The Painter: A Novel (13 page)

Sofia flew out of the bedroom. The second they left. It’s a small house. The bedroom is just off the main room with the long counter, the kitchen, their stools weren’t twenty feet from her listening head. The door flew open and she burst out naked.

Most women would have dressed, armored themselves somehow with clothes. She felt stronger I think without them. She came out
of the bedroom like a whirlwind, all tossing dark hair, all curves, all huge eyes flashing the five colors, and scents and something like a hum, a breathed song, a sigh, like someone singing to herself.

She wasn’t singing to herself, she was finding her rhythm. She did that when she modeled, very low, didn’t distract me, and she did it now with an urgency. I was rooted to my spot between the painting and the front door.

“You killed that sonofabitch? Last night?”

She stood just more than an arm’s length away.

“When you got up in the middle of the night? I felt you, I went back to sleep. Thought you were peeing. Heard the truck, thought you were gone a long time, too sleepy to wonder about it, figured you might be an insomniac, next thing I felt your arms around me.”

She stopped, cocked her head the way she does, listening for something it seemed inside her. She was more beautiful right then than maybe any woman I had ever seen.

“You
killed
him?”

Not really saying it to me. To herself. Listening inside for how she felt about it. Then eyes on me. The eyes different colors, the colors shifting, the way pebbles on the bottom of a stream, the way the fast water is constantly moving the lances of sunlight.

She said: “He didn’t say
how
. I guess he wouldn’t. That’d be giving a suspect inside information.
Fuck
. With a
knife
?”

She shook her head. Like trying to clear her ear of water. She looked straight into me. Not only with her eyes, with all of her—her eyes, her breasts, hips, the sparse thatch of dark hair.

“Well you better have a good fuck.” She said it exasperated, as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. “You better store them up, who knows how long it will be when they get serious about you.”

I stood there. Kind of transfixed. Watched her turn and walk bare-ass into the bedroom.

Falling. Falling into her. Like stepping off a cliff and spreading arms and flying downwards. Didn’t matter to where. Because she would swoop up under me and carry me down. With Irmina maybe once or twice like this. Maybe not. Because she was always trying somehow to heal me, to make me better. Not now. Sofia let me fall. Met and wrapped and covered me and we went down together and I cracked open, not like hitting the bottom but like a chrysalis maybe, shuddered open all light and weightless and winged, blown skyward, hearing her with me with me—a cry—whose? No names no words, lost and falling upwards with her in blinding light. Like that.

When it was over she touched her nose to mine.

“You didn’t kill him did you?”

I didn’t move.

“You got up to pee once. And to get the gear from the truck, out of the rain. To hang it up. I heard you say that.”

I didn’t move.

“You were here in my arms all night, weren’t you? I don’t remember much about it do I?
Do I
?”

I shook my head. Barely.

“Because we were sleeping.”

“We were sleeping.”

The search warrant was executed that afternoon. The bloody vest was enough for any judge and I knew it was coming. But I was careful not to touch it. Before they came I stood next to the hanging vest that smelled like fish and studied it from inches away, didn’t look like any pieces of brain. Like I said, I was pretty confident that the one blow hadn’t gone that far into the Simian’s brainpan. The blood? Where did all the blood come from? Must have hit and broke that vein that throbs on the temple.

A squad car, a white van, and a plain white Crown Vic with Sport driving alone. Seemed like a lonely man, to me. Twice as smart probably as anybody in the sheriff’s office, twice as sensitive. Wanted to be an artist. Well.

They didn’t take much. The vest, my rod, boots, waders. The light nylon sack with shoulder straps I sometimes use to carry lunch, a water bottle, extra pack of the cigars if I am going all day which I
hardly ever do. They took photographs of the two paintings, first separately then side by side which I thought was pretty sophisticated. Evidence of a sudden shift in state of mind would be my guess. Premeditation. Sport asked us politely to stand outside, formal now, friendly still but making no effort to hide that this was a contest, a match and we were on opposite sides and he, beg your pardon, had every intention of winning. Watched him direct the tech to sample the clay under the truck in the frame, take an imprint of the treads on the tires, all four.

Took maybe twenty minutes, the whole thing. When it was done he walked up to us where we were standing in the shade of a young cottonwood on the west side of the house. Not wearing the green shell anymore, too hot, had on a short sleeved button shirt but not business, more like what a surfer or climber would wear at a barbecue, but tucked in, a wide checked pattern olive and soft yellow, and brown loafers, all very casual. He walked up, nodded to Sofia, to me, a frank not unfriendly look as if we had been friends for a long time and didn’t have to pretend anything, said,

“All done. They were very careful. Didn’t toss the place.”

I said, “Am I under arrest?”

“No.”

“Can I go fishing then? Up where I fought with Dell?”

“Sure. But I wouldn’t recommend it. Five of the hunters stayed on. Said they’d paid for nine days of hunting, they were going to hunt nine days. Dell’s brother is flying in from Tucson this afternoon. Grew up here too, knows the country better than his brother. I’d rather not have any more fights.”

I took the mostly unsmoked cheroot I’d just had time to light when they showed up, took it from behind my ear, lit it, inhaled. For a second the three of us stood in the shade and looked at the mountain, the sage hills beneath it flushing pale green with last night’s downpour.

“How about New Mexico?” I said.

His head came up sharply.

“You planning on going there?”

“I have a commission in Santa Fe. A portrait.”

