Skyscape (43 page)

You learn to ignore everyone, her father had said. They are not friends, and they are not enemies. You see the chessboard, and what plays the game isn't you, not your desire to win, not your desire to avoid losing. What plays the game is the game—chess playing chess.

Margaret told the crowd what had happened.

She knew that he would turn up soon in Las Vegas or San Bernardino with a story of his own, a story everyone would prefer to Margaret's. You don't kill a man like Patterson with a paint-crusted knife.

She told the truth. And to her surprise, people believed it. Even their questions reassured her. How was Curtis feeling? What happened to the painting? What did she feel about Red Patterson now?

Margaret saw the power in being the first to escape the wilderness with the truth. Their loyalty to Patterson was thin. Patterson was absent. She was not. She told them that Curtis had been trusting and that Patterson had deceived them all.

She even began to feel a little sorry for Red Patterson as she spoke. These people didn't love him. They prized something else, the effervescence of the moment, the living, dying yeast of a name.

Bruno was just coming through the door with Andy after a delicious meal of
abbacchio
served in a casserole with anchovies, and just a modest splash of chianti. It was evening, and raining.

There might have been thunder, or it might have been a jumbo jet in the distance, it was hard to tell. The rain made the far-off sounds of Rome seem closer than ever, the motorcycles, the footsteps, the greetings of pedestrians, the tinkle of fork against plate as someone fed the cats in the street.

The phone was ringing.

Bruno listened to the voice, a television reporter in Los Angeles, a woman he knew slightly. He must have been out, she said; she had left three messages.

She talked, reading from a bulletin, the sort of pleasant voice Bruno associated with dental hygienists.

The news stunned Bruno, and he enjoyed the thrill. It was such a relief, in a horrible way. And Curtis, he asked, a little breathlessly? Was the artist still … And the painting?

Ah, well, the painting.

But even that was not undiluted disaster. Imagine the difficulty of saying something about a painting that had become not a masterpiece but something created by the contemporary worship of—

Jesus, maybe I'm going to end up looking like a fake, thought Bruno. Maybe they'll think I was in collusion with Red Patterson. He felt a little sick.

“What is it?” Andy was mouthing at him from where he stood, leaning next to a terra-cotta cherub.

“Nothing,” said Bruno.

Well, almost nothing. Curtis nearly starved to death, the painting destroyed, Red Patterson missing. “Turn on the television,” said Bruno. And he added, “Upstairs.”

“So we'll need a statement,” said the California voice.

Bruno wanted to tell a small lie, slip just a little pinkie ring onto the truth. He wanted to say that he expected this all along, and he was half convinced that he had. Hadn't he always despised Red Patterson?

“Patterson was able to help many people,” Bruno heard himself saying. “He was not an evil man.” Those past-tense verbs had a way of marching in, unexpectedly, jack-booted and final. “He was a man who believed in life. But he had life confused with himself.” He paused.

“That's your statement?” asked the L.A. voice.

“Margaret Darcy Newns is a brave woman,” said Bruno, sounding, he thought, both airy and solemn.

Good Lord, he didn't know where this stuff was coming from. He should have written something down and called her back.

“That's it?” said the voice from television, sounding just a little bit peeved.

And I, thought Bruno, am more like Red Patterson than I would like to be.

“In ancient times,” said Bruno, “when a Caesar was declared divine, people must have known that the individual emperor was not actually immortal, but they worshipped him anyway. Because we need to worship. We do it happily, instinctively, with very little hesitation. And why not?”

There was a mock-courteous pause. “If we could maybe backtrack just a little bit,” said the woman on the phone.

Bruno sat. It was really raining outside now. People ran up the street, laughing. He was struck by a thought that impressed him.

He tried it out. “Hasn't it occurred to you that I might have guessed this was happening?”

“You knew something was going on but you didn't tell any of the authorities?”

She didn't believe him. The woman owed everything to a nose-job and a B.A. in broadcasting from UCLA, and here she was doubting Bruno Kraft.

