Yellow Mesquite (31 page)

Frankie nodded agreeably, a mischievous light in her eyes.

“Now, why, dear boy, would you come to New York, this decadent descendant of Sodom and Gomorrah, when you could be a cowboy? Live free and ride the wind?”

“Well, it’s not exactly like the movies.”

Martin’s face fell. “Oh, dear. Don’t tell me. Another fantasy crushed. Nothing, I’m afraid, darlings, is
ever
what it appears. Hmm. Yes. My, my. Too bad, too bad. Fantasy, dear ones, fantasy! Give up the fruitless pursuit of reality. Search instead for the perfect fantasy.” Martin stomped a patent-leather slipper and clutched his arms tighter around himself. He wheeled around at Harley. “Are you saying, dear boy, that cowboys no longer exist? Buffalo no longer roam? No, no, no! Don’t
say
it!” He pushed his palms out at Harley, tilted his head. “I prefer to think they
do
. Don’t tell me.”

Harley grinned in spite of himself. “Well, actually there are some cowboys left. I don’t know about the buffalo. Ollie Cox used to have some on that Double Heart Ranch, but I haven’t seen them in a long time.”

“Buffalo, oh! Real buffalo? Now that’s ex-
ci
-ting! Thank you, thank you, thank you! The fantasy is restored! Say no more!” Martin spun around to the paintings propped against the wall. “Now, darling boy, where did you learn to paint?”

Harley glanced at Frankie, but she only smiled, one eyebrow arched.

“I studied some in Dallas, and—”

“Dallas! Oh! What a simply wretched place. I shall never forgive them for what they did to dear John Kennedy. Never, never, never!”
 

“I studied with a couple of pretty good people there.”

“And where else, dear boy?”

“That’s about it. I came here to go to school.”

“He’s enrolling at
SVA
,” said Frankie.

Martin dipped his chin. “Oh? A student?”

“Yessir.”

Martin looked over the rims of his tinted glasses at Frankie. “Did you hear that? ‘Yessir,’ he says. A true gentleman of the South. Ah now, true gentleman of the South, the art world is horrid. Just horrid!” Martin rolled his eyes at Frankie. “Cowboys. Oh dear, oh me.” He turned again to the paintings. “And who are these…these
people
?”

“That one there on the end is Maxine. She’s the wife of Wesley Earl, a guy I know in Midland, and—”

“Does she always wear those…those
things
in her hair?”

“Rollers. I like the way they look.”

“Atrocious.”

“That’s why I like them.”

“Marvelous light.”

“Thanks.”

“Melancholy. And the space, so empty. Yours is a strange and lonely landscape, dear boy. Peopled with odd beings, I might add. Yes. And this chap?”

“That’s Mr. Whitehead. He’s sort of a cowboy, I guess, except he’s in oil. I tell you, I never seen anybody like him.”

“I can believe it, dear boy. Extra-
ord
-inary.”

“Does that mean you’re interested?”

“Of
course
I’m interested!” Martin wagged a finger. “However, I’m not at all sure about accepting you as one of my patients just yet.”

“Patients?”

“Dear boy, all
real
artists are sickies that need tender loving care.”

Harley studied him a moment, thinking of Sidney, wondering if it might be true that all artists were “sickies.” Then he stood up from his chair. “Nu-uh. I think you got the wrong guy here.”

Martin leaped in front of him. “Goodness sakes! You must learn patience! Oh my, you have me all atwitter.”

“I don’t need care. What I need is a good gallery. If you’re not interested we’ll be hitting it on outta here.”

“Ooooh…” Martin drew his shoulders up and swung around toward Frankie. “Don’t you just a-
dore
that macho talk?” He spoke out of the side of his mouth in a voice two octaves too low for him. “‘We’ll be hitting it on out of here.’ Ooh. Wild!
Cowboys drive me simply wild!”
 

Harley could feel himself turning red. He looked at Frankie, but she was laughing and nodding and agreeing with everything.

Harley said, “You ever sell any paintings in this place?”
 

Martin turned to Frankie with sudden starchy indignation. “
Sell
, he asks? Do I ever sell?
Dear boy, I have sold not only art, but the very i-
dea
of art. When I say I have turned the selling of art into art itself, you may rest assured, yes, I can sell
any
thing,
every
thing,
all
things. Indeed, I daresay that in the art of turning the selling of art into art, I myself am probably the greatest artist in all of SoHo, in all of New York, even where the buffalos roam!” He turned with a sweep. “So what do you say to that, darling boy?”

