“That’s a little pat, isn’t it?”
“Well, I was more than a little insane, Hector. Criminally insane.”
“And now?”
“I got help...saw doctors. Jung himself in the late 1930s. I became a case study of his. And the painting...I began to follow my own muse...I became my own muse. As Alva, I was able to paint. As I did that, I was able to move away from the bloody destruction that fed my art. You were a big part of that change in me. In Key West, when I was with you, I tried to be — I was — just what I said. I was Rachel Harper, a fashion journalist. I was your girlfriend. I started thinking I could be her, indefinitely. I wanted to be her. But I knew I was on borrowed time with you. Quentin Windly saw me on Matecumbe Key. I was afraid he would tell you.”
Hector suddenly remembered something that Quentin had said in Spain, before his execution: “That other one was there, too...that cock-tease...”
“I thought Quentin would put it together first,” Rachel said. “Then Hem came and dragged you away to Matecumbe. Goddamn Hemingway. I blame him for costing me you, time and time again. I knew how small Matecumbe is. I thought there was a chance that even if you didn’t come across evidence of what I did there on that Key, that you’d hear things. That someone might have survived the hurricane and would remember me and describe me to you. So Rachel had to die.”
“Who did the dying for you?”
Rachel couldn’t look at him. “That woman I met in the Electric Kitchen with you,” Rachel said. “The waitress, Karen. She had about my figure...she was blond.”
Hector’s knuckles were white around his glass. He thought it might shatter in his hand, and let go of it. “And you cut off her head,” Hector said. “Slashed her belly open and shoved in a dozen roses. Jesus Christ.”
“I was sick,” Rachel said, “but something in me began to change then, to curdle. I went to Mexico. I kept doing it, but to men. To me, in my state then, that seemed like a step toward improvement.”
Hector snorted and drained his drink; ordered another.
“Then came Spain,” Rachel said. “I became Alva, the bohemian widow and painter. The activist. Buried myself in the part, you might say. I began to see how what I did, what I couldn’t quite yet stop doing, could be used toward an end...to discredit the Franco forces. Then I got involved with the other surrealists and with Alphonse Laurencic. I helped him with the design of his psychological torture cells...helped him shape his concepts of ‘psychotechnic interrogation.’ As I did that, I found I was able to hold the other — the killing — in check. My own painting began to go down original paths, at last. I wasn’t just copying, or re-imagining or answering the works of others. I was my own painter. It was intoxicating.”
“And us?”
“As Alva, I first met Hem,” Rachel said, “as you know. Hem was fooled. Hem was prepared to accept me as my own younger sister. I couldn’t get you out of my head. When Hem said you were in Spain, and that you wanted to meet me, I was thrilled. I decided to risk it all, to see if I could make you believe I was Alva.”
“And you did. And then you let me and Hem kill Windly. You let us continue to think Quentin was the killer. You helped us lure Quentin out to his own execution.”
Rachel ran her hands back through her pale hair. “I still had some arrogance about all that,” she said. “It was a kick to have taken in a literary writer and a crime writer — the two great macho men of American literature. As Rachel, when I first met you two, I played with you both...played to your biases. I dropped those little clues at you just to see which way you would jump. You might as well know I came to Key West planning on meeting you both. I thought I might even kill the two of you — Hemingway, the great prose modernist who based his famous style on paintings he studied in Paris...and Hector Lassiter, the crime novelist who found his own lauded, laconic American writer’s voice in Paris. I thought you two — your deaths — might be my kind of announcement as an artist, so to speak. My first great ‘public works.’ So I arranged to have that telegram sent to Key West just to dangle it in front of you, Hector. Setting up the patina of a conspiracy by telling you Beverly was headed to Cuba and then having a telegram arrive from Matecumbe. And misspelling my own name — another ‘clue’. I’d made a study of your books...I was a fan. And you exceeded my wildest expectations. You were like your characters...seizing a thread in that telegram and constructing your own narrative right in front of me. It was delicious. And Hem? Hem was much easier to play to. And it was a laugh to me — to the calculating mess I was — to see you two writers immediately leap to the conclusion that the killer you were seeking had to be a literary critic. Too perfect.”
