by Robert Stone
Lowndes brushed his hand away violently. “I don’t go for this tinseltown familiarity,” he told Axelrod.
“That’s not nice, Dongan,” Axelrod said.
“Mr. Maldonado,” Lu Anne said, “would you find him for me?”
“Can’t you walk?” Miss Armitage asked. “Find your own goddamn friends.”
Lu Anne was carefully pouring the decanted red wine into her glass. She drank it down.
“I can’t see so well,” she explained. “And there’s such a crowd.”
“Of course,” Maldonado said. “Mr. Walker. I’ll find him. I’ll go now.”
He touched his napkin to his mouth, although he had not been eating, and went off.
“Christ almighty, Charlie,” Miss Armitage said to her host. “Where do you get these people?”
“The same place I got you,” Charlie Freitag said brightly. There were no laughs for him at the table.
Walker was in the pool-house lavatory, sniffing cocaine from the porcelain surface of the sink, when the door opened behind him. In the mirror over the sink he saw a man framed in the doorway, discovering him in flagrante. The man appeared wild-eyed and disheveled; he was wearing a white dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck and dark trousers. It was an unwelcome sight.
“Cocaína,” the man said.
Walker turned slowly toward the man in the mirror and recognized Maldonado.
“It’s all right,” he said slowly, having no idea himself what he might mean.
“Among my friends,” the painter explained, “it’s frowned on as bourgeois. As gringo. My companion—Miss Armitage—is very bitter on the subject.”
“I’ll bet,” Walker said. He went past Maldonado to lock the door. “I thought,” he explained, “I had locked this.”
“No,” Maldonado said, “it was open. This is difficult,” he told Walker. “To have some or not?”
“Do have some,” Walker suggested. “I mean, it’s your decision of course.”
“I shall,” Maldonado said. “Why not?”
They took some. The painter paced, frowning.
“A case could certainly be made,” Walker said, “that it’s bad for the Indians. In terms of exploitation.”
Maldonado waved the argument away.
“It’s neither good nor bad for the Indians. It makes no difference for them. It’s ourselves and our societies that we’re destroying.”
“That’s as it should be,” Walker said.
They had more. Instead of pacing, Maldonado fixed Walker with a grave stare.
“Who is the woman, Walker?”
“Do you mean Lee Verger? You were introduced.”
“Lee Verger,” Maldonado repeated. “An actress?”
“A very good actress. Quite well known.”
“Is she acting now? Tonight? Performing?”
Walker hesitated.
“Not tonight,” he said. “Not really.”
“She’s your woman?”
“Yes,” Walker said.
“She sent me to get you. I’m not some house cat to be sent on such an errand but I obeyed her. She asked me if I was a good painter and I replied that I was not. I wanted to humiliate myself.”
“Well,” Walker said, “you’ve probably fallen in love with her.”
“I can explain,” Maldonado said. “I can explain to her. With your permission.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Walker said. “Let’s go back and talk.”
The party seemed to be going well as Walker and Maldonado made their way back to Charlie Freitag’s table. The violinists patrolled unmolested; happy conversation bubbled up from every quarter. Only at the party’s core, in the circle around Freitag, a dark enchantment prevailed.
Maldonado resumed his seat across from Lu Anne. He and all the others at the table watched in silence as Walker guided himself into a chair beside her and she moved to steady him. When he was down beside her she took his hand and kissed it and put her arm around his neck.
“I want to explain myself,” Maldonado said. “I want to explain what I said against my painting.”
“There’s no need for that,” Miss Armitage said. “Everyone knows how wonderful you are. And everyone can see you’ve been drinking.”
The voice of Joy McIntyre rang again through the patio.
“The choreographer at the Sands is dead!” she bellowed. “The choreog—” She began the phrase again but was cut off in mid-word, somewhat disconcertingly.
“Why are people always saying that?” Lowndes asked.
“ ’Cause we’re in tinseltown,” Axelrod told him. “And they’re sending you a message, Dongan.”
“I want to speak about my painting,” Maldonado said. “This lady has challenged me and I dedicate my remarks to her.”
