From the Corner of His Eye (51 page)

Initially, Helen Greenbaum, at Greenbaum Gallery, had taken on three canvases, and had sold them within a month. She took four more, then another three when two of the four moved quickly. By the time that she’d placed ten pieces with collectors, Helen decided to include Celestina in a show of six new artists. And now, already, she had a show of her own.

Her first year at college, she had hoped only to be able one day to earn a living as an illustrator for magazines or on the staff of an advertising agency. A career in the fine arts, of course, was every painter’s fantasy, the full freedom to explore her talent; but she would have been grateful for the realization of a much humbler dream. Now, she was just twenty-three, and the world hung before her like a ripe plum, and she seemed able to reach high enough to pluck it off the branch.

Sometimes Celestina marveled at how intimately and inextricably the tendrils of tragedy and joy were intertwined in the vine of life. Sorrow was often the root of future joy, and joy could be the seed of sorrow yet to come. The layered patterns in the vine were so complex, so enrapturing in their lush detail and so fearsome in their wild inevitability, that she could fill uncountable canvases, through many lifetimes as an artist, striving to capture the enigmatic nature of existence, in all its beauty dark and bright, and in the end merely suggest the palest shadow of its mystery.

And the irony of ironies: With her talent deepening to a degree that she had never dared hope it would, with collectors responding to her vision to an extent she had never imagined possible, with her goals already exceeded, and with great vistas of possibility opening before her, she would throw it all away with some regret but with no bitterness if required to choose between art and Angel, for the child had proved to be the greater blessing. Phimie was gone, but Phimie’s spirit fed and watered her sister’s life, bringing forth a great abundance.

“Here we are,” said the driver, braking to a stop at the curb in front of the gallery.

Her hands shook as she counted out the fare and the tip from her wallet. “I’m scared sick. Maybe you should just take me right back home.”

Turning around in his seat, watching with amusement as Celestina fumbled nervously with the currency, the cabbie said, “You’re not scared, not you. Sitting back there so silent most all the way, you weren’t thinking about being famous. You were thinking about that girl of yours.”

“Pretty much.”

“I know you, kid. You can handle anything from here on, whether it’s a sold-out show or it’s not, whether you’re going to be famous or just another nobody.”

“You must be thinking of someone else,” she said, pushing a wad of bills into his hand. “Me, I’m a jellyfish in high heels.”

The driver shook his head. “I knew everything anyone would need to know about you when I heard you ask your kid what would happen if the stupid boogeyman showed up in her dream.”

“She’s had this nightmare lately.”

“And even in her dreams, you’re determined to be there for her. There was a boogeyman, I have no doubt you would kick his hairy ass, and he wouldn’t come around again, ever. So you just go in this gallery, impress the hell out of the hoity-toity types, take their money, and get famous.”

Perhaps because Celestina was her father’s daughter, with his faith in humanity, she was always deeply moved by the kindnesses of strangers and saw in them the shape of a greater grace. “Does your wife know what a lucky woman she is?”

“If I had a wife, she wouldn’t feel too lucky. I’m not of the persuasion that wants a wife, dear.”

“So is there a man in your life?”

“Same one for eighteen years.”

“Eighteen years. Then he must know how lucky he is.”

“I make sure to tell him at least twice a day.”

She got out of the cab and stood on the sidewalk in front of the gallery, her legs as shaky as those of a newborn colt.

The announcement poster seemed enormous, huge, far bigger than she remembered it, crazily-recklessly large. By its very size, it challenged critics to be cruel, dared the fates to celebrate her triumph by shaking the city to ruin right now, in the quake of the century. She wished Helen Greenbaum had opted, instead, for a few lines of type on an index card, taped to the glass.

At the sight of her photograph, she felt herself flush. She hoped none of the pedestrians passing between her and the gallery would look from the photo to her face and recognize her. What had she been thinking? The sequined and tasseled hat of fame was too gaudy for her; she was a minister’s daughter, from Spruce Hills, Oregon, more comfortable in a baseball cap.

Two of her largest and best paintings were in the show windows, dramatically lighted. They were dazzling. They were dreadful. They were beautiful. They were hideous.

