The Genius

by Jesse Kellerman

  “Did you have a good nap?” Marilyn asked.

  “I feel much more awake now,” I said.

  “There’s a reason for that. I was noticing that you looked a little glazed over. Then you started to call everyone Marilyn, so we brought the doctor in and he scaled back your drip a tiny bit. Better?”

  "Yes. Thank you.”

  “I have to admit: I found it rather flattering that it was me you saw everywhere.”

  I smiled weakly.

  “Samantha was telling me about your case,” said Marilyn. “There’s so much more to it than you shared with me, so many lovely little details. Oatmeal?”

  I said, “It’s just a theory.”

  “Well, I’ll let you two do your sleuthing. I’m going home. I need a shower. Nice to meet you. Take care of him.”

  Samantha pulled the chair up to the bedside. “You didn’t say anything about having a girlfriend.”

  “Our relationship doesn’t work that way,” I said.

  “What way would that be? Honestly?”

  “It wouldn’t bother her if she knew,” I said. “I’ll tell her right now, if you’d like. Catch her before she gets in the elevator and bring her back.”

  Samantha rolled her eyes.

  “What did you two talk about?” I asked.

  “Clothes, mostly.”

  “She’s got plenty to talk about.”

  “So I gathered.”

  “That’s it?” I asked. “Clothes.”

  “I didn’t tell her, if that’s what you’re getting at.” She shifted around, straightened up. “Are you surprised to see me?”

  “A little.”

  “You should be. I’m a little surprised to be here myself. When do you get out?”

  “Soon, I hope. Maybe tomorrow or Friday.”

  “Okay. In the meantime I’m going to finish up collecting DNA from people who were in the apartment. I found the list you made. I also spoke to the lab. We’ll have results on the semen and bloodstains within three weeks. Anything else I’m missing?”

  “The other cases.”

  “What other cases.”

  “Your father wanted to look through old cases to see if any of them fit the profile. Detective Soto was working on it for him.”

  “All right. I’ll call him. You rest up and get out of here and we’ll talk then.” She stood up. “You know, you really made me feel like shit about my dad.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged. “Too late now.”

  “I’m still sorry.”

  “So am I,” she said.

  • 15 •

  I checked out the next day. Marilyn sent a limousine to pick me up, instructing the driver to take me to her town house. Certainly I had no intention of going back to my place. The person who had assaulted me had to be familiar with my comings and goings; either he had followed me from the warehouse or he’d been waiting around the corner from my building. Either way, I thought a few days under the radar would be prudent.

  My prudence was nothing compared to Marilyn’s. In the back of the limo was a bodyguard, a mammoth Samoan in a Rocawear tracksuit. He introduced himself as Isaac; his hand swallowed mine; he was at my service until further notice. To me, this was going overboard, but I wasn’t about to start arguing with a man his size.

  As one would expect, Marilyn’s house is done in the best taste; it’s also surprisingly livable, albeit tailored to her quirks. She has two kitchens, a full one on the bottom floor and a smaller one near her bedroom, so she can cook herself waffles or eggs or a steak or whatever strikes her fancy at three in the morning. You’ve seen her block before; it has appeared as the backdrop for many a television show, the downtown real-estate equivalent of Murderer’s Row—tall, skinny, picturesque West Village brownstones, each with a patio out back and a throng of camera-happy Midwesterners out front. The Sex and the City bus tour stops two doors down to allow its patrons the opportunity to memorialize the spot where, I’m told, Carrie and Aidan had an argument during season four.

  Isaac, used to battling paparazzi, had no trouble getting me through the crowd.

  The maid let us in. Marilyn had ordered a room made up on the first floor so that I wouldn’t have to walk up the stairs. On the bed were three new sets of clothing, Barneys tags still attached. She had set out a tray of spice cookies and a little plastic jack-o’-lantern with a note tucked inside. I opened it up. It said Boo.

  I went into the bathroom and got my first good look at myself in days. They had changed the dressing on my face several times, each time putting on a slightly lighter one, until all I had were Band-Aids covering my left cheek from dimple to hairline. I peeled one of bandages back and saw a thin patch of scab, like someone had gone after me with a potato peeler. The missing teeth were also on the left side. The shock of seeing them gone started me laughing; I looked like I’d just wandered down out of the Appalachians.

  I found a bottle of ibuprofen and shook out four. In my jacket I had a prescription for OxyContin, which I intended to fill and then give away, either to Marilyn or as party favors. I went to grab a bite from the lower kitchen and found Isaac on a folding chair outside my room, blocking the hallway with his girth.

  “I really think I’ll be okay,” I said.

  “That’s what they want you to think.”

  We went to the kitchen. I swallowed my pills. My appetite dwindled as soon as I took a bite of my turkey sandwich, so I offered Isaac the other, bigger half. He accepted gratefully, discarding the bread before eating the meat, lettuce, and tomato.

  “No carbs,” he explained.

  “Right.”

  All I wanted to do was sleep. Three days of sleeping will do that to you. I made myself a cup of coffee and called Marilyn at work.

  “Did you find everything all right?”

  "Yes. Thank you.”

