Death of an Artist (26 page)

He was being dismissed, Dale thought with his fury mounting. He stalked to the door of Moulton's office. “If the tsunami gets them all, then by default I'd be the executor, because no one else would be left. Is that how you see it?”

“That would be the only way I could state with certainty that you would be the executor,” Moulton said coldly. “But, Mr. Oliver, don't hedge any bets by counting on an act of God to end this dilemma.”

He should have pounded him on the spot, Dale thought angrily. He should have told him to shut the fuck up and found himself a different lawyer. One not so cool and superior, not so goddamn condescending. The only reason that bastard had even gone to Marnie was because he had planned to go to the coast on Friday anyway, to spend a few days with his family at their coast cabin.

And Marnie shut the door in his face. That bitch, he thought savagely. She was out to screw him over, her and Van both. They'd turned Freddi against him, had her doing their dirty work.

All his life, ever since he was a kid, the women around him had been out to screw him over. Ever since his stupid sister won her first beauty contest when she was ten and he was twelve, he had been the invisible kid in the family. Things had been good before that. They all played games together. Christ! They even played with his old man's crazy sound-effect tapes, taking roles, reading the lines, laughing at the result when they played them back. Then that beauty contest.

His mother and sister, all they could think about after that was her next beauty contest. Screwing him over, all of them, and nothing had changed since then. One woman after another out for all she could get.

Even Jasmine, as good as he'd been to her, would have left without a wave of her hand. She had not been cheap. It was her fault he was in trouble now.

He got up and went to the bar in the living room to make a drink. All right, he told himself, he was in a jam, but he could handle it. His artists were too flaky to count on. They made promises to deliver and went camping or to visit family in Montana or some damn place. A sick kid, or someone needed to go to practice. Always something. Damn slackers. There was still one who might come through in a couple of days, and he had two more artists he had been talking into signing on, and they would bring in eight grand. In a few weeks, not this week.

He had to have twelve thousand dollars in hand when the auditor finished and made his report. Probably on Monday or Tuesday. Rent was due on the first and the lease payment on the car. Another three thousand. He had ten days' grace period for them both, but not a day more than that. He could handle all that one way or another, but it was that son of a bitch Delacroix who was being a pain in the ass. He had money, he didn't need any more right now.

Dale needed the gallery. He met people, rich people, people who counted, and they respected an art gallery owner, looked up to him, invited him to lunch, introduced him to others. Delacroix had the gall to refer to the termination clause in the contract. Not a direct threat, he was too cowardly to come right out and say it, but the threat was there, and if that miserly old man got serious, Dale would be out on his ass.

Dale sat at his desk with his eyes closed, drinking scotch. He could get out of the gallery problem if he had the money in hand. His wife had just died. He had been too distraught to think clearly, had made bookkeeping errors, had been careless. On-the-spot restitution, apologize, done.

It was the bitch scarecrow's fault. If she hadn't got cute with her name, this would be over. He had sold four of her paintings to Global Greetings, an easy ten thousand, and no one had missed them. His contact at Global wanted more as soon as he could deliver. Executive cards, he had said. High-class material for CEO types. Fourteen more right away, Dale had decided, and then slow it down, way down. And raise the ante. If Global balked, a zillion others were out there.

No cash advance on his credit cards was available, and he had sold or pawned just about everything with enough value to make it worthwhile. Pennies on the dollar that fed his rage every time he had to go that way.

The other two, he thought then. Olson and Orsini. He could get cash advances on them, ten thousand total. He had used them for Internet stuff, never in person, not since leaving New Jersey, and they both had bank accounts with enough cash to cover them and keep them active, just in case.

He sat drinking scotch, thinking of his Jersey days, the dealership, the used-car lot. He had been treated like some kind of low-life scum. No more. Never again! He thought about Ernie “the Get Guy” Kavitch.

Minutes later he drained his glass, looked up Ernie's number, and placed a call.

