Color Blind (27 page)
“Okay. Fine. You don’t.”
The kid darted over to Werther’s six-foot-long paint table, half the surface covered with a glass palette, small mounds of dried paint around the perimeter, dozens of oil tubes lined up beside jars of raw pigment. He took a moment to survey the tubes, unscrewed one of the caps, brought it over to the artist, shoved it under his nose, paint oozing out of the opening. “This it? That red over there?” He nodded toward the painting.
Werther stared at dark green oil paint, not knowing what to say.
“Is it?”
“Well, uh, no.”
“You telling me this
isn’t
red?”
“Uh, look at the label.”
The young man brought the tube within inches of his eyes, but without his magnifying glass it was hopeless, impossible for him to focus on what was clearly printed on the label:
PHTHALOCYANINE GREEN
. He touched his tongue to the oil. “Tastes like red,” he said. “You try it.” He placed the tube against Werther’s tightly closed mouth, dark briny green smearing across the man’s lips.
“Right,” Werther mumbled, a bit of linseed oil and pigment leaching between his closed lips. “I was mistaken.”
The young man pivoted back toward one of Werther’s large paintings and in one fast stroke squeezed the tube of green paint across the canvas, then stood back to assess it. “Doesn’t really match,” he said, blinking and frowning, seeing that the tones were, in fact, different. “Maybe you’re right.” He turned back to the artist. “But this isn’t going to work if you lie to me. That’s just counterproductive. I thought you were going to be…what was it you said?”
“A mentor?”
“Yeah, a mentor.”
Werther quietly watched the thick noodle of green paint ooze and drip down the surface of his finished painting, ruining it.
“What about here? What’s this color?” The kid pointed at an area of deep orange in Werther’s painting.
Werther took a breath, inhaling the smeared oil paint on his lips along with it. “That’s orange. A mix of uh, cadmium red medium and lemon yellow, with a little titanium white.”
The young man squinted hard at the area, which, to him, looked like a medium brownish-gray. “Show me.”
Werther squirmed against his restraints. “How can I?”
The young man scurried back to the paint table, started scooping up paint tubes into his arms like babies.
“It moves.”
“What does?”
“The paint table. It moves. It’s on wheels.”
“Oh, cool.” He slid the table beside the artist. “You got a magnifying glass?”
“Yes. Over there.” Werther pointed with his chin at a desk across the room.
“Why do you use one? Are you
afflicted
?”
“I, uh, use it to look at slides of paintings.”
“Oh,” he said, disappointed. He ran the magnifying glass over Werther’s tubes of expensive oil color, selected cadmium red medium, lemon yellow, and titanium white. He unscrewed the caps, squeezed dollops of paint onto the palette, swirled one of the artist’s thick bristle brushes through all three colors, mixing, his eyes blinking the whole time. “How’s this?” he asked, staring at what appeared to him as nothing more than brownish-gray glop.
Werther stared at the sad, handsome kid. He could not believe this was happening, nor imagine what it was about. “You, uh, need a bit more of the yellow.”
The young man’s eyes blinked and darted between the blobs of paint he’d squeezed onto the palette.
“That’s the one on the right,” said Werther, almost a whisper, as though he knew the assistance would not be well received.
“I know that!”
He added more yellow into the mix, then painted a swatch of the newly blended color over the area Werther had identified as orange and stood back for another assessment. He could tell that at least tonally they matched. “I guess you’re telling the truth.”
“Why would I lie?”
“Everybody lies.” He pointed with the brush at another areaa wide band of color that ran the length of the painting, top to bottom. “Is this orange too, teacherI mean, mentor?”
“No, it’s…pink.”
The young man dragged the brush of orange paint across the pink. To his eyes the two colors matched perfectly.
“You trying to trick me?”
“No.”
“But it is orange, right?”
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, you’re right. They’re both orange, like you say.”
He turned away from the artist“Tony, is it orange or pink?”then turned back and roared“It’s grrrrrrrrreat!” Then in his normal voice said: “Tony could be lying. He does that.” A turn to the left. “Who’s lying, Donna?” His voice ratcheted up several octaves. “They’re both lying!” The young man spun around toward Werther. “How can you be a mentor if you lie to me?”
Werther didn’t know what to say, nervously licked his lips, tasted the paint as the kid came toward him, paintbrush aimed like a gun. “I, I guess I was wrong. No, you were wrong. I mean”
“
I’m
wrong.” Eyes blinking, wildly. “
I’m
wrong?” Volume rising: “You think I’m
stupid
?”
“No, no. Not at all.”
“But then, why would I be wrong?” He flicked his tongue against the tip of the paintbrush. “It tastes orange to me.”
“Yes, yes. Of course. It’s orange. You’re right.” Werther’s heart was pounding.
