“Do I look like I just made a million bucks to you?”
“Your paintings reveal a predilection for violence,” says Lenz.
“Who the hell are you?”
“This is Doctor Lenz, Leon,” says Kaiser. “You speak to him with respect, or you’ll be funding the Vaseline concession at Angola. That’s the only real self-help program that means anything there.”
Gaines says nothing.
“The artist painting these pictures doesn’t sign his work. But we’ve found some rare sable brush hairs in the paint on some of them. Sound familiar?”
There’s a pause as Gaines works it out. “It’s those expensive brushes Wheaton got us. Right?”
“Right.”
“You tracked brush hairs from Hong Kong to Tulane?”
“That’s what we do, Leon. We can track pubic hairs from an Algiers whorehouse to your ass if we need to. I want some answers. You waste five seconds of my time, you’re on your way up Highway Sixty-one.”
Gaines says nothing.
“Where were you three nights ago, after the opening at the museum?”
“Right here.”
“Can anybody verify that?”
There’s a pause; then Kaiser says, “Ms. Knapp?”
“Who’s asking?” says a scratchy female voice.
“I’m with the FBI. Could you tell us-”
“Tell these guys we were here after the NOMA thing,” Gaines cuts in. “They don’t believe me.”
“Shit,” mutters Baxter.
“That’s right,” the woman says. “We came straight home. I was bored. Everybody thinks they’re hot shit at those art things. We were here all night.”
“Can anyone else confirm that?” asks Kaiser.
“No,” says Gaines. “We were having some quality time, you know?”
“Right,” Kaiser says wearily.
“That’s all,” Gaines says, dismissing his girlfriend as he would a waitress.
“She your steady alibi, Leon?” asks Kaiser.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Tell me about Roger Wheaton.”
“What about him?”
“Why did you want into his program?”
“Roger’s the man.”
“What do you mean?”
“He does his thing and doesn’t give two shits what anybody thinks about it. And because he’s done that his whole life, he’s now a rich and famous man.”
“You want to be rich and famous too, Leon?”
“Whatever.”
“Do you like Wheaton?”
“What’s to like or not like? The guy paints, that’s it.”
“Do you respect him?”
“The guy’s dying, but he keeps working and he doesn’t bitch. I respect that. You see the piece he’s doing now? The room thing?”
“Yes.”
“It’s tearing him up, doing that. He’s got all kinds of joint problems. His tendons or something.”
“Enthesopathies,” Lenz says.
“Whatever. He has to climb that ladder and sit there for hours, holding his neck in one position. It’s worse than the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo had scaffolding, so he could lay on his back, you know? And Wheaton’s hands… Sometimes his fingers turn blue, man.
“You clearly respect him,” says Lenz. “And I suspect you don’t give respect easily.”
“You got that right. I think Roger saw a lot of shit in the war. He’s got wisdom, and he knows how to pass it on. By example.”
“What about Frank Smith?” asks Lenz.
Gaines makes a spitting sound.
“You don’t like Smith?”
“Frankie’s a silver-spoon butt pirate from Westchester. He walks like he has a dildo stuck up his butt, and he preaches every time he opens his mouth.”
“What about his paintings?”
Gaines laughs in derision. “The nude fag series? Very tasty. You seen any of them? He cops the old masters so the stuff looks less like porn, then pawns it off on ignorant queens from New York. It’s a sweet scam, I’ll give him that. I’d try it myself, but I have this aversion to anal penetration. You know? But hey, maybe that’s just me.”
“What about Thalia Laveau?” asks Lenz.
Another pause, as though Gaines is debating whether to answer. “She’s a tasty piece, if you like dark meat. Which, on occasion, I do. She doesn’t look black, but she’s got the blood, all right. Darker the berry, sweeter the juice, right?”
“What about her paintings?” asks Kaiser.
“She paints the poor and downtrodden. Who wants to buy that? A few guilty liberals from New England. She ought to go back to stripping.”
“She told you she stripped for money?” asks Lenz.
“A Newcomb art history chick told me. She and Thalia munch carpets together on occasion. Don’t tell me you guys didn’t know.”
“Do you know a man named Marcel de Becque?” asks Lenz.
“Never heard of him.”
“We’re going to want to take some pictures,” Kaiser says in a detached voice. “Our photographer was supposed to be here already, but I’m sure we can find something to talk about in the meantime.”
Baxter slaps my knee.
He opens the door, and I’m on the concrete, moving up the line of shotgun houses to the sound of R. Kelly coming from a boom box. I nod to the porch-sitters who’ll assume from my clothes and the camera around my neck that I’m what I used to be, a newspaper photographer sent down here for pictures of a corpse or drug activity.
The green paint is peeling from the walls of Gaines’s house, and the screen on the door is a rusted patchwork of orange and black. I feel a moment’s trepidation as I reach for the handle, but the knowledge that Kaiser has a gun settles me enough to knock and go through the door.
The first thing that hits me is the smell. The scents of paint and oil that made Wheaton’s studio so pleasant are here smothered by the stink of mildew, stale beer, rotting food, tobacco, and marijuana. Kaiser, Lenz, and Gaines practically fill the front room, which is long and narrow and throws me back to the countless shotgun houses I visited when I worked for the
“Who’s this?” asks Gaines.
There’s a strange caesura as Kaiser and Lenz judge his reaction to me. I force myself not to look at him by busying myself with my camera. Past the camera I see a brown sofa pitted with cigarette burns and a threadbare carpet stained with drops of oil paint. The walls are bare but for an airbrushed Elvis on one wall and a small but elegant abstract over the sofa. A large easel stands the corner nearest me, a dirty cloth thrown over it.
“She’s our photographer,” says Kaiser. He points at the easel. “Is that painting yours?”
“Yeah,” Gaines replies, and from the sound of his voice I can tell he’s still looking at me.
