The Monkeewrench crew wasn’t hard to spot in the sea of sleek fashionistas. Grace MacBride and Harley Davidson, engaged in a private conversation at the moment, most closely resembled the gallery’s majority of denizens. Both of them could have passed for either patrons or artists, she in her black duster, he encased in enough black leather to dress a rodeo.
Annie stood a few feet away, coquettishly deflecting the attentions of a handsome young man in a vintage tuxedo. Somehow she’d found the time and change of wardrobe to magically transform herself into a semiformal butterfly adorned in diaphanous, hand-painted chiffon. Magozzi remembered what Espinoza had said about her clothing budget, and he believed it.
Roadrunner, obviously suffering from sensory overload, hovered alone against a far wall in his perennial Lycra – formal black for this occasion – shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. He offered them a weak wave, then went back to his pacing.
Gino shook his head in genuine sympathy. ‘Poor guy looks like an antelope in a pack of lions.’
‘Where’s Mitch?’
Gino didn’t hear him. ‘Annie is the only one who looks like she’s having fun,’ he sighed.
‘I think she always has fun. So Mitch – he’s the only missing person.’
Gino tore his eyes away from Annie and cocked a thumb toward a linen-covered buffet table groaning under the weight of sushi and floral arrangements. ‘There he is.’
Magozzi saw him then, next to a tall blond woman in a white silk gown. There was no question she was the artist – adoring fans clustered around her, vying for audience, and she graciously attended them all while managing to cosset her husband like a cherished pet.
So that was Diane Cross. The artist, the star, and obviously a doting wife. Not a ten-star stunner, maybe, but attractive in that wholesome, athletic sort of way so many Midwesterners aspired to.
The girl who’d greeted them appeared miraculously with a fresh bottle. ‘Don’t look so surprised,’ she laughed, refilling their glasses. ‘I told you I’d keep an eye out for empties.’
‘Well, cheers to you,’ Gino said. ‘Do you think you could fill up my friend over there, too? The tall skinny guy?’
‘Sure.’ She drifted away toward Roadrunner and Gino gave Magozzi a wink.
‘I’m going to make my way over there, see if Super Geek had any more luck tracing those e-mails.’
Roadrunner almost looked grateful when Gino approached him, then his face twisted in confusion, remembering that he was supposed to be taking sides. ‘Detective,’ he said warily.
‘You look like you’re about as happy to be here as I am.’
Roadrunner twirled his glass between his fingers nervously. ‘Yeah.’
‘Any new progress on the e-mails?’
‘No.’ His eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Are you playing good cop now?’
Gino laughed. ‘No, I’m always the bad cop. But I’m off-duty, sort of. From now on, you’ve all got your own personal police protection, courtesy of MPD. We’re just filling in till the swing shift gets assigned.’
Roadrunner looked alarmed. ‘You mean . . . you’re
Gino shrugged good-naturedly. ‘Surveillance, protection – either way you look at it, everybody’s safer.’
Roadrunner frowned at him for a minute, then sighed. ‘Okay. I guess that makes sense, from a cop’s point of view.’
‘Only view I got, buddy. So you get dragged to this kind of stuff often?’
‘Pretty much. Courtesy to Mitch and Diane, you know?’
‘What do you think of the art?’
He shrugged in halfhearted apology. ‘Hey, I don’t know shit about art. Coming to the shows always makes me feel like an idiot.’
‘Well, if any of these people came to your office to see your work, you’d make them feel like idiots, so then it’d be even.’
‘Yeah, I guess so.’
Harley appeared from out of nowhere, which was hard to believe, given his mass. He placed himself between Roadrunner and Gino like a protective father defending his son against the neighborhood bully. ‘You checking up on us, Detective?’
‘Basically. I was just telling Roadrunner here, we got a car on each of you from now on.’
Harley looked Gino hard in the eye. ‘So you’re covering Grace?’
‘You bet.’
‘Well, I sure as hell hope you’re better at covering her than you were covering the goddamned Megamall.’
Gino glared at him. ‘You’re pretty fucking mouthy for a guy who doesn’t have an alibi for any of these murders.’
‘And you’re pretty fucking self-righteous for a guy who knew the last two murders were going down and didn’t stop them.’
Gino looked down into his glass, blowing out a silent whistle, counting to ten. ‘Okay, buddy,’ he finally said, ‘I’m a little buzzed right now, and I’m guessing you are too, which is why you forgot this whole shitload of a case is messing up your doorstep as much as ours.’
Harley glared at him for a minute, then slowly his shoulders slumped and he deflated like a spent balloon. ‘I didn’t forget, Detective,’ he said quietly. ‘Christ, we’re never going to forget. That’s the problem. Grace still blames herself for Georgia and now she’s taking the hits for these, too. We’re worried about her and it makes us crazy. Jesus, what a fucking mess.’
Gino eyed him speculatively. It hadn’t been an apology exactly, but it was close enough. ‘Fucking mess. I’ll drink to that.’ He lifted his flute and acknowledged Harley with a slight nod before draining his glass. ‘You know what? These damn glasses are too small.’
Harley nodded. ‘Sit tight. I know where they keep the bottles.’
Ten minutes and almost a bottle later, Gino was starting to think that Harley wasn’t such a bad guy after all – in fact, they seemed to have a lot in common. They both hated abstract art, liked pink champagne, and loved to eat. Roadrunner seemed pretty decent, too, especially for a techno-wienie.
They were all standing shoulder to shoulder in front of a painting of bold, distorted strokes that stretched upward like chunks of pulled taffy, trying to make sense of it.
‘So what do you think this is supposed to be?’ Gino asked.
‘Hell if I know,’ Harley said. ‘Black-and-white shit. I think they’re supposed to be people.’
‘They’re clothespins,’ Roadrunner said with great certainty.
‘Nah,’ Gino disagreed amiably. ‘Gotta be people. See the legs? And those fat globs of paint on the bottom are feet. Besides, why would anybody do abstracts of clothespins? They’re already abstract, aren’t they?’
Harley finished off the rest of the champagne straight from the bottle. ‘Good point, Detective.’
‘You have to wonder if they’re supposed to be anything,’ Roadrunner said, slurring his words slightly. ‘What if all this contemporary art stuff was just a scam? What if they just pour a bunch of paint on a canvas and hope it turns into something some pseudo-intellectual art critic says is profound?’
‘That’s exactly what I think,’ Harley started to say, but then a stunning blond in a tight black dress sidled up next to him and touched his arm. ‘Is this your work?’
Harley concentrated hard to keep his jaw from falling open. ‘Uh . . . no.’
‘Oh.’ She looked around uncomfortably, searching for a polite way to extricate herself from her obvious mistake.
‘It is a . . . moving piece, though, isn’t it?’ Harley added quickly.
Roadrunner and Gino pretended to ignore the exchange, but they were both smiling smugly.
‘Oh, yes! I think it’s incredible!’ the blond gushed with renewed interest. ‘Whoever did these is quite talented. So what’s your interpretation of this one?’
Harley leaned back on the rundown heels of his motorcycle boots. ‘Well, I think it’s a poignant representation of the contemporary dichotomy between homogeneity and global diversity.’
Next to him, Roadrunner bent forward and coughed into his hand, stifling a laugh. Gino looked away.
The blond’s eyes brightened in admiration. ‘I can see that. You know, with the contrast between the black . . . and the white.’