This show was hopeless, disastrous, stupid, foolish, painful, lovely, wonderful, glorious, sweet.

It could only be made better by the presence of her parents. They had planned to fly down to San Francisco this morning, but late yesterday, a parishioner and close friend had died. A minister and his wife sometimes had duties to the flock that superseded all else.

She read aloud the name of the exhibition, “This Momentous Day.”

She took a deep breath. She lifted her head, straightened her shoulders, and went inside, where a new life waited for her.

Chapter 66

JUNIOR CAIN WANDERED
among the Philistines, in the gray land of conformity, seeking one—just one!—refreshingly repellent canvas, finding only images that welcomed and even charmed, yearning for
real
art and the vicious emotional whirlpool of despair and disgust that it evoked, finding instead only themes of uplift and images of hope, surrounded by people who seemed to like everything from the paintings to the canapés to the cold January night, people who probably hadn’t spent even one day of their lives brooding about the inevitability of nuclear annihilation before the end of this decade, people who smiled too much to be genuine intellectuals, and he felt more alone and threatened than eyeless Samson chained in Gaza.

He hadn’t intended to enter the gallery. No one in his usual circles would attend this show, unless in such a state of chemically altered consciousness that they wouldn’t be able to recall the event in the morning, so he wasn’t likely to be recognized or remembered. Yet it seemed unwise to risk being identified as a reception attendee if Celestina White’s little Bartholomew and maybe the artist herself were murdered later. The police, in their customary paranoia, might suspect a link between this affair and the killings, which would motivate them to seek out and question every guest.

Besides, he wasn’t on the Greenbaum Gallery customer list and didn’t have an invitation.

At those cutting-edge galleries where he attended receptions, no one got in without a printed invitation. And even with the authentic paper in hand, you might still be refused entry if you failed to pass the cool test. The criteria of cool were the same as at the current hottest dance clubs, and in fact the bouncers controlling the gate at the finest avant-garde galleries were those who worked the clubs.

Junior had walked along the big show windows, studying the two White paintings displayed to passersby, appalled by their beauty, when suddenly the door had opened and a gallery employee had invited him to come in. No printed invitation needed, no cool test to pass, no bouncers keeping the gate. Such easy accessibility served as proof, if you needed it, that this was not real art.

Caution discarded, Junior went inside, for the same reason that a dedicated opera aesthete might once a decade attend a country-music concert: to confirm the superiority of his taste and to be amused by what passed for music among the great unwashed. Some might call it slumming.

Celestina White was the center of attention, always surrounded by champagne-swilling, canapé-gobbling bourgeoisie who would have been shopping for paintings on velvet if they’d had less money.

To be fair, with her exceptional beauty, she would have been the center of attention even in a gathering of real artists. Junior had little chance of getting at Seraphim’s bastard boy without going through this woman and killing her as well; but if his luck held and he could eliminate Bartholomew without Celestina realizing who had done the deed, then he might yet have a chance to discover if she was as lubricious as her sister and if she was his heart mate.

Once he had toured the exhibition, managing not to shudder openly, he tried to hang out within hearing distance of Celestina White, but without appearing to be listening with special intensity.

He heard her explain that the title of the exhibition had been inspired by one of her father’s sermons, which aired on a nationally syndicated weekly radio program more than three years ago. This wasn’t a religious program, per se, but rather one concerned with a search for meaning in life; it usually broadcast interviews with contemporary philosophers as well as speeches by them, but from time to time featured a clergyman. Her father’s sermon received the greatest response from listeners of anything aired on the program in twenty years, and three weeks later, it was rerun by popular demand.

Recalling how the title of the exhibition had resonated with him when first he’d seen the gallery brochure, Junior felt certain now that a tape-recorded early draft of this sermon was the kinky “music” that accompanied his evening of passion with Seraphim. He couldn’t remember one word of it, let alone any element that would have deeply moved a national radio audience, but this didn’t mean that he was shallow or incapable of being touched by philosophical speculations. He’d been so distracted by the erotic perfection of Seraphim’s young body and so busy jumping her that he wouldn’t have remembered a word, either, if Zedd himself had been sitting on the bed, discussing the human condition with his customary brilliance.

