“No.”
“Did anyone ever follow her out?”
“Not that I noticed,” Cartier said. “But that’s not surprising. She created a very distant sort of mood.” He smiled. “Derek called her The Queen of Ice.’”
“Derek?”
“Derek Linton,” Cartier said, “the painter I mentioned out front.”
“He knew Angelica?”
“Only slightly,” Cartier said. “They met here at the Knife Point.”
“When?”
“I think it was the last time I saw her,” Cartier said. “Yes, it was. They met the last time she came here.”
“He talked to her?”
“It was more as if she talked to him,” Cartier said. “Derek wouldn’t have been interested in Angelica.”
“But she was interested in him?”
“Yes,” Cartier said.
“How do you know?”
“Because she did something I’d never seen her do,” Cartier said. “She walked over to Derek and started to talk to him.”
“About what?”
“About his painting,” Cartier said. “
“How long did they talk?”
“Just a few minutes,” Cartier said. “As I told you, Derek would not have been interested in Angelica.” He thought about it for a moment. “But Angelica was quite persistent,” he said. “She actually followed him out to his truck. I was quite surprised. As a matter of fact, I must have been quite taken with it, because I walked out on the porch and watched them for a while.”
“What did they do?”
“Just talked,” Cartier said. “Derek was in the cab of the truck and Angelica was standing beside it.”
“Could you hear what they were saying?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
“Well, as you can see, we don’t have much of a parking lot,” Cartier said. “So after a while, another car tried to get in, and Derek pulled out to give it his space.”
“About how long did they talk?” Frank asked.
“It couldn’t have been more than three or four minutes,” Cartier said. “At least that time.”
“Did they meet again?”
“Yes, they must have,” Cartier said. “I know because Derek complained about it.”
“About Angelica?”
“That she had come over to his house and imposed upon him a bit.”
Frank quickly wrote it down. “What did he say exactly?”
“That he had no time for this sort of thing,” Cartier said. “I remember his exact words. I started to joke with him about being chased by a beautiful young girl, and he said, ‘In my faded condition, I don’t need a Queen of Ice.’”
Frank scratched the words into his notebook. He looked at Cartier. “Do you have this man’s address?”
“Yes,” Cartier said. Then he gave it to him.
“That’s in the Grant Park area, isn’t it?” Frank asked.
“Yes, it is,” Cartier said. “Derek’s lived there almost all his life.”
Frank continued to look at the address, 124 Bergen Street, staring at it so hard that his eyes seemed to bleach the blue ink into a blazing white.
20
Even over the phone, he realized suddenly, Karen’s voice drew him toward her like an invisible wire.
“Hello,” she said.
“Karen, it’s Frank.”
He waited for her to respond in some intimate way, with a sudden caught breath, a sigh, a whisper.
“Frank Clemons,” he added.
“Yes, I know, Frank,” Karen said with a small laugh. “You’re such a formal man.”
He wanted to stop right there and ask her what she meant, but he knew he couldn’t.
“Listen,” he said quickly. “Have you ever heard of a place called the Knife Point?”
“A gallery?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Karen said. “James has mentioned it a couple of times.”
“But you’ve never been there?”
“No.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Not much,” Karen said. “James has always treated it as a joke, but that doesn’t mean anything. He’s very rigid when it comes to art.”
“So you don’t know anyone who is connected to the gallery?” Frank asked.
“No.”
“Did Angelica ever mention it?”
“No. Why?”
“How about Derek Linton? Have you ever heard of him?”
“Yes,” Karen said. “He’s a painter. He’s very good.”
“Did Angelica ever mention him?”
“No,” Karen said. Her voice tightened. “What’s this all about, Frank?”
“I’ve found out that Angelica sometimes hung around the Knife Point.”
“Hung around? Why?”
“I don’t know,” Frank told her. “But I also found out that she knew Derek Linton.”
“And they met at the Knife Point?”
“Yes.”
“But what would Angelica be doing at a place like that?”
“She’s been there a few times,” Frank said. “The owner recognized her.”
There was another silence, and in his mind, Frank could see Karen’s eyes as they grew softer and more somber.
“Frank,” he heard her say finally. “Be careful.”
There was a strange, insistent quality in her voice, and Frank could still hear it echoing faintly in his mind as he pulled the car up to 124 Bergen Street. It was a small woodframe house, but it was well-kept-up compared to the rest of the neighborhood. It had been recently painted a gently muted white, and the bright green shutters shone cheerfully in the hard afternoon light.
But there was still something sad about the house, and as he got out of the car and headed up the cement walk, Frank could feel that sadness gathering around him. It was in the soft sway of the flowers that bordered the walkway, and the gentle, lonely tinkle of the stained-glass wind chimes that hung on the front porch. It was in the huge wall of shrubbery that all but blocked the end of the walkway, and which turned the porch into a lush green cavern, one whose moist leaves seemed already to be fading toward a crackling brown.
The door opened not long after Frank knocked, and he saw a tall, very lean man staring at him from behind the screen.
“If you’ve come to collect some bill or other,” he said, “you can forget it.”
