Skyscape

by Michael Cadnum

“The video that won all those awards.”

  “You sound funny, Bruno.”

  Bruno protested. He felt wonderful, ready for anything.

  “Honestly, Bruno, you can con just about everybody, but I know you. I want you to work on the Curtis Newns video, not just say what everybody can see with their own eyes. What sort of man is Curtis? Insight, Bruno, not talk. Tell us what it was that Patterson was able to do, how nothing worked except the Red Patterson touch.”

  “What you want me to do is make a video about Red Patterson.”

  “People want to know.”

  He did not want to hear Renata’s voice. He had a print of the original Skyscape in the apartment. He could illuminate it with the photographer’s lamp Andy had left behind.

  She was still talking, but he thanked Renata for calling and hung up.

  He was gazing at the picture, the small universe that the youthful Curtis Newns had created.

  Bruno had written that if da Vinci had taken a look at one of Turner’s sea and sky panoramas, and decided to show the world how a master would handle the subject, the Renaissance genius would have painted something like Skyscape.

  The phone was ringing again. Bruno let it ring, and when the answering machine kicked in, whoever it was hung up.

  In the famous, now lost masterpiece, landscape was absent but implied, humanity invisible but alive in every signature of paint. This print was a scaled-down version of the original, but even so it had power.

  There was something wrong with the work-in-progress at Owl Springs, something that Bruno had not sensed at first glance.

  Bruno folded Andy’s clothes, gathering them from the street. People passed by, quietly enjoying the sight.

  Bruno folded the clothes tenderly. He remembered how his mother would squint into the wind as she hung out the wash, the quiet happiness of the chore tucking every small detail of the landscape into place. The clothespins had hung in a canvas bag, the green stripes of the bag faded, the weight of the pins satisfying to the hand.

  I could call up Owl Springs now, and find out how things are going, talk to Margaret.

  If I were Andy, thought Bruno, and I left the life of Bruno Kraft, and marched off into the streets of Rome, where would I go? They had met in the Borghese Gardens. Bruno had been out for a stroll on a Sunday afternoon, drinking a can of Coca-Cola through a thin straw and wishing so many of the white cement mock-classical busts were not damaged, noses and sometimes entire faces smashed. He had heard a voice say, “They do that sort of thing everywhere,” and there had stood Andy, lean, freckled, in the sort of shirt so many men were wearing just then, a sweatshirt with artfully tornoff sleeves.

  Bruno called Owl Springs.

  A voice answered on the second ring. It took patience, like playing a card game with a very young child, but at last Bruno got some information out of her. The Owl Springs phone was being answered in Burbank. There was no way of contacting Red Patterson “at this particular time, sir.”

  “I was just there,” said Bruno, “visiting Dr. Patterson, and I think—”

  “Mr. Kraft,” said the operator, breaking into just a little bit of personality. “I thought I recognized your voice. I have to tell you we’ve been given very definite instructions not to bother the Springs with any sort of call at all, although I can sure take a message and see that—”

  That was not necessary, said Bruno.

  Bruno didn’t have to search. He knew where Andy was.

  Andy was in Bruno’s favorite spot, outside the Pantheon, ostentatiously brooding over a double espresso. He gave Bruno a look that Bruno recognized—Bruno’s own bored stare.

  Andy was pretty good at it.

  “I’m sorry,” said Bruno.

  Andy made one of Bruno’s gestures: what use were apologies?

  “You expected me to show up,” said Bruno.

  “It’s all so much trouble,” said Andy.

  Bruno knew what he meant: people, relationships. It all took so much.

  Andy gave Bruno a measuring look. “You’re out of breath.”

  “You’re very important to me,” said Bruno.

  Andy performed another Bruno gesture: maybe, maybe not.

  “I’m changing. Places have always been more important to me than people,” said Bruno. “And paintings. You take a city and fill it with art, and I fall in love with it. Look at this place.” He indicated the huge, brooding building before them, the great Roman structure enduring, commanding, as though what people were amounted to nothing compared with what people created.

