The Death Artist (43 page)

“Hey, McKinnon,” said Slattery, scanning the walls. “Where’s
your
picture?”

Kate laughed. But not for long. A shadow flickered at the comer of her eye. Her body went rigid as someone put a hand on her shoulder. She spun around, lunged at the man. He stumbled backward, fell.

Slattery went for her gun. Marcarini and Passatta reached for theirs.

“No–” Kate stopped them, offered her hand to the guy on the floor. “Jesus. Sorry, Judd.” She helped the startled art writer to his feet.

“Wow,” he said. “I thought I reviewed your book rather well, Kate.” He managed a nervous smile.

“Forgive me. I–”

“No, no,” he said, brushing himself off. “I’m fine.”

A small crowd had gathered. Marcarini and Passatta were checking everyone out.

“Everything’s okay,” said Kate. “It was an accident.”

“You okay, McKinnon?” Slattery asked, once they were away from all the fuss.

“I’m just so fucking jumpy,” said Kate.

“What’d that guy do to you?” asked Willie.

“He didn’t do anything.”

“So you’re okay?”

“Yes.” Kate suddenly grabbed him, hugged him to her.

“You’ll be there tonight?” he asked, when she finally released him.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Beautiful.

The old concrete staircases descending into black water. Rotting doorways. Garbage in the back-alley canals.

He should have thought of this before selecting the Canaletto painting as a backdrop for Saint Sebastian. Perhaps it’s too pretty. No matter. Work is work. And there is so much to do and not a lot of time.

He has seen her once, watched her sip a cappuccino. She didn’t look nervous. But then, she rarely does. It’s one of the things that he so admires about her–that cool air of elegance she wears even under the most dire circumstance.

Will she be able to maintain it when he plunges the arrows into her flesh?

Saint Kate
.

It will be a truly spectacular icon. He pictures it frozen, a color plate in an art history book, his name below it, the date, and, finally, the materials: arrows, robe, human body.

Does she feel his presence here? Is she waiting for him to come to her, like a lover?

The thought excites him.

He closes his eyes, drifts a moment, imaging the moment.

Patience, Kate. I’m coming
.

Back in their suite, Kate slipped on a pair of white tuxedo pants.

It was time. And she was ready.

Slattery yawned, sprawled out on the big bed.

“You don’t have to go tonight, Maureen. Really.”

“Tell you the truth,” said Slattery, stifling another yawn. “I’ve been dreaming about that tub all day.”

“Have a nice soak.” Kate whipped her tuxedo jacket on over her white lace bra. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“No,” said Slattery. “I should go with you.”

“I’ll have Macaroni and Pasta glued to my sides. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

“You talked me into it,” said Slattery, sinking back into the pillows.

Kate buttoned her jacket.

“Hey,” Slattery called after her. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Nope.” Kate patted her side. “I’ve got my little thirty-eight strapped into a shoulder holster under my jacket.”

“I meant a
blouse
,” said Slattery.

The minute Kate stepped through the door, Marcarini and Passatta attached themselves to her sides. Marcarini had a little trouble keeping his eyes off the white lace peeking out of the top of her jacket.

The room looked as if it were right out of an eighteenth-century party scene by Antoine Watteau, one of his
fêtes galantes
paintings, elegant and decadent, packed with con-sorts and courtiers, all of them working, working, working.

“You realize, if you dropped a bomb on this place, there would be no more art world,” Schuyler Mills whispered to Willie.

They stood in the middle of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, surrounded by the art world two hundred–every notable mover and shaker, moving and shaking even more than usual. A confluence of myriad languages hovered above the crowd like a cloud of buzzing locusts while waiters weaved their way through, dispensing that most peculiar Venetian drink of champagne and peach juice, the bellini.

Massimo Santasiero, the organizer of this year’s Biennale, greeted Schuyler Mills while still shaking hands with someone else. Santasiero was wearing one of those suits only Italian men can get away with–heathery blue-gray, and so slouchy it looked as if it had been balled up on the floor of his closet for weeks. In comparison, Schuyler’s starchy Brooks Brothers number looked as if it were still on the hanger. Willie had on a new white shirt, the good-luck tie, his usual black jeans, and the new leather jacket.

