Menage

by Alix Kates Shulman

  “A narcissistic, self-dramatizing sociopath. I can’t imagine what you see in him, Heather,” said Rabin.

  “Saw,” corrected Heather.

  “No, Abe,” said Barbara, “he’s much too large a personality to just write off like that. He may be a sociopath, but sociopaths can be very attractive. I can see what they saw in him, even in that getup. You’ve got to admit you’ve never met anyone like him. He’s a throwback to some other age. Further back than a hippie … maybe some nineteenth-century bohemian type, part ascetic, part dandy, part I don’t know what. Someone out of La Bohème or The Count of Monte Cristo. The goatee, that capey thing, tossing a glass into the fire!”

  “Dracula maybe?” drawled Rabin. “Fin de siècle but of the wrong siècle.”

  “Not that he wouldn’t be totally impossible to live with,” Barbara conceded with a nod to Heather, “I can see that he’s somewhat unhinged. But still, most charlatans are charismatic—that’s how come they can pull it off. I half expected him to challenge Mack to a duel, or pull a rapier out from under his cloak.”

  “Or a horsewhip,” said Heather.

  “Or sink his fangs into Heather,” said Rabin.

  “If Heather didn’t sink her fangs into him first,” said Mack, who had just returned from the kitchen carrying a tray with a bottle of vintage port and four fresh glasses. He winked affectionately at Heather.

  “Barbara’s got the charlatan part right,” said Rabin, “but I’d say he’s more the vitamin salesman type of charlatan.”

  “You’ve got it,” said Mack, putting his arm around his wife. “A vitamin salesman! Offering the secret elixir of life.”

  “And a ladies’ man,” added Barbara.

  “A scoundrel and a cad,” said Rabin.

  Heather said wistfully, “All of the above.”

  “I SHOULD WARN YOU,” said Mack when the Rabins were ready to leave, “there may be a dead animal about five miles down the road. I think I hit something on my way home tonight. I skidded trying to avoid it and ran into a tree. Smashed a fender. Lucky I got back here in one piece.”

  “Which car were you driving?” asked Rabin.

  “Unfortunately, the Porsche.”

  “What kind of animal was it? I’ll keep an eye out.”

  “Can’t really say. All I know is I caught the eyes in my headlights, swerved to avoid killing it, and went into a skid. Poor bastard probably didn’t know what hit him.”

  “Just like Zoltan,” quipped Barbara, grinning.

  Mack gave her a look and continued, “If I hit him. I don’t remember a thud, and there was no body I could see, so there’s a chance I only grazed him and he got away. Which might be even worse for the poor bastard. I feel really bad about it.”

  Heather, who loved animals, was willing to sacrifice this one in exchange for Mack. “Not your fault, Mack. It was an accident,” she said, reaching a hand out to comfort him.

  “That’s pretty generous coming from you, babe,” said Mack, “since you always say you don’t believe in accidents.”

  24 EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, while Heather was carrying an armful of files upstairs to her reclaimed study, she noticed that the table where the de Kooning belonged was naked, with a faint ring of dust around the spot where the sculpture usually sat. She looked on the floor, then around the hall. Nothing. It must have been stolen.

  Her heart started to pound. She knew she ought to report the theft to Mack immediately but was reluctant because she knew he’d suspect Carmela. He’d be wrong: Carmela would never have left a dust ring. That meant it had to be Zoltan. He must have slipped it under his cloak on the way out, to make fools of them and have the last laugh.

  If he expected her to sit by and let him, he was wrong. Such ingratitude! Feeling violated and duped, she had half a mind to call 911 and send the police straight down to Elaine’s, where they could arrest him for grand larceny. Then nothing could save him from prison or deportation except her mercy. Let him beg her for it. Only if he immediately returned the sculpture would she even consider withholding charges.

  She ran to the great room to check on the rest of the art: the Hockney, the Motherwell, the Wesley, the Salle—each piece irreplaceable, however well insured. They were all there on the walls where they belonged, encircling the room, like gems on a necklace—

  Her jewelry! She suddenly pictured it laid out in its drawer, so vulnerable and precious and portable. She ran downstairs.

  The drawer was still locked, the key tucked into a bra among her lingerie, where it belonged. All the same, she did a quick inventory of her favorite pieces. Nothing was obviously missing, though she knew it might be weeks, perhaps months, before she could be sure that he hadn’t swiped something she treasured to present to some other woman.

