The Black Painting

by Neil Olson

  “Hey, Davie,” said Audrey.

  “No one has ever called me that.”

  “I have,” she corrected. “So this is where you live?”

  “Basement apartment. There’s a garden in back.”

  “That’s cute. You out there like the old Italian guys, planting your tomatoes?”

  “I wish,” Dave said truthfully. “Why this game? If you wanted to know where I lived you could have asked. At our coffee date you missed.”

  “I didn’t miss it. You just didn’t see me.”

  “Clearly,” he conceded. Wondering where she had been hiding. Watching him. Then following him all the way out here. It was weird.

  “Would you have told me?”

  “No.”

  “See, I knew that,” she said, stepping forward and butting her knee against his. Her eyes were unreadable behind the shades. “We’d make a good team, but you don’t trust me.”

  “That’s true.”

  “So I can’t trust you either, even though I want to. Anyway, thought I’d see what you were up to. Who you were meeting, how the investigation was going.”

  “There is no investigation,” Dave said, sounding more sullen than he liked.

  “What, Philip pulled the plug?”

  “Not that he’s told me. Everything is just a little hazy right now.”

  “Not me,” said Audrey. “I’m not hazy.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I have a plan, and I want you in it. But we’ve got to figure out this trust thing. Are you going to invite me in, or did you buy that wine for yourself?”

  Not wine, but vodka. Her drink. He had known exactly who was following him and what he was doing, even as he pretended otherwise. The idea disturbed him. Dave stood abruptly, expecting her to step back. She did not, of course, and he had to push past her to reach the basement steps. It was not until he got to the bottom and unlocked the door that he saw she had not moved. She just stood there, hands jammed in her jacket pockets, looking down at him. Like a vampire awaiting an invitation.

  “Come on,” Dave said. “Come in.”

  * * *

  She wanted to try it a different way.

  “Ow.”

  “Sorry, how should—”

  “No, I like it.”

  “Ow you like it?”

  “Yeah. Hold my knee higher,” she instructed. “And move this leg a little. Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes. Now harder. Oh. Good, that’s... Yes.”

  “My feet are going to cramp.”

  “Shut up. Shut up and just...just...”

  She descended into a stream of banal but effective obscenities. Only to scale the heights of eloquent inarticulacy, hips jerking wildly. Moments later and without warning, he climaxed so intensely that his soul was ejected from his body. Floating briefly in a bright ether of pure sensation. Returning cleansed, and most reluctantly, to his tainted and collapsed form.

  * * *

  “You don’t make any noise,” Audrey complained.

  Because my pleasure is none of your business, he thought. Recognizing how contrary to the spirit of the thing that was. And hypocritical. His pleasure was predicated almost completely upon his partner’s, always. Luisa had been the same, which made them a poor match in that regard. Someone needed to be greedy.

  “I was kind of focused on the mechanics.”

  “Did you not enjoy it?” she asked, rolling toward him. She looked so happy after sex. Her round face lit up. Her eyes seemed a brighter shade of blue.

  “No, it was great,” he insisted, or tried to. There was no energy in him; he felt loose and limp. It was a good feeling. “A real toe curler.”

  “Did your feet cramp?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t care.”

  “Good,” she said, slapping him on the ass. “Show a little enthusiasm next time.”

  Then she jumped off the bed and went to the kitchen. The moment she was out of view his paranoia struck. It was all he could do not to follow her, but he only sat up and made himself wait. In half a minute she returned with the vodka she had left in the freezer. She did not go long between drinks.

  “Here,” Audrey said, handing him the cold glass. He meant to refuse but took a drink. Then another. He did not like vodka, but it was good this way. Biting.

  “You don’t drink,” she said.

  “Not much. A beer now and then. I abused the privilege.”

  “Me, too,” she sighed. “But I can’t go more than a couple days before everything gets me down. I’ve got to have either the booze or the cancer sticks. Right now it’s both.”

  He had tasted smoke on her, but had not seen fit to mention it.

  “You going to tell me why you came here?”

  “I don’t know yet,” she replied, taking the glass back and downing most of it. “Are you ready to ditch Philip?”

  “Pretty close. He may have ditched me already.”

  “Pretty close isn’t good enough. You want to know what’s going on? Like, solve the case or whatever? For yourself, I mean. For your own satisfaction.”

  “I can’t live on satisfaction,” Dave said.

  “There would be money,” said Audrey.

  “Whose? You don’t have any money.”

  “That could change.”

  “So your scheme is about solving the theft?”

  “My scheme is about paying back Zeke and getting out of this frigging hole I’m in.”

  “And how certain is it?”

  “Not certain at all,” she said defiantly. “You’d be taking a flier.”

  “I’d have to trust you.”

  “That’s right.” She looked away from him and finished the vodka. “This isn’t going like I hoped.”

  “You need to tell me more, Audrey. I can’t commit to something this vague.”

  “And I can’t tell you unless you commit,” she said. “So I guess we’re done.”

