“I’m a friend.”
He smiled. “Well, she’s okay … ackshally she’s a old bitch.” Laughter from some of the others.
A crew-cut kid said, “You’re just pissed ’cause she cleaned you out, Kyle.”
Thumber moved his head fast and stared at him. The other boy said, “Face it, Kyle.”
“Fuck you.” Kyle looked back at me. “She cheats, the old bitch.”
“At what?” I said.
“Everything. Poker, craps, dice. What’d you play with her?”
“Chess.”
“Yeah? Well, hate to tell you, but maybe she got herself a new boyfriend.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. She split with a dude.”
Another of the boys said, “Pass the rinds.”
Kyle bent and fumbled on the grass for a long time, to a chorus of derision, before finally picking up a bag of pork rinds. Rolling it up, he tossed it behind his head. Someone caught it. Someone else said, “Shit! Watch it, asshole!”
I said, “Do you remember what this guy looked like?”
“Nope, but he had a fine Beemerdubyou.” To his friends: “Remember that Beemerdubyou? With the bitchin’ spoiler on its ass?”
A round-faced boy with very long, wavy blond hair said, “Din’t it have a bra?”
“Yeah,” said someone. “For its tits.”
Laugh track.
I looked back at the curb. The Seville was five cars down the block, under a working streetlight. The driver’s window was open, and I was pretty sure I saw Spike’s blocky head leaning out.
“A dark gray BMW?” I said. “Chrome wheels?”
“Yeah,” said Kyle. He shifted imaginary gears. “Gonna get me one of them.”
“Bullshit,” said another boy. “First you got to get your license back. Then you gotta learn how to play cards not like some asshole.”
“I’ll get it back, fuck you,” said Kyle. Suddenly, his shoulders were hunched and he was drawing his hand back, as if ready for a touchdown throw. He snapped his wrist and tossed his beer can. It flew by me and landed in the street, clattering and rolling, narrowly missing a parked car.
“Hey, man,” said someone. “Chill.”
“Fuck you!” Kyle was up on his feet. Both his hands were tight and he was bouncing on bare feet. He had nothing on but baggies. Tangles of tattoos on both arms.
He said, “Fuck you,” again.
No one answered. The snoring boy was awake.
Kyle wheeled and looked at me.
“What do you want?” he said in a new voice.
I gave him the thumbs-up sign and left.
As I got back in the car, Robin said, “Was everything okay back there?”
“Fine,” I said. “Oh, glorious youth.”
CHAPTER
31
I drove back to Malibu thinking of something Doris had told me.
“I like Nevada.”
A serious gambler? Was that where the payoff money had gone? If there’d ever been any.
Her leaving town under Tom Shea’s escort right after I talked to her made me sure I was on to something.
Giving Lucy’s dream new credence, I thought about the three men. Lowell and two others, one of them almost certainly Trafficant. Probably the one with his back turned.
So who was Hairy Lip?
Maybe just another guest, but more likely someone who knew Lowell and Trafficant well enough to be invited to the private party.
Member of the club.
Another Sanctum Fellow?
When we got home, I reread the newspaper coverage of the Sanctum opening while Robin brushed her hair and got into her nightgown.
Three names, no pictures:
Christopher Graydon-Jones, the English sculptor.
Joachim Sprentzel, the German composer.
And Denton Mellors, the aspiring American novelist. The sole reviewer to praise Command: Shed the Light. He’d also lauded Trafficant’s book. His fellowship payback, just as Trafficant’s had been?
The more I thought about it, the more it made sense.
Lowell and his two star pupils.
Maybe he’d coached them in something other than writing. But where to go with it?
Robin was in bed, curled on her side.
I slipped out of my clothes and got in next to her, wrapping my arms around her.
She mumbled.
I held her and felt her drift off to sleep.
I woke up before sunrise, thinking about Lucy’s dream. She and Ken were spending some time together today, and her next session would be tomorrow.
