Art's Blood

by Vicki Lane

  Elizabeth opened her door and gingerly stepped into the water. Feeling slightly ridiculous, she slogged toward the fire escape that led to the blue door and Kyra’s studio. She examined the treacherous structure carefully before ascending, step by cautious step. The handrail, she noted, had been reattached with new bolts. Nonetheless, she tested each step before putting her weight on it.

  The blue door was slightly ajar and Elizabeth entered the dim interior of the building, wondering if she would be able to remember which turns to take. Hesitantly, she started down the hall to the left but soon realized that she was going the wrong way. There were no studios in this section, just vast rooms whose brick walls were pierced with large unglazed openings. The temperature had been steadily dropping since the rains of the night before, and a chill wind swept through the empty space, knocking an abandoned beer can off a window ledge and sending it rattling across the floor toward Elizabeth.

  The clatter was shockingly loud on the bare concrete, and she turned and quickly retraced her steps. “Exit hurriedly, pursued by a beer can,” she muttered as she saw the blue door ahead.

  As she continued on down the hall she began to feel on familiar ground. A door painted in a virulent green and bearing a notice that visitors would be severely taunted caught her attention. I remember that. And now the dog-training area should be right ahead and Kyra’s studio is just a little way beyond that.

  The glossy red door was open wide but there was no sign of Kyra. The combination lock hung crookedly from the hasp, and within the room, lights were on and a CD player in the corner was dispensing some variety of loud atonal music.

  “Kyra?” Elizabeth peered into the long room, wondering if Kyra could be somewhere out of sight amid the stacks of canvases and supplies in the back half of the studio. “Are you here?”

  The front part of the room where the works for sale had hung was stripped bare; the only remaining objects were the table with its green brocade cover and the television and VCR on a stand by the door. Okay, so maybe Kyra and Ben and Aidan are taking a load of stuff somewhere and will be back soon. Elizabeth hesitated a moment, then made for the place where the unfinished mixed-media piece had been. The one she didn’t want us looking at. I’m pretty sure it’s based on that entelechy sketch and I’m almost positive it means something.

  It was there, still on the big easel. The support was a large piece of masonite— about five feet tall and more than a yard wide— and it had been covered with thick paint— maybe some plaster?—and embellished with painted images, as well as actual objects embedded in the surface medium. Six arches were shaped in the impasto within the rectangle— the first in the lower left corner, followed by the rest in a curving progression that swept to the top center of the piece. A fantastic bird with golden plumage and outspread wings dominated the remaining space, its flowing tail and extended pinions of gilded emerald and amethyst partially obscuring the arches. The bird’s eye glowed jade green and its long beak was open in a silent triumphant call. Behind and below the bird, long tongues of flame formed a rhythmic pattern.

  It’s the phoenix— the bird that’s reborn from the flames. Does Kyra see herself that way? I guess so, after the fire that destroyed their house…. But she set the fire…a self-made phoenix.

  Elizabeth moved closer to study the first arch. Painted on the smooth space within the curve was an old-fashioned wooden cradle on rockers. It was turned on its side, revealing an empty interior.

  The second arch framed a black vase in heavy relief, its swelling side marred by a crack from which red liquid oozed. The flowers in the broken vase were roses of the deepest black-red, their heads drooping in death. Elizabeth shuddered and continued her examination of the piece.

  The swirls and corrugations of paint that formed the black vase seemed to glitter in one spot. Elizabeth pulled the heavy easel around slightly to catch the light from the window. Yes, there was something deeply embedded in the black paint— bits of mirror perhaps, or a piece of costume jewelry.

  She touched the sparkling shape. The paint and the thick plaster were dry and she closed her eyes, trying to let her fingers read the shape of the semi-concealed object. It could be a rose— or just something free-form. I guess it would be really wrong of me to scrape at it.

  Two red cowboy boots were the focus of the third arch. One stood, while the other lay on its side. Okay, so that’s for Boz. And the vase of roses is for her mother. So does that mean this is about the losses she’s had to overcome?

