A Paradise for Fools
Page 28
Fred said, “It’s Nashua’s problem, I know. What they are going to find is that Kim’s car did the job on Zagoriski. I don’t know if Arthur was in the car at the time, but I suspect he was. He supposedly doesn’t drive. Something got them excited in Cambridge, they drove up there, found Zagoriski. Or he found them and got them to come up. There’s a long relationship between Zagoriski and his students, and it’s not pretty. Now he’s dead. You can believe that Kim is figuring out right now how it was an accident.
“When I talked to Zagoriski the afternoon before he died, he wanted to know where Arthur Schrecking was, and where Ruthie Hardin was. The question I ask myself—why did he care? Had he heard from one or both of them? Had they made an appointment to meet him? Had Ruthie—Kim?”
Kim had zapped Zagoriski all right. Fearing his interest could threaten Arthur’s possession of the painting that might be her ticket to Phoenix, she’d simplified the chain of ownership by interposing a corpse. Fred wasn’t going to get into that. Why should he? Better the painting stay out of the story if that was possible. Kim wouldn’t volunteer such a motive. If Kim admitted anything, she wouldn’t commit beyond accident.
Fred interposed some sympathetic mist.
“I don’t know if Eva was in on it. I can’t get a reading on Eva, that’s the truth. Was she in the car? Why? When Nashua talks to the barman at the Moonglow Lounge he will say, if he remembers, that Zagoriski left the place that night, solidly in the bag, and in the company of a gorgeous redhead.
“That redhead could be Eva. Or she’s a coincidence, could even become collateral damage. I haven’t a clue if she’s involved, but she is…”
“A gorgeous redhead,” Gamble finished. “I can see that.”
“Then again, Kim could have worn a red wig,” Fred pointed out. “I like Kim for it. Then again, Arthur’s got red hair though I wouldn’t call him gorgeous. I like Kim, but anyone can wear a red wig. Ask E. Howard Hunt.”
“Who in the blazes is E. Howard Hunt?”
Chapter Fifty-seven
Telephone.
Fred dragged himself out of sleep by the fourth ring.
“I didn’t dare call again after ten last night.”
Molly’s voice. “Now that I waited, it’s too early in the morning. I’m sorry.”
Seven-thirty. Was that rain? Yes, it was raining.
“It’s OK, Molly. I’m awake,” Fred lied. Between greeting the contingent from Nashua late last night, Hamada included, and getting free of Gamble’s last-minute questions concerning the fact that the Charlestown address where his car was registered didn’t match the address where he claimed to be staying on Beacon Hill, and stopping by Charlestown to collect the painting, and sitting with it in his office for long enough to ensure that it was still all in one piece—he hadn’t gotten around to closing his eyes until four.
“I’m sorry,” Molly repeated.
How did she know where to reach him? Fred wasn’t about to ask.
“With everything going on,” Molly said, “I didn’t know how badly you needed them. I have the yearbooks you wanted. They came in yesterday. I was out. Gilly said you came by. He could have given them to you himself, but he didn’t know, or he didn’t think of it. Today’s Globe. That man killed. If you need the yearbooks, I wanted you to know they’d come in. They don’t circulate. If they have anything to do with—I don’t know what you might need, Fred. In case it’s important…”
Gilly had called Molly at home. Or wherever she was. She had this number from Gilly. Gilly had read his note. His note to Molly.
Fred swung around and sat up. The floor was cold on his feet. Hieronymus Bosch’s painting, A Paradise for Fools, on the floor leaning against his desk, glowed under all that dirt, trouble, and old varnish. From a black pool lizards crawled. The gremlin’s two heads, distracted from each other, gazed balefully at Fred, but in a friendly way that could bring tears. In spite of all the trouble in the world around them, was it possible? They were lovers. Closer even than Adam and Eve had been.
Fred said, “I’ll stop by when I can. I would like to look at those yearbooks, but it’s not pressing. Thank you. They picked up some of these folks last night. Folks from the high school who climbed over the fence, got out into the big world outside the gates of Eden, and found things aren’t much better on this side. I’m feeling sort of bad about it, tell you the truth, Molly. About it. About them. I feel like there’s this pile of wheat left to rot in the field, while the chaff gets dragged back to the barn. Which is which, I don’t even know. Such a waste.”
“I got your message,” Molly said. “Obviously, since I have your number, to wake you up. You figured that out. Listen, about the yearbooks. I had a minute, looked through them. A couple of them, you never think, a high school year book. A couple of them have brilliant drawings.”
“I’m not surprised,” Fred said. “That’s one of my clowns. Arthur. I don’t know if the guy is a genius because I’m not even sure he has a soul. The high school where he was, they did their best to kill it, the way I read his story. Maybe he’ll find one yet. I think a genius has to have a soul. As a technician, though, I believe the guy could run circles around even Salvador Dali. I’m gloomy. Sorry. I’m trying to keep you talking. You want to meet for coffee?”
Molly laughed. “I’m at my house in Arlington. It’s too early. It’s too late. Both. I barely have time to get washed and go to work. Go back to sleep. One drawing—do you know the painting? What am I saying? Of course you know it—Botticelli’s Venus rising from the waves, she’s naked except for the hair?”
“A gorgeous redhead,” Fred said silently.
“One of the kids did a version of her to illustrate the swim team page, but with a little polka-dot bikini to appease the censors. I noticed that man’s name, the dead man’s, Zagoriski, listed as the yearbook advisor.”
“Before he himself was censored,” Fred said. “Listen, I feel bad. The other day, and then I stopped by yesterday, you weren’t in—I wanted to sweep you up and persuade you to have dinner with me somewhere.”
“I’d love to. Gilly read me your note.”
Fred said, “But I don’t know when I’m going to pry myself loose from some conversations I’ve gotten into concerning the Zagoriski business and the rest of it, and these clowns, who need help finding lawyers, and I don’t know when I’m going to get my freedom. I can’t make plans. When I do get loose—well, I’m serious. Where would you like to go? I don’t know these places. I tend—a can of sardines. Beans when I want to get fancy, have something hot. If I’m by myself. At some of the places, where you’re supposed to applaud when they bring out the bacon…You’ll be at your desk later? If I stop by? The problem is, I have to go to New Hampshire again. They’ve got the idea I can be helpful. You never know. They might keep me. Then there are the clowns—the system hasn’t done much for them so far.
“I haven’t had coffee yet, Molly, and I’ve been trying to talk with you but making the mistake of doing that while I’m not in the same place you are, and not hearing your answers. What I said in my note, about the crumbs, and maybe one day meeting…”
“We’ll start with dinner,” Molly said. “It’s cheaper if I cook. And fewer crumbs. We’ll get to the crumbs later, maybe.”
Note: Fred and Molly’s conversation in Chapter Two raises a question concerning values of currency in matters of art history. Readers who are interested are referred to Richard E. Spear, “Scrambling for Scudi: Notes on Painters’ Earnings in Early Baroque Rome,” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 85, no. 2 (June, 2003), pp. 310-320. See also Spears’ Painting for Profit: The Economic Life of Seventeenth-century Italian Painters, Yale University Press, 2010, with contributions from Philip Sohm, Christopher Marshall, Raffaella Morselli, Elena Fumagalli and Renata Ago.
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