The young man moved a step closer, laid the brush against the artist’s mouth. “Taste it.”
Werther mumbled through lips pressed tightly shut. “Mmm…yes. Orange.”
“Taste it!”
The kid dug his fingers into Werther’s cheeks, pressed until the artist’s jaw muscles gave way and his mouth opened, than shoved the brush in. “
Can you taste it?
Orange! Right?
Orange!
” He jerked the brush out of Werther’s mouth.
Werther gasped and spit out flecks of oily paint.
“It
is
orange, right? You can taste it, right?”
“Y-yes.”
The kid scooped a palette scraper off the artist’s paint table, nothing more than a straight razor in a holder, spun toward the artist’s largest canvas, and zip! A slice to the left, then right, top, bottom; within seconds a six-figure artwork destroyed, canvas hanging from the wooden stretcher bars like rags, a few pieces dropping to the floor. The young man gathered up remnants of canvas, sniffed at them, then brought them toward Werther. “What color is this?”
“It’s…it’s…” The taste of oil, resin, and pigment was still in Werther’s mouth, making him queasy.
“I’ll give you a hint. It’s my
favorite
color.”
“R-really?”
“Yeah. So tell me. What is it?’
“Uh…raw sienna.”
“No, it’s not.” He leaned over the artist. “It’s razzmatazz.”
“Razzmatazz? I don’t know what that”
Blinking like mad, face going red. “You call yourself an artist and you don’t know
razzmatazz
?”
“Explain it to me. Please.” Werther felt paint slide down the back of his throat, acidic, burning.
“You tell me. You’re the one who knows everything about color.”
“No…I…I don’t.”
“But you said you did.”
“No. Never.”
“You did.”
“When?”
“On TV. Remember?”
“No, I”
“Yes. You know everything, but you won’t teach me.”
“I will.
I swear.
I’ll be your mentor, like I said. Take the tape off me and let me really teach you. We can be friends.”
“Friends?”
The kid’s face went blank a moment. “Donna, Dylan, what do you think?” He appeared to be listening, eyes blinking madly, head cocked. “Yeah, I agree.”
“What?”
The young man smiled sadly for a moment, leaning toward Werther’s bound hands with the palette scraper poised above them. “They think you’re lying.”
“Who?”
“My friends.”
“I’m not.”
The young man regarded his own paintings stacked neatly on the floor, the black-and-white cityscape on top. “I know what you think, that black and white is
boring,
that
I’m
boring. Donna says you’re lying to make me feel bad. And Donna always knows.” He picked up the black-and-white painting from the floor. “
You
say it’s only black and white, but Donna says it’s got lots of color, beautiful color.” He snared a jar of raw pigment off the paint table, unscrewed the cap and emptied it over Werther’s head, instantly turning the artist into a member of the Blue Man Group. “You look good.” He laughed. “You’re all magic mint. And now…” He stood back, assessing Werther as one would a work of art, and whipped a tube of paint off the table, crushed it in his palm, bright red paint squirting all over Boyd Werther’s face and chest. “So what color is that, huh?”
“It’s…red.”
“Liar!”
“No, I”
“You don’t know green when you see it?
You?
Who sleeps, dreams, and eats color!” He snatched up another tube, gripped Werther’s chin until the artist’s jaw muscles opened, crammed the tube of paint into the artist’s mouth and squeezed it dry, tossed it to the floor, grabbed another, squeezed, and another, and another, a veritable rainbow of colors spewing from Werther’s mouth, dripping over his chin, onto his shirt, and into his lap.
Werther was gagging, but still breathing when the idea hit the kidthat he was about to lose a rare opportunity, and with a genuine artist. He let go of Werther’s jaw, scrambled through his backpack while the artist gasped and sputtered for breath, then turned back and with one fast stroke slit Werther’s belly wide open, and in that instant the room exploded around him with the most magnificent and luscious color he had ever seen, ever imaginedfuchsia and salmon and razzmatazzand he scooped up handfuls of bloody entrails that spilled over the artist’s legs and raced from one of Werther’s huge canvases to another, smudging and drawing, swirling the stuff in big broad strokes.
It took a long, agonizing time for Boyd Werther to die. He watched, unable to speak as the crazed young man scooted between his bleeding body and the canvas, dipping his hands into his open belly, using his blood and guts to create a painting, which, just before his vision failed, he realized looked very much like the Soutine print,
Carcass of Beef,
which lay on the floor beside his feet.