  Now she needed to survey the damage. She checked the cars in the garage, the electronics in the den, the silver in the pantry. Nothing was noticeably out of order, but until they checked the insurance inventory she couldn’t know for sure what else he might have taken or which valuable pieces might be missing.

  When there was nothing else to check on, she phoned Mack in Chicago to break the news.

  Although Mack was outraged, with hindsight he was not surprised. Zoltan’s expression when he left the house after that floor-sweeping final bow had been too sardonic; Mack should have suspected he had something up his sleeve. When it came to power plays, Mack was used to men’s hardball.

  After he got control of his outrage, he felt something approaching elation. Not that he wasn’t concerned for his de Kooning (though it was fully insured, and there were living artists he’d as soon collect instead). But now he no longer had any doubt that between the two of them, Mack and Zoltan, Zoltan was the greater fraud. Mack may have lost an artwork, but he had won the game. This theft was the proof—though no doubt Zoltan held an opposite opinion.

  “We were pussycats, Heather. We should have known when he took my diamond cufflinks that sooner or later he’d pull off some stunt like this.”

  “And the laptop is gone too.”

  “He took your laptop? He can’t even use it very well.”

  “Not because I didn’t try to teach him.”

  “This proves what he’s been after all along, in case you had any lingering doubts. Have you notified the police?”

  “Not yet.”

  “That’s good. Because I sure wouldn’t want to make him a martyr at our expense.”

  “How could he be the martyr?!”

  “Think about it. Well-known writer versus real estate developer, that’s how it would play. You know as well as I do that developers don’t rouse much sympathy. Imagine the headlines: DISTINGUISHED ÉMIGRÉ AUTHOR SENTENCED TO PRISON IN DISPUTE WITH DEVELOPER. And the Letters to the Editor: Mogul vs. Hero. Plus he’s got all those fancy literary friends to form a defense committee and start a campaign against me on the Internet. I sure don’t need the negative publicity—especially now, in this economy, and when I’ve applied for a big tax abatement in L.A. In any PR contest, I’m afraid we’d lose. We’d be better off just to collect the insurance and move on.”

  “Don’t we have to make a police report before we can file an insurance claim?”

  “We’ll report it without mentioning Zoltan. We’ll think of some other scenario, maybe a burglary—”

  “But a burglar would have grabbed other things besides one small bronze sculpture.”

  “And the laptop. Anyway, babe, at this point we have no idea what else he may have taken.”

  “I checked my jewelry. I don’t think anything’s missing there. I didn’t check yours, though. Remember, Mack, he did return your cufflinks when I asked him to. Maybe he’ll return this too.”

  “First we’ve got to find him. I’ll come home as soon as I can. I’ll call you. Meanwhile, if he’s not at Elaine’s, you can start calling around to his friends, see if you can locate him. It’s very important that we maintain control of the situation.”

  IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT whe
n Mack pulled the snow-covered Subaru into the garage. Uncharacteristically, Heather was there at the door waiting to fall into his arms. “Oh, Mack!” she cried, clinging to him. “I feel so awful! So violated!”

  For a while, right there in the utility room, under the watchful eyes of newts, they hugged each other and kissed, closing ranks. As they walked downstairs to their bed it was understood that, despite the hour, they would make love.

  Surprisingly intense, their sex that night embodied a new closeness in the face of adversity. Which perhaps was why, when they were finished, neither of them could fall asleep, though the clock read after two.

  “Did you find out where he is? Does anyone know?” asked Mack.

  “Not Elaine or the Shaffers—unless they’re lying. Do you think they’d cover for him? Be accessories to his crime? Accessories after the fact, as it’s called on Law and Order.”

  “I doubt he’d tell anybody about the theft. To get his friends to hide him he’d only have to concoct some horror story about us.”

  “Or he could say we gave him the sculpture as a gift.”

  “Like a rapist who claims his victim asked for it,” said Mack.

  “If we knew he was just acting impulsively to get back at us for kicking him out, it wouldn’t feel so bad,” said Heather. “It might even be sort of funny—you know: all’s fair in love and war? It would certainly make a funny story. But if he’s viewed us as marks all along and has just been waiting for the right moment to make fools of us—”

  Mack was of the opinion that if anyone was made a fool of, it was Zoltan, not them. First for wasting this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and then for indulging in a foolish crime, for which he was bound to be caught. A moment of indulgence for a lifetime of regret. Stupid.

