The Palace Guard (10 page)

“Woman, you’re not safe to have around.”

However, Bittersohn showed no inclination to let her go until the taxi lurched through a last horrendous pothole, crossed the line into Brookline, where the roads immediately became faultless, and clanked to a stop.

As he had predicted, they’d wound up in Brookline Village. A bearded man who must have been a hippie, a yippie, or perhaps a flower child back in the sixties and was still trying to keep the torch alight stood in front of a dilapidated block of storefront flats yelling, “Lee-roy! Hey, Lee-roy!”

From above came sounds of guitars and bongos and sonorous blats that suggested somebody was either keeping beef cattle in his apartment or practicing scales on a sousaphone. Somebody else was playing Handel’s Second Concerto Grosso on a stereo that was considerably more hi than fi. Somebody was singing, somebody was fighting, somebody was chanting in Tibetan. Nobody appeared to be just sitting around and letting it all hang out.

Bittersohn paid off their cab while the pair they’d followed were doing the same. Then he yelled, “Hey, Bernie!”

“Yay, Maxie,” the pianist bellowed back. “Where you for, man?”

“I was looking for Leroy but he doesn’t seem to be around.”

The bearded one on the sidewalk stopped shouting. “Hey man, you see Leroy you tell him I’m like in Joy’s pad.” He shuffled off.

“I wonder who Leroy is?” Sarah murmured.

“A friend of that fay cat’s,” said Bittersohn. “Who’s the beard, Bernie?”

“Some friend of Leroy’s, I guess. Maxie, you know Lydia. Lydia, this is Maxie’s old lady, the society broad.”

“I am acquaint with Maxie’s old lady,” said Countess Ouspenska gaily. “We amuse ourselves together among the proletariat, not? Come, little one, I show the way. Please to
en garde
for broken steps.”

As they groped their way up the unlighted stairway into a loft that had been more or less partitioned off with painters’ tarpaulins hung on wires, the beat of bongo drums was stilled. Fifteen pairs of oversized sunglasses were turned on the unparalleled apparition of a man with a shave and a haircut, a London tailored suit, a clean shirt, and a silk foulard necktie of restrained pattern. The fact that he was also wearing shoes disturbed them almost to frenzy. At last, however, somebody shrugged and muttered, “Like everybody got to do his own thing, right?” and the bongos started again.

Bernie and Lydia flopped on what appeared to be the remains of a sofa and shoved someone else off to make room for Sarah. As she was wearing a thirty-year-old coat of her mother’s, she didn’t appear to frighten them as Bittersohn had. She herself was a bit dismayed, however, when her escort disappeared behind one of the tarpaulins.

At first she didn’t know what to do, so she just sat and tried not to inhale too deeply. Then she became aware that a current of excitement was swirling through the fetid atmosphere and she began to wonder if by any chance Bittersohn could be the generator. Her suspicion was confirmed when a character who happened to be sitting on her feet remarked to the character who’d been kicked off the sofa, “Man, we got a live one aboard.”

“What you mean, man?”

“Like Santa Claus is coming to town, man. Like the rhomboid with the rubles, man. He digs art, man. Like paintings, like that.”

“So who paints, man?”

“Who don’t, man? Like Leroy and Bengo and Cynthia.”

“Cynthia don’t paint. He sculps.”

“So who can tell? Man, I got to show this cat my collages.”

“Man, you got no collages.”

“Time I get that cat over to my pad, man, I got collages. Empty a wastebasket into a puddle of glue, man, you got a collage.”

“Man, you got no wastebasket.”

“Man, you got no higher vision. Me, I dig them genuine steel engravings like Abraham Jackson and Ulysses S. G-note. Fare thee well, man. I got to cut me a piece of the action.”

He or she scrambled to his or her feet and went in quest of the rhomboid with the rubles. Above the pandemonium Sarah could now pick out Bittersohn’s usually agreeable baritone, now sounding pompous, moderately drunk, and a touch imbecilic. “Of course I also collect recognized masters,” he was saying as he crawled back under the tarpaulin, trailed by at least half a dozen unrecognized geniuses.

“Man, how you like to collect a genuine Mondrian?” urged a short, wiry type with a ferocious Fu Manchu mustache and chin whisker.

“Man, that Lupe is a gas,” muttered the cynic who was now sprawled across Sarah’s left foot. “He copies them Mondrians off the linoleum at Sears and Sawbuck. Man, I say a real creative artist ought to think up his own Mondrians.”

