SoHo Sins

by Richard Vine

Laura signaled the waitress for another round. “That’s a pretty broad sample.”

  You had to admire Laura’s self-knowledge. It was a shame to use that phony “rumor” tactic on her. I don’t customarily mislead my friends and colleagues. Lying is just an old habit I slip into in bars.

  “So, this love interest of Mandy’s,” I said. “Anybody I know?”

  “Take a guess.”

  “Young or old?”

  “Mandy had some decent looks left. Young.”

  “Money or talent?”

  “Neither.”

  “I guess we know what that leaves.”

  “It leaves Paul Morse.”

  I hesitated. The name was vaguely familiar, but I hear about two hundred new names a day in the art business. Then something came to me.

  “Not the performance artist with the video hang-up?” I asked. “The one who sports a cowlick?”

  “You’re so out of it, Jack. It’s not called a cowlick when it’s in front and done on purpose. Then it’s a statement.”

  My gallery director is a genuine bargain. Sure, I pay her exceptionally well, but the fashion tips—and the psychological abuse—come gratis.

  “You do mean that Paul Morse then?” I said.

  “The one and only, according to Mandy.”

  I couldn’t believe it. The guy was hunky enough, I suppose. Smooth-faced and blue-eyed, an art scene regular. Who knows what women are going to like, anyway? But this particular boy-toy had the measly income of a poet and the conversation of a video-store clerk. One of those pretty, brutish male-model types who look like they’ve just been smacked between the eyes with a brick.

  When I got home to Wooster Street, I gave Hogan a ring.

  “Now we’re cooking,” he said.

  “So it seems. The O-Tech crew, Claudia, this Morse kid—we’re not short on suspects.”

  “I still want to hear what Philip’s first wife has to say for herself.”

  “That’s a dead end. Angela had nothing to gain from Mandy’s death.”

  “Except piles of Philip’s loot for their underage daughter,” Hogan said. “Half the estate for sure. And if his brain disease does him in now, with no wife, Melissa gets the whole enchilada.”

  “That’s Melissa’s money.”

  “But the two are thick as thieves. What’s Angela’s is Missy’s now—and vice versa once the girl turns twenty-one, I bet. That setup might prod anybody into action.”

  “Angela’s an artist,” I said. “She likes money, but not enough to kill for it. Unless it would buy her a retrospective at Tate Modern.”

  “We’re not talking money alone,” Hogan noted. “Maybe she also wants peace of mind.”

  “From the barrel of a nine-millimeter?”

  “Look, Philip dumped her for Mandy, right? Certain people, if they’re too proud or too weak, can’t get over that at any price.”

  “It was years ago.”

  “So what? Some pain never ends, Jack. It’s a funny thing. To a guy like me, a mansion in Westchester seems like a pretty nice settlement for any insult. But I never lived the big-money life, Oliver-style. And I don’t know what it’s like to see the bitch who bumped me aside take three times my haul.”

  “You’ve got Angela wrong. She’s no murderer.”

  “No one is—until the first time.”

  “It’s not in her. She’s just not the type.”

  “We’re all the type, Jack.”

  17

  Hogan and I got to see Paul Morse in action a few days later. In fine spring weather, a large portion of the New York art world gathered at the Whitney Museum for Amanda Oliver’s memorial service. Her funeral proper, a very Wingate affair in an Episcopal chapel on the Upper East Side, had transpired in privacy a few days before.

  To her downtown friends, the museum seemed the closest thing our Mandy had, when still alive, to a genuine church. The little auditorium on the second floor, customarily used for panel discussions and video programs, was lined that afternoon with dozens of ornate sympathy bouquets. Music—actual music for once, with harmonics and melody—emanated softly from an audio system usually given over to art-film dialogue or tuneless sound-art installations. A temporary stage had been set up and a podium stood sentinel-like at the center, caught in the numinous glare of a pin-spot.

  “Not my usual crowd,” Hogan said, clearly puzzled by the way people greeted each other without really touching.

  “It’s the art world,” I explained. “Everybody sleeps around. Nobody shakes hands.”