“The American Pavilion is–how do you say?–so gritty this year,” said Massimo.

“It was not an easy show to curate,” said Schuyler. “But I think I’ve succeeded. And
you
have done the impossible–coordinating such a complex exhibition.”

Willie watched the pros at work: toiling in the fields of ass-kissing.

“I admire your work,” Massimo said to Willie. “It is so . . . personal.”

“Well, it is
my
work.”

The Italian looked at him quizzically, not quite getting the smart-ass retort.

“Young artists,” Schuyler said, throwing Willie a look, “they enjoy shooting themselves in the foot. Don’t you, Willie?”

Santasiero didn’t get that either, but Willie did. “I hope you’ll come see my show at the Contemporary this summer,” he said, this time garnering an approving nod from Schuyler.

Charlie Kent, in a black Lycra-spandex number hugging her body from midbust to midthigh, broke away from a European collecting couple. Trotting over to Willie on her eye-shattering lime-green pumps, she looked from Schuyler to Santasiero, her radar sharply tuned. “Massimo.” She extended her hand.

The Italian took her in. “Ah, Signora Kent. I was just making plans to see the WLK Hand show at Signor Mills’s Contemporary Museum in New York.”

Charlie had to bite her tongue at his calling it Mills’s museum. “And you must see the new piece we’ll have at
my
museum. We can all have lunch–you, me, Willie.” She winked at Willie.

More than half the heads in the room turned as Kate made an entrance in her white tux and spectator stilettos. Every step she took, the jacket’s satin lapels slithered and shimmered, exposing a hint of white lace brassiere.

Willie pulled free of Schuyler Mills, joined several other men and three or four waiters, who all converged on Kate at once. Marcarini and Passatta didn’t know where to look first.

“Signora Rothstein. So very good to see you.” Massimo kissed Kate’s cheeks while his eyes did a slow dance up and down her body. “And looking so
bellissima
.”

“Grazie,”
said Kate, lifting a bellini off a tray, struggling to keep her trembling hand from spilling the drink all over herself. She peered at the Italian curator from behind her raised glass.
Has he been in New York lately? Did he know Pruitt from the museum? Could he have ever met Elena
? She sipped her bellini. She was getting carried away, and she knew it.

Willie moved in for a quick kiss. “How are you holding up?” she whispered.

“Trying,” he said.

Massimo intervened, took Kate by the hand, and began introducing her to anyone he thought she should know. But Kate couldn’t concentrate; everywhere she looked there were signs flashing danger. Massimo was speaking, smiling at her, but Kate wasn’t listening.

He’s here. In Venice
. Kate could feel it like an electric current buzzing through her. She scanned the room.

Could he be here, now, at the party
? No, she didn’t think so. The setting wasn’t right. He’d need to get her alone to turn her into a saint. It was not going to happen here. She was sure of that. The death artist was a stickler for detail.

An hour later, her tension showed no sign of abatement, and when the director of a well-known New York museum backed into her, she spun around and grabbed the man’s arm so hard he yelped. She spent the next ten minutes apologizing.

“Kate! You look absolutely fabulous!” This from a woman with the taut, shiny skin of one too many face-lifts. “Where is that handsome husband of yours tonight?”

“Richard couldn’t make it to Venice, I’m afraid. Too much work at home.”

“Stop kidding, Kate. I saw him this afternoon.”

“That’s impossible.”

The woman screwed up her face–a true feat, her skin was so tight. “Well, I could have sworn it was him.”

“No, it couldn’t be.”
Richard, in Venice
? “He’s home, working.” Then, suddenly, Kate’s mind was all over the place–
Could he be here
? Images–the cuff link glittering on the floor, Pruitt dead in his bath–flashed in her mind.

Kate drew her hand across her forehead. It was hot. She shouldn’t have had that drink. Her imagination was running wild.
No way Richard is here. It’s absurd
. “It just can’t be,” she said, trying to sound calm.

The woman shrugged. “Well, it
was
all the way across a piazza. I guess my eyes are going.”

Kate tried to smile, but couldn’t.

Willie brushed into her, whispered: “I’ve had enough. I need a walk. Want to join me?”

