The Professional Thief

THE PROFESSIONAL THIEF / Alice Denham MY MOMENT OF TRUTH, said Steadman, was when I told them how rich my family was, and I got in the fraternity. Steadman found what we photographers discover—pleasing composition. People of good wiU don't doubt great oddities if no malice is evident. Steadman wrote he'd enjoyed my exhibit. He Uved on the floor above so he dropped his card with the network logo in my box. When we talked he was so bland, I almost said no. But he had huge shimmering bluelake. eyes, like Paul Newman in four-color glossy. Sincere eyes that sunlight revealed to have layer below sparkling layer of kindness, equanimity, trusting vulnerability. His eyes spoke for him. With my new lens I could capture those eyes, with late afternoon sun slicing the retinas. Off we went on his Honda 1000 to an outdoor cafe on the towpath canal. Steadman said he was tech director on the Nightly News so we talked shop, and I criticized the way they lit the Anchor—too harsh and solemn, meaningless closeups. Closeups only for emphasis, I tell them, said Stead, but they stress Personality. That's the problem, I said, he's a nitwit and it shows up close. We laughed together. Light rippled on the brackish canal, in white wine glasses, and Stead's eyes above the checked tablecloth. Stead said TDs did okay but he had additional income of $4000 a month from circuitry he designed and patented working for IBM right out of college (MS in EE from Penn). He didn't like to teU girls this, he said, because they got greedy, but from all sources, he figured he brought in $150,000 a year at age thirty. As a poor freelancer, my brow arched and arms crossed greedily. Why don't you quit and give me your job? I smirked. Keeps me off the street, said he. At the station they know I'm working for fun and it gives me status; they treat me better. Stead said he was found, only days old, in a basket on a doorstep in South Africa with a tag attached saying, "My name is Grimm." His parents, who couldn't have children, were happy to have him, as they were rich, in import-export and emigrated here when he was five. That he became sterile through rheumatic fever as a child in Johannesburg, if it wasn't from working around radiation later. After IBM, he worked for Surplex to support the highliving of Cherry, his rich wife whom he greatly loved, who died in a car crash. He still mourned Cherry. His family was closing their Bryn Mawr and La Jolla homes and moving to Australia, to save on taxes. 34 · The Missouri Review Rich, loving, sterile meaning safe. You're a walking cliche, I said, amused. What kind of basket? Stead smiled calmly, his eyes a blue trust. What sort of apartment did this rich young man have? I suggested we have a drink there. Oddly, an efficiency like mine only pristine, antiseptic. On the glass coffeetable, a stack ofphotography magazines, a plastic flower, and a stack of racing magazines. I race bikes, he said. An unnoticeable sofa, and that was aU, like a spy's pad that told nothing, except the person's desire to conceal every aspect of personal identity. Vodka and crackers in the icebox. I eat out, he said. The sofa pulls out, he said, and reached for me. If he was reaUy sterile, that could help, ultimately, with a stranger. I was suspicious of everything but intrigued. Next evening I watched Nightly News closely when, lacking ads, they ran the Crawl. Technical Director—was not Steadman. But he was there, way down, among the Cameramen. When I confronted him, he shambled shyly and said he was trying to impress me because I was a fine wellknown photographer with my own exhibit, that he built himself up so I'd go out with him. Then there was my auburn hair like Cherry's, and my steely gaze, not at all like Cherry's. Pish taw, but shucks I fell for it. Even though he...