The subconscious was a slow animal, catching up now with events. The dream was the afterlife of Fred’s concern from the night before: concern for Russell and the danger he was in, concern that he’d have to take a life or lose it, or be maimed in some way.
Well, that was over. Done. Fixed. If Clay’s letter didn’t turn up at all, it was no big deal. He had done all he could and had saved Clayton a lot of money in the process.
Fred was now awake. He’d flipped onto his back while he was dreaming, to face the wounds and fire again. Molly was curled on her side, sleeping soundly. She must have turned the TV off after he went to sleep and climbed back in beside him.
Fred stared into the dark room, his eyes growing able to distinguish objects, his ears alert, making the change from listening to the dream to listening to the dark house in the night of Arlington.
Was he listening for footsteps around the house?
No need. It was not that kind of house. Unless he was in it.
He heard a small snort from Molly, as if she were listening to him think.
Fred couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else he should be doing.
He had the Heade to deal with tomorrow. No, later today, this afternoon. But though the stakes were high, that would be relatively smooth sailing. He’d find out how high Clay wanted him to go, and go that high if need be, then stop. He would either attend in person, if Clay wanted him to be seen and wanted a report later on who else had been bidding, or bid on the telephone, if Clay wanted his role to be kept quiet. The auction house would not reveal the name of the purchaser any more than it would normally reveal the name of the original owner, the consignor.
The biggest potential problem was Finn, if he had stumbled onto the same clue Fred and Clayton had. There was no other way to explain his continued presence on the scene.
Unless …
Fred heard himself chuckle. Don’t wake Molly, he told himself.
But why not consider and acknowledge the obvious—that Finn had finally met his match in the fair Ophelia?
O! what a noble mind is here o’erthrown. The observ’d of all observers quite, quite down. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough.
Fred started laughing. Molly stirred and protested.
It was not for nothing that Fred had played that small role in Hamlet during his brief, disastrous Harvard career.
He got up quietly and reached the door, about to wander naked through the house. That would not do. He pulled his pants on and went down to the kitchen, where he could laugh.
Ophelia, Ophelia. If thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool. God has given you one face, and you make yourself another. You jig, you amble, and you lisp, and make your wantonness your ignorance. If you marry a fool, let it be Finn.
Fred stood in front of Molly’s fridge. Did he really want a beer? At three-thirty in the morning?
Well, then, coffee?
Molly had instant in the cabinet, and Fred put water on to boil. He took the screamer off so as not to wake the house.
He was so close to it, so occupied with his own business, so taken by Clayton’s paranoia, that he’d forgotten about love. And he knew Ophelia so well that he’d never considered that anyone else in the world could take her seriously for a moment. He’d sold Ophelia short, the sister-in-law complex.
That woman at the Charles, Fran, at the reception desk—how full of starry admiration she had been for the way Ophelia’s influence had changed her life!
Hadn’t Ophelia been married three times, each time to a man of substance—at least until the divorce settlement?
And wasn’t Ophelia Molly’s sister?
The water boiling, Fred made his coffee and let it steam in front of him at the kitchen table.
Fires and wounds and dreams and floating ash, indeed. Finn was in love. Ophelia had bewitched him. Finn, like a puffed and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance tread, and recked not Clayton Reed.
Ophelia was a past mistress of the judo twitch that lets your own weight fell you. Ophelia, who could sell anything to anybody, had sold Finn the image of himself as the darling of a TV series: the host, the pundit, the pander.
How nice that it should happen to Finn.
How pleased Clayton would be when he found out.
Taking his coat from the back of the chair, Fred put it on over his skin and strolled outside, carrying the end of the coffee. He stood in Molly’s cold backyard to drink the rest of it. He pulled her back door closed. Let them be warm in there.
34
The dining room of the Charles was the best place in Cambridge to come upon the elegant and wealthy among the transient set. Fred walked in shortly before eight, not wanting to miss anything that might relate to the messenger he was expecting. He took a table next to the window overlooking the terraced brick courtyard between the hotel and the surrounding buildings, from which he could also see the entrance.
He ordered coffee and a bagel.
He looked at the international crowd approaching the issue of the American breakfast. A Japanese family sat in one corner, only the daddy speaking any English. Nigerians or some such were in their robes. A single man in a regular business suit, but with a turban, looked as if he were trying out for a part in Kim. He was shifty-eyed, eating bacon with furtive movements. There were women so simply elegant and fresh they must have come from Paris, and parents of Harvard students in from foreign parts like Mobile and Kansas City.
Fred had hoped that not having had a reply from him, Ophelia might conclude that her invitation to breakfast had lapsed. But it would take more than that to discourage her. At a quarter after, there she came, entering in a bright orange suit with a black shirt under it, high heels in black, and a different Hermès purse, in case you were tired of the first one.
Ophelia surveyed the room, spotted Fred, and made a beeline for him, flinging her arms out, crowing, letting the whole room know that the big, hard-looking guy by the window was waiting for her, a rough setting for a fragile jewel.
“They told me you’d checked out,” Ophelia said. “But I could see through that.” She winked. She ordered coffee and a half grapefruit and winked again.
