by A. R. Taylor
As her plane began its rocky descent into LaGuardia, a landing that recalled to mind her terrible trip to Wyoming with Vince, his face flooded in upon her again, that wonderful face, though cruel, a sharp smile, a hard word for everyone, but a big, warm hand that held on strong. All she and Tasha really shared was that connection, so they would probably never see each other again. These perilous intimacies meant too much, and to make things worse, she was in a fright about her schedule, whether she could get the painting into shape for its unveiling four days hence, whether she could see Inti, and how she could find out more about Sabine Hull. In the blessed safety of the back seat of yet another livery car, she emailed Inti on her new Blackberry and left him a message asking him to meet her for a drink.
Violations, violations, they were piling up. Did the Hulls have hit men? Maybe one of those had killed Vincent. It’s funny how being back in New York made her think of such conspiracies. She lay back against the warm, dark seat and began to doze, but moments later her magic little phone pinged, and up came the name of Rudolph Hayes. “Yes? Hello,” she spoke into its small black shape, still unused to it, a bit like an obnoxious toy.
“I don’t mean to alarm you, but we have a situation here that, unforeseen as it is, could cause problems.”
Clouded air descended around her. “A situation?” Had he found out about Chicago two seconds after she hit the ground? If so, what a marvel of scrutiny.
“I was against your coming back here, even for a week, but Sabine Hull insisted on it, and now she wants to see you.”
“Why me?”
“Obviously she has questions about that night and Vincent’s death. Frankly, Miss McCann, she’s gone rogue. Normally she’s under my control, but with time things didn’t add up for her, so here we are. Or maybe Tasha told her something.”
Jenna shrank at the name of the woman she had just seen, but she certainly wasn’t going to tell him anything about the visit. “I’ll just listen. Maybe she wants to vent.”
“Frenchwomen don’t vent.” The lawyer fell silent, and it seemed to Jenna that for once in this strange odyssey, she held the upper hand, and of course she did, now that she could reveal their lies regarding the death of an eminent man.
“You’re just going to have to trust me.”
“Ha!” Then he paused. “She’s lost her mind. It’s this painting she’s so fixated on. It isn’t even worth that much, and it certainly doesn’t suit a bunch of sick children. She wants to set up the meeting, so wait to hear from her.”
At this point Jenna didn’t know if she agreed with him about this so-called terrible development, since she thought it might bode well somehow, the cracking of the ice on a frozen lake of lies. Honestly she had no idea, but at least she knew she had to see the woman. “I’ll handle it.” She hadn’t a clue what she meant.
“You’d better. Whatever you do, don’t tell her the truth.”
FIVE
Inti Weill had remained single and had naturally joined the ranks of the wired, hardwired, wireless, and otherwise obsessed with small screens. He hadn’t expected to encounter Jenna again, certainly not in New York, so when he saw her email, for a moment he considered ignoring her, but then he thought of his old coyote piece that had netted his long dreamed of offer from the Times, knowing full well that the photos had sealed the deal. He was grateful to her. Ever since 2001, just after the World Trade Center came down, he vowed never to leave the city and to toil honestly and thankfully at zoning and harbor problems, Staten Island discontents, and the sins of councilmen in every borough. Even now, four years since he had last seen her, he still thought of Jenna often, and cherished, in some odd way, the mental picture of her in monkish labor over a minute corner of a canvas from the eighteenth century, even if it might have been stolen. So when he read her email, having just emerged from an interview with the mayor at City Hall, he went straight to the press room, unable to stop himself from some hasty research on the whole Hull business and Jenna’s possible role in it.
A flood of articles detailed the man’s embarrassing death, with numerous photos of Jenna, round of face, wide-eyed, smiling like a girl fresh out of college, with those silly owl glasses, objects he had never seen before or since. He hadn’t ever tried to contact her after their little French tryst, because he didn’t want to tempt himself to lust after both her and a major story, each at the same time, and he had seen no future in it. Now, not sure what to do with this emailed invitation in hand, he felt the landscape shift, remembering in spite of himself her soft thighs and almost volcanic sexuality. Since that romantic interlude in France, Inti had had several involvements, one with an embassy staffer in London, another with a medical student in Washington DC, both of which had come with a lot of heat and frustration—not to mention travel—both now over.
