Color Blind (16 page)

W
hile Brown did a little background check on Leonardo Martini, Kate watched through the interrogation room’s one-way glass as Nicky Perlmutter finished up with Lamar Black—Suzie White’s boyfriend. With priors for drugs, petty larceny, and prostitution, the man had not been hard to find. Currently, he was draped around a wooden chair, one arm looped through the rungs holding a cigarette he puffed on like a joint, the other under his knee, which he’d pulled up to use as a chin rest. He was trying to act cool, but Kate thought he looked beaten, eyes weary, jaw muscles quivering. According to Brown, Perlmutter had been at him for a couple of hours.

“Says he has no idea who could have done this to his ‘little Suzie,’ that they were in
love,
” said Perlmutter, shutting the interrogation room door behind him. He looked a bit worn himself, lips dry, eyes bloodshot. “Could be telling the truth. Got all choked up when I stuck that photo-booth picture in his face. Swears he was in a pool hall till the morning hours the night Suzie White got cut up.”

Kate stared through the glass at Lamar Black, his head tilted back, fluorescent light illuminating an angry crescent of raised flesh that stretched from his left earlobe to the right one. The scar Rosita Martinez mentioned. “What else?”

“He says Suzie White was a runaway. Can’t remember where from. Bumfuck, USA. Maybe we can locate her family. Black says she used to work the Midtown streets for some wise-guy pimp, an
I-talian,
to quote him. He thinks organized crime, but who knows? Suzie made a break for it after the wise guy beat her up. Came to Black through one of the girls in his stable, though that girl has since taken a powder, so we can’t talk to her.”

“Somebody should go up to the Bronx and speak to his girls.”

“Already in progress,” said Perlmutter.

“Doesn’t really make sense that he’d have murdered her. Why kill your investment?” Kate cadged another look at Black, who was hunched over now, head in his hands. “And I can’t see him as our painterly unsub.”

“Probably not. But he doesn’t know that. All Lamar knows is with his jacket we could put him away if we felt like it.”

“He know the other vic, Marsha Stimson?”

“Says no. But maybe one of his girls did.”

“What about the regular client that Rosita Martinez mentioned?”

“Says Suzie saw a guy once or twice a week—someone she used to do in Midtown who continued to see her in the Bronx. Says the guy knew Suzie’s wise-guy I-talian, and threatened to snitch on her if she didn’t see him when he wanted.”

“Description?”

“Says he only saw the guy maybe once or twice, and from a distance. Youngish, good-looking.”

“And Suzie never said anything about him?”

“Said the guy liked her to bark.”

“Make sure the detectives ask the girls about barkers.” Kate rolled her eyes. “Could be he’s still doing business with Lamar’s girls. Might be a good idea to put a little surveillance on them.”

Permutter nodded. “Guy has to trek all the way up to the Bronx to get laid? Sounds pretty desperate.”

“Or pretty obsessed,” said Kate.

L
ooks like you’ve missed him,” said Brown. He turned his computer screen so Kate and Perlmutter could read it for themselves.

LEONARDO ALBERTO MARTINI
.
DECEASED
.

“Jesus. When?” asked Kate.

“Day before yesterday. Killed himself.”

Kate did a double take. “This is way too much coincidence. Do you know if Crime Scene has been through his place?”

Brown plucked a sheet out of a brand-new folder on his desk. “Yes. And no. Apparently they didn’t do much. Not much of a report here. Suicide. That’s it. Took the body. ‘Investigation pending,’ it says.” He handed it to her.

“I’ve got to get over there and see Martini’s paintings,” said Kate. “Right away. Can you call ahead? Make sure we can get in?”

Brown said, “Will do,” but Kate had already turned out of the door.

K
ate and Perlmutter each pulled on a pair of latex gloves as they stepped into the apartment.

The air in the room was stale, with an overlay of something fruity and foul. Martini had lain dead, the back of his head blown off from the revolver he’d supposedly stuck into his mouth, for a day and a half until his friend, Remy Fortensky—whose phone calls about why Martini had not shown up for their weekly dinner had gone unanswered—insisted that the superintendent get a key and open Martini’s door.

