Never Speak: A Mystery Thriller (The Murderous Arts Series)

by John Manchester

  She finally came over. “Isn’t your gallery open today?” She was a nicer scold than that cursor.

  “I had a flurry of customers this morning. I’m hungry.”

  “You sell anything?”

  “No.”

  At a chilly gust from the front of the restaurant, Jo turned her head and stiffened. Ray looked. The woman’s back was to him as she looked at a menu. But he’d know her if he spied her from across the river. A hundred and fifty bucks worth of gloss on her already fine auburn hair and a sleek black coat.

  Liz.

  He rose from his chair. Jo grabbed his arm. “You sure you want to talk to her?”

  “I can handle it.” Of course he could.

  He came up beside her. When she saw him she jumped. “Oh. I was going ask Jo where you were. Why’s the gallery closed?”

  Another scold, and this one had teeth. “So I can eat?” He pasted on a smile. “You’re looking good.”

  She gazed at him, and her eyes danced away. “You too.” She said it without conviction. She broke the awkward silence by delivering one of those white people hugs, leaning the top of her body towards him, lightly touching the back of his shirt with her fists, for an instant brushing hair against hair, then springing away to her rigid upright stance. He bit his lip.

  She said, “Um, I was over at the house. I didn’t want to just let myself in. I came to get the rest of my stuff.”

  Uh oh. She’d cleared out most of her things last September. What remained in the closet off the bedroom he’d invested with hope.

  She said, “And we need to talk.”

  She was laying it on thick, no mercy, like he imagined her delivering a closing statement at trial, not that her corporate cases ever made it to a courtroom.

  She left Jo’s all business. He followed her across the street. Inside she stared at the sculptures, frowning. “Any luck?”

  “Luck?”

  “With the art. None of this new stuff looks like yours.”

  As if luck had anything to do with it. He said, “Actually, I’ve been doing a little writing.” An hour’s worth. Where did that come from? Desperation.

  “Writing?” She blinked rapidly and gave a small shake of her head: What the hell does writing have to do with anything?

  He followed her upstairs, averting his eyes from her skirt sliding over her ass. She opened the door of the bedroom and entered. He hesitated. It was here in the nights after she’d left that he first became aware of her ghost. Her voice murmuring in the radiator’s indigestion. No matter how many times he washed the sheets, her scent was still in the bed. He finally stepped into the room. Just a musty odor in here now.

  She turned toward him, her lip trembling. He could see that she sensed some of what he was feeling, and hope raised its foolish head. He took slow steps up to her and for the first time she actually looked at him.

  She said, “Oh, Ray. I’m being such a miserable hard ass. It’s just…” She started to cry. He reached her, and now she gave him a real hug.

  He pushed her up against the dresser, reached down to undo her pants. She said, “You’ve been watching too many movies. Real people do it in a bed.”

  Their bed, which was conveniently a couple of feet away.

  Only it wasn’t quite theirs anymore. Her body was the same, and his response to it. And afterwards they lay just the same way as always, her head on his shoulder, his hand stroking her hair, breath settling back to normal as the happy chemicals gave him that best of mini-vacations.

  But something was off. What? For one thing, they weren’t talking. He was never a roll over and go to sleep guy. Not with Liz. Afterward they talked up a storm. Today there wasn’t a word.

  And they remained silent as he helped her carry her things down to her BMW. Clothes. Books: Doris Lessing, Dorothy Sayers, Our Bodies, Ourselves. Law tomes. The last items included a spring coat. And spring was coming one of these days. But that didn’t explain the rest of the stuff.

  He finally spoke. “Liz, why are you getting all this now? You said we had to talk.”

  She didn’t answer, just gave him a terrible, sorrowful look. And suddenly he knew what she was going to say, because he’d been here before, with Susan. The bad sex, and I’m sorry, only that time with Susan he’d been the one to drive away, and never see her again.

  Liz said, “There’s a real shitstorm brewing down at the office. Some of our best people are getting axed, and I worry that I’m next. They’re already cutting back my hours.”

