Death Revokes The Offer

by Catharine Bramkamp

He looked up and saw my warm cheeks. Damn!

  “You paid thirty dollars for this? You were ripped off.”

  I jerked my hand away. “Just look at the bathroom will you?”

  “Yes ma’am.” He grinned making me doubt, for just a second that he was a complete hick. Mind you, contractors are not stupid people. Or at least the ones I engage are not stupid people. But they aren’t exactly Opera buffs either.

  He pushed his bulk into the narrow bathroom door surveyed the situation and came back out.

  “Need a step ladder.”

  He retrieved same from his truck parked outside and set it up.

  “What do you think?” I called in.

  “It’s pulled away quite a bit, I think I may just have to replace it.”

  “Great, how much is that going to cost?”

  “Just a minute.”

  I heard the ominous sounds of tearing and pulling, nails squealing in protest. Dust billowed out from under the door. Oh that’s right, sheet rock dust gets into everything. Hillary would not be pleased, but then I don’t think anything pleases Hillary.

  The sounds continued for another minute or two then there was silence. Silence is bad.

  “Oh my God.” He said from behind the closed door.

  “What? Termites, dry rot?? Damn the pest reports were clear!”

  “No, I think you should take a look at this,”

  “There isn’t enough room in there for the both of us.” I declared.

  “Give it the old college try anyway. By the way, where did you go to school? UC?”

  “Chico State.”

  “Sorority?”

  “Of course.”

  “I was a GDI.”

  God Damn Independent. The category wasn’t a great one when planning a theme party, but my sorority sisters claim that GDI’s make far better husbands than frat men. Maybe better presidents as well. I wouldn’t know.

  “Of course you were.” Maybe not the perfect man after all. But then again, I wasn’t exactly running into them at events like last night’s dinner.

  I waited another minute for more dust to settle, and then cautiously opened the door and entered the bath.

  Half of the wall next to the toilet had been torn off. My little devil friend was covered in sheet rock dust so he was now a little white devil, no amount of white wash could turn him into an angel. Mr. Stone was covered in sheet rock, his hair was now grey, and it didn’t look too bad on him. He moved aside, backing into the pedestal sink so I could see. The wall behind the sheetrock looked dark.

  The wall behind the sheetrock? I squinted trying to see through the thick dust. “Is that a painting?”

  “Yup.”

  “There’s a painting behind the sheet rock.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Considering what’s hanging in the guest room, I’m surprised he found something necessary to hide.” It was so bizarre that I didn’t even have a reaction. Someone hid a painting in the bathroom? Give me a break, and the devil masks in the living room come to life and sing every night, like in Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion.

  “It doesn’t make all that much sense,” he conceded. “But would you like me to pull it out?”

  “You may as well.” I backed out of the bathroom, brushing up against him and getting dust all over my jacket. Fine, another cleaning bill, I’d charge it to escrow.

  While Mr. Stone wrestled out the painting, I took down the open house signs and stashed them in my car. It was a little early, but guaranteed no one would walk into our project. When I returned, he had pulled the painting out into the kitchen and leaned it against the counter.

  He gingerly wiped off the dust with a thick paintbrush.

  “What is it?” I asked. My feet slid on the thick layer of dust on the tile. Damn, I’d have to call in a cleaning crew, again. This listing was costing me something every day, I shuddered to think of what Ben Stone, Rock Solid Service charged for a Sunday afternoon visit, but that was the least of my concerns.

  “It looks like it was part of a series. See how the edges just stop with no definition? They were meant to continue onto another piece.”

  I thought about the angry Jesus upstairs. “Then where’s the rest?”

  He shook his head, scattering more dust into the air. “Not in the bathroom, there was just enough room for this. The place is pretty torn up.”

  “I’d like to hire you to fix it.” I said, avoiding his eyes. The figures emerged from his paintbrush in brilliant almost psychedelic colors.

