Harmony In Flesh and Black (15 page)

Chase.

Why not?

Fred picked up one of the books, the way you do, and started through it.

He remembered how the guy had been sitting here, the one he'd seen last Saturday, nervous, tearing his long blond hair—and how he wasn't here any longer when he looked up again. It was a young guy with a mustache, drinking like a bird out of his book.

The books were marked here and there with yellow Post-it notes.

Jesus Pete. Here it was, at carrel sixteen. The painting of Conchita was by Chase. Fred knew it even before he flipped to a marked plate in one of Pisano's books—the 1890 nude,
Study in Curves,
almost the mirror's version of La Belle Conchita. Very Velázquez in its feel.

It made absolute sense. Clay's unsigned painting of La Belle Conchita, from its style, manner, and subject, was a Chase. Chase had been in Paris at the right time; he'd been in Munich already. He knew Whistler, and Duveneck. In fact, he had done a portrait of Whistler, aping Whistler's own work (its reproduction was also marked with a Post-it note), in 1885, before the two had a falling-out. Chase was American. He would have known the other Americans. Chase could paint a hell of a good nude when sufficiently moved, and he didn't like paint so much as to forget flesh, or vice versa. And as far as robbing from Velázquez, Chase had loved Velázquez so much that he saddled one of his kids with it as a middle name. Helen Velázquez Chase.

“Jesus!” Fred said aloud, wanting to crow, so bemused by the accuracy of his inference about the painting's authorship that he did not pick up immediately the other implications of the blond kid's obsession. In spite of murder and danger in the wings, he was seduced by joy at finding the answer to the puzzle, What dead man long ago painted Clayton's picture of a dead woman?

The blond kid knew Clay's painting, had known it when it was Henry Smykal's: Conchita in the raw, red in tooth and claw. All the marked pages showed the triumphant researcher reinforcing his conclusion as to the painter's identity. If the kid knew Smykal's painting, the kid had been at Smykal's place.

Fred gazed across the dusty stacks.

“Shit,” he said.

He realized he was jealous and disappointed. The kid had scooped him—figured it out first. What else did he know?

“What can you tell me, little man?” Fred whispered.

16

Fred started looking among the scraps and notes that lay on the desk to see if its occupant revealed his identity easily. Nothing on the table betrayed the name of its user.

If he asked Joan who used carrel sixteen, he could in time find out not only the kid's name but even his address—it would all be on their computer. The trouble was, Joan was an absolute stickler for routine, and for propriety, and she was also an incurable busybody. There was no way to ask her without setting off a chain reaction that Fred didn't want to risk. Ask a question, leave a record.

The student would come back. He'd have to. Sometime.

Fred went upstairs and emptied his bladder, picked up a couple of magazines to look through, took them back down to the stacks, and chose a place to wait where he could keep an eye on the kid's desk.

He'd dressed that morning in unostentatious academic fashion, in sport jacket and plain green tie with blue button-down shirt. He sat at carrel eight, leaned back, put up his feet, and waited for four hours.

Enforced inactivity can lead to strange expansions in one's fund of knowledge. A long period in a Greyhound bus terminal had once produced, for Fred, an understanding of the relative merits of seven different methods of depilation. After his magazines were exhausted, he occupied himself with the chosen subject of carrel eight's tenant, studying the reserved copy of
The Shoulder Bust in Sicily and South Central Italy: A Catalog and Materials for Dating.
As it turned out, you could date the shoulder busts according to hairstyle.

At two forty-five the blond student came down.

Fred lifted
The Shoulder Bust
and looked at the student from behind it. The book was big and red, perfectly designed for the purpose. His quarry was one of those men who had grown taller faster than they expected in their youth and who try to make up for it by tiptoeing flat-footed, using the walk that goes with loafers. He was tall but skinny, with a bow tie fluttering in advance of his throat. Papillon. Otherwise he dressed like Fred in his academic mode. Perhaps his natural look was furtive, obsessive obeisance. Furtive he surely seemed.

He shouldn't be a hard man to corner. But Fred found that cornering, like guilt, was seldom the best way to get an eager flood of information from a person. He'd wait and watch. He had the advantage; why waste it by making himself known?

