"Thank you."
She smiled and turned her attention to the flowers, pushing several farther into the shade.
Nothing, or very little, there. As I could see it. I telephoned to Monsignor at the Vatican’s Prefecture of Economic Affairs, told him I had nothing to report as yet and asked his assistance on getting into Father Bretagne’s quarters for a once-over. He told me how to get there and said that by the time I arrived the janitor would be advised to let me in and leave me alone. He added his doubt that I would find anything of value. I agreed, thanked him and hung up. I had the time, and it was best to be thorough. He was right, though. The small, neatly kept flat showed me nothing that I could use. Nothing at all. It did not seem that he had left it in a hurry.
*
There was a table full of canapés and conspicuous rows of shiny champagne buckets. The Sign of the Fish is a deep, narrow place, but there are four stories to it as well as a finished basement. The two upper floors contain offices and vaults. The floors were thickly carpeted in a dusky yellow, and I lusted after the cut-glass chandelier in the entrance hall. Someday…
I arrived at approximately 8:45, and no one asked to see my invitation. There were small chatty groups of middle to highly tailored individuals of three or four nationalities and sexes standing about, and a handful of the Bohemian sort who wandered between the food and the paintings. I did not see Maria or Bruno around, though there were two officially friendly girls wearing discreet black gowns and upswept hairdos, moving among the talkers and helping with wraps.
I was only half-surprised to see Walter Carlon, an art critic, off in one corner, sketching in the air with his cigar and moving his lips at a rapid rate before a group of students and old ladies. Short, stocky, near-bald and in his forties, Walt had come into a lot of money and abominable taste somewhere along the line, and he traveled about the world exhibiting both. Over the years, he has demonstrated an amazing ability to back losers and mock the truly talented. His articles and books arouse a sense of wonder in art history and art appreciation classes, where they are held up as models of half-assedness. He is much in demand as a lecturer, though, for despite all else the man is glib. He fascinates as he infuriates. He should have been a politician or some other sort of con man. The power of his words vanishes, though, when they are committed to paper. I do not think he is a phony, however. He seems to believe whatever stupid thing he happens to be saying at any given moment. I cannot really say whether it is despite all this or because of it that I rather like the man.
As I did not wish to get tied down at the moment, I pretended not to have noticed him and made my way to the buffet table. Later, champagne glass in hand, I wandered the gallery, looking for Maria, half-studying Paul Gladden’s paintings.
After the better part of an hour, I had grown a bit impatient. Still, she had not said that she would be there right on the dot for the opening—simply that we would meet there. I asked one of the hostesses who said she had not seen her, but perhaps she was working upstairs. At my request, the girl found me a telephone and left me with it. I tried Maria’s number three times, but there was no answer.
So, she was probably either upstairs or en route. I determined to wait a while longer before growing concerned or trying anything else. If she did not prove the information source I hoped her to be, I decided that I would write me down as a failure and see whether I could sell the idea to our man at the embassy. I was convinced, though, that they would not let me off that easily. Not after all the trouble they had gone through to recruit me.
But Rome did indeed seem to be a dead end. I was afraid that they would feel, as I did, that Father Bretagne’s brother in Brazil would be the next logical person to check out. If they had not already done so, that is. Certainly they had people in Brazil…
Still, the thought came back to me, they have people in Rome, too, and they sent you.
Since I did not know the why about Rome, it was fruitless to speculate as to the if concerning Brazil.
So the hell with them both. I would run down any local leads Maria could give me, prepare a long report signifying nothing and get ready to go home. What else was there to do?
My subconscious chuckled at this, and forced a list of Portuguese verbs into my head. I threw them back and went after another glass of champagne.
*
After an hour or so I had grown so tired of Gladden’s Wyeth & Water countryscapes that I found myself welcoming a familiar slap on the shoulder and the odor of exhaled cigar smoke.
"Ovid! I thought I saw you skulking about earlier," Walter said. "How the hell have you been?"
"Pretty well," I told him. "Yourself?"
"Fine, fine. When did you get in?"
"A few days ago."
"Business, I take it?"
I shrugged.
"Some business, some pleasure. I like to mix them."
"What do you think of Paul’s stuff?" he asked, gesturing.
"Some of it is pretty good."
"Good? He’s great!"
He indicated a morningset scene: a farmhouse and some outbuildings, an old tower and yellow hills in the background.
"You can feel the breezes and smell the fields the way he did that morning when he stood there painting it."
"He painted it from a photo," I said, "not that that takes anything away from his field and his breezes—"
"What do you mean? How can you tell?"
"I can tell by the way the perspective is off. Give me a piece of string and I’ll show you."
He glared at the painting and was beginning to turn red when he was saved from the string business by the arrival of Bruno Jurgen.
I had seen him coming, passing through the crowd like a dark, white-capped breaker, extending liquid hands in gesture, handshake, salute; smiling, nodding, very neat in his dark dinner jacket, his sandpaper complexion just beginning to crinkle beneath the tan, he flowed, leaving echoes and eddies in his wake.
"Ovid," he said, shaking my hand, "are you here to buy everything in sight?"
