I
t’s great you could be here, Liz.” Kate leaned against the brick wall of the Sixth Precinct and fumbled in her bag for her Marlboros. She was happy to be out of the airless conference room.
“I’m in town, aren’t I? Might as well do some work. It was no big deal. Called in a few Quantico favors. But I’m not a field agent, Kate. I doubt they’re gonna let me sit in againand I don’t think Agent Grange appreciated my being here.”
“You see the way that guy looks at me?”
“That’s the way he looks at everybody. It’s part of the Bureau job descriptionparanoia and intimidation. Truthfully? I think he sort of likes you.”
“Oh, please. You’re delusional.”
“And don’t think I didn’t catch your little tricks, hand on his arm, the smile.”
“Hey, I’m desperate. The guy obviously wants me off the case.”
“It’s not up to him. Not unless the Bureau totally takes over,” said Liz. “And you’ve done good work. Finding the blue-striped bowl that Martini used as a model pretty much proves the guy did the painting.”
“But not the murder.” Kate struck a match and lit up. “There’s no motive. Martini was an artist his whole life, Liz, eking out a crummy living to support his painting.” Kate couldn’t believe she was finding excuses for the man the squad thought might have murdered her husband, but something in her gut was telling her they were looking for easy solutions. “I just don’t see it.”
“Could there be a connection between Richard and Martini? Richard collected art and the guy was a painter.”
“I’d have known if there was.” The question ticked off that damn year-old vision: Finding Richard’s cuff link at a crime scene, and how he had lied to her about it.
Would I have known?
“Richard was into blue-chip artists or young up-and-comers. Leonardo Martini was neither.” Kate dragged on her cigarette, stared up at the gray clouds, and sighed.
Liz rested her hand on Kate’s shoulder. “You okay?”
Kate turned on a too-bright smile. “Sure.”
“You don’t have to try so hard. It’s me, remember?”
“You want to take a walk or something?”
“Love to, but I promised my sister I’d watch the baby.” Liz kissed her cheek, started down the brown stone steps, then turned back. “And throw that damn cigarette away.”
Kate crushed the Marlboro under her heel and made a mental note to buy a box of Nicorette as she watched her friend disappear down the street.
Now what? Perlmutter needed a couple of hours to write up an old case before they were meeting at the copy shop where Leonardo Martini had worked.
Go home? That would only make her more tenseand lonely. She needed a break, and a place to think.
T
he New Museum of Contemporary Art, brainchild of a curator who had once worked at one of the big uptown museums, had, over its twenty-five-year life span, matured into a full-fledged institution, with its own set of curators, a history of ground-breaking exhibitions, and even a hip little bookstore.
Kate was still thinking about Leonardo Martini and the blue-striped bowl she’d found hidden in the tank of his toilet as she mounted the stairs to the museum’s second floor and spied the perfectly round, flesh-colored orb just slightly smaller than a bowling ball, magically suspended in a corner of the wall.
Kate read the wall label:
APPROXIMATELY FIFTEEN HUN
-
DRED PIECES OF CHEWED BUBBLE GUM
and smiled.
The artist, Tom Friedman, as literal sculpture-maker, thought Kate, only this time not working with clay or plaster, but with ordinary bubble gum, which he chewed, then molded. Odd, funny, and in its own way rather beautiful.
Kate smiled again when she observed a fluffy white mass hovering on the floor and noted it was made by separating a pillow’s stuffing strand by strand. Artists were constantly inventing and reinventing what art could be. It reminded Kate of Martini’s naked white canvas stripes, and the fact that she was certain he had painted the still life found at Richard’s crime scene.
But why?
No matter what Kate said, the squad now wanted to believe it was possible that Martini had painted all three paintings. She pictured Marty Grange and his ever-present agents, Marcusa, who never spoke, and Sobieski, a cocky crew cut, thinking they had their man. But they were grasping at straws. Kate was certain of it. Someone had paid Martini to paint that still life, which, to Kate’s mind, explained the five thousand dollars found under the starving artist’s mattress.
Kate was still considering Martini’s involvement as she approached a white pedestal with apparently nothing on it until she spotted the tiny brown sphere no bigger than a Tic Tac. This time, she did not have to read the wall text. She knew what it wasa perfectly molded piece of the artist’s shit. She’d seen a similar piece before, in a group exhibition, where a viewer, unaware that the pedestal had anything on it, used it as a seat, and when he stood up, the piece of shit had disappeared. Kate wondered at the time if it had somehow crawled into his pants to find a familiar home.