  I’d spot a fake in an instant.

  Bruno had been deceived by no one, ever. Well, there was that time in Athens with that manuscript that was supposed to be one of the lost books of Plutarch, his life of Heracles. He had known at the time he was being reckless, so it didn’t really count. The paper panned out, too, passed a cathode-ray test at the British Museum. The thing was papyrus, real Egyptian proto-paper. And the fragments of Latin? Well, he had taken a risk. He knew enough Latin to tell it was about the infant Heracles strangling the serpents, the snakes Hera sent to kill him in his crib. It was one of the basic problems of being a demi-god: you had to have an unusual birth, or a fantastic problem in early childhood. And as for the rest of us, the merely-human?

  He got cheated. The paper was ancient dunnage, shipper’s packing stolen along with some fragments of a Rhodian Hermes some decades ago, a long-filed and forgotten theft, until the wrinkled leaves showed up with ink that radiated the wrong spectrum under the guiding touch of a British Museum technician.

  But he knew Curtis’s brushstroke as he knew the handwriting of his own father. Bruno gazed at the Pantheon. “The paint was put on thin, and it was put on quickly,” Bruno said. “It was very dry.”

  “So?”

  “There was a smell of turpentine in the room, almost overpowering.”

  “Maybe Curtis left the can open.”

  “There were brushes soaking. Curtis was always very neat. His studios were always clean, paintings put away.”

  “Maybe,” said Andy, “Red Patterson wanted you to think Curtis was working that very day.”

  “Why would he want to do that?”

  “Maybe something has happened to Curtis,” said Andy, as though it didn’t matter much.

  “It would be a disaster for Patterson.”

  “Not really.”

  “I thought you admired Patterson.”

  “I love Red Patterson,” said Andy. “But you should watch more of his videos. He believes we can do anything we want if we really understand what we are. You can make money if you open your mind. You can walk away from drugs if you want to, or cigarettes, or compulsive gambling. You don’t need years of psycho-babble. Things are really pretty simple. If your life is dark, turn on the light. Miracles happen. We can be anything we want.”

  “But nobody really believes that.”

  “All it takes is faith,” said Andy. “You just have to get out of the boat and walk across the water.”

  “This is your philosophy, Andy? Or are you pretending to be obnoxious, just to make me suffer?”

  “You’re so dumb,” said Andy.

  “Red Patterson would paint a fake Curtis Newns, and try to pass it off?”

  “It wouldn’t be a fake. Jesus, Bruno, you’re really kind of a blockhead, you know that? It would be a new painting, a hybrid work of wonder.”

  “‘Work of wonder’?”

  Andy shrugged. “It’s one of his phrases. Don’t you know anything about Red Patterson?”

  “You’re describing a monster.”

  “Famous people don’t live in the same world as the rest of us,” said Andy. There was a yellow Bic lighter at Andy’s elbow, and a pack of Marlboros. Andy picked up the lighter and put it in his pants pocket, shifting sideways in his seat.

  “But he couldn’t get away with it.”

  “Sure he could. People would understand.”

  Bruno ignored the waiter at his side. �
�The art world would be outraged.”

  “But Patterson could care less about the art world. To him, whatever happens out there is just great, as long as he ends up with a painting. Don’t you remember that time he had that actor, the one who was a bionic policeman in that movie, and the man had hysterical hoarseness?”

  Bruno closed his eyes and opened them again. Andy had always known so much more about popular culture.

  Andy continued, “The actor was about to lose out on that role in that movie where the CIA hired an invisible man. Big part, big movie. And he went on Red Patterson Live, and the results were great. Even when some people said that Patterson ended up doing some of the dubbing, it didn’t matter. People loved it. There was a book about it, Voice in the Wilderness, by Red Patterson and someone. I guarantee you that a Patterson/Newns painting would be worth more money than anything Curtis would paint by himself.”

