“Dad, hi. I’m sorry I missed you. Listen, I know you’re having trouble meeting the tuition, and this is getting silly. I don’t have to go to Bennington next year, I really don’t. I’d probably be just as happy at a state school, maybe happier. Can we talk about this? I love you.”
And that was it, short and sweet.
I called her back; naturally she wasn’t in. I hated myself for failing her. Bennington was the only thing Sarah had ever in her life asked of me. She was pitching in with two part-time jobs that paid slave wages, she had a full-time job with Gayle lined up for the summer, and her mother was coming up with her half of the tuition. (Lonnie would have lent me my half in a minute; I’d sooner choke.)
If I could sell even a small painting and put off paying Tony Travis until sometime early in the next century I might be able to lift my end of the load. It would help even more if I nailed Paulie Malatesta for Cassie’s murder before the weekend was up. That would allow me to achieve one of my current life ambitions—firing Travis by Monday morning.
My unassailable integrity, my pose as an artist whose personal vision made no allowance for the marketplace, had once again gotten me in trouble. The hubris had piled up like horseshit. I would have to make good on my promise to Lonnie to grow up and do some work I could sell. Pretty beach scenes, charming village landscapes, portrait commissions.
Something perverse had been at work in me. I had even destroyed the marketability of my one sure-fire salable painting—my sexy portrait of Gayle, Green and Brown Morning. On impulse one afternoon I had aged Gayle forty years on the canvas and turned the work into a statement on the vanity of youth.
I was too old to be a free spirit, I had too many responsibilities. I looked up at Large, and at that moment I hated it. I saw a self-indulgent, show-off acre of canvas and pigment. The cost of the paint alone would have covered a measurable portion of my children’s education.
I needed to find Paulie Malatesta. If he was in the area, that tow truck would stick up like a schoolboy’s cowlick. I went out looking for him.
* * *
IT DIDN’T TAKE long to find him. The village cemetery, where the jumble of graves went back to the seventeenth century and some stones were as thin as shirt cardboards, had gone standing room only decades ago. The annex across the road was larger, brighter, more in touch with the living; flowers, real and artificial, nestled at the base of some of the newer stones. I spotted the Huggins tow truck parked at the curb from two blocks away.
The cemetery’s Catholic section was toward the rear of the annex, half a football field away. As I approached it along the narrow path that ran down the center I made out Paulie sitting cross-legged in front of the still raw earth that covered Cassie’s grave. His back was to me, and he was so deep in thought he never heard my footsteps.
I stopped a couple of paces away. Rather than intrude on his somber meditation I waited for him to become aware that he wasn’t alone.
After a long minute he sensed my presence and turned. I didn’t know whether I had expected him to register guilt, embarrassment, surprise, or what. He was perfectly calm, as if our meeting here was the most natural thing in the world. He acknowledged me with a nod and a small sad smile. This was a subdued, contemplative Paulie I hadn’t seen before; maybe it was the Paulie that had attracted Cassie.
“Oh, hi,” he said.
“Hello, Paulie.”
“So you came to see her too,” he said mournfully. “It helps, doesn’t it?”
So that was why he had accepted my presence so readily. “I hope it will,” I said. “Have you been here long?”
“Have I? I don’t know.” He looked at his watch. “Wow. Yeah, I didn’t realize.”
I sat down next to him on the cold earth. I said, “I’ll bet that after you’ve been here a while you start telling her the things you never got a chance to say when she was alive. Things you were saving for just the right moment.”
Warily, “Something like that.”
He fell into a reverential silence, and I followed his lead. Or pretended to. Grave sites don’t especially stir me to thoughts of the deceased; those are as likely to sneak into my head while I’m brushing my teeth or crossing a street. I had been thinking of Cassie off and on all week; what I was thinking of at this moment was that opening up Paulie Malatesta in this place wasn’t going to be easy. He would probably talk more readily somewhere else, away from that ton of fresh-turned earth pressing on his sweetheart’s casket.