The uniforms who had been called to the scene—a pair of rookies straight out of the Academy—assumed suicide and contaminated the scene by traipsing around the apartment touching just about everything. The paramedics who followed zipped Martini into a body bag and hoisted the body out of the apartment before Crime Scene had arrived, so the tech team had not hung around for very long.

In death, Leonardo Martini had received as much attention as he had gotten in life.

According to his friend Remy Fortensky, Martini was depressed about being constantly broke, his no-point art career, and was drinking too much. To everyone it looked clear-cut: Has-been artist kills self. Case closed.

“This the way the NYPD operates these days?” said Kate, once more reviewing the sketchy police report.

“Overworked and demoralized—the new musical now playing at your local NYPD precinct.”

In Leonardo Martini’s ad hoc studio, canvases were stacked up one on top of the other, crowding the room. Two large paintings that appeared to be in progress—abstractions of swirling colorful stripes against large areas of unpainted white canvas—were hanging on the walls.

Perlmutter tilted his head and squinted at the paintings. “What do you make of them?”

“Nothing revolutionary, but good.”

“Something spare and really nice about them.” He went in for a closer look. “The way those bands of color just loop and slide over the surface.”

“You’d make a decent art critic,” said Kate.

“Yeah, sure.” The brawny detective’s freckled cheeks turned pink.

Beside the two paintings was a table covered with jars and tools, mangled oil-paint tubes, and a large tin of turpentine; on the floor, a roll of unprimed cotton canvas and a gallon can of gesso.

Kate took a closer look at the paint table, noted the cut squares of paint-stained sponge and foam-tipped brushes Martini used to paint with rather than ordinary bristle brushes. Kate plucked a piece of sponge off the table and held it up. “This is why the paint seems to be part of the canvas, as opposed to lying on top of it. Martini sponges the paint into the surface.”

“Is that common?”

“Not necessarily, but it’s been done before. By painters like Morris Louis and Helen Frankenthaler.”

“I’ve seen some of her paintings at the Museum of Modern Art. Big paintings with washy areas of color, right?”

Kate nodded while unscrewing the lid off one of the small glass baby-food jars in which the artist had mixed the colors he was using in his current paintings. The pungent smell of turpentine filled her nostrils. She tilted the jar onto the palette. Bright blue paint liquefied with enough turpentine to make it appear to be watercolor streamed onto the palette, ready for sponging.

“It’s the blue he used for those stripes, there,” said Perlmutter, pointing at one of the large abstract paintings on the wall.

Kate stared up at the paintings. A similarity between the way they were painted and the still life with the blue-striped bowl was undeniable. “And maybe for another painting with stripes too.” She replaced the lid and bagged it.

She was moving slowly, taking everything in, but her mind was racing.

Had Martini been involved in Richard’s murder—and then killed himself over the guilt?

From behind her, she heard Perlmutter mutter, “Holy shit,” and turned to see the detective standing in the tiny alcove that served as Martini’s bedroom, mattress suspended above the bed by one muscular arm. With his free hand, he was scooping up stacks of bills. “All hundreds,” he said. “Must be about four or five grand here.”

“That’s a lot of cash for a starving artist,” said Kate.

“Maybe he’s been saving it for years. Could be one of those guys who doesn’t trust banks.”

“Maybe,” said Kate. “But all hundreds? And didn’t Martini’s friend say the guy was complaining about being broke?”

F
or the next two hours Kate and Perlmutter searched every inch of the apartment, going through Martini’s chest of drawers, ransacking his Fruit of the Loom underwear, rummaging through the pockets of every item of clothing that hung in his one small closet. Back in the studio, Kate bagged some of the artist’s oil paint and a few of the sponges to see if they could establish more of a link with the crime scene painting of the blue-striped bowl, then Perlmutter called for a van to fetch the stuff and bring it all into the lab.

“Give me a minute,” he said. “I’ve got to use the facilities.”

Kate lit a cigarette, adding her smoke to the stale air, glanced at Martini’s half-completed paintings on the wall and the dozens of old ones stacked up. All of this dedication to making art that no one cared about was depressing.

“Place is falling apart,” said Perlmutter, coming out of the bathroom. “Toilet won’t even flush.”