  That’s all? He tried to suppress his grin. “Oh. Sorry.”

  “I haven’t gotten a cent from you in months.”

  “I know, I know, I’m…”

  “Listen to me. I’m having trouble carrying this house along with my place in the city. The condo fees just went up again. And that’s with me still having a job. If you can’t keep up your part of our deal, I’ll have to…sell.”

  His grin slipped. No house meant no shop. No way to make a living. And no home.

  “So I need a check. I need all of what you owe me, and soon.”

  She climbed in her car, pulled out onto Warren Street. She didn’t wave.

  Ray made a beeline for Bodine’s. Just because it wasn’t what she came to talk to him about didn’t mean she wasn’t doing it: banging another guy. That sex had been off. Its pleasant residue still lit up his cells, but an ache in his chest was emerging, like pain breaking through an analgesic.

  And it was a familiar, very specific ache. He flashed on Susan’s face, the last time he saw her in the flesh and the pain deepened to a dark throb.

  No music leaked from the theater this time. Mingus howled, and Bodine let Ray in without looking at him. Bodine had replaced the old chandeliers downstairs in the theater proper with modern overhead fixtures, which cast even light on his museum. The original sconces still glowed on the walls. Ray followed Bodine over to one of the brass Victorian-era display cases. A space heater next to it put a small dent in the chill. The glass lid of the case was raised. It bore the sign: Lost Love.

  Ray couldn’t help himself. He laughed.

  Bodine asked, “What?” But he was ensconced in his work, removing invisible dust with a tiny feather duster. Ray looked over his shoulder, though he knew the contents well. They were meticulously arranged: the mildewed wedding dress of a bride jilted at the altar in its shroud of desiccated cellophane; a stack of “Dear John” letters, senders and sendees long dead; a wheel of Enovid birth control pills from the first year they were issued, 1960, never used, turned to powder in their plastic coffin. Flanking these items on either side down the length of the cabinet was Ray’s contribution to this part of the collection: a pair of nun’s gravestones.

  Bodine finished and looked up with a sigh of satisfaction. He raised an eyebrow a millimeter, his way of shouting. “Speaking of love, if I’m not mistaken you just got laid.” Now a tiny frown. “By a hyena? Because though you have the vibe, you do not look happy. Put upon, even. Who was this creature?”

  “Liz.”

  Bodine didn’t mince words. “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: No sex with your ex. That’s worse than Googling her. Lost love, indeed.”

  Ray winced at that terrible word “ex.” Liz wasn’t an ex. They were just separated. Bodine was only enjoying one of his many adages about exes. You needed a bunch if you had as many former lovers as he did.

  Bodine twisted the knife. “So, was it a pity fuck, or does she want something?”

  Pity fuck. He winced. “She wants something. My part of the mortgage on the house.”

  “Uh-oh. How far behind are you?”

  “Five months. Far enough that I don’t have a prayer of getting it. She’s demanding all of it, or she’s going to sell.”

  “Well, you are fucked. If you pardon the expression.”

  Ray
glared at him, and they both laughed.

  Bodine said, “Before we get to your mess, how about a little curatorial advice?”

  “Sure.” Ray smiled. Advice almost always flowed from Bodine to Ray, and he relished the rare exceptions.

  He followed Bodine to the newest case at the end of the third row. The sign on the glass said, Outmoded Media. A box of old type, Teletype, and mimeograph machines, carbon paper, Wite-Out, floppy discs, eight-track, cassette, and VHS tapes. A turntable and a parlor radio. An answering machine. An abacus.

  Ray said, “Cool. What’s the problem?”

  “The case is crammed, and I’m just getting started.”

  “The way things are going with technology—no thanks to guys like you, need I remind you—you’ll have to turn this category into its own museum.”

  Bodine said, “That’s what I thought. Damn. It’s hard work putting order to a chaotic universe.”

  “But you are the man to do it.” Ray scratched his chin. “You could always edit. The eight-track and cassette are redundant, so you could lose one.”