Kate started to follow, but Massimo stopped her, his hand on her wrist. He held fast, speaking to her in his halting English, something about art and Italy–or was it art and Italian cooking?

Kate couldn’t concentrate. Willie was already halfway out the door, and she wanted to talk to him. A good five minutes passed before she could break away. Finally, she pulled out of the Italian curator’s grasp, uttered a lame
“Scusami,”
hurried toward the door.

Marcarini and Passatta fell into step just behind her.

Maureen Slattery just couldn’t believe it. The bubble-bath cubes supplied by the hotel smelled like heaven. She lay back, let the warm soapy water soothe her tired body while her eyes took in the bathroom’s elegant details: variegated marble walls and floor, brass plumbing fixtures, frolicking cherubs painted on the ceiling. If it were not for her gun, resting beside her on the huge marble sink, she wouldn’t have believed that any of this was real. She would not even remember that she was a cop.

She laughed, closed her eyes, let herself sink down into the water until the bubbles tickled her chin.

In her next life, thought Slattery, lifting a handful of aromatic suds, she was coming back as Kate McKinnon.

There was no sign of Willie.
Damn it.

Another reason to make Kate sad. Well, at least he’d wanted to take a walk with her. He must have forgiven her. She checked her watch. It was getting late. She should be getting back to Slattery.

“Let’s head back to the hotel,” she said to her two Italian bodyguards.

Passatta nodded. Marcarini lit up one of his unfiltered cigarettes as they headed down the small street directly in front of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, then took the large Ponte dell’ Accademia Bridge to cross the Grand Canal.

The night had turned cool, humid, a blanket of eerie mist draped over everything. The moon darted in and around clouds like a flirty young girl, peeking out just long enough to illuminate the edge of a cathedral, a piece of Byzantine architecture, then retreating, shy and coy, waiting for a change of costume before making its next appearance.

Kate’s head felt about as soggy as the night. She hugged the jacket to her nearly naked chest.

The moon’s reflection did a slow silvery waltz along an alleylike canal. They crossed another tiny bridge. Kate listened to the sound of small waves lapping against foundations, felt the slimy moss under her hand as she ran it along an old iron railing. It gave her a chill. She stopped. Stared into the fog. The image of herself as a martyred Saint Sebastian oozed into her mind.

“Did you guys hear anything?” That electric buzz she’d felt earlier was sending a shiver up and down her spine.

“Like what, signora?” asked Marcarini.

Kate shrugged. Maybe she was inventing it. “Never mind.” She quickened her step. Not so easy in stiletto heels.

The trio turned into a tiny piazza, one Kate had never seen before, shops and cafés closed up, no tourists, everything about the place still. In the center of the square, there were four different ways out.

“Which way?” she asked.

“The alley,” said Passatta. “It will bring us to Calle del Campanile, then into San Marco.”

The alleyway was dark, with only a few ancient street lamps attached to the front of closed-up buildings. They offered about as much light as a handful of fireflies.

The three of them were halfway down the alley when the footsteps started, faint at first, from behind.

The cops stopped short, drew their pistols.

Kate got her .38 out, peered over her shoulder, saw nothing but mist.

There were no footsteps now, just the sound of their collective breathing, and pigeons batting their wings.

“Please to stay here, signora,” said Passatta.

The cops split up. Marcarini to the right. Passatta to the left. Kate watched as their forms dissolved into the fog.

That buzzing sensation was even stronger now.
Damn.
She heard Passatta call out to Marcarini, his voice cutting through the mist, echoing slightly.

Kate couldn’t just stand there, waiting.
For what
? A sudden panic gripped her. She hurried toward the end of the alley, found herself right at the edge of a canal, no railing at all, dark, murky water lapping up onto her shoes, impossible to tell where the land actually ended and the water began. Another couple of feet and she would have landed right in the canal. Goose bumps had broken out on her arms.

Marcarini grabbed hold of her arm. Kate whirled around, her .38 right in his face. “Oh! Jesus. You scared the shit out of me.”

“Scusami, scusami,”
he said. “Please to stay near us, signora.”

They cut out of the small piazza, moving faster now, turned into another dim alleyway, Kate’s nerves jangled.