“Shelley, I don’t have a cell phone.”
She sucked a little air through her teeth. “You just don’t want to give me the number.” She was cute, you had to hand it to her.
“No, sweety, I really don’t have a cell, and I won’t be home until long after you get off work. I’ll call you back by the end of the day.”
I grabbed a slice at Blondie’s, walked back to Delores, drove her home, and went upstairs to try to take a nap, but sleep wouldn’t come. I remembered the gallery guide and dug it out, spreading it across my knees and reading it in bed like an invalid.
The exhibition was a group show of Bay Area 2D artists, and the only other common element was that all submissions had to be six feet by five feet. I hadn’t noticed at the gallery, hadn’t looked closely at any work but Ashley’s—a rookie move. Most were oils, some were ink, some acrylic, but they were all on canvas, six by five. The gallery wanted to explore the possibilities of artists unafraid to work on a large scale, blah blah blah . . . bios of the artists. Ashley’s read like a ransom note from another dimension:
Ashley is not: an acronym or an anagram. Ashley does not: work with acrylic, steel, or clay. Ashley will not: sell out or fade away. Ashley was born, is living, and will someday die. Ashley admits to being fixated on one particular subject matter. It’s a phase. Enjoy.
It made me shiver, it made me understand all the more why she drove Dalton crazy. I reached down and absently stuck the guide under my mattress, and tried again to fade away to dreamland. No dice.
But I knew what was bothering me. It was staring me in the face and I couldn’t look away. That was why I couldn’t drop the case. It had nothing to do with McCaffrey’s twenty-five Gs, it had nothing to do with two thugs sticking a gun in my face.
It was Ashley.
Why the hell was this girl painting portraits of me? How did she know what I looked like? How the devil did she know where I was on New Year’s Day? How did Al and Lizard and Sharkskin seem to know more about this than me? Fixated on one particular subject matter—how many more of these paintings were there?
I’d lived in San Francisco long enough to get my fill of new age theologies, crackpot philosophies, and cockamamie mystical ideas about the universe. I’d heard about astral projection, tantra, the Kabbalah, ESP—it was all a load of hooey. But this . . . this was too weird. What could explain it? Was I next on The X-Files? Was this young girl somehow tapped into my mind? Could she see me from a distance? Did she dream about me, and paint her dreams like Dali?
I remembered an article I’d read about remote viewing, a paranormal, ESP method of seeing something hidden from view, or something happening very far away. The phenomenon was explored at the Stanford Research Institute in the seventies and later funded by the CIA. The government’s twenty-million-dollar research program—with the unlikely name of the Stargate Project—was shut down, and documents were declassified a couple of years back. The scientific debate was predictable: proponents swore it worked and that valuable information could be gained; detractors called it pseudoscience and either said that more research was required or that it was a straight-up hoax. The truly spooky part is that proponents imply that RV is a technique that can be taught and learned by anyone, psychic or not. It doesn’t take an extraordinary amount of paranoia to wonder if the CIA is still fooling around with mind tricks, but my own paranoia begs the question: why would a young girl, even a CIA operative, be spying on me? Everything about it sent a creeping skeletal hand up the back of my spine.
Somehow it would be easier to accept if she lived in Wisconsin and had no idea that the paintings she was cranking out depicted reality, but that note . . . if it really did come from Ashley, my Ashley, then she knew who I was and how to find me. She lived in California, somewhere—or did until recently. She hadn’t disappeared; she was hiding from someone.
I convinced myself that if I could fall asleep I would have a dream about Ashley, and we would trade secrets and make love and take the extra twenty-five grand and rent a house in Belize and grow old together, dreaming each other’s dreams. . .
7
I woke in the late afternoon and walked down to the Schoolhouse Deli to use the pay phone. Shelley had a name for me, Alan Punihaole—sounded more Hawaiian than Samoan—and a San Francisco address. I went home and waited out the evening.