  Bodine frowned.

  “The abacus is a little precious.”

  Bodine scowled.

  “You’re in love with your creation. Which—trust me—beats hating it.”

  Bodine rolled his eyes.

  “You’ll figure it out.”

  His friend took a breath. “So…your problem. Does it require coffee…or beer?”

  “It’s almost five, but…coffee.”

  “I don’t have a fancy machine.”

  “Which is a good thing.” They’d come up in the pre-latte times, when coffee was simple.

  Bodine headed up. Ray said, “I’ll meet you upstairs. I need a little museum time.”

  Ray loved museums—the Metropolitan in New York, and all the great ones he’d seen with Liz when she took him to Europe. There were no Rembrandts here, but that didn’t stop him from enjoying the sweet whiff of decay, the sight of yellowing papers in a still room.

  He peered into the case titled Lost Dreams. It had just seemed like trash until Bodine explained the contexts of the items: cereal box coupons, cut out and ready to redeem, for products long discontinued by companies out of business; unused airline tickets on BOAC and Pan Am. A bag of losing lottery stubs, tickets to Woodstock, never redeemed when the fences came down. Now as Ray looked, he felt a bittersweet tide rise in him from the great ocean at the bottom of his heart.

  He heard his friend upstairs. He clicked the downstairs lights off as he climbed to the office.

  Bodine handed him a steaming cup and they sat. “How’s that writing going?”

  Ray snorted. “As well as everything else. What’s that got to do with anything?

  “Hear me out. As long as we’ve been hanging out you’ve been making art, and before that, music. I’ve known plenty of starving painters and deadbeat musicians. But you always make a living at it.”

  “Except this year.”

  “Because you stopped doing it! You can’t expect anyone to pay you to sit around and mope.”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “Hold on. I’m almost there. You made money playing guitar and making those spookola sculptures of yours. You can make money…writing.”

  Ray stood and went over to one of the old projector slots and stared down on the cases hunched in the gloom. “Aw, come on. I don’t know shit about the writing business. And I’ve barely started.”

  “Unh-uh. You wrote song lyrics back in the day. And I’ll bet you your art skills translate.”

  “A literary career takes time. As in forever, if the writers I know are any indication.”

  “True.” Bodine was silent. “Unless you find a shortcut. A leg up.”

  Ray turned and looked at Bodine. “Knowing somebody in the business? Well, I don’t.”

  “Neither do I…but hold on.”

  Bodine moved from his swivel chair over to the old pump action theater organ. Before they were born, it had accompanied silent films downstairs. He pumped his feet on the treadles. A faint squeaking and rush of air as the instrument built up a head of steam.

  Ray stared into the dark theater. Bodine’s idea was a ridiculous long shot. More like a pipe dream, and Bodine hadn’t smoked weed in years.

  Ray was startled by the sudden sound of the organ. Bodine stabbed out the three most famous chords in rock and roll. He sang, “Uh Louie Lou-eye, oh baby yeah, me gotta go…yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah….” He stopped playing.

  Ray grinned. “Haven’t heard that in forever! What a great, shitty song. You know it’s the five minor that makes it rock.”

  “That it does.”

  “So?”

  “I’ll give you a hint. Alton Road.”

  “That shithole!”

  “You say it so fondly.”

  “Lou. Of course. What was his last name?”

  “Goldman.”

  “The writer.” He’d been one of the assorted hangers-on who lived or crashed in the first band house, along with an army of cockroaches. Before the record deal. Before Susan. “With the glasses.”

  Bodine laughed. “Those terrible tortoise-shell jobs nobody in their right-hip mind would get caught dead in. Only one of the twenty-seven reasons that no matter how long he grew that fur on his head, he was never going to be remotely with it.”

  “You think he’s still writing?”

  “He’s doing something. Because another of those twenty-seven reasons was that he was always hitting it.”

  “Hitting that fucking typewriter in the room off the kitchen.”

  “No matter how early you dragged your ass out of bed, he was already working. Guys like that who have a dream generally end up living it.”

