Harmony In Flesh and Black

by Nicholas Kilmer

  The kid talked to a woman for a moment, a young-looking student type whom he bumped into by accident—blond and tall, wearing jeans and a blue sweater for today’s cooler weather and carrying a leather satchel. Two minutes later, they told each other good-bye. The woman kept on toward the square, and the kid turned into a video store, Video King. Maybe he’d find a video to help him study his Celtic bronzes.

  Fred waited outside, across the street, for the kid to emerge. Inside, he’d be noticed. The kid might recall seeing him in the stacks earlier, or recognize him later. But who would stay in a video store for almost an hour? Had he picked up that Fred was behind him and found a back way out? It was no great loss since Fred knew how to get hold of him again, but it would be a blow to the ego, and a pain in the ass, or both.

  Fred decided to risk letting the kid see him and walked in the door. The kid was behind the counter. He worked here. Fred ducked out fast. Poor but honest, the kid was putting himself through grad school by working at the local video store.

  So here was another place Fred could count on finding him again. The kid looked well installed. He would be working part-time, which meant a four-hour shift at least. There’d be time for a burger, and to call Molly and then Clay. Fred went for the burger first.

  Bartley’s wasn’t crowded. Lunch was long over. The rough women in red T-shirts let him sprawl in a booth and get around a Burger Deluxe, complete with onion rings. Fred took his time over coffee, looking through the day’s paper to see if something had happened in the world at large or if there were developments that he might want to know about in Smykal’s misadventure on Turbridge Street.

  What next? Fred wondered. Should he stop the kid in the street and talk to him? Should he follow him home?

  He picked up some subway tokens in case the kid came out of work and hopped on the T. He went back and checked to make sure he was still behind the counter at the video place, and then, using a nearby pay phone, Fred called and left a message for Clay at the desk of the Copley Square Hotel, saying he’d call again at eight-thirty if he could: he was working on something. He suppressed a desire to have the note signed Mr. Chase and used a simple “Fred” instead. Then he called Molly.

  * * *

  “Ophelia wants us to have dinner with her.”

  “I don’t think so,” Fred told her. He described what he was doing and what he’d got so far. “I have to keep with it.”

  “If you think that’s your killer,” Molly began, “be careful, Fred.”

  “Not a chance.” Fred laughed. “No, it’s the other piece. This guy is one of the meek. A student. However, he knows something about Smykal’s painting, now Clay’s painting. It’s by Chase, by the way. I’m anxious to find out what else he knows.”

  There was a silence while Molly thought about it, rehearsing the image of La Belle Conchita in her mind.

  “Chase makes sense,” Molly said. “Poor Jimmy Carter, who couldn’t get away even with lusting in his heart—his favorite painting was a naked back by Chase, too, wasn’t it? A female back. Pastel.”

  “About which Clarence Cook wrote at the time it was exhibited,” Fred said, “and I quote, ‘No piece of flesh painting has been seen in these parts that could approach the performance of Mr. Chase.’”

  “So where does this student lead you?” Molly asked.

  “At the moment, I am keeping an open mind,” Fred said. “And my eyes open as well. He’s in a video store, behind the counter. I am not committing to dinner engagements.”

  That made sense, Molly agreed. But this was something special. At the Ritz.

  “What the fuck do I care about dinner at the Ritz?” Fred exploded.

  “I’m teasing,” Molly said. “I know you’re a big enough boy to grind your own pepper. Ophelia has landed a guest and wants us to help entertain him.”

  “For God’s sake,” Fred said, “Don’t tell me. She’s still got Albert Finn by the short and curlies?”

  “That’s what it sounds like. I told her Finn is married. She says good, that’s one thing she doesn’t have to think about. AIDS is enough worry as it is.”

  “That’s class. Shack up with married celebrities at the Ritz.”

  “So, Fred, what do I tell her? I jumped at it because it seemed to be a chance for you to stay close to him. Ophelia’s desperate for help. She exhausted her knowledge of art after the first hour with him—even that was pushing it—and says you can’t talk indefinitely about sex with a man, his mind wanders, his eyes glaze over. He’s thinking about the next big deal he’s going to do in business, and you’re making the sex so easy for him that it’s not a challenge. So she needs us.”