I got out my World War II–issue .45 automatic pistol, a Colt M1911A1, and loaded it up, strapped on a shoulder holster, and slipped on a black blazer. I took a wooden box down from the top of the closet and found my first gun, a model 7 two-shot Derringer that I’d bought at a flea market many years back. It was a .38—a pretty big gun for a dainty little peashooter. I rigged it to my ankle with an old leather belt. I went rummaging in the kitchen drawers and found a box cutter—a simple razor blade in a small plastic sheath, the kind that you have to be eighteen to buy now that gangs are using them as weapons. I broke off the end to expose a fresh, sharp blade.
Around eleven I caught the last bus to the Colma station and rode the BART to Civic Center. I walked down 7th and onto a shitty industrial block past Harrison, almost underneath the 80 overpass. Punihaole was on the buzzer list, third floor. I rang the buzzer above his: Durkett. An elderly female voice squawked at me: “Hello?”
I tried to lower mine into a drawl. “Sorry, Mrs. Durkett, it’s Al downstairs, my key don’t work.”
“Asshole,” she muttered, but buzzed me in. Al seemed to make an impression on everyone.
I walked up the three flights and was happy to learn that his was the only apartment on the floor. I could hear a television humming quietly on the other side of the door. I peeked up and down the staircase one last time and drew my .45, then tapped the door lightly and stepped aside.
Fortunately, Al wasn’t a cautious kind of guy. He threw the door open and, not seeing anyone, stuck his fat face out. I shoved my .45 into his pug nose. “Get in, moron, and don’t make a fucking peep.” He didn’t. I shut the door behind us and locked it without taking my eyes or my gun off him. He was in his bathrobe but still started up tough.
“What are you, fuckin’ stupid? I know where you live.”
“And I know where you live, Punihaole. Shut up, and turn that TV up a couple notches.” He turned it up almost to blaring. Mrs. Durkett immediately started banging on the floor above us. “Not so loud, asshole, I don’t want Durkett calling the cops.” He shot me a wicked glare and turned it down.
The room was dingy, if not altogether filthy. The couch was folded out. There was another room in the back but I could see it was empty. “Where’s your roommate?”
“Kicked him out.”
“Why don’t you sleep in the back?”
He shrugged. “I like it out here.”
“That’s fine, Alan. Take off the bathrobe.”
“What?”
“You forget what this is?” I waggled the .45. “Take it off.” He dropped the robe, exposing Daffy Duck boxer shorts and a grayed wife beater. “Nice shorts, Alan.”
“Don’t call me—”
“What? Dead?” That got him. “Right. Drop the Daffys and lay down on the hide-a-bed.”
“What?”
“Fucking do it, Alan, I don’t have all night to sit around watching Seinfeld.”
“What are you, some kinda fag?”
“I bet you get by real well in this city with that attitude. You got it, Alan, I’m some kind of fag and I came over to blow you at gunpoint. Do it.”
His face was a pinched melon of embarrassment as he took off his boxers. The sagging rolls of fat just about covered his excuse for manhood. He lay down on his stomach, the couch offering up loud springy complaints. I put my right foot solidly against the back of his neck, holding the .45 steady to his nose.
“Put yer cock in my mouth and I’ll bite it off.”
“They teach you that in prison, Alan? Trust me, I have no such ideas. I’m just gonna cut yours off.” With that I took out the box cutter, snicked it open, and
locked it in place.
His eyes grew wide as two moons and he was surprisingly silent.
“Now,” I said, reaching back with the cutter, “I can’t reach too well and still hold the heat on you, so please forgive me if I miss the first couple of times. Besides,” I grinned, “I’m a little clumsy with my left hand.” I pressed the blade to a fat thigh and he twitched and opened up.
“What do you want? Please please please, what do you want?”
“I want to cut your nuts off, you fat fuck. I don’t like being assaulted and I want you to remember that.”
“Please, anything.”
“Where’s Ashley, Alan?”
“I don’t know! You gotta believe me. I don’t even know who Ashley is!”
“Bullshit.” I made a clumsy swipe and grazed him, just enough to scare him. He was howling.
“I don’t know!”
