‘You right, Henry. I’m here to beg a favour.’
Now she had Henry Firestone’s full, grave attention, his face tightening in cautious anticipation, knowing as he did that she was not the sort to beg for anything. She leaned forward and the tall angular man, figuring she did not want to be heard even under the hammering and Erin’s boom box, bent down to catch her low whisper.
‘I need a man who understand forgery.’ She pulled him closer, her white gloved fingers gnawing at his wrist, the scent of her ‘Sunday’ perfume tickling the back of his throat. ‘You understand me, Henry Firestone? I’m not meaning your common forgery but the high stuff: paintings and such. I know you have the connections. Twenty years I’ve been living above your shop. And I have eyes. And I have a mouth. But I have always had respect for you and your boys. Now I need that respect back.’
‘You have it, Miss Latisha, you have it,’ he murmured solemnly. ‘Maybe I know a man. A Cuban brother, a big-noise scientist for Castro until he fell out of favour. I have a friend who uses him for his “antiques”. Knows about paint, wood; he the encyclopaedia on all that shit. I’ll get his details for you.’
‘Thank you, Henry. God bless you.’ She pushed down on her stick to get herself back on her feet, her church shoes red-hot tight across her bunions.
‘One last question, Miss Latisha: this anything to do with the redhead who was over here the other day?’ Henry ventured, unable to suppress his curiosity.
Latisha swung around, her curse finger pointing at Henry. ‘You got eyes, you got a mouth too. Now, if you want to sleep at night, best forget you got both. You understand me?’
Terrified, he nodded like a child, and could not drag his eyes away from her as she ambled heavily out of the shop entrance. Swinging back to the cars, he saw his workers staring across in amazement.
‘What? Y’all seen a ghost? Back to work, you lazy motherfuckers!’ he bellowed, drawing himself up to his full height.
*
It was windy on the bridge, but Susie, head bent against the breeze, her red hair streaming behind her, was determined. The passing cars flanking her were a roar that intermingled with her own confused thoughts. Beneath her the East River stretched blue-grey as a tug chugged a frothy path out to sea, comedically purposeful. The artist had given up thinking, surrendering to an instinct, or perhaps the promise of a colour, to draw her to the bridge like a magnet. At least, that’s what she had told herself.
The cab she’d taken from the beer garden drove back past her, heading over to Brooklyn, the anxious driver glancing across at her lone figure wonderingly. If she was a jumper, it was none of his business, he decided, happy just to have pocketed the generous tip. All the same, the eccentrically dressed English woman disturbed him and later he would find himself describing her to his girlfriend. But for now Susie barely noticed the cab or remembered the driver; it was the supports arching up to the central brick pillars, a metal cage that enclosed pedestrians, that fascinated her. Maxine would have had to climb out between the trellises, sit herself on the outer wall, then stare down before jumping. It would have taken some effort, planning; it would have been premeditated.
One, two, three… Susie counted the horizontal supports running like the armature in a butterfly wing, knowing that Maxine would have counted them too; she always sought meaning in numbers. She stopped walking at Maxine’s favourite number, 17; the date of her birthday, the date of their first date, the number of their flat in London, knowing this would have been the place Maxine would have chosen. Susie’s gaze followed the metal strut up to the top of the sandy-brown brick arch. She could almost feel her presence: Maxine’s fear, her excitement, her anticipation.
Ignoring a couple of car horns, she peered down at the top of the grid metal fence, the section running between the 16th and 17th struts. It was then that she found it, scratched with a coin into the enamel paint: a winged serpent with Maxine’s initials scrawled crudely underneath it; her lover’s last signature. Susie put her hand over it and closed her eyes.
*
Back in her apartment, Latisha settled in front of the television with a full pipe. The Bold and the Beautiful was playing with the sound off. The pretty faces soothed her somehow, as if there were a better world out there on another planet running parallel to her own. Then something sat in the empty space on the couch beside her, causing the cat to spit and run.
