Instead of a blouse she wore a filmy blue-and-red scarf around her neck. The two loose ends of the scarf were tucked crosswise beneath the lapels of the square-cut double-breasted jacket. Very few women would dare to wear such a severely cut suit, but the square straight lines of the jacket exaggerated the roundness of Berenice's lush figure. With the supplement of a rat she had put up her hair, and the ample mound of tawny hair, sun-tinged with yellow streaks, piled on top of her head, together with her childish features, gave her an angelic expression.
There was, I think, too much orange in her lipstick, but perhaps this slight imperfection was the single needed touch that made her so lovely as a whole.
I had shaved and showered before Berenice took over the bathroom for an hour, and I had trimmed my Spanish Don sideburns neatly with scissors. Nevertheless, I looked incongruously raunchy beside Berenice in my faded blue denim, short-sleeved jumpsuit, especially when she slipped on a pair of white gloves. It was too hot outside for a jacket, and I needed the multiple pockets in the jumpsuit to carry all my paraphernalia.
I had three pens, a notebook, my wallet and keys, a handkerchief, two packs of Kools, and my ribbed-model Dunhill lighter (one of the few luxuries I had treated myself to when I had a regular teaching salary coming in), a tiny Kodak Bantam in my right trousers pocket, some loose change, a pocket magnifying glass in a leather case, fingernail clippers, and a two-inch piece of clammy jade, with indentations for a finger grip. Except for the well-concealed Kodak Bantam, loaded with color film, I carried too much crap around with me, but I had gotten used to carrying it and could hardly do without it.
We had slept late and had a leisurely breakfast. After getting dressed, I had jotted down a few questions in my notebook. I would not refer to the questions, but the act of writing them down had set them in my mind. This was an old reporter's trick that worked, and I always took my Polaroid camera along, loaded with black-and-white, and extra film. Professionals sneer at Dr. Edwin H. Land's Polaroids, but I was an expert with them and rarely snapped more than two shots before getting what I wanted. I had learned, too, that people wifi okay without argument almost any picture that they have seen, but wifi refuse to allow photos to be published when they haven't seen everything on the roll.
By 1:30 P.M. we were ready to go. I preceded Berenice down the stairs into the glare of the breathtaking Florida sunlight. The humidity was close to ninety, although the temperature wasn't quite eighty-five. There were threatening nimbus clouds farther south, but the sky was clear and blue above Palm Beach. It doesn't always rain in South Florida when the humidity hits 100 percent, although technically it is supposed to, but inasmuch as we were heading toward the dark sky above Boynton Beach, I decided not to put the canvas top back. Inside the car, on burning leatherefte seats, we sweltered.
We had hardly crossed the bridge into West Palm when Berenice pointed to a blazing orange roof and said, "Let's stop at Howard Johnson's."
"Why?' We just finished breakfast an hour ago."
"I have to widdle. That's why."
"I told you to pee before we left."
"I did, but I have to go again."
It was partly the heat, but I jerked the car into the parking lot, thinking angrily that it wasn't too late. I could call a cab and send Berenice back to the apartment.
But once inside the cave-cold depths and booth-seated, I ordered two chocolate ice cream sodas, waited for them and Berenice, and smoked a Kool. Because the service was seasonal, Berenice joined me at the table long before the sodas arrived. She picked up my cigarette from the ashtray, took a long drag, replaced the cigarette exactly as she found it, held the inhaled smoke inside her lungs like a skin diver trying to break the hold-your-breath-underwater record, and finally let what was left of the smoke out. I had noticed, during the three days I was in Miami, when Berenice had not been with me, that her so-called efforts to quit smoking caused three packs a day to go up in smoke instead of my usual two. She had merely quit buying and carrying them. She smoked mine instead-or took long drags off the cigarette I happened to be smoking. She hated mentholated cigarettes, or so she claimed, but not enough, apparently, to give them up altogether.