“It’s a knee-slapper, to be sure,” Hector said, his voice flat.
“But I fell in love a second time with you,” Rachel said. “Even deeper and harder than the first time. And I was going to come to the states and live with you, as Alva the painter. I had the other under control, you see. Not put away yet, but in check. I haven’t killed another person since Spain. I thought I could live as Alva and I was really going to try.”
“What happened?”
“Bishop Blair was the first complication,” she said. “You blundered into his studio with that story about damned Alphonse Laurencic and his surrealist torture chambers. You did that five minutes after poor old Bishop had shipped my painting of just such an interrogation cell to Paris. Along with that other painting I’d done of you, in your bed in Key West. I watched him put it together, right there. He was going to get you alone and tell you. Bishop had figured it all out. He knew I was the killer.”
“So you had him killed.”
“To protect me, and the others, I thought I had to. Another painter, quite a famous one now, he actually cut Bishop’s throat. Made it look like a robbery. But I didn’t do it. To my mind, at the time, that was an important thing for me...even a kind of affirmation I was getting better.”
Hector just shook his head.
“So I got to Paris, Hector. I was following you back, just as I’d promised. But you — you and your goddamn sentimental streak... I went to the gallery to see my three paintings that Bishop had shipped there, and the proprietor told me they’d been sold. She described you quite wonderfully and accurately. Obviously, she’d been attracted to you. She remembered your accent and smile. When I knew you had those three paintings, I knew I couldn’t face you again. So I spread word back to Spain that I’d been denounced and executed. In the to-and-fro of all that in Spain in 1937, it was an easy and potent lie to plant.”
Rachel signaled for another mojito. “Here’s the funny thing, Hector. Once Alva was dead, presumed posthumous, I — she — became insanely collectible. Like that horrible woman, Mercedes...several others...they tried to snatch up all there was of my work. Prices of my paintings spiraled upward. But the best market is here in Los Angeles, here in father’s town. So I’m careful. I stay here for now...hidden from him...from his friends. A faceless name.”
“And all the while you keep feeding the collecting beast,” Hector said, a crooked smile on his face. “That I can admire. Creating a never-ending flow of posthumous works and making a bundle in the process. Mercedes said that every time she thought she’d collected all you had done, another painting or two would surface.”
“And they always will,” Rachel said. “For Mercedes and for half-a-dozen rich others I can never meet face-to-face, for obvious reasons. So I’m a successful dead painter now,” Rachel said, rueful. “Some fine joke.”
“This one painting of yours I own,” Hector said, lighting a cigarette, “you titled it, In Perfumed Night, Choice Come Courting on Pink Toes. That painting that tipped Bishop. That was really me there, naked on the bed, and you standing naked at the foot of the bed with a knife, contemplating killing me? That really happened, didn’t it?”
“Our first night together,” Rachel said, cheeks red. “But I made my choice. And I’ve never wavered from it. I keep coming back to you. I hear about you here
or there, and I have to make the connection, or try. There have been other overtures you missed, or maybe messages that didn’t reach you. But the fact is that I want to think we can still be together some day. I still love you, Hector.”
“In bullfighting there is a term, it’s called the querencia,” Hector said. “Hem said it’s the place in the ring where a particular bull feels at home. He returns there again and again, and eventually, it gets him killed. I guess maybe I’m your querencia.”
Rachel’s eyes were wet. She said, “There was a time, before I ‘made my choice,’ and even sometimes after, when I viewed the two of us as a kind of game. I thought of you as the bull — you and Hem, really — and of me as the matador.”
“Sometimes these things are a matter of perspective,” Hector said. “And sometimes the bull kills the matador.”