“Quiet down. Who hired you to slap me around?”
“I don’t know that either! I swear it!”
I pushed the .45 hard into his nose, so hard that he turned his face to the side, and I reached over and quickly cut him with the blade again, higher up. He started bawling like a little girl.
“Talk to me, Alan. It’s way past my bedtime and I’m getting cranky.”
“Conrad hired me! I don’t know nothing else!”
“Who the fuck is Conrad?”
“The guy from last night. He just hires me when he needs some extra muscle or he wants me to drive him around—coz he don’t drive.”
I tapped him on the side of the head with the gun and reached over again, but he was already flinching. “Doesn’t drive, Alan. What, is English not your first language?”
“Conrad doesn’t drive! Conrad doesn’t drive!”
“What’s his last name?”
“Jones, C-Conrad Jones.”
“And who hired Conrad?”
“I don’t knoooow!” He was starting to squeal and looked like he was about to wet himself. He didn’t know anything.
“All right, Alan. Pull up your shorts.” I drew back a bit so he could look at me. His pupils were pinholes as he wriggled the Daffys up his fat thighs. “Where can I find Conrad?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“Where does he live? What’s his phone number?”
“I don’t know. I shoot pool in the afternoons at Hollywood Billiards. He finds me there.”
“You’ve never picked him up at his house?”
“No, I swear it. He’s super secret. Jones ain’t even his real name, somebody tole me.”
So much for trying Shelley at the DMV. “What else do you know about him?”
“Just that he’s always eatin’ and he’s always skinny.”
I knew that much. We were done. “You did good, Alan. I’m real proud of you. I’m gonna let you keep that little pecker of yours.”
He exhaled deeply and sat up, swinging his feet onto the floor. “Thanks,” he wheezed, devoid of sarcasm.
“But I need two more things from you.”
“What?”
“Number one: you owe me a favor. I don’t know what it is yet, but one of these days I’m going to walk into Hollywood Billiards and you’re going to say, What can I do for you, Mr. Crane? Got that?”
“S-sure. You got it.”
“And the second thing: don’t you ever”—I leaned in and hacked him a good one through the Daffys—“fuck with me again or I will chop your balls off. You’ll get man titties that make these”—I nosed the gun at his chest—“look buff.” He grabbed his thigh, bit his lip, and gave me the look of a fat kid who just had his lunch money stolen. “You tell anyone I was here and it’s”—I whispered close to his ear—“snick snick.”
I moved to the door. He had one hand on his wound and one over his wet eyes.
“Hey Alan,” I said, “Conrad called you Samoan, but Punihaole? That sounds Hawaiian to me.”
“What do you care?” He was blubbering.
“Al . . . this isn’t personal. This is business. You fucked with me, I gotta fuck with you. It doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. I’m starting to like you.” He didn’t answer but seemed to calm down a little. “Seriously. Punihaole?”
“My mom’s name was Tuitama. She’s Samoan. My dad’s Hawaiian: Punihaole.”
I grinned at him. “So your dad likes big women, huh?” He didn’t say anything, but stifled a grin. “What’d you do tonight, Alan?”
“I—I stayed home and watched TV.”
“Good boy, Al. I’ll be seeing you.”
I let myself out.
* * *
I walked back to Market and down to Gough to catch a cab. No one saw me walk out of Al’s place and that was dandy by me. I felt good, almost too good, like I had gotten away with something but didn’t quite know what. I had crossed a line somewhere. I was in it now, there was no getting out. But since Ashley was painting creepy snapshots of my life, I guess I was always in it. The fact that I didn’t know what I was into no longer made any difference.
I sat on the left side of the cab and rolled down the window and looked out at my bay . . . I was becoming the part, I realized. I’d always been a quick study, and the way Conrad Jones—if that was his name—had worked me over taught me exactly how to get at big Al. There wasn’t a twinge of regret in my bones for the way I had frightened him, terrorized him, threatened him. Any asshole who hung around a pool hall waiting to get hired as a thug deserved what he got.