"If you want a cigarette," I said, pushing the pack toward her, "take one. When you drag mine down a quarter of an inch that way, I finish the cigarette unsatisfied because I didn't have the exact ration of smoke I'm accustomed to. Then, because I feel gypped out of a quarter inch, I light another one, only to find that an entire cigarette, smoked too soon after the one I just finished, is too much. I butt it, replace it in the pack, and when I finally get around to lighting the butt the next time I want a smoke, it tastes too strong and it still isn't a regular-length smoke. If I throw the butt away, with only a couple of drags gone, it's a waste, and-"
Berenice put a cool hand over mine. There were faint crinkles in the corners of her guileless cornflower blue eyes. Her bowed lips narrowed as they flickered a rapid smile.
"What's bothering you, James?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. I took an up with my third cup of coffee, and the combination of a benny with too much coffee makes me talk too much. As I told you last night, Berenice, this is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for me. And I'm apprehensive, that's all."
She shook her head. The smile appeared and disappeared again so fast I almost missed it. "No, James, you told me so much about this painter last night I got confused, bogged down in details, so to speak. Something is either missing or you didn't tell me everything."
"You fell asleep, for Christ's sake."
"No, I didn't. Well, maybe toward the end. But what I don't understand is how this painter, this Debierue, can be such a famous painter when no one has ever seen any of his paintings. It doesn't make sense."
"What do you mean, no one has seen his paintings?' Thousands of people saw his first one-man show, and his subsequent work has been written about by Mazzeo, Charonne, Reinsberg, and Galt, who all studied his paintings. These are some of the most famous critics of this century, for God's sake!"
She shook her head and pursed her lips. "I don't mean them, or even you-that is, if you get to see what he's painted since coming to Florida. I mean the public, the people who flock to museums when a traveling Van Gogh show comes in, and buy all kinds of Van Gogh reproductions and so on. I had seen dozens of Van Gogh paintings in books and magazines long before I ever saw one of his originals. That's what I mean by famous. How can I be impressed by Debierue's fame when I've never seen any of his work and can't judge for myself how good he is?"
Our ice cream sodas arrived. I didn't want to hurt Berenice's feelings, but I was forced to because of her ignorance.
"Look, baby, you aren't qualified to judge for yourself. Now keep quiet, and drink your nice ice cream soda- there's a good girl-and I'll try and explain it to you. Did you ever study cetology?"
"I don't know. What is it?"
"The scientific study of whales. A cetologist is a man who studies whales, and he can spend an entire lifetime at it, just as I've spent my life, so far, studying art-as have the critics who wrote about Debierue. Now, let's suppose that you pick up a copy of Scientific American and read an article about whales written by a well-known cetologist-"
"Are there any well-known cetologists?"
"There are bound to be. I don't have any names to rattle off for you-that isn't my racket. But I haven't finished yet. All right, you're reading this article by a cetologist in Scientific American and he states that a baby sperm whale is a tail presentation."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that a baby whale, unlike other mammals, is born tail first."
"How do you know that?"
"I read a lot. But the same would hold true even if the cetologist said that it was a cephalic presentation. The point I'm making is this: The article is written by a cetobogist and published in Scientific American, and you will accept an expert's word for it. You aren't going to get yourself a goddamned boat and sail around the seven fuc
king seas trying to find a pregnant whale, are you?' Just so you can check on whether a baby whale is born head first or tail first?"
Berenice giggled. "You're cute when you're stern. No. . I guess not, but art, it seems to me, is supposed to be for everybody, not just for those critics you mentioned.
I put down the spoon and wiped my lips on a paper napkin. "Whales are for everybody, too, sweetheart. But not everybody studies whales as a lifetime occupation. That's the big difference you don't seem to understand."
"All right." She shrugged. "I still think there's something you haven't told me about all this."
I grinned. "There is. In return for Debierue's address I've got to do a favor for Mr. Cassidy-"
"The lawyer who told you about Debierue?"
"Yeah." I nodded. "And what I'm telling you is 'privileged information,' as Cassidy would put it. It's between you and Mr. Cassidy and these ice cream sodas."
