“No. Surprised, I’d say.”
“So you and your client had nothing to do with it,” said Jason Cook.
Amy took refuge in the oldest gambit of all. “Why would we have?”
“That’s right,” Jason Cook said eagerly. “On the other hand, why would anybody else? But there it was. Maybe there is a profile being worked up.”
“That would be the way to look at it,” said Amy.
She climbed into the car and closed the door with a bang.
“Something’s gone wrong,” Mike said wisely.
Amy thrust Jason Cook’s scrap of paper at him. “Kim Lowry’s there with her dear grandma now. That Jason wanted to take the money, but I prefer to give it to her. The sooner the better. If I can.”
“Meanwhile,” Mike said, “the boss has been quite a time on her own. Maybe a phone call to her at the Plaza—”
“If she doesn’t like it,” Amy said, “she can lump it.”
“Something has gone very wrong. Let’s have it.”
“All right,” Amy said, and let him have it in detail. She concluded bitterly, “So she did hire a snoop to do a job on Kim. She had Mrs. Upshur hire him, and after he delivered the goods she paid him off herself at the Plaza. Any argument?”
“Nope.”
“Which means,” said Amy, “she’s been making thorough damn fools of us.”
“So it seems,” Mike agreed. “But look at the plus side. She comes out happy in her little triumph, and Kim comes out the real winner. Along with woman’s lib and feminist art and whatever.” He put his arm around her and she stiffened against it. “Do you mind,” he said, “if I offer you a bitter truth to chew on?”
“I’m not so sure.”
“I’ll take the chance anyhow. It isn’t Ma’am’s gamesmanship that throws you, it’s hurt pride. You felt she was taking you step by step into her full confidence, and now you’ve learned better.”
Amy weighed this. Early in the marriage, she knew, it would have been enough to start a slambang argument, let the chips fall where they will. But they had learned—she first—that where blind emotion took over, logic went out the window and things were said that took an awful lot of unsaying. Eventually it became standard procedure for both of them to stop, look, and listen at the emotional crossroads at the first warning of the bell there.
She said at last, “Not altogether hurt pride. There’s that justified sense of betrayal, too.”
“Her loss,” Mike said. “Not yours.”
“Perhaps. I just wish I didn’t pity her so much. That’s what complicates it.”
“Baby, you must know by now that she doesn’t want anybody’s pity.”
“Then suppose,” Amy said, “I controlled mine long enough to confront her with all this. What do you think would happen?”
Mike shrugged. “Worse comes to worst, Abe does have those school jobs up his sleeve.”
“I don’t trust Abe’s motives,” Amy said shortly.
“Hey now, let’s not go over the brink. He’s been the best friend anyone could have in time of need.”
“It didn’t cost him that much. And I’m not being ungrateful. But all that generosity was an ego trip for him. Kept us in our place. I’m a little tired of that.”
“And a lot cynical, I take it.”
“Yes,” Amy said. “It could be time I developed some cynicism about our elders and betters. For that matter, so could Kim when it comes to her precious grandmother. Her own elder and better who seems to be running her life for her.”
“Are you sure,” Mike asked, “that in your immediate mood you want to go over there and deal with those two? Sounds to me like you’re ready to blow the deal just for the fun of it.”
“No chance,” Amy said. “I do what I’m paid to do.”
Mike turned the key in the ignition. “Is there balm in Gilead?” he asked the windshield.
“Twenty percent Christmas bonus,” Amy reminded him.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “Definitely there is balm in Gilead.”
He let her out of the car down the block, well past the Lowry address. “Just in case they have a street view and decide to peek through the window after you say good-bye,” he told her. “Also—”
“No more alsos,” Amy said.