The young man was getting tired running back and forth, wanted more of the precious medium at his disposal, plucked a coffee can from the paint table, held it under the blood that poured out of the artist’s gut, then snatched a brush off the artist’s palette and went carefully from painting to painting, writing and identifying everything, until the gorgeous scarlet blood started turning pink and all the color in the room began to pale, and then, just then, as the room was fading to a wan gray, he heard the gate of the industrial elevator slam shut, and turned, his hands like raw steaks, out in front of him, dripping, and went for his knife as the front door of Boyd Werther’s studio swung open.
T
he humid Texas air coiled itself around her like a cocoon the moment the airport’s automatic doors had shut, but Kate’s brain was still buzzing. She had not been able to relax the entire flight from New York, thoughts of Richard, the withdrawn funds, Noreen Stokes’s accusations, all of it refusing to quit, especially that rainy Bronx night, and all the senseless bloodshed. Kate kept replaying the moment when Angelo Baldoni was coming toward her, his gun aimed at her, and recalled that for a brief moment she had thoughtyes, shoot me, do it, have it over, it’s fine, that she would be happy to join her husband. And yet she had been the one who fired the fatal shots. Perhaps Mitch Freeman was wrong after all. Perhaps some small part of her wanted to live.
A honking horn interrupted Kate’s thoughts, and she was relieved to see her friend waving from a car window.
Marianne Egbert, curator at the Rothko Chapel, had been a friend since they’d met at New York’s famed Art Institute, both returning studentsMarianne after a bad marriage and worse divorce, Kate after ten years on the Astoria force.
“It feels like August,” said Kate, as she got into the car.
“You’re in Texaaasss, honey chile,” Marianne drawled, then got quiet, and when she next spoke her tone was completely serious. “How are you doing?”
“I’ve been better.” Kate sighed. “But listen, I’m here for all of one day and one night, and if it’s okay with you I just want to forget my life, okay?” She leaned back against the padded leather headrest.
“Your crew is all set for tomorrow. Sorry we can’t give them more than a couple of hours, but it’s the best we can do.”
“Not a problem,” said Kate. “All they need to do is pan the room and the paintings, film me walking around for a few minutes. I can add what I need in a voice-over once I’m home. Truthfully, I could have done it all at home, but I needed a break. Any chance of me getting a few minutes in the chapel alone?”
“Why don’t you go before your crew arrives,” said the curator. “I think there’s gotta be some really good karma floating around in there. His Holiness the Dalai Lama and six or seven other religious leaders were just in there praying for world peace.”
“Hope it works,” said Kate.
Marianne peeled away from the curb and merged into the stream of traffic. “Come on. Let me buy you a Texas-sized margarita.”
“I’ll take two,” said Kate.
C
lare Tapell rubbed her tired eyes and stared at the eccentric downtown skyline through the windows of her One Police Plaza office. The meeting with the mayor had not gone well. Clearly, this case could ruin her.
A madman eviscerating hookers was one thing, and horrible, no question. But an innocent kid, an art student, and now a world-famous artist and his assistantclearly, this could not continue.
“Do your job.”
The mayor’s words.
His meaning had been clear. If she did not do her job, she might be out of one. And with her reappointment only months away, the mayor could use this case as an excuse to get rid of her if he wanted toand she knew he did.
Lately the press hadn’t been kind to Chief Tapell. There was criticism of her plan to merge a few stations to cut costs, and that small but unpleasant scandal only six months agotwo Upper West Side cops running drugs out of their precinct’s evidence roomand now the threats of a citywide police strike.
Damn it, she needed this case resolved, and not in a few weeks.
Tapell sighed, looked away from the window and back at the prelims on Boyd Werther’s murder. All indicators pointed to the painterly unsub. She noted the fact that there had been no break-in, that Werther had obviously let his attacker in, which either meant he knew him, or that his assailant had not posed a threat.
Why was that?
An artist murderedand not just any artist. An artist Kate McKinnon knew.
Was that a coincidence?
No question Kate had to have a look at this.
Kate.
Tapell had to admit she was not unhappy that Kate had screwed up and been thrown off the case. She’d half expected her to come begging, or threatening to be reinstated. But Kate hadn’t done that.
So now what?
Tapell laced her fingers together and stared out the window.
Would Kate really have blown the whistle? Tapell couldn’t be sure. Funny, she thought, how life so often played tricks on you. Kate hadn’t even asked, and now she was going to have to put her back on the case.
T
he Houston sky was a mix of clouds and sun, not as hot this morning, as Kate pulled herself out of the cab, head aching. Two margaritas? More like four over the course of the evening, when she’d poured her heart out to her old friend. The drinks had seemed like a good idea. At the time.
Kate gulped the last of her second Starbucks coffee, found a trash bin, dumped the cup, and headed toward the Rothko Chapel.