“The lady will excuse you,” Ann Armitage said firmly. “She knows there are things not to say in public. She understands that sometimes we say things that can hurt us in important ways.”
“All the same,” Maldonado said softly.
Walker finished the drink at his place.
“We are true artists here,” he explained, “we work without a net.”
Old Drogue came out of the darkness; there appeared to be dark welts on his neck. He made his way to the table to sit between his son and Patty.
When Charlie rose to welcome him, he raised his right hand in a kind of benediction and sat down.
“Yay, Pops,” Drogue junior said. Patty enfolded his arm in hers.
“I come from Colima,” Maldonado told them. “My people were dust. I went to school and studied art because art is prized in this country. My teacher had been a student of the American William Gropper, so he painted like Gropper and so did I. In Tepic I have a roomful of my early work—all very realistic and political.”
“Passionate,” Miss Armitage told the people at the table. “Fierce and full of rage. It’s wonderful work.”
“It resembles the cartoons of Mr. Magoo,” Maldonado said. “A Mr. Magoo passionate, fierce and full of rage.”
“He tortures himself,” Ann Armitage lamented.
“I torture myself by enduring banalities in silence. I wish on my mother’s grave I had never learned the English language.”
“You probably went too far,” Walker suggested. “You should have learned a little restaurant English. Enough to order flapjacks. Certainly not enough to understand Miss Armitage on the subject of Mexican painting.”
“What’s he doing here anyway?” Miss Armitage asked Charlie of Walker. “Why isn’t he somewhere chained to a hospital bed?”
Charlie muttered soothingly and looked at the table.
Maldonado turned to Lu Anne.
“Before you there should only be truth. Because of your eyes.”
“How serious everything’s become,” Lu Anne said. “First the choreographer at the Sands and now this.”
“You started it,” Walker pointed out to her. “Ask a tactless question and you get the long answer.”
“The choreographer at the Sands?” Lowndes asked.
“I’ve never spoken the truth in English,” Maldonado told them. “Is it possible?”
“Oh yes,” Lu Anne said. “But very Protestant.”
“I’ve taken to diving,” the artist told her. “I take pictures wherever there’s coral. Then from the pictures I paint. Can you imagine what it’s like to vulgarize the bottom of the ocean? The source of life? When you know the difference?”
“Courage,” Walker told the artist, “you’re talking to the right crowd. There are people at this table who can vulgarize pure light.”
“I want to tell you more,” Maldonado said. “More of the truth.”
“Isn’t he beautiful?” Lu Anne asked the people at the table.
“Great face,” old Drogue said. “Good bones.”
“Mr. Maldonado,” Lu Anne said, “if you were the god of good bones it wouldn’t matter what you told me. The truth is no concern of mine.”
“Can’t you see
she’s crazy?” Miss Armitage asked her friend.
“Because I lie so well in your language,” Maldonado said, “and because I listen so well to lies, I’m successful. Perhaps also because I’m beautiful and have good bones. Now I have an arrangement with a very prestigious department store. They sell my paintings there and my prints. They also use my designs. So I can look forward to the day, Miss Verger, when my visions will be stamped on every shower curtain in America. In every swimming pool, Jacuzzi and bathtub. On the toilet wallpaper and in the toilet bowl. Wherever sanitation is honored—Maldonados. Standing tall.”
“Somebody’s got to do it,” young Drogue told him.
“Hey, man,” Patty said to her husband, “you know we own a lot of this guy’s stuff and he’s telling us it’s all crapola.”
“We can fix that tomorrow morning,” young Drogue said. “One phone call.”
“Do you want me to forgive you, Mr. Maldonado?” Lu Anne asked. “I would forgive you if I could.” The Long Friends gathered round her. “But I myself am no more than good bones. A rag, a hank of hair and good bones.”
“Just a minute,” Maldonado said. “We have a bargain. This is the time of truth among truth tellers. You people,” he told the people at the table, “you who know how good you are! Tell us!”
“Come off it, man,” Axelrod said.
“Yeah, man,” Dongan Lowndes said. “Come off it.” He seemed restored to full vigor and he was doing an imitation of Axelrod.