“Who is she, Fred? Where is she? You can rely on me. I won’t tell … anyone.”
What? Fred had forgotten that Ophelia was operating on the fantasy that he was cheating on her sister.
“I’m here to see you, aren’t I?” he said blandly.
“Yes?” Ophelia asked, her eyes delighted.
The waiter brought her coffee.
Fred paid as little attention to her as he could, looking out for the contact. He was watching for one of Mangan’s runners from the South Shore.
“To tell you the truth, Ophelia, I’m working,” he said. “There’s no new girlfriend.”
Ophelia nodded. She understood Fred’s indiscretions. Her lips were sealed. His secret was safe with her.
Now down to business: “I want to talk with you about joining my project, Fred.”
“The TV show?”
“Of course.”
“Sorry, Ophelia. I don’t have time. For whatever you want. I keep too busy.”
Ophelia slowly revolved her grapefruit half, looking to select the winning section. Which would be the first through the pearly gates? Fred looked past her.
“Albert will want you, too,” Ophelia continued, nodding in reassurance. “I haven’t dared talk much to him about the project. He can’t join us for breakfast, he’s meeting an important client. He’s so preoccupied. An important man. In his field.”
She smiled at Fred. “A month ago I wouldn’t have thought there could be an important man in your field. Is that all you’re eating? Just the bagel? You know this is my treat.”
Fred saw Finn at the entrance, wearing a brown suit. Ophelia always got her men into brown suits eventually. Fred thought it was her way of paying homage to her favorite American male, Ronald Reagan. Finn rolled in, portly and freshly groomed, hi
s face glowing with rotund benevolence. Ophelia was oblivious.
“Sir Albert’s here now,” Fred said. “In the flesh.”
Ophelia turned to look.
Finn, having bestowed the blessing of his gaze upon the assembled multitude, was moving toward the business-suited man with the turban. The man had successfully defeated his bacon and was at this very moment sipping at a large glass of fruit juice. Finn bent over him and whispered into his ear. The man’s turban shook a negative. Finn whispered again, a question. The turban shrugged. Finn turned and left the room.
“A moving thing to see the great man at his work,” Fred said.
“That was probably the servant,” Ophelia said, “giving him a message.”
“Of course,” Fred said.
“Strange he didn’t notice me,” she said.
“You are very noticeable,” Fred assured her. Ophelia selected another grapefruit section and chewed it vengefully.
Finn entered once again, this time preceded by a waiter, like a hunting pope using an acolyte as a beater. The waiter gently paged, “Mr. Arthurian? Mr. Arthur Arthurian?”
Fred grinned at Ophelia. He stood and gave Finn the heartiest of good-morning waves.
Ophelia looked helplessly around the room.
“Over here,” Fred shouted.
“He doesn’t want you,” Ophelia whispered urgently. “You’ll ruin everything. He’s supposed to meet the recluse, Arthur Arthurian. He didn’t tell me Mr. Arthurian was staying at the Charles. He’s supposed to be at the Ritz.”
Fred moved away from the table, went toward the waiter, tipped him a buck—which he was too surprised not to accept—and took Finn by the shoulder. Finn was disgruntled and bemused.
“You have a letter for me,” Fred said. “William Merritt Chase to Conchita Hill.”
Finn stared. “You?” he puffed.
Ophelia, rising now, took Finn by the arm. “Sit down, darling,” she pleaded. “Don’t let’s make a scene.”
Finn noticed her at last and shook her hand off his arm in its brown cloth. “You,” he snorted, turning purpler.
“The letter,” Fred said.
“Sit down, baby,” Ophelia said.
Finn glanced around. He saw that he was becoming the star of a scene that he’d rather not play so publicly. He allowed Ophelia to lead him to the table, where he sat on the edge of a chair. A waiter bowed over him and asked, “Coffee?”
“Not coffee. Not anything,” Finn said.
“I don’t understand,” Ophelia said, looking from one man to the other.
“Snake,” Finn hissed at her. “You’re in this, too.”
Finn stared at Fred.
Fred’s coffee was cold, but he took a sip anyway, savoring it.
“You’re not Arthur Arthurian,” Finn said finally, slowly.
“A nom de guerre,” Fred said. Ophelia stared in incomprehension.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Finn said. “I have to make a telephone call.” He made to get up again, but Fred put a big hand on his shoulder and let the fingers grasp it, denting the brown cloth, dragging the weight of his arm downward.
“We can ask to have a telephone brought to the table, Finn, but you’re not leaving until I have that letter.”
Finn sat.
“What about Mr. Arthurian?” Ophelia asked.
“Don’t pretend,” Finn said. “You and your pal here! Ha! You played me for a sucker, the two of you.”
“The two of us?” Ophelia protested. “What, Fred and me?”
“I know Taylor is your relation,” Finn said. “I thought you could rise above that.”
Mud is thicker than water, as Molly’s mother would say.
Ophelia, stunned, opened her handbag and began some displacement activity in there.
“Shall I call for a telephone?” Fred asked. “You may want to think about it first. Mangan’s Providence connection sounded as if he was getting impatient with the whole thing.”
Finn looked at Fred. He started to sag. Fred took his hand off the brown coat.