"You can trust me, James." Her face softened. "You can trust me with your life."
"I know. And in a way it is my life. Anyway, Mr. Cassidy gave me privileged information-where Debierue is living- and all I have to do in return is to steal a picture for him."
"Steal a picture?' Why can't he buy one?' He's rich enough."
"Debierue doesn't sell his pictures. I explained all that. If Cassidy gets a picture, even one that's been stolen, he'll be the only collector in the world to have one, you see."
"What good will it do him?' If it's a stolen picture, Debierue can get it back by calling the police."
"Debierue won't know he has it, and neither will anyone else-until after Debierue's dead, anyway. Then the picture will be even more valuable."
"How're you going to steal a picture without Debierue knowing it was you?"
"I don't know yet. I'm playing things by ear at the moment. It might not be a picture. If he's working with ceramics, I can slip a piece in my pocket while you distract him. Maybe there are some drawings around. Mr. Cassidy would be satisfied with a drawing. In fact he'd be delighted. But until I find out what Debierue has been doing, I won't know what to do myself."
"But you want me to help you?"
"If you want to, yes. He can't watch both of us at the same time, and he's an old man. So when a chance comes, and it will, I'll give you the high sign and then I'll snatch something."
"It's awfully haphazard, James, the way you say it. Besides, as soon as we leave, he'll know that you're the one who stole it-whatever it is."
"No." I shook my head. "He won't know. He'll suspect that I took it, but he won't be able to prove it. I'll deny everything, if charged, and besides it'll never get that far. Meanwhile, Mr. Cassidy will have the painting, chunk of sculpture, drawing, or whatever, hidden away where Jesus Christ couldn't find it. See?"
"Do you realize, James," she said, rather primly, "that if you ever got caught stealing a painting from anybody that your career would be over?"
"Not really, and not, certainly, from Debierue. His work, as you mentioned before about Van Gogh, belongs to the world-and if I were ever tried for something like that, which I wouldn't be-I'd have a defense fund from art lovers and art magazines that would make me look like a White Panther. Anyway, that's the plan-in addition to somehow getting an interview, of course."
"It isn't much of a plan."
"True. But now that you know what I have to do, you might get an idea once we're on the scene. The important thing is this: don't take anything yourself. I'll take it when the time is propitious. I have to get the interview before anything else is done."
"I understand."
The rain caught us before we reached Lake Worth.
There were torrents of it, and I could hardly see to drive. Berenice, because of her suit, had to roll up her window, but it was too hot for me to roll up mine. My left shoulder and arm got soaked, but with the humidity I would have been just as wet inside the car with the window rolled up. The rain finally came down so hard I had to pull over to the curb in Lake Worth to wait for a letup.
Berenice was frowning. "How much," she asked, "does a baby whale weigh when it's first born?"
"One ton. And it's fourteen feet long." I lit a cigarette and passed it to Berenice. She shook her head and handed it back. I took a long drag. "One ton," I said solemnly, "is two thousand pounds."
"I know how much a ton is!" she said angrily. "You- you-you damned intellectual, you!"
I couldn't contain myself. I had to laugh and ruin my joke.
2
I could have taken State Road Seven straight away by picking it up west of West Palm Beach, but because the old two-lane highway was used primarily by truck traffic barreling for Miami's back door, into Hialeah, I stayed on U.S. 1 all the way to Boynton Beach before searching for a through road to make the cutover. I got lost for a few minutes and made several aimless circles where new blacktops had been crushed down for a subdivision called inappropriately Ocean Pine Terraces (miles from the ocean, no pines, no terraces), but when I finally reached the state highway, it was freshly paved, and the truck traffic wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected.
The rain, mercifully, had stopped.
My crude map was clear enough, but I had zipped past Debierue's turnoff to the Dixie Drive-in Movie Theater before I realized it. The mixed dirt-and-gravel private road leading to Debierue's home-and-studio was clearly visible from the highway, and on the right of the highway about three hundred yards before the drive-in entrance, but I had failed to notice it. I made a crimped circle in the deserted drive-in entrance and this time, from the other side of the highway, it was easy to spot the break.