I made breakfast for Robin and myself and brought it to bed. While she showered, I called New York and made another attempt to locate Trafficant through his publisher. All I learned was that out-of-print authors don’t garner much respect.
Robin was ready to leave for the jobsite at 8:30. As her truck pulled away, Spike’s flat face pressed up against the passenger window. I was right behind in the Seville.
At Bel Air, she continued east and I turned off at the university. I walked into the research library at 9:25. A few early birds were studying, but plenty of computer terminals were available. I accessed the periodicals index and typed in names, starting with my most likely candidate, Denton Mellors.
Not a word. I checked Books in Print, academic journals, every sublist I could find.
Nothing. If he’d ever published his novel, there was no record of it.
I went on to Christopher Graydon-Jones.
Three citations, the first twenty years ago when the sculptor had received a commission from a company called Enterprise Insurance to create a bronze and iron piece for the lobby of its corporate headquarters in downtown L.A. Minor coverage in the L.A. Times arts supplement, no picture.
Two years after that, a business journal had him working for the same company as Assistant Deputy Director of Marketing, an interesting transition. Five years later, he’d advanced to Chief Operating Officer at Enterprise, and a publicity photo showed him looking older than his thirty-five years: balding, with a long face, wide pouchy eyes, and a weak chin. Clean-shaven.
Next: Joachim Sprentzel. The German had taught composition at Juilliard before committing suicide eight years ago, in Hartford, Connecticut. A Hartford Courant obituary cited a “protracted illness” and noted Sprentzel’s “commitment to textural atonalism and chromatic adventure.” His parents still lived in Munich. No wife or children.
A ten-year-old Juilliard faculty shot portrayed an intense-looking man with a very strong square jaw, bushy dark hair, and nervous eyes behind tiny wire-frame eyeglasses.
Above the jaw, a thick drooping mustache.
Remarkably similar in shape and color to Diggity Dog’s.
Hairy Lip.
Suicide after a protracted illness. A single man.
My gut assumption was AIDS, but it could have been anything.
Dead. Another avenue closed off.
I photocopied all of it and checked in with my service. Messages from two lawyers, a judge, and Sherrell Best. I saved the Reverend for last. He wasn’t home, and a woman at the Church of the Outstretched Hand said he was out making food deliveries.
I returned the phone to its cradle.
Three men at a gravesite.
Lowell, Trafficant, and Sprentzel?
All three out of reach.
I reviewed the photocopied articles.
It was a long shot, but maybe Christopher Graydon-Jones was still working downtown.
I looked up Enterprise Insurance in the Central L.A. book. No listing. But a scan of the yellow pages revealed an address on 26th Street in Santa Monica and the subheading “Specializing in worker’s compensation plans and corporate liability.”
I called the number and asked for Mr. Graydon-Jones. To my amazement I was put through to a happy-sounding secretary. When I asked to speak to her boss, she managed to stay happy while getting protective.
“What’s this in regard to, sir?�
�
“Mr. Graydon-Jones’s fellowship at Sanctum.”
“What’s Sanctum, sir?”
“An artistic retreat run by the novelist M. Bayard Lowell. Mr. Graydon-Jones was a sculpture fellow there, quite a while ago. I’m a freelance writer working on a biography of Mr. Lowell, and I’m attempting to reach—”
“An artistic what?”
“Retreat. A place where artists can go to pursue their art.”
“You’re saying Mr. Graydon-Jones was once an artist?”
“He was a sculptor. He did the sculpture in the lobby of Enterprise’s corporate office downtown.”
“We haven’t been downtown for years.”
“I realize that, but Mr. Graydon-Jones was commissioned back in—”
“Is this some sort of joke, sir?”
“No. Could you please give him the message? He may want to speak with me.”
“He’s out right now. Your name, sir?”
“Del Ware. Sandy Del Ware.” I gave her my number.
“Very well, Mr. Del Ware,” she said, too quickly. Then she hung up.
I looked at my watch. Twelve-fifteen. Graydon-Jones out to lunch? Or sitting behind a big desk shuffling papers, a busy, important man.
