‘It’s my speciality – wings. I collect stuffed animals and put wings on them. My whole apartment is an installation. You should come around. I could make you a fortune.’ She smiled invitingly.
‘I doubt it.’ Nevertheless he glanced up and, for the first time, noticed that she bore a passing resemblance to Susie Thomas: the same white skin, hair that seemed to be a natural russet. The face and body proportions were different, but there was a superficial likeness he could press his imagination against, so he stayed staring while she, mistakenly, congratulated herself on hooking him.
‘So tell me, what makes a good artist?’
The question made Felix’s heart sink, but he liked the way she crossed her arms under her breasts, pushing them up, the leather of the bondage harness creaking in protest.
‘A good artist? Well, the old criteria used to be talent and craft – but you can forget that now. Duchamp with his urinal turned the art world upside down, then pissed on it. You know what you need as a contemporary artist now? Cultural sophistication and a really great story. I mean life story, persona – all the bullshit behind the artist sells as much as the actual art itself. On top of a genius lateral sensibility that throws back our world in a novel way, an artist needs 100 per cent self-belief and he or she needs to be living it.’
The coke was kicking in, and he was beginning to enjoy the sound of his own voice, convinced he was the living embodiment of the fountain of wisdom. Jesus, I’m good. Really good. The glow of extreme self-satisfaction rippled up from his handcrafted Lobb shoes like a clandestine orgasm. ‘I cannot tell you the number of artists who approach me who are naive on this front, some of them still stuck in 19th-century romanticism, figurative painters believing that if you’re a fantastic draughtsman with a few narrative twists, that’s enough. Art that is to be remembered, that makes history, art that I can brand, has to be conceptual and witty. It has to have that indefinable quality of originality. So sticking angel wings made with chicken wire and plaster spray-painted gold on things ain’t going to cut it. You should cash in now and retrain – this city needs teachers, social workers, parking enforcement officers… ’
Balancing on her roller skates, she stood, refusing to be insulted. ‘Do I look like a parking enforcement officer? Besides, I’m not that naive. I know how it goes: you choose an artist to promote – the choice is arbitrary – you might decide there’s a gap in the market for a post-post-conceptual artist who’s dipping back into narrative but who reflects something about the contemporary zeitgeist—’
‘Brown paper bags,’ Felix added helpfully, bemused by her angry intensity.
‘Yeah, whatever, some moron who paints on brown paper bags—’
‘Not paints on them; paints them to obscure meaning – much more powerful,’ Felix elaborated, thinking about Marc Tooplich and his art, which was currently showing in Baum #1 and a lot of which Felix had given very specific directorial advice on.
‘Okay, paints them, not on them. C’mon, all I’m asking for is a trial run. Teach me, be my mentor,’ she insisted.
He ran his eyes down her body, taking in her long slim legs and slender ankles. Despite a slight coarseness of her features there was a grace about her at closer inspection, her waist narrow over full hips, her breasts high and small; the body of a Las Vegas showgirl. Out of the blue an idea hijacked his coke-addled imagination: was it possible that, like Professor Higgins, he could reinvent her, turn her into an artist? Set her up, dictate all her ideas, fund the execution, invent a plausibly interesting backstory, a life that would intrigue the critics: the mythology of an outrageous existence angled ironically against the materialism, the perceived ordinariness of the non-artist, the punter, the consumer of fulfilled dreams they themselves have failed at… Could he do it?
In the glow of his Rolex Submariner watch he contemplated his soul and found it empty. No, he could not. He could market her, but he did not have the creativity to make the art. Susie Thomas was right; he would always be the midwife, not the parent. That would always be the difference between him and her, to his great chagrin and envy. But there were other things he could do with this girl. She could exorcise his demons, and hey, he still had a few hours to kill until bedtime.
He scanned the dance floor, searching for Harold. Eventually he spotted him, watching a young woman tied to a rack being spanked with a paddle while someone of indiscernible gender performed fellatio on him. Reassured that the collector seemed to be having a good time, Felix turned back to the waitress. ‘What time do you finish?’
