I’ll bet you’ve saved them all.”
For a moment, Frank could see them piled in a box in one of his disordered closets, stacks of little green books, one on top of the other. He had kept them all, as if something in them was worth preserving, the accumulated knowledge of his life.
“Was that all you talked about, your painting?” he asked Linton.
“More or less,” Linton said. “Except for what I noticed about her.”
“What was that?”
“That she was different from the way she looked,” Linton said. “Did Cartier tell you about how she looked that day, Mr. Clemons?”
“I have an idea,” Frank said. “Not everybody’s description was the same.”
“Like a cheap little S&M whore,” Linton said bluntly. “That’s what she looked like. I actually thought she was one of those prostitutes who specialize in that sort of thing.” His eyes narrowed. “She wasn’t a prostitute, was she?”
“I don’t know what she was,” Frank said. “That’s what I’m still trying to find out.”
“Perhaps she didn’t know what she was either,” Linton said. “It’s not easy to know, especially in this world.” He took another photograph from the table beside him and handed it to Frank. It showed Linton in infantry uniform, a young man with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and an Ml strapped to his shoulder.
“World War Two,” Linton said. “I was at Anzio.”
“So was my father,” Frank said. “Or at least not far from there.”
“On that day, when we hit the beaches, I knew exactly what I was made of,” Linton said. “Since then, it’s been anybody’s guess.” He tugged the photograph from Frank’s hand and placed it back on the table. “When your life is flat, when nothing is ever at risk, you have to create your own identity. Maybe that was Angelica’s problem. She told me she was rich. Was she?”
“Yes.”
“Sheltered?”
“I think so.”
Linton nodded. “Maybe she had no idea who she was, and so she dressed up as something she wasn’t. You know, just decided to be something in particular for a day.” He nodded toward Frank’s pocket. “Show me that photograph again.”
Frank gave it to him.
“Ah yes,” Linton said. “The face is the same, but her hair was different, and her makeup. “ He handed the picture back to Frank. “She did look like that when I saw her the first time. And the second time I saw her, she looked completely different from the first.”
“Cartier said that he thought you saw her at least one more time.”
“He was right.”
“Where did you see her?”
“Here, at my house.”
“She knew where you lived?”
“She could have looked me up in the phone book,” Derek said. “I guess that’s what she did, because I know I didn’t tell her where I lived when we were at the Knife Point. I mean, there was no time for that. She followed me out, and this other car wanted to come in, so I backed out very quickly and made a space.” He smiled. “An artist must always give way to a customer.”
“So she just showed up at your house?” Frank asked.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“About two days later,” Linton told him. “And as I said, she looked completely different. None of that S&M black. Just the opposite, in fact. She wore a lovely, frilly sort of light blue dress, and her hair fell over her shoulders. She looked very, very beautiful.”
“How long did she stay here?”
“About an hour,” Linton said.
“What did you talk about?”
“I showed her my paintings. She seemed to like them. She had no education in art, no experience in it. But she seemed genuinely interested. She asked to see my studio, and so I took her into the back room and showed it to her.”
“May I see it?”
“My studio? Why?”
“Just to get a feel for the place.”
“All right,” Linton said with no further question. He pulled himself up and led Frank slowly into the back room.
A rush of bright sunlight swept the room, and Linton’s white hair gleamed brightly in its rays.
“This is it,” he said, “my life’s work.”
It was like a world of half-created things, canvases of ill-formed landscapes, half-colored faces, sketches, drawings, splotches of color that seemed little more than random, careless splatterings of red and yellow. It was as if Linton had spent his life in random, sporadic attempts to capture something that continued to elude him.
“This is where you took her that afternoon?” Frank asked.
“Yes.”
Frank peered about the room. There was something beautiful about it. The canvases were bound evenly, the frames neatly stacked. But it was not order which made it beautiful, it was the struggle to bring some order to everything outside the room, to all that was less tractable than mere frames and brushes.
“It’s a nice place,” Frank said.
“I’ve seen worse.”
Frank glanced toward a vase of freshly cut flowers which rested on one of the tables near the easel.
“A friend of mine brings them here occasionally,” Linton said. “As a matter of fact, she brought them the day Diana came. We were in the studio when Miriam came in. She looked a little surprised to see the girl. She said, ‘Oh, it’s you.’”
“She knew her?”
“I guess she did.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“No,” Linton said. “She just smiled and dropped off the flowers.”
“And the woman. What is her name?”
“Miriam Castle,” Linton said. “And if you’re looking for the closest thing this city has to a real art patron, that’s Miriam.”
“Where does she live?”
“She spends her summers in La Grange,” Linton said. “She’s very rich. She has one of those huge plantations out there.”
“And the address?”
Linton laughed. “You won’t need an address. Everybody in La Grange knows where the Castle plantation is.” He looked slowly around the room. “God, I will miss this place.” He nodded toward the corner. “The girl stood in that area right over there. I gave her a quick tour of the place. I showed her some paintings, some sketches, the usual stuff. It was like giving a lesson to a kindergarten kid.”
“Did she seem that young?”
“She seemed hardly to exist at all,” Linton said.
“Did you ever mention her to … is it Miss or Mrs. Castle?”
“Miss.”
“Did you ever mention her to Miss Castle?”
“No.”
“It never came up?”
“Never,” Linton said. “And that’s not unusual for the two of us. We never talk about mutual acquaintances or anything having to do with each other’s personal lives.”
