A Little Trouble with the Facts (22 page)

We go upstairs, find Curtis, and shut the office door. Kamal confesses everything, from the plan for “the action” conceived at the Wallace memorial to the names of his accomplices: RIF, BANG, TRK and N/R. “Stain had the Art Crime Posse, so we called ourselves the Rebel Art Posse,” he tells us. “I don’t like
that lady dealer. My uncle told me she took his paintings without paying, and that’s not right. I wanted to get her back.” He looks from us to his mother, who is very slowly shaking her head and clutching her purse like a string of rosaries.

“I thought you weren’t into graffiti,” I say. “I thought you wanted to be another kind of writer.”

“Yeah,” he says. “But journalists are liars.”

I take that a little personally. But I can’t exactly blame him. “You didn’t have to destroy priceless paintings,” I say.

Kamal waves his hands in the air. “No, no. That’s just the thing. We had no idea those paintings were important like that.” His bottom lip starts to quiver. “I was pretty surprised when my moms said they were from a museum. I mean, they were all just white. I thought they were planning on putting something else up there.”

I’ve got to smile. “But what about the guard?”

“No guard. It was like the place was wide open, anyway. I swear, we didn’t mean to ruin anyone’s art,” Kamal says quickly. He’s been waiting to say it for days. “It was just, you know, to make a point that the lady dealer didn’t own my uncle’s art work. I’m really sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

Amenia’s eyes track from her son to Curtis and back. “Prince would never have done anything like this before Malcolm passed,” she says. “That man used to look out for him, make sure he didn’t get into trouble. Without Malcolm, I think he’s all mixed up. I want him to take responsibility for his actions, but I’m worried about going to the police. You can understand. They aren’t always sympathetic to poor black children. And Prince is a child, but he looks much older.” She glances at me. “We also wanted to make sure the story got out right. We want to make sure Kamal doesn’t look like some thug.”

Curtis thinks it over for a while, turning from right to left in his swivel chair. He glances at the map on the wall, then at me,
then up at the ceiling. Amenia watches his face and Kamal looks up at me from under those angelic eyelashes.

“Okay,” Curtis says, finally. “I’m going to give you the best deal I can clear. If you give us everything you’ve got, and if you let us use some quotes from Kamal and if we can secure some comments from the other writers, we can help you. First, we run the story. Then tomorrow, when the paper hits the newsstands, before the cops send out a goon squad, I’ll personally walk you and Kamal Prince into One Police Plaza to submit his written confession. I’ll stay with you through the processing, and keep an eye on you in case anything goes awry.”

Amenia looks like a few thousand skyscrapers have been lifted off her back. We walk the two of them to the elevator and outside the fortress. I doubt anyone we pass in the hall would finger this kid as a vandal.

“So, any chance I could help redeem your faith in journalism?” I ask Kamal out on the street. The air has cooled a little, but it’s a bright sunny day.

“Maybe documentaries,” he says. “I’ve been using the camera for man-on-the-streets.”

I look at Amenia and at Curtis. “That’s good. Maybe it’s a better future for you than all this graffiti stuff, huh?”

“I’m done with that,” says Kamal.

Amenia’s eyes cloud. “You said it. Now I just hope you remember it.” She shakes both our hands, Curtis’s especially. “Thanks for being so understanding. Thanks for setting the record straight. We’ll see you early tomorrow.”

Curtis and I press the final keystroke on the Darla story at 5:00 p.m. While the backfield editors are taking a look at our three-thousand-word opus, we head to Jimmy’s Corner and order a couple rounds. “You’re a real hardboiled news hawk now,” says Curtis. “You’ve earned the right to drink your bourbon neat.”

I drink my bourbon and think of all the rough-and-tumble newsmen who have rolled through this spot in the last thirty years. Did they nurse their beers to the same Billie Holiday on the juke? On the walls and mirrors are tacked thirty years’ worth of boxing memorabilia. I wonder, too, through the dusty light in the smoked-out mirrors did they, same as me, love being surrounded by the ghosts of prizefighters?

We head back to the office for round after round of editing. The backfield hands it off to Battinger, and she runs it by Moore and Lessey for vetting, and then Battinger goes over it once again with a fine-tooth comb. From there, the copy editors coax and prod it into standard style, fact-checking every inch, then a page one editors meeting takes a whack. Finally, around 11:30, just before the section goes to bed, Battinger has her mitts on the final version.

She has only one question: “So, Valerie Vane, are you sure you want to continue your career with this ridiculous Style-girl byline?”

T
here on A-1, below the fold, 2,624 words, with a two-page jump and four pix:

Curtis and I still hadn’t nailed down the cause of his death. Instead of writing a reason, this time, we’d done a classic vague-out: “mysterious death,” “circumstances unclear,” “early suggestion of suicide,” “still puzzling police.” No one seemed worried about it. All they wanted was more Wallace. The fact that he was both recently deceased and newly famous made him a hot ticket. By midafternoon, representatives from Sotheby’s and Christie’s and a handful of private art dealers had called the office to find out who was handling his estate. Curtis was down at the district attorney’s office with Amenia and Kamal, so I told these callers to try back later.

