Murder as a Fine Art (21 page)

“It does have its moments,” Laura, lying naked beside him on the bed, conceded with a smile.

“I want it to have more than moments. A lot more.” Richard turned his head to look at her. “I don't want this to end when we leave the colony. If it's all right with you I could spend time with you in Denver. Serious time. I'm completely portable. I can write wherever I happen to be, and all I need to carry on my business is a cell phone and fax machine. How about it?”

“We could try it,” Laura said slowly.

“That's all I can ask for.” Richard gave a deep sigh of relief that turned into a gasp as her cool lips began to travel down the length of his body.

O
n Sunday morning, John Smith stood on the proscenium stage of the Eric Harvie Theatre and gazed out at the amphitheatre of empty seats. On Tuesday night they would be filled with people curious to see what his “revelation” would bring. He was sure the Mounted policewoman would be there. The plainclothes detectives who had invaded the campus in the first few days after the fire, then disappeared from the scene, would almost certainly be present as well. His publicity campaign had really snowballed; the switchboard was jammed with inquires about the performance. People were even driving up from Calgary to see the show. He should have been selling tickets, but money wasn't important. What was important was that his recital, preserved on videotape, would become one of the icons of performance art. But there was still much to be done.

As if in answer to his unspoken thoughts, Charlene, a proud, possessive smile on her face, led
Jeremy out from the wings. “I told Jeremy about our being short-handed, and he volunteered to help. He really knows his way around a theatre.”

John Smith, not altogether pleased with the fond looks his assistant was bestowing on the bearded playwright, stared at the unlikely twosome. “I thought you specialized in ‘bridge and tunnel' theatres,” he finally muttered.

“They're still theatres. With exactly the same equipment this one has. I've done everything from prop man to stagehand to director, but,” Jeremy shrugged, “if you don't want my help, I've got other things to do.”

John Smith was about to turn away in dismissal when the mutinous look on Charlene's face warned him that she might leave along with Jeremy. He couldn't afford to lose her. Not at this point. Besides, he really could use another pair of hands. Particularly experienced hands. “Okay,” he conceded reluctantly, “I'll take you below and you can start working on some props.”

On the way to the underground workshop, they passed Desiré limbering up at the barre. Even in baggy warm-up pants and thick leggings, the tall, black dancer was spectacular. “Desiré will be a star after Tuesday night,” John Smith informed Jeremy in a voice loud enough for the dancer to hear. She smiled into the mirror behind the barre and gave him a thumbs up with her free hand. “Her costumes will blow the men right out of their seats,” he went on as they waited for the elevator to take them down to the subterranean depths of the theatre. “And some of the women too,” he added as the elevator door slid open.

The props in the workshop were unlike any Jeremy had ever seen. A giant red dragon leaned against a tall gilded altar. Next to it stood an altar of a very different kind — a wooden pole surmounted with a conical
thatched roof. Doll heads, painted white, dangled from hooks, and bottles of rum and black candles were arranged on a breast-high circular shelf. Even to Jeremy's uninformed eye, it smacked of voodoo. Or at least John Smith's version of it. Doubtless, this was where Desiré would star. Jeremy felt a stirring in his crotch at the thought.

John Smith handed him a can of gold paint and told him to start putting a second coat on some wooden trumpets. “After you finish that,” he said, “you can start on the swords. Silver for the blades and black for the handles.” The performance artist went over to another workbench where he picked up a half-finished mask and began to work on it.

“You're a fast worker,” allowed John Smith with grudging approval as Jeremy hung the last sword on a hook to dry. “Do you know how to use a power saw?”

“Show me a prop man who doesn't.”

“Good. You can start cutting out spears. Here's the pattern. We need six of them.”

“I hear John Smith's got you building props.” The cashier with the earring and taped eyeglasses smiled at Jeremy as he punched numbers into the cash register. “That's great, man.”

“It's great to be back in a theatre again. There's nothing else in the world to compare with it.”