“Hold on,” said Kate, turning into the bathroom. She had been through the medicine cabinet, bagged Martini’s razor and toothbrush, wiped out his stall shower, and bagged the gunk in the drain, hoping that maybe they would find a hair here and one in that damn crime scene still life that would match—but there was one place in the bathroom she hadn’t looked.

Kate slipped on a new pair of gloves, knocked the toilet seat down, and gently raised the porcelain back of the tank.

N
o. I said on your knees, barking.”

“Barking?”

“Yes. Barking. Like a dog, you know?”

“Can’t I do it on the bed? I don’t wanna ruin my stockings.”

“So take them off.”

“I thought you liked them on.”

“I do.” Jesus. Why couldn’t she just do what he asked? He pulled a blanket off the bed and tossed it to the floor. “Kneel on this.”

“So you want me like on my knees and sitting up, or like down on all fours?”

His head was starting to throb. “On all fours. And
barking,
for Christ’s sake. How fucking hard is that!?”

“All right. You don’t have to yell. I get it.”

The girl seemed to be taking forever, first spreading the blanket, then getting into position, then finally managing a pip-squeak “Arf.” She smiled and did a few more: “Arf, arf, arf.”

“Is that the best you can do?”

“I’m barking, ain’t I? You want me to growl too?” The girl was thinking she’d like to bite him maybe, and that she wasn’t getting paid nearly enough for this shit, that she had thought this one was going to be easy, maybe even a little fun, the guy being so cute and all. But man, was she ever wrong. “I can growl pretty good.”

“Like who? Tony the fucking Tiger? I want you to
bark
. Like you
mean
it.” Oh, man, how Suzie could bark. Really howl. Just the thought of her on her hands and knees baying away got him hard. He’d have to keep her image in his mind or he’d never be able to get it on with this dopey slut who wasn’t worth the forty bucks for her services, plus another fifty for the Bronx transient hotel. He knew when he chose her that it was only because she was young and reminded him of Suzie, and worked a few streets from where Suzie had worked once she’d moved up to the Bronx, but no way she could replace his Suzie, who would let him come to her place and could bark up a storm while he fucked her in the ass. She was worth the hundred, easy. She was special. He’d have paid double if Suzie had asked, which she wouldn’t because she was fair, and because, deep down, he believed, she cared for him.

He looked over at the hooker. Pathetic, the way she was straightening the blanket, again.

This wasn’t working. He was only half hard and still worried about everything. The idea that he could be caught and sent to jail, and now even his wife, his ever-loyal Noreen, threatening to leave him. Noreen. God, if she knew the half of it. Well, fuck her. Good riddance. She would never do the barking thing, no matter how many times he’d begged her over the years. “Fuck you, Noreen!”

“My name’s not Noreen, mister.”

“Was I talking to you?” He flopped back onto the crummy bed, glanced up at the naked lightbulb, and was momentarily blinded. He squeezed his eyes shut and stars danced against a black backdrop.

What was he doing here anyway? He pictured himself against a bright blue ocean, and sighed out loud. How had he gotten to this point, fallen so low? He felt dirty and worthless. He looked down at the girl on all fours and let out a bitter laugh.

“What’s so funny?” the girl asked, still fooling with the blanket.

“Nothing.” He felt like killing her, smashing her head against the floor, watching the blood and brains—if she had any—spill out.

It seemed such a long time ago, all that promise, the dreams—dashed, dead or dying. He should kill himself. He should have done it long ago. Before this all started spiraling out of control.

He peered down at the hooker. This wasn’t helping him forget and that’s what he wanted, needed—to forget. And he was tired. Too tired to do anything. “Just get out,” he said.

“What?”

“GET OUT.” He crumpled a couple of twenties and tossed them across the room.

The girl scrambled after them on her hands and knees, and he sat up to watch. “That’s it,” he said. “Run, doggie, run!” He charged off the bed, mounted the girl, jerking his semi-limp dick, attempting to work himself into an erection. “Now bark!”

“This is gonna cost you another twenty,” the girl said, looking over his shoulder.

“Just bark, damn it! BARK!!!”