Ophelia, finding a tissue, looked as if her next move might be tears.
“Hold it, Ophelia,” Fred said.
The waiter bowed over them all again.
“Nobody here wants anything,” Fred told him. “Here’s what I think,” he said, turning to Finn. “Stop me anytime. A graduate student from the fine-arts department at Harvard—let’s call him Russell Ennery—got in touch with you and told you about a painting he had found. Unsigned, but accompanied by a letter that gave it all the authority it needed. You got in touch with Mangan to engineer a quick cash sale, and then you arranged, through Ennery, for the purchase.”
“Correction,” Finn objected, defending his professional skill. “Of course I examined the painting myself. Friday afternoon. In situ. Before I recommended purchase.”
“Correction noted,” said Fred. “What else did you examine there?”
Finn lost a good deal of color.
The waiter bowed over all of them once more. “The check, sir?”
“I’ll take it,” Fred offered. He continued, “Friday afternoon, unknown to you, there had already been a higher bidder. But you took the letter with you to examine while Smykal waited to see if the higher bid—ours—would materialize. Later that evening, Russ told you you’d been scooped. Meanwhile, Mangan was becoming impatient with your delay—”
“A delay,” Finn exploded, “that’s lasted a week now. I am supposed to be in Paris. I am needed there.”
“You told Mangan, and Mangan said, ‘I’ll go back and take care of it,’” Fred said. “And in the meantime it seems to have become very complex. A small murder intervened.”
Fred looked into Finn’s eyes for a long time. At last he said, “About the phone call—how much do you want the Albert Finn saga to be publicly intertwined with Smykal’s? Are you sure you want to make that call?”
Ophelia, licking her lips, looked across at Finn.
Finn took an envelope from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. It was a new white envelope, with an older one inside it. He put it on the table and made to stand.
“I’ll just look it over first,” Fred said.
He opened the outer envelope. The one inside was directed to Conchita Hill. It bore no address. Fred slid the letter out and read,
7 rue Saint-Georges
Conchita. Dearest. I leave you with this token. In tribute to the master who first brought us together, I shall think of this painting always under the title Harmony in Flesh Color and Black.
Will
Below that was a small pen sketch of the painting.
Russ, starting with nothing but the nickname Will, could have worked hard for six months before narrowing the possibilities down to Chase.
Fred nodded, dismissing Finn. Other parts of the story would be interesting to know, but they were not important now. He had the letter.
Finn rose. The breakfasters looked around in expectation. Maybe there would be a fistfight after all. Ophelia started rising as well, to follow her man.
“I’ll come with you, Al?”
He looked down at her amazed, his face rich with disgust. “I shall be on the next shuttle to New York,” he said. “An afternoon of work at the office. Sadly neglected. Then an evening flight to Paris. I have wasted a whole week.”
Finn turned but held back, needing another exit line. “My commission on that transaction was to be fifteen thousand dollars. In my opinion, the commission is still owed. By Clayton Reed.”
Ophelia was starting to cry now. Finn’s crack about a week wasted had been pretty mean, considering.
“Why don’t you send us a bill, Sir Albert?” Fred suggested.
Finn stormed out.
Fred accepted the check from the waiter.
Ophelia blew her nose into some very common Kleenex. “Al was so hopeful about the Arthurian connection,” she said, “and you just made him up!”
“You sure you don’t want something else
to eat?” Fred offered. “You can’t get far on half a grapefruit.”
She shook her head. “He was just another opportunist after all.”
She held her hand out, keeping Fred at the table. She needed someone there while she put her face back together, which she now started to do, replacing the divots uprooted by her tears.
“He didn’t look that good in the brown suit,” Fred confided.
“He looked like a fool,” Ophelia agreed. “You know, Fred, the reason he turned on me? All men are like that when they’re disappointed. I heard him on the phone yesterday, really pulling strings and arguing to get this meeting, insisting on it.
“I told him what you’d said about Arthurian—confidentially, of course. But just to make sure I had his interest, I made up a lot of extra shit and threw that in too.”
She started laughing.
Fred got up and took her arm.
“There’s someone at the desk who wants to meet you,” he said. “Fran, who says you changed her life.”
35
Fred was at his desk at Clayton’s by eleven. He couldn’t stay long; he wanted to look at the Heade himself before the auction started, so he’d have to be at Doolan’s by one o’clock. He wouldn’t mind having the pressure lift after that, much as he enjoyed the feel of the sharp edges he’d been skating along and the skill of his own skating.
He pulled Conchita out again and gave her a long look. She was cool and smooth and filled with mischief: the artist out of uniform. He wondered, had the weight of the world she found afterward been such as to let her live the mischief into her painting? Her own paintings had still not been discovered, but maybe they would surface someday—unless she, like many another, had been distracted into the whirl of living like an artist, or a parent, and had lost her art.
So Whistler, according to the letter that Fred now placed on his desk, had introduced Conchita to Will Chase. Then what?
Fred couldn’t wait to see the painting cleaned.
He glanced at the mail and called Clayton.
“How’s Proust?”
“Proust led a life any man might envy,” said Clayton, probably the first person in the history of the world to think so.
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