“What did you say happened to Dr. Patterson?” asked Bruno.

Margaret spent the night sitting beside Curtis, telling him stories to make him laugh, true stories, the memories of her girlhood, and it was like meeting Curtis all over again, but this time trusting herself the way she never had before.

Outside, the moon passed over the mountains. They could not see the moon, but only the light it cast, opening canyons and then closing them as the moon fell westward and the night lost its hold.

49

Sometimes the starling flew back and forth within the apartment, perching on the back of a chair. Margaret worried at such times that he would collide with the sliding glass door, or with one of the windows.

But over the months the bird escaped harm from the limits of his world, and he learned to imitate an ever-widening variety of sounds—motors, bells, distant calls of other birds. Sometimes the bird alighted on the bathroom sink before its own reflection, but the starling did not appear to notice the black, dappled image in the mirror.

Loretta Lee called occasionally from her new home on Catalina Island, where she spent time reading books she ordered by water taxi from the mainland, waiting for the past to die before she went on with her life.

“The trouble is, Bishop always kept secrets,” said Loretta Lee. “Now all he has to keep is himself. He'll be real good at that.”

“For some reason I'm not anxious,” said Margaret.

“I am,” said Loretta Lee.

“Why? He wouldn't hurt you when he had the chance.”

“I'm not thinking about me,” said Loretta Lee.

From time to time Margaret saw someone who looked like Bishop. The figure watched her as she entered Davies Hall for a concert, or as she took part in a panel on children's literature. At the end of a row of books at the library she'd see a compact figure edging behind a bookcase, stepping through the door to the reference room, where, when Margaret followed, there would be nothing but empty tables, the lights going off and on to signal it was time to close.

Police visited. A body had been discovered in the desert around Owl Springs, a half-remembered TV producer named Paul Angevin. Other bodies were discovered shortly afterward, two campers and their mini-pickup.

She received polite calls from reporters, sharing bits of news. The Range Rover had been found in San Jose. Bishop's sister, a tax accountant in Ukiah, said she had not heard from her brother in nine years. Margaret was to call if she had any idea where Bishop might be. There were many questions.

Margaret was never uneasy when she saw one of these men who might be Bishop. She was glad, and only after the man turned off into the crowd, into the haze at the end of the street, did she think that Bishop might be watching her, might be stalking her, might be waiting to do her harm.

It was hard for her to be afraid of anything, even though she and Curtis waited for word of Patterson. Margaret wanted to hurry away from the attractive chatter, the smiles, the business of coffee or champagne and find Bishop, and take his hand.

Curtis was troubled by dreams of confinement, and fretted over Patterson's fate. But he was not afraid any longer, and it struck Margaret that Patterson had helped Curtis in some way that defied understanding.

Red Patterson's plane was missing for eleven months.

One week before the opening of Curtis's new exhibit, Patterson's aircraft was discovered. There it was on the news, a crumpled pair of wings in the Nevada desert.

Margaret called to Curtis, but he could not hear her. She hurried to the hall and called again.

The televised view rocked slightly, as the helicopter that supported the camera jockeyed from one angle to another. Figures stood beside the wrecked plane, casting short, stumpy shadows.

There were no remains of Red Patterson.

Curtis sat on the sofa and said nothing.

“Maybe he made it out of the desert,” said Margaret.

He put his arm around her, and kissed her.

“It's possible,” she said, not quite believing it.

“That's not,” said Curtis, “what he wanted.”

“You wanted to think of him riding a horse on an island somewhere, snorkeling, looking at the tropical fish.”

“He helped me,” said Curtis. “You were right to hate the painting—but when I think of him working to finish it I understand something about him. I wish he could be alive, somewhere, and happy. I look off the balcony, and I half expect to see him.”

In the air, he meant. Walking in the air.

When she remembered the painting she could not see it clearly in her mind. What she saw when she woke with a start before dawn was not a work that disturbed her. What she saw was a painting of peculiar beauty surrendering itself to flame.

