by S. J. Rozan
“And you’re worried Sam will ruin that?”
“When Peter and I met, Sam was just Peter’s weird older brother. He worked at a diner, for God’s sake; no one told me he even painted. Any babysitting he needed, their parents did. Then they died and Peter somehow decided Sam was his job. Sam went from being that creep at Christmas dinner to a lead weight, and, Jesus, it’s been one fuck-up after another. I could show you a list of missed opportunities as long as your arm, always because Sam needed this, or that, or new meds, or whatever. Even when he didn’t, he was on Peter’s mind. Have you ever seen a balloon deflated to where it just bounces along, two inches off the ground, instead of soaring into the sky?”
Her words were both melodramatic and sarcastic, but there was no question how seriously she meant them.
“I was going to leave him, you know,” Leslie added. “We were going nowhere, just this nice little firm doing pleasant little work, and I’d had it.”
“Sam told me you guys were having trouble.”
“He noticed?” Her voice dripped venom. “Funny, Peter didn’t. He was too busy tomcatting around and trying to hide it.”
She must have seen my surprise, because she said, “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I care about that. God knows that’s not why I married him.”
“Is that a fact?”
Leslie curled her lip in the direction of the office door. “Peter spends his day being the spacey, affable genius. At night, he wants… something else. Something a lot less warm and fuzzy. I don’t play that.”
“I see.”
“I doubt it. I let him think I don’t know what’s going on, because I don’t want to waste my energy on phony indignation, or him to waste his on bullshit remorse. I don’t give a damn where he gets his rocks off.”
“But you were going to leave him.”
“Because the work was crap! Banal, second-rate. Beautifully detailed and built—that was me—but meaningless. I’d finally decided I was done. Then Sam was arrested. I had to stay through the whole damn thing or I’d be Hard-Hearted Hannah, and who’d hire that?
“And then something happened. Peter’s work changed the instant Sam went to prison. Like he’d been reinflated. Can you see it?” She gestured through the glass at the backlit photos, didn’t wait for me to answer. “Without Sam to worry about, Peter went to a whole new level. Critics are seeing it, clients are seeing it, Michael Sanger sees it, and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to let Sam destroy that.”
“Sam would never hurt Peter on purpose.”
“So what? He has his hands full getting through the day. He doesn’t have the space in his head to think about what he’s doing to other people. Peter’s about to screw up this meeting right now, I know it, because all of a sudden, Sam’s got troubles again. You saw what a mess his office is. Every couple of weeks since Sam got out, I have to roto-rooter through it, and through the house, too, because Peter can’t hold it together.” She took a breath. “I’ll tell you this: if Peter stays focused, the work coming out of this office will be brilliant. If he doesn’t, it’ll be shit.” She locked her eyes on mine. “I will not let that happen.”
“What are you saying?”
“You’re Sam’s friend. He trusts you. Keep him under control.”
“That’s not my job.”
“It had better be someone’s.” Leslie spun and walked back through the door, to join Peter in the meeting.
I checked my watch, then headed back over to West 39th. Ike Cavanaugh, Ellissa Cromley, Sherron Konecki, and now Peter and Leslie—I seemed to be really good today at making myself unpopular. It was almost enough to make me want to put off Tony Oakhurst until tomorrow, to give the stars a chance to realign.
But I didn’t believe in the stars.
* * *
The doorbell at Tony Oakhurst’s building was answered by a pale, pierced young woman clothed in a black T-shirt, torn jeans, and ennui.
“Bill Smith.” I gave her a card.
“The guy who called?” Languidly, she opened the inner door and said, “You can go in.” Her tone told me she wasn’t sure why I was getting the privilege.
At the far end of a huge, skylit room, two men stood over a long table sifting through photographs. I recognized Tony Oakhurst from magazine coverage and museum shows: tall and tanned, deeply lined face, thick black hair, worn and faded jeans, white T-shirt. The other man, unfamiliar to me, was shorter, paler, and balding. What hair he had left was combed back into a short gray ponytail. He wore an open black shirt, crisp black slacks, and spit-polished black wingtips.
