Same Day

Osip Feinstein crouched on the rooftop of the block opposite Jesse Austin’s apartment. If the Russian girl hadn’t turned up, the job of persuading Jesse would have fallen to him and he doubted very much he would’ve succeeded. With his camera he’d followed the events in the apartment, taking photographs of the two of them together: the young girl and the singer, a man who could’ve been living in a penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park instead of this slum. He was doped up on a drug far more toxic and powerful than opium, addicted to righteous ideology. Osip clicked the camera, shooting the scene before him. The last photograph would be the most incriminating – her frail white hand on his big black arm, the rumpled bed sheets in the background.