  They sat in silence. Dave very much wanted to know her scheme, but was not willing to say whatever she needed just to learn it. And she would know if he was lying. Probably it was something ridiculous, yet there could be a clue in it.

  “How is your brother?” he asked.

  “Fine. Back at school. What you want to ask is how is my cousin, right?”

  He had thought about her, on and off. Mysterious Teresa. The mother and both uncles had warned Dave off of talking to her. She had a condition. Fainting spells or something. There were hints of a more serious disorder. Philip alluded to mental instability in the father, Ramón, who had jumped off a bridge in Argentina a dozen years back. Dave had only met her the one time, and briefly. She was small and quiet, but she did not seem fragile. He would have said that she seemed strong.

  “All right, how is she?”

  “Don’t know,” said Audrey. “I haven’t seen her since the day of the funeral.”

  “She also back at school?”

  “No,” Audrey replied, leaning off the bed to dig through her jacket. She came up with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

  “Don’t do it,” Dave said.

  “Seriously?”

  “Not in here. You can go out in the garden if you want.”

  “Well, shit, Dave.” She seemed more perplexed than angry, and threw the instruments of death back on the floor. “She’s in the worst possible place for her.”

  “Which is where?”

  “Back in that house. They’ve got her overseeing the paintings. Donations to museums and all that.”

  “Sounds like a good thing,” Dave said. “Hands-on training, making useful contacts.”

  “It’s a good job,” Audrey agreed stiffly. “I guess. But it’s a bad place for her. She had, like, five attacks when we were there those few days. And now she ha
s no one watching over her but my alcoholic dad.”

  “You’re saying she’s more at risk for these attacks at Owl’s Point?”

  “Haunted houses tend to bring out the worst in people, don’t you think?”

  That fear again. Dave had not seen it in her since their breakfast date, over a week ago. She had it under better control now. She had her big plan to steady her.

  “It’s just a house, Audrey. Maybe the painting was haunted, but it’s long gone.”

  “Go spend a couple of nights there and then talk to me. I mean it, Dave. Somebody needs to get her out of that place.”

  “Have you said this to anyone?”

  “They won’t hear it from me. They’ll think I’m jealous that she has this important job. Hey, what time is it?”

  She sat up, breasts flattened on her knees, regarding her scattered clothing. Dave could see from her distracted look that she had grown bored of the conversation. Bored of him. In a moment she would make one of her quick exits. Which was for the best, but he might not have this chance again. He needed to get whatever he could, right now.

  “Charles DeGross,” he said. She gazed at him blankly. “The collector who offered ten million for the Goya,” he elaborated. “You asked me his name a few times. Pretending you didn’t care.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “Why are you telling me?”

  “Trust isn’t a leap. It’s a process. Like this, for instance. I tell you something you want to know, you reciprocate. Who knows where we might end up?”

  “You always surprise me,” she said, shaking her head. “Thing is, I already found out his name, so you’ll have to come up with something else.”

  “You found it,” he answered, taking a calculated risk, “by reading my notes while I was sleeping in that motel room.” Her eyes widened, but she did not object swiftly enough, and she understood immediately that he saw it.

  “What if I did?”

  “Then, in a manner of speaking, it is something I told you. Along with who knows what else. So not only do you owe me, you’re late.”

  “You don’t feel like I’ve given you anything?” she said, smirking suggestively.

  “We both had our fun. One thing is not another thing.”

  “I’m not saying I agree with any of this, but what do you want to know?”

  “Lots of things,” Dave replied. “Right now I’d settle for Jenny Mulhane’s whereabouts.”

  “And why would I know that?”

  “Couldn’t say. Pete might have mentioned it when you spoke to him.”

  She bit her thumbnail, thinking it over. Looking for the trap. But in the end the game was too much her style to refuse.

  “Okay,” Audrey said, sliding toward him. Dave made himself focus on her face and voice. “I don’t have an address or anything, but Pete did say she was working at a restaurant on the Jersey Shore. In the kitchen.”

  “You remember the name?”

  “Something lame. The River Café, maybe? In Toms River. And she’s cleaning people’s houses on the side. Kind of sad.”

  “A steep fall from Owl’s Point,” Dave agreed. “Thanks for that.”

  “It isn’t a favor, right? It’s a trade. Now it’s your turn again.”

  His phone was buzzing on the night table. It had rung earlier, but Dave had been in no position to answer. Audrey looked at the screen.

  “It’s Philip.”

  “I’ll call him back.” He did not want to speak in front of her, but he also did not feel like jumping just because the lawyer had finally gotten around to calling.

  “You should take it,” she said, holding the phone out to him.

  Dave grabbed the device and accepted the call.

  “Hello.”

  “There you are,” Philip boomed, loud enough for Dave’s neighbors to hear. “I’ve tried you three times. Where the hell have you been?”

  Fucking your niece, Audrey mouthed at him. Say it. But Dave said nothing.

  “Are you there, Webster?”

