So Much Fire and So Many Plans

by Aaron S Gallagher

  So Much Fire and So Many Plans ©2021 by Aaron S Gallagher. All Rights Reserved.

  Published by Indies United Publishing House, LLC

  All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this publication may be replicated, redistributed, or given away in any form without the prior written consent of the author/publisher or the terms relayed to you herein. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover designed by Aaron S Gallagher

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Visit my website at www.aaronsgallagher.com

  www.indiesunited.net

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing: July 2021

  ISBN 13: 978-1-64456-344-1

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2021941129

  www.indiesunited.net

  “The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.”

  -Auguste Rodin

  “An artist never really finishes any work; he merely abandons it.”

  - Paul Valéry

  “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.”

  -Henry Ward Beecher

  “Sex, painting, food, and talk. What else is there to life? And always necessarily in that order.”

  -Christoph Ossirian

  “I had so much fire in me, and so many plans.”

  -Claude Monet

  Table of Contents

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  EPILOGUE

  Afterward

  Also by Aaron S Gallagher

  CHAPTER ONE

  New York City, May 15th, 1997

  “That’s the first question everyone asks me,” Carolyn Delgado said. He was the fifth reporter in as many days to ask her the same questions. She had become tired of answering. Tired of speaking. Tired to her bones. The fatigue didn’t show in her voice. It remained husky, even, and low. Despite her heritage, her English was almost without accent.

  The reporter, a sandy-haired young man of lean muscle and watery, unfocused eyes, said, “Oh. Well, can you tell me when you first met him?”

  She stared at him through the threads of smoke from her forgotten cigarette. “And that’s the second question everyone asks me,” she said. She put the cigarette to her lips, drew in a final lungful of Egyptian tobacco, and crushed it into the clean saucer a waiter brought for her to use. Smoking was prohibited in Bellini’s, but Carolyn Delgado followed her own rules about that, as everything else. She shook out her hair. It was long now, past her shoulders, and if the chestnut brown was shot with thread of silver, at least she felt she’d earned them. She looked at herself in the reflection of the plate glass. Her hair was newly-coiffed, her makeup professionally-applied. She wore a simple dress the color of which was a halfway point between red and gray called ‘ashes of roses’, and had been designed for her. No woman in the world could own this particular dress for two years. Melo had assured her that he would keep it back until-

  “Well, shit.” The reporter sat back. Rallying, he flipped his notes over. “Could you tell me what the final painting-”

  “No.”

  He blew a breath out through pursed lips. “Then I’m not sure why I’m here,” he confessed.

  She shrugged one bare shoulder, the motion smooth, careless, but oddly sensual. “I didn’t ask you to lunch, my boy. You invited yourself. I didn’t have to agree.”

  The reporter nodded. “Yes, and you’ve been very accommodating, Ms. Delgado, thank you. Aside from being completely unhelpful.”

  She smiled at that. “Well said.”

  The reporter grinned. “Thank you.”

  The maître d’ approached, the waiter in tow. Tall, gaunt, and weathered, the prevailing theory held that Goodwin had arrived in the first shipment of dishes before Bellini’s had opened and now haunted the restaurant for all eternity, immortal so long as he remained on the premises.

  “Ms. Delgado. A pleasure as always,” Goodwin’s diction, like his tuxedo, was impeccably-cut. He held himself regally, one arm behind his back, one in front of his waistcoat level with his watch chain. Carolyn felt certain you could lay a level on that arm and the bubble would fall perfectly within the lines.

  “It’s wonderful to see you, Goodwin,” Delgado said, her rose-red lips bowing in a smile. “Thank you for accommodating me on short notice.”

  “It was no bother, Miss,” Goodwin assured her. His eyes flicked to the reporter and back. “If you’d rather be alone?”

  “No, it’s quite all right. The gentleman is my guest.”

  Goodwin took in the recorder, the note pad, the expensive camera and the cheap suit coat. “Indeed. Welcome, sir. May I bring you both a drink?”

  “My usual, please,” Carolyn said. “And… perhaps a cognac for the gentleman. Remy Martin, I should think.”

  The reporter was about to object, but Goodwin had already nodded. “Excellent. Year?”

  Carolyn looked the reporter up and down, nibbled her lip, and said, “’74.”

  Goodwin’s lips quirked. “As you say. The chef’s special today is braised lamb and new potatoes with cream and Irish butter. The vegetable is carrot medallions and leek shoots.”

  “It sounds lovely. We’ll have those, please,” Carolyn said, again over the younger man’s protest.

  “You drink will arrive momentarily. Miss. Sir.” Goodwin bowed and took his leave. The waiter trailed behind. Goodwin took every order, carried nothing.

