Chapter 27
The shot was always the same: interior, Walsh’s beach cottage, moderate-wide angle. The camera lens was tiny, and you lost a little resolution because of it, but he didn’t mind—the images had their own awful clarity. He preferred watching through half-closed eyes, dreamlike, led along by the sound of their voices, imagining them before the camera started, winding their way to the rendezvous. Walsh would have parked in the cottage’s single garage, of course, while she parked a few blocks away, off the main streets, window-shopping on her way over perhaps, making sure she hadn’t been followed, then a hurried dash across the street and inside, home sweet home away from home.
He sat back in the chair as the footage ran, eyes closed now, listening. He could hear Walsh blustering about the day’s shoot, and she was telling him she didn’t care. Walsh liked that—her disinterest excited him almost as much as the fact that she was another man’s wife. His wife. She sounded slightly out of breath now, saying something about not having much time, not nearly enough time, but she couldn’t stay away, and Walsh groaned, and if the two of them had been closer to the microphone, he might have been able to hear the slide of a zipper. On some of the recordings he heard sounds like that—zippers and shoes dropping, sometimes even the tearing of fabric, along with the grunts and groans, the cries, the desperate urgency, the whole fucking symphony.
The audio on this particular recording didn’t pick up such small details. There was only a single surveillance camera in the one-room cottage, a miniature camera/microphone seamlessly fitted into a wall sconce that faced the bed. It was a remarkable piece of equipment, the high-resolution lens the size of a BB, the lovers’ sounds and images digitally captured and transmitted instantly to his recorder across the city. No tapes in the cottage to change, none to retrieve. A sound technician on one of his films had installed the remote camera for him in a single afternoon. The man was a Russian on a temporary visa, a former KGB drone probably, eager to curry favor. He was sent packing when his visa expired just the same.
His wife’s voice was louder now. In a moment he would hear the sound of Walsh opening a bottle of champagne. He didn’t need to open his eyes; he knew the recordings by heart. Every sound. Every image. He had had the original tapes transferred onto forty-seven DVDs so the images would never degrade. Not ever. Forty-seven separate incidents of adultery, each one identified by the date. A time capsule of deceit. He had had seven years to memorize the recordings. To savor them. To torture himself with them. He heard a champagne cork pop. Right on schedule. Popping champagne was déclassé, a waste of the natural effervescence, but Walsh was a prole with a two-picture deal, a janitor blessed with a vivid imagination. Walsh whooped, pouring, and his wife laughed.
On some of the DVDs their voices were eager, in some they were playful, and in some, particularly the early ones, they were circumspect, nervous even. Always though, always, on each and every one, there was a tumescent ripple of guilt in their voices, the titillation of betrayal in their whispers. Sometimes he even heard his name mentioned. Yes, even that.
He opened his eyes. His timing was perfect. Onscreen his wife was splayed nude on the leather sofa, her back arched, her legs wide as Walsh grazed at her vagina. One of her legs was thrown over his shoulder, her foot against the back of his neck, driving his face deeper into her.