She went her way down the block quaking inwardly, trusting that this was concealed from him by a shoulders-back, hard-striding gait, Ma’am herself at her most formidable. It was a rather pleasant street—Saint Peter’s Church, Clement Moore’s ’Twas the Night Before Christmas church its landmark—where a fair number of ancient buildings had been reclaimed by the new money coming into Chelsea. The Lowry address, however, turned out to be one of those bypassed by the new money. A four-story brick building, the brickwork grimy, the window frames cracked and peeling, the tiny foyer funereally lit by the dimmest possible bulb and reeking of stale urine. She had to peer closely at the row of four bells embedded in the wall to make out the handwritten cards above them. A. Taliaferro-K. Lowry marked the fourth bell, underneath which was clumsily penciled in 4 flor.
Amy rang the bell, a buzzer allowed her to push open the interior door, and she found herself in a scruffy hallway where, instead of that reek of urine there was—a small improvement, she allowed—the choking smell of age-old dust emanating from threadbare carpeting.
Kim Lowry hailed her from high above with a “Who is it?” and Amy called, “Amy Lloyd. Jason said to come over here.”
“Surprise, surprise,” said Kim, indicating the opposite by her tone. “Top floor. All the way up.”
She was waiting at the head of the staircase toward the rear of the apartment when her caller arrived. “Home,” she said. “Such as it is. Well, come in.”
The apartment apparently occupied the entire floor, its rooms, almost as dimly lit as the downstairs foyer, were high-ceilinged and wood-paneled; it might have been a find, Amy saw, especially with what appeared to be working fireplaces in a couple of the rooms, if it hadn’t been as decayed-looking as the building itself. All the furniture in sight seemed to be Salvation Army rejects. And, as in that cluttered workroom-kitchen in Jason Cook’s gallery, painted canvases, unframed, were everywhere in sight, hung on the walls high and low and leaning against them. In this light however, it was hard to even make out their subjects, much less judge their quality.
Kim led the way through this to the front room overlooking the street and lit at least by daylight. Here, added to the clutter, were an unmade bed in one corner and a pair of dilapidated overstuffed armchairs that once might have been part of a worthwhile set. One chair was piled high with magazines and newspapers. The other, facing the flickering screen of a small black-and-white television set, was occupied by a stout woman in housedress, heavy turtleneck sweater, and slippers. The sweater, Amy saw with fascination, had the effect of offering a view of the head much like the view of John the Baptist’s on a platter. Additionally lit by erratic flashes from the TV set were bright, dark eyes, a small but not unattractive parrot beak of a nose, and a well-shaped mouth lipsticked as heavily as Ma’am’s. Most fascinating was the wig of inky-black ringlets like a bowl clamped down on the head just above the ears.
Yet, Amy suspected, despite the grotesque touches, this, like Ma’am, had been a very pretty girl in her day, though where Ma’am’s features had simply become more handsomely defined in her old age, this woman’s gave the impression of now being embedded in dough.
“My grandmother,” said Kim as she switched off the television. The woman reared back in outrage, and Kim said, “Mind your manners, Adela. This is Mrs. Lloyd. You know about her.”
Adela coughed a deep croupy cough. She pulled a couple of tissues from a box on the small table at her side, spat phlegm into them, dropped them into an open-mouthed paper bag on the floor. “You get a good look at this building?” she demanded of Amy. “Ever see such a disgusting mess? When I owned it it was kept up right.” She turned to her granddaughter: “Is that the truth?”
&nb
sp; “Sure,” Kim said, “but why not save it for the landlord? Meanwhile, how about your cough medicine? You’re overdue.”
“Forget it, darling. It tastes poisonous and the cough’s loosened up anyhow. You heard it yourself. But I could use a glass of wine. And bring the bottle this time.”
Kim looked at Amy. “Glass of wine?”
“No, thanks.” Amy made a show of studying her watch. “What I would like to do—”
Kim disregarded the show. She affectionately pressed a hand against her grandmother’s cheek. “She’s just come out of a bad case of flu,” she told Amy. “She’s tough, but not as tough as she thinks. I’ll be back in a minute.”