  “I get the idea,” said Fred. “You and I talk art with Finn to keep his mind on Ophelia while she does to him, under the table, what the waiter does with the pepper grinder in plain view.”

  “Smart fellow.”

  “It isn’t Finn using Ophelia to get hold of me, is it?” Fred felt suddenly suspicious. “To see what Clayton’s interest is in the Heade?”

  “Ophelia’s more devious than I expect, but I don’t think so. Don’t think so,” Molly said.

  “It is important for me to keep an eye on Finn,” Fred said. “But this guy I’m behind should help resolve the more immediate threat. I’ll stick with the student. Tell Ophelia yes. You go, and I’ll meet you if I can. Make it late. Eight o’clock. Is that all right?”

  “Ophelia said half past eight,” Molly said.

  “Even better. If I can’t make it, can’t leave this guy, I’ll get a message to you, maybe join you for coffee. I’ll try to,” Fred promised. “I just don’t have any idea where this is going.”

  It was five-thirty now. Fred hurried back to Video King. Talking to Molly had taken longer than he wanted. He wouldn’t be happy if he’d lost the kid.

  He looked in the front window. The kid was still in place. Turbridge Street being so near, Fred drifted in that direction, looking up the street. The cop car was still parked out front.

  When he got back to Video King, the video heir apparent was just stepping out. He started walking toward Central Square. Fred ducked quickly into the store.

  “The guy that just left,” Fred said to a girl behind the desk in a red-and-white-striped shirt, a black ponytail, and beads.

  “You mean Russ?” the girl said. “He’s gone. A minute ago. You can probably catch him.”

  “When’s he on again?” Fred asked. “In case I don’t catch him.”

  The girl looked in back of the desk at a sheet. “Three tomorrow,” she said. “But I bet you catch him.”

  It was six o’clock now. But it was warm outside, and pleasant. Fred felt he might have been inside all day long. It was good to stretch his legs and make up space between himself and Russ, who was moving at a good clip.

  Did the kid speed up or fart liquid when he passed Turbridge Street? Not so that Fred noticed. But that he had intimate knowledge of Smykal’s apartment Fred had not a doubt.

  The modest parade moved past Ellery, Dana, Hancock, Lee, Clinton, Bigelow Street, Inman, the big Post Office. They went on into the middle of Central Square, then turned left on Prospect toward Broadway, where Russ went into an ecologically correct supermarket. The student had not looked back once. Fred was sure he’d not been seen, but he didn’t follow the kid in. He waited across the street, took off his tie, and put it in the pocket of his jacket. Then he hung the jacket over one shoulder, to change his profile. He looked into a restaurant window up the street until Russ came out again, now carrying a bag of groceries. The bag was made of paper covered with signs proving to the world, as Russ walked back to Central Square, that it had been recycled already and was going to be recycled again, forever. The same was also true of the celery waving out of the top of the bag. The same was true of the kid, Russ. And of Smykal.

  They turned left again on Mass. Ave., crossed Mass. at Pearl, and went down Pearl toward the river. Russ went into a three-decker apartment building with a street door t
hat wouldn’t close and three mailboxes set into the wall and busted out again.

  Fred, entering behind him somewhat later, gave him time to go up to where he was going and had a look at the names of the building’s inhabitants on the mailboxes: D. Brown & S. Botts; Saul Lazare, Esq.; Russell Ennery.

  Russell Ennery, then. Harvard grad student and Video King employee. He’d see what he could do tomorrow with that name. It wouldn’t hurt to get information, perhaps even think, before he moved further. He’d rather know the lay of the land before he had a chat with Russell. Russ could be found when Fred wanted him: here at his home, at the library, or at Video King.

  Fred had time to go back to Molly’s, shower, and change. He’d go on to goddamn dinner at the Ritz with Albert Finn. Molly and he could go together. It could be a double date.

  17

  Sir Albert Finn was in great form, dwarfing the Ritz dining room. Set off by blue velvet and gold, he loomed and floated, both, like a tethered balloon on whose string clung a delighted female child whose perfect natural breasts struggled to ascend to visit the inflatable.