  Elizabeth looked back at the empty cradle in the first arch. Is it possible she remembers that adopted brother who just disappeared out of her life? Her father said she was five…. I can still remember things that happened when I was five…not many, but surely you’d remember a thing like a disappearing brother.

  The fourth arch was puzzling. It contained what looked like a skewed oval mask of white and green. The eyeholes, I guess they’re eyeholes, were squeezed together in the middle of the oval. The left side was round, while the other was a triangle pointing to the right. Vertical purple stripes bisected each opening and a broad line slashed through the mask, if it is a mask. Within the line were embedded greenish-brown, fernlike leaves and little yellowish buttonlike objects.

  “Dried tansy!” Elizabeth exclaimed, happy to have found something familiar. She leaned in close and could just make out the familiar mintlike aroma. But what’s the point? And is this a mask or what?

  In arch five Kyra had repeated the dead-flowers-in-a-vase theme, but this time the vase was silver and the withered blooms were calla lilies. Her great-grandmother, obviously. But why did she paint a branch of apple blossoms in the background? A closer look revealed long sharp thorns on the branch. No, that’s not right, apple trees don’t have thorns— that’s hawthorn. But why?

  At first she thought that the sixth and final arch was empty, but as she moved to the side to study the work from a different angle, the light caught the arch’s interior and revealed a smaller phoenix— a ghostly mirror image of the other, incised on the smooth surface.

  The unpleasant music was still playing and still too loud. Elizabeth decided that, as she seemed to be alone, she would turn it down or possibly off. She began to edge out from behind the big easel, trying not to touch the areas of the piece that appeared to be still wet. A movement caught her eye, and she had a glimpse of a shadow in the doorway. Then the red door swung firmly shut.

  “Kyra! Wait, I’m in here!” She made for the door, banging into the brocade-covered table in her haste. Grabbing the knob, she pulled, but the door moved no more than a quarter of an inch. Evidently, the combination lock was securing the hasp. “Hey!” she shouted, rattling and pounding on the door. “Hey, I’m in here! Kyra!”

  She realized that the music was louder than she was. Quickly she yanked the plug out of the wall and continued to shout, expecting at any moment to hear rapid footsteps hurrying to her rescue.

  When she stopped to listen, she could sense rather than hear someone standing at the door. “Hey!” she said, more quietly this time. “Could you let me out, please?”

  There was no answer as soft footfalls retreated, diminishing into silence.

  CHAPTER 34

  THE MASK THAT WASN’T

  (FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30)

  AFTER A FEW MINUTES OF BANGING FRUITLESSLY on the door and shouting imprecations toward the silent hall, Elizabeth turned to the row of tall windows. They overlooked a desolate area, populated only by a few abandoned vehicles, rusting amid the weeds. Discarded plastic bags hung and shimmied like tattered ghosts in the scrubby sumacs that dotted the field in random clumps. There was no one in sight to call to, nor was there any sign that this wasteland was visited regularly.

  She pushed open the metal-framed window and leaned out. This was only a two-story building— jumping would probably not kill her. But it was an old industrial building with soaring ceilings, more like two and a half stories. She reconsidered— How far is it?—even as she realized that
only the direst of threats could send her out that window. A jump would inevitably break bones, at the very least.

  Abandoning the windows, she willed herself to calmness, opened one of the folding lawn chairs that was leaning against the wall, and sat down to consider her situation. Who? was the first question. Who locked me in?Was that Kyra out there? Did she see me snooping and decide to teach me a lesson? Or was it someone else— maybe the person responsible for Boz’s death?

  She remembered Aidan’s bitter remarks about his childhood. Was his anger somehow related to all this and was it now directed at her?

  Or is it all Kyra? I know she faked the corncrib incident; Phillip thinks she set the fire; her great-grandmother hinted that she had set other fires. And her father admits— no, insists she’s disturbed. But why would she have killed her mother? Or was her mother’s death what sent her off the deep end?

  Okay, so maybe Rose’s death was related to Marvin’s past, as everyone assumes. Set that aside: why would Kyra want to kill Boz?

