Arsenic and Old Paint

by Hailey Lind

  As she climbed out of the car, Destiny looked over at me. Call me crazy, but it looked like a plea for rescue.

  Not wanting the F-U cartel to think that I would just leave whenever they told me, I loitered outside the parking lot gates for a few minutes after McAdams had taken Destiny by the elbow and escorted her past the security guard.

  Yeah, boy. Guess I showed them, sticking around for all of five minutes.

  Ringing Nob Hill were several huge, 1960s-era apartment buildings. I remembered that Wesley told me he lived in one nearby, in an apartment with a view.

  I still had his card in the pocket of my satchel. Couldn’t hurt, right?

  The entrance was on Clay Street at Jones. My heart dropped when I was met by a uniformed doorman in the glass-fronted entryway.

  “I’m here to see Wesley Fleming. I’m a friend.”

  The doorman phoned upstairs and spoke for a moment.

  To my surprise, Wesley invited me up.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked as he flung open the door. “Come in, come in. I never get visitors here. This is a lovely surprise. Pardon the mess; what do they say at remodels at the airport? Pardon our dust? Quite literally in my case.”

  He wasn’t kidding. I guess if you’re a handyman without a garage, and you live by yourself, you make stuff wherever you darn well pleased. There were piles of wood scraps and small saws set up in what normally served as the living room area.

  The apartment boasted incredible views of the Bay Bridge, Alcatraz and Angel islands, Nob Hill to one side, and Chinatown straight down the hill. And it overlooked the vast clay tile roof of the F-U.

  “Great view,” I said. “You can see right down to the Fleming-Union.”

  “Yes, I know. I’ve seen some funny things over the years. Down there,” he pointed to the backyard of a house two doors down Jones, “lives a very old woman who still hangs her clothes out to dry herself. And I can see part of the Chinese New Year parade from here; I love the dragon, don’t you? And do you know, the brethren take such great care of the Fleming Mansion that they even wash the roof? There were some workers out there just last week, making sure everything is spic and span.”

  “They wash the roof?”

  “That’s what it looks like. They go out every once in a while with hoses. Maybe they’re cleaning out the gutters. A place like that keeps you up to your ears in maintenance—they’re forever caulking windows or repainting rooms. That’s why I like living in an apartment—it’s someone else’s headache.”

  I nodded, then gestured to his woodworking project. “What are you making?”

  “Bat houses.”

  “Houses for bats? I thought they lived in caves.”

  He laughed. “Oh, they do, they do. When they can. But in urban areas it’s hard for them to find refuge. Did you know, we’re losing almost forty percent of our bat population in the U.S. due to habitat loss? These boxes,” he hoisted a finished one up for me to see, “can be mounted on the sides of houses and apartment buildings, just anywhere.”

  It looked like the sort of flat, rectangular mailbox that was often attached to the side of a house, but the front was covered with closely placed slats. I tried to look in through the narrow openings.

  “Neat.”

  “Aren’t they, though? You mount them high on your exterior wall, near the roof. Can you think of anything cuter than having a little family of bats living right there under your eaves?”

  “Um...real cute.”

  As the words came out of my mouth I noticed the series of framed photos covering one entire wall of the living room. Bat portraits. I walked over to read the brass plaques that were attached at the bottom of each one: CLEOBATRA, BINKY, ROCKY BATBOA, STELLA, MINI-ME, a brown ball of fluff named STICKY.

  “I’ve adopted all those bats there,” Wesley explained. He gazed at them with a father’s adoration. “They’re at a bat rescue center in Tulsa. Those are my babies.”

  “Cute names. Why ‘Sticky’?”

  “He was rescued from flypaper.”

  “Flypaper catches bats?”

  “It can, depending on their size, and especially if they’re immature. Sticky was tiny when they found him. Poor little buddy.”

  “Is this what you do, you know, full time? Work for the bat cause?”

