They’re reason enough to worry.”
I nodded. “How long have you known her?”
“Since that group show at my upstate gallery, two years ago now. She came to see me several months later, to discuss Cassandra’s work, and I must confess I was surprised.”
“Surprised how?”
“When we first met, I’d pigeonholed her as a girl of a certain type. A beautiful girl, unquestionably, but just one of many, I’d thought, who come to the city with expensive educations, vague artistic aspirations and precious little in the way of talent. You must know the kind. They float around town for a few years, and play at painting, or acting, or what have you, and fill space in the clubs until they settle down with their pudgy little bankers. But then I saw the early edits of Interview One, and I knew I’d been wrong about her.”
“She has talent.”
“Talents-plural- and a remarkable vision as well, and there’s nothing dilettantish or lazy about her.”
I nodded some more. “Have you tried to reach her?”
“At her apartment. As you said, no one’s been home for some time. I don’t know where else to look.”
“How about friends or family?”
“I don’t know Holly’s friends, Mr. March, and all I know of her family is that she’s not in contact with them.” Krug’s eyes narrowed. “I assume you have tried them yourself.”
“Only her family, who know next to nothing about her. As far as friends go, I haven’t found many, at least none who’ve been in touch lately. I’m trying to locate her boyfriend.”
His eyes narrowed some more and his brown face hardened. “You’re referring to Gene?”
“Gene Werner- he’s one of the men I’m looking for, though I understand they stopped seeing each other several months ago.”
“That is my understanding as well,” he said. He looked unsure of whether to say more.
“Do you know Werner?”
“I saw him once, waiting for Holly when she left here one day, but we were never introduced.” There was distaste in Krug’s voice.
“You have any idea why they broke up?” Krug gave me a speculative look but didn’t speak. “I’ve been trying to reach Werner for days now,” I said, “and he seems to be missing too. Frankly, it makes me a little nervous.”
Krug sighed. “It’s not as if Holly sobs on my shoulder about her love life, Mr. March, but my sense is that the relationship was always fraught. He was, by the sound of things, quite obsessed with Holly. She was less invested, but she let things go on- I’m not sure why. Perhaps she liked being the object of his mania, or perhaps staying with him was the path of least resistance; perhaps she liked the element of abuse that I think was there; but, whatever the reason, she allowed the relationship to carry on for years. Then- sometime in late summer or fall- he found out about her videos.”
“He hadn’t known?” I felt my brows go up. “Privacy is one thing, but to hide something like that from someone you’re involved with…”
Krug shook his head. “She takes pains to insulate her life from Cassandra’s work, but you’re right, it’s odd, and I don’t claim to understand it. Perhaps she thought it was none of Werner’s business, or perhaps she was afraid of his reaction.”
“What was his reaction?”
“Anger. Jealousy. More anger. I don’t know the particulars, but I know that Holly was very upset, and that it went on for weeks. He called here countless times looking for her, and there was an ugly scene out front. I think there may have been some violence too.”
“He hit her?”
“It’s speculation on my part, but…I saw bruises.”
“You said there was an element of abuse in their relationshipdoes that mean there’d been violence before?”
He nodded. “It wasn’t the first time I’d seen bruises.”
“Could they have been from Cassandra’s work?”
Krug shrugged. “Of course they could have. As I said, it’s speculation.”
“What finally happened with Werner?”
“His anger seemed to play itself out after three or four weeks. Holly stopped talking about him and she seemed less tense. And a little while after that, she told me she was involved with Jamie.”
I took a slow breath. “Jamie is the guy she’s seeing now?”
Krug nodded. “Holly seems happy with him, as happy as I’ve known her to be.”
“Do you know Jamie’s last name?”
Krug shook his head. “I haven’t met him or even caught a glimpse; I just know him as Jamie.”
“Any idea of where he lives?” Another head shake. “How about where he works?”
“He works at a place in the East Village, the 9:3 °Club. Holly met him there.”
“When?”
“I don’t know precisely, but she hired him over the summer to do some work on the side.”
“What kind of work?”
Krug pursed his lips and ran a manicured finger across his chin. “Security, for some of her filming.” The puzzlement showed on my face, and Krug went on. “Filming the closing scenes of her pieces can be dangerous. Her subjects are agitated, and they sometimes become…hostile. Holly finally decided to be sensible and have someone close by. Jamie is apparently an imposing fellow. He was a fighter, Holly tells me, and she intimated that he’d spent time in prison.”
“He sounds wonderful. How close does she keep him while she’s filming?”
“Not in the room, of course, but nearby, and reachable by telephone.”
I thought about Interview Four, and Bluto, and Holly’s telephone check-ins. I looked at Krug. “Was he on the other end of the phone in Interview Four?”
He smiled thinly. “She made that long before she hired Jamie.”
“Was it you?”
“It wasn’t me, either, Mr. March. It was acting. There was no one waiting for Holly’s call when she filmed that scene, but she made that man believe there was, and she made you believe it too.”
I sighed and shook my head. “She has quite an appetite for risk.”
“What work of art worthy of the name isn’t risky?”
“I wasn’t talking just about her art.”
Krug gave me a speculative look. “An artist’s life and work necessarily run together, Mr. March. Holly’s work is dangerous and…extreme, and I suppose her life is too, though she takes pains to keep the two separate.”
“The alter ego thing, you mean?”
He nodded. “Anonymity enables her to work. It keeps her safe.”
“But her secret identity isn’t so secret, is it?”
“Your presence here is proof of that.”
“And I’m not the first to come calling.” Krug ran a hand through his snowy hair and tapped his chin and said nothing. “I’m talking about the lawyer who came here a couple of months ago,” I said. “The guy working for one of Holly’s interview subjects.”
“I know who you’re talking about, Mr. March.”
“Do you know who he was working for?”
“I don’t.”
“Or what he wanted?”
“He wanted Cassandra, though he wouldn’t say why. In fact he said very little, though he did it in a very threatening way. Despite that, I told him nothing.”
“Did you know that he’d found her anyway? Did Holly mention that?”
Krug’s eyes narrowed. “She did not. I told her about his visit and gave her the information on his business card, and that was the last we discussed it.”
“He gave you a card?”
Krug rummaged briefly in his desk and took out a large leather-bound diary. He opened it, flicked through a thick sheaf of business cards, and handed one to me. It was heavy stock and plain white, with simple black print.
