Man With a Squirrel

by Nicholas Kilmer

  “My business put me in touch with the family,” Fred said. “I need to understand how to handle them. I’m having a hard time figuring out how they tick.”

  Jeff Blake laughed hash. “They’re a bunch of loonies is why,” he said. “They don’t tick. They go sproingngng! What business you in?”

  “Antiques.”

  “OK, look. I was set to give you a hard time. Figured she sent you to feel me out, see will I go back on our deal. But you’re straight up, and if you’re not she’s not getting anything back anyway. We made a deal and shook on it. You got that?”

  Fred said he got that. Jeff Blake struck fear into the survivors on his plate. He took a swallow of coffee and signaled for a warmup. Fred covered his own cup with his hand.

  “There was the three of them. The old lady died a long time back, way before I’m in the picture. So it was Daddy Clarke and the loony sister, Ann, who was already divorced and had moved out to I don’t know where. We didn’t see much of her. They’d used the whole place on Hay Street once, the family did; then as people died and moved out, the old boy took the second floor and rented out the first. Sandy and I took the top. I never could make out how much he had. See, he was well off the deep end then; would wander around in his underwear at night and pee anywhere—Sorry, dear, I didn’t see you.” The waitress had bowed to accept certain of his soiled dishes.

  “Pretty well-heeled, was he?”

  Jeff Blake looked at the ceiling. “Nobody was hurting. Except they were all crazy. I’ll tell you the truth,” Jeff Blake leaned across the table to whisper crumbs of toast, “I blame everything on the older sister, Ann. She got this enormous wedgie nothing could get past, and this is before it got popular—she’s like a prophet pioneer; before everyone else started seeing ghosts and whatever like they do today. Like now it’s a whole industry I wish I could get in on. Anyhow, Ann’d come roaring in, screaming about how the old man used to sacrifice her to the devil, and eat people’s liver and the rest of it. I didn’t listen. Till the old guy started to believe it. One minute he’d be as sensible as I am, the next he’d be crawling on the floor moaning, ‘I’m sorry.’

  “When it got too bad—Sandy and I are married by this time—Ann, the sister, took the old man to live with her, wherever that was. Tell you the truth, I and Ann did not get along. This is about four years ago. Then Sandy starts seeing ghosts too, and wouldn’t put out—sorry, honey—and that was about it for me.”

  Fred watched the waitress struggle away with the remainder of Jeff Blake’s dishes. He asked, “Did you ever see a painting the Clarkes had, an old one, of a man holding a squirrel?”

  “Sure. Mr. Pix. Black guy. I’m not prejudiced. Here’s how loony old man Clarke is. White as he is, he claims the picture is an ancestor. How is Sandy anyway? She’s not trying to go back on our deal? Oh, I get it. You think the picture’s worth something. There I can’t help you.”

  “Thanks,” Fred said, standing.

  28

  Marek did not answer the shop bell. He had not answered either telephone. Fred said, “To hell with this.” He went around to the rear of the building and let himself in the back door. That placed him in a vestibule giving him access to either the stairs going up, or to the shop’s back door. Once in the vestibule, Fred heard the piano upstairs. Marek was practicing.

  It was a fluid, graceful, marvelous, and completely disciplined touch. Chopin, one of the mazurkas. It sounded like someone reaching into a stream and tickling trout. “Fingers like water,” Clay had said. It was passionate and remarkably cold, looking to conceal its own intent and trap an alien life, in order to exploit it.

  “So he’s here,” Fred said. He started up the stairs, thinking, in the words of Molly’s mother, What’s good for the sauce is good for the gander. The music’s complexity increased as he got closer to the third floor. The door to Oona’s apartment on the second floor was open. It did not follow from the shop downstairs. It had the generous, sparse look of a farm kitchen. All Oona’s romance was downstairs. This was functional. Fred could look through it later if he wanted, if Marek did not have him arrested.

  Fred climbed the next flight. Marek paused and switched to a new mazurka. Fred heard Marek laugh. This selection had a formal, haunting quality that seemed, in a dance, an eerie joke. Marek played it with abandon. It sounded like a king in his coronation regalia falling down stairs. The fall was in slow motion. Odd and unnerving as it was, it sounded exactly like what Chopin was thinking about: the vandalism of something precious, sad, and despised; and beautiful.