‘Maxine,’ Latisha said, happy to have company at last. Then she talked to the ghost, thinking out loud. ‘If I am to check this paint sample I’m going to need some of the original, isn’t that right, girl?’ She cocked her head as if she were listening to a note under the air, a whisper or the creaking of a floorboard, or perhaps hearing some meaning to the baby crying in the apartment behind hers. A second later she picked up the phone and dialled her nephew.
‘Theo, I’m remembering you had a friend who worked night security for the Whitney. He still there, baby?’
*
Later that afternoon, still dressed in Felix’s clothes – the T-shirt a blend of his scent and her own – Susie stood at her window staring up at the blue sky. Flat, brilliant, crisp, almost two-dimensional like a Hopper. A plane of air, minus history minus tragedy, somewhere she could imagine disappearing into – evaporating like scent. Maybe this was where the souls of the dead went to, maybe in this translucency Maxine was waiting for her. She breathed against the glass, making a mist, then drew Maxine’s serpent symbol in it.
Who do I believe? she wondered. On one side it felt like Maxine was calling her, trying to show her something about her death, something unresolved. On the other side there was Felix, alive and present in every cell of her body. And yet now she couldn’t trust him. Had Maxine spent those last weeks with him before her suicide? Had it been suicide?
Susie went back to the long worktable and stared into Winnie’s glass tank, sitting at one end amid a plethora of clippings, papers and unopened letters.
‘Who do I trust?’ she asked the animal. As if sensing her presence, the arachnid tilted its tiny multifaceted eyes up toward her, then turned toward the white mouse still living in mute terror with its inevitable killer. To Susie’s horror, the tarantula leapt into motion, grabbing the mouse in a hairy flurry of legs, tumbling it in a macabre embrace onto its back before sinking fangs into its neck. Susie watched the small pink legs kicking hopelessly in the air as the life ebbed out of the rodent.
The whole execution felt like an ominous warning. Nauseated, Susie looked away. Just then her gaze fell upon a large white envelope with her name written crudely on it. She recognised it as the one that had been left for her the day of the costume fitting for the Klimt shoot. She’d been so busy with the gala and preparing the work for the exhibition that she’d forgotten all about it.
Inside were ten blank sheets of paper. She lined them up in a neat row over the desk. Each one was old and slightly yellow, frayed along one edge as if they had been torn out of books. Wracking her brains, she tried to work out why they seemed strangely familiar. Then she remembered. The book in Felix’s library, the unremarkable B-grade book with the torn out title page. There had been a whole shelf of similar ones. But what would you use aged blank paper for?
A chill flooded through her; whoever had sent these knew about her relationship with Felix, wanted her to stitch the clues together. The first step would be to match some of the torn pages to the books in his library.
She was interrupted by the sound of her mobile ringing.
‘Susie? Did I wake you?’ Alfie sounded excited, maybe even stoned on something.
‘No, I’ve been up for hours. Enjoy last night?’
‘Amazing. I totally loved it, and I got Tom Ford’s autograph – written on my stomach in eyeliner! But listen, I’ve come up with an amazing idea and it couldn’t wait.’
‘This better be good.’ Susie couldn’t help sounding wary.
‘It is. You know the central figure in the Poussin painting – The Triumph of Pan, the Bacchu
s statue – the one with the red mask on?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you know how you were saying it was a little challenging to find local cultural references, well, there’s this character who wanders the streets of SoHo, nicknamed Mask Man. I saw him pass by the studio this morning and he looks extraordinary, really spooky; his whole face is covered. He’d be perfect in that role. It would only be significant to those in the know, but kind of niche and cool, don’t you think?’
‘Sounds intriguing. What’s he like physically?’
‘Tall, slim, walks like a youngish man and no one knows what he looks like under the mask. Naturally we’d get him to swap out his mask for ours, and it’s only partial nudity. I think it’s worth a go?’
‘Mask Man.’
‘I know, weird but good, right?’
‘Hire him.’