“Lupe ain’t an artist, he’s an operator,” said the body now sprawled across Sarah’s right foot. “Man, he can smell a live one all the way to Charlestown. Like he goes to one of them cut-rate supermarkets, dig, and buys a case of oregano and bums the use of somebody’s oven and like dries it out till it gets good and brown. Then he peddles it for grass.”

“Man, that ain’t right.” The left-foot sprawler took what was left of a very homemade-looking cigarette from his or her lips and regarded the roach sadly. “Man, like I was really beginning to elevate.”

Nobody was paying any attention whatever to Sarah. Lydia had betaken herself elsewhere. Bernie was dozing with a drink in his hand, the glass tilted dangerously toward Sarah’s lap. She reached over to take it out of harm’s reach and he opened one scarlet-rimmed eye. “Who’re you?”

“I’m Maxie’s old lady, the society broad,” she replied. “Don’t you remember? You introduced me to Lydia downstairs.”

“Oh, yeah. I’m not talkin’.”

“I can see you’re not.”

“What are you, some kind of a wise society broad? I’m not sayin’ a word, see? Not one word,” he bellowed.

“I’m not asking you to,” Sarah replied, somewhat alarmed.

“He tol’ me. He said don’t tell Max.”

“But I’m not Max.”

“Whadda you mean, you’re not Max?” Bernie rubbed his eyes and took a closer look. “Hey, you’re not Max. You’re Maxie’s ol’ lady. I gotta look out for Max.”

“Who says so?”

“Who says what?”

“Look out for Max.”

“Thass ri’. Look out for Max.” Bernie dropped the glass and went back to sleep.

Sarah moved as far as she could get from the wet spot made by the spilled drink and puzzled over this interesting vignette. If Bernie wasn’t supposed to tell Max, then Bernie must know something Bittersohn would want to hear. But who would be fool enough to entrust a secret to a lush like Bernie? Lydia Ouspenska might, but whatever else she was or could have been, the countess was definitely not a he. As for the rest of this lot, they might be males, females, or androgynous for all Sarah could tell. However, none of them appeared to have any previous acquaintance with Bittersohn or any reason to have expected he’d show up here, so why would they have warned the pianist against him?

Sarah had a sudden vivid picture of those flying, delicate hands in the antique shop. Bernie had sat there watching while Bill Jones whispered into Mr. Hayre’s ear. Musicians were used to interpreting gestures made by conductors; maybe Bernie had read Bill’s gestures as Sarah herself had. Maybe Bernie had let Bill know that he’d learned what was supposed to have been kept from his ears and maybe it was Bill who’d told him not to tell Max. Tell Max what? Jones had been most obliging about coming up with the information Bittersohn wanted about the stolen paintings. Maybe he’d been equally considerate in letting the other side know that Bittersohn was on the trail.

Perhaps she was just bored with being ignored for so long, but it seemed terribly important to let Bittersohn know at once what Bernie had said. Sarah tried to wriggle over to him but he was now surrounded by a solid phalanx of artists and their self-appointed agents, everyone bent on cutting himself a slice of the action. Several were insisting that this new fairy godfather go somewhere to look at something.

“But I don’t want to break up the party,” he was protesting.

“You won’t, man. We’ll like take it with us.”

Somebody grabbed the bongo drums, somebody else grabbed the wine jug. The throng surged out into the street, leaving Bernie sleeping alone on the sofa.

During the confusion Sarah managed somehow to reach Bittersohn. He grabbed her by the waist and held on. “Stay close to me,” he muttered. “God knows what we’ve got ourselves into.”

“I have to talk to you,” she panted. “I have to tell you something.”

“Save it.”

He guided her as best he could up a staircase even more depressing than the first. They found themselves in what at least looked like an artist’s studio, of sorts. In one corner stood a neat stack of authentic Sears Roebuck Mondrians. Lupe spread his wares and made his spiel. Bittersohn admired but did not buy. A more or less female-looking person who might have been Mrs. Lupe but probably wasn’t displayed a number of shirt cardboards with bits of old toothpaste tubes adhering to them. Bittersohn asked mildly if anybody happened to be working in a more traditionally representational manner.

“How about a Rembrandt?” offered the versatile Lupe.

“Ah, the very thing I was looking for. Where is it?”

“Hey, Bengo, what did you do with that painting of the fat old broad in the rocking chair?”

“Me I done nothin’, man. You unloaded it to that cowboy from Milwaukee who wanted a real, live Toulouse-Lautrec.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. Look, man”—Lupe turned back to his prey—“you come back in three days I have a jazzy Rembrandt for you. Any special subject you got in mind?”

“Well—er—what would you suggest?”

