OUT TO LUNCH UNTIL 2 P.M.
I went back down to the ground floor. No sculpture. The door to the restaurant was open, and the odors from within weren't bad. I decided to have lunch and then try again.
A hostess looked me over and said, 'Just one?'
I gave her my best aw-shucks lonely-guy smile, and she put me in a tiny corner table near the rest rooms. The place was teeming with suits and smiles, the air ripe with alcohol and gravy. Paper palms on white walls. Gauguin prints hanging alongside travel photos of blue water and brown bodies.
I ordered a beer and a Tahiti Burger and was working my way down the foam when I saw him across the room in a booth with a woman.
Older, balder, the little hair he had left iron-gray. But definitely the same long face, mournful eyes, and a chin that had lost even more bone, receding into a stringy neck. He wore a dark blue suit and a tie so bright it seemed radioactive.
The woman was in her thirties, honey-blond and well put together. No food in front of them, just red drinks with celery sticks and piles of paper.
I ate and watched them; then the woman collected the papers, shook Graydon-Jones's hand, and left.
He ordered another drink and lit up a cigarillo.
I left money on my table and approached.
'Mr. Graydon-Jones?'
He looked up. The sad eyes were blue.
I repeated the pitch I'd given his secretary.
He smiled. 'Yes, I got your message. Sanctum. How strange.' English accent, tinged with working-class cadences that wouldn't mean much here but would pigeonhole him back in the U.K.
'What is?' I said.
'Hearing about that place after all this time. What was your name again?'
'Sandy Del Ware.'
'And you're writing a biography of Lowell?'
'Trying to.'
'Do you have a business card?'
'No, sorry. I'm a freelance.'
He tapped ashes into an ashtray. 'Trying? Does that mean you have no contract?'
'Several publishers are interested, but my agent wants me to submit a thorough outline before he negotiates a deal. I've been able to get all the basics on Lowell except for the time period when he opened Sanctum. In fact, you're the only Fellow I've been able to locate.'
'That so?' He smiled. 'Please sit down. Drink?'
'No, but I'd be happy to buy you one.'
He laughed. 'No, thank you. Two at lunch is my limit.'
He called for the bill, ordered coffee for both of us, and scrawled something on the check.
'I appreciate your talking to me,' I said.
'Only for a few minutes.' Looking at a big Rolex. 'Now, why on earth would you want to write a book about Buck?'
'He's an interesting character. Rise and fall of a major talent.'
'Hmm. Yes. I suppose that would be nicely ironic. But to me he was rather a bore. No offense, but one of those eternal children Americans seem so fond of.'
'Well, hopefully they'll stay fond and buy my book.'
He smiled again and buttoned his jacket over his thin chest. The suit looked to be one of those highly structured English affairs that costs thousands. His shirt was white with horizontal blue stripes and a high white collar, probably Turnbull &Asser. The conspicuous tie was patterned with artist's brushes and palettes on black jacquard silk. Simulated dabs of paint supplied the color: scarlet and orange and turquoise and lime-green. 'So what would you like to know about the Bug Farm?'
'Pardon?'
'The Bug Farm. That's what we called the place. It was infested with bugs: beetles, spiders, whatever. And we were all buggy back then. Bugged out- a bit crazy. The old man probably selected us for that. How's he doing?'
'Alive but ill.'
'Sorry to hear that… I suppose. Anyway, there's not much I can tell you. The bloody farce only lasted one year.'
'I know,' I lied. 'But no one's been able to tell me why.'
'The old man lost interest is why. One year we were his prize pigeons, the next we were out on our arses. Best thing that ever happened to me. I learned about the real world.'
'How were you selected?'
'I was an artist back then- or at least I thought I was.' He looked at his hands, long-fingered, powerful. 'Bronze and stone. I wasn't half terrible actually. Won some awards in England and got a contract with a gallery in New York. The owner heard about the retreat and recommended me to Lowell. In lieu of paying me for two pieces.'
'From sculpture to insurance,' I said. 'Must have been an interesting switch.'
He crushed out the cigarillo. 'There's art in everything. Anyway, I'm sorry I can't be more helpful. As I say, it was a foolish year.'
'Do you have any idea how I can locate the other Fellows? Not Joachim Sprentzel, of course. He's dead.'
He scratched his neck. 'Really? Poor chap. How?'
'Suicide. His obituary said he'd been ill for a long time.'
'AIDS?'
'Was he gay?'
'As springtime. Not a bad sort. Kept to himself, writing music all day- no piano or violin, just scratching away at that funny lined paper.'
'Is there anything else you can tell me about him?'
'Such as?'
'Personality characteristics that might be interesting in a book?'
'Personality,' he said, touching the side of his nose. 'Quiet. Withdrawn. A bit gloomy, perhaps. Probably because there were no boys to play with. And, of course, being German… That's about it. He didn't socialize much- none of us did. Buck gave us each a little cabin and told us to 'wax brilliant.' Isolation was encouraged. It wasn't a sociable place.'
'I've heard the grand opening party was pretty interesting.'
'So have I- wine, women, song, music, all sorts of fun. One damned bit of ha-ha the whole year, and I was having my appendix out. Bit of bad luck, eh? When I healed up and got back, the old man wouldn't talk to me. Punishment for not being there. As if I'd defied him by bursting my bloody appendix. A few months later, I was out on my arse.'
Removing the celery stick from his glass, he nibbled the edge.
'Gawd, this takes me back. You really think you've got a book in it?'
'I hope so.'
'Send me a copy if it ever gets published.'
'Absolutely. Speaking of getting published, I can't find anything on the two writing Fellows, Terrence Trafficant and Denton Mellors. Trafficant had a best-seller, then faded from view, and Mellors just seems to have disappeared without publishing anything.'
'Terry the Pirate and Denny… This is a hoot, haven't thought about them in ages. Well, Terry's probably in jail somewhere. I have no idea about Denny.'
'You think Trafficant got into trouble again?'
'I wouldn't doubt it. Trouble was his