The assistant drifted without haste to Oakhurst’s side and spoke. Both men looked up and found me. “Just be a minute,” Oakhurst called. “Feel free. You need anything, ask Amara.”
He absently circled a hand in the air and turned his attention back to the table. The other man, who’d sent me a quizzical glance, dismissed me, too. The assistant, whom years of PI experience told me was Amara, went back to her computer.
I wandered the room. Whitewashed brick gleamed softly under the diffusing skylights. Lydia’s brother Andrew is a commercial photographer, so I was familiar with the paraphernalia of lights, reflective and absorbent cloths and papers, umbrellas, tripods and monopods. Lenses covered a workbench, with camera bodies and filters between and beside them. Two other long tables held proof sheets, test strips, and various kinds of paperwork. Photos clipped to overhead wires swayed like laundry.
In a carpeted corner, a low glass cube sat between a pair of right-angled leather benches. The carpet was by Faig Ahmed; I’d seen his work in various gallery shows over the years. I’d never known anyone before this to actually put an Ahmed carpet on the floor.
Huge blowups of a few of Oakhurst’s more famous photos filled the walls above the benches. He called himself a photojournalist—“I just shoot what I see”—but from early on his images of artists, musicians, actors, writers, cops, shop clerks, and strangers had hung in museums and galleries. There would be three in the Violence show at the Whitney, on the wall he’d offered to share with Sam.
I regarded the photos. Mick Jagger, ravaged and gloating, as though he didn’t regret for a second selling his soul to the devil. Cardi B., from a recent magazine spread, looking ready to sell your soul to the devil. A photo labeled Rick and Laurel, all arms and legs, and more of them than could be accounted for by just Rick and Laurel. A days-old baby—famously, Oakhurst’s own, from the second of his three marriages—with a horrified expression, as though he’d just realized what a mistake he’d made, getting born.
I was flipping through a coffee-table book of Oakhurst’s work when I heard the meeting in the back breaking up. I looked up to see Oakhurst and the other man shake hands, turn, and head my way. I stood.
As Oakhurst neared, I could see the signature sardonic grin on his trademark stubbled face. “Smith? Good to meet you.” A diamond earring in his left ear twinkled in the light. When he held out his hand, silver-and-turquoise bracelets jangled. His grip was maybe a fraction more firm than it needed to be. Crowds of tattoos ran up from both wrists and crawled into his T-shirt sleeves, to burst out again from the collar and slither up his neck. The single snake wrapping my left arm might have turned green with envy, except it was already green.
“Be right with you,” Oakhurst said. “Just let me see Franklin out.”
Whoever Franklin was, the wide, gleaming smile he beamed at me was so full of pre-game hostility I just had to offer my hand. “Bill Smith,” I said.
“Franklin Monroe. You’re an art lover?” Monroe had a soft palm and a dead-fish grip.
“Very much.”
“Ah. And Tony’s work—it’s… so unique.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Do you collect?”
I shrugged.
Oakhurst laughed. “Nothing to worry about, Franklin. Come on, let’s go.”
He steered Monroe toward the doorway, pulled the inner door open. They vanished. Eventually, still chuckling,
Oakhurst reappeared and came striding over to me.
“Poor Franklin. That was pretty slick, saying you’re an art lover.”
“It’s true.”
“You scared him. He’s afraid you’re going to steal his limited editions.”
“They’re that limited?”
“They’re… very specialized.” Oakhurst regarded me. “Maybe sometime you can take a look at them. If you’re serious.”
For years I’d been hearing art-world rumors about the “specialized” nature of some of Oakhurst’s images, images that were collected privately but never shown, even at Lemuria. Work darker than the photos in the book I’d been looking through, than in his other books, than in his shows. Work that, if Sam was to be believed, Oakhurst and Konecki fought over. I was far from sure it was a compliment that he thought I might be interested in that work.