Axelrod looked at him pensively.
“I don’t want anyone to leave,” Maldonado said with a hint of menace. “I want everyone to explain themselves.”
Lowndes raised his glass, which contained tequila au naturel, in Charlie’s direction.
“Thank God it’s Freitag,” he declared.
“This is fun,” Walker said. “This is better than poker. Who opens?”
“What do we need?” Ann Armitage asked. “Do alcoholism and impotence make a pair?”
“Miss Armitage,” Walker announced, “was the only person in America actually hanged during the McCarthy period. She was strung up at the height of her career from the witching elm at the Hamilton horse trials.”
“You louse,” Ann Armitage said in her cultivated voice. “You eunuch.”
“Miss Armitage is a student of sexual prowess in males,” Walker continued, “and a major Mexican art critic. She combines in her single self the principal attributes of Eleonora Duse, Eleanor Roosevelt and Eleanor of Castile. Also Rosa Luxemburg, Sacco and Vanzetti. If a passing divine hadn’t noticed her dangling there during the dressage competition and recognized the visible manifestations of grace, her poor alcoholic impotent husband might be alive today. Pretty soon she’s going to write her memoirs and we’ll see a parade of virtue as long as Macy’s at Thanksgiving but with twice as much gas and imagination.”
“Everyone’s under a lot of strain,” Charlie Freitag said grimly.
“They’re all drunk, Charlie,” Axelrod explained. “That’s what it is.”
“Tell him about yourself, Gordon,” Walter Drogue junior said.
“Walter’s a wonderful dresser,” Walker told the Mexican, “and he’s a feminist and he’s not taking a writing credit on this movie because he hasn’t written it.”
“Watch it, buster,” Patty Drogue said.
“These are only insults,” Maldonado complained. “It’s childish to insult people for being only what they are. I want to hear about ability.”
“Laughter,” Lu Anne said. She looked radiant in the firelight and everyone watched her. “Ability and sighs.”
“For Christ’s sake, Maldonado,” Walker said, “everybody here is at least pretty good.” He took Lu Anne by the hand. “This one thinks the owl was a baker’s daughter but she’s as pure as country water.” He turned to Freitag. “And Charlie—Charlie,” he said, “are you O.K.?”
“Everyone’s under a lot of strain,” Charlie Freitag said.
“Charlie’s under a lot of strain,” Walker explained.
“Tell him about yourself, Gordon,” young Drogue said again.
“He knows, Walter. He and I are compañeros in crime. Two flash acts. Where did we go wrong? Who knows? Who gives a shit? We’ve done O.K.” With a sweep of his arm he encompassed the patio, the neat lighted pathways and the dark bay. “Here we all are, man. On top of the hill.”
“Top of the world, Ma,” Axelrod said.
“Then there’s Axelrod,” Walker said, “who should have been pushed out of a ninth-story window of the Half-Moon Hotel at an early age.”
“Your momma,” Axelrod said.
People were coming by in various stages of intoxication to eavesdrop and to bid Charlie Freitag farewell. The fires were being banked and the meat wrapped in foil to keep it warm.
Maldonado sagged in his chair. His charge was wearing down, fatigue and drink weighed down on him. He looked at Lowndes, who was wide awake at the end of the table, an unsound smile on his face.
“What about him?” Maldonado asked Walker.
“He’s a bone god,” Lu Anne said.
“We’re not going to talk about him,” Walker said. “He’s dangerous work for the likes of you and me.”
Axelrod slapped Lowndes on the back.
“He’s a collector. He collects art.”
Everyone at the table looked at the former novelist.
“It’s been heaven,” Patty Drogue said. “Can we go now?”
“I’m going to turn in,” Charlie said. “I think we all should. When all is said and done,” he told them, “we still have a lot of work to do.”
“Oh,” Lu Anne said, “but not tomorrow, Charles. We’re free tomorrow.”
“Damn right,” Lowndes said. Everyone turned to him. “This lady doesn’t need some damned Freitag to tell her when to retire,”
“Hey, Dongan,” Axelrod said, “that’s not polite.”