Jenna had invited him to the King Cole bar at the St. Regis, a place he, now a genuine New Yorker, associated with non-serious drinkers who wanted to impress other people, so he determined to meet up with her there and drag her to his favorite watering hole, a cigar bar on Mercer Street that required membership of a sort, but anyone with one hundred and fifty dollars to blow on smokes could join. These included an unlikely crowd of lawyers, disreputable Russians, a few in the garment trade, and the extremely fashionable young, who drank martinis with one hand and twiddled their cell phones with the other. The older folks usually smoked and talked in deep-set velvet chairs, while the young circulated, trolling for the new and the now. For some reason it reminded him of France, just that level of menace behind the levity.
Having to rush out his copy on the latest doings in Albany, at six o’clock he stopped to buy a necktie at Sulka, a place he loved for its associations with Clark Gable in The Hucksters. The actor had purchased a “sincere” tie to get ahead in advertising. Inti flicked through the line of hundred-dollar neckwear, noting the incredible tie inflation at work since the 1930s and finally settled on a blue one, blue the color of empathy, yes, sincere, heartfelt. At this moment—one that he experienced as solemn—he didn’t know whether he would say anything to Jenna at all about the continuing Hull mystery. It might tempt him too much. No wonder she lived in hotels.
For her part, Jenna sat waiting with a kind of patient hysteria as she sipped water at the bar. She didn’t want to get too loaded before she saw him again. Why did she feel so completely different in New York? Not at home at all, but glamorous, ready for anything, hot with anticipation. She tugged on the straps of her green jersey dress. Was it just the city, or being in her own country at last? Or was it sheer exhaustion from yesterday’s events? Amid all this, it would be interesting and fine and seriously dangerous to talk to Inti, worse yet to any journalist.
Their greetings over, quick and fierce with anxiety for both, Jenna and Inti sat opposite each other at a low round table for two. She felt guilty, appalled at herself for getting in touch with him. Now he seemed quieter, older to her, less jolly, and kept looking around at the other drinkers, afraid, it seemed, to look at her. She registered Inti’s fine looks, the strong jaw and the curly dark hair. He had filled out, and his shoulders looked bigger, more assertive, which he proved by dragging her out of that posh place shortly after they finished their first drink. In the cab, while the driver engaged in the frantic forward motion only sometimes possible in the city, Inti put his hand over hers, causing her to cry out to the cabbie, “Slow down, will you sir? We’re not in a hurry.” She saw him smile at her fears, and he clasped her hand even harder as she looked over at him gratefully. New York drivers seemed even worse to her than the Italians.
“Do you want a cocktail?” the young waiter asked at the very moment Jenna and Inti had seated themselves in the smoky, fuzzy atmosphere of the Mercer Street so-called Cigar Club.
“Definitely,” Inti said. “Scotch, single malt, neat. You choose one for me.”
“Certainly, sir.”
Jenna stared at the wine list, so long and complex. She had grown used to the vino ordinario of the
Italian countryside, and nothing else seemed as delicious to her. “Anything red and dry,” she sighed. “I’m spoiled by where I live.”
“Yes, you’re Italian now, but here we drink Scotch.”
“I’m an aspiring Italian. I want that level of joy. Scotch is fine, but only for New York.” Yes, and Scotch had been Vincent’s drink of choice. She surveyed the Village hipsters, of all ages really, upscale people, full of something that looked like joy, or maybe they just wanted to make noise. The madness of contacting Inti came upon her like a swift punch, and she pondered how fast she could get out of the room.
“I was surprised to hear from you.” He too looked about at the crowd. “I had no expectations.”
