by Susan Daitch
Jeff Koons, in his Banality series, did a life-sized porcelain sculpture of Michael Jackson with his pet chimp, Bubbles. Three of the sculptures were made. One ended up in a museum, another in a private collection, but the third was auctioned off at Sotheby’s in 2001 for $5.6 million. I should have informed Mr. Valentine of this fun fact while I had the chance. I breathed deeply until the elevator reached the first floor. The door wouldn’t open. The slot for the key next to the button marked No.1 was vertical, meaning that it was locked, as were all the other floors apart from the seventh, the last place I wanted to go. That’s why security seemed lax. Despite the fire code, I’d seen no stairs. The elevator, which was locked, was the only way in and out. I was trapped.
Chapter 24
With no phone, I had no idea what time it was or how much time had elapsed before I started to hear voices on the other side of the elevator doors.
“Nobody messes with DeJesus.”
“I wasn’t trying to mess with you, Jimmy. I was just having a little fun. Be a sport.”
“Oh, I’m a sport, all right. Sport in my fucking middle name.”
The elevator car shuttered as an object like a battering ram hit the door.
“Please, I’m begging you, don’t hurt the monkey. He’s just an innocent animal. He had a hard life, being made to wear human clothes, fired out of a cannon, forced to micturate in public, laughed at.”
I heard a scream, and blood began to seep into the elevator from the sliver of space under the door. It pooled around the chimp finger. If I hadn’t felt the need to get out of the box previously, I now felt as if I were drowning.
“You never had any trouble laughing at people, Valentine. You never had any trouble humiliating Per and Ove.”
“Those boys loved me. They were completely loyal.”
“They were loyal because they were house slaves, devoted to their master, deluded into thinking they had a big piece of the pie. They did your crap jobs. You hired them out.”
“I trained them. Just as I trained you.”
“You call us partners the way Walmart has associates, not minimum-wage cases shelving megabombs of Froot Loops and Tide. There’s no partnership. You toss us peanuts like we’re circus animals. Well, the party’s over, Dr. Doolittle. Give me the keys to open this elevator.”
“I don’t have them.”
The elevator took another hit. More blood pooled under the door.
“Gee, how is it possible? You’re the boss and you don’t have the keys?” The voice dripped with acidic wonder. “What kind of operation is this?”
I heard a sound of someone going through pockets, and a thump, as if a body had been tossed into a corner. Then silence. The lights in the elevator flickered, went out. I felt as if I were at the bottom of the earth, no one knew where I was, and the air was getting thin. I backed into a corner as much as was possible in the small space, inching away from the blood and the floating chimp digit. I didn’t know if I should call out, not sure I wanted the man to know I was witness to the beatings and threats I’d just heard through the door. What good would it do anyway? I certainly didn’t have the key.
“On your feet, dickweed. Oh, hey, what this?” He found the clanging metal in Valentine’s pocket. “Looks like you forgot what the hell you had. You think I’m a fool?”
Slurred noise that sounded like “No, I certainly don’t, sir.”
The doors opened, and I saw the man who had been attacked by the chimp in the parking lot. Jimmy DeJesus had a shaved head and cobra tatts at his eyes, mouths open, fangs about to clamp down on his eyeballs. It was a measure of how much pain he could withstand, having a needle bounce around on his eyelids for that procedure. His arm had been bandaged haphazardly, and there was a long wound in his face where Dr. Livingstone had clawed him. In one hand he held a plastic bag of meat the aqua color of parkside rat poison, and in the other he was dragging the body of the mutilated, half-conscious Valentine by the collar of his polo shirt. His khakis were torn at the knee. There was blood everywhere. DeJesus had done to Valentine’s face what the chimp would have done to him. Somehow he was able to talk, but apart from his mouth there wasn’t much left.
“Who the hell are you?”
“I was just leaving. I got stuck in the elevator.”
Valentine groaned.
“I don’t think you’re going anywhere.”
The doors tried to shut. Jimmy blocked them with Valentine’s body. He must have realized that, even trapped in the elevator, I was a witness.
“Look, I’m not going to report you. I can’t.”
“Yeah, and the check is in the mail, and I won’t come in your mouth. Back in the elevator.” He pushed me in, threw the bag of poisoned meat into a corner, and started to drag Valentine’s semiconscious body in as well.
“If I don’t get back home, my husband will call the police.” It sounded feeble, but, unable to think of anything else fast, I thought I would give it a try.
“No wedding ring that I can see, sweetheart. Plus, no offense here, you look like you spent the night with a monkey.”
There was no mercy I could throw myself on, but there was one thing available: money.
“You know, up in the office you’ll find roughly five million dollars. It’s all yours. Just let me go. I don’t know your name. I don’t know anything.”
“Sweetheart, Mr. Valentine did not keep that kind of cash just lying around.”
“It’s not cash. It’s a painting of a balloon dog. It will have some teeth marks on it, maybe a little damage, but you can get it fixed, sell it, and disappear to the island of your choice.”
“A painting of a dog is worth five million dollars? Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”
“Seriously. Do you have a phone?”