  We sat far back, watching the collectors, museum staffers, dealers, critics, and star artists file quietly in and distribute themselves among the padded seats in an unpredictable mix. I had invited Hogan along on the assumption that some chance remark uttered in grief or an odd lack thereof, some emotional tension between mourners, some recollection by one of the speakers, might give a clue to the crime that brought us all together in this minimalist cavern, away from the fragrant spring light.

  “You won’t see this often,” I told Hogan. “Some of the artists even wore jackets.”

  For a while, I had tried to feed him all the famous names as the attendees entered and nodded or bumped cheeks with each other. But the list started to sound like a textbook, and from Hogan’s lack of reaction I could tell that none of it registered. The paragons of postwar American art, it seems, meant nothing outside our little confraternity.

  Then I nudged him. “There’s Paul Morse.”

  Mandy’s boyfriend was not one of the glitterati. Rather, he stood off to the left side near the back of the auditorium, adjusting a video camera on an eye-level tripod. He was there to record the ceremony, to be excerpted later on his cable access TV program, PM Videos. It was his way of showing respect for a deceased paramour. He’d put on a clean white shirt, which he wore hanging out over black Hugo Boss jeans.

  “So what’s the lowdown on this pretty-boy?” Hogan asked.

  “He’s a performance artist.”

  “What’s that, some kind of hustler?”

  “Only sometimes. Basically, he videotapes himself doing weird things in front of small audiences.”

  “What kind of weird things?”

  “Once he had the words ‘sex victim’ branded on his ass.”

  “You mean tattooed?”

  “No, I mean branded.”

  “And that’s art?”

  “So the PhDs tell me.”

  Just as all the whispered exchanges died down in anticipation of director James Aubersson’s welcome, a small commotion, originating at the rear doorway, moved along the main aisle to the front row of seats.

  Philip had entered the auditorium with a stone-faced Carl Marks gliding behind like a ghostly caddy.

  The rumpus at the door was about getting Carl to close his glaring laptop for the duration of the service. His employer finally agreed, but nothing could completely stifle a second, even more appalled reaction when the mourners saw that Philip was also accompanied by Claudia Silva.

  At once demure and voluptuous in a high-necked black dress, Claudia kept her hand on Philip’s elbow—just as she had two years previously at the opening of the ARCO art fair in Madrid, their first public acknowledgment of betrayal and lust.

  Ignoring a mental chorus of “how could he?” the trio—a dazed Philip, flanked by Carl and Claudia—walked down the center aisle and sat in the front row near the steps to the podium.

  As the music faded to silence, the gray-templed Aubersson, tall and straight in a double-breasted charcoal suit, mounted the stage to deliver an impeccable statement on behalf of the museum. He would remember forever, with great fondness, this most generous of patrons. Amanda Wingate Oliver had gifted the institution with substantial financial support, with artworks of major historical significance, and with countless hours of her own overtaxed time. She had been a board member for six years, providing leadership on numerous committees and projects. On and on the canned testimonial went for ten minutes, elegant a
nd hollow as the man who delivered it.

  The string of artists and fellow collectors who followed told similar tales of open-handedness and cynicism, issued in equal, often simultaneous measure.

  Jim Jameson, the celebrated abstract painter and perpetual drunk, recalled Mandy grilling hamburgers at a fundraising party on the beach near East Hampton, then “vending” them insistently to museum trustees at $10,000 each, mustard extra.

  Art and Language maven Reginald Shaw, leaning into the microphone, recited samples of what he called Mandy’s Maxims: “Never trust anyone who uses ‘old’ and ‘beautiful’ in the same sentence. They’re obviously either deluded or lying.”

  A wave of stray titters went through the audience. We all missed the head-back “ha!” that always accompanied Mandy’s sardonic pronouncements.

  No doubt she would have also laughed, cuttingly, at what came next—having as her final eulogist the man who had wronged her for years and who was, in the view of the NYPD, still the most likely suspect behind her killing.

  “Hello. My name is Philip Oliver, and I believe I murdered my wife,” he said quietly upon arriving at the lectern.

  My bereaved friend was at it again—sincerely or with great calculation, I couldn’t be sure.

