Frames Per Second by Bill Eidson Read Free Book Online Page B

stop until the bedclothes were tangled and they were lying side by side, breathless.
    Those first few years, they just drank each other in. They moved together, sometimes for his jobs, sometimes for hers. New York first, then San Francisco. Andi quickly moved away from daily news into more in-depth articles for magazines. Then she secured a column in the San Francisco Chronicle soon after she learned she was pregnant with Jake. “Andi’s Attitude,” based upon the concept of a one-year weekly observation of a woman stepping away from her career to have a baby. Woman in workforce issues were big in the media then and her timing couldn’t have been better.
    “Andi’s Attitude” slowly began to build toward what it would eventually become—a nationally syndicated column that covered a wide variety of issues, from homelessness to race relations, all from her unabashedly opinionated viewpoint. But the way there was rocky. And, perhaps it was somewhere in there that her stated opinions made her rigid, made her unforgiving.
    They had moved back to Boston to be close to her family when she was pregnant with Lainnie. It was a tough pregnancy, and right after Lainnie was born Andi was laid low with a bout of pneumonia and unable to write. She had to set aside the column for six months, and with it, her income.
    Ben had been doing increasingly frequent shoots for Newsweek at that point; his career was essentially on the rise. But he ran into a dry spell just at the time they needed cash the most. As freelancers, neither he nor Andi had the best insurance coverage, and her medical bills had sapped their savings.
    A photo editor from the National Enquirer called right about that time saying they had been admiring his surveillance photography and the Enquirer wanted to hire him for a shoot right in Boston. The editor positioned the piece as an exposé on the plight of street hustlers.
    Ben didn’t believe the shoot would be that straightforward, but after a moment’s hesitation, he said yes. The rent was due.
    The night of the shoot, the reporter on the job, Larry Hall, set him straight, “Get me shots of young, pretty hookers with older-looking business guys. We’ve got to titillate the shoppers in the grocery stores, get them to buy an issue to cluck over those skimpy outfits, and wonder if hubby is one of the guys screwing around on the side with teenage pros.”
    “I don’t like this,” Ben said.
    “You don’t need the work, just drive away,” Larry said, looking through his binoculars.
    Ben took the pictures.
    Just around midnight Father Ray Caldwell showed up in the Combat Zone. He was wearing street clothes and even though Ben had covered him once—at a fund-raiser where both Caldwell and Andi were speaking—Ben didn’t recognize him until he was loading his second roll of film.
    Larry Hall recognized Caldwell at the same time and immediately pocketed the exposed roll. “Father Ray? The guy who’s always standing up for children’s rights? This is good shit. You keep shooting, follow him home while I get this in. If God’s on our side tonight, he’ll take her home and screw her brains out on film.”
    “Wait a second,” Ben said. “You’ve got to talk to him. See what he says. Maybe there’s another explanation, maybe he’s trying to help her.”
    Larry laughed as he slid open the door of the van. “Maybe. That’s not my job. I’ve got what I need right here.”
    Ben put his hand out. “Give me that and go talk to the girl after he leaves.”
    “If he leaves.”
    “Get the facts straight.”
    “We’ve got a deadline.” Larry slammed the door and ran like hell. By the time Ben got out of the van, Larry was in his car and gone.
    Ben got back into the van and refocused on Caldwell. He didn’t release the shutter until it became apparent the priest was indeed going upstairs with the young girl. He came out about a half hour later. Ben got the shot.
    Father Ray was on the cover of the next issue.