  "How’s the man I sent you?”

  Across the kitchen, Isaac was pouring himself a bowl of cereal. So much for his diet. “Superb.”

  “Greta recommended him. He used to work for Whitney Houston. Don’t tell me you don’t need it, I can tell you’re about to say that.”

  “I wasn’t, in fact. I was just going to thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Really—I’m so grateful for—”

  “Hush,” she said and hung up.

  Next I called the gallery. Nat picked up. I asked how the opening had gone.

  “Beautifully. Alyson was ecstatic.” Like me, Nat went to Harvard, but he graduated summa cum laude, writing his thesis on ambisexual iconography in Renaissance tapestry. His Boston accent is clipped and wry and fabulous, making him sound sort of like a gay Kennedy.

  He told me about the show, concluding, “And the fridge is on order. Oh, and something came in the mail for you from the Queens District Attorney. Do you want me to open it?”

  “Please.”

  “Hold on.” He put the phone down and came back a moment later.

  “There’s a little cotton swab thingy and a vial. It’s some sort of—what is this?”

  I heard Ruby say, “A paternity kit.”

  “It’s a paternity kit,” Nat said. “Did you impregnate the Queens District Attorney?”

  “Not yet. Messenger it over here, would you.”

  “Sí, señor.” Then, to Ruby: “You know, you sound awfully well acquainted with this paternity thing. Are you in a family way again?”

  “Bite me,” she called.

  I smiled. “Listen, I’m worried about the two of you. Whoever did this to me is out there and I don’t want anything happening to you.”

  “We’re fiiine.”

  “It would make me more comfortable if you didn’t hang around the gallery. Close down for a couple of weeks and take a vacation. Paid.”

  “But we just opened. Alyson will go ballistic. And I wouldn’t blame her.”

  “Keep your eyes open, then. Please. Do that for me.”

  “We’re fine, Ethan. Ruby knows k
ung fu. Tell him.”

  “Ki-yai!”

  I LEFT A MESSAGE FOR SAMANTHA and she called back within the hour, her tone all business.

  “Did you get the kit?”

  “Yes. Thank you. I’ll do it today.”

  “Good. I need you to think, Ethan: was there anything else that might possibly have a trace of Cracke’s DNA on it?”

  “There might be,” I said. While watching the nurse change my dressing in the hospital, I’d noticed that the color of the bloodied gauze looked eerily like that of the five-pointed star at the center of the Cherubs, a theory that appeared to me more and more brilliant as they continued to feed me drugs. In the sober light of day, it seemed not quite as brilliant, but given our shortage of viable leads, I didn’t see how it hurt to consider the possibility.

  “Even if it’s blood,” she said, “it might not be his blood.”

  “That’s true.”

  “But it can’t hurt. Let’s give it a whirl.”

  “Well, hang on. Here’s the tough part. I don’t have the drawing anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “I sold it.”

  “You’re joking.”

  I told her about Hollister.

  “Are there any other drawings like that one?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. We can go through all of them but it’ll take a while. First let me see what I can do about that one.”

  I had no doubt that Hollister liked me enough to invite me back to his house. But he’d have to like me a lot more than that to allow me to start cutting samples out of his artwork. Which left me one option: if I really wanted that piece, I’d have to buy it back.

  I hate to buy back art. Some dealers guarantee that if an item’s market drops, they will repurchase it at sale price, allowing the buyer to walk away even. I won’t. I think it infantilizes the client; part of the point of collecting is to hone one’s own aesthetic sensibilities, and that happens only when one takes a personal stake in the matter.

  And, understandably, I balked at forking over a large amount of money only to discover that the bloodstain was not a bloodstain, or not one that could give us any information. My hesitation turned out to be moot; when I called Hollister the next morning, his secretary told me he was unavailable.

  Monday and Tuesday I lounged around Marilyn’s house, Isaac tailing me, like I’d swapped shadows with a sumo wrestler. When I went to get my missing incisors replaced, he lobbied for gold rather than porcelain: “All the big dogs got gold.”

  On Wednesday the NYPD sent two men over to the house. These were not the same two I’d met in the hospital—at least as far as I could remember, which wasn’t very far—but detectives from the major case squad who specialized in art theft. Immediately, I flagged them as rather an odd couple. Phil Trueg was all belly; his garish Jerry Garcia print tie stood out like an abdominal Mohawk. He had a strong Brooklyn accent and a tendency to laugh at his own jokes, which came fast and furious. His partner, on the other hand, was ten years younger, taut and tan and reserved, his outfit likewise muted, khaki bleeding into itself. His name was Andrade, although Trueg told me to call him Benny, an instruction that I decided to disregard.

  Andrade and Trueg believed that the attacker’s primary motivation had been to get the drawings rather than to injure me, and in support of this theory, they pointed to the fact that my wallet hadn’t been taken. Nor, said Trueg, had I been beaten up “any more than necessary.” (I replied that I didn’t think any beating was necessary at all.) The thief was almost certainly an insider, connected to the art world or working for someone who was; otherwise, it was hard to understand how he would know of me or how he could hope to resell the drawings. The detectives asked me a long series of questions. I evaded the ones about my clientele; I didn’t want the police pestering people who were obviously innocent and who would take strong umbrage at having their privacy invaded. I showed them the threatening letters I’d received from Victor Cracke and described at length my attempts to find him, my meetings with McGrath, my visit to the precinct.

