by Ed McBain
“The year of your relationships? You don’t see them any more?”
“No.”
“Is that at your request?”
“I don’t want it to seem to you as if I’ve had affairs that all turned out badly. That’s far from the truth.”
With her lack of expression Echo kept a guarded but subtle emotional distance from him.
“Silkie. The name describes her perfectly. Where is she from?”
“South Africa. Taja discovered her, on a train from Durban to Capetown.”
“And Taja discovered me? She does get around.”
“She’s found all of my recent subjects—by ‘recent’ I mean the last twenty years.” He smiled a bit painfully, reminded of how quickly the years passed, and how slowly he worked. “I very much depend on Taja’s eye and her intuition. I depend on her loyalty. She was an artist herself, but she won’t paint any more. In spite of my efforts to—inspire her.”
“Why can’t she speak?”
“Her tongue was cut out by agents of one of those starkly repressive Cold War governments. She wouldn’t reveal the whereabouts of dissident members of her family. She was just thirteen at the time.”
“Oh God, that’s so awful!”
“I’m afraid it’s the least of what was done to Taja. But she has always been like a—for want of a better word, talisman for me.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“She was a sidewalk artist in Budapest, living down an alley with whores and thieves. I first saw her during one of my too-frequent sabbaticals in those times when I wasn’t painting well. Nor painting very much at all. It’s still difficult for me, nearly all of the time.”
“Is that why you want me to pose for—a year?”
“I work for a year with my subject. Take another year to fully realize what we’ve begun together. Then—I suppose I just agonize for several months before finally packing my pictures off to Cy. And finally—comes the inevitable night.”
He made a weary, sweeping gesture around the “Ransome Room,” then brightened.
“I let them go. But this is the first occasion when I’ve had the good fortune of knowing my next subject and collaborator before my last paintings are out of our hands.”
“I’m overwhelmed, really. That you would even consider me. I’m sorry that I have to say—it’s out of the question. I can’t do it.”
Echo glanced past at him, to the doorway where Peter was standing around with the other two men, trying not to appear anxious and irritable.
“He’s a fine young man,” Ransome said with a smile.
“It isn’t just Peter, I mean, being away from him for so long. That would be hard. But there’s my mother.”
“I understand. I didn’t expect to convince you at our first meeting. It’s getting late, and I know you must be tired.”
“Am I going to see you again?” Echo said.
“That’s for you to decide. But I need you, Mary Catherine. I hope to have another chance to convince you of that.”
Neither Echo nor Peter were the kind to be reticent about getting into it when there was an imagined slight or a disagreement to be settled. They were city kids who had grown up scrappy and contentious if the occasion called for it.
Before Echo had slipped out of the new shoes that had hurt her feet for most of the night she was in Peter’s face. They were driving up Park. Too fast, in her opinion. She told him to slow down.
“Or put your flasher on. You just barely missed that cabbie.”
“I can get suspended for that,” Peter said.
“Why are you so angry?”
“Said I was angry?”
“It was a wonderful evening, and now you’re spoiling it for me. Slow down.”
“When a guy comes on to you like that Ransome—”
“Oh, please. Comes on to me? That is so—so—I don’t want to say it.”
“Go ahead. We say what is, remember?”
“Im-mature.”
“Thank you. I’m immature because the guy is stuffing me in the face and I’m supposed to—”
“Peter, I never said I was going to do it! I’ve got my job to think about. My mom.”
“So why did he say he hoped he’d be hearing from you soon? And you just smiled like, sure. I can hardly wait.”
“You don’t just blow somebody off who has gone out of his way to—”
“Why not?”
“Peter. Look. I was paid an incredible compliment tonight, by a painter who I think is—I mean, I can’t be flattered? Come on.”
Peter decided against racing a red light and settled back behind the wheel.
“You come on. You got something arranged with him?”
“For the last time, no.” Her face was red, and she had chewed most of the gloss off her lower lip. In a softer tone she said, “You know it’s not gonna happen, have some sense. The ball is over. Just let Cinderella enjoy her last moments, okay?—They’re honking because the light is green, Petey.”
Six blocks farther uptown Peter said, “Okay. I guess I—”
“Overreacted, what else is new? Sweetie, I love you.”
“How much?”
“Infinity.”
“Love you too. Oh God. Infinity.”
Rosemay and Julia were asleep when Echo got home. She hung up the gown she’d worn to John Leland Ransome’s show in her small closet, pulled on a sleep shirt and went to the bathroom to pee and brush her teeth. She spent an uncharacteristic amount of time studying her face in the mirror. It wasn’t vanity; more as if she were doing an emotional self-portrait. She smiled wryly and shrugged and returned to her bedroom.
There she took down from a couple of shelves of cherished art books a slim oversized volume entitled The Ransome Women. She curled up against a bolster on her studio bed and turned on a reading lamp, spent an absorbed half hour looking over the thirty color plates and pages with areas of detail that illustrated aspects of the artist’s technique.