  “People tell me that my memory is not what it used to be.” As he spoke, Philip gripped the podium firmly on each side to still the tremor in his long, pale hands. “Perhaps so. Sometimes it’s a mercy to forget.”

  He stopped. For what seemed like ages he looked out at us, over us, through us.

  “I just want to know if I killed Amanda,” he said at last. “Can anyone tell me?”

  The silence deepened as Philip peered watchfully out at the audience. “My lawyer says no, but I’m not so certain.”

  In the front row, Aubersson stirred, clearly intending to rise and save Philip—and all of us—from further emotional distress. But Claudia grasped the director’s wrist and held him gently in place.

  Philip was trembling in his Savile Row suit.

  “For ten years,” he said, “Mandy and I laughed and argued, bored each other and fell into passion. She was my companion and adversary, the other half of my life. Now they tell me she’s gone, that she doesn’t exist anymore…Does anyone really believe it’s that simple?…No, I tell you, she’s in here.” His fingertips touched his head, then his solar plexus.

  “She talks to me,” he rasped, “but when I look around to find her, she isn’t there, or she won’t answer. She’s hiding. It’s a spiteful ruse. She wants to punish me for running after girls too often—as if that made any real difference. Tell me, men out there, where does cheating lead you?…Where?…Home, eventually—unless the woman there turns against you.”

  A glassy shine had come over Philip’s eyes. “Where does your wife live? In your house, of course, but also in your brain and your bones and your guts. Always. But I can’t find Mandy anywhere now. Does anyone here know what I mean?”

  He fell silent, and a subtle disquiet rippled through the crowd as they realized he was waiting for a response. Even Hogan stirred.

  “What a crock,” he said.

  I whispered an answer that was only half in jest. “Maybe it’s what murder does to your brain.”

  Hogan tilted his head, a sign he didn’t entirely dismiss the idea.

  “Can I get a witness?” Philip called out.

  In the front row, Claudia rose smoothly. She walked to the stairs and slowly began to mount one step after the other, her mute, swaying figure making it difficult to focus on Philip. And that was certainly a relief.

  “I tell you,” he said, “Mandy should be here. She was at home in this place, with you art people. Not me. I don’t belong—here or anywhere.”

  Claudia, having crossed the space in three unhurried steps, stopped next to Philip and, nodding, touched his shoulder. He seemed to recoil minutely.

  “What have I done?…Mandy, what have I done?” He sounded determined to go on. But as he looked at Claudia, the panic suddenly passed out of his body. His head dropped to his chest. He shivered and appeared to shrink before our eyes.

  “You, my life.” Philip’s eyes were on Claudia, yet it was hard to know exactly who, or what, he addressed. His words had a miserable air of defeat.

  Claudia took his arm. Firmly, like an attendant in some ancient Greek procession, his young lover led him away from the podium, off the stage.

  18

  As we filed out of the auditorium, I saw Angela hovering in the back, furtively watching while Philip was escorted away.

  “Hello again,” I said. “This is…”

  “We’ve met.” She gave her hand to Hogan. “Ed paid me a visit the other day.”

  “I’m surprised to see you here,” Hogan said to her.

  “Really, why?”

  “Not everyone cares to attend a memorial. Especially one honoring the woman who made off with her husband. You must still care a lot for Philip.”

  “Apart from the fact he was the love of my life, you mean? Or that we had a daughter together?”

  “Does that really matter,” Hogan prodded, “when it comes to Amanda?”

  “Yes, believe it or not. Those big dumb things—marriage, parenthood, love—actually make a difference. They get you to behave a tad better, for a time anyhow.”

  “None of it seemed to work on Philip,” I said. “He treated you pretty shabbily.”

  “He’s the father of my only child, Jack. I can’t begin to explain.”

  For an instant, I thought Angela’s cool demeanor might crack.

  “How’s Melissa doing?” I asked. “It can’t be easy for her.”

  “It’s not. She’s very close to her father. Extremely.”

  “Kids hear things. And her schoolmates must ask her some very hurtful questions.”

  “No, frankly, that seems to be the role of my best friends.” Angela did not blink as she spoke. “Melissa knows her father is innocent. And so do I.”