  “But people would hate it,” cried Bruno. He stood, and the waiter gave a slight bow and vanished.

  “No, Bruno. You really don’t know anything. Art people would hate it. Museums would hate it. But everyone else would be wild about it.”

  “But if Patterson did something like that he’d be exposed as a—” Bruno stopped himself. What an old-fashioned-sounding word fraud was.

  “He’s a famous wonderful television doctor,” said Andy in a tone of reason, “and he just almost got assassinated. People love Red Patterson.”

  Bruno couldn’t say this: Patterson could finish the painting himself, if he had to.

  Andy was being gentle, like a considerate teacher. “Don’t take it so seriously. Curtis is just another artist. We’re all artists, inside.”

  Bruno tried to adopt something like his usual tone. “If Curtis is dead my career is on a stretcher, heading for the morgue.”

  “Don’t be silly. You’ll be the big name when it comes to Curtis as long as you live. Maybe you could join forces with Red Patterson, and make a video on unlocking the artist within.”

  Bruno felt heavy, a man made of lead. He felt that he had overlooked something vital, and now realized what it was.

  He had been worried about the painting, worried about Curtis. Red Patterson was all that mattered. “I shouldn’t have let Margaret go out there.”

  Andy picked up the cigarettes and worked them into his shirt pocket. “You’ve got to be kidding. You know Red Patterson is supposed to be a fantastic lover.”

  “Why did Red Patterson seem so interested in having me look at the painting and authenticate it?”

  “I’m sure he was pleased. It makes him look good. Besides, in Patterson’s eyes you’re still important. He respects you. But—” Andy shrugged.

  “People aren’t that stupid.”

  Andy gave him a smile. “The people on television are the people who matter.”

  Bruno had no answer to that.

  “Look over there,” said Andy. “That couple—they recognize you. She’s trying to get the man to come over and get your autograph in the guidebook. Think what it would be like if you were Red Patterson.”

  Bruno closed his eyes again. Swallows were squealing overhead, their cries spiraling, citadels sketched in the air. “The painting doesn’t matter. Margaret doesn’t matter. I don’t matter—”

  “Yes, you do. Because you’ve been on television. But Red Patterson is—” Andy gestured, indicating the Pantheon, the buildings, the city around them, the capitol of emperors and saints, of human beings turned into gods.

  Andy looked different, now, his chest deeper, his eyes brighter. Andy was full of life, just as Bruno felt himself growing more and more empty.

  “The future belongs to people like Red Patterson,” said Andy, sounding carefree, as though that was not only inevitable, but good.

  The couple was Dutch, and she and her husband were sorry to interrupt. Bruno signed their guidebook, on a blank page under a scab of glue where the map had been removed.

  The couple thanked Bruno, and departed.

  “But Bruno,” Andy was saying, getting up, ready to leave. “You have to tell me—what is he really like?”

  43

  Margaret found herself on her knees, holding the envelope in her hands. The prongs of the envelope’s clasp were askew, the glue of the flap unmoistened.

  She tried to tell herself that this was only some sort of brutal joke. Someone, an anonymous scribbler, was trying to frighten her. It was ridiculous to take it seriously.

  The words stopped everything, canceled every other thought.

  She watched her hand move. She reached into the envelope. She let the pistol lie across the flat of her palm, and there was an instant in which she thought—or tried to think—it must be a toy.

  Her face stared back, half-aware, from the mirror. The mirror was flawed with tarnish stains, and the infinity effect, the nautilus-chambered spill of Margarets and envelopes and handguns mocked her.

  You should have given up a long time ago, her mother would have said. It was always hopeless where Curtis was concerned. You were always going to be too late.

  She dressed quickly, tugging on running shoes, leaving her baseball shirt on so that it hung down, covering the pistol thrust into the front pocket of her jeans. It fit snugly, as though designed to be hidden in a pocket just like that, tucked away with just a little awkwardness in the way it felt, like carrying rolls of pennies in a pocket on the way to the bank.