She nodded off about three, then awoke with a start, the book sliding off her lap to the floor. Echo left it there, glanced at a landscape on her easel that she’d been working on for several weeks, wondering what John Ransome would think of it. Then she turned off the light and lay faceup in the dark, her rosary gripped unsaid in her fist. Thinking what if, what if.
But such a dramatic change in her life was solely in her imagination, or in a parallel universe. And Cinderella was a fairy tale.
FIVE
Peter O’Neill was working the day watch with his partner Ray Scalla, investigating a child-abuse complaint, when he was abruptly pulled off the job and told to report to the Commissioner’s Office at One Police Plaza.
It was a breezy, unusually cool day in mid-September. Pete’s lieutenant couldn’t give him a reason for what was officially described as a “request.”
“Downtown, huh?” Scalla said. “Lunch with your old man?”
“Jesus, don’t ask me,” Pete said, embarrassed and uncomfortable.
The offices of the Police Commissioner for the City of New York were on the fourteenth floor. Peter walked into reception to find his father also waiting there. Corin O’Neill was wearing his dress uniform, with the two stars of a borough commander. Pete would have been slightly less surprised to see Elvis Presley.
“What’s going on, Pop?”
Corin O’Neill’s smile was just a shade uneasy. “Beats me. Any problems on the job, Petey?”
“I’d’ve told you first.”
“That you would.”
The commissioner’s executive assistant came out of her office. “Good morning, Peter. Glad you could make it.”
As if he had a choice. Pete made an effort to look calm and slightly unimpressed. Corin said, “Well, Lucille. Let’s find out how the wind’s blowin’ today.”
“I just buzzed him. You can go right in, Commander.”
But the commissioner opened his own door, greeting them heartily. His name was Frank Mullane.
&n
bsp; “Well, Corin! Pleasure, as always. How is Kate? You know we’ve had a lot of concern.”
“She’s nearly a hundred percent now, and she’ll be pleased you were askin’.”
Mullane looked past him at Peter, then gave the young detective a partial embrace: handshake, bicep squeeze. “When’s the last time I saw you, Peter? Rackin’ threes for Cardinal Hayes?”
“I think so, yes, sir.”
Mullane kept a hand on Peter’s arm. “Come in, come in. So are you likin’ the action in the 7-5?”
“That’s what I wanted, sir.”
As soon as they were inside the office, Lucille closing the door behind them, Peter saw John Ransome, wearing a suit and a tie today. It had been more than a month since the artist’s show at the Mellichamp Gallery. Echo hadn’t said another two words about Ransome; Peter had forgotten about him. Now he had a feeling that a brick was sinking to the pit of his stomach.
“Peter,” Mullane said, “you already know John Ransome.” Pete’s father gave him a quick look. “John, this is Corin O’Neill, Pete’s father, one of the finest men I’ve had on my watch.”
The older men shook hands. Peter just stared at Ransome.
“John’s an artist, I suppose you know,” Mullane said to Corin. “My brother owns one of his paintings. And John has been a big supporter of police charities since well before I came to the office. Now, he has a little request, and we’re happy to oblige him.” Mullane turned and winked at Peter. “Special assignment for you. John will explain.”
“I’m sure he will,” Peter said.
A chartered helicopter flew Peter and John Ransome to the White Plains airport, where a limousine picked them up. They traveled north through Westchester County on Route 22 to Bedford. Estate country. They hadn’t talked much on the helicopter, and on the drive through some of the most expensive real estate on the planet Ransome had phone calls to make. He was apologetic. Peter just nodded and looked out the window, feeling that his time was being wasted. He was sure that, eventually, Ransome was going to bring up Echo. He hadn’t forgotten about her, and in his own quiet way he was a determined guy.
Once Ransome was off the phone for good Peter decided to go on the offensive.
“You live up this way?”
“I was raised here,” Ransome said. “Bedford Village.”
“So that’s where we’re going, your house?”
“No. The house I grew up in is no longer there. I let go of all but a few acres after my parents died.”
“Must’ve been worth a bundle.”
“I didn’t need the money.”
“You were rich already, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“So—this special assignment the commissioner was talking about? You need for somebody to handle a, what, situation for you? Somebody causing you a problem?”
“You’re my only problem at the moment, Peter.”
“Okay, well, maybe I guessed that. So this is going to be about Echo?”
Ransome smiled disarmingly. “Do you think I’m a rich guy out to steal your girl, Peter?”
“I’m not worried. Echo’s not gonna be your—what do you call it, your ‘subject?’ You know that already.”
“I think there is more of a personal dilemma than you’re willing to admit. It affects both you and Echo.”
Peter shrugged, but the back of his neck was heating up.
“I don’t have any personal dilemmas, Mr. Ransome. That’s for guys who have too much time and too much money on their hands. You know? So they try to amuse themselves messin’ around in other people’s lives, who would just as soon be left alone.”
“Believe me. I have no intention of causing either of you the slightest—” He leaned forward and pointed out the window.
“This may interest you. One of my former subjects lives here.”
They were passing an estate enclosed by what seemed to be a quarter mile of low stone walls. Peter glimpsed a manor house in a grove of trees, and a name on a stone gatepost. Van Lier.