He chewed that over. Let out a breath.

“I can’t keep you from going anywhere. But do me a favor: call me and tell me where you are. I’ve got your cell too. Better if we can get this whole business cleared up and I can keep you posted.”

“Right,” I said.

He handed us both a card. Turned to Sofia who was expressionless.

“Would you come down to the office and make a statement? Say tomorrow morning?”

She turned her face up square on to his.

“No,” she said.

He recoiled, as if struck and trying not to show it.

“No?”

“Unh unh. He was with me all night and that’s all I’ve got to say. We fucked twice. Once pretty fast, slept. Spooned. You know?”

He blinked at her.

“Then we both woke up and fucked once really slow and long. I had two orgasms. I mean two more. That hasn’t happened in a while. Then we were exhausted, wrung out, just drugged kind of, the way the sweat, the musk of sex, the fatigue it just takes you out. All tangled up in each other’s arms. Then we woke up because some assholes were knocking on the door. That’s my statement.”

She handed back his card and walked back into the house.

That evening I tried a new fishing spot, the one I’d heard about for years, the stretch where the Gunnison emerges from its gorge. I was agitated and I wanted to fish and I had to buy new gear anyway, a whole new set, thanks to Sport. And down there, right at the confluence of the North Fork and the main river, there’s an outfitter’s base with a full fly shop. It’s called Pleasure Park which sounds like an adult theme-o-rama. I drove through Hotchkiss, just a row of false fronted shops and a cowboy bar lining the county highway, crossed a deeply shaded creek, climbed a couple of switchbacks up onto the prettiest mesa, a high bench of orchards and green fields overlooking the West Elks and away south the hazy and high snow peaks of the San Juans. Say what you want about Santa Fe and Taos and the clean light, they didn’t have this. Kind of washed the dirt off me, just seeing it. I don’t know if truth is beauty or not but I have always put my stock in
beauty every time, the real thing, the one that comes with cold rain and hard stories, and I had never seen a place like this.

And then the road dropped down to the railroad tracks
thump thump
and it was all desert out ahead, a hundred miles of rolling saltbush westward, and I took the turnoff on my left, south, and wound down to the river.

It was a real hole, a burst of lime-green old cottonwoods with high rock walls sheltering a run of dark smooth water. The water reflected the tall reeds and cattails, the willows and box elders along the banks. On the other side of a big gravel parking lot was a low building with blue river rafts stacked on trailers.

I parked and pushed open the glass door. A bell on the door tinkled. It was dim and cool inside. Polished wood bar with high stools, fishing shop behind. They had their priorities. A Discovery Channel fishing show was on the two TVs, a handsome guide directing the casts of a pretty celebrity into a wide blue river. The sound was up and I got from the guide’s accent and the helicopter on the gravel bar that this was New Zealand. I thought that was funny: this was Gold Medal water, fishermen came from all over the country to fish here, and they had New Zealand on the TV. Behind the bar a guide with a gray waxed handlebar mustache, and a cap stuck with flies, dunked two tumblers in rinse water and gave them two shakes and placed them in a row of others. His eyes were on one of the TVs while he did it. He finally turned to me.

“She sure can fill a pair of waders, huh?” He took a tug from a sweating green beer bottle, put it back down on a cardboard coaster. The coaster was stamped with
BELGIAN CREAM ALE
and a picture of a cow. His eyes were blurry. Well. It was after five and it was hot out.

“Your shop open?”

“Sure. What can we do you? Need some flies?” He let himself out a low stall door on the shop side and came around. Stuck out his hand. “Ben.”

“Jim.”

“Jim Hemingway? You look like Hemingway, anybody ever tell you that? Really. The eyes, the beard.”

“Thanks. You have rods?”

“Sure.”

Judging by his breath that wasn’t the first or second beer of the day. Well. He stepped back, gave me a quick once-over. Touched his stiff mustache. He seemed to perk up. A rod was a big sale. I wasn’t just some dude coming in to ask what was hitting and buy a dozen two dollar flies.

“Leroy’s not here,” he said. “But I can sure sell you a rod. Follow me.”

“Great. You have light waders?”

He stopped. Turned around with some effort, reminded me of a boat moving in uncertain currents. “Waders, too?”

“Yah. And boots and vest, flies, tippet, forceps, Gink, lead, strike indicators, leaders. Oh yeah, and a reel and backing and maybe let’s try some of that snakeskin fly line.”

“Sharkskin? You mean Sharkskin? Scientific Anglers.” He swayed a little where he stood, and now he reminded me of a tree.

“I guess that’s it. Yeah. Or maybe it makes too much noise. I’ve heard it makes a real zing as it goes out.”

He studied me, his biggest catch of the week.

“Maybe,” he said. “Yeah, some people say that.” He squinted his eyes at me and thought about it. “Can cast a lot longer though.”

He said it like he was confessing something.

“Distance,” he said and lifted one hand, palm up. “Noise.” Lifting the other, making a balance in the air. Stood there, balanced himself in the middle of this conundrum. He seemed to forget we were on our way to the rod section.

“You all have time to wind the reel? Like to go fishing tonight if I can.”

“Oh sure sure, we can do that. Take just a few minutes. Jake is back there. Jake can do it. He’s just a kid.”

“They still name kids Jake?”

He was walking ahead of me, walking like into a stiff wind, he put his chin back over his shoulder, barked, “Ha!”