Shooting Gallery (15 page)

She barked in surprise and I squeaked in return. We gaped at each other for a long moment before I finally spoke. “I, uh—hi. I'm here to see Pascal. Is he in?”

“What, you was gonna jump him or sometin'?”

Not a hint of Bavaria in that accent. Bayonne, New Jersey, maybe.

“Whaddya want?” she demanded, eyeing me suspiciously.

“Um, yes, well, I was hoping to speak with Robert.”

“Whaddya wanna see him for?”

“He and I spoke yesterday,” I hedged. “He's an old friend of my parents.”

“Yeah, right, I'll bet,” she sneered, and from the expression on her face I half expected her to hawk a loogie and scratch her armpits. “Lissen, Miss Whoozits, Pascal don't have no friends far's I can see.”

“And you are . . . ?” To my surprise she answered.

“Evangeline.”

Of all the names in all the world, I wondered, how had she ended up with that one? “Evangeline” was a good name for a waif with flowing hair, rosy lips, and large doe eyes, the kind of romantic heroine who needed to be rescued as often as twice a day. This woman, in contrast, could face down a speeding Mack truck and probably come out ahead.

Evangeline held out a meaty paw and we shook hands vigorously.

“I'm Annie, Annie Kincaid.” I handed her one of the business cards I carried in my overalls pocket:

“What's foo—fox—fay-ucks?” she asked, puzzled.

“It's faux, rhymes with toe,” I said. “It means fake. Or, in Vietnamese, noodle, like
pho
.”

Evangeline stared blankly. “You make noodles?”

“No, I—” So much for my little joke. “I'm a painter.”

“Yeah, hokay, Annie,” she said in a friendly tone, and slipped the business card into her dusty jeans pocket. “How
you
doin'? So what's wit' the flowers?”

“I was trying to get Pascal to open the door.”

“Guess that worked hokay on me, huh?” she said with a snort. “Hey, hol' on—I thought you said you was friends wit' him.”

“Actually, my parents are his friends. But I did speak with him yesterday. Is he here?”

“Nope. Hadda go to a funeral. Wanna come in and wait?”

“Thanks,” I said, unsure what my next step should be. On the plus side, I was inside Pascal's studio and it had not taken six hours this time.

Evangeline set the flowers on the desk and my eyes flew to
Head and Torso
, which stood on a low pedestal in a pool of sunlight.

Correction. The sculpture looked a lot like
Head and Torso
but was not the one Pascal had shown me yesterday. And it wasn't just my freakish ability to recognize artwork that made me so sure. This piece was unfinished, the bottom left of the torso only roughly sculpted.

“Oops, I should pro'ly cover that,” Evangeline honked. “Nobody's s'pose ta see it. Grab that side, will ya?”

I was getting the distinct impression that Pascal had hired Evangeline for her brawn, not her brain. Leaning over to grab a corner of a drop cloth, I picked up a small chunk of marble about the size of a matchbox and slipped it into my overalls pocket. For all I knew, there could be a way to analyze stone the way one could study paint pigments. It was a long shot, but I didn't trust Pascal. Together Evangeline and I draped the cloth and arranged the folds until the ersatz
Head and Torso
was shrouded.

“Is this what you've been working on?” I asked innocently. “It's very nice.”

“I, uh,” she stammered. “Nah, this is an old sculpture in for repairs. I help Pascal wid de repair stuff.”

“Oh? Can I ask you something? Is there something wrong with Pascal's hands?”

“Ya mean like deformed?”

“No, like arthritis or something,” I clarified. “Maybe he takes some medications?”

“He seems okay when he's workin',” she said. “Onliest thing I ever seen him take was a little blue pill once in a while.”

Lord, I hoped that was not Viagra.
Now, Annie
, I scolded myself,
don't be closed-minded
. Maybe Evangeline was Pascal's mistress and I had stumbled into their love nest. Maybe Pascal was into big, beautiful, steroidal women, and Evangeline was into old, ugly, rude men. Maybe Pascal had not returned
Head and Torso
to the Hewetts because he wanted to offer the fruit of his youthful genius to his one true love, the fair Evangeline.