  “Pretty much. I’m lucky, I don’t really have to work for a living. Family fund, you know. If I watch my pennies, I can live off my interest. But I want to give something back to the world, obviously. This is my calling. Everyone should have a calling. I run a website for bat enthusiasts, and make bat houses to distribute, and try to educate people. There’s a lot of ignorance out there about bats.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “For instance, megachiroptera are usually called ‘megabats’ while microchiroptera are usually referred to as ‘microbats,’ but despite the name, megabats aren’t always larger than microbats. The main difference is that microbats use echolocation; they need it to help locate prey. Megabats mainly live off of fruit, pollen, and nectar, whereas microbats feed off of insects, blood, small mammals, and even fish sometimes.”

  “Blood? Like vampire bats?”

  He gave me a disgusted look.

  “Bats eat thousands of pounds of insects, you know. If not for bats, we’d all be eaten alive by mosquitoes. Think about that next time Count Dracula supposedly shape-shifts into a bat.”

  Good point. But I couldn’t help but wonder whether even the lowly mosquito had a defender somewhere, like Wesley, building wee larvae habitats for the little buddies.

  As I looked around I saw that Wesley’s place was, indeed, the bat-cave. Except for being on the ninth floor, that is. There were bat pictures and bat replicas and bat books and a lamp that looked like a bat. I read another name off another picture of a bat.

  “Is Bootsana Melonmouth a name or a type of bat?” I asked.

  Wesley laughed as though I had made a joke. “Good one. Hey, can I get you something to drink? I’ve got lemonade.”

  “That’d be great,” I said, trailing him into the small efficiency kitchen. “Could you tell me more about the tunnels you mentioned the other day? I was in Chinatown yesterday and it seems some people think there were tunnels there, too.”

  “You were talking about tunnels? To whom?”

  “Just some folks there. Friends of a friend.”

  “You shouldn’t really talk about that kind of thing.”

  “Why not?”

  He just shrugged, taking two tall glasses down from a glass-fronted cabinet.

  “Anyway, those were mostly coal chutes and sewer tunnels under Chinatown,” Wesley said. He filled the glasses from a large turquoise plastic pitcher. “They weren’t connected to the family tunnels.”

  “Family tunnels?”

  “Oh dear.” Wesley opened the freezer and pulled out an ice tray. “I always say too much.”

  “You can tell me, Wesley. What’s the big secret?”

  “The brethren don’t like me to talk about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know the details. There were some nasty things, in the past. You know, my great-grandfather built the place but he gave it to the club a long time ago. There were...events that...well, things have changed over the years. Values have changed.”

  “You think the club was involved in something bad in the past?”

  “No...but times have changed. There’s nothing like that now.”

  “I have to say, Wesley, except for you, I haven’t liked any of the Fleming-Union brethren I’ve met.”

  Wesley turned around to look at me, ice in hand.

  “Really? You’ve met them?”

  “A few. Pretty creepy if you ask me.”

  “They’re very powerful men. They own this city.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem. They say power corrupts.”

  Wesley, realizing the ice was melting in his hands, dropped the cubes into the glasses of lemonade. He set one in front o
f me. Seemingly lost in thought, he pushed his glasses up on his nose, leaving a drop of water that trailed down and hung on the end of his nose.

  “You’re not really a student, are you?” Wesley asked.

  “Not exactly,” I answered. “I’m actually an artist, if you can believe that.” I took a sip. “Good lemonade, thanks.”

  “Welcome.” Wesley said. “Why’s an artist asking all these questions?”

  “It’s pretty hard to explain. Something strange happened in the Fleming-Union just the other day, Wesley. Did you know someone died? Elijah Odibajian?”

  “Yes, I heard about that. He wasn’t really a member, he was just visiting. For a long time. But anyway, he died of natural causes.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “He looked terrible. He’d been getting sicker over the last couple of months. No one could figure out what was wrong with him, even though his brother, Balthazar, brought in one of the best doctors. Up from Stanford Medical Center.”

  “Do you remember the doctor’s name?”

  He shook his head. “No, but Balthazar said he wanted only the best for his brother.”