“I understand she’s quite happy. But we haven’t been in touch since Anne finished sitting for me. That was many years ago.”
“Looks to be plenty well-off,” Peter said.
“I bought this property for her.”
Peter looked at him with a skeptical turn to his lips.
“All of my former subjects have been well provided for—on the condition that they remain anonymous.”
“Why?”
“Call it a quirk,” Ransome said, with a smile that mocked Peter’s skepticism. “Us rich guys have all these quirks.” He turned his attention to the road ahead. “There used to be a fruit and vegetable stand along this road that had truly wonderul pears and apples at this season. I wonder—yes, there it is.”
Peter was thirsty and the cider at the stand was well chilled. He walked around while Ransome was choosing apples. Among the afternoon’s shoppers was a severely disabled young woman in a wheelchair that looked as if it cost almost as much as a sports car.
When Ransome returned to the limo he asked Peter, “Do you like it up here?”
“Fresh air’s giving me a headache. Something is.” He finished his cider. “How many have there been, Mr. Ransome? Your ‘subjects,’ I mean.”
“Echo will be the eighth. If I’m able to persuade—”
“No if. You’re wasting your time.” Peter looked at the helpless young woman in the wheelchair as she was being power-lifted into a van.
“ALS is a devastating disease, Peter. How long before Echo’s mother can no longer care for herself?”
“She’s probably got two or three years.”
“And after that?”
“No telling. She could live to be eighty. If you want to call it living.”
“A terrible burden for Echo to have to bear. Let’s be frank.”
Peter stared at him, crushing his cup.
“Financially, neither of you will be able to handle the demands of Rosemay’s illness. Not and have any sort of life for yourselves. But I can remove that burden.”
Peter put the crushed paper cup in a trash can from twenty feet away, turning his back on Ransome.
“Did you fuck all of them?”
“You know I have no intention of answering a question like that, Peter. I will say this: there can never be any conflict, any—hidden tension between my subjects and myself that will adversely affect my work. The work is all that really matters.”
Peter looked around at him as blandly as he could manage, but the sun was in his eyes and they smarted.
“Here’s what matters to us. Echo and me are going to be married. We know there’re problems. We’ve got it covered. We don’t need your help. Was there anything else?”
“I’m happy that we’ve had this time to become acquainted. Would you mind one more stop before we head back to the city?”
“Take your time. I’m on the clock, Pop said. So far it’s easy money.”
At the end of a winding uphill gravel drive bordered by stacked rock walls that obviously had been there for a century or longer, the limousine came to a pretty Cotswold-style stone cottage with slate roofs that overlooked a lake and a wildfowl sanctuary.
They parked on a cobblestone turnaround and got out. A caterer’s van and a blue Land Rover stood near a separate garage.
“That’s Connecticut a mile or so across the lake. In another month the view turns—well, as spectacular as a New England fall can be. In winter, of course, the lake is perfect for skating. Do you skate, Peter?”
“Street hockey,” Peter said, taking a deep breath as he looked around. The sun was setting west of a small orchard behind the cottage; there was a good breeze across the hilltop. “So this is where you grew up?”
“No. The caretaker lived here. This cottage and about ten acres of woods and orchard are all that’s left of the five hundred acres my family owned. All of it is now deeded public land. No one can build another house within three-quarters of a mile.”
“Got it all to yourself? Well, this is definitely where I’d work if I were you. Plenty of peace and quiet.”
“When I was much younger than you, just beginning to paint, the woods in all their form and color were like an appetite. Paraphrasing Wordsworth, a different kind of painter—poetry being the exotic pigment of language.” He looked slowly around, eyes brimming with memory. “Almost six years since I was up here. Now I spend most of my time in Maine. But I recently had the cottage redecorated, and added an infinity pool on the lake side. Do you like it, Peter?”
“I’m impressed.”
“Why don’t you have a look around inside?”
“Looks like you’ve got company. Anyway, what’s the point?”
“The point is, the cottage is yours, Peter. A wedding present for you and Echo.”
Peter had hit a trifecta two years ago at Aqueduct, which rewarded him with twenty-six hundred dollars. He’d been thrilled by the windfall. Now he was stunned. When his heartbeat was more or less under control he managed to say, “Wait a minute. You … can’t do this.”
“It’s done, Peter. Echo is in the garden, I believe. Why don’t you join her? I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
“Omigod, Peter, do you believe it?”
She was on the walk that separated garden and swimming pool, the breeze tugging her hair across her eyes. There were a lot of roses in the garden, he noticed. He felt, in spite of the joy he saw in Echo’s face, a thorn in his heart. And it was a crushing effort for him just to breathe.
“Jesus, Echo-what’ve you done?”
“Peter—”
He walked through the garden toward her. Echo sat on a teakwood bench, hands folded in her lap, her pleasure dimmed to a defensive smile because she knew what was coming. He could almost see her stubborn streak surfacing, like a shark’s fin in bloodied waters. Peter made an effort to keep his tone reasonable.
“Wedding present? That’s china and toasters and things. How do we rate something like this? Nobody in his right mind would give away—”