“I can’t think of a second. Drugs, maybe. I think the first reason is it.”
Smith is wearing a smug smile.
“And if it is, admitting it is the quickest way to get the FBI out of your life. They honestly don’t care what you or Wheaton do for sex. What worries them is other possibilities.”
“Like?”
“Like you being involved in a conspiracy to produce the Sleeping Women.”
“Ridiculous.”
“I think so too. But I don’t run the FBI. Come on, Frank. What’s the deal? Is Roger Wheaton gay?”
“Have you asked him?”
“He evaded the question.”
“Well he would, wouldn’t he?”
“Why would he?”
“Roger grew up in rural Vermont. He’s fifty-eight years old, for God’s sake. He’s another generation altogether.”
“You’re saying he’s gay?”
“Of course he is.”
Smith runs a manicured fingernail along the wrought-iron scrollwork in the tabletop. “He’s simply not comfortable with the kind of attention that comes with being gay and famous.”
“Are you and he lovers?”
Smith shakes his head with what looks like regret. “No.”
“Then how do you know he’s gay? He told you?”
“Roger ran away to New York when he was seventeen or eighteen. How do you think he lived? Certainly not by selling his paintings.”
“Are you saying he sold himself?”
“We all sell ourselves, in one way or another. Here was this talented, handsome kid schlepping his derivative paintings around to all the galleries. He got noticed, but not for the paintings. Before long, the old queens were fighting to give him a place to live and work. They took care of him until he joined the marines.”
“You seem to know more about him than anyone else.”
“Roger confided these things because he knew I would understand. And I’m telling you so that you’ll do all you can to get the FBI off his back. His life is hard enough without that.”
“I agree. And I will. But I’m not completely clear here. If the visits were about friendship, what were the arguments about? The yelling?”
Smith shakes his head again. “I can’t answer that. The FBI can’t know about that.”
“Jesus, Frank. I won’t give them details. I’ll just tell them I’m satisfied that the arguments and visits mean nothing.”
“I can’t do it.”
Filled with frustration, but also understanding Smith’s reluctance to violate Wheaton’s privacy, I lean forward, pull the tail of my blouse out of my jeans, and rip the medical tape from the skin of my back. As the transmitter falls against the iron seat of my chair, I picture Daniel Baxter panicking in the surveillance van outside. I hope he has the sense not to come charging in with his gun drawn.
“I’m switching off,” I say loudly. “Don’t come in.”
Smith gapes as I reach into my blouse and pull the tiny mike from my bra, unthread the wire, then drop the transmitter on the table between us and switch it off.
“We’re no longer live, Frank. It’s you and me.”
He looks ready to throw me out of his house.
“Listen to me,” I say with the conviction of my own pain. “My sister has two small children that she loves more than her life. She was yanked off the street by some predator, and she’s probably rotting in the swamp somewhere right now. There are eleven other women just like her, one of them a friend you say you cared for and admired. The clock is ticking down on Thalia’s life. Is it an invasion of privacy for the FBI to learn Roger Wheaton is gay? Yes. Is it a tragedy? No. If your arguments with Wheaton have nothing to do with this case, all the effort the FBI puts into investigating them is wasted. Do you want that wasted effort to cost Thalia her life?”
“I think you’re exaggerating my importance.”
“Bullshit! The FBI doesn’t have much to work with, and they won’t drop this angle until they understand it. Tell me the truth about the arguments, and if it’s innocent, I’ll tell them to leave you the hell alone.”
Smith closes his eyes, takes a long breath, then expels it slowly and opens his eyes again. The look in them tells me this man does not easily grant trust. “You give me your word not to reveal this to the FBI if it’s not relevant to the case?”
“Christ, you want me to pinky-swear? I’m not telling them anything they don’t need to know to help my sister. I don’t even like them. But they’re the only hope those women and their families have.”
Smith sighs and looks over at the old slave quarters that form one wall of his garden. A faint scent of lemon drifts into my nostrils.
“It’s simple,” he says. “Roger wants me to kill him.”
A rush of heat passes over my face. “What?”
“His disease is steadily worsening. It’s in his lungs now, and his other vital organs. The end will be… unpleasant. He wants my help when the time comes.”
I feel like slinking away in shame. Suddenly everything is clear, Wheaton’s reticence most of all. If the artist’s wish to have Frank Smith help end his life became known to the NOPD, that might stop Smith from risking his freedom to comply, no matter where his sympathies lie.
“You get it now?” asks Smith.
“Part of it. But why the arguments? You refused to help him?”
“That’s right. I thought Roger might be motivated by clinical depression. I thought he had a lot of great paintings left in him. I still think so.” Smith gives me a weary look, as though concealing the truth is no longer worth the effort. “But he’s wearing me down, honestly. He’s shown me his medical records, not to mention his body, and I’m starting to understand how grave his situation is. Assisted suicide will get you ten years in this state, so it’s not a decision I can make lightly.”
“I understand.”
Smith looks skeptical. “Do you?”
An awful flash of memory lights my mind. “I once saw an Afghan guerrilla ask his brother to kill him to keep him from being captured. He’d been wounded during a raid on a Russian outpost. It was total confusion, people running around in the dark, Russian soldiers screaming, Afghans howling curses, and this poor half-starved guy shot in the hip. He couldn’t walk, and they couldn’t carry him through the mountains. He begged his brother to end it for him, but the brother couldn’t do it. The others huddled beside the trail and talked; the Russians were getting closer; finally a cousin went back and cut the guy’s throat while the others prayed. I heard the cousin sobbing as we climbed back into the mountains.”
“What an encouraging story.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just… I know it’s a hard thing. How did he want you to help him? Did he have a method in mind?”
“How could it help you to know that?”
“I don’t know. I’m curious, I guess.”
“Insulin.”
“Insulin?”
“It’s a peaceful way to go, he says. He’s researched it. Sleep, coma, then death. The problem is that sometimes you don’t die. You just get brain damage.”
“That’s why he needed your help?”
“Yes. He wanted me to find some drug that would stop his heart after the coma. This was after I told him I wasn’t putting a plastic bag over his head and watching him turn blue.”
“Jesus. Okay. I’ll tell the FBI they’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Thank you.” Smith forces a smile. “Would you like something to drink now? Coffee? A Bloody Mary?”