Thick gama grass had reclaimed the deep wheel ruts of the road, and I crawled along in first gear. The bumpy, rarely used trail straight-lined through a stand of secondgrowth slash pine for about a half mile and then made a sigmoid loop to circumvent two stinking stagnant ponds of black swamp water. On the right of the road, abandoned chicken runs stretched into the jungly mass of greenery, and weeds had grown straight and tall along the sagging chicken-wire fences. The unpainted wooden chickenhouses had weathered to an unpatterned dirty gray, and most of the roofs had caved in. The narrow road petered out at an open peeled-pine gate. I eased into the fenced area, with its untended, thickly grassed yard, which resembled a huge, brown bathmat, and pulled up in front of the screened porch of the house.
Paradoxically, I was awed by my first sight of the old painter. I switched off the engine, and as it ticked heatedly away, I sat and stared. I say "paradoxically" because Debierue in person was anything but awe inspiring.
He resembled any one of a thousand, no literally tens of thousands, of those tanned Florida retirees one sees on bridges fishing, on golf courses tottering, and on the shuffleboard courts of rest homes and public parks shuffling. He even wore the uniform. Green-billed khaki baseball cap, white denim Bermuda shorts, low-cut Zayre tennis shoes in pale blue canvas, and the standard white open-necked "polo" shirt with short sleeves. The inevitable tiny green alligator was embroidered over the left pocket of the shirt, an emblem so common in Florida that any Miami Beach comedian could get a laugh by saying, "They caught an alligator in the Glades the other day, and he was wearing a shirt with a little man sewn over the pocket. ."
But unlike those other thousands of old men who had retired to Florida in anticipation of a warm death, men who had earned their dubious retirement by running shoe stores, managing light-bulb plants in Amarillo, manufac turing condoms in Newark, hustling as harried sales managers in the ten western states, Debierue had served, and was still serving, the strictest master of them all-the selfdiscipline of the artist.
Debierue, apparently unperturbed by the arrival of a strange, beat-up convertible in his yard, sat limberly erect in a green-webbed, aluminum patio chair beside the porch door, soaking up late afternoon sun. I was pleased to see that he was allowing his white beard to grow again (for several years he had been clean shaven), but it was not as long and Melvillean as it had been in photos of the old artist ta
ken in the twenties.
Physically, Debierue was asthenic. Long-limbed, longbodied, slight, with knobby knees and elbows. Advanced age had caused his thin shoulders to droop, of course, and there was a melony potbelly below his belt. His sunbronzed skin, although it was wrinkled, gave the old man a healthy, almost robust appearance. His keen blue eyes were alert and unclouded, and the great blade of his beaky French nose did not have those exposed, tiny red veins one usually associates with aged retirees in Florida. His full, sensuous lips formed a fat grape-colored "O"-a dark, plump circle encircled by white hair. His blue stare, with which he returned mine, was incurious, polite, direct, and distant, but during the long uncomfortable moment we sat in silent confrontation, I detected an air of vigilance in his sharp old eyes.
As a critic I had learned early in the game how unwise it was to give too much weight or credence to first impressions, but under his steady, unwavering gaze I felt-I knew-that I was in the presence of a giant, which, in turn, made me feel like a violator, a criminal. And if, in that first moment, he had pointed to the gate silently-without even saying "Get out!" — I would have departed without uttering a word.
But such was not the case.
Berenice, her hands folded in her lap over her chamois drawstring handbag, sat quietly, and there she would sit until I got out of the car, walked around it, and opened the door on her side.
I was uninvited, an unexpected visitor, and it was up to me to break the frozen sea that divided us. Apprehensively, and dangling the Land camera from its carrying strap on two fingers, I got out of the car and nodded politely.
"Good afternoon, M. Debierue," I said in French, trying to keep my voice deep, like Jean Gabin, "at long last we meet!"
The Burnt Orange Heresy Page 7