  And how could she have gotten that big hulking guy into the car in the crusher in the first place? The answer presented itself immediately. Of course, that drug Phillip mentioned— Ro-something. Oh god.

  She stood and walked over to try the door again, hoping irrationally that it would open. She hammered at the unyielding metal surface and called out but quickly abandoned the frustrating enterprise.

  Think, Elizabeth. Surely you can think of something. Scenarios from long-forgotten books and movies assailed her busy mind. Find a pointed tool and scrape at the mortar in the bricks till you can loosen enough to crawl through the hole into the next room. Didn’t Jack and Stephen do that in one of the O’Brian books? Or was that The Count of Monte Cristo? And if that room also has a locked door, what then? You idiot, it would take days! Anyway, someone will come along soon…won’t they?

  She inspected the door hinges. Could I maybe lift the door off? She knew it was possible, had watched a friend do it when locked out of her house. But that had been a small, light, wooden door. This one was large and made of metal. Furthermore, the hinges were obscured by many coats of paint. Still, it was worth a try.

  She rummaged through the odds and ends piled in the back of the room, hoping for a hammer and a screwdriver, but neither was to be found. A canvas-stretching tool seemed to offer some possibility as a hammer, and she picked up a sturdy-looking artist’s brush to take the place of the screwdriver. Returning to the door, she positioned her implements as she had seen her friend do and tried to tap out the long pin that held the door to the frame.

  The brush’s wooden shaft splintered on her second blow. “Shit!” said Elizabeth and returned to sifting through the clutter of Kyra’s studio.

  She pounced on a pair of long scissors lying in a box of fabric scraps. At least they were metal and pointed. A weapon of sorts, if it came to that. She dug through the fabric— are there sheets in here? I could tie them together and use that to get down to the ground…. I guess I could…. But the scraps were only small bits of lightweight material, totally unsuited for knotting to one another. Glancing again at the distance to the ground, she felt relieved.

  At the end of her diligent search she had assembled a pathetic collection of potential weapons and/or useful objects on the brocade-covered table: the scissors, a palette knife, the stretching tool (Bang, bang, Maxwell’s silver hammer, she thought, imagining herself holding off an assailant with the ridiculous object). The cut-crystal vase was still there, its pathetic bouquet of dead roses dropping petals on the cloth, a nasty concentration of greenish water at the vase’s bottom. The Swiss Army knife from her purse and a can of fluorescent paint completed the array. She had picked up the paint can, vaguely remembering some far-fetched scene employing a spray can of some sort as an explosive device. She looked over this unpromising assembly and sank into the chair, shaking her head at her foolishness.

  If you had just done like Ben and Laurel suggested last year and had gotten a cell phone, you’d be out of here already.

  As she sat there wondering what to do, she heard indistinct sounds in the hallway. It seemed to be the same soft footsteps that had ignored her pleas before, so she didn’t move. The footsteps stopped before the door and then there was no sound but the rushing of blood in her ears.

  Catching sight of the can of paint, she had a sudden inspiration. She took the can and went to the door, calling out in a loud voice, “Open the door, please!” Hammering on the door to make as much noise as possible, she used her other hand to shake the can vigorously, then dropped to her knees and sent a jet of bright acid green fluorescent paint under the door. There was a muffled exclamation and the unknown lurker retreated as before.

  When I get out of this place, I’ll know them by their shoes. The thought was not comforting. Whenever that is. If they’re still around. And then what, Elizabeth? What exactly would you do?

  Stricken by an overwhelming sensation of helplessness, she tossed the now empty spray can across the room. It hit the wall and let out a brief flatulent hiss and a last green dribble. At a loss for what to do next, she snatched up the power control that sat atop the television set, pointed it at the glossy red rectangle of the door, and intoned, “Open Sesame.”

  The door didn’t move, but the TV screen lit up and a homemade video began to play, resuming soundlessly in midtape.

  “Oh my god…” Elizabeth stood transfixed as the scenes faded rapidly one into another. The settings changed, as did the actors, with the exception of one. The plot stayed the same: Kyra, naked and entwined with Boz, with Aidan, with several other unidentified men, and then with Ben. “Oh my god. I don’t need to see this.”