  Andrade squinted at the letters. “Are you sure these came from him?”

  “They look like his handwriting.”

  “What does he want you to stop?” Trueg asked.

  “I have no idea. I assume he was unhappy about the show. But in that case I can’t understand why he would still be angry; the show came down almost a month ago.”

  “He might want his drawings back,” said Andrade.

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  “Anybody else you can think of might have a grievance with you?”

  The best name I could come up with—and I gave it to them reluctantly— was Kristjana Hallbjörnsdottir.

  “Spell that, please.”

  The plan was to wait and see where the art popped up. Since I was presumed to have in my possession all but a few of the drawings, any that came onto the market would by definition be stolen. This strategy was far from foolproof. There might have been other Crackes out there that I didn’t know about, or the thief might never sell. But without eyewitnesses, we had few other options. And since I could not confirm my attacker’s identity, a conviction would be difficult, if not impossible, without a tangible link—to wit, the drawings—between the crime and the perpetrator.

  They left me in a state of utter exhaustion.

  For the first few days of my convalescence, Marilyn played the role of overbearing mother. She called to check on me every half-hour, often cutting short my naps. She sent her assistants over with books that I couldn’t concentrate on. At night she brought in dinner or else made me something, chicken, hamburgers—anything with protein—and forced me to eat, saying that I had lost too much weight and that I was beginning to look like Iggy Pop. I think she was trying to buoy my spirits, but the relentless stream of mockery began to grate on me. Her fear of losing me came in just shy of her fear of appearing corny, and so whenever she considered herself verging on sentimentality, she would pull back and make some unreasonable demand of me, resulting in conditions that were both doting and ruthless, as when she brought me in a sushi platter but ordered me out of bed to eat it.

  “You have to move,” she said.

  “I’m not an invalid, Marilyn.”

  “Your legs are going to atrophy.”

  “I’m tired.”

  “That’s the first sign. You need to get up and walk around.”

  I told her that she would have made a terrible doctor.

  “Thank God I’m a bitchy art dealer.”

  Improbably, she also tried to insist on having sex. I told her I had a headache.

  “You don’t expect me to fall for that, do you?”

  “I have a head injury.”

  “All you have to do is lie there,” she said. “Like you usually do.”

  “Marilyn.” I had to physically pry her from my neck. “Stop.”

  She stood up, red-faced, and left the room.

  The more she did things like that, the more I thought of Samantha. I know that it’s cliché to run from those who love you most, and equally cliché to want what you cannot have, but for me these were new emotions. I’d never wanted to run from Marilyn; why would I? She gave me all the latitude a man could ask for. Only the most recent display of affection had caused me to feel stifled. And I’d never desired someone out of reach—mainly because nobody has ever been out of reach for me, not really.

  KEVIN HOLLISTER CALLED ME BACK from Vail, where he was enjoying an unseasonably early snowfall.

  “Eighteen inches of fresh powder. As close as it gets to perfect. God’s country.” He sounded out of breath. “I’ll send a plane, you’ll be on the slopes by noon.”

  As much as I liked to ski, I couldn’t stand up quickly without feeling like I’d been shot in the face. I told him I was under the weather.

  “Next year, then. I’m having a birthday party at the house. My ex-wife put in a kitchen that can cook for two hundred. There are twelve ovens and
I can’t even make toast. I’m having”—here he named a celebrity chef— “cater the whole thing. You’ll be there.” He was huffing and puffing now, and I heard a faint noise, like Velcro.

  “Are you skiing?” I asked.

  “We are,” he said.

  “I hope you’re on a headset.”

  “My jacket has an integrated microphone.”

  I wondered who else he had with him. His interior designer, probably, or some other special lady friend two decades his junior. That’s who my father would have had.

  I told him our conversation could wait until he got back to New York. “I’m traveling until after New Year’s. Better now.”

  “It’s about the drawing.”

  “Drawing.”

  “The Cracke?”

  “Aha, right.” He sniffled. “You know, you’re the second person this week to ask about that piece.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes. I had long conversation about it, just a few days ago, in fact.”

  “Who with?” I asked. He didn’t hear me.

  “Hello? Ethan?”

  “Hi.”

  “Ethan. Are you there.”

  “I’m here. Can you—”

  “Ethan? Hello? Shit. Hello? Fuck. Piece of shit.”

  He hung up.

  “I need to get a new system,” he said when he called back. “This thing’s always breaking. What was it you were saying?”

  “I wanted to know about the drawing.”

  “What about it.”

  “I’m wondering if you might be interested in selling it back to me.”

  “Why.” Instantly his voice went cold. “Someone made you a better offer?”

  “No. No. Not at all. I just feel a little regretful, is all, breaking up the piece the way I did. That section you have is the center, after all, and I think the integrity of the work should be preserved.”