  At the top of the painting were three large women dominated by an angry man who hovered over them like some kind of god, or dictator. Each woman held something, a bunch of flowers, a shaft of wheat and a hand full of strawberries. The angry man (what was it with Mortimer and angry men?) was twisting a river of water between his hands so there was no water flowing towards the women.

  There was always water issues in California.

  “It looks like the murals in Coit Tower. I mean, the style.” I amended. There wouldn’t be something like this in Coit tower, not on public display. Maybe I understood more about Mortimer than I thought.

  I gazed at the figures; the background was a riot of jumbled icons representing facets of California living.

  Wouldn’t put it on public display.

  “I wonder who the angry man is.”

  Mr. Stone finished sweeping most of the dust from the painting and grunted as he rose. Ah ha, he’s human!

  He looked at the large male figure at the top of the painting. “I don’t know, I don’t know my Mexican/Californian history in the forties. Lots going on though.”

  “Enough to need to hide this?” I asked out loud.

  “Maybe. Look.”

  He gestured to another male face in the left hand corner of the painting.

  “Is that?”

  “F.D.R., yes. The war was probably just heating up, even if this was in the late 30s, not a great time to denigrate the president.”

  “Or maybe an excellent time.” I murmured.

  Stone looked at me, one eyebrow raised. Art, as a gesture of insurrection. Dangerous art. Art for the people. I never thought about it like that before.

  Maybe I should consider buying something that has more meaning than just fruit for the space over my couch.

  “Do you have someone to call to get an estimate on this?” He dusted the paintbrush on his jeans and placed it back into a huge toolbox.

  “No, and I need to have the other work in the house appraised as well.”

  He nodded. “I can help, if you’d like.”

  “I’d like.”

  Oh crap, how did that sound? Needy? Professional? Nope, I think needy wins. I needed to get away from his gravitational pull. I was inexplicably drawn to him. I wanted to move closer to him, rub up against his messy jeans, as if I was one of Carrie’s lost cats.

  “I’ll see about getting someone here tomorrow. Does that work for you?”

  “Tomorrow?” That didn’t give me much time to get ready – change my nail polish, touch up my roots, buy a new wardrobe, lose 79 pounds.

  “Tomorrow would be great!”

  Tomorrow was too soon, and not soon enough.

  The bastard didn’t even ask me to dinner.

  Chapter 4

  We compared calendars and scheduled to meet back at the house Monday morning at 9:00 AM, which is a little too early. I usually don’t schedule meetings until 10:00.

  I dragged out of bed, still pissed off about eating dinner alone and dressed in the growing morning light, suffused with a heavy overcast of fog. I bound back my hair in a ponytail because between the weather and the time, there was no use in working on spectacular blow-dry effects, the effects will go limp within minutes of contact with the damp mist outside.

  With all the energy I could summon, I pulled out of the garage at 7:00 AM, swung by Starbucks, lost precious minutes while idling the car in line, silently cursing people who – at this hour – were not sure what th
ey wanted to drink. I knew what they wanted to drink. They wanted a Grande mocha with a shot of hazelnut. I finally picked up my order, gunned the engine and hit the traffic on 101 that was – dead stopped.

  Really, stopped. Actually, through the miracle of modern life, I wasn’t completely stopped; my car magically inched forward without me even applying the gas. Just the brake. And with that lock step, I stopped, started all the way down to Marin.

  Cal-Trans does a pretty good job keeping the roadside clear. I had a chance to admire their work up close, at five miles per hour.

  My grande mocha with a shot of hazelnut didn’t last long enough to entertain me. The radio morning shows are not only inane but the station signal faded in and out while I slowly crawled through high gold hills (gold from the dry grass, but we don’t call it dead brown grass color, nope, we call the hills “golden”) of Sonoma County, and I lost most stations entirely as I inched through Novato which I often attribute to some weird atmospheric problem, sometimes I just blame my mother, but not today. It was a very long two hours, but at least the drivers were fairly polite, except for the self-satisfied snobs swooping by in the commute lane – must they look so smug?