“That's where I'm going to spend my life.” The cashier stuck out his hand. “Justin Sterling is my name. I'll see you over at the theatre later this afternoon.”

“Now there's a name that will look great on a marquee,” said Jeremy as they shook hands. And undoubtedly chosen for that very reason, he thought to himself.
“I've never seen props quite like that before,” he went on. “Have you seen the script?”

The cashier stared at him. “Script? With a performance artist? It's all in John Smith's head, and he keeps changing it as he goes along.”

The other cashier hissed, “Break it up, Justin. The customers are getting impatient.”

Jeremy smiled apologetically at the line-up behind him and picked up his tray.

“Let's knock off for a beer. We deserve it.” A fine dusting of sawdust flew up as Jeremy brushed the front of his sweater. They were in the workshop in the basement of the theatre building.

“Give me a moment to finish this skirt.” Charlene rapidly stapled the two pieces of patterned paper together, and said, “Okay, let's go,” as she set the finished skirt aside.

Jeremy had been surprised to find that most of the costumes were made of paper. Charlene had explained that they had neither the skills nor the money to use cloth. “Besides,” she added, “John Smith likes the idea. He says the paper costumes will add to the ephemeral, impermanent nature of the performance. It's only meant to be given once, not like a regular play.”

“Some of my plays have that ephemeral quality, too,” grinned Jeremy as they walked along an underground passage leading to a door that opened beside the orchestra pit. He opened the door and they stepped out onto the main concourse in front of the ascending rows of seats. Above them on the stage John Smith and Desiré were working on a routine. Desiré, now wearing a black body stocking, bounded about the stage in soaring, graceful leaps. She carried a wooden spear,
similar to the ones Jeremy had just finished making, and lunged at John Smith as she flew by in ever decreasing circles. John Smith, who appeared to be in some sort of a trance, stared unblinkingly out at the empty amphitheatre. If he was aware of Jeremy and Charlene gazing up at him, he gave no sign.

Charlene and Jeremy's eyes met as they turned away. “We both want her, don't we?” murmured Jeremy. “Maybe we can both have her.”

“You mean together?” Charlene's voice was a choked whisper. The slapping, slithering sound of Desiré's slippers followed them as they walked up the aisle.

“You'd like that, wouldn't you?” asked Jeremy.

“I think so,” she replied uncertainly. “Do you think you can make it happen?”

“It's worth a try.” But Charlene didn't hear him. “Oh, my God,” she muttered. She was staring across the foyer at a black and white poster pinned to the wall, “I forgot about Malvina's performance. It's on right now. She'll kill me if I don't show up. Literally. But there's still time.”

“Where is it? I'll come with you.”

“At the gallery. But I don't think it would be a good idea for us to go in together. You can come in a few minutes after me.”

Intrigued, Jeremy followed Charlene as she hurried across the campus to the Walter Phillips Gallery. On the way, she told him that Malvina was a student in the art department and that the performance was her graduation project. “I used to see quite a lot of her and I don't want her to see us together.” She motioned him to stand back as she opened the door to the gallery.

Grinning to himself, Jeremy counted slowly to sixty before following her in. A figure, looking like a cross between an astronaut and a deep-sea diver, hung
suspended by steel cables from the ceiling of the hallway outside the main gallery. The cables were attached to a harness fitted under her crotch. Malvina, for a sign propped against a wall proclaimed that's who it was, was clad in shiny metallic-looking material. A heavy-featured, mournful face stared out from under a football helmet painted silver. The artist was an extremely large woman; Jeremy estimated her at six-foot-two and at least one hundred and eighty pounds. Thin wires ran over pulleys and down to a small booth, open on two sides.