Both his body and Valentine’s blocked the doors, which kept spasming, trying to shut, as if after having bitten off a finger they were hungry for more. There was no way I could push past him and run out.
“You’re joking, right? Why on earth would I give you my phone.” The last sentence was not a question.
“Who am I going to call? Seriously. I’d be dead before anyone could get here.”
He pulled out his phone, and I told him to look up the artist and the painting, check out how much it was worth.
“I’ve seen some crazy shit, but who’d pay that kind of money for that piece of crap? You can get an actual balloon dog for a dollar.” He didn’t sound so very different from Valentine himself. The difference, one of the differences: Valentine had millions to spend, while Jimmy DeJesus had zilch.
“Take it to Claiborne’s in Manhattan. They’ll repair the damage and sell it for you. No questions asked.”
DeJesus smiled at the image on his phone as if he had dollars in his eyeballs instead of the reflection of a bloody elevator interior. When he told me to get lost and held the spasming doors in a gentlemanly fashion, I was happy to comply. I have to say I was more concerned with the fate of Dr. Livingstone than with that of his Stanley. An art forger who was caught working out of a warehouse in Babylon Long Island proclaimed his innocence by stating that he’d crafted the knife only to cut fruit and could not be blamed for the other uses it was put to. This is dubious logic, but, unlike the knife or gun, the animal, though aggressive, shouldn’t be punished for the way he was used. As for Jake Valentine, there was a lot of free will involved. If he was getting what he deserved, I wasn’t going to stand in his way. I walked out onto Van Brunt Street and inhaled deeply, very glad to have nothing over my head but sky, clouds, and the morning remains of a gibbous moon.
I needed a shower, clean clothes, and something resembling a vegetarian meal with melted cheese, avocado, plenty of smoked ancho chilies, rice, beans—no animal products in sight.
Chapter 25
New phone. Checked my messages on the landline still functioning in whatever was left of my apartment. There was only one from Leon Kronstadt. Typical of Leon, he said his number slowly
. I wouldn’t have remembered it and no longer had his contact info, gone many cells ago. I called him back.
“Hi, Stella. I’m glad you got back to me. I was going through my grandfather’s personal stuff and found a postcard from a Rodney Birdwell to Oscar, dated July 2001.”
“What does it say?’
“It’d been stuck in a copy of George Grosz’s autobiography, a section about painting lowlifes in Berlin.”
“What does the postcard say?” Leon would go on forever before he focused on the reason for the call.
“It’s a van Gogh self-portrait, with ear, sent from the National Gallery in DC.”
“Yes, but what did he write on the back?”
“He was on vacation with his family, trying to get them to visit the museum, but the boys didn’t want to go, so he went by himself. His holiday will end soon, and he will return to the daily grind of the E-G office. He thanks Oscar for all his help and advice.”
E-G. Oscar had remembered that Birdwell used an acronym, though he couldn’t recall the precise letters.
“So now we have a first name.”
“What? I can’t hear you? There’s nobody ear.”
“Leon?”
“It’s a van Gogh joke.”
I’d forgotten that Leon and Oscar had their Abbott and Costello moments. In fact, when Osama bin Laden was caught in Abbottabad, Oscar had a joke about the compound being hard by Costellobad.
“Can you read the postmark?”
“Yes, it’s actually quite clear.”
Leon asked me if I would have dinner with him, but there was no way I could have a romantic dinner with Leon, even if I didn’t have a murder hanging over my head, even if I had a job, even if I had a place to live.
From Central Library, at Grand Army Plaza, I cleaned myself up as best I could in the smelly first-floor restroom. A Hasidic woman dumped a pile of Dr. Seuss books on the sink, sighed heavily, and adjusted her wig. I’ve often wondered why the wigs are always straight hair, but this wasn’t the moment to ask. Curly hair is considered a sign of wildness, but even if it’s cut off at the root or covered up, theoretically it’s still there. Restrooms—you’re so close to strangers in them; you overhear cellphone conversations, mothers arguing with small children, then you disappear. I glanced sideways at the stack of books. The Lorax and Horton arrive in Crown Heights, Lubavitcher enclave.
In the library, I scoured the Internet for “E-G.” All kinds of useless entries turned up. A number of Education Groups, Eatonville Gastrointestinal, Equestrian Girls, then Empire-Gloaming, an insurance company that went out of business shortly after 9/11. July 2001 was a few months before the Svalbard Bakery calendar entry. Even with a first name, there wasn’t much to be found about Rodney Birdwell. If he died in 2001, there might well be zero useful informative hits if he was just an ordinary Joe. What I discovered: Rodney Birdwell was an insurance-claim adjuster. There had been a fire at the bakery. No doubt he had been written into Svalbard’s calendar because he was investigating. There goes the Elmo birthday cake—that was my first thought—but then the fire wasn’t really funny. There was a fatality—a homeless man had gotten into the bakery and died of smoke inhalation—and that had made it news. At the time the article appeared, it was unknown whether the fire had been the result of arson or faulty wiring related to the overuse of the ovens.
I sat on the steps of the library, feeling the sun on my face, watching a fight between a cyclist and the owner of a Chevy Volt with a couple of kids strapped into the backseat. The police came. Time to bounce. As I walked up Eastern Parkway, I texted Birdwell, Rodney to Demetrius.