Said maiden was vigorously cleaning out one ear with a pinky finger, her eyes crossed.

“Do you sculpt, too?” I asked, averting my gaze.

“Um, yeah, sure. Mostly I do repairs with Pascal,” she insisted, her face reddening. She fidgeted with a chisel and avoided my eyes.

I wondered why she felt compelled to lie. The best way for a new artist to learn to sculpt or to paint was to work with an established artist; this had been true in the days of the Old Masters, and it remained so today. So why had Pascal denied having an assistant?

Silence descended as I groped for a way to get her to spill Pascal's secrets.

“You want somethin' to drink?” Evangeline offered. “A Coke or somethin'?”

“Yeah, thanks. A Coke would really hit the spot.”

“I like Pepsi better,” she confessed. “But Pascal said he can't work without Coke, so that's what I bought. But then he started complainin' it wasn't sweet enough. Geez.”

She disappeared behind a small partition separating a kitchen area from the rest of the studio, still grousing about the Coke versus Pepsi challenge. I took her absence as tacit permission to snoop and sidled over to an old-fashioned rolltop desk. Surrounded by cardboard boxes labeled by date in a bold handwriting, the desk was covered with a jumble of envelopes, folders, and bureaucratic whatnot in imminent danger of spilling to the floor. On top of the tallest pile were several pink invoices from the Mischievous Monkey Garden Supply. I recognized the name because last spring I had unleashed my arsenal of faux-finishing tricks to transform a truckload of their cheap cement statues into quaint “old” garden ornaments. But Pascal lived on the third floor of an industrial building surrounded by an asphalt parking lot. What would he need from the Mischievous Monkey Garden Supply?

Still, considering some of the artistic personalities I had encountered over the years, it could be just about anything. Maybe Pascal was experimenting with peat moss sculptures. Maybe he was indulging a lifelong passion for miniature bonsai trees. Maybe he liked to run his toesies through mounds of soft white sand.

Evangeline was vigorously chipping ice in the kitchenette, so I took a chance and picked up one of the pink sheets. It was not an invoice. It was a receipt for the delivery of ten plaster garden statues.

That was odd. Pascal's marble sculptures commanded top dollar from the best art galleries. Why would he be sculpting cheap plaster statuary for a garden supply store?

Evangeline appeared, carrying two large tumblers filled to the brim with chipped ice and cola. “Here's mud in your eye,” she said handing me one, and we clinked glasses. I savored the cold tingle on my tongue as I wandered around the studio, studying the maquettes that lay scattered about the worktables amidst empty containers of Cup o' Noodles.

“So what's it like to work with the famous Robert Pascal?” I queried in an offhand, girl-to-girl kind of way.

Evangeline looked dismayed, slurped her soda, and uncorked a belch that would have awed my nephews.

“'Sokay.” She shrugged. “I like California.”

“So do I!” I said inanely. “Where are you from?”

“Upstate New Yawk.”

“Did you move here to work with Pascal?”

“Yup.”

“Didn't he have a bad experience with an assistant a long time ago?”

“Dunno,” she said and belched again. “Pardon my French.”

I laughed and she joined in.

Suddenly the studio door crashed open and Pascal appeared. Although it was a warm and sunny day he wore a threadbare green parka with the hood pulled up.

“Goddammit!” he swore. “What the hell's
she
doing here?”

“Hiya, Robert,” I replied. “I dropped by to bring you some flowers. I felt just awful about disturbing you yesterday.”

Pascal glowered as he shrugged off the parka and hung it on a wooden hook near the door. He had not shaved recently, nor, I was willing to bet, had he showered. He sniffed and wiped his nose with a blue bandana.

“Flowers my ass,” he snarled.

“Crippled hands, my ass,” I snapped back.

“What do you want from me, girlie?”

“What doesn't belong to you,” I retorted. “The Hewetts' sculpture. I also want to know why you lied about your hands.”

“I lied about my hands to get you off my back, whaddaya think?”

“How is my mother involved with you and Seamus? You were at his funeral, weren't you?”