The booth was empty and Charlene slipped inside and, after a quick glance at the brief instructions taped to a wall, reached for one of the levers. An electric motor whirred to life, the cable slipped down a notch and, with much clanking of metal, Malvina began to roll forward. Charlene shoved the lever forward and Malvina stopped with a sudden jerk, swinging on the wires like a giant pendulum. Charlene pulled another lever, and Malvina shot back up, helmeted head almost banging into the ceiling. A sideways movement of the lever and she began to rotate. There was a sudden shower of sparks and the electric motor short-circuited. Charlene, her face ashen, emerged from the booth and headed straight for the door, without looking back at her outsize friend dangling from her disabled contraption.

“It had to be me,” Charlene wailed when Jeremy caught up to her. “I had to be the one at the controls when everything blew up.”

“She can get down all right. All they have to go is lower the cables.”

“I know. But that's not the point. She'll be furious. She's been working on that project for months.”

“What was it all about, anyway? It looked like some weird form of torture.”

“It is supposed to be an exploration of the body in relation to space. Malvina's big on exploring the body.”

“She's got a lot to explore,” interjected Jeremy.

Charlene ignored the quip. “She would deny that her project has anything to do with torture. But, of course, it does. Deliberately rendering yourself helpless, and providing the machinery for other people to jerk you around is sheer masochism.”

She hesitated at the foot of the steps leading up to the Sally Borden Building. “Maybe we should forget that beer and go back to work. There's still an awful lot to do.”

“I need that beer. My throat feels like sandpaper after inhaling all that sawdust.”

“Okay. But just one.”

“The motor giving up like that wouldn't bother your friend John Smith,” Jeremy said as he plunked two draft beers down on the table. “He'd simply make it a part of his act.”

“There's a world of difference between what you saw back there and John Smith. He's a master artist while Malvina is still an amateur trying to figure out which way she wants to go. John Smith is a perfectionist. If something goes wrong in one of his acts it's because it was meant to.”

“Really? I've seen some stuff of his that looks pretty crude and handmade. That donkey head of his for one. And his elkmobile. That's just an elk hide draped over a bicycle with antlers tied to the handlebars.”

“That's how those things are supposed to look. It's a form of abstraction. You'll see what I mean on Tuesday. He's going to push everything right to the edge.”

“For example?”

“Are you pumping me, Jeremy?”

“Not at all. But when somebody makes a statement like you just did about John Smith going to the
edge, they should be prepared to back it up with a for instance.”

“You remind me of a lawyer I once knew.”

“He was right.”

“It wasn't a he.”

“Sorry. I should have known better.”

“I'll tell you this much. He's going to be playing with fire.”

“Fire? With all those paper costumes.” Jeremy's fingers combed his beard. “That's pretty close to the edge all right. Do the authorities know about this?”

“No. And they're not to know. I shouldn't have told you. Promise that you won't tell anyone.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“Justin will be standing in the wings with a fire extinguisher. When we get to the fire part.”

“The skinny cashier? With the earring? Now that's what I call reassuring.”

L
aura held the elevator door open for Norrington. He was wearing a bathrobe over his swim trunks and was bound for his daily late afternoon session in the pool. He smiled his thanks and nodded distantly to Richard as he stepped in. The small, glassed-in elevator offered a scenic view of Bow Valley on the short ride to the ground floor of the Sally Borden Building. They parted company in the lobby, Norrington going down the stairs to the pool, while Laura and Richard went into the lounge.

“Oh, oh! The pool's closed. Henry won't like that,” said Richard, looking down at the deep end of the pool where technicians were stringing up lights and loud speakers.

“That'll be for Joyce's show tonight. We promised to attend. Remember?”

“Thanks for reminding me. Hey, get a load of this.”

Norrington, an impressive sight in fluorescent yellow trunks, shiny brown bathing cap, and dark goggles,
strode purposefully along the edge of the pool, ignoring the frantic protests of the pool attendant who danced along in front of him. Arriving at the deep end, he dove in and began to swim with a powerful breast-stroke. Nothing was allowed to interfere with his daily ritual of swimming fifty laps.

“If one of those lamps falls into the pool, he's toast,” muttered Richard. But the supervisor was waving his arms at the crew, telling them to shut everything down. Henry swam serenely on.