  “And what does the girl know about Claudia?” Hogan asked.

  “Claudia? What is there to know? That she’s one more slut in Philip’s long roster. One that he’s happened to stick with for a time, that’s all.”

  I glanced pointedly at Hogan, and he took the hint to excuse himself for a smoke.

  “Sorry,” I said to Angela. “Hogan can be a little tactless sometimes.”

  “We all do what we have to, don’t we?”

  “I suppose. Even Philip—with that speech.”

  Angela’s face hardened. “Yes, isn’t it ironic how nicely the dead are remembered, while the living are forgotten?”

  “Like who?”

  “Like me for one.” She glanced over at the doorway. “Like Philip for another. That little fool, Claudia, didn’t even protect him from himself up there. She’ll never make a bloody wife.”

  I couldn’t decide whether Angela’s words sounded more like a lament or a veiled threat. They kept replaying ambiguously in my head in the wide, echoing stairwell we walked down. Angela chose to avoid Claudia and Aubersson and the others, all nodding and murmuring and shaking hands as they waited in a knot by the elevator. She wanted no sympathy from this crowd, no rote condolences about “our dear Philip.”

  Once we reached the ground floor, I asked her if she had ever gotten to know Mandy.

  “No, I think she felt too guilty to try to be friends with me. We talked now and then when it was unavoidable, that’s all. I can’t recall the last time I saw her.”

  Unfortunately, I could remember all too well my last encounter with the deceased. Philip and I had come back to their Prince Street loft, a little tight, after the reception for a Chuck Close show. We were all supposed to go out to dinner together—Mandy, Philip, myself, and a leggy Brazilian curator I had met the week before at an opening on 57th Street.

  Amanda, however, was far from ready. Instead of dressing, she had been pacing back and forth in the apartment. Vainly, Philip was now trying to speed her preparations
along.

  “Come here, Jack,” he called from her bedroom. “Mandy’s in a snit.”

  When I entered the room, he gestured toward his wife and said, “She’s going to make us all late, just because I have no idea how to help her pick a proper outfit.”

  Mandy was standing—quaking, really—in front of her wide vanity table, clutching a comb in one hand and a silver-backed mirror in the other. She wore a white bathrobe and her hair had been teased out, forming a ratty aura around her no-longer-young face.

  “You want me to behave better, Philip?” she said. “You want me to be less hysterical?” Amanda turned to him with the mirror in her hand, useless as her makeup cracked and smeared, her tears running crookedly, steadily. “You’re screwing another woman. Again. Can you make that any less true? Well, can you?”

  Philip fiddled with some jewelry in a tray. “Come, please, Mandy, get hold of yourself. Don’t make a scene.”

  It was all he would say.

  With my eyes, I signaled Philip to leave, to let me talk to Amanda—or, rather, listen to her—alone in the room.

  As soon as he left, she sank to the bed.

  “It’s hopeless,” she said. “An aging woman has no chance.”

  “Why not just let Philip be Philip?” I said, straining for some form of comfort. “He will anyhow, and this way he always comes back.”

  “Yes, he comes back, all right. And I take him in—knowing this affair means nothing, and knowing it will happen all over again.” Her lids lowered, and she seemed to speak only to herself. “What more can a wife hope for these days?”

  Looking at Angela now in the Whitney lobby, I knew she must have experienced that marital bitterness, too, and for longer. The difference was that she had never publicly broken down. Long deserted, stuck in a sprawling house up in Westchester, enduring years of despair in those useless rooms, she persevered without outward complaint. She revealed her resentment—if at all—only behind closed doors, by some secret means, to the attentive, quick-witted little Melissa, with no outsiders present.

  Before we parted, I asked Angela about her apartment search. The answer was pretty much what I expected, given her desire for enough space to live comfortably, raise a child, and work on her sculpture. Affluent but no longer fabulously wealthy, she was trying to economize because of the new Bradford School expenses. Her budget was not going to buy a Westchester lifestyle in Manhattan. I told her I had a space that might work for her, if she didn’t mind taking a floor-through in my oldest building, the one I lived in.