  The perfect breasts were Ophelia’s, at the summit of a sheath of pink velvet. Ophelia’s blond hair was coiled in Continental fashion, confused by strands of pearls. Her neck and chest were bare in order to accentuate both pearls and breasts. Attendant pearls and gold fawned on her ears.

  Ophelia rose from the table as Fred and Molly came into the dining room, saying, “Oh, Fred, I was so hoping—you remember Fred Taylor, Al?”

  The risen Finn in deep blue suit was wearing, in his buttonhole, a carnation filched from the bouquet on the table, to match the color and shape of his face. That was Ophelia’s touch. Finn spread his arms in welcome also. They looked like a pair of extremely successful scarecrows.

  Molly had put on the same black dress, with the moonstone necklace Fred had given her on her last birthday. The moonstones, transparent on her skin, complemented her oval face and challenged her green eyes. Her skin was the smooth, light pink you thought could exist only in paintings.

  Fred had selected a gray suit with matching pants and matching jacket and no vest: the suit he had. He had let Molly put a bow tie on him, of a color she described as “runcible” or “mufti.”

  They’d made a game one Sunday evening of describing the colors in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment as newly cleaned by the Japanese, using a selection of descriptive words available in current clothing catalogs: cerise, melon, jungle, surplus, and—Fred’s favorite—outfit (the color God was wearing).

  “Of course I know Fred Taylor,” Finn beamed and boomed. “Clayton Reed’s man. And the beautiful Molly Riley, of whom Ophelia speaks with such affection.”

  Finn’s kiss made Molly wince, but Finn was used to that, the wince of homage.

  Finn and Ophelia were drinking colored liquids from wine-glasses.

  “It’s my party,” Ophelia said. “I’ve chosen the menu, and you’ll have to love it.”

  The dining room was filled. The evening’s patrons looked like businessmen traveling on expense accounts and pairs of women celebrating birthdays they would rather forget. There were also a couple of those families whose children consent to dress. You wouldn’t catch Sam and Terry letting anyone put leather shoes on their feet, or shirts with Holly Hobbie collars or whatever those were.

  “Well,” Molly said to Finn. “And what brings you to these promiscuous parts?”

  “Kipling,” said Finn. “Ha, ha.”

  “Yes, but what Kipling?” said Molly.

  Ophelia stared back and forth as if attending a tennis game.

  “I’ll give you a hint. ‘The great gray-green, greasy Limpopo River,’” Molly said.

  “Aha,” said Finn, “‘all set about with fever-trees.’ Got it. ‘The Elephant’s Child.’”

  This started them (all but Ophelia) in a broadly literary fashion leading to Kipling’s startling and individual graphic style and its relation to the trends in book illustration coming out of the Yellow Book and the decadent nineties, until Molly did a quick turn and added, “I’m so rude, I asked a question and then didn’t allow you to answer. Is it another book you’re researching? Or what does Boston have to hold your attention?”

  Ophelia looked deeply smug and changed it to a blush as she noticed Finn’s sidelong glance. “Sir Albert says something’s gone wrong with a project,” Ophelia said. “But I like to think—”

  Finn nudged her. “There is a matter I am engaged on, but it is confidential,” he said.

  Fred, as deftly as possible, starting from the preponderance of blue velvet in the room, brought the conversation around to the China trade, the Fitz Hugh Lane of Captain Apthorp’s clipper ship the Hester Prynne, and sea slugs.

  He watched to see if Finn betrayed familiarity with the Apthorp diaries or alarm that Fred was familiar with them.

  “Apthorp,” Finn said, nodding. “The same family as had the Heade, I suppose? I trust the Lane is of superior quality. I don’t mind telling you that I find the Heade, even for an American picture, indifferent at best. I have said as much in certain quarters.”

  “Dried sea slugs,” Ophelia said. “Oh, goodness, right after they bring in this lovely pot roast?” She gave Fred a merry moue.