Harley grinned, embarrassed, but impressed by the guy’s delivery. “You sound pretty good.”
 

Martin made a face. “I find this fixation with commerce so…so
vul
gar. Come! Have a sherry, dears. You’re so uptight. Come now!” He held forth his hand and fluttered his fingers at them.
 

Frankie stood. Martin swept her chair up and started to the rear. “Come along. You need a drink.
I
need a drink. Please, dear boy, bring your chair.”
 

Harley took up his chair and followed Martin into a back room, where a refrigerator stood near a table with a hot plate. Martin brought out wedges of cheese in foil and a tin of English crackers. He took plastic champagne glasses from a plastic bag, pulled the stopper out of a bottle of sherry and poured.

“Now, do be dears, won’t you? Piddle around here while I go out and have another look-see. Oh, gracious…” Martin drew his shoulders up again, touched his fingertips to his lips. “I said
piddle
. I only the other day learned that piddle means the same as
pee.
I didn’t
know
. Naughty me!”

Martin sashayed back out to the gallery. Harley and Frankie sat in the chairs, looking at each other.

“Boy, that’s one strange bird,” Harley said.

“He likes your work.”

Harley got up and stepped to the door.

“No,” said Frankie, “let’s wait.”

From behind the door facing, he could see Martin out in the gallery, slumped in a director’s chair, elbows on his knees, his chin resting in the fork of the thumb and forefinger of one hand as he gazed at the four paintings under the track lights.

A silhouette appeared in the doorway beyond. Another followed. They came in from the sharp light. Harley was jolted, seeing the two women he’d seen in the French gallery yesterday up on Madison.

Harley impulsively stepped back to where he could just see as Martin rose from the chair.
 

“Ah, dear ladies. My, my,
my!
What a perfectly
mar
velous fur. Do come in.
Do
.”

The woman in the silver fur dropped the sunglasses to the tip of her nose as her eyes came to a stop on his four paintings. She went straight to
Maxine
, took her sunglasses off, folded them into her pocket and stepped back for another look.

“This painting,” she said. “What is the price?”

Martin had been parading around them, doing his
dear lady
routine. He stopped now, at a loss. “Oh, my…oh, dear me…”

Harley stepped down into the gallery, carrying his sherry.

“Well, hello,” he said. “Small world.”

The two women stared. “What are
you
doing here?”
 

 
“Uh, this is my gallery. Mr. Baldwin here represents my work in New York.”
 

“Dear boy…”

“You didn’t mention a gallery.”

“You hardly gave me a chance.”

“You said the
YMCA
.”

“I just moved here. I’m not settled yet.”

“Dear ladies, let me pour you a touch of sherry. In the meantime, please, look around.” Martin breezed past Frankie, rolling his eyes dramatically as she entered from the rear.
 

Harley stepped forward and took Frankie by the hand. “This is Mrs. Mussette,” he said to the two women. “Mrs. Mussette, these ladies are also interested in art. I mentioned them to you last evening.”

Martin stopped in his tracks, turning. “Mussette?
The
Mussettes? Cecil Mussette is your husband? Oh, dear God in Heaven…!”
 

Frankie blushed. She smiled politely. “How do you do,” she said to the two women.

 
Harley smiled at the woman in the silver fur. “Which of these paintings were you interested in?”
 

 
The woman studied him with suspicion. She nodded toward
Maxine
.

“Yes,” said Frankie. “Very nice. I was considering that one as well.”

“Oh, then I wouldn’t dream of—”

“I haven’t decided between it and this one,” Frankie said, nodding at the painting,
Wesley Earl,
Wesley Earl looming out from a long flattened horizon.

“In, uh, what price range are we speaking?” the woman in the fur coat asked.

“Six-five,” Harley said, recalling the prices in the French gallery. “The other one there is seven-five. Those two are six each. That’s thousand, of course.” He didn’t kid himself that they would pay it, but he determined not to come off as some third-rate hack.
 

Martin had hardly moved. He stared at Harley, his Adams apple rising and falling. But he seemed to have lost his voice.