Most likely, Reverend White’s ramblings were as greasy with sentiment and oily with irrational optimism as were his daughter’s paintings, so Junior was in no hurry to learn the name of the radio program or to write for a transcript of the sermon.

He was about to go in search of the canapés when he half heard one of the guests mention Bartholomew to the reverend’s daughter. Only the name rang on his ear, not the words that surrounded it.

“Oh,” Celestina White replied, “yes, every day. I’m currently engaged on an entire series of works inspired by Bartholomew.”

These would no doubt be cloyingly sentimental paintings of the bastard boy, with impossibly large and limpid eyes, posed cutely with puppies and kittens, pictures better suited for cheap calendars than for gallery walls, and dangerous to the health of diabetics.

Nevertheless, Junior was thrilled to hear the name
Bartholomew,
and to know that the boy of whom Celestina spoke was the Bartholomew of Bartholomews, the menacing presence in his unremembered dream, the threat to his fortune and future that must be eliminated.

As he edged closer, to better hear the conversation, he became aware of someone staring at him. He looked up into anthracite eyes, into a gaze as sharp as that of any bird, set in the lean face of a thirty-something man thinner than a winter-starved crow.

Fifteen feet separated them, with guests intervening. Yet this stranger’s attention could have felt no more disturbingly intense to Junior if they had been alone in the room and but a foot apart.

More alarming still, he suddenly realized this was no stranger. The face looked familiar, and he sensed that he had seen it before in a disquieting context, although the man’s identity eluded him.

With a nervous twitch of his avian head and a wary frown, the watcher broke eye contact and slipped into the chattering crowd, lost as quickly as a slender sandpiper skittering among a herd of plump seagulls.

Just as the man turned away, Junior got a glimpse of what he wore under a London Fog raincoat. Between the lapels of the coat: a white shirt with a wing collar, a black bow tie, the suggestion of black-satin lapels like those on a tuxedo jacket.

A tune clinked off the keys of a phantom piano in Junior’s mind, “Someone to Watch over Me.” The hawk-eyed watcher was the pianist at the elegant hotel lounge where Junior had enjoyed dinner on his first night in San Francisco, and twice since.

Clearly, the musician recognized him, which seemed unlikely, even extraordinary, considering that they’d never spoken to each other, and considering that Junior must be only one of thousands of customers who had passed through that lounge in the past three years.

Odder yet, the pianist had studied him with a keen interest that was inexplicable, since they were essentially strangers. When caught staring, he’d appeared rattled, turning away quickly, eager to avoid further contact.

Junior had hoped not to be recognized by anyone at this affair. He regretted that he hadn’t stuck to his original plan, maintaining surveillance of the gallery from his parked car.

The musician’s behavior required explanation. After wending through the crowd, Junior located the man in front of a painting so egregiously beautiful that any connoisseur of
real
art could hardly resist the urge to slash the canvas to ribbons.

“I’ve enjoyed your music,” Junior said.

Startled, the pianist turned to face him—and backed off a step, as though his personal space had been too deeply invaded. “Oh, well, thank you, that’s kind. I love my work, you know, it’s so much fun it hardly qualifies as work at all. I’ve been playing the piano since I was six, and I was never one of those children who whined about having to take lessons. I simply couldn’t get enough.”

Either this chatterbox was at all times a babbling airhead or Junior particularly disconcerted him.

“What do you think of the exhibition,” Junior asked, taking one step toward the musician, crowding him.

Striving to appear casual, but obviously unnerved, the pencil-thin man backed off again. “The paintings are lovely, wonderful, I’m enormously impressed. I’m a friend of the artist’s, you know. She was a tenant of mine, I was her landlord during her early college years, in her salad days, a nice little studio apartment, before the baby. A lovely girl, I always knew she’d be a success, it was so apparent in even her earliest work. I just had to come tonight, even though a friend’s covering two of my four sets. I couldn’t miss this.”

Bad news. Having been identified by another guest put Junior at risk of later being tied to the killing; having been recognized by a close personal friend of Celestina White’s was even worse. It had become imperative now that he know why the pianist had been watching him from across the room with such intensity.

Once more crowding his quarry, Junior said, “I’m amazed you’d recognize me, since I haven’t been to the lounge often.”