I protested that the people would cost a lot to feed, and he added a small gesture to his grin and clasped Walt’s hand with an equal professional fervor.
"I was detained in the office," he explained. "Some stupid phone calls. Otherwise, I would have been down here earlier to welcome you. Ovid, I did not know you were in town or you would have received an invitation. There was no difficulty…?"
"None," I told him.
"We have several mailing lists," he went on. "You should receive invitations for all the shows at our New York outlet, and all the ones of international importance from our other branches. I apologize for not knowing of your special interest in Mister Gladden. Are you here on your own or as a representative?"
"Actually," I said, "I’m not here for this specific exhibit," and I tried to let it go at that.
"Oh, a general buying trip," he replied. "Where else have you been?"
"Just here. That’s all."
"And where next?"
"Possibly Brazil," I said, with some bitterness.
"You like the climate perhaps?"
"I detest it, but that is of no importance."
He regarded me more closely, then decided, "If you are interested in the work of a particular artist or pieces in a specific style or medium, I can cable our branches in Rio and São Paulo and make arrangements."
"That’s quite good of you, thank you, but not necessary. I may not even have to make the trip. Much depends on how things go here."
"Oh? Well, whatever…You must give me your local address, so that I can take you to lunch or dinner while you are in town. Who knows? I may even be able to help you with your local business. You’re not up to your old tricks again, are you?"
I shook my head and told him where I was staying.
"I’ll phone you tomorrow then, after I have checked my appointments."
"Fine."
"In the meantime, can I sell you some of Mister Gladden’s things?" he asked, turning his he
ad in that direction.
"Not just now, thanks."
He shook his head in smiling disbelief.
"That boy will be big one day," he said. "Now is the time to notice that. Not later. Right, Walter?"
"My spirit of the romantic has been sadly crushed," he said. "I have just determined that the man paints from photographs. The perspective, you know. I even begin to wonder whether he snaps his own. Perhaps he is a boon to the postcard industry."
Bruno flushed, which simply had the effect of darkening his tan.
"What of it?" he said. "It is true, but what of it? Many—no, most—modern artists do the same. Would you have them return to the same place every day and await identical conditions? The vision is there or they would not have selected the subject. A photo is only for mundane details. It is a valuable tool and its side effects are only incidental."
At this point, his gestures had become violent enough to cause bystanders to draw back. He turned to me then and fired, "Is that why you are not interested in his work?"
"No," I said. "As a matter of fact, I think some of them are very good. It is just that I am not in the market for this sort of thing right now. My budget, you know, is more limited than some and I have to be selective when it comes to speculation. I am certain I could sell the stuff. The question is—how much? I can’t afford to tie up too much capital while waiting for acclaim to catch up with his talent. If I had the opportunity to take some of his pieces on consignment I’d say yes in a minute. But since you already have that end tied up, I’ll just salivate and swallow."
"You see, Walter?" he said, turning. "Ovid knows there will be a demand. His judgment has always been good."
Walt expelled a tiny burst of air from between moist lips, making a little "Phht!" sound.
"Ovid’s aesthetic sense rides backseat to the marketplace," he said in a half-joking tone. "Yes, I’ll admit to Mr. Gladden’s talent, and its limitations."
He sought out a match and relit his cigar.
"How long have you been in town?" I asked him.
"About a week," he told me. "I’d seen everything current in Madrid, and this is really in the nature of a vacation.
"I will mention this exhibit in my next column," he said to Bruno, "and send you copies."
Turning to me, he added, "…and I’ll throw in a plug for you and your discount house, too. I’ve got to run now. That little guy over in the corner—the one with the thick glasses—is a reporter I have some business with. You’ll do well to nail him before you leave, Ov. And about that dinner—maybe we could make it a threesome. You two think about it. I’ll phone you. If not, give my bests to the Cariocas. G’bye."
And he was gone in a cloud of smoke.
"That man," said Bruno, "is a shithead. Of course we shall exclude him."
I nodded and glanced at my watch. Time was working its way toward eleven o’clock, and I debated making another phone call.
Instead, "I’ve been looking for Maria," I said. "She told me she was going to be here tonight."
"Maria," he said benignly. "She is an extra right hand to me. She did more work, part-time, than all of my other employees together, who put in a full week. So I was glad—selfish, but still glad—when she broke up with your old partner, Carl. I think it was good for her, too, by the way. He was a drunken bum, living on her earnings. She came to work here full-time after she threw him out. Now she can meet some nice young man, marry an art teacher perhaps."
At this point, I noticed a small, dark, mustachioed man, hair parted in the middle, who was standing in a doorway across the room, waving ferociously in our direction.
"Someone you know?" I interrupted, nodding that way.
Bruno turned, and the man immediately raised his hand to his ear, as if holding a telephone receiver.
"I am wanted," he sighed. "If it is that ignorant customs officer again I will apply to the Mafia for his removal!" He winked, then, "Yes, Maria was to have been here tonight," he said. "But she telephoned earlier to say that she was not feeling well. I told her to stay in bed. It is a pity. She was looking forward to this opening. She had worked so hard on it. Well…I will call you tomorrow, and we will get together. Till then," and he traced a half-salute.