“Hey, Ernie,” he said when the gruff voice he remembered came on the line. “Dan Olson. How're you doing?”

There was a long pause. He could imagine Ernie sifting through names for a match. Then Ernie said, “Danny! Danny Olson, where you been keeping yourself? Haven't seen you around?”

“West Coast,” Dale said. “In the art racket. You know, buy and sell art. Buy a piece here, there, wherever it turns up. You know anyone with a … a piece of art to sell? Tacoma, Seattle, someplace like that?”

Another pause. “Maybe,” Ernie said. “Give me a number. I'll call you back.”

*   *   *

A
FTER
TALKING
TO
Marnie, Tony considered the time element. It was one-thirty. Moulton might get back to Portland in time to report to Dale that evening, or he could call him, or put it off until the next day. Then, once again, it would be Dale's turn to move. Tony was deep in thought when he left his apartment a few minutes later, to walk down to the motel access road, and his favorite spot on the coast, the basalt rocks overlooking tide pools. He regarded it as his thinking spot as he had come to dislike his small apartment more all the time.

The tide was going out he saw when he reached his chosen rock. One day he would make it when the tide was inward bound, and a storm pushing it hard. He would have to stop much higher on the trail, but it would be good to see the waves breaking high against the surrounding cliffs, to be that close, yet safe. He had to get a tide table, he thought, and remembered that he had thought the same thing quite often, then repeatedly forgotten to pick one up.

Okay, Dale's move, he thought again, sitting where the wind didn't reach him, on rocks warmed by the sun but not facing directly into it. A good place to sit, to meditate, to plot.

Dale might have a grace period to pay his debtors, but it would not be for long, and the only way he could raise enough money was by selling a dozen, two dozen, possibly even more, of Stef's paintings to the corporation he had a contract with. He didn't know where the paintings were, so he couldn't go in and help himself. He would know that Marnie was using every stall available to keep him on the outside. The only way around that was to get rid of Marnie, and to do it before she had a chance to update her will, to name Van as the executor of the artwork in the event of her own death or incapacitation.

Tony doubted that Dale considered Van to be much of a hindrance. Her whole future as a doctor was at risk if she became involved in a prolonged struggle here. And she had not yet been designated a possible future executor of the art estate.

In any event, Dale would have to move soon, as soon as he could conceive of a workable plan. Tony believed he would make his move to coincide with the Fourth of July.

And he had to make his own plan to deal with that. He watched a retreating wave, the foam that formed, then vanished in the wet sand, leaving a new tide pool exposed. A new wave recovered the tide pool, retreated. Then another … He blinked as a little girl ran to the newly uncovered tide pool. He had not noticed any others on the tiny beach until she moved.

Abruptly he stood up and rubbed his eyes. They had been playing tricks on him. No one was on the strip of beach. Yet, he had been watching a wraithlike little girl with wild, wind-tangled hair darting from one tide pool to another. “Jesus God,” he muttered, and shook his head. She had been almost transparent, quick as lightning dashing from pool to pool, and he had watched her, followed her actions.

He had so focused on her, so concentrated on her, that not a single thought had occurred to him. He had not come up with any plan of his own. He rubbed his eyes again. He did not want that painting in his house, he realized. He did not want that ghost child running from tide pool to tide pool anyplace near him, haunting his dreams. Let that spectral child haunt someone else.

He started back up the stairlike basalt rocks, away from illusions, from ghosts, back to the real world.

At eight that night Amory Gallingsworth called. He was the owner/manager of Surf's Up Motel, operated by him and his wife, and of course a cleaning crew, he had told Tony.

“He made a reservation,” Amory said in a low, conspiratorial voice. “He said he's Daniel Olson, and he wants a room for the Fourth. Me and Ruth talked about all this and we've been holding one room open, you know, just in case, and he did it, called for a reservation.”

“Good job,” Tony said. He suspected that Amory and Ruth craved a little excitement, something to talk about later, be the center of attention for their fifteen minutes of fame. “One thing more. When he checks in, he'll give his car license number and make of car. I want you to call me as soon as you can and pass on the information. This is going to make all the difference, Amory. Many thanks.”