Grinning, Oakhurst dropped onto the bench. “I normally wouldn’t make that offer to a guy I just met, but I owe you one. I couldn’t resist shining Franklin on, since you gave me such a great opening. I told him you were here to look at the same things I’d shown him. Made him so nervous we closed the sale right there. Nice price.”
“Glad to help.”
“Like I said, maybe sometime you can see them if you want. But right now, you’re not here to talk about pictures. You’re a cop, right? And this is about Sam Tabor?”
“Not a cop. Private. I’m working for Sam.” I sat, too.
“For Sam?”
“Some things he asked me to look into.”
“Oh, I get it. Okay, you don’t have to beat around the bush. He thinks he killed two girls.”
“Jesus. Is there anybody he hasn’t told?”
“Hey, I’m a friend of his.”
“That may be. He also just announced it to Sherron Konecki, Michael Sanger, and the NYPD.”
“Whoa. For real? And I fucking missed it?” Oakhurst threw back his head and laughed. “I bet Sherron shat ice cubes. So, what about you? Friend or foe?”
“Sam and I go back a long way.”
“Doesn’t answer the question.”
“Employee.”
“Fair enough. You want a drink? Scotch okay?”
“Bourbon, if you’ve got it.”
He leaned, grabbed a bottle and glasses out of a low cabinet. Orphan Barrel Reserve, fancy bourbon for a scotch man. “Ice?”
“Not after what you just said about Sherron.”
With a grin, he poured, handed me a glass.
“Thanks,” I said. “You were one of the people who used to visit Sam upstate?”
“The minute his work first showed up in Art Now, I saw what he had.”
“Which was?”
Oakhurst sipped. “His genius.”
“Well, the art world agrees with you. Though I’m not sure Sam would.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t. But I’m not talking about the same bullshit they mean. His technique, the tiny-to-big sleight of hand stuff, the shell paintings and the seed paintings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very cool, Sam. I mean ‘genius’ in the original sense. You know what that is?”
That was the game? Okay, I’d play. “That which dwells within. That which animates.”
He grinned and raised his glass to me. “And that which animates Sam is different from that which animates the rest of us.” Oakhurst circled his glass at the photos on the walls. “See here? This, my friend, is what you see when you pry open a turtle’s shell. You’re looking at what’s inside. Mostly it’s a lot of pain. But it’s what’s real.
“I can see it. A lot of people can’t even do that, or more likely, they don’t want to. So I can record it.” He paused, gazing at his own photos. I wondered again about the “specialized” work. And about Leslie Tabor’s branding Oakhurst a carrion beetle. “But Sam creates it. He has no idea, but it doesn’t matter. He can’t help it. He’s doing what he has to do. I think the difference between Sam and the rest of us is he never had a shell.”
Suddenly Oakhurst broke into a great, roaring laugh. “A naked turtle. What the fuck, right? You’re asking what’s great about Sam Tabor and I’m telling you he’s a naked turtle. Remind me to lay this brilliant insight on Sherron. She can use it in his next catalog.”
That wasn’t actually what I’d asked, but I let it ride. “Listen,” I said. “Sam says you and Sherron fought about him.”
“You serious?” He paused. “Oh, what, that time he refused to haul his panicky ass out of the bathroom? God, Sam. That wasn’t about him. I have work I want Sherron to show, but she says it’s too over the top. The limited editions Franklin likes.” He nodded toward the door. “I have other collectors, too, it’s not like the stuff’s going begging, but I want it shown. Sherron says she thinks it would be bad for my sonuvabitching brand, but I’m here to tell you she really thinks it’ll be bad for hers. So I was making the point that anyone who shows Sam Tabor can’t seriously be concerned about good taste. Which, by the way, is the enemy of good art.” He took a slug of bourbon. “So, go back. What the hell do you mean, he announced he was a serial killer?”