Chapter 26
On Marnie’s hospital floor, signing in as Star Hammersmith was a great relief until I spotted the nurse whom I’d introduced myself to as Talia Sleeter, cousin. She looked at me as if she remembered me from somewhere, then picked up the log where I had just signed in. I quickly ducked into the room. Marnie had no one. One parent dead, not on speaking terms with her father or siblings. The cousin or cousins were completely off any family radar. Would anyone from any of the bands she worked for visit? Unlikely. You could be a totally social animal like Marnie and still end up alone and forgotten. For me to visit was worth the risk. I was pretty much all she had.
Marnie was still out. The swelling around her eyes had gone down a bit, which the nurse remarked on as she fussed with the tubes and the bags of fluids. She was impressed by the names of the bands that had sent flowers, and I read cards out loud. Until I arrived at a bunch of lilies that said, simply, “From Roy.”
“Do you remember anything about the man who sent these?” I asked the nurse.
“No messenger. He came himself. In fact, he left just before you came. He asked me where the bathroom was, then winked. Who winks when you tell them where the bathroom is?”
He’d probably left the building by now unless he spent a long time in the men’s room. Was sending flowers a gesture akin to the murderer who dials 911 to cover his tracks?
I ran down the hall only to see Roy’s back as he got into the elevator.
“Roy!” I shouted. “Wait! Hold the door!”
The man didn’t hold the doors, and they closed, but as they did he turned around. It wasn’t Roy. It was Luke.
I pressed the down button right away, but the doors didn’t reopen. How did he even know Marnie was in the hospital? I tried to find the stairs, but the angular corridors yielded only emergency exits, alarmed, and therefore useless. The last thing I needed was to set off sirens. By the time I got to the street, Luke was long gone.
Text from Demetrius, and an address. Then, like so many before, this phone, too, entered the world of high-tech inorganic dust and joined the dried flowers, vending- machine candy wrappers, and nonhazardous medical waste that hospitals generate in a garbage can near the entrance.
Chapter 27
I knocked on the window of Demetrius’s car, parked off Atlantic Boulevard in Rockaway. He had found Birdwell, or, rather, not found him. Rodney Birdwell had been missing since 9/11, though he had not been in the World Trade Center that day, as far as anyone knew, but the city was so overwhelmed by the collapse of the towers that other investigations were delayed for weeks. Birdwell’s trail quickly turned cold. Linda Birdwell, his wife, was still alive and would talk to us. Demetrius had brought me a bag of samosas, a Turkish coffee, a pair of black pants, and a white button-down shirt. I changed in the backseat of his car.
“Is the idea that I’m supposed to look like a waiter?”
“No, like my assistant.”
“Where’d you get these?”
“My old girlfriend left them at my apartment. You’re about the same size.”
“Was she your assistant?”
“No, she was a veterinarian.”
“She didn’t leave you any of her underwear?”
“She took those.”
Mrs. Birdwell lived in a neat brick house whose front garden was more cement than grass. We rang the bell while some kind of thumping music, a woman saying “Damn!” and someone knocking into furniture or possibly moving stuff could be heard inside. The front door was answered by a very fit woman in her early to mid sixties wearing a black T-shirt that bore an image of Patti Smith wearing a T-shirt that read, FUCK THE CLOCK. Demetrius introduced himself as Detective Pitt and me as his assistant, Ms. Hammersmith. I was very glad that she didn’t ask to see our nonexistent badges. We told her that we wanted to ask her some questions about her husband. She looked surprised, as if we were raising the dead, but also very happy the department was reopening, or pretending to reopen, a case everyone had long ago treated as cold.
“Please, come on in. I’m sorry it’s so crowded in here.” She pronounced here as if it were two syllables. “I’m in the middle of my morning workout.” She did her workout in her living room, it seemed. The time was 2 P.M.
Every square inch of wall space was covered with posters from various blockbuster museum shows, and knickknacks from the same fil
led shelves: mugs featuring Munch’s The Scream, Warhol’s Liz Taylor, out-of-date Cézanne calendars, Jasper Johns tote bags. Ashby and Fieldston would have a coronary apiece if they had to spend five minutes in this room. Linda cleared off some space from a plaid sofa and offered us coffee. Demetrius declined. I said, “Yes, thanks.” It was dark, strong, and excellent.
“Is this your collection?” I asked, gesturing around the room. “My mother would love all this.” I meant this as a compliment, and I was telling the truth, though my father would object. He had enough clutter in the yard. Linda laughed.
“No, this was all Rod’s. Since he couldn’t be a donor to a museum, he supported gift shops, as a way of funneling money to what he believed, for a while, was the right place. I’ve kept things just as he left them, because he was never found, you know, and he could come back. No one has ruled out that possibility. In the back of my mind, I still have a glimmer of hope that he’ll turn up in a fishing village on the Borneo coast or on the Shetland Islands—you know, like some kind of castaway. There can always be reasons why someone is gone, and then they come back, you know.” Her voice went up at the end of the sentence, but I wasn’t sure it was a question.