  “I’ll check some pawnshops. The piece will turn up if he tries to dump it. Hot art is very hard to sell because there’s a paper trail. Wherever it is,” said Mack, “once we bring in the insurance company it’s just a matter of time till they catch him and prosecute. Those lawyers don’t fuss around. Which is why I want to find him first. I wonder if he realizes the danger he’s in.”

  “I should have taken back my laptop as soon as I told him to leave,” said Heather. “I should have made a point of it, like I did with the cufflinks, let him know it mattered. Since I didn’t, he might have figured we wouldn’t miss the de Kooning either.”

  “Nonsense. Get it through your head, babe: this is not your fault. He knew what he was doing. He may be hoping we won’t report it, but he’s probably scared to death. Or ought to be. Poor Zoltan.”

  “Poor Zoltan? Are you kidding?” Heather was amazed that after everything that had happened, Mack could still honor that primal bond. “We’re the victims here, Mack, not him. Or have you forgotten?”

  “I doubt if he sees it that way.”

  “So what? How do you see it?”

  Content that he had won his contest with Zoltan, Mack felt he could afford to be magnanimous. But Heather, who had lost hers, couldn’t. Preferring not to rile her further, he answered, “All I want now is to get back the de Kooning with the least publicity.”

  “I’ll bet he’s laughing at us this very minute, knowing we won’t have the nerve to press charges.”

  “If it comes to that, which I hope it doesn’t, we shall see,” said Mack.

  “Being ripped off always feels like a brutal violation, even when a stranger does it, like when my purse was snatched in Rome by that guy whizzing by on a Vespa? But when it’s someone you thought was your friend, then it’s a terrible assault. The worst part is the betrayal. That’s what really hurts. You just can’t believe that a friend, someone you were close to, someone you may even have loved, would do that to you.” She felt her throat closing down again. No tears!

  “He probably feels the same way about us.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You know. Betrayed.”

  “He should feel disgraced, not betrayed,” said Heather indignantly.

  “Did I tell you what he said to me when I took him shopping for clothes? He was being fitted by the tailor when he turned to me and quoted Andrew Carnegie. ‘The man who dies rich dies disgraced.’ ”

  Heather laughed. “Imagine! Andrew Carnegie! He was probably just trying to save you from disgrace, Mack, by making you a little less rich. Isn’t that what he promised? To save you?”

  Mack was glad to see Heather lighten up. He thought he might be able to sleep now. Each one switched off a light and snuggled down in the dark. But Heather kept on smiling. “You want to know what he said to me?”

  “What?”

  “To me he quoted Proudhon. He said, ‘Property is theft.’ ”

  “Oh! That explains everything,” said Mack.

  When they were done laughing, Mack again took her in his arms. “I guess I should apologize for bringing him here, babe. I’m sorry for what he put you through. But it’s almost over. Now we’re going to find him and get the piece back and move on. I promise.”

  “No, don’t be sorry. I’m not. Actually I’m glad. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”

  “You know something? Me too,” said Mack, kissing her one last time, content that his scheme had succeeded after all.

  ZOLTAN CHECKED HIS PASSPORT and patted his wallet. He was drinking a final Scotch on the rocks in the business lounge as he waited for his plane to be called. His ticket was in coach but, having seriously considered traveling first class, he felt he deserved the lounge’s amenities. In the end, despite carrying a wad of dollars in his pocket and having donned his fashionable clothes, prudence had made him opt for coach.

  It burned him that he’d got only a fraction of what the de Kooning was worth, but he’d been in no position to shop around, much less to be greedy. Every minute counted. Sufficient that there was plenty of money to get him to Paris before Heather turned him in and enough left over to live on—even in style—till he decided what to do next. They owed him at least that. If he had to flee, it couldn’t have happened at a more opportune time. News from his country was breaking fast. If the rumored uprisings succeeded, and the dictator’s party didn’t stage a comeback, there was a good chance he could return home a hero. The prospect so tickled him that he laughed out loud. Hadn’t the playwright Havel led the Velvet Revolution and become president of the Czech Republic? Not that Zoltan had political ambitions, but if Malraux could be a minister of culture, conceivably so could he. A good professorship would perhaps be more suitable, but given the volatile atmosphere, anything was possible.