While he meditated I stole glances at him. Nice profile, well-defined chin. He was good-looking, all right, well fed and well fleshed. But there was an underlying tone of want around the mouth and in the eyes, as though he had been brought up on junk food and cold love, both doled out in small portions.
Cassie had looked for father substitutes. (Me? Sharanov?) In a boyfriend she may have wanted someone she could take charge of. And Paulie was a grown-up waif, still needy, still short of nourishment. Had he been angered to murder when Cassie began to withdraw her support?
After we sat quietly for a while I could see that the mourner was restless. He was becoming self-conscious about sharing this private time with me. Finally he murmured, “I have to go” and scrambled to his feet.
I quickly followed. “I’ll walk out with you,” I said.
After one last hungry look at the grave, he turned and we started back toward the gate. I felt I ought to fill the silence. “She’ll be missed,” I said.
“She’d have been something,” he said savagely.
“I agree. She was well on her way. You should have heard the praise from people at the wake. I’m sorry you weren’t there. You really think you’d have upset her mother?”
“The boyfriend who was nine years older? And Italian? Are you kidding?” He kicked at a pebble. “The sad part…” And he stopped.
“Yes?”
He had to say it; it was a matter of pride. “The sad part, Cassie did finally agree to bring me home. After all those months of no way, she was going to introduce me to her old lady.”
“What made her promise that?”
“I don’t know. She was mad at her mother, had been for weeks. She wouldn’t say what it was about, but it was a first; she worshipped that woman. And that’s when she said she would take me to see her. She insisted. We were going to do it that weekend. She was looking forward to it.”
“Out of spite, you think?”
“Tell me. She was like spitting in her old lady’s eye and I was the spit, right?”
“That sounds about right. I’m sorry, Paulie. It must have hurt.”
“What do you think?”
“Did it make you angry at Cassie?”
“No. No way could I get sore at Cassie.”
“Really? How come some of the Hamiltons’ neighbors”—why finger poor Hamilton himself?—“say they could sometimes hear you arguing in the front room?”
He stopped walking, his face suddenly flushed. “They did? Somebody said that?”
“Yes. What was that about?”
His jaw tightened as he realized where this was heading. He faced me angrily. “You still on that kick? You and Chuck Scully can’t find a way to arrest that creep Sharanov, so you’re looking to lay Cassie’s death on me? You think I cut the throat of the only person in my whole life I ever cared about?”
He started walking again, more quickly now. I stayed with him, and took his arm. I shook it reassuringly.
“Easy does it, Paulie. Nobody’s accusing you of anything. What’re you steamed about? That people heard you and your girlfriend arguing? That true love didn’t run absolutely smooth? It hardly ever does. Join the club.”
“We didn’t argue. We had nothing to argue about,” he said grimly. His truck was now just a few yards ahead and he was trying to pull away from me.
I dropped his arm and let him distance himself while I delivered a measured shot across his bow. “I thought maybe you’d had a fight with her the night before the murder and
were looking to make up. And that’s why you drove over to Sharanov’s house Friday morning.”
He had one foot in the truck, but he took it back out and turned to me, startled. “Who said I was there that morning?” His voice was tight.
“A fisherman who was cutting across the dunes from the beach saw your truck pulling out of the driveway.” I tried a strategic lie. “At nine-something A.M.”
That roused him to action. “No! It was nothing like nine. More like eight-thirty. Maybe earlier. I have to punch in at work by eight forty-five. Huggins docks you when you’re late.” He was so indignant about what time he was at Sharanov’s that he hadn’t wasted time denying he was there.
I said, “What were you doing at the Sharanov house at all?”
Now he was rattled, and he took a moment. “What do you think? I was looking for Cassie. I thought I might catch her for a couple or three minutes. Because I wouldn’t see her all day. I rang the bell, knocked on the door, but she wasn’t there. So I left. That was it.”
“Of course she wasn’t there. She wasn’t due at work until nine. You know that. Why would she come in earlier?”