  Wesley steered the conversation back to the lives and times of bats while we finished our lemonade. Afterward, I asked to use the bathroom and Wesley pointed me down a short hallway. There were more bat icons lining the corridor, but what stopped me dead in my tracks was a glossy reproduction of Jacques Louis David’s Death of Marat, hanging on the wall right outside the apartment’s sole bedroom.

  “You like it?” Wesley asked, standing too close behind me.

  I jumped. “Oh, uh, yeah. Sure.”

  “It used to hang outside some of the guest rooms in the F-U. One of the brethren gave it to me just the other day. I don’t know why but I always liked it. Is that weird?”

  I looked closer at the reproduction. On the simple frame was a brass plaque: NATURE MORTE.

  “That means ‘still life,’ ” said Wesley.

  “I know. Why is it labeled that?”

  “I guess it’s the name of the painting.”

  “No it’s not.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Wesley, what does the Latin phrase on your card refer to?”

  “Oh, that’s the Fleming-Union motto.”

  “Do you know what it means?”

  “Yes.”

  When there was no more forthcoming, I urged him on. “Could you tell me what it means?”

  He looked wary and pushed up his glasses. “I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about it.”

  “It’s in Latin, Wesley, not Elvish. I’m sure it’s not meant to be a secret.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. The brethren always say I talk too much. I’d feel much better about it if you just asked someone else who knows Latin. Didn’t you need to use the bathroom?”

  I did. Wesley was waiting for me right outside the door when I emerged.

  “I’ll walk you out,” he said.

  Hanging on the elevator doors was a handwritten note scrawled on a piece of scratch-paper: OUT OF SERVICE.

  “Rats,” Wesley said. “Let’s take the freight elevator.”

  We let ourselves through a heavy metal fire door to a service corridor and waited at the freight elevator for another five minutes, but according to the numbered indicator, the lift never left the basement floor.

  “Well, this has never happened before,” Wesley said. “Good Lord. I guess we have to take the stairs. Good for our health, in any case, right?”

  We started down. At the first landing we came to a man in coveralls, caulking a small window.

  As we moved past him, he suddenly stuck his foot out, tripping Wesley and shoving him on the back.

  Wesley tumbled down the flight of stairs, falling to the next landing, limp and silent as a marionette whose strings had been cut.

  15

  Until the advent of the signature, art was created to be used: as public history for the illiterate; in magical invocations when calling for rain or game; as the focus of religious reflection. The creator of the piece was invisible, allowing the art to speak for itself. As soon as attribution became important—especially now that it is all-important—forgery followed. It seems to me a law of nature.

  —Georges LeFleur, “Craquelure”

  The man grabbed me from behind and yanked me back against his hard, muscled chest.

  I threw my head back into his chin and stomped on his instep, gratified by the grunt I heard. Still, his grasp only tightened, pulling my upper arms back so hard I felt like they would pull out of their sockets.

  Another man, in a ski mask, appeared in front of me. He slapped me, hard, across the face. Pain burst through my temple and cheekbone, sending more knife-edged shards of pain into my brain. He was speaking, but I couldn’t focus, couldn’t process the words. My sense of smell wasn’t affected, though; the man holding me stank of sweat and the same pungent cologne worn by the goon who held me in the F-U dining room.

  The ski-masked man slapped me again, across the other cheek. My ears rang, I tasted blood, and my cheeks felt on fire.

  “...hear me?” he yelled in my face.

  The guy holding me from behind leaned his head forward and bit me right on the fleshy part above my collarbone. The bite wasn’t hard enough to break the skin, but I could feel it bruising.

  “Yum,” he said.

  “You’re a sick fuck, you know that?” said the goon in the ski mask to the guy holding me, who just laughed.

  Ski Mask then held a knife to my throat. The shock of its sharp point brought everything into focus.

  “This is your only warning, get me?”

  I nodded vigorously, which made my head hurt. At that point I would have agreed to just about anything; all my concentration was focused on getting as far away from these men as possible.

  Ski Mask took my bag, shook it out, grabbed the cell phone, scrolled through numbers, then threw it down the stairwell. I could hear it crashing on the cement steps below. Then he took my wallet, my money. Even my change purse, and my cheap silver earrings.