That was the night Bishop resurfaced.

They went out to Lulu, a restaurant which, if you arrived late enough, was fairly quiet. Curtis needed to have what he called “a change of walls.” They both knew what Curtis was waiting for, and sitting in the penthouse while the televised news played scenes of violence, storms and riots, was a strain on both of them.

It was closing time, nearly, and mesquite smoke was in everyone's eyes, offering something like privacy. A few diners glanced their way, and heads were put together, whispers exchanged, but most people were oblivious.

Curtis wasn't hungry, eating salad and drinking black coffee, and Margaret had a chocolate whiskey cake that reminded her of her favorite recipe for truffles. It was possible to pretend to forget, for a few minutes, the televised image of the shiny wings fractured on the desert floor.

They stopped on their way out to say hello to people they knew slightly, a movie director and his wife, and they enjoyed the cool night air outside, aware of how smoky their clothes smelled. Low clouds were smudged and blotted with color, reflecting the city lights.

There was light from streetlights, light from the restaurant, big, sloppy carpets of artificial illumination. There was light from a billboard across the street, smiling people surrounded by blank white.

There was a small crowd on the sidewalk. It was a part of town that blended nightclubs with small offices, warehouses with condos. Margaret glanced over her shoulder, certain that she sensed something, but there were only the unilluminated headlights of parked cars, the embers of glowing cigarettes, figures huddling together in the cool midnight.

Curtis asked her if there was anything wrong. She made no response, only looked back once more. Some silhouette was familiar, some movement caught her.

No, she was ready to say. There's nothing wrong.

And there he was.

There was Bishop, sidestepping a couple talking, laughing together in the light that fell from the restaurant. Margaret experienced no hesitation, no catch in her breath. She was happy to see him. He had that aging boy's mask for a face, and he looked at her with a glint of something like brotherly affection. He had lost weight, and his hair was boot-camp short.

The event was slow, choppy. Bishop crooked his body to extract an object from within his clothing, and the gesture was that of a wino tugging out his half-liter.

He pulled a gun, and she saw it happening just before it actually took place. There was a little worm of reflection along the barrel of the gun, and light in Bishop's eyes. He aimed at Curtis, but then changed his mind, or perhaps the gun decided for him. The pistol turned as a hunting thing turns, a moray eel nosing blood. There was a sensation of both clarity and confusion,
this isn't happening
conflicting with
this is real
.

Bishop moved with the deliberate command she had seen in traffic police:
I am in charge here
. He brought the handgun up so the black pupil of the weapon was leveled at Margaret's face.

Curtis had one hand up, as though he could catch the bullet in the air. But Margaret could read Bishop's eyes.

There was a report so loud, so sharp, that it was more than a single gunshot. Something essential in the hour vanished, the way lightning burns a vacuum through air, but there was a ragged second when nothing happened. Curtis was a silhouette, and Bishop himself had lost all power to move.

No one, Margaret told herself.

The gun fell, an ugly, iron clatter. Margaret put one foot on the weapon, and held the pilot in her arms. Bishop was silent, sobbing.

No one is hurt.

People stood from where the sound of the shot had dropped them, half-crouches, hiding places behind cars, like figures in a photograph given unsteady freedom.

Bishop couldn't hurt us.

There was a hole in a plate-glass window. There was another in a far wall inside, above an empty table, surrounded by a patch of freshly dislodged plaster.

Bishop was trying to talk, but he couldn't.

Tell me
, said Margaret, or she wanted to say. She knew. There was no other reason for Bishop to strike, no other reason for him to deliberately fail.

“They found him,” said Bishop.

50

Margaret was going to be late.

First of all there was a protest on the Golden Gate Bridge, a group against the Rape of Forests, as far as Margaret could make out. There was a burst of static on the radio, and it obliterated the news for a moment. Five cars had stopped in the lanes going north, and people were out of the cars with bullhorns.