Read Online The Sleeping and the Dead by Jeff Crook - Free Book Online Page A

camera strap over my head and let him take it. “So, you got the M8,” he said. He turned it over in his hands, swiftly examining it with his genius eye for detail, showing me a dent I hadn’t noticed and a couple of tiny scratches I had. “How much did you pay?”
    â€œTwenty-five.”
    â€œIt’s practically brand new. Is it stolen?”
    â€œNot that I’m aware of.”
    â€œIf you wanted a Leica, you should have asked me. I can get you a used R9 for that price and you could shoot digital or film. The R9’s a good camera.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with the M8?”
    â€œHave you looked at your pictures?” He opened a drawer and removed a USB cable and a package of powdered doughnuts.
    â€œI couldn’t open the files.”
    â€œThat’s the first problem with the M8. What software do you use?”
    â€œI still have the Photoshop you gave me.”
    He shook his head. Crumbs drifted down his naked belly and into his lap. “Photoshop 5.5 is a focking dinosaur. The old versions can’t convert Leica DNG files.” He picked up a Powerbook laptop from a pile of laundry on the floor and opened it on his desk, then plugged my camera into it. “Leica included a copy of Capture One LE in the box. The seller didn’t give you the disk?”
    â€œHe probably didn’t know about it.”
    â€œI’ll give you a copy of the Adobe Lightroom.” He opened the camera files and pulled up the first picture I had taken—a self-portrait shot in the parking lot at Best Buy right after I bought the new memory card. The image was strangely surreal. My black T-shirt looked almost purple.
    â€œThere’s your second problem,” Deiter said.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with the color?”
    â€œIt’s not the color, it’s the light.” He peeled the wrapper off the powdered doughnuts and shoved one into his mouth, then continued talking while he chewed. “The M8 is supersensitive to infrared. Deep blacks, especially dark fabrics, show up as magenta. Sometimes the whole image will have a magenta wash.”
    He cycled through the photos of my new apartment, the intersection outside my bedroom window, the gothic church across the street, and the photo I’d taken of Michi. Each one was tinted a sickening shade of purple, and with each picture he opened, I felt just a little more like I had swallowed a wasp. I began to think that the two grand I’d given James St. Michael had been spent on a one-way ticket out of town. I’d fallen for it because he looked like a pilot and acted interested in me even though I hadn’t bathed, smelled like a fireman’s boot, looked like a turd on a biscuit and was probably ten years older than the oldest woman he’d ever consider dating. And didn’t he get nervous last night when he found out about my connection to the police?
    *   *   *
    I met James St. Michael the previous Sunday. I had been at the hospital taking photographs of an old lady whose back was eaten up with bedsores. I usually took pictures of the dead. This woman should have been dead, the way they treated her.
    I recognized James when he walked through the door by the leather camera case slung over his shoulder. He was younger than I’d guessed from our phone conversation, late twenties to early thirties, wearing a University of Memphis ball cap, a blue jacket, new dark blue jeans and a pair of worn out Nikes with brand-new white shoelaces tied in double knots like a kindergartener. He slid onto the stool beside me and set the camera case on the bar. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “The rain.”
    â€œJackie Lyons,” I said. He shook my hand as though shaking a man’s hand. He had a grip like a Norse god. There wasn’t a ring on his finger, but there had been, not long ago.
    â€œJames St. Michael.”
    His name was so familiar it startled me. I sat