  Then he descended the stairs and checked Wesley’s pockets as well. Wesley’s heavy glasses had been knocked into the corner; he tried to rouse himself, sputtering a protest, but after the goon showed him a fist he backed down.

  “It’s just terrible, someone getting mugged in such a nice building,” The Biter in coveralls rasped as he pushed me to my knees. “What’s the world coming to?”

  They ran.

  * * *

  Time in the emergency room is almost as bad as getting interrogated by the police, so I decided to skip it.

  I wanted Wesley to get his head looked at, but I was afraid my name would come up on the police scanner if I went with him. I used the lobby phone to call Mary—who was already out and about, running the errands I had sent her on—and asked her to accompany Wesley to the hospital.

  One of the things I love about my assistant is that she doesn’t ask a whole lot of questions. Wesley tried to protest that he didn’t need any help until he saw her, all six-feet-blonde of her. She was wearing a particularly see-through black outfit today.

  I slipped out before the police arrived, then limped on back to my truck and drove to the studio. Happily, Frank wasn’t in his office. I had already reneged on my promise to show up and annoy him yesterday; if he were here now I was afraid I would collapse into his arms and ask him to marry me and take me away from all this.

  I hurried into the bathroom to wash up.

  The mirror showed that both cheeks were bright red from the vicious slaps I had received, but I doubted there would be bruising. It would look like slight sunburn to anyone who didn’t know I’d been hit. Moving gingerly, I pulled the collar of Sam’s dress aside to see a reddish-blue bruise developing above my collarbone, in the crescent shape of teeth. The bite hadn’t broken the skin, and I knew a simple contusion wasn’t a serious injury, but it creeped me out. The pungent smell of that aftershave and
the weirdly intimate act of biting...ick.

  I brought out a bag of frozen peas I kept in the tiny freezer compartment of my studio mini-fridge—a trick I learned from my sister, Bonnie, when she was the first-aid go-to gal for her sons’ Little League team. Holding the peas to the bruise, I sat at my studio desk and started the rounds of phone calls to cancel my credit cards.

  Unfortunately, navigating voicemail loops and sitting on hold with bad music piped into my ears did not succeed in getting my thoughts off what had happened in that stairwell.

  Pedro had warned me. Frank had warned me. Even Odibajian himself had warned me. Was there anyone who hadn’t warned me? And yet I stood talking to Geoffrey McAdams right in front of the F-U, then proceeded directly to Wesley’s apartment. Those goons must have trailed me straight there from the club. Duh.

  Looked like somebody needed to go back to spy school. Or at least learn to skulk properly. At the very least: manage not to take innocent bystanders down with me.

  I felt terrible. Poor Wesley. He had been perfectly happy, just him and his bats, the monotony of his days interrupted by the occasional club function where he was no doubt teased and demeaned, but he still felt part of something historic and worthwhile...until Annie Kincaid, disaster on wheels, barged into his life.

  I powered up the computer and Googled “Chinatown tunnels.” There was a whole lot of information on the Broadway tube, and on Chinese-built tunnels in towns up and down the California gold trail. Fascinating. Still, the consensus was that tunnels under San Francisco were a myth. But I found a sole reference on a message board to a tunnel under a home on Nob Hill; the writer said his great-grandfather had lived in a mansion there, and that supposedly the tunnels really did exist. The man signed his name: The Batman. Wesley was a real subtle guy. At least it alleviated my guilt just a tad; even if I hadn’t led them to him, maybe the F-U boys would have gone after The Batman anyway. Surely they could use the Google search function if I could.

  While I was on the Internet, I looked up the painting most famous for juxtaposing nude females with fully dressed men. Edouard Manet’s Le déjeuner sur l’herbe, or “The Luncheon on the Grass” is a large painting currently hanging in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. I downloaded a copy and faxed it to Norm with a note: Does this look like the party you witnessed? Also, please ask Mauricio if he could save me a sample of the wallpaper he took from the Fleming Mansion, no matter how small. I’ll buy you both a beer.