“That’s always best, I think.” Jenna seemed distracted, and indeed she was. The room, the people, perilously close to the life she had once lived here. After all, New York was a small town, and every street corner presented the prospect of running into someone she had once known. Where were Vera and Allyson? Had they ever tried to get in touch with her? She frowned into her drink as she thought of them.
“Share the worry, beauty.”
“Thinking of my old roommates. Vera, an aspiring interior designer, was dating this horrible man named Ed Delong. I wonder what happened to her?”
“Easy to find out these days. The world is at my fingertips.” He pulled out his very small laptop, which he carried always, and tapped in her roommate’s name. Within moments he found an article about her, dated six months previously.
“Who would write about Vera, I mean, unless she got famous or something?”
“‘Vera Delong was involved in an altercation at the Brooklyn home of herself and her husband, Edward, who was the apparent victim of a stabbing. Mrs. Delong claimed her husband had come at her with a fork, and she repelled his attack with a paring knife. Both parties were taken to the hospital and pronounced safe, but drunk.’” This tidbit cheered her immensely. Vera and Ed had been destined for something awful, and sharing their gruesome little story with Inti made her feel more intimate with the town in which she found herself. She tipped her drink glass at him and saluted. In a further search, he announced that Allyson had indeed married her sportswriter chap and resided now in Great Neck. “See, I can find out anything.”
“I certainly hope not,” she said, but she laughed. They talked of her work on the Bélange painting, of its prospects in terms of not falling off the canvas, and then suddenly Jenna found herself confiding in him about Amon, the whole story, his paint set, the awful nurses, his harried mother. Now she wondered where he was and what was happening.
“You wear a lab coat when you work, don’t you?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Just pretend you’re a doctor and go looking for him. Only a few people know who you are around there, it sounds like. If you added a stethoscope, that would be perfect.”
“Oh my god, I could never do anything like that. I hate to lie.”
“Ah,” Inti breathed out quietly. He felt like a prosecutor sitting across from a guilty woman.
Immediately she read his thoughts and agreed with every last one of them. Jenna stared about the smoky room, probably the last place one could smoke in New York, indoors anyway. It reminded her of home. Yes, she did now have a home, and it wasn’t here. And then, in a strange moment, while stealing a glance at Inti as he tapped on his cell phone, she understood that he had figured out elements of her story. The one cardinal stipulation in her contract was about to be violated because she was going to talk to him. “You know everything, don’t you?”
Inti looked up and frowned. “Not everything, but I can piece it together pretty much.”
“Can you keep quiet about it?”
It would be a major tale, this one. Proliferating gossip, the fiery engine of twenty-first century journalism and even the Times, which called every miscreant Mr. or Ms. even while they headed to the slammer, would jump all over it. It would be huge, and for a moment Inti contemplated the abyss. “I promise not to do anything I don’t tell you about.”
“That doesn’t seem reassuring.”
“I’m not just some loathsome careerist journo, you know. I could have pursued it already. I could have outed you after France.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Will you promise not to pursue it?”
Inti smiled at her and raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know. Maybe you can figure how to persuade me not to.”
“What about the count and his paintings? Were they the stolen ones?”
“The one your Monsieur Legard worked on was, but we could never find the Fragonard, so the whole thing got dropped. Too French, too much competing news.”
“Thank god. I would have died if anything bad happened to my lovely maître.”
Taking another sip of the mouth-burning Scotch, she spied a woman staring at her from across the smoky room. Jenna squinted, trying to look at her without being obvious. Did she know her or did the woman recognize her from former years? A staffer at the magazine maybe.
Inti drank in silence, provoked by the tiresome fact of the rich, older man, something that rankled. How had such an inappropriate person become the chosen love object of one very desirable female? He disliked the idea that women could overlook any physical problems, any deficit in looks, anything at all really, for money, pure and simple. What other attractions could a fifty-nine-year-old married man have had for such a young woman?