She was, with half a water glass of wine in her hand and, Amy observed, no bottle to accompany it. Adela took down the wine in a couple of hard swallows, placed the glass on the table, and patted her lips with a tissue. She turned her attention back to Amy. “Mrs. Lloyd,” she said, as if testing the sound of it. “Married? Or divorced?”
“Married.”
“Happily married, like they say in the storybooks?”
Amy found her hackles rising. “Like they say in the storybooks, yes.”
“So you want to believe. Do you know where your husband is right now?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And do you know what’s really on his mind right now? And what he could be feeling up?”
Amy said to Kim, “You know, I’m here to make payment for one of your paintings. And to arrange further payment for—”
“If you don’t like my manners, Mrs. Lloyd,” said Adela, “you can just walk out. Nobody’s keeping you.”
Hell and damnation, Amy thought, at least Kim Lowry, beneficiary of this charity, could help here. Instead, she seemed amused by this baiting. She said to Amy, “I told you she’s tough. And she does have her suspicions about this deal.”
“What suspicions?”
“I’ll tell you what, Mrs. Lloyd,” Adela said. She studied Amy through narrowed eyes from the glossy coiffure down to the trim shoes. “I think your husband put you up to buying some original Lowrys because he gets from them what he don’t get from you. Right there in the crotch. I think he’s a voyeur—you know what that is, don’t you?—and you’re going along with him in this, because so far he pays your bills, don’t he? In style. To keep up that happy marriage of yours, you pimp for him this way. Convert great art into porno ticklers. Want to tell me different?”
“Not especially. What I’m trying to understand—It is Mrs. Taliaferro?”
“That’s right.” Adela brought up another load of phlegm and disposed of it directly into the paper bag. “My married name. A souvenir from my husband. Kim inherited the only worthwhile thing he had to leave. Talent. He had talent. That I’ll never deny. Along with a talent for convincing anything in a skirt to lay down and spread her legs for him. Kim’s father had that kind of talent, too. But you said you were trying to understand something. Understand what?”
“Well,” said Amy, “Kim told me you were the sustaining force in her life. The inspiration for her career, the one who was always there to help her along in it.”
Adela looked up at her granddaughter towering above her. “You said that about me, darling?”
Kim smiled broadly. “Don’t lay that act on me, Adela. You know I always say it whenever anybody pushes the button.”
Amy raised her voice. “And what I’m trying to understand, Mrs. Taliaferro, is why you’re now trying to damage that career.”
“Me?”
“Oh, yes. I was sent by a woman sympathetic to everything Kim stands for to buy three of her paintings. Half of those in the show. That’s a great boost to any career. And if that woman walked in here and made herself known to you—which for good reason she cannot—you’d see how foolish your suspicions are. You and your daughter both had worthless husbands? That’s too bad. But I don’t see why Kim must pay for that now by turning away a buyer any other artist would be glad to find.”
Adela Taliaferro glowered. “Who handed you that line? That useless lump Jason?”
“No,” Amy said, “I don’t need anyone to instruct me in the obvious.” Kim, she saw, was no longer taking this in with a little smile like a spectator watching a couple of tennis players slug it out. She was frowning now.
“Obvious, is it?” her grandmother said. She held out the empty glass, and when Kim finally shook her head no, she banged the glass down hard on the table. “What’s obvious, lady, is that you’re dealing with a talented artist like some kind of sideshow. What do you mean, Kim will pick out the three paintings? Do they all look the same to you? And then she’ll keep possession of them for the time being. What’s that mean? That the buyer—whoever you’re covering up for—can come around after hours and get a look at them in private when he’s in the mood? Or she’s in the mood? Those paintings make a statement to the whole world. They’re not peepshow displays.”
“No, they’re not. But as agent for the buyer—without fee”—Amy came down on that hard—“I found all the paintings equally powerful. In that case, I leave it to the artist to make the selection. Her judgment has to be better than mine. As for Kim’s keeping them for the time being, the buyer does not have space right now to hang them properly. And having them on display in the gallery even after the showing is closed only helps Kim. Especially when they’re marked sold.”