“This morning, in his studio.”
“To the cops, too, though? They were there? In the studio?”
“As it happened, yes, but he’d already tried to turn himself in.”
Oakhurst stared. “My ass he did.”
I shrugged.
“Jesus.” Oakhurst raised his glass in the direction of the building across the street. “Fucking lunatic, Sam.”
“He says you hang out together,” I said. “Were you with him either of the nights those women were killed?”
“Aha. That’s why you’re here?” Oakhurst shook his head. “Sadly, no.”
“Why sadly? Does that mean you think if you’d been with him things would’ve turned out differently?”
“It might just mean ‘I’m sorry I can’t provide an alibi.’ ”
“Why don’t I think that’s it? Do you think it really is Sam, this killer?”
Oakhurst finished his drink. He looked up at the photo of the baby, then swung his gaze back to me. “Here’s what I think. When people have those naked-turtle moments? Those, my friend, are the only times, and the only people, worth giving a shit about.”
11
I was on my way back to my place when my phone rang.
“Smith, it’s Grimaldi.”
“Detective. Always a pleasure.”
“I bet you say that to all the cops. I’m calling to tell you you might be right.”
“That’s better than my usual average. About what?”
“I think I found another one.”
I stopped. Stepping into a doorway to get out of traffic, I said, “Another what?” I knew, but I wanted to hear how she’d tell me.
“Woman, blond, stabbed, dead.” A cop of few words, Grimaldi.
“Same type of knife? Same trophy?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m getting the details. Until then, you only might be right.”
“When?”
“A couple weeks before Tabor got out.”
“Before?”
“Yeah. I widened the search. Thought that might put him out of the picture.”
“Good idea.”
“Gee, thanks,” she said drily. “But since neither of us ever liked him for those other two, nothing changes. I’m just calling because I said I’d let you know.”
“I appreciate it. Can you tell me why this one didn’t show up on the radar before now?”
“I told you, I widened the search. Time and place both. This one was in freaking Hoboken.”
* * *
Evening brought a chill to the spring air as I walked east to Chinatown to meet Lydia for a drink. Before we went to the Whitney we wanted to catch each other up on our days. The plan was to meet in front of her building, to lessen Lydia’s need to walk far in heels while also lessening my chances of running into her mother. Our strategy succeeded for her, but not for me.
Lydia stood on the sidewalk by her
front door in a sleeveless black dress, silver earrings, and shimmering black-and-red silk wrap. She waved. Beside her, her mother, grasping a string shopping bag, turned to see who the wave was for. She narrowed her eyes.
Walking up, I smiled at Mrs. Chin and said, “Nei ho, Chin Taitai.”
“Yah, hallo,” Mrs. Chin muttered. She spoke to Lydia, looked me up and down, spoke again, and walked off.
“What did she say?” I asked.
“She said you look surprisingly respectable for once, but if we’re going to a funeral I’d better go back up and change.”
“What did she say before that?”
“You don’t want to know.”
At a bar a block away, Lydia, sipping her club soda, delivered her verdict on my day: “What a bunch of unpleasant people.”
“Well, Sanger and Grimaldi.”
“Grimaldi, okay. Sanger has too much money.”
“You’re just prejudiced against the rich. So—your day?”
“Nothing. I showed Sam’s photo around and around. Mostly, a lot of headshaking. At the club where Annika was last seen, one of the bartenders, Malachi McCarty—”
“That’s really his name?”
“Asks Bill Smith?”
“Touché. Please continue.”
“He said, basically, No, yeah, maybe, I don’t know. So did Kimberly Pike, a friend Annika ran into.”
“At that same club?”
Lydia nodded. “They both think they remember a dark-haired white guy hitting on girls. Could’ve been the guy in the photo, or someone else. Could’ve been that night, or some other time. Could’ve sidled up to Annika, or maybe he didn’t. As Kimberly said, that kind of thing isn’t really memorable in a bar. It’s what happens.”