‘Now, if you like.’
‘Good. Come home with me – maybe I can make you fly,’ he murmured seductively, then watched as her face lit up as if she’d won the jackpot, as if he were some god with the power to bestow both fortune and destiny. Such stupefying naivety; it would be like pulling the wings off a fly, not an angel, he observed, aroused by the thought nonetheless.
The waitress glanced back at the floor manager, who was looking in their direction and frowning. ‘Meet me at the back door?’
He nodded and she left, gliding off through the crowd like a female Eros on wheels, wings tumultuous in the heat of the nightclub, the curve of her buttocks smooth and taut with the effort. To his faint amusement, he felt himself harden. He smiled, knowing it wasn’t her physicality that excited him but her absurd trust and vulnerability. Tonight he would prove to Susie Thomas just how powerful he really was.
*
Latisha sat in the back of her nephew Theo’s cab, watching intently as the art dealer stepped out from the discreet entrance illuminated only by a small neon sign that read ‘DUNGEON’. She’d phoned Theo from outside the gallery and had followed the gallery director for the rest of the day. Felix Baum was with a tall young woman who appeared to have a pair of angel wings poking up through a blue fur stole. This struck Latisha as particularly blasphemous.
‘When he steps into the limo, you follow him, Theo, you follow him all the way to Hades if you have to,’ she instructed her nephew, then turned to the ghost sitting next to her. ‘We have him, Maxine, you’ll see.’
Theo, glancing back at the granite-set determination on his aunt’s massive features, knew better than to ask questions.
*
The limo dropped Felix and his companion at his art deco apartment building on Fifth Avenue, near Central Park. His apartment, on the 23rd floor, had curved white walls and sweeping parquet floors. There were few works on display, and none were permanent; Felix rotated them all once a month, taking his pick from the back storerooms of the galleries. The apartment was often used as viewing space for his most important clients; in addition to Harold Weiss and Celestia del Dorores, these included the young trophy wife of a Russian oligarch, a 30-year-old Chinese manufacturing entrepreneur and an Israeli tech billionaire.
Felix paused beside an installation of a man with his trousers round his ankles, inserting his penis into the knothole of a fake tree, an artwork by Paul McCarthy that currently dominated the large entrance hall. A painting of a bleeding cactus by Frida Kahlo hung on the wall diametrically opposite the tree, offset only by a rug designed by cross-dressing British artist Grayson Perry, featuring a nativity scene with George W. Bush as the baby Jesus, and Saddam, Gaddafi and the Ayatollah Khomeini as the Magi.
As the waitress stepped into the apartment she gasped.
‘Oh my God! I can’t believe you actually own these pieces!’ She dropped the blue fur stole on the floor (a studied gesture he suspected she’d picked up from some old Marilyn Monroe film), then walked into the installation, caressing the plastic arse of the male figure with obscene relish. ‘McCarthy… ’ She glanced over at the painting opposite: ‘Kahlo… ’ She glanced down at her stilettos, sunk into the five-centimetre pile of handwoven tapestry: ‘… and that English dude with the pigtails… I mean, wow, like total wow… do you represent these guys?’
‘Stole McCarthy off Martin, Kahlo’s estate found me, and the English dude – not huge yet, but he will
be. As for you, Lily—’
‘Leia, as in Star Wars. Mom always claimed it was playing in the drive-in I was conceived at, back in Colorado.’
Felix stiffened. ‘You’re from Denver?’ To his annoyance, his voice quavered a little.
‘Can’t you tell from the accent? I mean, it’s great if you can’t – I’ve been working on that. I mean, I always say Chicago, or Seattle – Denver is so unhip.’
Felix felt a slow heat rising up through his body. ‘I’m from Taos, New Mexico, myself – I don’t try and hide that,’ he replied, flattening his own accent deliberately.
‘That’s right, I read that.’
‘So you know more about me than I realised.’
‘Know? Dude, I’ve read practically everything that’s ever been published!’