I had plenty of time.
Enterprise’s headquarters was only a twenty-minute drive.
The building was just south of Olympic, in a high-end industrial park favoring electronics companies. Five stories, brick and glass, with a restaurant on the ground floor called Escape, specializing in expensive burgers and tropical drinks.
Enterprise was just a suite on the second floor. The door was locked and a sign dangling from the knob said OUT TO LUNCH UNTIL 2 P.M.
I went back down to the ground floor. No sculpture. The door to the restaurant was open, and the odors from within weren’t bad. I decided to have lunch and then try again.
A hostess looked me over and said, “Just one?”
I gave her my best aw-shucks lonely-guy smile, and she put me in a tiny corner table near the rest rooms. The place was teeming with suits and smiles, the air ripe with alcohol and gravy. Paper palms on white walls. Gauguin prints hanging alongside travel photos of blue water and brown bodies.
I ordered a beer and a Tahiti Burger and was working my way down the foam when I saw him across the room in a booth with a woman.
Older, balder, the little hair he had left iron-gray. But definitely the same long face, mournful eyes, and a chin that had lost even more bone, receding into a stringy neck. He wore a dark blue suit and a tie so bright it seemed radioactive.
The woman was in her thirties, honey-blond and well put together. No food in front of them, just red drinks with celery sticks and piles of paper.
I ate and watched them; then the woman collected the papers, shook Graydon-Jones’s hand, and left.
He ordered another drink and lit up a cigarillo.
I left money on my table and approached.
“Mr. Graydon-Jones?”
He looked up. The sad eyes were blue.
I repeated the pitch I’d given his secretary.
He smiled. “Yes, I got your message. Sanctum. How strange.” English accent, tinged with working-class cadences that wouldn’t mean much here but would pigeonhole him back in the U.K.
“What is?” I said.
“Hearing about that place after all this time. What was your name again?”
“Sandy Del Ware.”
“And you’re writing a biography of Lowell?”
“Trying to.”
“Do you have a business card?”
“No, sorry. I’m a freelance.”
He tapped ashes into an ashtray. “Trying? Does that mean you have no contract?”
“Several publishers are interested, but my agent wants me to submit a thorough outline before he negotiates a deal. I’ve been able to get all the basics on Lowell except for the time period when he opened Sanctum. In fact, you’re the only Fellow I’ve been able to locate.”
“That so?” He smiled. “Please sit down. Drink?”
“No, but I’d be happy to buy you one.”
He laughed. “No, thank you. Two at lunch is my limit.”
He called for the bill, ordered coffee for both of us, and scrawled something on the check.
“I appreciate your talking to me,” I said.
“Only for a few minutes.” Looking at a big Rolex. “Now, why on earth would you want to write a book about Buck?”
“He’s an interesting character. Rise and fall of a major talent.”
“Hmm. Yes. I suppose that would be nicely ironic. But to me he was rather a bore. No offense, but one of those eternal children Americans seem so fond of.”
“Well, hopefully they’ll stay fond and buy my book.”
He smiled again and buttoned his jacket over his thin chest. The suit looked to be one of those highly structured English affairs that costs thousands. His shirt was white with horizontal blue stripes and a high white collar, probably Turnbull&Asser. The conspicuous tie was patterned with artist’s brushes and palettes on black jacquard silk. Simulated dabs of paint supplied the color: scarlet and orange and turquoise and lime-green. “So what would you like to know about the Bug Farm?”
“Pardon?”
“The Bug Farm. That’s what we called the place. It was infested with bugs: beetles, spiders, whatever. And we were all buggy back then. Bugged out—a bit crazy. The old man probably selected us for that. How’s he doing?”
“Alive but ill.”
“Sorry to hear that … I suppose. Anyway, there’s not much I can tell you. The bloody farce only lasted one year.”
“I know,” I lied. “But no one’s been able to tell me why.”