  Carolyn looked around the busy dining room. They were in a table by the window, and the surrounding tables were empty despite the crowded room. Goodwin always kept a section open for what he called ‘friends of the establishment.’ She caught one or two angry looks, people bent out of shape about either her cigarettes or the view from the table out into the thoroughfare of Park Avenue West. She smiled to herself. There were few compensations in her life that satisfied to the bone anymore, but this was one.

  “Perhaps it’s tiresome-” the reporter said began. />
  “It is,” she cut him off. “Tell me… I’ve forgotten your name. Forgive me.”

  He gave her a half-smile. “Brent. Brent Metierra.”

  “Well, then, Mr. Metierra, it’s tiresome in the extreme to have the same questions barked at me over and again until I simply want to scream. I haven’t answered anyone else’s intrusions. Why would I answer yours?” she asked, watching his eyes.

  Metierra scratched his cheek. “Because I’m not asking for readers. I’m not asking for ratings. I love his work. You’re the foremost Ossirian authority. I want to know more.”

  She didn’t answer immediately, but she reappraised him carefully. Goodwin returned, the waiter trailed behind carrying a tray. On the polished silver there sat a brandy balloon and a glass of Lillet Blanc with a slice of orange balanced on the surface. The disc of orange was thin enough to read through and might have been made with a razor blade, so cleanly-cut were the edges. She accepted the flute from the tray and waited for Metierra to take his. She held her glass aloft, and he touched his rim to hers. She sipped first. She smiled up at Goodwin. “It’s perfect, Goodwin. Thank you.”

  Goodwin bowed and retreated, the waiter hurrying to keep up. Metierra frowned after them. “He didn’t wait to see if I liked mine,” he noted.

  She fixed him with a wry smile. “Goodwin knows that you wouldn’t know if it’s good or not.”

  “That’s kind of snobbish, don’t you think?”

  “Taste it,” she urged.

  He sipped the smoky, smooth liquor. She noted that he didn’t even put his nose into the glass first in order to heighten the taste. She won a bet against herself for that. “It’s delicious,” he said.

  “Of course it is,” she agreed, accommodating his enthusiasm. “But is it good?”

  He said with a frown, “What’s the difference?”

  She looked away, a playful smile curving her lips. “If you knew, you’d know.”

  He colored, setting the drink on the table. “Fine. But back to-”

  “You still haven’t convinced me that I should talk to you and not one of your… more well-known associates,” she said. “Or none of you at all.” She picked up a handbag that cost more than his car had and fished inside. She produced a packet of the Egyptian cigarettes and a turquoise and silver lighter. She offered him the pack, but he shook his head. “I don’t smoke,” he said.

  “You’ve never had to, then,” she opined. She lit the cigarette and dragged deeply. She blew the smoke away from him, at her reflection in the glass. The plume curled and billowed, framing her in a sfumato of inky depth. She caught her own eyes in the reflection, the gray-green he’d been so enamored of.

  “Don’t you worry about cancer?” Metierra asked.

  She gave him a cool glance. “Everyone has to die of something, my dear. The tragedy for most people is that it takes so damned long.”

  Goodwin walked the waiter, laden with plates, to their table. Upon seeing them, Carolyn crushed out her cigarette, though it was barely begun. She took the saucer from the table and set it on the floor near her chair.

  Goodwin accepted each plate from the waiter and arranged them, the lady’s meal first, the gentleman’s afterward, and they were somehow more precisely placed on the table than either had ever seen. The simple white china had only a rim of thread-thin gold around the outside. The cutlery, wrapped in fine linen napkins, had this same thread of gold outlining each piece.

  “Bon Appétit,” Goodwin intoned. He waited while they each cut a small bite of the rare lamb and tasted it. Metierra’s eyebrows climbed. Carolyn gave Goodwin the full force of her sultry, satisfied smile.

  “Superb,” she murmured. “Would you please give the chef my compliments? The mint is so delicate as to be subliminal. And the meat is beautifully buttery and succulent.”

  Goodwin inclined his head. “With pleasure, Miss.”

  They watched him glide effortlessly back to the kitchen. Carolyn sipped her Lillet, and ate some of the carrots and leeks. She sighed.

  Metierra cocked his head. “Is there something wrong?”

  She shook her head, and her eyes were far off. “Thinking only of distant lands, and far-off lovers, now long since gone.” She gave his quizzical look a brief smile. “How old are you, dear?”

  He straightened a trifle self-consciously, and said, “I’m twenty-four.”

  “Ah,” she breathed. “I remember twenty-four.”

  They ate in silence for a few minutes. She ate less than he did. Far less, in fact. She only nibbled at the lamb and vegetables, enough to be polite. At last each had set the silver at ten and two on the plates. As if summoned by witchcraft Goodwin appeared and supervised the waiter’s retrieval of the dishes.

  “A second drink, perhaps? Or an aperitif? And shall you take dessert, Ms. Delgado?” he asked.

