Read Online Deadline by John Dunning - Free Book Online

them what the story was, no more, then get the hell out of the way and let them shoot it the way they wanted. That was how the good ones worked. They were often difficult and sour, especially in situations where their talents were subordinated to those of the reporter. Walker had a theory. If you could measure a photog’s bile, you could measure his worth. The sour faces usually produced the golden eggs.
    Larry Burke was one of the sourest he had seen in a long while. Burke, too, had won national awards. He had been with the Tribune two years, and had a natural antagonism toward pencil men. The argument was always about who had the tougher job. Walker thought the photog’s life incredibly soft and cushy. They had no idea what real work was. Like the guy in Texas who had won a Pulitzer for being in exactly the right place at exactly the right time and snapping his goddamn camera at the exact moment when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Sure, it was a good picture. It was a great picture, but how could you measure an incredible stroke of luck like that against the hours and days and weeks of mental torture that Walker had endured to win his Prize? But if it made Burke feel better, then fine, let him consider writers his creative and intellectual inferiors.
    “We are the only objective historians,” Burke had shouted one night in the heat of a barroom argument. Walker had been sitting at the bar, twenty yards away and not involved in the discussion. But something about Burke’s arrogance got to him that night, and he whirled on his stool and said, “Bullshit,” just loud enough for everyone in the place to hear. The conversation came to a sudden halt, and Walker figured he might as well speak his piece. He stood and went over to Burke’s table. “You know that’s bullshit, Larry. Are you gonna tell me you never exercise any judgment in your work? That you just take what the camera sees? You gonna tell us you don’t decide what to shoot and how to shoot it, and what to leave out of the goddamn picture? Or when you get back in that darkroom, you don’t mess with it a little, to bring things out a certain way? You gonna tell us you don’t crop the mothers, and then, after all that’s done, you don’t pick just the right ones, from that stack of maybe fifty pictures, to give to the desk? Bullshit,” he said again, and walked out.
    They hadn’t spoken to each other since, and didn’t speak now. The sun was up and the street was bathed in pink. Burke had rolled down his window and was looking through his lens at Gunther’s front door when Walker heard the sound of someone coming along the street behind them. It was Melinda Baker, coming fast.
    “There’s the girl,” Walker said. Burke eased himself around in the seat and shot five full frontal face shots before Walker drew in his next breath. With the other camera, Burke took longer shots of the street scene, and Melinda Baker walking under the trees. As she passed them, Burke got her profile with the big lens. He even took a few of her back as she walked away from them.
    After perhaps ten minutes inside the Gunther home, Melinda Baker came out with the Gunthers and they all got into the Ford. They were there in the early sunlight for just a few seconds, but in that time Burke shot the roll. The Ford backed out of the driveway and Burke started the car. They went south, then east toward Manhattan, and Burke followed with the skill of an old cop. Walker didn’t ask how Burke had learned to tail people. The less you know about some people the better.
    They went to the Bristol-Myers plant, parked in a lot nearby and went into the building. Melinda Baker was wearing a dress; the Gunthers were dressed in work clothes. Burke shot and shot until they had disappeared inside and there was nothing left to shoot.
    “Now what?” It was the first thing Burke had said to Walker all morning.
    “Back to the Trib, ” Walker said.
    Burke just glared at him.
    That night Walker