“How about a nice fat old broad in a rocking chair?”

“I thought Toulouse-Lautrec painted the broads in rocking chairs.”

“Sure, he got the idea from Rembrandt. Only Rembrandt, see, he puts in a cat.”

“Hey, a broad and a cat takes more than three days, man,” Bengo protested.

“I don’t mean a cat, man, I mean a pussycat. Like with the fur and whiskers and the whole bit. Like Leroy’s pussycat.”

“I don’t want Leroy’s pussycat in my Rembrandt,” Bittersohn objected pettishly. “I want Rembrandt’s pussycat.”

“Man, you got to be reasonable, dig?” said Bengo. “Where we goin’ to get Rembrandt’s pussycat?”

“Where are you going to get Rembrandt’s old lady?”

“Look, man,” Lupe interjected, “like leave the technical details to us. You want Rembrandt’s pussycat you get Rembrandt’s pussycat, dig?”

“But how am I to know it’s an authentic Rembrandt pussycat?” Bittersohn pouted.

Lupe turned on his customer a look of outraged virtue. “Man, you can trust
me!”

“Just don’t buy any of his marijuana,” Sarah could not refrain from murmuring. “Er—dear”—she couldn’t very well address him as Mr. Bittersohn and she felt diffident about saying Max—“don’t you think we’ve trespassed on these nice people’s hospitality long enough for one evening?”

“Yes, my love. I must give Mr. Lupe and Mr. Bengo a small deposit on the Rembrandt. If this lady has quite finished with my wallet—” Bittersohn deftly tweaked his sharkskin billfold from the folds of a nearby poncho and extracted two five-dollar bills. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for a pleasant and instructive evening. Come, dearest.”

“Wait, I go with you,.” cried Countess Ouspenska.

“But,” hissed Sarah, “I—”

“Yes, darling, as soon as we get home. We’d be delighted to have your company, Countess.”

“What about Bernie?” Sarah asked him, now greatly annoyed. “Shall I go back and get him, too?”

“Is not necessary,” said the countess. “Bernie will sleep as good in the pad of these cats as in his own. They are equally moldy. Come, little flower of the snow, we find a taxi. The magnificent Max will pay. He is so rich for Rembrandts he has also money for taxi. I do not dig you this evening,
mon ami.”

“I guess I’m just not myself. How come you’re hanging out with that motley crew, Lydia?”

“Me, I am bohemian. Is no bohemia around Boston any more. The arsonists burn it all down. Also those frowsy middle-age hippies look so awful is good for my ego. To be formerly beautiful woman on the skids is depressing. I confess this to you because I am drunk. Even to get drunk is not so easy these days. With this moldy pack of cats is at least free liquor though not good unless stolen.”

“Who steals it?”

“Anybody, no doubt. Is not hard to shoplift in baggy clothing.”

“What do they steal besides liquor?”

Lydia shrugged. “What not? Lupe says is less bourgeois to steal than to work. I have not the knack. Also is not becoming in titled aristocrat of high-class family to sneak always from the fuzz.”

“This Lupe man seems to be quite an enterprising character,” Sarah remarked.

“He has in the fire many irons, yes. Is expensive to be a bum.”

“Are Bengo’s Rembrandt’s any good?” Bittersohn wanted to know.

“Good enough for the tourists off the sight-seeing buses.”

“They don’t come up to the ones at the Madam’s, eh?”

“Why do you say Madam’s? Is bad luck that place.” Lydia made the sign of the horns and spat three times over her left shoulder. “I say no more.”

Incredibly, she didn’t. They found a cab on Washington Street and got her into it. By the time they pulled up in front of the Fenway Studios, she was nodding heavily on Sarah’s collarbone.

“She feels like the White Queen.” Sarah shook her burden. “Countess Ouspenska, wake up. You’re home.”

“Go away,” moaned the sign painter’s daughter from Chelsea. “I say no more.”

“Damn,” said Bittersohn. “She’s out like a light. Here, help me get her arm around my shoulder and let’s see how good she is at sleepwalking. Come on, Lydia, old sport.”

It was as well Countess Ouspenska didn’t eat more regularly. Thin as she was, they had a struggle to get her up to her studio. “Look in her handbag,” panted Bittersohn. “Get her door key.”

Sarah rummaged with distaste in the mad jumble. “There’s so much junk—good God, look at this!”

Amid the welter of lipstick stubs, soiled tissues, and unpaid bills lay a neat little snub-nosed revolver. Bittersohn picked it up and broke open the chamber. The gun was fully loaded.

“Whatever shall we do?” Sarah wondered.