Meanwhile, I sat in my cube in Obits and received my kudos. Clint Westwood came around and shook my hand. Randy Antillo stopped by to say, “That’s pretty cool, Val. Really cool. You know, when I was fifteen, that guy was like, my idol. I remember a few months ago when he was downtown at that rally…” Rusty Markowitz gave me a thumbs-up from across the room. Jaime signed me up for a few new advancers.

By noon, I was pretty puffed up with praise, just enough to feel like I could float out the door. Jaime told me I might as well take the rest of the afternoon off—“and hell, take tomorrow off too. It’s summer, and I’m feeling generous,” he said. “We’ll get started on new work on Monday.” I was packing up my death faxes when Buzz Phipps’s BMW face parked in front of my cube. “Can we still call it the Valerie Treatment?” he asked. “Even with your new byline?”

“Sure,” I said. “Nobody’s ever calling me Sunburst out loud.”

“Whatever we call her, this girl I’m looking at is on to bigger and better things,” he said. “I’m proud of you. If you’ve ever got Style ideas, just run them by me so I can shoot them down.”

“Sure.” I smiled. “Definitely.”

Buzz flashed his expensive teeth and left. I was standing up to make my exit when the phone rang. I took my purse instead.
But when I was almost past Rewrite, the ringleted clerk cried, “Valerie Vane, call on line four.” I backed up to Randy Antillo’s empty desk and, still standing, picked up the receiver. “Obits,” I said. “Vane.”

“Vane? I thought it was S. R. Miller now. Or can I just call you Sunburst Rhapsody?” His voice made my legs go weak. I sat down in Randy’s chair.

“Jeremiah.”

“Congratulations, sweetheart. I always knew you’d end up back on top.” His voice was hoarse.

“What do you want, Jeremiah?”

“Nothing, Val. I just wanted to say hello and to congratulate you. To see how things are going. Maybe you’ve read in the tabloids, things are over between Angelica and me.”

“Heard about that. I’m sorry for you.”

“Don’t be. She didn’t mean anything to me. I made a big mistake. I should’ve stayed with you.”

“That’s a lovely sentiment, Jeremiah. But I’ve really got to go now. I’m meeting someone—”

“We’re both starting over now,” he said. “You with your new byline, me with my one-bedroom in Brooklyn Heights. I’ll be moving in a couple of weeks. You ever walk on the Brooklyn Promenade? My real estate agent says it’s beautiful in the mornings.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“What do you say? Could we take a stroll sometime, talk? Just like in the old days?”

I didn’t remember a single stroll we’d ever taken. I didn’t really remember seeing much of Jeremiah in daylight, and I definitely didn’t remember much talking. “I’m sorry about what happened with Angelica, Jeremiah. I guess it was partially my fault. I really regret everything I did that night. But I don’t think—”

He chuckled for no apparent reason. Maybe just to put me on edge. “Oh, I see. Everything’s swell for you now; you don’t need me, huh? Well, just don’t get too comfy with your good fortune. It’s amazing how quickly the floor can slip out from under you.”

I assumed he meant Angelica, or maybe just the bathroom floor. I was about to say something biting, something about how he didn’t have any right to talk to me about mistakes. But I didn’t have the heart.

“I wish you the best of everything,” I told him. “I’ve got to go now.” I hung up and headed quickly down the escape hatch to Queens. Cabeza was there at his studio waiting for me, two martini glasses in his hands.

Some mornings start slow. So slow you think there might be nothing to the day but morning. Nothing but the soft curve of a lover’s foot, the sleek hull of a sailing ship. No sound but the whir of the fan forming white caps on the sheets. No smell but the salty morning brine on his lips.

I lay thinking of the ceiling and nothing else. It had cracks. It was a pale, forgiving gray. Its mildew stains were cumulus clouds, puffy and shape shifting. At some point, I knew I’d have to get up. But for the moment, I drifted, and listened to Cabeza’s snore, a hush like waves crashing.

Later, when he was stirring, I woke and watched him move around the room. He was naked. Even though we’d been together, I felt strange watching. He had been a muscular man, a tough man, perhaps all his adult life. But there were signs of age in his body now. His torso, a classic V, was sunken slightly under his breastbone; the muscles in his calves and thighs were strong, but the skin under his hips had softened. He reminded me of a leading man just past his prime, trying to suck it in, hold his face at angles that wouldn’t reveal the emerging jowl. Robert Mit
chum in later life as an aging Marlowe in
Farewell, My Lovely
and the remake of
The Big Sleep
. For a moment, I felt sorry for him, and then I felt a rush of something I might call love. And then I didn’t want to be a spectator anymore. “Comeeer, baby,” I purred.