Kate laughed. She loved the idea of artists’ using unconventional materials. But that laughter was cut short when she thought about the Bronx psycho and his very unconventional approach to painting. Exactly what was it he was trying to convey?
Kate turned a corner, and there, on the floor, was a life-size figure made of colored construction paper, a self-portrait, the artist’s vision of himself splayed and torn apart, viscera exposed, in a pool of paper blood, a fantastic tour de force, amazing in its detail, and possibly, to some viewers, hilarious. But not to Kate, not now.
That was it. She’d had enough.
T
he Seventh Street Copy Shop was a long narrow alleyway; the whir and whine of a dozen Xerox machines going at once creating a din while two employees manned the machines, slipping reams of paper into them as if it were feeding time at the zoo.
At the front counter, a middle-aged woman with a portfolio under her arm was tapping her foot repeatedly, a teen clutching a batch of comic books loaded up with Post-its rapped his fingers along the edge of the counter, a young bookish-looking woman with a mountain of loose manuscript pages tried to balance the stack while checking her wristwatchnone of which had the slightest effect on the kid at the front desk, who moved at his own narcoleptic pace.
Nicky Perlmutter squeezed his massive frame between them, and they let loose with a collective assortment of scowls, frowns, and “There’s a line here…we’ve been waiting…” He placed his NYPD gold shield onto the counter, said“The owner here?”and they all shut up.
The counter kid did a slo-mo pivot and scanned the work area behind him. “Must be…in the…back room.” The words oozed out of him like unctuous tar. He might as well have been toking a reefer, he was so obviously stoned. Kate exchanged a look with Perlmutter, who turned back to the kid. “Here’s the plan,” he said. “Go get your boss and bring him here or we go back there and look for ourselves. You got thator is the weed making it a little hard for you to understand what I’m saying?”
The kid twitched, and picked up the phone.
A muscular young guy in jeans, muscle-T, and sunglasses emerged from a door at the back of the shop and strutted toward them, his heavy black boots adding a staccato beat to the clatter of the Xerox machines. He gave Perlmutter’s badge a cursory glance, folded his muscled arms across his inflated chest, and said, “Wassup?”
“Leonardo Martini,” said Kate. “He worked here?”
Mr. Muscle painted a sad clown face over his features and said, “Goddamn shame.”
“So you’ve heard,” said Kate.
“Was in the papers,” he said. “I shoulda’ known. It wasn’t like Leo to not show up, not call. He was a real conscientious guy.”
Kate strained to hear him over the racket. “Are you the owner here?”
“That’s me. Angelo Baldoni.”
“What’s with the shades?” asked Perlmutter.
He tilted his chin toward the bank of lights that covered most of the ceiling and bathed the room in a harsh blue-white glare. “Those damn neons, y’know, they bother the hell outta me.”
“Fluorescents,” said Kate.
“Whatever.” Baldoni shrugged.
“How long had Martini worked for you?” Perlmutter aped Baldoni’s pose, muscled arms folded across his broad chest.
“About two years, he”
“What?” Kate cupped her ear. “The machines. I can’tIs there somewhere else we can talk?”
Baldoni lifted a section of the counter, gestured for Kate and Perlmutter to follow him as he strutted past the Xerox machines and into a back room.
Two guys, late teens, maybe early twenties, both with cigarettes in their mouths, one dangling from the corner of his lips à la James Dean, the other blowing smoke rings, big boys like Baldoni, with that stayed-too-long-at-the-gym look, had their feet up on a long table littered with beer cans and ashtrays.
Baldoni nodded at the door and their heels hit the floor in unison. They cut out without a word.
“Sit,” said Baldoni. “Sorry about the mess.”
“They work here?” asked Perlmutter, eyeing the guys as they left. “Because if they knew Martini, I’d like to”
“No, no. They’re friends of mine is all. They couldn’t tell you anything about Leo.” He reached down and wrapped his fingers around a small barbell and started doing curls. “Leo hung by himself, far as I know. A loner, y’know. I didn’t know too much about his life. I didn’t even know the guy was a artist till I seen it in the paper.” He switched hands and continued curling. “Leo was a good worker, though. Here every day. Quiet as a mouse. Did whatever he was asked.”
