She kept staring at Louis until he said, “What?”
“I understand you and Richard didn’t get along,” Melanie said. “You wanted to kill him.” She watched Louis shrug, it seemed with an effort. “Richard raped the woman you were holding. . . .”
“He tried to.”
“You liked her, didn’t you?”
“She was nice.”
“You got her out before the cops landed on Richard. Took her to your apartment?” She waited but he didn’t confirm or deny. “Ordell thought you had something going there.”
Louis shook his head.
“It would’ve been pretty weird if you did.” Melanie watched Louis sip his drink and lower the glass to rest on his thigh. “Well, Ordell has something going. He must’ve told you.”
Louis said, “About fate bringing us all together?”
Melanie slid her shoulder along the sofa toward him. “Fate, my ass. He’s bringing you in for one reason. When he goes after the Nazi freak and all his guns, somebody’s gonna have to kill him. He wants you to do it.”
Louis had his head turned, resting against the cushion, close enough to touch. He stared at her forever before he said, “Why?”
“Who does Big Guy look like? Richard. Someone you wanted to kill.”
“I don’t know.”
“Ordell believes it, he told me. He goes, ‘Louis, he get out there and see Big Guy, he gonna see Richard and want to shoot him when I say to.’ ” Louis smiled and she said, “Do I sound like him?”
“Yeah, that was good.”
“If you go, don’t turn your back on him,” Melanie said, moving closer to him, staring into those giant pupils, “or he’ll try to leave you there. I mean dead, Louis, the gun in your hand and he’s off the hook.”
“He told you that?”
“It’s the way he thinks now, he’s changed. The other night he killed a man who worked for him.”
“Why?”
“Ask him.”
“I ought to get out of here. Is that what you’re saying?”
Melanie made a face, for a moment in pain. She said, “Oh, no . . . Baby, I want you to stick around. Use him before he uses you, and take what you want.” She said, “I can’t imagine a guy who robs banks having trouble with that.”
She watched him grin, not sure what it meant until he said, “You’re serious,” and she grinned back at him, close enough to smell the weed on his breath.
“You bet I am. What’s he ever done for us?”
Louis seemed to think about it a moment.
“I guess not much.”
“Oh, man,” Melanie said. “You know how long I’ve been waiting for this?”
15
Gallery Renee was located on the street level of The Gardens Mall, in a dim area between Sears and Bloomingdale’s: a deep rectangular space, high ceiling, white walls and turquoise trim that picked up the mall’s color motif.
Twelve thirty Sunday afternoon Max was looking through showroom glass at the gallery’s bare walls, a few paintings on the floor against the walls, and at three black metal containers spaced down the length of the room. He thought of Grecian urns, then realized what they were: the eight hundred twenty dollars’ worth of olive pots Renee had called about last Monday, wanting him to drop everything and bring a check. There they were, COD, so she’d paid for them. Black rusted metal jars about three feet high. One near the entrance. He moved that way and saw the sign on the glass, SORRY, CLOSED TODAY. Renee’s work, the ornate capital letters, the words underlined three times. Closed—but when he pushed on the brass handle the door opened. Max entered, pausing to look in the olive pot standing close by. Cigarette butts, gum wrappers, a Styrofoam cup . . . A skinny young Latin-looking guy with hair to his shoulders was coming out from the back with a painting, a big one. He lowered it to lean against a library table in the middle of the floor and looked at Max.
“Can you read? We close today.”
Now he was going back, through a hall at the rear to a door that was open and showed daylight.
Max walked up to the painting: six or seven feet by five and greenish, different shades of thick green paint with touches of red, yellowish tan, black . . . He had no idea what it was. Maybe a jungle and those were green figures coming out, emerging from the growth; it was hard to tell. More paintings were propped against the other side of the table. Paintings coming down, the ones on the floor, the new ones going up, Renee getting ready for one of her cheese-and-wine shows. She could be in back, in her office. Max looked that way and saw the young Latin guy coming with another canvas.
He said to Max, “I told you we close,” and placed the canvas against the first one he’d brought out. Rising, he tossed his hair from his face. Stringy, still more than he needed. He looked familiar . . .
Saying to Max standing there, “What’s your problem?”
And Max almost smiled. “I’m Renee’s husband.”
The guy said, “Yeah? . . .” and waited.
“Where is she, in back?”
“She getting me something to eat.”
“You work here?”
Max could see the little asshole didn’t like that. He said, “No, I don’t
Max walked around the table to find more green paintings. He stooped to look at the signature, a black scrawl.
David de la Villa.
The guy had to be Da-veed, the Cuban busboy from Chuck and Harold’s Renee had said weeks ago was about to be discovered. Coming back now with another canvas . . .
About five nine and weighed maybe one thirty in his black T-shirt and skinny black jeans.
Max said, “You’re David, huh?” with the right pronunciation. “I was wondering what this’s supposed to be.” Looking at the painting in front of him.
The Cuban busboy said, “It’s what it
Max found it, a quote underlined. He read aloud, “ ‘. . . de la Villa has rendered a vivid collage of his life, albeit in metaphor . . . he paints with a wry and youthful gallantry.’ ” Max looked at the painting again. “Yeah, now I see the youthful gallantry. I wouldn’t say it’s especially wry though. What do you paint with, a shovel?”
“I see you don’t know shit,” the Cuban busboy said.
Max might admit that, but not today, pretty sure now why the busboy looked familiar. The diamond stud in his ear, his hair, his attitude, his little pussy mustache. Max said, “Those are people in there?”
“From my life,” the busboy said, “looking for ways to escape.”
Max moved in closer. “You have something pasted on there, huh? I thought it was all paint, it looks like leaves.”
“From the sugar cane. I show life as a cane field that has trapped us and we have to break out.”
“There’s no cane in Hialeah I know of. If this is your life,” Max said, looking from the canvas to the busboy, “how come I don’t see anything about breaking
“You crazy.”
“Aren’t you David Ortega?”
“You see my name there, read it.”