  Fred eased his bulk onto the landing. The door to Marek’s apartment was ajar. Because of the door’s placement he could see nothing without poking his head into the opening. He saw only the foot end of the piano—which, by its sound, had cost Oona Imry some thousands of dollars. More arresting was the wobbling white hind end, with zits, of the pudgy young man executing a parody of dance while Marek played.

  “Oh, come on,” Fred said, walking in.

  Marek stood up with a screech and a chord more Hindemith than Chopin. He was as naked as the room’s other occupant. The space was large and contained almost no furniture aside from the black mass of the piano—a Steinway. Marek had placed a large Oriental rug from Oona’s shop on the floor; around it were a few throw pillows, two antique-looking chairs, and a daybed whose state of undress Fred was in no mood to appreciate.

  Marek was holding his beautiful hands, stripped of their gloves, up to his mouth. The other man used his in a more conventional gesture for the first encounter with an unexpected stranger when in a state of nudity.

  Fred assessed the situation. Marek was not going to call any cops. Fred gestured toward the pudgy young man who now, defiantly, removed his hands from their easy task of concealing the obvious.

  “Your alibi for that night?” Fred guessed.

  “Not here. No. Never. Not while Oona might…” Marek faltered.

  “I’ll need your name, address, phone, all that,” Fred told Marek’s companion in a pleasant, official tone.

  The young man was sullen. Fred spotted his shirt, suit, and accessories draped on one of the chairs and went over to them, shaking the wallet out of the suit’s jacket pocket—English cut, brown wool, side vents. The suit’s most recent inhabitant peeped an objection. Fred flopped the wallet open.

  “Sylvester H. Penny?” Fred asked, looking at the driver’s license. Massachusetts. Address on Forham Place, not far from here, halfway up Beacon Hill.

  The pudgy young man put his hands on his hips. He was a real blond. Marek kept distance between himself and his companion. He looked interested, but made no protest. His was a beautiful, boyish body, like that of Michelangelo’s David before the Holiday Fitness Program started working him over.

  “Number ten Forham Place,” Fred read. “Birth date three, seventeen—say, you just had a birthday! What are you, twenty? And Social Security number—I’ll make a note of this…”

  The young man tottered toward Fred to retrieve his identity: Visa Gold, Diner’s Club, American Express, Boston Public Library, Videosmith, Hollywood Voyage Club, Boston Museum of Fine Arts membership, the rest of it.

  “I don’t mean to embarrass you, Penny,” Fred said.

  “He is called Hop,” Marek said, enjoying the moment. “And yes I was at his home, and yes if his parents discover certain things Hop will find himself in the street as you see him now.”

  Marek was not posing consciously. He fell naturally into graceful postures designed by a profligate creator to enhance his beauty. Hop, on the other hand—Fred handed the wallet to him—had not been so endowed. He looked like one struck by a change of wind direction in the fourth grade; his childish shape remained, but with bulk added.

  Marek stretched luxuriantly. He and Fred watched Hop picking up his clothes. Marek said, “Boston is not kind to those of its sons who exhibit artistic temperament. Often they are driven into a wilderness of exile.”

  Fred asked, “Hop, was Marek Hricsó
with you last Monday night?”

  Hop nodded, standing on one foot, pulling tiny yellow underpants around the other foot. Once Hop was dressed, Fred was going to lose this moment’s dramatic advantage. Much of the man’s backbone was in his suit.

  “At ten Forham Place?” Fred asked.

  Hop nodded. The change in his balance caused by the nod almost toppled him. He put on the undershirt—Brooks Brothers, sleeveless, long, and sleazy.

  “What time?” Fred asked. “Your parents are traveling?”

  “At the opera,” Hop mumbled. “Eight to midnight.”

  Marek said, “We were six people who will all deny it.”

  Hop put the long socks on, then the shirt—white shirt with a pattern of lines forming a hint of check. Marek scratched his right armpit absently.