“You don’t like me any more, is that it?” she said, with some prescience.
“Of course I like you. I’m here, aren’t I?
“Barely.”
He bent forward now to signal his full attention. “Let’s go dancing.”
“Yes. I want to get out of here.” She looked back at the staring woman who turned away suddenly.
They went off to a Russian nightclub nearby, one of Inti’s favorites. He turned out to be a very good man in the tight hold of a waltz and even more agile at some impossible Russian folk dance called the Kalinka. She loved the way he moved his body and remembered more vividly with each movement the wonderful times they had had in bed. Despite her fright at how much he knew, she vowed that she would not let this opportunity get by her, even if she had to drag him to her hotel. But he had other ideas. No longer merely a drudge with a backpack and laptop, he now had an apartment on the Upper West Side, and though slightly embarrassed about his semi-fashionable address, he was quite proud that he had furnished the place and made it look presentable, if somewhat generic. The only personal note: the photos he had taken in France, where he had a picture of the count’s wine cave, next to it an Amish buggy pictured in upstate New York, and even one of Jenna’s photographs of the coyotes in Rye. Jenna stared up at that one for a moment, until he handed her a cognac. His apartment had a clean, uncluttered feeling, as if he could handle silence and simplicity, and she surveyed it carefully. She sat down on the suede couch, nervous once again as Inti worked away in the kitchen. At last he emerged with a plate of olives and cheese, and as soon as he set it down before her, she reached over and kissed him. He pulled back. “Where are you staying?”
“The Lowell.”
“Very fancy. But then you’re an expert on hotels.” As he spoke he could feel the liquor roiling his brain.
“I’m just staying there a few more days for this project. It’s temporary.”
“More days, more nights, who cares? Let’s do it, what do you say?” He suddenly felt drunk and insulting.
“What do you want me to do?” She taunted him, feeling soiled in his eyes, as if she had done something very dirty. Of course she had, so it seemed right that he treated her like a whore. “Tell me in detail, so I’ll know how to make you scream.”
“You already did that in France.”
“I’ve forgotten, though, so many lovers, so much time. I can’t hang on to everything.”
“You’re hot.” He shook his head and mocked her.
“I’m just acting out what you’re thinking.”
“How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“I can read minds . . . I can read futures.” Jenna stood up and swirled her red cashmere shawl around her neck, grabbing her coat. “And I can let myself out.”
“No.” Inti stood up, but she was already through the door.
SIX
The next morning, racing to get to the hospital, Jenna hiked all the way, almost running, sweating, covered in too much clothing. Only one more day before the unveiling of Diver, which event she had been commanded not to attend. In fact, the powers-that-be had instructed her to return to Italy immediately after talking with Mrs. Hull. Anyway, after violating her contract so many times already, she figured maybe getting out of Dodge was a seriously good idea. Who cared what Inti thought? So what if he blew open her whole story?
And then another, happier idea occurred to her. Now she had some power over them. She could sue them all, right? Or they’d get prosecuted for something, though she couldn’t quite figure out for what. Lying to paramedics? Still, she was no longer their little slut, and she hadn’t killed the man. All this led her to plan whatever she wanted, if just for the next forty-eight hours. First thing, she had to hunt up Amon.
She went to her studio to put on her lab coat as Inti had suggested and brushed her hair. Should she actually pretend to be a doctor? No, of course not. Everyone on the floor knew her, and even with a stethoscope she would look ridiculous. She decided to brazen it out and made her way to Amon’s room, not at all difficult, where she found a curtain drawn against the little glass window. She turned the door handle, but it was locked. Looking around, she tapped on the glass. No one answered, but before she could try again, a nurse she didn’t recognize strode by her, observing her movements.
Jenna backed away, authoritatively she thought, however the nurse stopped. “Looking for something?”
“I’m looking for a patient, Amon Walters.” Jenna knew she shouldn’t say more, but she stumbled on. “He was here a couple of days ago, but now I can’t find him.”