The Genius (24 page)

The room is unoccupied. There is a small bed, neatly made, and opposite it an armoire, painted white with horses and other animals, a peaceful little scene. He throws it open and jumps back, ready to fight off a snarling beast.

Bare hangers stir.

Disappointed, he tries the third door and finds a bathroom, also empty.

He returns to the bedroom and walks to the window. From it he has a wonderful view of Central Park, perhaps the best in the house. The trees are soft and green and shivering beneath the slaty sky. Birds turn circles over the Reservoir. He wants to stick his head out and see more but the window is nailed shut.

He tries to put together what he has learned, to set out all the clues in front of him, but they do not add up. Perhaps he will learn when he gets older. Or perhaps he was wrong: there was no girl, and he imagined the entire episode. It wouldn’t be the first time he accidentally grafted one of his fantasies onto a real memory. He might have misunderstood his parents’ argument. He doesn’t understand, and he knows he doesn’t understand, awareness making ignorance twice as painful.

Spirits sinking, he turns to go. For a moment he hopes something will have changed. But the room is still empty, the bed still mute, the floor still dusty and plain.

Then he sees something he missed. Under the bed, against the wall, almost invisible; he kneels down and reaches for it and grasps it and pulls it out and holds it up. It’s a girl’s shoe.

I woke up in a bed at St. Vincent’s, and the first thing I said was,

“Where’s the art?”

Marilyn looked up from her magazine. "Oh good,” she said. "You’re up.” She went into the hallway and returned with a nurse, who began subjecting me to a battery of tests, hands and instruments shoved up my nose and down my throat.

“Marilyn.” It rather came out as
Mayawa
.

“Yes, darlin.”

“Where’s the art?”

“What did he say?”

“Where’s the art. The art. Where’s the art.”

“I can’t understand him, can you?”

“Art. Art.”

“Can you give him something so he won’t bark?”

Some time later I woke up again.

“Marilyn. Marilyn.”

She appeared through the curtain, her smile fatigued. “Hello again. Did you have a nice nap?”

“Where’s the art?”

“Art?”

“The drawings.” My eyes hurt. My head hurt. “The Crackes.”

“You know, the doctor said you might be a little disoriented.”

“The drawings, Marilyn.”

“Do you want some more pain stuff?”

I grunted.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

I’ll spare you further details of my reemergence. Suffice it to say that I had a wretched headache, that the busyness of the emergency room made my headache worse, and I was glad when they determined me well enough to leave. Marilyn didn’t want me going home, though, and through money or influence she secured me a private room on the inpatient floor, which she told me I’d have as long as I felt unwell.

They wheeled me upstairs.

“You look like Étienne,” Marilyn said.

“How long have I been here?” I asked.

“About sixteen hours. You know, you’re very boring when you’re unconscious.” Underneath her sarcasm was genuine terror.

I was not too confused and miserable to wonder how she had gotten there.

“Your neighbor came back from walking his dog and found you on the front step. He called the ambulance and the gallery. Ruby called me this morning. Here I am. Incidentally, she’s going to try to come by again this evening.”

“Again?”

“She was here. You don’t remember?”

“No.”

“She and Nat both. They brought a box of éclairs, which the nurses took away, I believe for themselves.”

“Thank you,” I said to her. Then I thanked the intern pushing me. Then I fell asleep.

THE NEXT VISIT I REMEMBER CLEARLY was from the police. I told them as much as I could remember, starting from the moment I left the gallery and up until I set the box down on the sidewalk. They seemed disappointed that I couldn’t given them even the thinnest description of my assailant, although my account of dinner at Sushi Gaki seemed to interest them particularly. Even in my semi-addled state, the idea that someone from the restaurant had assaulted me for a box of drawings struck me as outlandish. I tried to convince them of this, but they kept harping on my “showing the stuff around.”

“I wasn’t advertising anything,” I said. “The hostess asked to see it.”

“Does she know what you do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I might have mentioned it at one time or another. She’s ninety-five pounds, for God’s sake.”

“It didn’t have to be her, necessarily.”

