At midnight, when the shifts were changing, Jimmy Gibbs went to the employee men's room, slipped into a toilet stall, and sat there till his shift mates had gone home and the new group had settled in. He felt good. Things were going smoothly.
Talking to no one, he walked past the washing shed and through the yard. He opened the gate, strolled back to the car with the gas cans in the trunk, drove it through, got out and unhurriedly locked up behind himself. He felt so calm he even took a moment to find a good station on the radio before he motored away. There was nothing to worry about. Tomorrow he was off, and by Monday he'd be back at work, scrubbing coral dust off fenders and scratching bird shit off windshields, a little tired maybe but neither surlier nor friendlier than tonight, acting like nothing at all had happened.
On Sunday morning Joe Mulvane stopped by the Silver house. His blue shirt was translucent with sweat, you could see the whorls of stomach hair. Ray Yates had not been found; the detective had no news for them; they had none for him. He gulped a glass of ice water and he left.
The white sun climbed the sky, and even Reuben seemed knocked off balance by the pulsing force of it. His movements, like those of a distracted cat, were less lithe and weightless than usual, his relative awkwardness resulted now and then in a small sound-a brushing against furniture, the clatter of a plate-that seemed loud because of its unexpectedness. At moments he was gripped by an antsy drive for projects; he rearranged cabinets, folded and refolded linens. Between spurts of ambition he slipped into a kind of trance, a waking siesta in which his eyes stayed open, he would answer normally if spoken to, yet seemed to be asleep and dreaming. He fell into long gazes at the picture of Fred the martyred parrot, met the bird's red stare and communed with it somehow, seemed to plumb the mysterious space behind the paint in a way that not even the painter had done.
Afternoon came, shadows lengthened. But the sun stayed and stayed, stayed like a draining and obnoxious guest who moved tantalizingly to the threshold but would not go home.
The heat killed appetites, digestion seemed a gross and thankless exercise. Not till evening did anyone think about food. Then Reuben tossed a salad, sliced some fruits. When the three of them sat down at the poolside table, the sky was still flame-red in the west and it was nearly 10 p.m.
The phone rang. Reuben jogged into the living room and answered it. A harsh thick voice said, 'This is Claire Steiger. I need to speak with Augie.'
'Meester and Meesus Silber,' Reuben said, 'they just sit down to dinner.'
'Get him, Chico,' said the agent. 'It's important.'
Reuben paused. He'd gotten unaccustomed to being insulted and realized quite suddenly that he didn't have to take it. 'What you say is very stupid. I will tell Meester Silber you are on the line.'
Augie dabbed his lips and went toward the phone. Nina strode ahead of him and switched the speaker on. 'Hello, Claire,' the painter said.
The agent took no time for pleasantries. 'That little prick,' she said. 'That clever vile sneaky little prick.' She sounded like she'd been drinking, and this was unusual-not for her to have a glass too much, but to let it show, to lose control of her measured tone, her polished diction.
'Who?' said Augie.
'Brandenburg,' Claire spat out. 'The sexless little creep bastard.'
Half an hour before, the agent had come into the city from Sagaponack to find that an early copy of Manhattan magazine had been brought by courier to her building on Fifth Avenue. She'd read the piece on Augie and started swilling vodka. It had been such a perfect weekend, that was the bitch of it. Kip was away, off finagling with his bankruptcy attorneys; she'd had her beloved beach house to herself. She'd slept with a south breeze bringing her the sound of surf; she'd wakened to a soft damp mystic light pouring serenely through her gauzy curtains. Two days' peace had been enough to soften her, albeit briefly, to trick her into imagining that things might yet turn out all right, that somehow she could buy back her mortgaged life. 'He's ruined us. The little eunuch has ruined us.'
More than anything, Augie Silver was confused. 'Claire, it wasn't even a review. What could he possibly have said-'
'Nothing bad,' she cut in bitterly. 'Not one disparaging word. That would be too direct for Peter. Too honest. He took a much wormier approach. Here, I'll read you some choice bits.'
There was a pause in which was heard the rustle of glossy pages. Augie and Nina could almost see the clumsy workings of Claire Steiger's drunk and trembling fingers.
'Here, how's this?' she said. ' 'Augie Silver, a mercurial artist whose each new phase seems almost to undo the work that's come before'
… Or this: With a candor that more careerist painters might gasp at,' blah, blah, blah… Oh, and here's the capper: 'After a three-year retirement that saw his earlier canvases become sought-after rarities, he seems bursting with creative drive and has set himself the daunting goal of being 'as prolific as the tropics.''
She fell silent. Through the speakerphone it sounded almost as though she was panting, not out of breath but waiting avidly, hungrily, for someone to join in and fortify her pique. No one did. Augie and Nina looked at each other. Reuben had moved away and was staring at the picture of Fred.
'Don'tcha see?' Claire resumed, though of course Augie and Nina did see. The distraught agent raved on anyway. 'It's all in code, and every fucking word of it is telling buyers not to buy, to wait. The older work might turn out to be considered minor, just a warm-up. Then again, you don't think about your career, you could shoot your mouth off and blow the whole thing any minute. And now you're gonna flood the market-'
She broke off finally, blowing air between her teeth, and it was a mercy she could not see Augie at that moment, because Augie was smiling. The smile had appeared gradually, had taken the painter unawares, starting small and then spreading almost to a grin.
'Damnit, Augie,' said his agent, 'say something.'
'Claire,' he said, 'it's only one auction.'
'Only one auction,' she mimicked. 'Only one auction. Goddamn you, Augie, you're impossible.'
She hung up, the speakerphone squawked static at the loud bang of the receiver, and as soon as the connection had been broken the house seemed cooler. A faint breeze slid through the French doors, it carried a whiff of jasmine and chlorine.
Nina waited a moment, then said, 'Augie, why the smile?'
He reached for her, took her forearm in his hand. 'I feel like I've been reprieved,' he said.
His wife just looked at him.
'If someone's trying to kill me,' he went on, 'they'd wait at least until my price goes up again. Don'tcha think?'
Nina smiled wanly. Outside, dry foliage rattled; it sounded not like living leaves but like beans and pebbles trapped inside of pods. Reuben also tried to smile. But he was still staring at the painted parrot, and the bird's red eyes seemed to be saying something different from what Augie said. The young man turned his face away.
44
Clay Phipps had taken Augie's advice. He'd gone to bed on Friday afternoon and slept through till 4 a.m. on Saturday. He read till dawn, then, groggy and disoriented, puttered in his house and fiddled in his garden before straggling back to bed around five that afternoon. Sunday he again woke up in darkness and went to sleep in daylight. By 2 a.m. on Monday he was all slept out.
His eyes snapped open as they sometimes did when he was in the deepest throes of jet lag. He felt a similar sort of edgy alertness, an energy more delicious because it could not last, a refreshing dislocation; though he was in his own bed in his own house, he felt a freedom that usually came with being far away: He felt he could, if he dared, afford to be a different person, a bolder person.
But bold how? For what? He scratched his belly, looked up at the ceiling, and wondered what was still worth being bold about. His writing? No, he'd blown it forever on that front. His love life? Well, maybe, if a fitting partner ever came his way. But in the meantime he came up with just one answer, and the simplicity of it surprised and pleased him: his friends. It was worth it to be bold and vigilant and insistent upon frankness with his chums. Wasn't
