'I'll paint it,' Eve said, as we walked back up the hill to the house. It was close to midday, but the skimmed- milk sun was having trouble fighting its way through the clouds. 'In a couple of days, when it's really dry, I'll get deck paint and paint it.' She'd been like a taut wire since we'd entered the studio and we hadn't spoken. But as she talked about the next step her mouth relaxed and the deep creases on her forehead smoothed out, the way it happens, unconsciously, when you step from a dark, unfamiliar space into one that's lit. 'A new lock; maybe even a security system. And I suppose I'll have to go into the city, to get more paints and things. That's all right. I would have had to go soon in any case.'
'Why?'
'I've completed a painting; in fact it's been done for weeks. I made the mistake of telling my dealer it's done. He's too much of a gentleman, and an old friend, to bother me about it, but I know he's anxious to see it.'
'Sternhagen?'
'Ulrich, yes.'
'He's a friend of yours?'
'Probably my oldest. He was my dealer thirty-five years ago; we were friends in art school, before I had anything to sell. He's the only person in New York who knows where to find me—where to find Eva Nouvel, I mean.' She paused to look at me. 'How did you know who my dealer was?'
'You're famous.'
'Do you know who Robert Rauschenberg's dealer is?'
'No.'
She waited. I said, 'The investigator I called in New York thought your gallery would be an obvious place to check, to see if anyone had tried to sell your paintings there. She told me.'
'Had they?'
'No.'
'It would be a pretty stupid thing to do.'
'Not necessarily. It's not that easy to unload stolen art. They might take a chance that your gallery would be interested in splitting the profits on six new paintings without having to cut you in.'
'Ulrich would never do that.'
'Are you sure?'
'Of course I'm sure! He's a marvelous man and a good friend. If he hadn't been willing to cooperate with me in this—eccentricity—for thirty years, I could not have managed to live the way I have. The way I've wanted.'
At the side of the house I dumped the garbage bag in a buried can. We walked around front. On the porch, as she unlocked the door, Eve turned to me. 'Ulrich has been good to me in more ways than you can know. I don't think I like the idea of someone bothering him, possibly worrying him on my account.'
If she didn't like that idea she'd hate some of the others I was having.
'Eve,' I said as I followed her into the living room, 'Lydia did some checking in New York, some things I hadn't asked her to do, but I'm glad she did. One of those things was a background check on Sternhagen and his gallery.'
She spun to face me, her eyes flashing. 'She did
'She told me he takes an unusually large share of the profits from your work.'
Color choked her cheeks. 'My arrangements with Ulrich are not your business! I hired you to protect my privacy, not to pry into my life!'
'Lydia's instincts are good,' I said. 'Maybe it has nothing to do with anything else, but it's unorthodox and she thought I should know. And if you can tell me, I'd like to know why.'
'Who the hell do you think you are?' She was taut and trembling, the color gone from her face. The night she'd spent keeping me alive and the morning she'd had and the last six days were suddenly crashing over her like a tidal wave. She was fighting it with anger and the anger was aimed at me, and maybe I deserved it. Nothing good had happened since I'd started working for her.
I watched her struggling for control. I might have gone to her, held her, given her the illusion of safety that someone else's arms can give; but control is different from safety, though they sometimes feel the same. I turned, went quietly out the door, past Leo, who wagged his tail uncertainly as he looked from Eve to me.
I sat on the porch steps, lit a cigarette. I weighed my options, Eve's options, Tony's and Jimmy's options. On the broad sweeping lawn bare tendrils of forsythia were moving lightly in the wind. When the right time came they would flower, flaring like solid sunlight around houses all over these hills. Forsythia lived easily among us, nestling against buildings and fences. It didn't need much care, but it didn't do well alone.
The cigarette was almost gone when I heard the door open behind me. Eve crossed the porch, came and stood near me, arms wrapping her chest as though now she were cold.
'I'm sorry,' she began.
'No.' I cut her off. 'You haven't got anything to apologize for. I'd expect you to be upset and I don't blame you for being upset with me. I haven't done you a hell of a lot of good.'
She sat on the step above mine, stared into the distance. 'I'm frightened.' They didn't sound like words she was used to. 'What's happening, Bill? Is it—am I a target for somebody?'
Admitting she was scared gave me an opening I wouldn't get again, for one of those ideas I knew she'd hate. 'Eve, there's something I want you to do. Hear me out before you decide.'
Her crystal eyes were uneasy. 'What is it?'