  And why don’t drivers of Jaguars convertibles look happy? I’d be happy if I could afford a Jag. I’d be ecstatic. Every day I’d hop into that fabulous car and think – yes, I could have put a down payment on a house instead, but look at this car! And look at everyone looking at me in this car. And I am one hundred percent certain that a Jaguar makes a girl look 37 pounds thinner, and so yes, I’d be snotty about it as well. But here they were, the privileged Jag drivers zipping past me, and every driver looked stressed – as if the lease payments on the ultimate dream were actually more than they bargained for.

  Ben was already parked in the driveway when I arrived.

  “Hi.” I trilled cheerfully. I danced a bit while opening the lock box. I shoved the key into the new lock and dashed upstairs to the master bathroom.

  All that from one grande mocha with a shot of hazelnut. My life is not in balance. Maybe I should have skipped the extra shot of flavor.

  Ben followed at a more leisurely pace.

  “I called the Executive Director of The Lost Works Museum in San Francisco.” He announced as I walked down the curved stairway, newly dignified. I trailed my hand elegantly along the banister and got a handful of sheet rock dust for my trouble.

  He was dressed casually in a red polo shirt that looked like it mopped up a Clorox spill, and faded jeans that fit him rather perfectly. He was gorgeous; his hair was still damp so I felt better about my own habits.

  “The Lost Works. A new experience in art.” I quoted. I carefully held my dirty hands away from my DKNY taupe suit and rinsed them off in the kitchen sink. “I found information on that museum in Mr. Smith’s mail the other day.”

  “He’s meeting us here at ten.” Mr. Ben Stone said.

  “Ten o’clock today?” I was impressed. “How did you get him here on such short notice?”

  Ben shuffled in the dust. “He had an opening and was excited about the painting. That’s what they specialize in, recovering works that had been ‘Lost.’” he made semaphores with his long fingers.

  “Lost?”

  “Are you familiar with that mural in LA that was recently uncovered? The artist created a picture that for some, was an insult to the US. The Los Angeles authorities thought it would be bad for city morale so they plastered over the work in serene politically neutral white. Restorers and the one of the art directors for the Getty, just unearthed it after, what, fifty years or so? From what I remember from the article, the mural look an awful lot like this one.” He nodded towards the big board in the kitchen.

  The piece in the kitchen didn’t belong in the kitchen. Oh, in a pinch I could lean it against the far wall and arrange the spindly kitchen table and chairs in front of it. I could buy three kitchen towels and four place mats in the same colors as the flower covered dresses on the three women in the painting to pull the whole color scheme together, but it would take quite a bit of expertise to turn this particular work into an actual design element.

  It would have to go.

  “Maybe he could evaluate the other pieces here too.” I said.

  “What other pieces?”

  I reached into the lower drawer in the kitchen and pulled out the masks and set then on the counter.

  He let out a low whistle and gingerly touched the beard of one of them. “Thai, this is beautiful.”

  “It’s scary.” I didn’t pull out anything more. We needed to clean up some of the mess before our lost work expert arrived.

  I gingerly swept away most of the grit and dust from the kitchen working harder not to dirty my pumps – Gucci – than cleaning the floors. Ben, dressed for more vigorous work, easily broke up the torn sheet rock and stuffed the pieces into the tiny garbage can on the side of the house. What he couldn’t get into the can, he stacked next to the recycling bin. We closed the door on the now denuded half bath and I declared that was good for now.

  By 10:00 the overcast was lighter indicating that morning was somewhere around the corner.

  Our man pulled up in a Toyota Corona painted a conservative blue. The executive director, a Mr. Fischer, Ben told me, was dressed in a blue blazer and khaki slacks, his version of Marin casual. As usual for the majority of the male population I encounter, Mr. Fischer was smaller than me by about 100 pounds. Any trouble, and I could take him

  But there was no need. He was not the sort who would need “taking.”

  “Hello,” I greeted him as if I were the lady of the house. “I’m Allison Little.”

