“Her social anxiety disorder?”
The older woman nodded.
“It was hard on Phil, but he absolutely adored her and was very protective of her. We all understood and we did what we could to help. There’s no way she could go out to work, you see. You may have heard that she cleans some of the apartments? I know Jordy uses her on a regular basis, and I started using her, too, when my last woman moved out to Long Island, so Denise is used to us, but if you were having unexpected guests and you wanted her to come clean the bathrooms and change the sheets because your own cleaning person couldn’t come, you would have to make the arrangements through Phil, and he would bring her up and tell her what had to be done because she simply couldn’t handle having to talk to unfamiliar people.”
“So you would say it was a happy marriage?” Albee persisted.
“He was very devoted,” said Mrs. Wall. “And very protective.”
“And what about her?”
Again that hesitation. “She needed him.”
True to Elliott Buntrock’s prediction, Luna DiSimone’s current boyfriend was lounging on her wicker swing when they walked into the apartment, and he gave her a sour look.
“Where the hell have you been? And why didn’t you answer your phone? I’ve been trying to call you for the last hour.”
Barrel-chested, with short legs, Nicco Marclay had once boasted a head of luxuriant red hair. Here in his twenty-seventh year, however, it had receded well past the crown and was now not much more than a fringe. He had taken to wearing flat golfing caps with narrow bills, and today’s was a tattersall check in shades of brown and gold that clashed with his red flannel shirt and jeans.
His truculence faded as he realized who was with Luna. “Oh, hey there, Buntrock. I was hoping to talk to you last night, but then things got crazy.”
Buntrock knew what “talk to you last night” meant. That was the opening feint of almost every artist on the make. It meant, “If you’re looking for the next Picasso to write about for
“Wish you’d found me before you went off with my topcoat,” he said mildly.
“Was that yours? Sorry. I did bring it back, though.” He gestured to a stool at the bar that was now draped in a damp wool coat.
“What about my scarf?”
“Scarf? Didn’t see a scarf.”
“Check the bowl there by the door,” Luna said. “Anything I found on the floor this morning, I stuck in there.” She went over to the swing, lifted Marclay’s cap, and planted a kiss on his bald head.
“Dammit, Luna!”
“Oh, lighten up, Nicco. And you haven’t been calling me for an hour, because we talked thirty minutes ago. Did the
“Yeah. They cancelled. Afraid of a little snow.”
“Just as well,” said Buntrock. To get to his scarf at the bottom of the large green glass punchbowl that Luna used as a catchall for keys and other odds and ends, he had to move a couple of phones, a tube of lipstick, a flamingo-shaped earring, and a pair of new-looking red rubber flip-flops. A lei of silk orchids had tangled itself around his scarf and it took him a moment to untangle it. “The police want to talk to us.”
“Us? Why? The only time I ever met the dead guy was when he and his creepy wife were up here yesterday morning.”
“Creepy wife?”
“Don’t be mean, Nicco,” Luna said. She sat down at the far end of the long swing, slipped off her shoes, leaned back against the pillows, and put her stockinged feet in the artist’s lap.
“I’m not being mean. I’m being honest.” He began to massage her feet absentmindedly. “But you’ve got to admit that it’s creepy when somebody won’t look at you and you have to tell her husband what you want her to do before she’ll do it.”
“She has a psychological hang-up,” Luna told Buntrock. “I forget what it’s called but it’s like being pathologically shy. Anyhow, the last time the caterers came, they said they had to start with a clean kitchen and mine was a total mess, but my regular guy doesn’t work on weekends, so when I asked Antoine if he knew anybody, he told me that Phil’s wife helps out sometimes, so I called Phil and they came up. He asked me what I wanted done and I told him, and then he took her out to the kitchen and asked us not to go in till he came back for her, that it made her nervous.”
“Creepy,” Marclay muttered. “But that’s the only time I saw the man, so I don’t have anything to tell the police.”
“I think they want us to go through Luna’s guest list and mark everybody who knows anything about art.”
“Art?” asked Marclay. “Why?”
“Ours not to reason why,” Buntrock said lightly. He finished untangling his scarf and dropped the lei back in the bowl. When he put the flip-flops back in, something clinked against the glass and he saw that a shiny button or something had embedded itself in the spongy sole.
“Guest list?” said Luna. “I don’t have a guest list. I just went through the contact names on my phone and sent invitations to the people I like.”
“Which is how that asshole Rathmann got invited,” Nicco Marclay said truculently. Charles Rathmann occasionally reviewed for one of the throwaway weekly papers and he had not been kind to Marclay’s last show.