“How do I know? She might have, this once. I took a chance.”
I was leaning on him, and he didn’t like it. But I had to follow this line to the end. “Why didn’t you try her at home? She’d have been alone there. Surely you know her mother is at work by eight.”
“Damn right I knew that. Did I ever think about going to her house? You bet I did. So what? If I ever pulled up at Cassie’s house in a tow truck at eight-thirty in the morning her mother would hear about it in ten minutes from the neighbors.”
He had me there. I switched tracks. “You didn’t think it important at least to mention to Chuck Scully that you had been to Sharanov’s house the morning of the murder?”
“Why should I? So he could dump on me? Screw that. I’ve been dumped on enough for a lifetime.”
And he hopped into the driver’s seat and took off, leaving me with a thin coating of road dust and a thick layer of doubt.
* * *
THERE WAS A message on the phone machine from Tom Ohlmayer: “Call me. I’ve finally got what you’ve been waiting for.”
Naturally, he wasn’t in. His partner said, “He’s on his way home. Try him in ten minutes.” In ten minutes there was no answer at Ohlmayer’s home; no Tom, no wife, no kids. They had probably gone to her mother’s, or shopping. I had waited this long, I could wait a while longer. I had changed into painting clothes and I climbed onto the scaffold.
* * *
TESS TURKINTON CALLED at six. I let the machine take it. I was still up near the ceiling trying to deal with a section of canvas I had meant to suggest was bathed in moonlight. It still looked to me like the beach at high noon, and I had my work cut out.
“Sid?… Sid, it’s me,” she began. Apparently in the Turkintons’ world people were supposed to know who “me” was. Only after she waited without success for me to pick up did she grudgingly reveal herself. “Tess.”
Another interval. “I suppose you’re in the shower. I hope you’re in the shower. We’ve got a date at eight. Remember, it’s my invitation, I’m the host, but could I ask one bitty favor? Would you pick me up here at Misha’s? I hate driving at night, just hate it. We’ll spin back to your place for a quick look-see at your oeuvre—don’t you just love the word?—and then I’ve reserved for nine o’clock at a new place in Water Mill they say does something totally outrageous with swordfish and Grand Marnier. You call me right back if you have a problem with any of this, you hear?” She rang off.
I didn’t think Tess wanted to hear about a problem I might have. Ever. And I was in terror that the next bitty favor would call for me to pick up the restaurant tab because she’d left her credit card in her other purse. Not to mention that I don’t want anything “outrageous” done to swordfish; I find it just about perfect as is.
But I decided to go with the flow. I shut down my painting for the day and climbed down from the platform.
I hadn’t yet reached Tom Ohlmayer. I tried him now at home. He was there.
TWENTY-SIX
THE FRONT DOOR at Sharanov’s was opened by Dimitri, the second banana on Misha’s muscle squad who had helped Nikki escort me to the Gulliver the other evening. As this was Saturday night I supposed Nikki was in Brooklyn keeping an eye on the till at the Tundra. Rather than risk his limited English, Dimitri confined his welcome to a spastic backward jerk of his head toward the unoccupied living room. Then he waddled off to the kitchen. His jacket strained against his beefy back, and I could see that he was packing.
The first thing I noticed in the living room was that my drawing no longer hung on the wall. And then my eye shifted to Sharanov, rising on the ramp from the bedroom level like Venus on the half shell, resplendent in an electric blue sports jacket some salesman had earned a double commission unloading on him. But the statement told me he was on his way out for the evening.
“Ah, Shale. Thank you for taking my advice to heart,” he said with a broad smile. Advice came out almost adwice, a rare indication of Misha’s first language. “I have had no further attention from the police.”
I smiled back; we were going to be social. I said, “Never give up hope, Misha.” I indicated the blank wall. “I see I’m no longer on exhibition.”
“Your drawing? I still own it. I’ve done some redecorating this week. Why do you ask? Are you looking to buy it back?”