They continued to pursue this line of questioning until my headache forced me to close my eyes. When I opened them next, the police were gone and Marilyn was back. She’d brought éclairs to replace the ones the nursing staff had filched.

“You don’t deserve me,” she said.

“You’re right,” I said. “Marilyn?”

“Yes, darlin boy.”

“I’m feeling something on my face.”

She took out her compact and pointed the mirror at me.

I was aghast.

“It’s not that bad,” she said.

“It looks bad.”

“It’s just a big bandage. It won’t even scar.”

“Am I missing a tooth?”

“Two.”

“How did I not notice that?” I poked my tongue around in the gaps.

“You’re on a lot of drugs.” She patted her purse. “I’ve got some myself.”

Ruby came. “Sorry I couldn’t make it earlier, things’ve been crazy. We’ll be ready, don’t worry.”

“Ready for what?” I asked.

“You have an opening tonight,” said Marilyn.

"We do? Whose?”

"Alyson.”

I sighed. “Shit.”

Ruby said, “She sends her best. She’s going to visit tomorrow.”

“Tell her not to come,” I said. “I don’t want to see anyone. Shit.”

“It’ll be fine. We have everything under control.”

“I’m giving you a raise,” I told her. “Nat, too.”

Marilyn said, “Ask for a health plan.”

“They already have a health plan.”

“Then ask for a company jet.”

“Actually,” Ruby said, “we could do with a new mini-fridge. The old one’s been making noise.”

“Since when?”

“A few weeks.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

Ruby shrugged, the meaning of which was clear enough. Of course I hadn’t noticed; I hadn’t been around the gallery.

“Go ahead,” I told her. “Get whatever you need. And call me after the opening.”

“Thank you.”

She left, and I said to Marilyn, “I hope they’re okay.”

“They’ll be fine. In fact, as far as I can tell, your absence is serving only to prove how irrelevant you are.”

THE COMBINATION OF A SEVERE CONCUSSION and all-you-can-eat painkillers doesn’t do wonders for your ability to gauge the passage of time. I think it was on my third morning when I woke up and saw that Marilyn, sitting in the purple vinyl chair, reading
Us Weekly
, was no longer Marilyn but Samantha.

I considered this a fairly nasty joke on the part of my subconscious. I said, “Give me a break.”

Samantha/Marilyn looked up. She put down the magazine and stood by my bedside. “Hi,” she said. Her warm hand made the rest of me feel cold. I began to shiver.

“Are you okay?” she said.

“Give me a break.…”

“I’m going to get the nurse.”

“That’s right, Marilyn! Get the nurse!”

I expected the nurse to have Samantha’s face, as well. But she was black.

“Very funny,” I said.

“What’s he talking about?” Samantha/Marilyn asked.

“I don’t know.”

Then Marilyn herself came in, carrying two cups of vending-machine coffee. She saw the nurse checking my blood pressure and said, “What’s going on.”

“He called me your name.”

“Well,” said Marilyn/Marilyn, “that’s better than if he called me your name.”

I fell asleep.

AN HOUR LATER I woke up feeling clearheaded. Both Marilyn and Samantha were still there, engaged in a lively conversation that, thankfully, had nothing to do with me, Marilyn in the middle of one of her Horatio Alger stories about when she was penniless and used to steal fruit from the lobby of the Plaza Hotel. I groaned, and they both turned to look. They came and stood by the bed, one on each side of me.

“Did you have a good nap?” Marilyn asked.

“I feel much more awake now,” I said.

“There’s a reason for that. I was noticing that you looked a little glazed over. Then you started to call everyone Marilyn, so we brought the doctor in and he scaled back your drip a tiny bit. Better?”

"Yes. Thank you.”

“I have to admit: I found it rather flattering that it was
me
you saw everywhere.”

I smiled weakly.

“Samantha was telling me about your case,” said Marilyn. “There’s so much more to it than you shared with me, so many lovely little details. Oatmeal?”

I said, “It’s just a theory.”

“Well, I’ll let you two do your
sleuthing
. I’m going home. I need a shower. Nice to meet you. Take care of him.”

Samantha pulled the chair up to the bedside. “You didn’t say anything about having a girlfriend.”