Rachel nodded. “A lot has happened to you since 1937. I’ve heard stories about you. And you’ve killed people, too, Hector, justly or unjustly. Some would say you and me are more alike than different. You murder and then you write about it. You’re the man who writes what he lives and lives what he writes. Isn’t that what Quentin said, before you eventually blew him up?”
“I’ve killed...in combat,” Hector said. “I’ve killed for revenge, or to stop other killings. But you killed for aesthetics...for pleasure. You killed for art.”
“You told Alva — told me — that you loved Rachel.”
“I loved Alva, too.”
“And now, Hector?”
“I still love them. But you? I don’t even know who you are. I can’t grasp what you are. You’re sublime beyond all my understanding. Do you understand yourself? I mean, who are you now? Are you Rachel? Are you Alva? Are you Rhonda? Which do you prefer to be called?”
“Whatever name you prefer is fine with me,” she said. “I’m not doing that other anymore. I’ve beaten that. I’ve killed it in myself.”
“But you’re still tied to it,” Hector said. “You’re running with this sick crowd that just killed an innocent young woman.”
“They do what I did, yes. But I’m trying to get free of them. I wasn’t of or even with that crowd, not really. They were clients...people I had to keep some contact with to continue to sell my paintings.” She took a breath, then said, some bitterness there, “I hear that Mercedes is boasting she slept with you. How was she?”
“Enthusiastic. Enthusiasm will carry you a ways, all on its own.”
“And she’s beautiful. And you’re a man. How could you say no?”
“Where is the bitch now?”
“In the Yucatan...headed to parts unknown.”
Hector nodded. “And the others?”
“They’re all running. You haven’t destroyed them, Hector, but you’ve ended what they had here on the coast, and in the United States. Man Ray, Dali, all of them — between you and HUAC they’ve all left the country in the past few days or will by month’s end. Their circle is destroyed in this country. Their underground is wiped out, largely thanks to you.”
“And you? Where do you go next?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “But I have to leave here in a few minutes. There are a few of them at a bar just across the street. They’re enjoying their last drink in the States. We have one last stop first, then we’re headed to the airport. I figure once we’re in the crowd, I’ll slip away. Go my own way. Maybe I’ll go down to Mexico. Maybe just across the border from La Mesilla. How would you feel about that?”
Hector shrugged. “You don’t even seem to know who you are anymore, Rachel. How can I think about trying to pick up things with you when you don’t even know who or what you really are? I’d go to bed every night imagining waking up with you standing over me with a fucking butcher knife. And maybe you’re really better, just like you say you are, but I can’t quite shake images of you sawing off Karen’s head. I see you gutting that poor girl Beverly and scooping out her organs and shoving in cogs and wheels. Jesus Christ.”
Rachel stood up, smoothed out her dress and picked up her purse. “This was a mistake. You’re right...I keep coming back and I should know better...should stop chasing memories. But know this: I do love you, Hector. I love you and understand you more than any other woman is capable of — I truly believe that.”
“I do too.” Hector ground out his Pall Mall. “You’ve really not killed anyone since Spain?”
“No, though I’m sorely tempted to kill my father. And to kill Hem, too. You know it was that bitch Martha Gellhorn who denounced you for spying, don’t you? After you left Spain, there was a party at Chicote’s. Martha was boasting about how she knew you were a spy for Hoover and how she’d gotten you run out of the country. She laughed and said what a shame it was you escaped without being shot. Hem laughed right along with her.”
Rachel suddenly leaned in for a kiss. Hector hesitated, then kissed her hard, and long. Surprising himself, he said, “Don’t go to the airport. My car’s out back. We’ll get in it and we’ll just start driving...talk some more. Try to figure things out.”
She shook her head sadly, her hand on his cheek. “That’s my Hector — at once forceful and conflicted. You have your friend who’s in trouble. You have to help Orson. If you left him in this mess you’d never forgive yourself and you’d always resent me...resent me more than I can see you already do. And you’re right to feel that way. And you’re right about something else. You asked me a simple question. Am I Rachel, Alva? Who am I? And I don’t have that answer. Not yet. Please stay well Hector.”
