Burning Blue

“She told me.”

“Did she tell you the daughter was sending me these book-length emails, calling me three and four times a day at the office?”

“What was it, Dad? Your beef with Mr. Castro.”

“Now how the hell did you find about that?”

“Mrs. Castro.”

He frowned. “He insulted an artist I happened to think was a hell of a talent.”

I shrugged. “So he didn’t like his stuff. Free country.”

“Her stuff. The artist was his wife. He killed her dream the night of her debut.”

“What, he like started slashing her paintings?”

“Pretty much. He and I are standing in front of the same painting. I’m smiling, he’s frowning. I tell him I think the work is remarkable, and he says, ‘a remarkable burden.’ He goes on to explain that he’s footing the bill for all these ‘castles in the air,’ as he calls them, gesturing to the paintings. Says he can’t even get his wife out of the studio long enough to take her to dinner. She’s obsessed, he says. What she really needs to be doing is getting down to the business of having kids and ‘being happy,’ as he put it. I argue that it’s all worth it, the time apart, putting the family thing on hold, because she’s great. And Castro’s exact words were, ‘She’s not great. She’s very good, and that’s not good enough.’ Anyway, Elaine had gone to get her husband a Perrier or whatever the hell he was drinking, but she’d come back in time to hear most of what he said. She’s standing right there as Castro says, ‘The difference between a Pablo Picasso and an Elaine Castro is that Picasso needed to paint, and filling Elaine’s head with ideas that she has the same need just isn’t fair to her. It can only lead to crushing disappointment, and I don’t want to have to see my wife suffer like that.’ Then he notices Elaine. She’s putting up a brave fight, smiling, but she can’t hold back the tears and excuses herself. Castro hurries after her, apologizing. It’s a scene, you know? A sad one. The damage is done, party over. People are leaving the gallery. I’m getting my coat, and here’s Castro again, giving me this sarcastic thank you, like this was all my fault. I had toasted Elaine earlier with something to the effect that she was one of the best I’d ever seen. I was young, but I had a guest column in the Times back then, and I guess what I said carried some weight-not a ton, mind you, just the tiniest bit maybe, but I guess it was enough to get Elaine Castro believing in herself a little anyway, which is all I was trying to do. Give her some support, you know? I told Castro he was an asshole, and I left. Actually, I might have said a bit more. Maybe a lot more. The gallery was still half full, mostly his banking buddies, I imagine, lots of Brooks Brothers suits. I embarrassed him in front of his friends, and I meant to. I embarrassed myself too, apparently. I was a little-”

“Drunk?”

“I kept an eye out for Elaine, but she never exhibited again, not publicly. I ran into the husband a few years ago at a gas pump, of all places. He said she was still painting, but strictly as a hobby.” My father folded himself another slice of pizza, shaking his head. “Guy’s a bona fide prick. He killed her. He killed his. .” He let the pizza fall to his plate, sat back in his chair, looked up at the ceiling and let out a long breath. “Shit,” he said. He glared at me.

“What’d I do?” I said.

“Do we have any Tylenol?”

“It’s expired.”

“You double the recommended dose, it still works.”

I got him the Tylenol and then Mrs. Castro’s copy of his book. “Could you sign this for her?”

He studied the paint splattered over the book. Mrs. Castro had flagged a page with a Post-it. My father flipped to it. He smiled sadly. “She picked my favorite. Not that I don’t mention that fact in the book at least five times.”

I was looking at the picture upside down. She’d tagged a Picasso and written on the Post-it: “his best.” It was the only one I knew, Guernica, his most famous one.

“Should we give her a fresher copy?”

“After it’s taken her so many years to get this one like this?”

“Hey,” I said. “How come you never painted?”

“I’d have to send you on a Heineken run before we got into that conversation. I know about your fake ID, by the way.”

“Seriously, Dad. Why didn’t you pick up the brush?”

“I did. I painted for years.”

“And?”

“I burned them.”

“Why?”

“Fear.”

“That the critics would kill you?”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t figure it out. What the great ones knew. Inokuma. Picasso. I mean I knew it on an intellectual level. But not in my heart.”

“Knew what?”

“What comes after beauty.”

“Have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Not sure I do either.” He flipped the book to the title page, inscribed it and, yawning, headed for bed. I checked the inscription: “To You Who Know What Comes After Beauty.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

A little after noon the next day, Friday, I met up with Angela at the Clarion.

“And why should I do this for you?” Pete said.

“Because you owe me,” I said.

“For telling your father you were about to get yourself tossed into jail?”

“You set me up with Detective Barrone in the first place.”

“For educational purposes. I figured you were looking to do a school report about detective work. How was I supposed to know you were involving yourself in an open police case, not to mention falling in love with the target of an acid thrower.”

“I’m not falling in love with-”

“Right. Somebody mentions the girl’s name, and you get this look in your eyes. Watch: Nicole. See? You’re toast.” He turned to Angela. “Am I right?”

Angela cracked her gum. “Bread crumbs.”

“Pete, I need this favor. Think of my mother.”

“Don’t do that, kid. Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you.”

“I’m not. I don’t mean it like that, and I don’t want your pity. I mean that she would have done what I’m trying to do.”

“And what’s that?”

“Sticking up for somebody who’s having a hard time sticking up for herself.”

Pete shook his head and picked up the phone.

Angela, Cherry and I met at Cherry’s Starbucks a little before three p.m., when Cherry relieved the person behind the counter. I was back there too, setting up Angela’s phone camera inside the pastry case. Angela was sipping a latte and surfing on what appeared to be a brand-new, just-released special-edition MacBook Pro with a seventeen-inch screen that would have retailed for $3900 if its guts weren’t absolute garbage I had pieced together for around $40. The nice shiny case itself was from BJ’s. The forklift king actually showed up for work the previous weekend and had sailed the blades through a stack of Apple boxes. They were tested, found to be broken beyond repair, written up as damaged freight and tossed, and then I went Dumpster diving.