When he closed her e-mail, he saw that three junk e-mails had popped up on his screen in the meantime. He was surprised. His spam filter usually caught them, but there were always exceptions. The first one had a subject line indicating that hot Russian MILFS were looking for relationships with him. The second one hinted at some especially repugnant form of kiddie porn. He promptly deleted both without looking at them.
The third one was an announcement of a special photographic exhibition of Bettie Page at the MoMA in New York. It sounded interesting. So he clicked the mouse and opened the e-mail. He didn’t notice a date, but there was a vintage photo of Bettie Page, wearing a merry widow, brandishing a whip and her trademark grin. Bettie was campy but sexy. And more to the point, as a twelve-year-old, Verraday had stumbled across postcards of her in a used books and comics store in Pike Place Market. He’d had no idea at the time who Bettie Page was, but the effect on his hormone-flooded adolescent brain was as profound as if some alternate-universe fairy godmother in black had tapped him with her wand. Bettie and her provocative and highly distinctive lingerie had been imprinted on his erotic sensibilities then and there. And as his first sexual icon, she still held considerable sway. Not enough to make him fly to New York City just to see an exhibit of photos that he could probably find anywhere on the Internet, mind you, but he couldn’t resist at least checking the web page. He clicked on the link. A moment later, he was gazing at a montage of Bettie photos. In one, a corseted Bettie was being spanked by a woman in stockings and a bra. He’d seen that one dozens of times. Ditto on the next picture, in which Bettie was tied up and gagged. In another one, she was taking part in a clumsily staged catfight with a blonde woman. It was classic Bettie Page—erotic, racy yet somehow slightly goofy in spite of the taboo nature of the acts depicted. It was a great idea for a MoMA exhibit, thought Verraday, but the images were a bit well worn and predictable for a gallery whose collection included some of the most imaginative and sublime works of Frank Gehry, Chagall, and Van Gogh.
Then down the side of the screen, he noticed a few thumbnails, photos of Bettie that he’d never seen before. They teased with shadow and light and were artistic, even highbrow, compared to the workmanlike creations of Bettie’s usual photographers, Irving Klaw and Bunny Yeager, which had become famous for their subject matter rather than the quality of their execution.
One was a photo of her torso, breasts shapely and full, restrained within a 1950s-style black bullet bra. Her midriff was bare. The photo was cropped so that it stopped just below her navel. Uncharacteristically, Bettie’s face was absent from the picture. Only her chin entered the top of the frame. The second photo was exquisitely shot. It featured Bettie in silhouette, posed like a burlesque version of Picasso’s Blue Nude, backlit by a soft light, her face obscured by shadow but revealing just enough that Verraday could make out a hint of a seductive smile. Verraday clicked on the next thumbprint. It was a close-up of Bettie’s legs wrapped in sheer black stockings, her thighs angled artfully inward in a way that encouraged the viewer’s eye to follow the line of the black garters up her skin. Then it toyed with the viewer by stopping the barest fraction of an inch short of where the lines of her inner thighs would have converged. Verraday clicked on this thumbnail too so that it went full screen. It was beautifully shot. He admired not only the erotic quality of the photo but the aesthetic way in which it had been lit and framed, carefully designed to arouse the viewer and suggest unseen destinations withheld from the eye, but not from the imagination. Verraday couldn’t recall ever having come across this photo of Bettie before. His heart was beating fast, so that when his cell phone beside him unexpectedly rang, he started, something he almost never did.
It was late now. He hoped it wasn’t a student. He had been explicit about not being called at night, but to his annoyance, the university directory had published cell numbers for the professors, so it was always a possibility. The display read “Private Caller.”
He waited a couple of rings so that he wouldn’t sound breathless from the surprise.
“Hello,” he answered.
“It’s Maclean. Sorry to call so late. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Just answering student e-mails,” Verraday lied. “What’s up?”
Maclean’s voice was tense. “Can you meet me in about twenty minutes?”
“I guess so. At the café?”
“No. I’m off duty, and I could use a drink. I’ll give you the address.”
CHAPTER 18