  He nodded and offered me a limp hand to touch. His grip reflected his name. I released my hand as quickly as I could.

  Mr. Fischer cautiously walked past me down the hallway. He evaluated each step as if avoiding land minds embedded under the rugs. He held in his arms and legs stiffly as if there was a sheen of toxic containments on every surface and he did not dare come in casual contact with anything.

  The only reason for his behavior that I could think of was that he wanted to avoid getting white dust on his blue blazer. Or he was one of those odd people who are always worrying about germs and he didn’t want to touch anything unnecessarily.

  Or the place was really a mess. I squinted at the walls, was there a layer of sheet rock dust covering the walls? Would I have to hire a cleaning crew for the walls as well?

  I decided I felt better if I excused his fastidiousness rather than blaming the condition of my listing.

  “I’m Ben Stone.” Ben’s voice echoed in the kitchen emphasizing the silence. Well, this will be a long painful visit. I steeled myself and followed our director into the kitchen. Mr. Fischer – did he have a first name? – nodded politely at Ben but didn’t offer the dead fish that passed for his handshake. He crept towards the painting, as if inextricably pulled against his will.

  “Ahhh.” He let out a sigh, he straightened and he reached out and almost touched the smooth paint.

  “Where did you find this?” He demanded.

  Stone was momentarily taken aback by the change in Mr. Fischer’s tone.

  “The basement.” I quickly supplied. I don’t know why I didn’t want to say the bathroom, perhaps because it sounded so preposterous.

  Stone glanced at me, and I shrugged in response.

  “This is real.” Mr. Fischer stated. He ran his hand lightly over the smooth paint. “My father is more an expert in 1930’s Chicano art, of course, but he couldn’t make it today. He’d like to see this.”

  “Your father?” I asked

  “How much is this worth?” Ben asked right on top of me so Mr. Fischer didn’t hear my question. Or he ignored it.

  “Oh,” Mr. Fischer leaned back and squinted, not a pretentious squint, I see those all the time, this was a knowledgeable squint, born of dozens of years in the field. I recognize those too.

  “Rough? I’d say about $300,000 not much more than
that. These are rising in value of course, and Guerra is notable for his association with Rivera, see the lines in the water? The way the front face of FDR is turned, very Rivera like, not Rivera of course, that would be more valuable. Are you selling this?” He asked.

  “We don’t know yet, “ I said. “The children will have to consider the sale, but are you interested if they are?”

  He shook his head, his expression changed from one of authority back to the timid man. “We don’t have it in the budget.”

  Finished with his abrupt evaluation, he stepped away from the painting he couldn’t have and glanced around the kitchen. At my encouragement he fingered the masks but wasn’t particularly enthusiastic. I gave up engaging him in conversation and allowed him to be pulled, as I was, to the view out the back. He hesitated before entering the back patio, as if not sure of the steps or the sliding glass door. He hadn’t been here before; he wasn’t comfortable in the place.

  I had to consider all possibilities. This director could have entered the house as an invited guest, to view the art work, and instead, shot Mr. Smith so he could get the painting for the museum on the cheap. But even as I thought it through, it was ridiculous. This milk toast of a gentleman did not kill poor Mr. Smith. Mr. Fischer reminded me of those tiny men in cartoons who are constantly victimized by their large dominating wives. I wondered what Mr. Fischer’s wife was like.

  “Lovely view.” I couldn’t help calling out.

  Mr. Fischer paused on the patio, his back to us. His shoulders were tense under the blue blazer. I could see that from where I stood, yards away.

  “Mr. Fischer.” Ben said. “Is there anything else you can tell us?”

  “Since this is a piece of three.” Mr. Fischer sighed and came in from the view. “I don’t know how many private collectors would be interested. Many are donating these works to museums from their private collections already. Now, I am authorized to accept this as a donation.” he said. “But it’s not in the budget to buy, we just completed a capital campaign to finish up our new museum building. “ He said with some satisfaction. A smile actually hovered over his mouth, but didn’t quite land.