“Oh, we want to help, Tony. We really do want to help. I'll call you the instant he leaves the front desk. The very instant he leaves.”

“Uh, Amory, just don't do anything to make him think we're onto him. You know, act excited or treat him in any special way. Just be yourself. Okay?”

“You bet, Tony. Just another overnight customer. That's all, just another tired traveler. I get it.”

Tony sat on his balcony after the call, but his mind kept drifting, he kept seeing
Feathers and Ferns,
and a little transparent girl searching tide pools,
Ladies in Waiting,
harsh, brutal landscapes … and finally he gave up trying to force his shutdown brain to function. He went inside and channel-hopped on TV, then he surfed the Web aimlessly until he decided to go to bed, put it all away for the night. Sleep. It was elusive, a long time coming.

 

20

T
ONY
WAS
IN
the shop when Dave McAdams arrived on the morning of July 2. Dave grunted, cleared his throat, and asked, “How's it going?”

“Pretty well. I need thinking time. I'll finish up with those chair legs today, and think.” No more surfing the Internet, no more sitting around brooding, just do something, he had decided, and he had gone to the shop.

Dave grunted again and nodded. He understood that. He did some pretty heavy thinking himself while his hands kept busy doing what needed to be done. He knew that feeling, that way of getting to the middle of a problem.

The day passed swiftly, leaving Tony as relaxed as a punctured balloon, and as thoughtless. It was strange, he thought a little later, no plan was in his head, no coherent plan of what he was going to do overall, but he knew what he had to do next. One step at a time, he told himself. Just one baby step at a time.

He went to Tom's Fine Foods and ordered fish-and-chips to go. It was nearly impossible to find a table or booth as the heat wave continued in the valley and the Fourth approached, sending more and more people to the cool coast for relief and to celebrate. He took his dinner home and ate on his balcony, and that night he slept well.

He had learned Chief Will Comley's habits almost as well as Marnie knew them, and he dropped in at ten on the morning of July 3.

“Got a few minutes, Chief?”

Will was delighted to be having company, as always. “Sure, Tony. Come on in. Let me get you some coffee. Anything new with Marnie's problem?”

“Maybe,” Tony said, taking the extra chair, accepting Will's terrible coffee with a polite thanks.

At his “maybe” Will's eyes narrowed as he took his own chair behind his desk and leaned forward expectantly. “What do you have?”

“A very long shot, but what the hell, we're trained to pay attention to them all, aren't we? Long shots, sure things. They all need looking at. Isn't that how it goes?”

Will nodded emphatically. “That's how she plays, all right. Tell me about it.” There was almost a pitiful, plaintive note in his voice, as if he really doubted that Tony had any intention of telling him anything important.

“That's what I'm here for,” Tony said. He put his coffee mug down on the desk and leaned forward, lowered his voice a little, and said, “I think it's a break, but like I said, it could be a wash, and it's definitely a long shot. I need backup, help.”

“Tony, you've got it! All the way, partner. Whatever it is, you got it.”

“Thanks. You know I've been poking around in Dale Oliver's past, just routine, but sometimes routine pays off. I called a guy I know back East and asked him if they had anything on Oliver, and he called back later and said maybe. They wanted to ask him questions five years ago, and he sort of disappeared before they got to it. There was a scam going at a used-car lot connected with a dealership where Oliver was the business manager. Bummer cars, cars that had been flooded, cleaned up a little, were being sold to the locals. Seems some aliases were being used to cover up how the cars had been acquired, at salvage auction, and they were being passed off as individually owned vehicles from around the state. Two of the aliases, they believed, were being used by Dale Oliver. One called himself Daniel Olson, and the other one was Dominick Orsini. Along about then Oliver came into some money and he took off for a few months in Europe. Then he came out here. They didn't have enough to put out an APB and it was dropped.”