  “How’d he earn the moniker Louie Lou-eye?”

  “How’d I get from Bob to Bodine? Ask the fucking hippies.”

  They laughed.

  Bodine said, “He was a hardcore fan. Remember him in that basement?”

  Ray had been happily riding a wave of nostalgia. He blanched. Freezing cold, an endless expanse of bricks to lay, and more to go. “Lou was never there. And we didn’t practice after…”

  Bodine said, “No, not that basement! The one at Alton Road.”

  Ray recovered. “The smell down there. What was that?”

  “Mold, plus sewer gas? Fuck if I know. Incense didn’t knock it down much, either.”

  “It took dedication to practice down there. But we hung in there.”

  “Until it flooded.”

  Ray said, “And poor Bassman….”

  “Lost his amp. His Fender Bassman.”

  “Which is how he got his name.”

  “He never did have much luck with basements.”

  Ray glared at him. “This isn’t like you, tripping down nostalgia lane.”

  “I’m not. I’m trying to help you out.”

  “How?”

  “For all we know, Lou is a famous writer.” Bodine was still punching out the chords to the song.

  Ray said, “Will you stop that?”

  Bodine stopped.

  “Even if he is, so what?”

  “So he has an agent.”

  “It’s been too long. I barely remember him.”

  “But I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten you. Your guitar.”

  “Oh. Right.” It had been the time of the Guitar gods, and in their scene Ray was the reigning deity. Writers were the heroes of their parents’ generation, which was one of those twenty-seven reasons Lou was so unhip.

  Bodine said, “Lou worshipped the ground you strutted on. Wished he’d been born with the gift for music, but he was tone-deaf. I’m going to Google him.”

  Ray flinched, but Bodine was walking to the computer and didn’t notice. Google again. What if L
ou was dead too? Strangled with a typewriter ribbon or lung cancer? He had been a terrible smoker.

  Bodine muttered, “L-o-u, or L-e-w-i-s? Real estate. Trust law. Ah. Check this out.”

  Ray came over and leaned down and peered at the screen as Bodine read. “Lou Goldman Associates, New York literary agency.” He clicked on the link and laughed. “Look at the logo.”

  The header of the home page was a big pair of tortoise-shell glasses.

  Bodine said, “This is him. And he’s turned those nerd specs into the signature of his brand. Which proves my rule—anything stays around long enough, it becomes hip. Look at Tony Bennett.”

  “Tony’s never going to be hip in my book.”

  Bodine rattled off some writer names from the agency’s roster. He said, “You know this isn’t my scene, but even I have heard of some of these cats.” He clicked on a tab, “Lou Goldman – Author.”

  Novel published in 1978. Articles in The Atlantic, Time Magazine, New Yorker.

  A sheet-music icon: “Song Lyrics.”

  Lyricist for several notable bands.

  Ray looked at Bodine. “The Resentments? The Conniptions? You ever hear of them?”

  “Can’t say that I have. Which is good. He’s still a wannabe musician, and his attempts to get into music didn’t go anywhere. You can use that. Come on, you must have some of the old hustle in you.”

  “So, what? I just call him up?”

  “You just call him up.”

  Ray got up to leave. Mingus hopped up from his bed. Bodine nodded at the dog. “He needs to go out. I’ll come with you.” He leashed Mingus up and followed Ray out into the alley.

  Bodine said, “Still cold as a bastard. But at least it’s sunny.” Following some mysterious canine logic, Mingus tugged Bodine around the yard, sniffing. A truck rumbled past the theater. Mingus eyed it but didn’t bark. Went back to sniffing. Bodine addressed the dog, “If you’re just going to fart around, we’re going back inside. My ass is starting to freeze off. Five more minutes.”

  Ray admired the last light of the sun. His artist’s eye had strong opinions, and they didn’t apply only to shop displays on Warren Street. Sights evoked in him a wide spectrum of emotion, all the way from awe down through a narrow band of indifference to visceral disgust.