  Meanwhile, his years in Hollywood and Sontag’s extravagant praise would give him all the clout he needed for reentry into Paris. Perhaps he would treat himself to a good hotel from which to renew his contacts. And sport again his Parisian ascot.

  Hearing his flight announced, he leaped up, crushed out his cigarette, and drained his glass. He hoisted his backpack to one shoulder, his laptop to the other, and proceeded to the gate. His seat was near the front of the plane and they were loading from the rear. Good. He was finished with America—in his mind he was already gone.

  As he waited for his row to be called, he patted his wallet again. He regretted that he had been unable to say good-bye to the people who had been kind to him, but secrecy and speed precluded all contact. He hoped that at least the Shaffers would understand. He had only one unshakable regret: that he hadn’t fucked out the brains of that crazy Heather McKay. A prime opportunity squandered; stupidly wasted virtue. She asked for it and Mack deserved it. But then, he mused, he would have returned her to Mack in better condition than he found her, which meant that both of them would have got what they wanted from him after all, while he got nothing in return. The de Kooning didn’t count, being the least they owed him for his pains, whether he’d fucked her or he hadn’t. Better that he had not, he consoled himself—without, however, altering his regret.

  His row was called. Heart booming, he shuffled along the line. It was strictly out of habit that h
e zapped the stewardess with piercing eyes and the faintest hint of a courtly bow as he showed his passport, handed her his ticket, and walked on up the ramp.

  25 SEARCH AS THEY TRIED, they couldn’t find Zoltan, not even with the help of a private detective close to Interpol. After a brief interlude in Paris, he evidently vanished. How a man of such distinctive looks could disappear was a mystery no one ever solved, not even when the de Kooning turned up at a specialty fence in Brooklyn, long after Mack had used the insurance check to buy a Jeff Koons that he’d had his eye on. Nothing lost: Mack simply returned the money to the insurance company and kept both pieces for his collection.

  Zoltan, however, did not turn up. If his friends knew where he was they weren’t telling.

  In the months following his disappearance, entrancing rumors about him occasionally surfaced on the Internet and drifted back to the McKays: that he’d disappeared underground, though with that nose it would have been difficult; that he had fled to Chechnya on false papers provided by the CIA; that he had slipped back into his native country to help foment a revolt; that he had suffered a massive heart attack; that he had written another stunning book under a nom de plume. But none of the rumors was ever confirmed, and after a while they stopped.

  Nevertheless, at the house on the mountain, Zoltan’s legacy remained alive. Soon after his departure, with the children enrolled in school all day, Heather was back in the room he had occupied, working furiously on her own stories, Tina sleeping at her feet. Above her desk to inspire her hung a photo of Zoltan, one Mack had taken shortly after he’d joined their ménage. There he was, matted on dark red velvet, looking animatedly out of an antique walnut frame, black lock falling forward, lips pursed in that characteristic smirk, hawk nose tilted, arms folded across his chest—provocative, austere, alluring, eyes gleaming fiercely. Not unlike the leering picture of Gurdjieff in the Mansfield biography, she sometimes thought, or the famous portrait of Rasputin with the mesmerizing eyes.

  Every time she sat down to work Heather exulted in the ironic triumph that Zoltan had imparted the promised secret after all. His negative example and the paltry contents of his trash had exploded the mystique of the writer’s life that had once both daunted and seduced her, freeing her to settle down to work (as he, despite his fame, had not managed to do, she reflected snarkily). The very discipline and determination that had eluded him now fortified her. No matter that he was a thief, his vaunted knowledge a sham, or that a month after his departure neither Chloe nor Jamie had a single memory of the man pictured in the photo over Heather’s desk, as if he had not existed. When opportunity knocks, you seize it, even if it means sucking blood from a vampire. Gurdjieff, too, she remembered—and Rasputin, for that matter—was widely regarded as a charlatan, his powers as fugitive as mist, as subtle as air, though that did not prevent Katherine Mansfield, Margaret Anderson, and other literary notables from giving absolute devotion to their master in exchange for some elusive but precious value. Whenever her writing bogged down, she was able to give it a jump start by summoning Zoltan’s astonished face on the day, fast approaching, when he would hold in his hands her book of stories, dedicated to him. (How they would reach him she hadn’t yet figured out.) Ah, then wouldn’t he regret having dismissed her work and turned her down!