Adela looked at her granddaughter. “You heard all that?”
“Uh-huh.”
Do you believe for one second that I’d ever do anything to hurt you?”
“No chance,” said Kim.
Adela reached out and took her hand. “Then you do what you want about this, darling. I don’t understand what’s going on, I don’t like the smell of it, but you do what you want.”
“Eighteen thousand dollars,” Kim said to her apologetically.
Amy seized the moment. She took the envelope from her handbag. “Six thousand here,” she said. “The rest as arranged.” Charity for the undeserving, she thought. She felt as exhausted as if she had just run up those three flights of stairs.
Kim rested the envelope on the palm of her upturned hand, “Van Gogh never had it this good,” she told her grandmother.
“As for the receipt,” Amy said, “I suppose you can make it out to my name.”
Without meaning to, she instantly knew she had given Adela a small triumph. The old woman’s mouth twisted in a half smile. “What a fat surprise,” she said caustically.
At the head of the staircase Kim said, “You see? She’s hung up on an obsession—plenty of reason for it—but it didn’t hurt to dent it a little. Next time you’re here you might be surprised at how she takes to you.”
There are surprises, Amy thought, that one could do without.
Mike stood at the open door of the car appreciatively watching his wife and her charge descend the few broad, shallow steps of the hotel to street level. A sort of spotlighted effect there, he saw, and from the response of the throng around them he was not the only one to take notice. The tiny, exquisite old woman in sable, chin high, unseeing eyes fixed straight ahead and her tall, red-haired, serenely poised companion—the favored granddaughter of this aristocratic grandmother?—moved down the center of the stairway eschewing the brass handrails on either side, the old woman’s cane briefly searching out each step below, her free hand resting lightly on her companion’s extended wrist. Very special people, and as if in recognition of this the crowd coming and going were giving that entire area of the stairway to them.
A lovely descent, Mike thought, the long-ago past briefly made alive again, because after all this was what that portico and stairway had been originally designed for, the making of an exit into a performance for the properly admiring.
The trouble was, he reflected, that the audience—even thought it did seem to be properly admiring—was all wrong nowadays. Considering the Plaza’s tariffs, there had to be large amounts of money all around him, whether personal or corporatio
n, but too much slob culture was evident around him as well. The open collars—neckties omitted—of otherwise dress shirts, the plethora of faded denims, the club-footed sneakers, the collection of beat-up windbreakers, the nondescript headgear, everything that the well-heeled could do to tarnish the glory of this baroque monument towering over them was being done.
Pass that thought along to Abe Silverstone, a well-heeled partisan of the common man, and see the sparks fly. For that matter, even Audie, much of whose boutique’s styles could be categorized as rich pauper, would probably side with Abe on this one.
Mike saw his passengers into the car and got behind the wheel. “Straight home, Miss Durie?”
“Straight home,” said Ma’am, and as the car pulled away from the curb she said, plainly directing it at Amy, “That difficulty you were about to describe, Lloyd—it didn’t affect the arrangements, did it?”
“No.”
“Then it could hardly be of concern. What was it?”
“A matter Jason Cook brought up.” His wife’s voice, Mike noted, was minus the usual sweetly compliant note in dealing with the boss. “He believes someone hired a private detective to obtain information about Kim Lowry. He asked if you were the one.”
“Preposterous,” Ma’am said scathingly. “Of course, you told him so.”
“Yes.”
“And gave the same assurance to Miss Lowry?”
“No. He hasn’t mentioned it to her. Afraid she’d be upset by it, I suppose. He seems very protective of her.”
“And should be. A talented and hard-beset artist? No reason that she suffer for his irrational suspicions.”
“None at all,” Amy said pleasantly. “But of course this one is quite rational.”
Almost too late Mike realized he was preparing to ram the cab slowing down for the red light ahead. He came down hard on the brake. Ma’am yelped, then said wrathfully, “Lloyd!”
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