'Attraction?' said Clay Phipps. 'Don't tell me they were an item.'
'Oh, God no,' said the agent. 'Nothing so straightforward as that. But I think there's no question that Kip had him in some crazy kind of thrall. Maybe it was in some way sexual. Probably it was. But who knows what that means between a straight, stiff, married man and a cold-fish eunuch who can't even bear to have a friend pat him on the wrist?'
There was a pause. The ceiling fan turned slowly, heavy air seemed to spiral down from it like something solid. Outside, sagging fronds scratched sleepily against tin roofs.
'I can see it,' Claire went on. 'Long close talks in the locker room after a good hard game of squash. Kip starts talking about business, about deals-he makes it sound extremely exciting and adventurous, amoral, heroic. I can see Peter being totally mesmerized, aroused in his way, at the idea of dealing with deeds rather than words for a change.'
'Not to mention,' Augie said, 'having Kip bankroll him with borrowed funds so he could finally make some money to go with his clout.'
'Yes,' said Claire. 'I imagine the thrill wears off having one without the other. And if you think about it, Peter and Kip made a formidable team: a critic with an incredible ability to manipulate the market, a wheeler-dealer with an incredible ability to manipulate the critic.'
'So say they'd pulled it off,' said Joe Mulvane. 'What then?'
Claire shrugged. 'Peter-who knows? Maybe he'd have run off to Tahiti, the south of France-'
'Maybe he thought,' Clay Phipps put in, 'that Kip would run off with him.'
'He might have thought that,' said the agent. 'Kip wouldn't be above leading him to think it. But I can't imagine it would've happened. They would've had to hide the partnership, of course. And if Kip had raised enough to buy his way out of bankruptcy, he probably would have had some new stationery printed up and gone back into business.'
The mention of bankruptcy made Claire think about her beach house. Her eyes went vague and she stopped talking. But the sadness seemed to pass right through her, she held it no tighter than the sun holds clouds. She'd put herself through this a thousand times and had finally realized, what the hell, it was a wonderful house but it was just a house. She began chatting again as though someone had asked her a question, though no one had.
'And me, I'm starting over. Fresh. The big apartment-gone. The Sagaponack house-gone. I'm moving the gallery to a smaller space, I'm getting rid of all the debt that asshole got me into-'
'But you know, Claire,' said Clay Phipps, 'some of that debt went for very worthy causes.'
'Like?'
The host decided not to mention how much of it had gone toward his own quite affluent retirement. 'Like fifty grand of it,' he said, 'saved Ray Yates's life.'
'He paid off Ponte?' asked Joe Mulvane.
Phipps nodded. 'After commissions, he came away with forty-five thousand. He paid back the forty he owed-and I think he's already thrown away the extra five. Some people just don't learn.'
'Yeah,' said Joe Mulvane, 'but other people do. Jimmy Gibbs, for one. Maybe I'm a jerk for thinking this, but I think he's really got a shot.'
'The deal's done?' Augie asked. 'He bought the boat?'
'Made the down payment,' said the cop. 'Now all he's gotta do is find customers and stay on the wagon.'
'Will he?' Nina asked.
'He loves that boat,' said Mulvane. 'And besides, it's part of the deal that was cut with the car company. He stays sober a year, they'll drop all charges.'
Augie shook his head, and said, not without affection, 'I never figured Jimmy for a car thief.'
'He wasn't one,' said Joe Mulvane, 'till he gave up believing he'd ever see any money from your painting. Then he got it in his head he owed himself a bunch of cash. Heard about the stolen rent-a-car racket and liked the arithmetic: five grand a car at the loading docks in Jacksonville, a pat on the back and no questions asked.'
'How close did he come to going through with it?' asked Clayton Phipps.
'Got about as far as Boca,' said Mulvane. 'Then he stopped at roadside to pour in some of the extra gas he'd brought-he didn't want to pull into a station and take a chance on getting the tag spotted. That's when he decided he was too old to become a thief. He drove back and confessed.'
Augie rubbed his jaw. 'Solstice weekend,' he said. 'The weekend everyone went crazy.'
'The weekend Natch went crazy,' said Clay Phipps.
'Better crazy than killed,' said Joe Mulvane. 'To go to Cuban bars in the middle of the night and try to rabble-rouse… Was this guy the last person in the world to figure out there's no more gung-ho American on earth than a refugee Cuban? He comes in and starts sounding like a Communist, like Fidel… He's damn lucky to have landed in a nice cushy private nuthouse and not the morgue.' He paused, then added, 'But something I don't understand. Supposedly this guy was a struggling poet. How does he end up in such a pricey nuthouse?'
Nina looked at Augie. But Augie didn't want it known that he was funding his deranged friend's treatment. He just said, 'Natch isn't a bad person. Just frustrated. Misguided.'
'Misguided,' hissed Joe Mulvane. He was a homicide cop, he didn't have much use for words that were excuses. 'Some are misguided. Some are weak. Or jealous. Or downright evil. You can say some are worse than others, but they kill somebody, dead is dead.'
'Fair enough,' said Augie. 'But I'll tell you something-I'm very grateful for two things. I'm very grateful to be alive, and I'm very grateful it wasn't one of my good friends that was trying to kill me.'
'Amen to that,' said Clay Phipps.
'And Joe,' Nina added, 'we're very grateful to you. I'm not sure we've ever thanked you properly for all you did for us.'
Joe Mulvane was not especially good at accepting thanks; it was also true that in this instance he believed in his heart that he had utterly failed. 'I did nothing for you,' he said. 'I couldn't prevent an arson, a tragedy…'
The words pushed air out of the room. Eyes stung and for a long moment there was nothing left to breathe. When Augie finally filled his hollow chest it was with the rapture of some great hunger sated, some great gift acknowledged and given thanks for. The air had come to smell of jasmine and dry shells.
'Reuben,' Augie said. He said it softly, he shook his head in awe. 'What a remarkable person. The only truly unselfish person I have known in all my life.'
The remark was aimed at no one, but it made the others squirm.
'He'll be all right?' Claire Steiger asked.
'He'll be all right,' said Nina. 'He'll have a long recovery, a hard adjustment. But he'll be all right.'
There was a silence, a long moment of reflection and regret that could only end in fidgeting and thirst. Clay Phipps cleared his throat and rose. 'What say we have some old Bordeaux?'
Augie Silver had remembered how to sweat. He mopped his forehead. 'Awfully hot for Bordeaux,' he said.
'Awfully damn hot for anything,' said Joe Mulvane.
'It is,' said Clay Phipps, moving toward the kitchen, 'but goddamnit, let's have Bordeaux anyway.'