  Fred told Hop, “Your friend may be in a lot of trouble if you won’t come forward.”

  Hop pulled on his pants. He shrugged. His flab fell away. He slung a green silk necktie on with a flourish. “Don’t call me,” he told Marek, putting on his jacket. He gave Fred an evil look—premature. He was not ready for his exit line, having neglected to put on his shoes. Marek held them up.

  “These I will throw out the window unless you tell me good-bye nicely,” Marek announced. He smiled and watched Hop brushing creases out of his suit.

  “Who is your ugly friend?” Hop asked Marek.

  “An ugly friend of me,” Marek said. “Here, take your shoes. They have been on the street.” Marek dropped them one at a time for Hop to retrieve and put on. They were heavy walking shoes, as British as the suit, and they clumped.

  “Don’t call me,” Marek said as Hop, shod, flounced out. “He is a homosexual fairy,” Marek explained loudly as they listened to Hop’s shoes descending the stairs. “Now, Fred. We will pretend you knew I wanted to talk with you. I am thinking I want to buy some things Oona sold you.”

  “You do?”

  Marek sat on the chair from which Hop had retrieved his clothes. It was not clear where Marek’s clothes were. Closed doors off this room must lead to bathroom, closet, bedroom—or perhaps Marek lived naked. He was at ease in that state.

  Fred sat on the green velvet cushion of the piano bench. “What do you want to buy?”

  “For three thousand dollars I shall buy the squirrel and the other painting Oona gave you or sold you; or perhaps you did not pay for it, yes?”

  “Three thousand dollars,” Fred repeated.

  “You will have to trust me,” Marek said. “I shall have the money soon after you give the paintings to me again. I will sign a piece of paper saying I promise you the money.”

  Fred said, “The deal is already done.”

  “So,” Marek said. “You have the squirrel.”

  “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Marek said, “I am not receiving enough money. Three thousand and five hundred more is my last offer.”

  “How much is he willing to pay to get them back?” Fred asked.

  Marek looked open and secretive. The expression went well with his nudity. “Who?” Marek asked.

  Fred told him, “I am not at liberty to say.”

  Marek crossed his legs. His genitals lolled across his thigh, a large pet, petulant.

  “The person sold these things by mistake,” Marek said. “My offer is six times what Oona paid.”

  “You mentioned three thousand five hundred.”

  “Three thousand is enough. When you can bring them. After I get my money.”

  “No deal, Marek. Listen—the person who wants to buy back these things…”

  Marek clenched his lips. “I find a note only in my door,” he said. “I have not seen these person.”

  Fred stood. “I want to mention that if Oona was murdered, it could be by these persons. And I think it was.”

  “I shall tell you nothing,” Marek announced. “You shall not frighten information out of me the way you did to poor Hop, play-acting you are the big and tough American cop gangster.”

  Marek followed Fred to the apartment door. “Mr. Bartholdi says I shall have everything. It is written in her will. But it takes many, many months, perhaps a year, maybe more, before I may touch anything, except the many beautiful presents Oona has been giving me in the past. I cannot open her doors and sell, even, as Hop asks me to do so he may stand behind the desk and stroke my beautiful things.”

  “Be careful of these people,” Fred said.

  “I must find an appraiser. And I must pay the appraiser. I have no money. It is almost gone. I must eat. I must buy clothing.”

  Fred said, “Marek, be careful.”

  “When will you bring the painting of the squirrel and that other one I gave you by mistake, when I was stupefied by grief, being offended that Oona was dead in shame and violence?”

  “You have a way to reach these people?” Fred asked. He’d offered Manny too much money. He’d played that wrong, making a strong bid, trying to be fair as well as showing Manny enough slack to work with. Manny had decided—or whoever he shared his information with had decided—that the last fragment was worth more if he put the whole thing back together.

  Fred said, “Would anyone think I was a fool if I took a chainsaw to a green Lance-Flamme, cut it transversely into steaks, and undertook to market the slices?”

  Marek yawned. He picked his gloves up from the piano’s top and started putting the left one on, with as much loving care as if he were settling a foreskin.

  “These people are dangerous,” Fred insisted.