She’d been here years ago as a student, with a crowd of art history majors who had annoyed the hell out of her with all their talk, dissecting the paintings, the building, and a lecturer who kept up a steady stream of dates and facts: commissioned by the wealthy Texas art patrons Dominique and John de Menil; the names of the various architects, including Philip Johnson, who had resigned because the artist was so difficult; the project begun in 1965, completed in 1971, a year after the artist’s death; Rothko’s fee of $250,000, a ton of money for an artist at the time. All of it was still fresh in her mind, though during this visit there would be no one saying it out loud to disturb her.
Kate made her way past the reflecting pool and Barnett Newman’s twenty-six-foot steel balancing act of a sculpture,
Broken Obelisk,
as the pale red facade of the chapel came into view, offering little explanation of its contents or purposeno signs, no steps, no windows, no religious symbols of any kind. Though conceived as a Roman Catholic chapel, it had become a site for all religions, described by its patron as a “universal sanctuary.”
The guard was waiting for her; glanced at his clipboard and then at the driver’s license Kate offered as ID. He smiled. “You got the chapel all to yourself. Ms. Egbert said she’d see y’all after the taping.” He tugged one of the heavy black wooden doors open. “You’ve got about a half hour before the TV crew comes in,” he said, taking a seat beside the doors that led into the actual chapel, which Kate pushed through and let close behind her.
Silent.
Womblike.
Enigmatic.
Kate walked swiftly, eyes on her feet, not wanting to see anything until she was in the center of the room, then looked up, and allowed the octagonal space to embrace her.
The fourteen large paintings that covered the walls did a slow dance, moving forward, then back, deep dark maroons and blacks, playing a sly game of hide-and-seek. Kate could almost feel them breathing. When she focused on the paintings in front of her, the ones behind petitioned for attention; to the right and left, more of Rothko’s enormous works filled every part of her visioncanvases begging for interpretation where none seemed possible, shadowy rectangles empty of image and explanation. Endless black. One minute inviting. The next forbidding. A promise. An abyss.
Kate swayed a bit, took a deep breath, felt trapped, eyes searching shadowy surfaces that offered no answers and certainly no consolation.
Is that what she was looking for, consolation? But for what? Exactly what was it she was searching for?
Answers, of course. For a husband who had left without good-bye, without explanation.
Kate’s eyes slid over murky maroons, fell into mottled blacks.
Was Richard responsible for his own death, or simply a victim? She peered into the ebony slabs and wondered if his murder would remain as remote and mystifying as these paintings.
Oh, Richard.
Kate glanced up at the skylight as if asking the heavens, and through the metal baffle could see banks of clouds rushing past as if on a mission, then back at the paintings, impenetrable, holding on to their secrets, the artist having stripped the work of subject matter, of almost everything.
Here were the most sophisticated works of art, paintings that operated in the absence of all color, objects for meditation, vessels to fall into, to reflect. Mark Rothko, a difficult, remote, and dedicated artist, had chosen not to seduce the viewer with gorgeous color, but instead to take it away, leave you on your own to confront yourself in these monoliths of despair.
Those fast-moving clouds were passing over the skylight, illuminating and dimming the room as if God were playing with a light switch, painted black surfaces opaque one moment, smoky veils the next. Kate looked up, and at that moment the clouds parteda blast of sunlight. She was momentarily blinded, then blinking, the paintings flipping back and forthblack, white, positive, negativewhile other paintings winked in her mind, the total opposite of Rothko’s: brash color, words like a map beneath them. Kate shut her eyes and when she opened them for a split second, the chapel was stark white againas if she were blind.
Blind. Yes. Of course. He’s blind.
But was that possible? That the killer was blind? If that was true, how could he commit his heinous crimes or paint at all? No, that wasn’t it. Kate blinked again, and when her vision returned she was staring into one of Rothko’s colorless black voids, and then she had it: He wasn’t blind. He was color blind. Of course. The screwed-up color, the wordsred, green, wild watermelon, razzmatazzwritten beneath the colored areas like a guide, each painting obviously some kind of test for himself.
How simple. That’s whom they were looking fora color-blind painter.
The sun retreated, grays returning to solid blacks, veils becoming vaults, secrets sucked back into the void.
Color blind, thought Kate, staring into one of Rothko’s hollow black paintings.
She was trying to think it through when her cell phone broke the chapel’s silence.
Thank God no one else was there.
How odd, thought Kate, recognizing the number, that Brown should be calling her just when she wanted to call him.
“I can’t really talk,” she said, whispering. “I’m in a chapel, in Houston.”
“Texas?”
“Last time I checked.”
“Why? Never mind. Doesn’t matter. When are you coming back?”
“Later. Today. Why?”
“I need you here, at the station.”
“I thought I was out.”
“You are. Well, you
were
.” Brown took a breath. “But something’s happened.”