He turned and watched her walk out of the bar. He saw her silhouetted a last time against the sun, then she disappeared as the door closed behind her.
Dinah Washington on the jukebox: “My Heart Cries for You.”
“It’s taken me a lot longer than I hoped to grow up to be a magician.”— Orson Welles
ABRACADABRA
40
Agent Tilly picked up on the first ring.
Hector said, “Citizen Welles is leaving on a plane tomorrow for Europe, Agent. I thought you might want to know.”
“I do,” Edmond Tilly said. “And I appreciate it, but I thought you two were friends. This is a pretty brazen sell out. I mean, I thought you two were close friends.”
“So does Orson,” Hector said. “Orson still thinks that.”
“Jesus, what happened?”
“He bounced a check he wrote to me.”
“Remind me never to lay bad paper on you, Hec. You’ll be with him at the airport?”
“Just to see him off there. It’s my last shot at getting my money. I would prefer it if you didn’t arrest him within my sight.”
“What, you’ll trip him, but you don’t want to see him fall?”
“Something like that,” Hector said.
“Well, we’ve got a federal warrant out on him now,” Tilly said. “But if you can deliver him without harm to us, I can sit on that. Rather do this safely and quietly as possible.”
“Tomorrow then,” Hector said. “Ten in the morning at Los Angeles airport. You said you’re thinking of doing this quietly?”
“Subtle,” Edmond said, “yeah. Just in case nothing sticks. He’s big and famous and the bureau doesn’t need a black eye.”
“This could be a bit tricky then,” Hector said. “He’s working overtime to drum-up press for his movie that he’s close to wrapping. He’s invited the press to see him off tomorrow...promising them a shot at Rita and him together, though I don’t think she’s really coming along.”
“What’s Welles’ eventual destination?”
“Paris,” Hector said, “by way of New York.”
“We’ll grab him quietly as he boards,” Tilly said. “That way, the other passengers who stand to witness anything will be on the plane for hours before they can talk to the press.”
“That’s clever,” Hector said.
“So, what’s your own plan? You’re going to drop the bastard off at the airport and then take a powder?”
; “Not at all,” Hector said. “No, since the other stuff is going to go down on the runway, I think I’ll hit the airport lounge. See if I can’t pick up a comely hostess.”
Agent Tilly said, “Are all you novelists degenerates?”
“All us good ones.”
***
It was cold but the sky was clear — a sharp, sunny California winter morning.
Hector sat in the backseat with Orson. Welles’ dwarf, man-Friday was driving. The limo was equipped with special hand accelerators and brakes. Orson was wearing a black wool cape and scarf and a big floppy black slouch hat worthy of the pulp magazine version of Orson’s old radio character The Shadow. Hector was wearing his dove gray trench coat and matching fedora. Both men wore dark blue suits and black-lacquered sunglasses.
As they rolled to a stop in front of the airport, Orson lit up a long fat cigar.
Hector said, “Remember — no showboating.”
***
The first out of the limousine was a small man who ran around to the back of the car and began fiddling with the trunk.
Field agents Larry Rice and Carl Reed moved behind a pillar. They exchanged nods as Orson Welles stepped from the back of the car and raised both arms above his head, hands grasping one another and pumping up and down like a heavyweight fighter entering the ring.
Hector stepped out after Orson, nearly invisible behind the great director.
Flash bulbs began popping and a rush of newsmen and women crowded the limo.
The two agents briefly lost sight of Orson, then the reporters began to disperse and the agents spotted Orson’s broad back and flapping black wool cape. Their quarry waved with a desultory hand over his shoulder at the reporters. A blue-gray haze of pungent smoke trailed from his cigar.
The agents followed at a respectable distance, hesitating as their man entered the public restroom.
A few other men shuffled into the restroom behind their target. The agents exchanged glances, then positioned themselves on either side of the men’s room door.
Toros & Torsos (The Hector Lassiter Series) Page 27