“The old man lost interest is why. One year we were his prize pigeons, the next we were out on our arses. Best thing that ever happened to me. I learned about the real world.”
“How were you selected?”
“I was an artist back then—or at least I thought I was.” He looked at his hands, long-fingered, powerful. “Bronze and stone. I wasn’t half terrible actually. Won some awards in England and got a contract with a gallery in New York. The owner heard about the retreat and recommended me to Lowell. In lieu of paying me for two pieces.”
“From sculpture to insurance,” I said. “Must have been an interesting switch.”
He crushed out the cigarillo. “There’s art in everything. Anyway, I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful. As I say, it was a foolish year.”
“Do you have any idea how I can locate the other Fellows? Not Joachim Sprentzel, of course. He’s dead.”
He scratched his neck. “Really? Poor chap. How?”
“Suicide. His obituary said he’d been ill for a long time.”
“AIDS?”
“Was he gay?”
“As springtime. Not a bad sort. Kept to himself, writing music all day—no piano or violin, just scratching away at that funny lined paper.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me about him?”
“Such as?”
“Personality characteristics that might be interesting in a book?”
“Personality,” he said, touching the side of his nose. “Quiet. Withdrawn. A bit gloomy, perhaps. Probably because there were no boys to play with. And, of course, being German.… That’s about it. He didn’t socialize much—none of us did. Buck gave us each a little cabin and told us to ‘wax brilliant.’ Isolation was encouraged. It wasn’t a sociable place.”
“I’ve heard the grand opening party was pretty interesting.”
“So have I—wine, women, song, music, all sorts of fun. One damned bit of ha-ha the whole year, and I was having my appendix out. Bit of bad luck, eh? When I healed up and got back, the old man wouldn’t talk to me. Punishment for not being there. As if I’d defied him by bursting my bloody appendix. A few months later, I was out on my arse.”
Removing the celery stick from his glass, he nibbled the edge.
�
�Gawd, this takes me back. You really think you’ve got a book in it?”
“I hope so.”
“Send me a copy if it ever gets published.”
“Absolutely. Speaking of getting published, I can’t find anything on the two writing Fellows, Terrence Trafficant and Denton Mellors. Trafficant had a best-seller, then faded from view, and Mellors just seems to have disappeared without publishing anything.”
“Terry the Pirate and Denny.… This is a hoot, haven’t thought about them in ages. Well, Terry’s probably in jail somewhere. I have no idea about Denny.”
“You think Trafficant got into trouble again?”
“I wouldn’t doubt it. Trouble was his art. Fancied himself a bad guy, bloody Wild West outlaw. Bloody criminal is what he was, used to walk around with a big hunting knife in his belt, take it out during mealtime, pick his teeth, clean his nails. He put it by his plate when he ate, protecting his food with one arm, as if we were out to steal it. He really gave poor Sprentzel a hard time. Removing his shirt, asking Sprentzel if he thought he was pretty. Imitating Sprentzel’s accent, calling him a faggot and worse. Threatening him.”
“What kinds of threats?”
“ ‘Make you my wife, faggot.’ That kind of rubbish. The rest of us were scared witless, but Lowell always stood up for Terry. A bloody pet—one big cheery family we were. Where else could Trafficant be other than jail?”
“Still, it’s odd,” I said. “Achieving all that success and reverting back to his old ways.”
“A criminal,” he said, with some passion. His forehead was shiny and he licked his lips. “He was never anything but.”
“What about Mellors?”
“Another charmer—very bright actually. Well-spoken, educated, but a bit of an arse-licker.”
“Lowell’s ass?”
“And Terry’s. He got on with Terry better than the rest of us. Not as cherished as Terry, though. Number-two man on the ladder.”
“Sounds like there was a hierarchy.”
“Definitely. Terry first, then Denny. Then Sprentzel and me, vying for low rung. I’d have to say Sprentzel was at rock bottom because he was gay. Buck had no tolerance for that—man’s man and all that, raw meat for breakfast.”
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