“Oh, sorry,” Harley said. “I shouldn’t be doing this. After all, it
is
Mr. Baldwin’s gallery.”

Martin swallowed again.

“Actually, I think I prefer this one,” Frankie said of
Wesley Earl
. “So please, feel free.” She gestured toward
Maxine.

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.”

The woman in the luxurious fur took her sunglasses out and put them on again. “Tina,” she said, “make out a check.”

“Why do you want this painting?” Harley asked.

The woman hesitated. “What do you mean?”

“I’m just curious why you want it.”

“Oh, dear boy…” Martin began.

The woman lowered her sunglasses, looked over the rims at Harley. “Prob’ly not for any reason you’d appreciate.”

He shrugged. “Just curious.”

The woman studied him a moment longer, then slipped her sunglasses back up. “It reminds me of myself, the way I used to be.”

Harley looked at her. He looked at
Maxine
. He saw no resemblance at all.

The woman regarded him coolly. “My daddy—my father—was a coal miner, that is until the black lung took him. I grew up poor as a church mouse. That picture reminds me of myself back then. That’s just how I felt. That’s the only reason I want it.”

Harley looked at her. He looked at the painting. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Really. You can have that painting if you want it. I’ll give it to you.”

“Give it— Dear god in heaven!”
 

“Tina,” said the woman, “make out a check to this gentleman.”

“No, please, if you insist on paying, make it out to Mr. Baldwin here. It’s his gallery.”
 

She looked at Martin. “Can you ship to Hammond, Indiana?”
 

“Why, yes. Certainly. Dear me, yes.”
 

Martin dashed about, lively now, writing receipts, double-checking addresses. He poured from the bottle into two glasses. “Do have a sherry, dear ladies.
Do
.”

The woman in the fine fur checked her watch. “I’m sorry, but we have to be going. Tina and I only get to New York every few months and there’s so much to do.”
 

She lowered her sunglasses and looked at Harley once more. A touch of humor glinted in her eyes. “Thank you. It has been quite interesting.”

Harley grinned in turn. “I’ll throw in a couple of drawings.”

“That’s very generous of you. We’ll drop in the next time we’re in the city.”

“
Won
derful” Martin gushed. “And
do
have some fun while you’re here!”

The two women said good-bye and went out, high heels tapping into the distance.

Silence fell over the threesome as Frankie and Martin stared at Harley.
 

“I don’t know that I believe what I just saw,” Frankie said.

Martin took up one of the glasses of sherry he’d just poured and drank it down. “Dear boy, never, never,
never
come into my gallery and browbeat my customers like that again.” Martin swiveled toward Frankie. “Heart attacks. Absolute
heart
attacks. Tell me, did I mention that artists are sickies?”
 

Frankie watched Harley with an odd smile, as if she hadn’t entirely seen him until now. “He’s right, you know.”

“Right?”

“Don’t try to tell me you’re not a bit crazy.”

He grinned. “Just trying to keep up with the locals.”

“Gracious me. I feel ill. Yes, absolutely
ill
.” He picked up the other sherry and killed it off.

Frankie continued to watch Harley, bemused. “I saw it with my own eyes. And yet…”

“Saw it?” Harley said. “What do you mean,
saw it
?
Looked to me like you were right in the big middle of it, bidding those prices up. I can see it now—front page of the
New York Times
: ‘Frankie Mussette, prominent New York patron of the arts, involved in art scam!’”
 

Frankie laughed. “Sounds like fun.”

“Oh, dear me. My, my,
my.
” Martin composed himself with effort. “Now,” he said. “I’ll just hold these other three and see what the response is. Here, dear boy, I’ll give you a receipt for work received. Standard commission, sixty-forty. Yes. Oh, my. Dear god in heaven. Ill, absolutely ill.”

Chapter 34

Loft

T
HE FOLLOWING SATURDAY
,
two weeks before Thanksgiving,
a taxi carried them down Seventh Avenue. Seventh morphed into Varick. Varick crossed Canal, and after a few more blocks they got out on Franklin where it doglegged across West Broadway. Gusting winds whipped thin flurries of snow and trash beneath a troublesome sky.

They got out and stood, their backs to the wind, looking west into a redbrick canyon, a labyrinthian mass of black-iron fire escapes hanging off the walls. The occasional Christmas wreath on a steel door was somehow touching.