Some time later, the morning was still morning. And I was adrift again. The ceiling was forming new cracks, new clouds. His eyes opened and he turned over onto me, again finding my lips. “I can still taste the vermouth,” he said.

I got up, lazily, without wanting to. I still wasn’t thinking about anything. I was just sensing the room around me, feeling out the day. I looked for my clothes. I found my dress draped over the projector reel, one shoe inside a kitchen cabinet and another in the freezer. I closed the refrigerator and leaned against it, dreamily. There was something on my mind, swinging its legs like a kid on a fence. But I couldn’t figure out what it was. Then my cell phone was ringing.

It took a while to find my purse. It was in the bathroom sink. I recognized the incoming number as Curtis’s. “Hello there, partner,” I said. “I hope you’re enjoying all the praise.”

“No such luck,” he said, his voice all business.

“What’s the matter?”

“Sotheby’s announced a sale last night. A single owner sale. One of those celebrity auctions that attract big money. And who should be the seller but Jeremiah Sinclair Golden Jr., your exfiancé. The fax came in at six p.m., after we’d both left. Battinger checked back late, as she does sometimes, and picked it up from Rewrite. It turns out he’s putting a collection of fifty art works on the block, mostly Stain works, and a few other eighties artists. Good timing, it seems, since it will come on the heels of that retrospective in Germany. Battinger is having a fit. She wants to know how come we didn’t know about this. Or did we? It has to have been in the works for weeks, because they don’t just an
nounce a sale like this without first appraising the works, some preparation. She wants to talk to you, and not Monday.”

This was bad. Jeremiah’s art? Could this be why he’d phoned last night? Was there some message in his call I hadn’t deciphered? Is this what he’d meant about how the floor could shift?

“I honestly don’t know anything about that,” I said to Curtis. “I knew he was a collector.” We’d talked about it. It was out in the open. Curtis had thumb-tacked Jeremiah to the wall map, and then he’d put me on there too, with a line from one to the other. It had been a joke at the time, but now it wasn’t as funny.

“We thought he had maybe a dozen Stains. This is a whole lot more. I didn’t even know anyone owned that many. Where did he get them?”

“I have no idea.” I didn’t have any idea. But then my mind started ticking like a taxi meter. Could Jeremiah have been Darla’s buyer? The one who’d cleared out the warehouse stash? If so, how did he get the money? As far as I knew he was broke. Could Blondie have been wrong about Jeremiah’s reason for visiting the gallery? Could he have been there to buy, not sell? But how could he be buying all those pictures when Angelica was bleeding him? Unless, of course, he’d had a plan to turn them around fast.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” I said.

“Battinger will want to hear that from you. She doesn’t like the way it fits.”

“I don’t either.”

It was possible Jeremiah had bought those Stains from Darla with the intention of selling once something upped their value. But he would’ve had to be banking on a story. It didn’t tie together. How could I have been helping him if I hadn’t been in contact with him all this time?

Curtis’s voice softened. “Okay, just get in here soon.”

“I’m already there.” I rang off and held the phone in my hand,
looking at it. Something moved behind me. I flinched, but it was only Cabeza. He was standing in the door frame in his boxer shorts, holding a knife.

“Do you want onions in your eggs?” he said, casually.

I didn’t answer him right away. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can stay for eggs.”

He looked at the phone in my hand. “The office?”

“Yeah.”

“Claro.”
He smiled. “I guess that means you’re in demand now that you’re a big star.”

“You could say that.”

“I thought they’d given you the day off to bask in your success.”

“Something came up.”

“Too bad. I don’t mean to be selfish, but I was looking forward to lazing around for a while and having some brunch, maybe even going out to some galleries, talk about a little town called Woodstock.”

The mention of Woodstock suddenly made me queasy. “It is too bad. I’m sorry.” I went into the other room. I sat down on the bed, but got up just as quickly. There was something wrong with the way the sheets were straightened. There was something untrue about the pillows the way they were piled on one another. Looking around the studio, it seemed to me the furniture wasn’t set up right. As if it had been transported to this place and arranged, a little like a movie set. The cameras, the film reels on the table were just props.

I took a deep breath and told myself it was just the anxiety. Just the office. I was panicking because I was being accused, but I hadn’t done anything wrong. But once I made things clear, anyone would be able to see that I had nothing to do with Jeremiah’s sale. Why would I do anything that would benefit him, anyway? I hated the man. All I needed to do was put on my shoes, pick up
my purse, go into work, and say so. I tried to clear my head, to tell myself nothing was wrong, to not think about anything.

“Everything all right?” said Cabeza, leaning into the room.

“Sure,” I said, and he started to back into the kitchen again. Then I ran out of things to not think about. “I mean, well. No. I mean, I meant to ask you.” He stepped into the room with me, and I had to swallow air fast.

“What?”

“About the martini you gave me last night when I arrived. It was a Vanitini,” I paused, thinking of it. “How did you know the recipe?”