“I wish I could afford it.”
“I may donate it to the next volunteer firemen’s auction. It brought a good price last time.”
“Thanks to Cassie.”
“Yes…” His eyes narrowed appraisingly. “She was a diligent promoter. A loyal fan of yours.”
I said, “You may have made a mistake when you thought that by appearing to share her enthusiasm for my work you could also make her a fan of Mikhael Sharanov.”
“She was already that.”
And then, more in the way of seeking information than giving it, he added with an insinuating purr, “But possibly not yet as big a fan as she had been of yours…?” The prurient son of a bitch.
I said, “You thought you were almost there. Wrong, Misha. She came on to you for the same reason she had to me. She was looking for a daddy to replace the one she’d been dealt.”
He didn’t respond to my pop psychologizing, but his usually impassive face showed that he recognized at least a germ of truth in it. And then he looked relieved—possibly because the prize he had failed to win had escaped my grasp as well. He was also a competitive son of a bitch.
And that was the end of that subject, because Ben Turkinton was coming up the ramp, wearing the same hint-of-rancher suit I had seen him in the other day, and his booming voice took over the air space.
“Okay, Misha, let’s do it,” he said. “I can eat a horse, but I’ll settle for cow. So don’t lead me to no damn lobster. If I’m obliged to wrestle my dinner off its carcass, give me a T-bone steak every time. Evening, Sid.”
He struck me exactly as he had the first time we met, as a Texan out of central casting. His overplaying didn’t register on Sharanov’s ear; Misha was swallowing the performance whole. His face didn’t show it, but his barrel chest shook with silent laughter.
Turkinton let me know that the two men were going out to dinner, to talk “bidness.” Tess would be up soon—“don’t ask me when, you know women”—so would I please “hold my horses.” That last conjured up stallions in the driveway rearing, whinnying, and pawing the gravel.
Tess didn’t show until Sharanov’s Cadillac sounded its motor. Applause was in order. She was wearing an emerald green Chinese-y sheath she may have sprayed onto her figure. Try as it did, it failed to expose any figure flaws.
Instead of a hello she greeted me with “I don’t have a clue how people dress in these parts on a Saturday night. Tell me this is wrong and I’ll go right back down and change.”
“Don’t you dare,�
�� I said. If I had criticized the outfit she’d have belted me.
She hadn’t listened anyway. She was peering out the window, watching the Cadillac disappear. She said, “No way was I going to climb up that boat launch until those two were gone. Honestly, that Russky!”
“You having problems with him?”
“He’s all over me. Has been from day one. He doesn’t even care if Daddy’s right there. So Daddy gets embarrassed, then I get embarrassed. The man’s a Slavic cave creature. Right out of Siberia, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“What do you say, shall we go?” I said. I was suddenly tired of this charade and ready to bring it to an end.
She must have caught something in my tone. “Is something wrong?” she said.
I rallied. “When I’m with a vision in green and the evening stretches before us?” I said. “What could be wrong?” I pushed the front door open.
She picked a shawl off the back of a couch but hesitated before she wrapped it protectively around her shoulders and walked out into the night. She looked troubled.
Good.
* * *
HER SUSPICIONS HAD pretty much dissolved by the time we reached my place. I had put her in an easier frame of mind by passing on some gossip about local people who had nothing to do with either of us. She had begun to smile, and once she even came close to outright laughter. I wanted her loose, with her guard down, when I delivered my one-two punch.
She walked into my single room and said, almost before she’d looked, “Great studio, Sid. I love it.” She looked up at Large and announced, “Work in progress.” Since there were still countless yards of raw canvas, she wasn’t going out on a limb with that observation.
But it was the closest she came to a critique. Her eye moved on quickly to finish its inspection of the room. “Terrific work space. Is this the whole house?”
Her dismissal of Large had pissed me off and I was even more impatient now to get this business over with. “Yes, except for the bathroom,” I said, and indicated the closed door of the closet.
Artist's Proof Page 21