateway’s largest division - homemovie processing - but there were four other divisions.

The recessions of the 1970’s cut deeply into home moviemaking, and there was increasing competition from home video recorders. Gateway had to diversify.

The company added departments which transferred film to videotape, printed aerial survey maps, and offered custom services to smallformat commercial filmmakers.

In 1979 a plum fell to Gateway. The company contracted jointly with the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to develop and test new emulsions for infrared photography.

The Department of Energy wanted sensitive infrared film for its heatconservation studies. Defense wanted it for night reconnaissance.

Gateway bought a small company next door, Baeder Chemical, in late 1979 and set up the project there.

Dolarhyde walked across to Baeder on his lunch hour under a scrubbed blue sky, carefully avoiding the reflecting puddles on the asphalt, Lounds’s death had put him in an excellent humor.

Everyone at Baeder seemed to be out for lunch.

He found the door he wanted at the end of a labyrinth of halls. The sign beside the door said “Infrared Sensitive Materials in Use. NO Safelights, NO Smoking, NO hot beverages.” The red light was on above the sign.

Dolarhyde pushed a button and, in a moment, the light turned green. He entered the light trap and rapped on the inner door.

“Come.” A woman’s voice. Cool, absolute darkness. The gurgle of water, the familiar smell of D-76 developer, and a trace of perfume.

“I’m Francis Dolarhyde. I came about the dryer.”

“Oh, good. Excuse me, my mouth’s full. I was just finishing lunch.”

He heard papers wadded and dropped in a wastebasket.

“Actually, Ferguson wanted the dryer,” said the voice in the dark.

“He’s on vacation, but I know where it goes. You have one over at Gateway?”

“I have two. One is larger. He didn’t say how much room he has.” Dolarhyde had seen a memo about the dryer problem weeks ago.

“I’ll show you, if you don’t mind a short wait.”

“All right.”

“Put your back against the door” - her voice took on a touch of the lecturer’s practiced tone - “come forward three steps, until you feel the tile under your feet, and there’ll be a stool just to your left.” He found it. He was closer to her now. He could hear the rustle of her lab apron.

“Thanks for coming down,” she said. Her voice was clear, with a faint ring of iron in it. “You’re head of processing over in the big building, right?” “Umhumm.”

“The same ‘Mr. D.’ who sends the rockets when the requisitions are filed wrong?”

“The very one.”

“I’m Reba McClane. Hope there’s nothing wrong over here.”

“Not my project anymore. I just planned the darkroom construction when we bought this place. I haven’t been over here in six months.” A long speech for him, easier in the dark.

“Just a minute more and we’ll get you some light. Do you need a tape measure?”

“I have one.” Dolarhyde found it rather pleasant, talking to the woman in the dark. He heard the rattle of a purse being rummaged, the click of a compact.

He was sorry when the timer rang.

“There we go. I’ll put this stuff in the Black Hole,” she said.

He felt a breath of cold air, heard a cabinet close on rubber seals and the hiss of a vacuum lock. A puff of air, and fragrance touched him as she passed.

Dolarhyde pressed his knuckle under his nose, put on his thoughtful expression and waited for the light.

The lights came on. She stood by the door smiling in his approximate direction. Her eyes made small random movements behind the closed lids.

He saw her white cane propped in the corner. He took his hand away from his face and smiled.

“Do you think I could have a plum?” he said. There were several on the counter where she had been sitting.

“Sure, they’re really good.”

Reba McClane was about thirty, with a handsome prairie face shaped by good bones and resolution. She had a small starshaped scar on the bridge of her nose. Her hair was a mixture of wheat and redgold, cut in a pageboy that looked slightly outofdate, and her face and hands were pleasantly freckled by the sun. Against the tile and stainless steel of the darkroom she was as bright as Fall.

He was free to look at her. His gaze could move over her as freely as the air. She had no way to parry eyes.

Dolarhyde often felt warm spots, stinging spots on his skin when he talked to a woman. They moved over him to wherever he thought the woman was looking. Even when a woman looked away from him, he suspected that she saw his reflection. He was always aware of reflective surfaces, knew the angles of reflection as a pool shark knows the banks.

His skin now was cool. Hers was freckled, pearly on her throat and the insides of her wrists.

“I’ll show you the room where he wants to put it,” she said. “We can get the measuring done.” They measured.

“Now, I want to ask a favor,” Dolarhyde said.

“Okay.”

“I need some infrared movie film. Hot film, sensitive up around one thousand nanometers,” “You’ll have to keep it in the freezer and put it back in the cold after you shoot.”

“I know.”

“Could you give me an idea of the conditions, maybe I-”

“Shooting at maybe eight feet, with a pair of Wratten filters over the lights.” It sounded too much like a surveillance rig. “At the zoo,” he said. “In the World of Darkness. They want to photograph the nocturnal animals.” “They must really be spooky if you can’t use commercial infrared.”

“Ummmhmmmm.”

“I’m sure we can fix you up. One thing, though. You know a lot of our stuff is under the DD contract. Anything that goes out of here; you have to sign for.” “Right.”

“When do you need it?”

“About the twentieth. No later.”

“I don’t have to tell you - the more sensitive it is, the meaner it is to handle. You get into coolers, dry ice, all that. They’re screening some samples about four o’clock, if you want to look. You can pick the tamest emulsion that’ll do what you want.” “I’ll come.”

Reba McClane counted her plums after Dolarhyde left. He had taken one.

Strange man, Mr. Dolarhyde. There had been no awkward pause of sympathy and concern in his voice when she turned on the lights. Maybe he already knew she was blind. Better yet, maybe he didn’t give a damn.

That would be refreshing.