Freitag appeared not to have heard himself insulted.
“Dongan …” he began, “I hope you’ll bear with us.”
“Don’t call him Dongan,” Axelrod said, “he doesn’t go for tinsel-town familiarity. Hey, Charlie,” he said, taking Lowndes by the arm, “how long has it been since we had to buy pictures off some wise fuck?”
“What kind of pictures?” Freitag asked.
“Yes,” Ann Armitage asked, “what kind of pictures, Mr. Lowndes?”
“I don’t know what you goddamn people are talking about,” Lowndes said. “What are you so worried about? Isn’t there a clear conscience in the crowd here?”
“I have to tell you,” Lu Anne said, “that we played with the bones. Yes, we did. Gordon.” She looked beseechingly at Walker and then at each of the others in turn. “Mr. Lowndes. Walter. Charlie. Sir. And you, sir, and you, madam, whose forgiveness I implore. We went to the cemetery, and where the ovens—the crypts—were broken, we played with the bones.”
“You go ahead, Patty,” young Drogue said. “We’ll be right there.”
“Don’t follow the counsels of drink, Lowndes,” Walker said. “Liquor’s not your friend. Tomorrow, we’ll have a conference call—you and Axelrod and Van Epp—it’ll work out great. Everybody will make out great.”
“What pictures?” Charlie Freitag asked. “What pictures have you got, Mr. Lowndes?”
“Charlie,” old Drogue said, “let them work it out. Don’t put your health at risk.”
Lu Anne got up and went to Freitag and took his arm. Lowndes watched her hungrily.
“They said it would make us sick and we didn’t listen,” she told Freitag. “All summer we would creep over in the middle of the day. Inside it was cool and awful-smelling. We played with the bones until old black Pelletier come yelling at us. You all know how kids are. My sister would run across the street, eat a Sno-ball—never even wash her hands.”
“Go to bed, Lu Anne.” Charlie turned to Walker. “Gordon, please.”
Walker stepped beside her.
“Pictures?” Maldon
ado asked.
“He’s a reporter,” Ann Armitage explained to her friend. “He has a hot picture and he wants to be paid off.”
The information seemed to depress Maldonado utterly.
“How do you like the sound of that, Lowndes?” Walker asked. He turned to Maldonado. “He can write the birds out of the trees, this guy. The good fairies brought him insight and invention and sound. But the bad fairy took his balls away.”
“Don’t provoke him,” Lu Anne said. “You only think he’s a man. He isn’t really.”
“So here he is,” Walker said. “He’s got all this great stuff going for him. He’s a first-class writer and a fourth-rate human being. He doesn’t have the confidence or the manliness to manage his own talent. He doesn’t have the balls.”
“But you would, would you?” young Drogue asked Walker. “If you were as good as you claim he is, you’d be one terrific human being. Is that what you’re telling us?”
“If I was that good,” Walker said, “I would never waste a moment. I’d be at it night and day. I’d never take a drink or drug myself or be with a woman I didn’t love.”
“Listen to him,” old Drogue said. “You try to tell people writers are assholes and nobody listens.”
The Drogues turned away into the darkness.
“Good night, all,” Ann Armitage said. She drew herself up and waited for Maldonado. “You guys slay me,” she said, “with your going on about balls.” Sadly, the portly Mexican rose and went with her.
“I did get sick,” Lu Anne said. “I breathed them inside me from a cemetery wall. Playing with the bones. Them, there.”
She pointed to the Long Friends who were clustered about Lowndes trying to touch him with their long, delicately clawed fingers, affecting to enfold him in the fine tracery of their dark wings.
“Little sister,” Lowndes said. “You’re a long way from home.”
“I’ve come a long way from my cemetery wall,” Lu Anne said. “Sometimes I think I’ve ceased to be God’s child. I think you found me out, Mr. Dongan Lowndes.”
Axelrod and Lowndes stood up at the same time, Axelrod placing himself between Lowndes and Freitag. Freitag stepped back with Lu Anne on his arm.
“You’re a sweet woman,” Lowndes said. “You don’t belong with this pack of dogs.”