‘It must be bizarre for you then, to meet the real person,’ he ventured, a little turned on by her interest.
‘Oh, I knew it would happen – I visualised it. Like I said – destiny. I love the fact that your background is so-o-o indie.’
Felix was compelled to twist his grimace into a smile; if there was one thing that irritated him, it was New Age pseudo-magic. ‘Come on, I’ll show you the rest of the place.’
He led her into the lounge; again, predominantly white, it had a sunken man-cave lined with cream leather and designed specifically for Felix by Marc Newson, apart from a floor-to-ceiling aquarium that operated as a dividing wall between the lounge area and the kitchen. Stark against the silvery blue of the water, a small colony of black leafy sea dragons and one blood-red sea urchin floated by. Beyond lay the balcony, with a view of Fifth Avenue arching downtown, street lights twinkling like an inverted subterranean city. It was a 6-million-dollar view and the girl standing next to him knew it. Felix touched a screen set in the wall and immediately the music of Moby flooded the room. The only pieces of art in this room were a Degas bronze of a ballerina and a Magritte landscape: a house set among trees, lit by a street lamp beneath a blue sky with gathering clouds at dusk. It was one of Felix’s favourite paintings and he’d managed to secure it in exchange for a late Picasso. The waitress now stood in front of the Magritte, staring reverently at it as if worshipping at an altar.
‘This is genuine, right?’
‘What do you think?’
‘You know, when I look at this, I’m really there, inside that landscape, feeling that chill coming over me as the sun sets… You know, total immersion, a kind of psychic transport,’ she enthused, then swung round. Felix was sitting at the low coffee table cutting four more lines of coke. ‘Oh, I see we’re in for a long night.’
‘Is that okay with you?’ He offered her a line, but she shook her head.
‘Not my drug.’ Instead she reached into a small gold leather pouch tied to her waist, and took out a couple of brightly coloured pills. ‘Mine’s E, you in?’
‘I’ll pass,’ he answered after snorting another line and wiping his nose.
‘You are real about mentoring me?’
‘Would I bring you back here under false pretences?’
‘Sure you would. So where’s your bathroom?’
‘Beyond the kitchen – but keep your wings on, it’s a good aesthetic,’ he instructed her. ‘In the meantime I’ll order in a pizza.’
*
Latisha had Theo park on the other side of the street, then she bribed the doorman of the building opposite to allow her access to the 23rd floor, where a doorway led out on to a fire escape. Perched on it, she spied on Felix Baum and angel girl through the binoculars Theo used to watch the baseball.
It looked very expensive, Baum’s apartment; a series of brightly lit rooms, stark and smooth. Behind the ceiling-to-floor windows they moved like languid fish in an aquarium, circling each other in a kind of slow heat. Latisha prayed she wouldn’t have to watch them have sex. She didn’t like to think of such matters – all that pink heaving flesh turned her stomach. Had Maxine walked like that across his expensive rugs, lain against all that soft, fine leather?
Whatever it was he had, Latisha couldn’t see it. Obviously plenty of other women saw it, though. He was handsome, she’d give him that much; like some well-bred horse, with his black shining hair and big eyes. But she was guessing it was what he offered these girls, girls like Maxine: a chance for others to take them seriously, as seriously as they could possibly dream of, to be in magazines, to be in the catalogues Maxine’s apartment was full of.
Latisha shivered, thankful that she had checked her blood sugar before going out that night and injected her insulin. It was windy up there, with the cars howling below. But she could wait. Time was a luxury she could afford. Reaching into her pocket she pulled out her pipe, already packed with tobacco, then, shielding her lighter from the wind, managed to get it alight. She took a deep satisfying draw and then turned to the empty space beside her.
‘Maxine?’ she asked out loud, thinking the ghost had settled there on the fire escape beside her.
This time it was the moon who answered her with his usual sceptical silence.
*
Leia stood in the doorway, wings still erect on her back. Felix had snorted two more lines and was starting to grind his teeth. She watched him for a couple of minutes before speaking.
