Innocent Monster (11 page)

“Come on, Sonia,” he said, “you know the market for Sashi’s stuff is back through the roof. Don’t come in here and try and cut me off at the knees. We’ve been doing business with each other too long for that.”

“Thirty is as high as I’m going to go for this.”

He laughed, but not because he was really amused. “Sonia, Sonia, Sonia... I happen to know you paid fifty last year for ‘Red Waves’ to that collector in Ojai.”

“That was last year, Randy.”

“And this isn’t ‘Red Waves.’ ‘Lime Ocean Blue’ is the real thing and the subtlety of it shows Sashi was maturing as an artist.”

Randy Junction’s “was” stuck in my craw. They were talking about Sashi Bluntstone as if she were already dead and they were picking over the prime cuts of her carcass. I could have smacked him and kicked Sonia Barrows-Willingham in the ass. I chose to bide my time instead. Martyr was right: the vultures were circling, darkening the sky, ready to cash in on Sashi’s death. And while I wasn’t ready to write Martyr any love letters or apologies, he suddenly seemed less detestable somehow. At least his loathing and cynicism were on display for the world to see, not hidden in whispers in the corner of a low-rent art gallery.

“All right, Randy. Forty.”

Junction couldn’t have hidden his smile with an iron mask. “Forty-five.” His heart wasn’t in it, but he figured it was worth a try.

“Forty.” Sonia reached into her million dollar handbag and pulled out her checkbook and Mont Blanc. “Shall I start writing or walking?”

“Writing, of course.”

There would have been some advantage to surprising them and confronting them in public, but surprise can be overrated. I wanted a little more information before I went after them and I wanted them separately. Besides, I’d overheard their conversation and they could no more retreat from it tomorrow or the next day as they could today. Junction would have her money and she would have the painting and they could both rot in hell.

“Here’s your check,” she said, tearing it off and handing it to him. She didn’t look particularly pleased, but she looked like the type of woman who never seemed particularly pleased about anything. She probably blinked when she orgasmed... if she orgasmed.

“Thank you, Sonia. Your paintings will be delivered tomorrow as always.”

Paintings? When Sonia Barrows-Willingham left, I watched Junction place little red “sold” stickers on the white description placards next to three of Sashi’s paintings. Randy Junction was practically floating as he walked from painting to painting with his red stickers. I thought I’d use his good mood to my advantage.

“Excuse me, are you the gallery owner?”

“I am indeed. Randolph Junction. How may I assist you?”

“I’m not much for art myself,” I said. “One bunch of glops and drips is much like any other to me, but I’m an investor. I’ve got a nice portfolio, but that’s not the thing that gets me going. No, I like investing in things: diamonds, stamps, wine... I got a tip from a friend that I should check out some of this kid’s stuff.”

I thought Junction was going to ring like an old-fashioned cash register. “Your friend has a good eye.”

“My friend is color-blind and knows less about art than I do. What he knows is money and investments. So sell me, Junction.”

“All right, you seem like a man who wants to cut to the chase. The fact is that if you had walked in here a month ago, you could have bought every original in this gallery for about a hundred grand. Today, you couldn’t buy any three of them for that little.”

“Why’s that?”

For the first time since I entered, Randy Junction was off balance. He didn’t answer right away and nervously brushed his palms against each other.

“Don’t clam up on me now. I know the kid is missing,” I prodded.

“Well... look, if she doesn’t turn up,” his voice cracked, “the value will go sky high.”

“Okay, I appreciate your honesty. Have you got a card and some literature?”

Junction obliged, but he didn’t try to close me. There was no sales pitch with the handshake, no, “Maybe you want to buy one now, because if they find her body this evening...”

I gave him some credit for that, but not much. I told him we’d speak again soon and we would. Only the next time, it would be on my terms, terms he was bound not to like.

Someday I’d get Max and Candy home together, but it wasn’t going to be today. Today it was Max’s turn to be gone when I showed up and that was probably a good thing, because the time had come for me to explain about my needing Sashi’s last painting. But just before the thought was translated into nerve impulses and then into muscle commands to move my tongue and lips, I was struck by a second notion. It was something that was kicking around in my head since the night before. It occurred to me that
I
might not give a shit if Sashi or her late dog Cara or the UPS man actually did her paintings, but it might matter to someone else, someone who might be very pissed off if they found out, or someone who might have an interest in keeping the secret. Dead men tell no tales nor do little dead girls.

Candy seemed to be sliding down the hill lubricated by grief. The faint signs of optimism I’d seen in her face and heard in her voice were gone. Her eyes were red on red and the makeup she’d managed for her lover was nowhere in sight. Max may have gotten there before her, but she was catching up. Who knows what set her off, what finally made her take a stark look at the reality of things? Was it something Randy Junction whispered in her ear as he put himself inside her? Was it that I hadn’t been able to magically deliver her daughter to her in a matter of days? Or was it simply that she could read the calendar and there was no more fight left in her? Sometimes the why doesn’t matter in the face of what is.

“What is it Mr. Pra—Moe?”

“I found a source who might give me an opening. It’s the first real lead I have.”

But the grief had taken hold, so not even the hope I was offering, as faint and vague as it was, did much to lift Candy up.

“Might,” she said, “you said might.”

“My source wants his palms greased.”

Her eyes got wide. “Money?”

“No, honey. If it was as simple as money, I could take care of that. He wants paintings, four of Sashi’s paintings.”

She stared at me blankly as if I’d just spoken to her in a language she’d never heard before. Then she said, “Paintings?”

“Four: one from her early period, one from a few years back, a more recent one, and the one down in the basement... the last one she was working on.”

“Moe, I... we don’t have... I have to talk to Max about it.”