  “I should have told you nothing. You, Fred, who were my friend, will go to them to get more money for yourself, and so leave me in poverty and misery. Therefore, go!”

  Fred said, “Tell me if you hear from these people. Will you do that?”

  “Ho!” Marek exclaimed. “And ho again, Fred Taylor. I tell you nothing. I am not Oona Imry’s blood for no reason. She would not and I will not. Marek Hricsó is not everyone’s fool.”

  * * *

  Fred had not intended to stop at Mountjoy Street, but he was uneasy. Marek was covered for the night of Oona’s death. Fred was more than uneasy.

  Clayton was out. Fred wrote a note on one of Clay’s index cards and put it into the mail slot of his front door, the street door, where Clay could not miss it when he returned.

  The people who cut the painting want the fragments back. They are dangerous, I believe. In case I am right, stay somewhere else. If they track me they find you. All best, Fred.

  29

  Fred stood on Mountjoy Street. The sun came out, thumbed its nose, and evaded. The glistening steep slope, lined with brick sidewalks and buildings, ended at the river. This was all Copley’s land in its day; a farm not far from Boston Common. It was four o’clock. Fred went back inside to call Molly, since he recalled that he was missing the afternoon’s entertainment.

  “Byron Ponderosa here,” said a voice Fred recognized, at Molly’s number.

  “Would you put Molly on?” Fred asked.

  “Can’t do it,” the cowboy artist said.

  “Her sister Ophelia there?” Fred asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Would you put her on?”

  “Don’t mind if I do. I put her on all the time.” Fred heard him call, “Yo, Filly!”

  “Not much of a party,” Ophelia complained. “Molly took the kids shopping. She’s not back. Where are you?”

  “Ophelia, where’s this rest home of Cover-Hoover’s?”

  “Not even donors are told that,” Ophelia said. “Only the victims and survivors. She’s made so many enemies doing what she’s doing—the perpetrators involved in all these things—there’s nothing they’d rather know than how to find their victims and stop them talking. Everyone’s life is in danger.”

  “You believe all this?” Fred asked. He was surprised. Ophelia’s general game plan was so cynical he had taken it for granted that she had rejected it. Had Ophelia really bought in?

  “I would expect you
to deny it,” Ophelia said. “Even though you clearly see how Molly’s life has been blighted.”

  Fred tried Cover-Hoover’s number for the hell of it, but put no message on the machine. An exceedingly warm invitation to do so followed the opening gambit, “This is a safe line.” He tried Kwik-Frame and received no response on a Sunday afternoon. He sat at his desk and drummed his fingers, telling himself, I’m letting this painting get in front of logic. Make the question easy. Most things involving force are easy. If we eliminate Marek as the person who killed Oona Imry, then someone else did it. Then I’m back to the Cover-Hoover crowd. Pretend one of them killed her. Why? Gain? How? Revenge? For what?

  How much do they believe their own line? Do they genuinely think people care so much about their fantasies they’ll come after the survivor victims?

  What about that retired symphony conductor whose son or daughter announces, to the world or any part of it that wants to listen, “My mom used to beat me with a broomstick until my dad would drag me out to be offered up to the full moon and the bats and his poker club.”

  This was no joke. This could ruin lives. Suppose the symphony conductor has a gun, and can simplify the reason for the fog of grief and accusation he finds himself in to a single target, and call it Cover-Hoover. Suppose he’s lost his son or daughter, his reputation in the world, maybe his wife as well, for this could not make her happy; maybe he’s not retired so he loses his livelihood; maybe there’s been a suit and the jury buys the story and hits him with a penalty of a half-million bucks. In such a case, Cover-Hoover would do well to watch her back. Pressure like that, a parent could go berserk. I think I understand but I’m no parent. I ought to ask Molly what she thinks.

  They don’t know I’m connected to Molly, do they?

  I’ll follow Ann Clarke tomorrow after work.

  If they are coming after the parts of the painting they sold, their motives are not purely psycho-healing social work. Among them there’s a healthy avarice. They understand there’s money to be made.

  Manny would have no trouble helping Oona catch that train. Forget the question why, for the moment. He has the size, and the character.