  She gave the questions serious consideration, only to shake her head. “No, thank you, Goodwin. I have a flight in…” she checked her watch with a frown, “…barely an hour.”

  “As you say, Ms. Delgado.”

  She reached into her bag and retrieved a leather wallet with a gold clasp. She opened it and removed a mirror-black rectangle of thick plastic. She handed it to Goodwin, who accepted it and bowed. He retreated.

  “An hour?” Metierra asked. “You didn’t mention-”

  “I didn’t know you,” she said. “And it wasn’t any of your business.”

  “You still don’t really know me,” he pointed out. “Why did you ask me to lunch?”

  She gave him a look of extreme patience. “You’re too young to understand that of all the myriad hells we must suffer through the years, dining alone is nearly at the top of that cruel list.”

  He was silent. And then he said, “What’s the number one?”

  She gave him an indolent smile. “Sleeping alone, of course.”

  Her eyes were bright and seemed to penetrate to his core. He colored, bright spots appearing on his cheeks.

  “I see. May I ride with you to the airport?” he asked. “I’d still like to ask you questions-”

  “Convince me, dear,” she said as she retrieved her bag and placed the cigarettes and lighter within. “You have three minutes until Goodwin returns and I leave.”

  Metierra, to his credit, did not gush an answer, hurrying platitudes and insincerity into the air between them. He gave it thirty seconds of thought.

  He said, “I love his work, but I have never felt I understood it. And in trying to understand him, I hope to be able to better appreciate the work. Even if only for myself.”

  He sat back and watched her, holding his breath.

  She kept her eyes on his as she retrieved her glass and upended it, swallowing the last of the Lillet. She set the glass down and said, “Do you have a passport?”

  “Uh, yes,” he said, confused.

  “With you?”

  He pursed his lips, patted his bag, and reached inside. He produced his battered passport. “As it happens, I do. I got back from London a week ago. In fact, I landed just as the story broke-”

  “How can you possibly understand the work unless you understand the man? And how can you understand the man unless you understand the origins of that man? The places that built him. The people that heated the unfinished steel, the hammers that peened it. The waters that quenched it, giving it the temper, the resiliency, the rigidity?”

  Metierra shrugged. “I can’t. Even if I did those things, I couldn’t.”

  “Then what good is the attempt?”

  He grinned. “Because dim understanding is better than no understanding. And it’s not about succeeding, it’s about trying. Failing on the way to a goal isn’t failure.”

  A shadow seemed to flicker through her dark eyes. She cleared her throat. “That was very well-said.”

  He inclined his head.

  Goodwin returned with an enormous leather folder. He presented it. Carolyn took it from him and opened it. She held up a hand as Goodwin offered her an
ornate black fountain pen. She scribbled at the page, signed with a flourish, and handed both pen and closed folder to Goodwin. She tucked the credit card away. Metierra realized he hadn’t seen Goodwin actually give her the card.

  She rose, and he did too. She put a hand on Goodwin’s arm, a tiny gesture, a delicate touch. “Thank you, Goodwin. For everything you’ve done for me. Goodbye, my friend.”

  Goodwin studied her lidded, remote eyes. “Ah,” he murmured. “Not ‘au revoir’, then.”

  “I very much think not,” she said.

  Metierra watched her, the crease between his eyes deepening.

  Goodwin took her hand in his and bent over it, giving her a soft, lingering kiss. He looked up over her hand and whispered, “Ms. Delgado, adieu.”

  He straightened. She put a hand to his cheek, but said nothing more. Picking up her bag she walked to the door of the restaurant. Metierra said, “Mr. Goodwin-”

  “Sir may call me ‘Goodwin,’” the elegant maître d’ intoned.

  “Oh. Thank you. Uh… Goodwin, what just happened?”

  Goodwin would never level a withering stare at a guest, but he could give the impression that he would. The air seemed to grow thick with rebuke.

  “It just… it sounded like she was saying goodbye. For… you know… forever.”

  Goodwin nodded. “As you say, sir.”

  “And that doesn’t alarm you?” he asked. He watched Carolyn Delgado pause at the door, saying something to the doorman, who signaled one of his runners. She looked over her shoulder at him, waiting.

  “‘There comes an end to all things,’” Goodwin quoted.

  Metierra looked away from Delgado to Goodwin’s impassive face. “Shakespeare?”

  Goodwin gave the barest shake of his head. “Stevenson, sir.”

  “I see. Well, thank you, Goodwin.”

  “You are most welcome, sir.”

  Metierra hurried after Delgado. He caught up just as her car had been pulled up to the bottom of Bellini’s wide marble stairs. He followed her to the car, where the driver opened the door for them. It seemed too bright to be a Tuesday, and too warm to be only the end of May. He could feel the summer crowding in, shouldering its way between the buildings to rush up and smother them.