  Dave nearly hung up, but he had heard something in Philip’s tone. A shakiness. A sharp worry underlying the bluster. The attorney had experienced a recent scare.

  “We should meet, Philip.”

  “No doubt, but something pressing has come up. I need you to do a job that’s outside of your usual line.”

  This had better be good, thought Dave. Strangely enough, it was.

  17

  She should not be here.

  “This is James. You can leave a message.”

  Teresa ended the call and put the phone back in her pocket. That was so him. Not “please leave a message” and certainly not “I’ll get back to you.” More like “speak if you must, maybe I’ll play it next week.” She pictured him in the overlit basement of some grim medical facility. Carving up cadavers with intense concentration. Preparing himself to save the world. It was a ghoulish vision, but it amused her.

  Uncle Fred snored through whisky dreams, and Teresa wandered the dark and empty house. At least she prayed it was empty. All the doors and windows were locked—the alarm would not engage otherwise. No one could get in. But who or what might already be inside? Unseen, yet always here. Someday you will stop being such a scared child, she scolded herself. Not tonight.

  No one on the back stairs. No one in the billiard room. No one in the study.

  They had not called the police about the hooded figure. Fred said he would, then called Philip instead. He told Teresa “reinforcements” were coming, whatever that meant. On her own, she had begun to dial Detective Waldron, then stopped. Why? Because she and Fred could not agree on what they had seen? Because she could not stand being looked at like she was crazy by one more person? Some other reason that she was not yet willing to confess to herself?

  No one in the kitchen, pantry or mudroom.

  Her days were busy. She had met two museum curators in the last two days, and spoken to a famous gallerist on the phone. She had filled out all her checklists, and most of the paintings were crated. Half had already been taken away to the storage facility. It was the nights that were hard. Sleep did not come easily, and Fred was poor company. He was no threat, but she was not sure how much good he would be in a real crisis. And though the phantom had not reappeared, she kept seeing things from the corners of her eyes. She needed to leave this house.

  Dining room and sitting room both empty, so up the wide and silent stairs she went.

  Teresa wished that James was here. She would tolerate his obsession with demons in exchange for his peculiar company. Yet she wondered how much relief his presence would bring if he suddenly appeared. What she truly yearned for was childhood, when the two of them understood each other in a few words, or none. When they could jam their small bodies into some hidey-hole and feel safe. There were no safe places now.

  Ilsa’s room was next to her grandfather’s, and bare as a monk’s cell. The narrow bed looked as if no one had ever slept in it. Housekeeping ledgers, bound in green leather, lined one shelf. All in German. There was a print by Dürer on the wall, probably valuable. A cloaked figure lost in a gloomy wood. It was a gift from Alfred, the sort of cheerful thing they both liked. If there were any clues in this chamber, Teresa could not find them. All the bedrooms were empty but the one in which Fred grunted and thrashed. She wondered how Laurena got any sleep. On this night the noise was comforting, but Teresa moved away. Down the hall to the narrow stairs at the back. She had been to the attic several times in daylight, when it seemed another place. A low-ceilinged, dusty storage dump without much character. It would be different now. Sinister. Yet up she must go.

  Her eyes had grown used to the dark, and she made her way without stumbling. At the top she found the big square flashlight she had left behind yesterday, the rooms up here being dim even at noon. The powerful beam lacked a cand
le’s warmth, but it illuminated her path far better. She went straight to the unfinished room, running the light across the broken floor and stepping carefully. Here. Somewhere right around here was James’ hidden compartment. This would be easier in daylight, but she kept not getting to it, and anyway Fred might be hovering. Now was the time. The wall panels were solid; she could find no give in any of them. Several floorboards shifted under her weight, but none would come loose. She worked from the center of the room toward the interior wall. She had not been at it ten minutes when her head snapped up suddenly.

  What was it? A creak? Teresa forced herself to pick up the flashlight and go to the door. Nothing was visible down the long corridor. Two minutes passed and the sound did not repeat. Back to work.

  She was about ready to quit when she found it. A shortened floorboard right against the wall. So obvious, she should have checked it first. The nails only lightly gripped the beam below, and by pushing them one way she could release the board. It was tricky. James must have practiced often to do it so swiftly. She grabbed the bulky flashlight and shone it into the compartment. A child’s treasure chest. Three marbles, two creamy with swirls and one clear with a green cat’s eye. She recalled flicking them with her thumb across a rutted wooden floor. Perhaps in this very room. James had tried to teach her the rules, but she ignored them. Next to the marbles was a cheap brass medal with a faded ribbon. A piece of pink quartz. A 1943 zinc penny. A scallop shell. A crow feather. All sitting upon a folded sheet of artist’s paper. Something touched her thigh.

  She yelped and sat up. Her phone. It was the phone vibrating in her pocket. Teresa tried to laugh but shivered instead. She pulled the device out and checked the screen.

  “James. What are you doing awake?”

  “Why did you call if you thought I was sleeping?”