‘Your bathroom’s cool – so decadent to have that Miquel Barceló in there. And I found this—’ She held out a black and purple striped baseball. ‘Kind of freaky – I mean me coming from Denver and all. This is a Colorado Rockies ball, right?’
At the sight of the ball a wave of vertigo swept through Felix. He steadied his smile to prevent it becoming a grimace.
She continued, oblivious, ‘Don’t tell me you support the Rockies, because that would be another really weird synchronicity between us – my brother played in their junior team a few years ago. Like, the whole family is Rockie crazy. But you’re from New Mexico, right?’
He stood and took the ball from her. ‘Yep, a friend left that here a couple of months ago. I think it belonged to his son.’ He shoved the ball into a drawer and shut it, the roar of memories pounding at the back of his brain. ‘I went there once, to the stadium – Coors Field, right?’
‘That’s right. Weird that you know Coors Field! I mean, that’s kind of prosaic for you, right?’
‘A one-off.’
They were interrupted by the doorbell ringing. Both of them looked up, startled.
‘That’ll be the pizza guy.’ He sauntered to the front door and, after tipping the delivery boy five dollars, carried the box back into the apartment and then placed it on a side table in the living room, where it sat unopened, grease seeping through the cardboard.
*
On the other side of the street Latisha watched from her perch, making a note of both the pizza delivery and the exact brand of pizza Felix Baum had chosen. It felt good to be up there, spying on this man, as if, just by concentrating, she would be able to direct his movements, goldfish-like behind the large glass windows. She stared across as he stepped back into the room, the girl gazing up at him.
‘Child, you dancing with the devil there, and you just don’t know it,’ Latisha whispered into the wind.
*
The room was spinning as Susie switched off the lights and, by the light of the full moon and the neon glow of New York, drunkenly navigated her way on all fours across the polished floor, pulling off her clothes as she went. There was something liberating about the cool concrete against her knees and feet. By the time she reached the foot of the bed she was naked and a trail of underwear, shoes and dress stretched behind her. Jet lag had addled her memory and the timeline of the past 24 hours ran jumbled through her brain. However, there was one thing she couldn’t deny: her recollections were peppered with images of Felix Baum – visual snippets now embedded into her erotic lexicon: Felix smiling, Felix’s fingers, the scent of him as he leaned toward her, the touch of his hand.
‘Fuck you,’ she said out loud, then fell into the bed.
*
<
br /> Leia drank her third glass of water, then flopped back onto the couch.
‘That’s better. I was so thirsty.’ She draped her long legs over Felix’s. ‘You’re so beautiful. But I guess you get told that all the time.’
Felix pushed the pizza box away; the coke had destroyed his appetite.
‘You’re just out of it,’ he told her as she gazed up at him, her huge blue eyes smudged with mascara. Her adoration was turning him off; seducing her was too easy – he needed an edge, a push-back to make having her worth it.
Oblivious, the girl prattled on. ‘Tell me about growing up in Taos. I read about it in Rolling Stone – your father was a hippie involved in the Chicano art movement, right?’
Now Felix was fired up, the cocaine-fired urge to talk tripping past any long-held strategy. ‘Yeah, he was a tattoo artist and wannabe mural artist. Mom was Mexican – she died when I was three… ’
‘That’s rough.’
‘We survived, after a fashion. But I think that’s where I get my eye from: my father and all those Latin Kings that used to hang around the trailer.’
‘Wow, you grew up in a trailer park?’
Now he was on a roll, back on the standard-issue biog. ‘Until I was 15, then I hitched east. Poverty, it makes you hungry.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Man, they were crazy! We used to go out at dawn to spray-paint the overpasses along the freeway – great sweeping political landscapes, bright colour on concrete, the desert stretching out either side, the stillness before the sun roared up over the horizon. It was like worship, you know what I’m saying? Like a religious experience.’
‘Legend. It’s strange – you don’t sound like you come from New Mexico. My first boyfriend came from there.’
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