  Elizabeth raised the control to switch off the power but at that moment the X-rated scenes were replaced by the most innocuous of home movie shots: Kyra and Lily Gordon drinking tea and smiling at each other, Marvin Peterson and Kimmie, his arm around her and both of them beaming proudly at a tiny object that Kimmie held out to the camera. The shot zoomed in to reveal a little green and white plastic oblong, pinched gingerly in her fingers. There were two little openings near the center, each displaying a vertical purple line. “It’s the mask in the picture. But it’s not a mask; it must be the pregnancy test— Kimmie said that her test had two purple stripes— oh shit!”

  CHAPTER 35

  PERFORMANCE PIECE

  (FRIDAY NIGHT, SEPTEMBER 30)

  THE SCENES SHIFTED BACK. AT FIRST ELIZABETH thought that the tape was a loop and that she was seeing the same shots of Kyra and her various lovers, but then she realized that the settings were different. Here were Kyra and Boz in the gutted interior of a car. Kyra was naked but Boz was wearing a black shirt and trousers. He had a bottle of what looked like vodka in one hand and was attempting to undo his zipper with the other. He was obviously very drunk, but he drained the bottle he was holding and reached out for the one Kyra offered him.

  He raised the bottle to the camera, which had evidently been propped on the dashboard of the car, and his red boot came up and knocked the camera askew. The picture now showed a shot of the passenger-side window. Just beyond the window was a dark wall. Elizabeth wound back the tape, then paused it. Yes, a solid wall could be seen a little way beyond the rear window, as well as beyond the driver’s-side window. She had no doubt that not only was she seeing the interior of the car Boz had died in, she was also seeing the events that immediately preceded his death.

  “That’s how she did it,” Elizabeth whispered. “Probably suggested that the car Rafiq had left in the crusher would be an artistic spot to film another little ‘performance piece.’ But I seriously doubt if he was up to performing. Another minute or so and he’d be passed out. And then she could shoot him, get herself out of the car, and turn on the crusher.”

  And if she’s capable of that, she could… She realized that she had to get out, to call Phillip. Ben’s truck wasn’t here but where was Ben? The thought of her nephew as the next victim staggered her for a moment, the
n she felt herself caught up by a wave of adrenaline. She scanned the room once again, seeking inspiration. The light from the windows was growing dim. Once it was dark, escape would be that much more difficult. Her eyes fell on the scissors and on the sturdy brocade covering the table and puddling on the floor.

  Ten minutes of dogged sawing and hacking reduced the once beautiful pale green brocade to a pile of wide strips. Elizabeth began knotting the lengths together— right over left and under, left over right and under— using the square knot learned forty-some years ago to tie her yellow Girl Scout scarf.

  When all the strips had been joined, she tossed one end of the improvised rope out the window and wrapped the other around the upright between two of the windows. She gave the mooring a dubious look and took another turn, tying it off in a ragged series of square knots till the farther end of the rope dangled above the ground—how far above, she couldn’t judge.

  Slowly and deliberately she clambered up onto the windowsill. Her hands were damp with sweat but the brocade rope was reassuringly rough and solid-feeling. A downward look made her dizzy and set her head to swimming. Oh, shit. I don’t know if I can do this. What if the knots don’t hold? What if I lose my hold on the rope? What if—

  The agonizing train of suppositions was cut short by the sight of a trickle of clear liquid oozing into the room under the door. The trickle became a stream; the stream became a flood. Her nostrils were assailed by the choking fumes of gasoline and she began to cough. The sudden rasp of a match on a box erased all doubts from her mind.

  As the tide of inflammable liquid surged toward the window wall, Elizabeth thought she glimpsed a flicker of blue flame near the door. Cursing…praying…she didn’t know which, Elizabeth grasped the knotted strips of brocade and stood up.

  Again…and again…and yet again, the scratching of a match. Her eyes were watering and she realized that she was growing light-headed from the fumes.