  This took the conversation to dehydrated foods in general and how to cook them; they followed that track until Fred went too far, bringing up a favorite recipe of his that he suggested accounted for the ill humor of the Mongol warrior in the time of Ghenghis Khan: “It’s simple. A slab of dried horseflesh is placed under the saddle at first light. The warrior spends his day riding, raping, and pillaging, never dismounting; in the evening he pulls out the slab, which has by this time softened and absorbed sufficient moisture as to be palatable.”

  * * *

  Finn was too old a hand at this game to let anything slip in conversation. Fred had caught Clay in his room, by phone, beforehand, and told him that he might have another line to follow toward the letter Chase had written. He’d listened with great pleasure to Clayton’s dismayed pause at having the remainder of his secret laid bare, then continued, “I decided, since I was in the stacks anyway, that I’d try to nail down the date when Chase painted La Belle Conchita. What’s your thought, Clay? Eighteen eighty-five or so?”

  “Ah,” Clay said. He’d had time to recover his telephone aplomb. “You do not disappoint me, Fred. You recognized Chase’s hand once you were free to concentrate.”

  Fred told him about the young man, Russell Ennery.

  “You think he has the letter?” Clay asked, excited.

  “I only conclude that he has knowledge of the painting,” Fred said.

  “If that youngster has my letter, I’ll buy it from him,” Clay went on. “Tell him—I don’t know, whatever will impress him. A hundred dollars? Perhaps I will telephone him.”

  “I’ll follow this up,” Fred said. “Leave it to me, Clay. Don’t mess with it. It’s complex, don’t forget.”

  Clayton was not thinking about the broader implications. He was forgetting that they were monkeying around the edges of a murder and that they wanted themselves isolated from it.

  Ophelia’s dinner sparkled on, a triumph of Yankee international cuisine served by omniscient waiters of an Italianette persuasion, whose dexterity with the pepper grinder—lobed and long as Fred’s forearm—was applauded under the table by Molly, kicking Fred’s ankle.

  The telephone waiter appeared at the same time as the dessert, asking for Finn, who listened to the receiver, grunted, “Not now,” listened some more, said, “Not here,” listened some more, said, “No,” and then, “I’m working on it,” and hung up.

  “Excuse me. Confidential,” Finn assured the table. He was as impenetrable as the German chocolate cake they were presented.

  They got through the meal. Fred had to accept coffee but refused brandy. Ophelia was grateful. She turned down Fred’s offer of a ride, simpered, and hung on to Finn’s arm. Finn was attended by tuxedoed waiters as if he were th
e Second Coming. A couple of them, big ones, even seemed to follow him.

  “You don’t think that ridiculous man is traveling with bodyguards?” Molly said after they had left their hostess and her companion at the Ritz door and were walking down Newbury Street toward where Fred had parked his car.

  Fred shrugged.

  He enjoyed Newbury Street after the galleries closed. You could look in the windows. Paintings are bought and sold like stamps, or stocks, or sofas. Of a sofa, people need to know, is the color right, and will it fill the available space? Of a stamp, is it genuine? what number of this issue were circulated? what’s its condition? Of a stock, is it going up or going down? But paintings that you look at on the street, you have to see with a different eye than you cast on those in institutional captivity. On the street they are a complex, floating form of currency. This is true not only of pictures by dead people (now limited in number by the truncation of production); some living painters can be marketed in the same way. Their dealers make the artists exotic, limiting production, keeping it even and predictable, like the issuing of stamps, once the painter hits on a formula people will buy.

  They took their time getting back to the car.

  It was cold. The temperature was more fitting for late April. Molly shivered. Fred put his arm around her shoulders, and they walked that way.

  “Let’s look at the place in Central Square,” Molly said. “You can show me what you did all day.”

  They parked in front of the building on Pearl Street. It was a scruffy, seedy neighborhood, partly defined by drugs and crime and children up late and, now and then, blood on the sidewalk. The children were visible even now, but the blood, drugs, and crime were occult.

  It was a part of Cambridge where rent should be more supportable than in safer surroundings, perfect for the poor but honest student.

  “That’s where our Russell lives,” Fred said, pointing across the street with his chin. “Tomorrow I’ll find out what he’s up to.”