But I still had nothing. My only real lead—the gallery—was dead as Dalton. I didn’t know how Al and Conrad had caught on to me but it didn’t matter—Al didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground and Conrad wouldn’t be as easy to intimidate. He was clearly the brains of the team and wouldn’t crack easily. Al was just a big dope gone astray, but Conrad . . . something about the way he cut the canvas off the stretcher, the way he barked at Susan. . . He was the worst kind of man—one incapable of remorse.
I had the cab let me out at 101 and Grand Ave. and walked the rest of the way home. I chain-smoked until I was out, thinking about it all.
8
The next morning I woke up hacking and took a long, hot shower. I whipped up a quick breakfast of poached eggs on toast and went back to square one: the painting in my garage. I looked at it for a solid hour but saw nothing I hadn’t seen before. Me, the barber, the signature, the date . . . it was good brushwork, good composition, and a good likeness, but I’m not an art critic. I’m an info guy, and the information I needed was, where is the artist?
I went down to the Schoolhouse Deli and worked the pay phone.
“Good morning, Dalton Gallery, this is Susan Dalton, can I help you?”
“Susan, hello. My name’s David Crane.”
“And what can I do for you?”
“I’m sorry to bring up a difficult subject, but I was in the gallery the other day. The day your brother, ah . . .”
There was a stiff pause on the line. “I see. And what exactly do you want?”
“I don’t want to trouble you, Miss Dalton, but I was hoping I could come down and ask you a few questions.”
“I’ve already told the police everything—”
“I’m not with the police, Miss Dalton, I’m a journalist, and it would be a big help to me if you could spare a few moments. Can I come down this afternoon?”
“I can’t . . . I can’t talk about it here, it’s too—”
“Let me buy you lunch.”
She chewed that over. “All right. Meet me at Zuni at one o’clock.”
Expensive taste, but the hell with it. I was a rich man.
* * *
I was there early, fiddling with a fork as a surrogate cigarette and eyeing the door. Susan came striding in about a quarter past the hour, looking very smart in a skirt and a suit jacket, her blond hair pulled back severely, dark shades on her face. She had the same thin lips as her brother, but on her face they lent an air of elegance and mystery, like she knew something but you’
d have to beg to get it out of her. Seeing her for the second time, I realized what I hadn’t quite noticed the day before at the gallery: she was hot stuff. The conservative clothes couldn’t hide the voluptuous body straining against the fabric.
I caught her at the bar and fumbled through my introduction, showing her to the table. I was relieved when she said she wanted a drink, and we ordered Bloody Marys and I grabbed the bull by the horns and ordered a dozen oysters—Malpeques, Kumamotos, and Wellfleets. Turned out she had been a freelance journalist before getting into telecommunications and had done gigs over at the Chronicle, so we cut up and cracked jokes about my old cronies, laughing like college kids. She was getting comfortable and I thought if I could get her at ease it would all go smoothly. After a mutual laugh at the expense of one of my drunk ex-editors, she got strangely quiet.
“David.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry . . . about what happened to you with the Guardian.”
“Oh . . . you heard about that.”
“Yes. I didn’t recognize your name at first, but when you were talking about . . . Anyway, I put it together.”
I shrugged. “You live, you die.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“Forget it.”
“I hope you don’t blame yourself.”
“It’s done. Really.” I signaled the waiter just to change the subject, but our food was already coming. We ate quietly, stealing glances at one another. I thought I felt her stockinged leg brush mine, but I was sure it was my imagination.
When we both had frothy cappuccinos in front of us, I opened it up: “How familiar are you with the workings of your brother’s gallery?”
She shifted in her seat. “I was Jeffrey’s . . . unofficial consultant from the very beginning. I know nothing about art, but I know a thing or two about business, and I know how to deal with people. Jeffrey . . . was not a people person.”
“He lived alone, I take it?”
“Yes. He had a lover every now and then—he was gay, I guess you knew that. But the gallery was really his life. It was all he thought about. He loved art, he hated artists, and he couldn’t get enough of either.”
The Painted Gun Page 4