“Our relationship doesn’t work that way,” I said.

“What way would that be? Honestly?”

“It wouldn’t bother her if she knew,” I said. “I’ll tell her right now, if you’d like. Catch her before she gets in the elevator and bring her back.”

Samantha rolled her eyes.

“What did you two talk about?” I asked.

“Clothes, mostly.”

“She’s got plenty to talk about.”

“So I gathered.”

“That’s it?” I asked. “Clothes.”

“I didn’t tell her, if that’s what you’re getting at.” She shifted around, straightened up. “Are you surprised to see me?”

“A little.”

“You should be. I’m a little surprised to be here myself. When do you get out?”

“Soon, I hope. Maybe tomorrow or Friday.”

“Okay. In the meantime I’m going to finish up collecting DNA from people who were in the apartment. I found the list you made. I also spoke to the lab. We’ll have results on the semen and bloodstains within three weeks. Anything else I’m missing?”

“The other cases.”

“What other cases.”

“Your father wanted to look through old cases to see if any of them fit the profile. Detective Soto was working on it for him.”

“All right. I’ll call him. You rest up and get out of here and we’ll talk then.” She stood up. “You know, you really made me feel like shit about my dad.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. “Too late now.”

“I’m still sorry.”

“So am I,” she said.

I checked out the next day. Marilyn sent a limousine to pick me up, instructing the driver to take me to her town house. Certainly I had no intention of going back to my place. The person who had assaulted me had to be familiar with my comings and goings; either he had followed me from the warehouse or he’d been waiting around the corner from my building. Either way, I thought a few days under the radar would be prudent.

My prudence was nothing compared to Marilyn’s. In the back of the limo was a bodyguard, a mammoth Samoan in a Rocawear tracksuit. He introduced himself as Isaac; his hand swallowed mine; he was at my service until further notice. To me, this was going overboard, but I wasn’t about to start arguing with a man his size.

As one would expect, Marilyn’s house is done in the best taste; it’s also surprisingly livable, albeit tailored to her quirks. She has two kitchens, a full one on the bottom floor and a smaller one near her bedroom, so she can cook herself waffles or eggs or a steak or whatever strikes her fancy at three in the morning. You’ve seen her block before; it has appeared as the backdrop for many a television show, the downtown real-estate equivalent of Murderer’s Row—tall, skinny, picturesque West Village brownstones, each with a patio out back and a throng of camera-happy Midwesterners out front. The
Sex and the City
bus tour stops two doors down to allow its patrons the opportunity to memorialize the spot where, I’m told, Carrie and Aidan had an argument during season four.

Isaac, used to battling paparazzi, had no trouble getting me through the crowd.

The maid let us in. Marilyn had ordered a room made up on the first floor so that I wouldn’t have to walk up the stairs. On the bed were three new sets of clothing, Barneys tags still attached. She had set out a tray of spice cookies and a little plastic jack-o’-lantern with a note tucked inside. I opened it up. It said
Boo
.

I went into the bathroom and got my first good look at myself in days. They had changed the dressing on my face several times, each time putting on a slightly lighter one, until all I had were Band-Aids covering my left cheek from dimple to hairline. I peeled one of bandages back and saw a thin patch of scab, like someone had gone after me with a potato peeler. The missing teeth were also on the left side. The shock of seeing them gone started me laughing; I looked like I’d just wandered down out of the Appalachians.

I found a bottle of ibuprofen and shook out four. In my jacket I had a prescription for OxyContin, which I intended to fill and then give away, either to Marilyn or as party favors. I went to grab a bite from the lower kitchen and found Isaac on a folding chair outside my room, blocking the hallway with his girth.

“I really think I’ll be okay,” I said.

“That’s what they want you to think.”

We went to the kitchen. I swallowed my pills. My appetite dwindled as soon as I took a bite of my turkey sandwich, so I offered Isaac the other, bigger half. He accepted gratefully, discarding the bread before eating the meat, lettuce, and tomato.

“No carbs,” he explained.

“Right.”

All I wanted to do was sleep. Three days of sleeping will do that to you. I made myself a cup of coffee and called Marilyn at work.