“Candy, I know this is hard for you, but I think we’ve got a real shot here to make some headway.”

“But we don’t have any of Sashi’s stuff anymore. I—”

I grabbed Candy’s forearm to get her full attention. “Listen to me. Go to Junction and go to Sonia Barrows-Willingham if you have to, but get those paintings for me by tomorrow.”

“How do you know about Sonia?”

“I used to be a PI, remember? That’s why you went to Sarah to come to me.”

“I don’t know if Sonia—”

“Then tell your boyfriend Junction to kick in the other three paintings.” That got her attention all right. “And no, I didn’t figure that out on my own. Max told me.”

Now it all came out in one awful rush: the tears, the grief, the vomit, the horror and relief of being found out. I got on the floor with her, rocked her, and held her head the way I used to with Sarah when she was sick. Only this kind of sickness, the sickness of a dying marriage and a missing child, wasn’t going to get better in a few days. I cleaned her up and put her into bed.

“I’ll be by tomorrow afternoon to get those paintings. Get them any way you have to, Candy.”

Then I kissed her forehead and closed her door behind me. Yeah, I lied to her, but I had a feeling the walls of this house had seen a lot of lying before I ever walked up those front porch steps.

Mary Lambert, flush with pride over having purchased a GPS at her firm’s expense, fairly demanded that she come to my end of Brooklyn for dinner. I wasn’t going to argue with her. The thought of seeing her again gave me that happy nervousness I hadn’t experienced since I’d been with Carmella. Like I said, I was no monk and there had been no shortage of women to warm the other side of my bed, but there hadn’t been any buzz with them beyond the buzz of bitterness. Dating always sucks, but dating in middle age sucks a whole lot worse because everyone involved has baggage, usually in the form of ex-spouses—either dead or divorced. You have no idea how much fun I had explaining that I had one of each. And even when the bitterness quotient was low, dinner conversation usually degenerated into a discussion of kids and grandkids or comparing whole-grain cereals and doses of Lipitor. Then, if dinner was nice enough, if there had been sufficient alcohol consumption, I’d wind up falling into bed with my dinner companion. You want to talk about baggage... Bed is the Broadway stage of baggage.
No, don’t turn me over. My husband always forced me into that position and even when I liked it I hated it.

I tried the younger woman thing for a while. That was even less successful because then most of the baggage was mine, and mine included a murdered ex-wife whom I still loved, an ex-wife I’m not sure I ever loved but still wanted, and enough secrets to choke the Trojan Horse. Besides, it was nearly impossible to find common ground with women my daughter’s age. And inevitably, within an hour or two, I wound up sounding paternal and/or professorial. I found out soon enough that no one finds it dead sexy when you utter the phrase, “Don’t worry, when you get to my age you’ll understand.” There were times, I confess, I yearned for those whole-grain cereal discussions and photos of the grandkids. Modern pharmacology notwithstanding, there are issues for men of a certain age beyond just staying hard. The nature of desire itself changes with time.

I made three phone calls while I waited for Mary Lambert. I put Jimmy Palumbo on alert that his services might be required in the coming days. He was eager for the work, for the two hundred dollars, and, he said, for another steak dinner. The next call was to Palumbo’s boss at the museum, Wallace Rusk. I didn’t figure to get him in the office, not if his security guard was already home. I left a message anyway. What I needed from him could wait until Candy got me those four paintings. Then I put in the call I was least looking forward to, the one to McKenna. Not that he’d kept his promise either—I’d checked my cell phone all throughout the day—but cops can have funny notions of whose job it is to do what. Hallelujah! I got his voice mail and left a message. I’d have to talk to him sooner or later. Every minute later was better.

I found myself looking out the front window of my condo at the moonlight reflecting off the black waters of Sheepshead Bay and beyond to Manhattan Beach. I’d lived here for a lot of years now. I had intended to move Carmella, Israel, and me into a nice house, but I never got the chance. The marriage started to crumble almost from the second we took our vows. Given that we were business partners, that she was pregnant with another man’s child, and that I was still reeling from Katy’s murder, it was a miracle we lasted fifteen minutes. And Carmella had a rage in her that dated back to a time before her name was Carmella or Melendez, to when she had been abused as a little girl. One time I asked her why she chose to spell her new first name with a double l, a very untraditional spelling for a Spanish speaker. She told me it was a final
Fuck you!
to her mother who had reacted with shame to the abuse. Talk about baggage... I should have known our marriage was a mistake. She should have known. We did know, both of us knew, but we did it anyway. Sometimes I think our stubbornness in the face of the facts is what defines human behavior.

The bell rang and the spell was broken. No more staring into the black waters, not tonight.

I pressed the talk button. “Hello.”

“It’s Mary.”

I buzzed her in and when she came up, I took her coat.

God, she looked spectacular and without trying. Or maybe that was the trick, to seem like you’re not trying. She wore a blue silk blouse that perfectly matched the shade of her eyes over loose fitting black slacks that still somehow managed to accentuate her curves. There was a little bit more makeup on her face than yesterday, but not too much. Between the makeup and the blouse her eyes made the rest of the room seem positively unlit.

“You look nice,” I said. I could be so articulate.

“As do you.”

“Come in. Red or white?”

I’d already selected one of each and had them waiting. They were both ridiculous, of course. It’s funny how I resented our customers who bought wines just to impress and here I was ready to pour a perfectly chilled Montrachet or the Château Mouton Rothschild I’d already decanted—purposely leaving the emptied bottle in plain sight for her to see. But until she stepped through my door, it hadn’t occurred to me that she might not drink wine or that if she did, her taste might run to Glen Ellen white zinfandel or strawberry wine coolers. My fears were allayed when she walked slowly past me and carefully inspected both bottles.