*
Gabriel waited for three days, marooned in an island of his own making. Painting furiously, the artist deliberately lost his conscious self between the gestures of the paintbrush and the paint itself as the work vibrated up through him and out onto the canvas. It was his natural state, this animal sense of creating. It was a way of absolving himself of pain, of longing, of wanting Felix. And these were his own paintings, his own voice, not the mimicry he’d whored himself for. Finally, on the end of the third day, between the Korean barbecue takeouts, the cigarettes and the Diet Coke coating his teeth, he stopped and stood back.
It was the best painting he’d ever done – and he felt that somehow it might be his last. But it had also afforded him the chance to arrive at a decision, a resolution that had been fermenting silently under his imagination during those fervent hours.
Without delay, he finally showered, slicked back his hair, splashed on some aftershave, pulled on a shirt Felix had once complimented him on and took the subway downtown to Chelsea. It was Wednesday. He knew the gallery director was always at Baum #2 on Wednesdays.
*
Sitting on a newly installed couch that still had half its plastic wrapping on, Felix stared over at his employee and then threw his head back in laughter. ‘Mask Man? You mean that nut who walks around in the Spider Man mask all the time? And Alfie bought it! That’s ingenious, Dustin.’
The young curator smiled. ‘It wasn’t difficult. I just slipped the guy ten dollars and had him pass us just as we left the diner this morning. Then I made a joke about how he resembled one of Susie’s characters. Alfie got really excited, told me I was a genius, and went on to say how Susie’s always looking to incorporate local street icons into the work.’
‘So what’s the plan?’
‘Well, I went on to say we could get “Mask Man” for him, but he had to understand that this was a vulnerable character with some mental-health issues, and as long as he could keep Mask Man’s real face and identity hidden throughout the shoot, there wouldn’t be a problem.’
‘I love it, and you’re due a promotion!’
‘Actually I was hoping you’d hand on some of the Jeff Koons duties to me… ’
*
Unnoticed in the chaos of the building, Gabriel had found it easy to slip past the painters and plasterers. He’d then inched his way to Felix’s door and pressed his face against the internal window of his office. Inside, Dustin, in the middle of outlining his ideas to market Koons to the Chinese, suddenly noticed Gabriel’s face squashed dramatically against the glass.
‘Jesus! Who’s that?’
Felix immediately swung around. ‘No one. Just a friend.’ Furious, he made his way to the door. ‘Dustin, you should go. We’ll speak this afternoon. But again, thanks.’
A second later Felix yanked Gabriel into the empty office and pulled the blind down.
‘What the hell are you doing here? I told you to never come to the gallery!’
Gabriel pulled himself away and smoothed down his jacket. ‘I had no choice. I didn’t think it would be safe to talk over the phone.’
‘Goddamn! Did Chloe see you?’
‘No and even if she did, would that be such a big deal? You’re being paranoid.’ He reached out and ran his fingers across Felix’s chin. ‘Designer stubble, that’s new. Did you miss me?’
‘Gabriel, not here.’
‘Then where?’
Felix went to the door to lock it. ‘You look thin, are you eating?’
Ignoring him, Gabriel walked around to the back of Felix’s desk, checking out what the gallery director had been reading on his screen: an article in Frieze magazine on the work currently showing in Baum #1. A photograph of the artist – young and rakishly handsome with the obligatory tortured intensity playing around his eyes – accompanied the article. Gabriel felt a pang of jealousy. ‘What do you care?’
‘You know I do.’ Felix came up behind Gabriel and wrapped his arms around him, then half-kissed, half-bit the back of Gabriel’s neck; the scent of him immediately swept Gabriel back into the memory of all the afternoons of lovemaking, of losing himself against Felix’s confident, chiselled body, the power of Felix lulling him into a false sense of security, of a future together.
‘Don’t.’ He pulled away. ‘Felix, she knows about the yellow. She figured it out.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The woman who broke into my apartment. I followed her. I confronted her. She knows about the Hoppers, the pigment… She’s connected to Maxine Doubleday somehow.’