“Kiss my ass, little girl,” he bit out. “And tell the Hewetts I'll give them their goddamned sculpture when I'm goddamned good and ready.”

Evangeline looked shocked, and I wondered if her upbringing had been more genteel than it would appear. Mine had not been so refined, despite my mother's best efforts, and I stood my ground. “What kind of repairs are you doing, anyway?”

“Sculpting repairs,” he said sarcastically, crossing his arms over his chest in an age-old gesture of mulish stubbornness. “I'm a sculptor, nitwit. Tell the Hewetts they have to wait their goddamned turn. I've got a bunch of other stuff waiting for repairs.” He gestured at a covered pile of objects in the corner.

“See, now, that's something I don't understand. Why do so many of your sculptures need to be repaired? Do you have unusually clumsy clients?”

I worked in media that were not nearly as durable as stone, yet rarely was it necessary to repair my artwork. Barring a Visigoth invasion, how often did marble statues get broken?

“Get lost,” he barked. He sniffed loudly again and turned on Evangeline. “Why'd you let her in?”

“She brought flowers.”

“‘She brought flowers,'” he mimicked, waggling his head. “Moron. Why I ever told your mother I'd take you on is beyond me.” He looked at me. “Sister's kid. Dumb as a stump.”

I waited for Evangeline to defend herself, but she just stood there, admittedly rather stumplike, so I spoke up on her behalf.

“Seems to me you're the moron here, Pascal. Don't your sculptures bring in good money? Why don't you go sit on a beach, enjoy your golden years, and spare the art world your charms? You might even find a use for that Viagra prescription. It's bound to improve your mood.”

Pascal's otherworldly paleness purpled with rage as he took a step toward me. “Get out of my studio, you two-bit hack! And tell your mama she's not holding up her end of the bargain, you hear me?”

In his face I saw not just rage but something far more threatening: fear.

“What are you talking about?” I demanded, stepping back, stumbling into the desk, and dislodging a stack of black composition notebooks. They landed with a thump on the floor. “What bargain?”

“You okay, Annie?” Evangeline asked.

“I'm fine, thanks,” I said, sparing her a smile before automatically leaning over to pick up the notebooks. Pascal stomped on them, barely missing my hand.

“Leave 'em,” he growled.

Surprised by his reaction, I glanced at the composition books.
S. McGraw, 1971
was written on their covers in the same distinctive handwriting as the labels on the cardboard boxes.

I straightened, and Pascal and I stared at each other.

“What does my mother have to do with all of this?” I asked quietly.

Pascal deflated like a blow-up doll, collapsed in his ergonomic desk chair, and held his head in his hands. “Beverly . . . Ah, hell. Do yourself a favor, kid, and get out of here. Leave me alone.”

“Listen, Pascal, if you return
Head and Torso
then I'll go away and you'll never see me again, I swear. But if my mother's involved in something dangerous, if she's threatened in any way, I will stick to you like a leech. I will be your worst nightmare. I happen to have a very close friend in the SFPD—”

Pascal shot from his chair like a demented jack-in-the-box. “I'll return the sculpture when I'm good and goddamned ready! Why don't you and your mommy go back to that dusty cow town you came from? I don't give a shit about the past, you hear me? Not one piece of shit!”

Rarely did I embrace the adage about discretion being the better part of valor, but under the circumstances I decided to give it a chance.

“You heard me,” I warned as I headed for the door. “Leave my mother alone. Evangeline, can I give you a ride somewhere?”

“Nah, I'll be all right, thanks,” she said softly. “He's got a temper on 'im is all.”

For all my big mouth and bravado, I was shaking from a combination of anger and adrenaline as I hurried down the stairs, flew out of the building, and locked myself in my truck. What had just happened up there? Why was Pascal so vicious and embittered?

As I fired up the engine I noticed the young woman I'd seen earlier, returning to Pascal's building loaded down with plastic grocery bags from Safeway. Could she be working for Pascal? I doubted he needed human models for his angular creations; nor did the delicate-looking Latina appear strong enough to be a stone sculptor.