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 star-shaped scar on the bridge of her nose. Her hair was a mixture of wheat and red-gold, cut in a pageboy that looked slightly out-of-date, and her face and hands were pleasantly freckled by the sun.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.”
“Ummm-hmmmm.”
“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.”
“R ight.”
“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 blin
d. Better yet, maybe he didn’t give a damn.
That would be refreshing.
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