Shallow Graves

and suffering (the eggplant bruise would look great in court and now, thanks to her, he had a new toy to immortalize it with). He said, “Thanks.”
    He fiddled with the square, sleek camera, not sure what else to say. He loaded it then held the camera up suddenly and took a picture of her. She blinked and for an instant got a nervous look, as if she suspected him of gathering evidence. Bzzzzt. He loved that sound.
    But he just looked at the picture as it developed—not quite in focus, tilted, washed out; her lids were half closed. He handed the picture to her.
    “What—?”
    Pellam shrugged. “A present. You can frame it.”
    She looked at the square. “It’s awful.” Then she put it into her purse and looked up at the wall, at an eye chart that must’ve been thirty or forty years old. She was squinting slightly and he wondered if she was giving herself an informal exam or whether she was appraising its value, picturing it in her tastefully paneled dining room she’d share with a husband rich enough to buy her the Hope Diamond’s cousin for her petite finger.
    She asked, “You’re the man making movies?”
    “Nope. I just look for locations that the studio decides they don’t like.”
    “Just like me,” she said. “I show houses to people who don’t buy them.”
    So, not a housewife. A businesswoman person. Watch it, Pellam. Middle America ain’t the same as when you left. Patronize at your own risk.
    She said, “What kind of movie is it?”
    “An artsy movie,” he said.
    “Big Mountain Studios. They’re famous.”
    “Sort of famous,” Pellam said. “How did you know the name?”
    “You had this permit in the window of your trailer thing. Your Winnebago.”
    Pellam nodded. Wondering when—and why—she’d checked out the camper.
    “When will they start shooting?”
    “Three weeks, give or take.”
    Meg nodded. “Guess you’ve got lots of people asking about getting a part.”
    “Some, sure. They think it’d be an adventure. You want a part? I’d be—”
    “Are you asking me?” She blinked in surprise.
    He didn’t like women who couldn’t tell when he was joking.
    “Everybody wants to be in movies,” Pellam said, not looking at her directly, but studying her reflection in a round wall mirror. “Everybody wants to be rich. Everybody wants to be young. Everybody wants to be thin.”
    She— Meg he remembered her name (MAC-10, rocket, terrier, call Trudie, Meg, Meg, Meg)—she swallowed whatever she was going to say and instead offered: “I’ve got a son.” Saying that seemed to make her more comfortable, established some boundaries. Yo, men, secure the perimeter. Pellam was gettingtired of the visit. He had his present, she had her son and her husband’s massive rings. Now he wanted her to leave. Meg said, “He’d love to be in a movie.”
    “You don’t want him to be.” Pellam said in a tone that said he knew.
    “I don’t know. He’s really into California. We went to Universal Studios last year. He loved it. I did too.”
    “Universal Studios isn’t Hollywood. Except in the most general of senses.”
    Meg said, “You have any kids?” Now her eyes did the heart–finger scan.
    “Nope,” he said.
    A pause. “I think it’d be tough to have a job like yours and have kids.”
    “It would, true.”
    “Or,” she said, “be married.”
    “Also true.”
    “So, you’re not?”
    “Divorced.”
    Meg nodded. He wondered if she was storing this information and, if so, in what kind of file.
    “So, you just drive around and look for places to shoot movies?”
    He thought for a moment and decided that described his life about as succinctly as anybody’d ever done. “Yep.”
    A luxuriant silence.
    She handed him a piece of paper. “That’s my insurance agent.”
    He put the slip on the bedside table, next to the bedpan.
    “My husband told me not to say anything to you. . . . But, I had to come by.”
    (“John, cops and insurance companies they’re going to eat up your words like M&M’s. Don’t say a goddamn syllable to the cannibals, got it?”)
    He told her, “These things happen.”
    “I hit a patch of leaves. I wasn’t expecting to see somebody in the middle of the street.”
    He said, “You’ve acted, haven’t you?”
    She laughed in surprise. “No. I did some modeling. Just for a year. How could you tell?”
    He said, “The way you carry yourself. . . . I don’t know. Just an impression.”
    He felt she wanted to warm up, but was