"Till then," I agreed, and watched him plow his way through the throng.
I headed for the front door then, wondering why she had not answered the telephone.
*
The cab deposited me before her building, and I located her name and apartment number on a mailbox in the hall. Mounting to the third floor, I found her door and knocked. There was a line of light at the door’s lower edge, but no sounds came from within.
I knocked again, then tried the door. It was locked.
It wasn’t much of a lock though, so I fetched the picks from my wallet and opened it.
She was lying in a sprawly position, one leg on the sofa and the other hanging over its edge. Her blue skirt was hitched up above her knees and her head was twisted at an unusual angle. There were red stains on her face, her throat, her blouse.
Quietly, I entered, locking the door behind me.
V.
I am the sort of person who overreacts to things. I tend to seek hidden meanings in what people say and do and to erect paranoid constructions upon these. Sometimes I have nightmares where the whole world is a conspiracy, where everything waits for the perfect moment to shatter reality all about me to the sound of cosmic chuckling. I am the sort of person who takes a vitamin pill every day and a tetanus booster once a year. But I have been involved in so many accidents, near-accidents, potential accidents and non-accidental, violent situations that I feel there is some justification for a policy of caution and jumpiness.
I recall one chilly morning when, unshaven, tired-eyed, smelling of beer and tobacco, I emerged from an all-night poker game with my tie loose about my neck and a couple hundred bucks in my pocket. The street seemed to be deserted and the subway station was four blocks away. After walking for a few minutes, I noticed that I was not alone in the world. About 30 feet ahead of me, a man stood in a doorway, drawn well back, looking as disreputable as myself and staring at me. I slowed my pace and kept staring at him. It was too late to run. I reached after my money as he jammed his hand into his hip pocket, hoping that he would be satisfied with a cooperative victim. Instead, he pulled out his wallet as I came up to the doorway and held it toward me with a shaking hand.
"Take it!" he said. "It’s all I got! Don’t shoot me!"
So I do tend to look for the worst and am sometimes embarrassed when it does not materialize. Usually, the worst strikes without warning, which irritates hell out of me when I think of all the times I prepared for it and nothing happened. I wish the Fates were not masochists, to love one who curses them so.
With these things in mind and a twisted sense of humor to cast out shadows, I sighed back at the telltale odor and advanced toward the sofa. Unfortunately, she was breathing.
I passed her and moved beyond the far wing of the sofa. Lying on its side in a puddle on the floor was an empty half-gallon of Chianti. A broken glass kept it company. She had spilled it all over herself, and I suddenly wished for a head cold as I realized I had also moved nearer the results of an unsuccessful dash toward the sink.
Just to be certain, I checked her pulse and it seemed normal. There were no visible signs that she had fallen and hurt herself. She did not awaken during my brief examination, which was just as well. She did make some soft noises as I adjusted her skirt and moved her into a more comfortable-seeming position. Her face was a mess of wine stains and ruined makeup, cut through with dried tear-streaks; her eyelashes stuck together in little, glistening bunches.
I set some water to boiling for coffee. Even if it would not really do her any good, I wanted some. I opened a window to air the place out, hung my coat, rolled up my sleeves and removed the various messes. Afterwards, I sponged her face with a moist washcloth.
At this, her eyelids flickered.
&n
bsp; "…Thirsty," she said.
I took her a glass of water and propped her while she drank it.
"…More."
She took two and a half glasses, pressed the washcloth to her eyes and held it there. She sat hunched forward and her breathing deepened.
"Aspirins…" she said. "…Medicine chest."
I fetched them and poured two coffees while she swallowed a couple of tablets. By then she had lowered the cloth and was running fingers through her long, black hair.
"Ouch," she said as I set the cups on the coffee table. "The world is not as young as it used to be."
She gave me a spasmodic smile as she accepted a cigarette and leaned forward. I seated myself and lit one of my own.
Silence followed.
We sat in silence for perhaps ten minutes. Then she rose, smiled faintly, said, "Excuse me" and left the room. After a time, I heard water running.
A fresh cup of coffee. Another cigarette. Night thoughts.
Maria had not been a heavy drinker when I had known her earlier. But then, neither had Carl. People do change, but this still seemed abnormal. Also, I did not feel that a chronically heavy drinker could have gotten such a sterling endorsement from Bruno, he being a notorious slave driver. No, I decided she had hung this one on for a reason, and it had to be a recent one. I hoped that it dealt with my quarry. Whatever, now was the ideal—perhaps the only—time to get it out of her, while she was still reeling from the blow.
After a time, she returned, turbaned in a towel and wearing a white terry cloth robe. Her face looked much better, though I noticed that her hands shook as she refilled her cup. She sat down, found a cigarette and managed a much better smile than earlier.
"Thanks, Ovid," she said, dropping her eyes.
Then she looked around the room, turning her whole head, not just her eyes.
"And you cleaned up, too. I am embarrassed."
Her survey ended at the door.
"Sorry I didn’t hear you knock," she said.
I shrugged.
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