‘Hold on, you saw her? What exactly did she look like?’
‘Large – maybe six one, six two – heavy, like some great fucking giant.’ Gabriel watched as Felix went to a filing cabinet and started frantically to sort through the files. ‘I mean, she scared the hell out of me. I’m not even sure she isn’t missing a few screws upstairs, but I’m telling ya, she means business, she’s on a mission and your head, and possibly mine, is at the end of it. Felix, you listening?’
Felix found what he’d been searching for and pulled out a catalogue. He flicked through it, then opened it and held up a photograph for Gabriel to see.
‘Is this her?’
Gabriel glanced down; the photograph showed a large bronze sculpture, Latisha Dormant, by Maxine Doubleday. The reclining figure, even naked, was unmistakable.
‘She was her model?’ Gabriel was amazed; this wasn’t the relationship he’d envisaged.
Felix shook off the question. ‘You know where she lives?’ His tone was grim.
Gabriel stared over at Felix. Latisha’s warning flashed through his head; was he really ‘marked’, was Felix really capable of murder? The sense of yet another part of his morality about to be stolen away swept through him like nausea. Felix moved closer.
‘Gabriel, if she really knows about the paintings, both of us will be going down. I can’t allow that to happen. Not to me and not to you.’
‘What are you going to do? What will you do?!’
In a flash Felix was beside him, holding him, rocking him against his chest. ‘Shhh, I made a promise, remember? To protect you. I meant it, we’re nearly there, Gab, one more painting and then we’ll let it all settle, set into history like cement. It’s no big deal. It’s how history gets made all the time. The existing paintings are all in collections or museums and we’re almost home. Voos isn’t going to crack; he has as much to lose as us. Why let a paranoid old woman destroy all that? Gab, your money is just waiting for you. You’re rich, baby.’ He tipped Gabriel’s face up to his and kissed him, his tongue searching and hot.
Hardening, Gabriel reached for him, now empty of everything except the drive to be taken and take.
Biting down on Gabriel’s lip, Felix spat into his hand and reached down into Gabriel’s jeans, cupping both cheeks of his arse, moistening him, teasing him. After which he twisted him around and roughly pulled his pants down to his knees, bent him over the desk and entered him. Gabriel cried out in pleasure and pain; this was what he had wanted, had fantasised about for weeks: his buttocks spread, Felix’s hand playing his cock hard as he plunged
into him again and again. They came together in a huge shuddering silence.
‘Spanish Harlem,’ Gabriel murmured afterwards, still collapsed over the desk. ‘She lives in Spanish Harlem.’
*
After the painter had left Felix reached into his desk and pulled out his other mobile phone – the burner phone, the one he rarely used that boasted an unlisted, untraceable number. After checking the time, he dialled a number.
‘Jerome, it’s me… I have a photo, a first name and a possible location. I’ll fax over the details. She’s distinctive; ask around and you’ll find her. First name Latisha, somewhere on 125th Street, Spanish Harlem. I don’t need her frightened, I need her silenced and, judging by the age and size of her, it should be easy to make it look organic.’
*
‘Theo told me you had a late calling. I appreciate that, a mature sister like yourself.’
Eugene, Theo’s friend, dressed in his security guard outfit, was walking them through the dimly lit corridors of the Whitney. To Latisha’s mind, without people the place resembled the labyrinthine wings of some monolithic mausoleum. It was past midnight, but she was invigorated: she was taking matters into her own hands and, even if it meant lying a little to her own blood, it was for a good cause.
‘Eugene is studying to be an art historian during the day. This job is just to pay for the college fees,’ Theo explained to his aunt, anxious she should understand the gravity of his friend’s vocation. Eugene ushered them into the small gallery where the two Hoppers were exhibited. Girl in a Yellow Square of Light hung on the opposite wall, right next to a painting Latisha recognised from the library. It made her heart pound to see it there: forgery or no forgery, it is a fine piece of work, she thought, walking up to it.
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