see. Plain did not hesitate.
âNo. I donât use any chemicals. I did, for two years, when I was a teenager. I used cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, ecstasy, LSD, peyote, marijuana, alcohol, nicotine, and a couple of other things. Hypnotics. Quaaludes. I found out that each and every one of them made me stupider than I already was, and I decided I couldnât afford that. So, eleven years ago, I stopped.â
âAspirin?â Lucas asked. A little sarcasm.
âI still use aspirin and ibuprofen. Iâm not a moron.â His tone of voice showed no reaction to the sarcasm, and somehow left Lucas feeling that the sarcasm had been juvenile. Plain was ahead on points.
âSo what happened next?â Sloan asked.
At about midnight, Plain said, he left the party at Sallance Hansonâs and went back to his studio in St. Paulâs Lowertown with a friend, Sandy Smith, where they met an employee, James Graf, to look at scanned negatives from that morningâs photo shoot. After half an hour of looking at the negs, Smith left for his home while Plain and Graf continued to work with the negatives.
âWhat were the pictures of?â Lucas asked.
Plain tilted his head. âYou donât know?â
âNo.â
âSome investigation,â he said to the brown-haired man. Then: âI spent all yesterday morning and the early part of the afternoon doing a fashion shoot with Alieâe.â
âDid you have a personal relationship with Alieâe?â Sloan asked.
âWhat do you mean, personal? You mean, was I fucking her?â
âOr anything else,â Lucas said.
âNo. I wasnât fucking her. I wasnât interested in her. She was a dummy. She was like a toy that you plugged your dick into. Or, if you were a woman, that you stuck your tongue into. She was interested in feeling good, and that was about it,â he said.
âYour sister was involved with her?â Lucas asked.
âYeah. They were gobbling each other, or whatever women do. Sticking heroin in their arms, putting coke up their noses.â
Sloan said, âHmph,â and Lucas asked, âI was talking to some woman who was at the party, and she said you were so jealous of the relationship between Alieâe and your sister that you might kill Jael if you had the chance. Which suggests that Alieâe was more to you than just another model.â
Plain tipped his head, regarding Lucas with some curiosity, and said, âYouâre lying. Nobody told you that. But thatâs interesting. You apparently got hold of something, somewhere, and you donât know quite what it is.â
âGet a lawyer,â his friend said from the corner.
Lucas grinned involuntarily. Heâd been caughtâand that made him curious. âTell me why you think Iâm lying.â
âBecause you got it just backwards,â Plain said.
âWhat?â
âI wasnât jealous because my sister took Alieâe away from me. Iâm a little jealousâI admit itâbecause Alieâe took Jael away from me.â
In the immediate silence, the brown-haired friend said, âOh shit,â and Lucas and Sloan looked at each other, trying to figure out what Plain had just said. Plain, picking on Sloan because he was the straighter-looking of the two cops, leaned toward him and said, âYup. I was fucking my sister.â
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âNOW, THAT WAS an interview and a half,â Sloan said when theyâd finished and Plain and his friend had gone. They had an hour of tape.
Lucas rubbed his forehead. âI was feeling almost sympathetic there, toward the end. Two arty parents, rich dipshits, get divorced. Each one takes a kid. The kids donât see or speak to each other for fifteen years, then they run into each other, virtual strangers, good-looking, one is a model and the other one is working in photography, both running with the same crowd. If they