Carrel sixteen's occupant did not sit, wasn't settling in today. Fred would have a chance, then, to stretch his legs. If the gods were merciful, the kid would go for lunch.

Fred watched him. What the kid did next was gather together all the Chase books from his desk, think a moment, then take the pack of books to the stacks and arrange them on the shelves as if they'd never been out. He made sure to put them in order by call number. Obsessive he was also. Then he headed for the exit. He was nervous, looking like a guilty songbird with hawks around.

Fred scribbled a note, which he dropped on the kid's desk as he followed him out of the stacks.

Carrel 16, would be interested to discuss the Chase with you.

Fred

The kid took off down Prescott Street toward Mass. Ave. Going to Bartley's? Fred could join him in a burger. But the kid turned left, walking hastily. He was still on foot: a graduate student with no vehicle, poor but honest. He was heading toward Central Square, therefore in the direction of Turbridge Street.

But no, the kid, moving right along as if he had a plan, an appointment, crossed to the other side of Mass. Ave. Fred trailed behind him, on the other side of the street.

The kid talked to a woman for a moment, a young-looking student type whom he bumped into by accident—blond and tall, wearing jeans and a blue sweater for today's cooler weather and carrying a leather satchel. Two minutes later, they told each other good-bye. The woman kept on toward the square, and the kid turned into a video store, Video King. Maybe he'd find a video to help him study his Celtic bronzes.

Fred waited outside, across the street, for the kid to emerge. Inside, he'd be noticed. The kid might recall seeing him in the stacks earlier, or recognize him later. But who would stay in a video store for almost an hour? Had he picked up that Fred was behind him and found a back way out? It was no great loss since Fred knew how to get hold of him again, but it would be a blow to the ego, and a pain in the ass, or both.

Fred decided to risk letting the kid see him and walked in the door. The kid was behind the counter. He worked here. Fred ducked out fast. Poor but honest, the kid was putting himself through grad school by working at the local video store.

So here was another place Fred could count on finding him again. The kid looked well installed. He would be working part-time, which meant a four-hour shift at least. There'd be time for a burger, and to call Molly and then Clay. Fred went for the burger first.

Bartley's wasn't crowded. Lunch was long over. The rough women in red T-shirts let him sprawl in a booth and get around a Burger Deluxe, complete with onion rings. Fred took his time over coffee, looking through the day's paper to see if something had happened in the world at large or if there were developments that he might want to know about in Smykal's misadventure on Turbridge Street.

What next? Fred wondered. Should he stop the kid in the street and talk to him? Should he follow him home?

He picked up some subway tokens in case the kid came out of work and hopped on the T. He went back and checked to make sure he was still behind the counter at the video place, and then, using a nearby pay phone, Fred called and left a message for Clay at the desk of the Copley Square Hotel, saying he'd call again at eight-thirty if he could: he was working on something. He suppressed a desire to have the note signed Mr. Chase and used a simple “Fred” instead. Then he called Molly.

*   *   *

“Ophelia wants us to have dinner with her.”

“I don't think so,” Fred told her. He described what he was doing and what he'd got so far. “I have to keep with it.”

“If you think that's your killer,” Molly began, “be careful, Fred.”

“Not a chance.” Fred laughed. “No, it's the other piece. This guy is one of the meek. A student. However, he knows something about Smykal's painting, now Clay's painting. It's by Chase, by the way. I'm anxious to find out what else he knows.”

There was a silence while Molly thought about it, rehearsing the image of La Belle Conchita in her mind.

“Chase makes sense,” Molly said. “Poor Jimmy Carter, who couldn't get away even with lusting in his heart—his favorite painting was a naked back by Chase, too, wasn't it? A female back. Pastel.”

“About which Clarence Cook wrote at the time it was exhibited,” Fred said, “and I quote, ‘No piece of flesh painting has been seen in these parts that could approach the performance of Mr. Chase.'”

“So where does this student lead you?” Molly asked.

“At the moment, I am keeping an open mind,” Fred said. “And my eyes open as well. He's in a video store, behind the counter. I am not committing to dinner engagements.”