“Such as?” asked Kate.
Baldoni stopped the barbell in mid-curl. “Huh?”
“Like what sorta things didja ask him t’do?” said Kate, slipping into her old Queen’s cadence. Perlmutter eyed her and tried not to smile.
“Copyin’, bindin’. What else is there?” Baldoni’s lips twisted away from his teeth; Kate wasn’t sure it qualified as a smile. “It’s a fuckin’ copy shop, right? Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend.”
“No fuckin’ problem,” said Kate, and they both laughed. “Hey, Angelo. Where you from?”
“Kissena Boulevard, Queens.”
“No way,” said Kate, with a flip of her hair. She was glad she’d worn it down and glad she’d worn a sweater. “Me, I’m from Astoria. Grew up on a Hundred Twenty-first.”
“No shit.” He pointed his barbell at her. “You know Johnny Rotelli?”
“Musta missed him,” said Kate, flashing a smile. “I’m guessin’ I’m a little older than you and your buds.”
“Lookin’ good, though.” Baldoni seemed to be assessing her from behind his shades. “You sure don’t look like no cop t’me.”
“What can I tell ya’,” said Kate. “When I was startin’ out there was no openings at the White House. That bitch Monica Lewinsky got my job.”
Angelo Baldoni hooted.
“So, uh, did Leo seem depressed to you?” asked Kate. “Any sign that he mighta been contemplating suicide?”
“Y’know, now that I think of it, he was real mopey.” He painted that sad clown face back on, mouth cast down, lower lip out, like a baby. “Guess I shoulda paid more attention, but, hey, I’m no shrink, y’know.” He plunked the barbell onto the floor.
“Of course not. How could you know?” Kate offered him a sympathetic look.
“Right. Like I said before, Leo was a loner, and I don’t pry. The guy was quiet as a mouse.”
“Hey, Nicky,” said Kate. “How’s your stomach doing? Still givin’ you trouble?”
“What?” Perlmutter’s face went blank.
Kate kicked him lightly under the table.
“Oh, yeah, my gut. It’s been killing me all day,” he said to Baldoni. “Think I ate something rotten.” He swallowed like he was ready to barf. “You have a john here?”
Baldoni lifted his chin toward a door in the corner. “Be my guest.”
Perlmutter hoofed over to the bathroom as if he were on a serious mission.
Kate waited till Perlmutter shut himself into the bathroom, then leaned in close to Baldoni. “You never know about those mousy guys,” she whispered. “Me? I tend to go for the strong silent type.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Do you really need those shades?”
Baldoni peeled them off, and blinked slowly. His eyes were deep blue fringed with thick lashes, a striking, almost feminine feature.
His secret weapon, thought Kate. Whip off the shades, bat the eyes, paralyze the girls. “Anyone ever tell you you’ve got beautiful eyes?”
Baldoni looked down like a shy little boy, then winked and put the shades back in place.
Kate tossed her hair like a forties movie star. “I’ve got this
thing,
for muscles.”
Baldoni flexed a biceps about the size of a cantaloupe.
“Amazing,” said Kate, and knew she was going to hate herself in the morning.
“Hey, I eat my Wheaties. Breakfast of champions.” He beamed a grin, took a deep breath and pumped up his pecs.
“Wow,” said Kate. “Was he any good?” Her fingertips grazed Baldoni’s rock-hard chest, as if by accident, as she pushed her hair away from her face.
“What? Who?”
“Leo? As a painter, I mean?”
“Didn’t look like anything t’me,” he said. “But what do I know? Modern art. It’s all horseshit, right?”
“Believe it,” said Kate, sitting back with a smile.
N
ice kick,” said Perlmutter, rubbing his ankle as they got into his Crown Victoria. “You just ruined my dancing career.”
“Sorry, but I wanted a moment alone with Mr. Baldoni.”
“And?” Perlmutter steered the car onto University Place.
“He didn’t know Martini was a painter, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, while you were in the bathroom he said Martini’s paintings didn’t look like much to him.”
“How’d you get that bit of info?”
“I’ve got my ways.”
“I’ll bet.” Perlmutter grinned. “I enjoyed your married-to-the-mob impersonation.”
“That was the
real
me,” said Kate. “I worked damn hard to lose it. Wake me in the middle of the night, I sound like Carmela Soprano.”