“So you still didn’t take any photographs?”
“No, not yet. So, anyway, the girl was rubbing him all over, and he was kind of squirming. Then he turned over on his back and I could see his face.”
“So you started photographing him?”
“No, not yet.”
“Herbie, did you take any photographs at all?”
“Sure, yeah, I did.”
“When?”
“I’m coming to that. Anyway, she starts to work on his thing, you know, and he’s writhing around, but my angle wasn’t so good, so I crawled out onto the skylight so I could get a better shot. It looked strong enough to hold me.”
“So, when you got a better angle, did you start shooting?”
“Yeah. I took a couple of wide shots with the thirty-five-millimeter lens, then I heard—no, I guess I felt—this creaking under me, you know?”
“Go on, Herbie.”
“So I stopped shooting and started thinking about getting off that skylight.”
“You stopped shooting?”
“Well, yeah, the skylight was sounding like it was going to break, so I had to get off it.”
“Did you get off it?”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean, not exactly?”
“I was kind of backing up, and the skylight creaked again, and the girl looked up, right at me.”
“Did you photograph her face?”
“I’m not sure. It all started happening very fast,” Herbie said.
“Then what happened?”
“The guy was just lying there, like he was done and had fallen asleep, the way you do, you know? And the girl started backing away from the table.”
“Yes, then what happened?”
“Then the skylight caved in and I started falling into the room.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What do you mean, you don’t remember?”
“Well, I must have been out for a little while, and when I came to, I was lying on top of this guy, and he was dead.”
“Wait a minute,” Stone said. “How do you know he was dead?”
“Because he was just kind of staring up with these dead eyes. He wasn’t blinking or anything.”