She smiled.
'I'm very sorry, Geoffrey, but I have no idea what you're talking about.'
We gazed at each other, with frozen smiles. Then I had the feeling she wanted to hear me beg, that it would turn her on to sit coolly with her legs nicely crossed while I squirmed in my seat.
It isn't my style to importune, but that particular morning I was desperate for information.
'I really need your help,' I said.
'If you know anything, or know somebody who might know something, or can help me in any way-I'd be grateful, I really would…'
A sudden coldness in her stare told me this was not the way to her heart, so I shut up and gazed at her, woefully and imploringly, and as soon as I did the ice began to melt. She studied me with such a searing intensity that I felt forced to lower my eyes. The moment I did, she spoke to me again, her way of telling me that silent submission was what she'd wanted all along.
'Can you sit a moment, Geoffrey, while I go and hunt up Harold? He hates being disturbed when he's painting. But I think the two of you should talk.'
While she went to search him out I examined the 'investment collection' of photographs. Among the classic images, several unusual ones caught my interest. There were two excellent and kinky Mapplethorpes, and a curious work from the late twenties by Man Ray, showing a woman, head encased in a tight-fitting mask, whose gloved and handcuffed hands were suspended by a chain above her head. Another extraordinary and very rare carbrocolor print by Paul Outerbridge showed a woman in high heels wearing nothing but a top hat, a domino mask and a single black fishnet stocking.
'Barnett!' Duquayne pranced across the wide expanse of floor, his paint-spattered sweatshirt catching the late morning light. We shook hands while Amanda watched us coolly from the side.
'Now, what's all this I hear about a disappearance?' He enunciated the word with relish.'
'Kim's gone. Her roommate too.
'Roommate too! Oh ho! The plot thickens!'
'Except for you and Amanda, I never met any of her friends.'
'But I'm sure Amanda's told you-we barely knew her. She was more like an acquaintance. Friend of a friend. That sort of thing.'
I looked at Amanda.
'I remember your mentioning that she brought around other men. I thought for sure-'
Duquayne turned to her.
'Wasn't that at our big drink party, darling? Who ever meets anyone at a thing like that?' He turned back to me.
'Want a drink, Barnett?' He headed toward a built-in bar. Since I couldn't read his eyes, I glanced again at Amanda. She was studying me in an aloof and pitying way, the way I imagined she might gaze at a cripple on the street.
'Perhaps you'd tell me the name of the friend.'
'Who's that?' Duquayne handed me a gin and tonic.
'You just said Kim was 'a friend of a friend'?' He glanced at Amanda. I looked toward her too, just in time to catch an exchange of complicity.
I had suspected her of lying from the first; now I was certain her lies were calculated. 'Really, Barnett-people don't want to be involved. Not in a thing like this.'
'Like what?'
'Whatever.'
'But, you see, I don't know what kind of thing it is. All I know is my girlfriend's missing.'
He sipped from his glass.
'Is she? Or did she walk away? See, that's what's bothering us. Now, if you think she's actually missing, in the 'missing person' sense, my advice would be to go to the police.'
I Of course she'd walked-I knew that already. I had no claim on her; I only wanted to find her for myself. I stared at him.
'So that's your advice?'
'We really don't know anything, Geoffrey,' Amanda said.
I turned to her.
'Of course you do. You knew Kim pretty damn well. Otherwise you wouldn't have invited her to your intimate little dinner party, and when we arrived you wouldn't have greeted her the way you did. Now, if there's some special reason you don't want to own up to that-fine, just be straight enough to say so. But don't feed me any more crap. 'Barely knew her.' 'Friend of a friend.' Spare me more of that.'
Duquayne put down his glass.
'You don't want to talk to Amanda that way, Barnett.'
'Don't I, Harold? I think I do.'
'Hey! You're out of line here, guy!'
'Am I? I know this much, Kimberly was bisexual. She also liked to have sex for money. That wouldn't be how you two met her, would it? Hired her through an escort service? Paid her to get into bed with you?
Played all kinds of kinky games?'
'Why, you vile little shit!' Amanda said.
'Well, well-Miss Perfect loses her cool!'
'Get out!'
I laughed. Their anger told me I was right. I moved to the door.
'Know something, Duquayne? Your paintings suck. '
He shrieked after me: 'Loser!' But I was already on the stairs.
Descending, I heard something smack, then break; I think he threw his drink at the wall.
I went back to my studio, brooded awhile, then started looking through my proof sheets, searching not for portraits that explored or revealed character, but for shots that were just good likenesses.
I selected three, separated out the negatives, then handcarried them to a lab on Church Street. I ordered fifty commercial 8 x 10 blowups of each. Then I headed back uptown.
This time, when Brent let me in, his young face was creased with concern.
'Another bad night,' he said.
'But he refuses to go to the hospital.'
'His choice, isn't it? Is he well enough to talk?'
Brent motioned me toward the bedroom.
'Five minutes tops, okay?' I agreed not to stay any longer.
Jess lay beneath the sheets, the same wet rag across his forehead, his chest hair curled and wet against his skin. At first I thought he looked smaller, as if he'd shrunk in the past three days, but then I realized it was his eyes that were enlarged.
I told him what I'd discovered: that all the background facts Kim had given us were false. As I described my various telephone calls he began to show concern.
'Can't imagine why she'd lie,' he said.
'She had no reason to lie to me.'
'Maybe like a lot of people who move to New York, she wanted to re-create herself.'
'Maybe. So who is she, Geoffrey?'
I shrugged.
'At this point I don't even know if Kimberly's her real name. But I have to find her, Jess. There was too much between us to let it just end like this.'
He nodded.
'How will you find her?'
'By finding out who she is. I was hoping you could help me. was there some little thing she let slip in your talks, something that didn't fit?
A revealing detail? Anything?' Jess shook his head.
'What about that escort service? You said Shadow introduced her to a woman.' 'Mrs. Z.'