The musician had no talent for deception. His hopping-hen eyes pecked at the nearest painting, at other guests, down at the floor, everywhere but directly at Junior, and a nerve twitched in his left cheek. “Well, I’m very good, you know, at faces, they stick with me, I don’t know why. Goodness knows, my memory is otherwise shot.”

Extending his hand, watching the pianist closely, Junior said, “My name’s Richard Gammoner.”

The musician’s eyes met Junior’s for an instant, widening with surprise. Obviously he knew that
Gammoner
was a lie. So he must be aware of Junior’s real identity.

Junior said, “I should know your name from the playbill at the lounge, but I’m as bad with names as you are good with faces.”

Hesitantly, the ivory tickler shook hands. “I’m…uh…I’m Ned Gnathic. Everyone calls me Neddy.”

Neddy favored a quick greeting, two curt pumps, but Junior held fast after the handshake was over. He didn’t grind the musician’s knuckles, nothing so crude, just held on pleasantly but firmly. His intention was to confuse and further rattle the man, taking advantage of his obvious dislike of having his personal space encroached upon, in the hope that Neddy would reveal why he’d been watching Junior so intently from across the room.

“I’ve always wanted to learn the piano myself,” Junior claimed, “but I guess you really have to start young.”

“Oh, no, it’s never too late.”

Visibly nonplussed by Junior’s blithe failure to terminate the handshake when the shaking stopped, the fussy Neddy didn’t want to be so rude as to yank his hand loose, or to cause a scene regardless of how small, but Junior, smiling and pretending to be as socially dense as concrete, failed to respond to a polite tug. So Neddy waited, allowing his hand to be held, and his face, previously as white as piano keys, brightened to a shade of pink that clashed with his red boutonniere.

“Do you give lessons?” Junior inquired.

“Me, oh, well, no, not really.”

“Money’s no object. I can afford whatever you’d like to charge. And I’d be a diligent student.”

“I’m sure you would be, yes, but I’m afraid I don’t have the patience to teach, I’m a performer, not an instructor. I suppose I could give you the name of a good teacher.”

Although Neddy had flushed to a rich primrose-pink, Junior still held his hand, crowding him, lowering his face even closer to the musician’s. “If you vouched for a teacher, I’d feel confident that I was in good hands, but I’d still much rather learn from you, Neddy. I really wish you would reconsider—”

His patience exhausted, the pianist wrenched his hand out of Junior’s grip. He glanced around nervously, certain that they must be the center of attention, but of course the reception guests were lost in their witless conversations, or they were gaga over the maudlin paintings, and no one was aware of this quiet little drama.

Glaring and red-faced, lowering his voice almost to a whisper, Neddy said, “I’m sorry, but you’ve got me all wrong. I’m not like Renee and you.”

For a moment, Junior drew a blank on
Renee.
Reluctantly, he trolled the past and fished up the painful memory: the gorgeous transvestite in the Chanel suit, heir or heiress to an industrial-valve fortune.

“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, you understand,” Neddy whispered with a sort of fierce conciliation, “but I’m not gay, and I’m not interested in teaching you the piano or anything else. Besides, after the stories Renee told about you, I can’t imagine why you think any friend of his…hers would get near you. You need help. Renee is what she is, but she’s not a bad person, she’s generous and she’s sweet. She doesn’t deserve to be beaten, abused, and…and all those horrible things you did. Excuse me.”

In a swirl of London Fog and righteous indignation, Neddy turned his back on Junior and drifted away through the nibbling, nattering crowd.

As though the blush were transmitted by a virus, Junior caught the primrose-pink contagion from the pianist.

Since Renee Vivi lived in the hotel, she probably considered the cocktail lounge to be her personal pickup spot.
Naturally,
people who worked the lounge knew her, were friendly with her. They would remember any man who accompanied the heiress to her penthouse.

Worse, the vengeful and vicious bitch—or bastard, whatever—evidently had made up vile stories about him, which on a slow evening she’d shared with Neddy, with the bartender, with anyone who would listen. The staff of the lounge believed Junior was a dangerous sadist. No doubt she had concocted other lurid stories, as well, charging him with everything from a degenerate interest in bodily wastes to the self-mutilation of his genitalia.