  The mirrored door to the hallway was locked. That was hardly a surprise. It made sense. Oh, by the way, take this key and make sure Margaret is locked in so we can forget her for the night.

  She opened the window and the shutters, and felt herself standing at the edge of a void. She could not see the desert. She could smell it.

  She hoisted herself onto the sill. The scent, fine and dry, swirled around her as it mixed with the air conditioning. She won’t try jumping out that window, little slip of a thing like that. She knew that it was best not to think, to get it over with fast. She pushed off, into the dark.

  There was enough time to wonder as she fell. How would she avoid hurting herself? A wind rose upward from the land she could not see, and she felt herself drifting, beginning to tumble sideways.

  She sprawled.

  She stood. She fell again, and when she was on her feet a second time she staggered to the wall of the villa and leaned against it for support. The wall was warm, stored heat at her cheek, at the bare skin of her arms.

  They had been right. Anyone who jumped out of the bedroom window was in trouble. She tried to tell herself she wasn’t hurt. She sensed an absence. There was something metallic on the stones, and she groped. She closed her hand around the gun, and worked it back into her pocket.

  She ran, stumbling over stones, and found her way around the big house, all the way to the entrance of the garden. The pool light was still on, an azure glitter through the black stalks of trees.

  Her breathing was loud. In the desert you can hear things far off, she told herself. She was no secret. Anyone could hear her panting like this.

  Ahead of her, across the black of the landing strip apron, shined a light from one of the hangars, or from a garage. The light played out across the asphalt, and grease spots glistened. There were two sources of light, two interiors she could barely make out from here.

  She was beginning to feel a delayed effect from her jump. She limped, and ran as hard and fast as she could, so she could reach the source of the light before her legs failed completely.

  She made it to the garage. There was a car in the bright interior, all chrome and windshield in the sudden illumination as she slipped through the gap in the door.

  She warned herself not to make a sound, but she couldn’t help it. She was inside the car, reaching for the ignition, but the key was missing.

  She was out of the car, out of the garage, stumbling, all the way to the next source of light. She was through the doorway, into the bright light of the hangar, halted by what she saw.

  She had no
t expected to see so many. Airplanes waited, living things under the light from the metal-beamed ceiling. She had the impression of a war that had been stilled and captured, and stored here, of adventure kept, as hands cup a butterfly, power and freedom awaiting some distant morning.

  The aircraft seemed to be living things, animation suspended, propellers still, each fuselage canted upward, and she had the impression that this was a boy’s fantasy played out, a youth’s love of the sky given its own playground.

  There was something moving over by a workbench. Shadows pulsed. She sought the half-shelter of a Shell oil drum, and then approached the bench. It was only a moth, a big, chalky set of wings, chiming almost inaudibly off a lightbulb.

  “We could always take one up,” said Red Patterson.

  She turned and felt for the gun in her pocket to be sure it was there. She backed away from him, all the way against a corrugated aluminum wall.

  He stepped through the doorway. He looked younger than he had earlier, dressed in a white shirt and pants like hers, jeans, except that his had a tear at one knee. There was a smudge of paint on one of his knuckles, bright yellow.

  “I was in the studio,” he said. “Bishop told me you had flown, and I didn’t believe it. I had to see for myself.”

  “I won’t be able to wait until tomorrow,” Margaret said.

  “You don’t know how many people I’ve seen with that trapped expression, the look of a jackrabbit in the headlights. It’s the beginning of your future. You see it coming, and you’re afraid of it. Tell me what you want to know.”

  “Where is Curtis?”

  “I saw the message Loretta Lee left you.” He paused, and when she said nothing, continued, “She shouldn’t have tried to frighten you like that. What really concerns me is I think I know what she left in the envelope. It left an impression in the paper, the definite outline of something that could get you into serious trouble.” He paused, giving her time to respond. Then he said, “I am worried about you, Margaret.”

  “I have to see him.”

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  “I remember you saying on one of your shows that there is always only today.”