That made sense, Molly agreed. But this was something special. At the Ritz.

“What the fuck do I care about dinner at the Ritz?” Fred exploded.

“I'm teasing,” Molly said. “I know you're a big enough boy to grind your own pepper. Ophelia has landed a guest and wants us to help entertain him.”

“For God's sake,” Fred said, “Don't tell me. She's still got Albert Finn by the short and curlies?”

“That's what it sounds like. I told her Finn is married. She says good, that's one thing she doesn't have to think about. AIDS is enough worry as it is.”

“That's class. Shack up with married celebrities at the Ritz.”

“So, Fred, what do I tell her? I jumped at it because it seemed to be a chance for you to stay close to him. Ophelia's desperate for help. She exhausted her knowledge of art after the first hour with him—even that was pushing it—and says you can't talk indefinitely about sex with a man, his mind wanders, his eyes glaze over. He's thinking about the next big deal he's going to do in business, and you're making the sex so easy for him that it's not a challenge. So she needs us.”

“I get the idea,” said Fred. “You and I talk art with Finn to keep his mind on Ophelia while she does to him, under the table, what the waiter does with the pepper grinder in plain view.”

“Smart fellow.”

“It isn't Finn using Ophelia to get hold of me, is it?” Fred felt suddenly suspicious. “To see what Clayton's interest is in the Heade?”

“Ophelia's more devious than I expect, but I don't think so. Don't think so,” Molly said.

“It is important for me to keep an eye on Finn,” Fred said. “But this guy I'm behind should help resolve the more immediate threat. I'll stick with the student. Tell Ophelia yes. You go, and I'll meet you if I can. Make it late. Eight o'clock. Is that all right?”

“Ophelia said half past eight,” Molly said.

“Even better. If I can't make it, can't leave this guy, I'll get a message to you, maybe join you for coffee. I'll try to,” Fred promised. “I just don't have any idea where this is going.”

It was five-thirty now. Fred hurried back to Video King. Talking to Molly had taken longer than he wanted. He wouldn't be happy if he'd lost the kid.

He looked in the front window. The kid was still in place. Turbridge Street being so near, Fred drifted in that direction, looking up the street. The cop car was still parked out front.

When he got back to Video King, the video heir apparent was just stepping out. He started walking toward Central Square. Fred ducked quickly into the store.

“The guy that just left,” Fred said to a girl behind the desk in a red-and-white-striped shirt, a black ponytail, and beads.

“You mean Russ?” the girl said. “He's gone. A minute ago. You can probably catch him.”

“When's he on again?” Fred asked. “In case I don't catch him.”

The girl looked in back of the desk at a sheet. “Three tomorrow,” she said. “But I bet you catch him.”

It was six o'clock now. But it was warm outside, and pleasant. Fred felt he might have been inside all day long. It was good to stretch his legs and make up space between himself and Russ, who was moving at a good clip.

Did the kid speed up or fart liquid when he passed Turbridge Street? Not so that Fred noticed. But that he had intimate knowledge of Smykal's apartment Fred had not a doubt.

The modest parade moved past Ellery, Dana, Hancock, Lee, Clinton, Bigelow Street, Inman, the big Post Office. They went on into the middle of Central Square, then turned left on Prospect toward Broadway, where Russ went into an ecologically correct supermarket. The student had not looked back once. Fred was sure he'd not been seen, but he didn't follow the kid in. He waited across the street, took off his tie, and put it in the pocket of his jacket. Then he hung the jacket over one shoulder, to change his profile. He looked into a restaurant window up the street until Russ came out again, now carrying a bag of groceries. The bag was made of paper covered with signs proving to the world, as Russ walked back to Central Square, that it had been recycled already and was going to be recycled again, forever. The same was also true of the celery waving out of the top of the bag. The same was true of the kid, Russ. And of Smykal.

They turned left again on Mass. Ave., crossed Mass. at Pearl, and went down Pearl toward the river. Russ went into a three-decker apartment building with a street door that wouldn't close and three mailboxes set into the wall and busted out again.