“So you got to know her fairly well?” Frank asked.
“Yes,” Toffler said. He looked at the sculpture. “Do you mind if I continue with this while we talk?”
“Not at all,” Frank said. He took another step. “So she was your model.”
“Yes,” Toffler said indifferently. He pressed his thumb into the statue’s upper arm and drew it down smoothly.
“Where did you meet her?” Caleb asked. He walked over to the opposite wall and leaned heavily against it. “From the look of that painting you did, you got to know her better than fairly well.”
Toffler glared at Caleb. “That’s offensive,” he said.
“Why don’t you just answer his question?” Frank replied.
“Well, it wasn’t exactly that I painted her,” he said. “It was more like I painted what she inspired.”
“Which was?”
“Desire,” Toffler said. “She was the central figure, the creature who made it possible.”
“Made what possible?” Frank asked.
“My study.”
“Of Angelica?”
Toffler laughed. “Angelica did not merit a study,” he said. “No, my portrait of human desire. That’s what I wanted to capture. Desire in men and women of all ages. Angelica inspired it in people.” He smiled slightly. “She could walk into a room and make everyone in it want her, more than anything they had ever wanted in their lives. That was her gift, that kind of beauty. They wanted to touch her, all of them.”
“How do you know that?” Frank asked.
“I could see it in their eyes,” Toffler said. He returned to the sculpture, carefully rubbing his thumb across the woman’s throat. “It wasn’t exactly subtle.”
“Where would you see these people?”
“Wherever I sent her,” Toffler said. “It was the same kind of reaction no matter where she was. It could be a poolroom or theater, it didn’t matter.”
“How about an art gallery?” Frank asked.
“Even more,” Toffler said. “Even more.”
“So you would take her to various places, is that it?” Frank asked.
“Yes.”
“And watch the way people reacted to her?”
“Watch their desire, watch the way they hid it,” Toffler said. His thumb dug into the clay. “She was made to be watched. That’s what I explained to her.” He drew his thumb from the clay, then tried to smooth over the wound. “And she understood it, at least for a while. She did it well. People yearned for her. It was more than lust. Angelica inspired a deep, deep longing. That’s what I wanted to capture.”
“And so you used her?” Frank asked.
“The way I might use a brush, yes,” Toffler said. “What’s wrong with that?” He looked at Frank evenly. “Nothing should ever come before one’s work.” He returned his attention to the sculpture. “Besides, she did it all quite willingly.”
“All of it?”
Toffler hesitated. “Well, at first.”
“But then she stopped?”
“She met this ridiculous old man, a painter.”
“Derek Linton?”
“Yes,” Toffler said. He didn’t seem surprised they knew. “She met him at a gallery. I saw them standing together in front of one of the galleries, so I know it was Linton who did it.”
“Did what?”
“Killed her.”
Frank took another step toward him. “Derek Linton killed Angelica?”
“Killed her reason for being,” Toffler said impatiently. “She was on assignment one day, at one of the galleries. That’s when she bumped into Linton. She looked at that mindless idiocy he paints, and was … seduced by it.” His voice grew thin. “Faded old romantic. Lost in the mists of Innisfree. Ridiculous.” He dug his thumbnail into the statue’s shoulder and peeled away a small bit of clay. “I saw them together. I knew what she was trying to do.”
“And what was that?” Caleb asked, as he edged away from the wall.
“To fuck him, I guess,” Toffler said. He turned toward Frank. “What happened to your face?”
“You dressed her up in various ways,” Frank said. “And then you set her up in a gallery or some place else, so that people would see her.”
“Yes.”
“And then you watched the people who watched her?”
Toffler nodded. “It was living art, fantastically successful, perhaps the best work I’ve ever done. “ He shook his head. “But then Angelica vulgarized it. She became a disgusting little tease in front of that old man.”
“I guess you guys went a few rounds over that, didn’t you?” Caleb asked.
Toffler’s eyes flashed toward him. “What?”
“You fought,” Frank said.
“I fought for my art,” Toffler said.
“But Angelica wouldn’t give in,” Frank said.
“I tried to make her understand,” Toffler said, “but she had lost it. Even then, I think I still could have been able to work with her, but then she ruined herself, ruined the whole project.”
“By getting pregnant,” Frank said.
Toffler nodded. “That was unbearable. She was going to be just another fat, flabby, pregnant teenager.” He stared at the portrait of Angelica. “What good would she be after that?”
Frank eased himself forward cautiously, his feet hardly leaving the floor. “And so you killed her,” he said.
“No,” Toffler said. “Of course not. That would have been ridiculous. In fact, she even had a change of heart. She came back to me. She said she’d gotten a lot of money by telling her guardian that she was pregnant and was going to keep the baby.”
“But she wasn’t going to do that?” Frank asked.
“Of course not,” Toffler said. “She was going to get rid of it. She was going to move to New York and then she was going to get rid of it. I told her that by then it would be too late, if she wanted an abortion, it had to be done now.”
“So what did she do?” Frank asked.
“I told her to get rid of the baby,” Toffler repeated. “It was as simple as that.”
“Did you tell her to use lye?”
“I told her nothing,” Toffler said vehemently.
Frank pointed to the small stool which rested at the back of the room. “Did you tell her to sit on that stool? Did you tell her to expose herself? Did you tell her that it wouldn’t hurt?”
“No!” Toffler nearly shouted. “That’s enough. I’ve told you everything I know, so will you please just get out!”
Frank braced himself as Caleb stepped over and took Toffler by the arm. “We’re not through yet, Mr. Toffler. I think you’ll have to come with us.”
Toffler glared furiously, as if he was going to resist. Instantly, Frank stepped toward him, and as he did so, Toffler seemed to regain control of himself. “All right,” he sighed.
Frank felt himself begin to breathe again. The air seemed to flow around him, warm and infinitely soothing. He heard the rain on the roof again, and he felt that it was over, that Angelica’s death would be avenged, that righteousness sometimes did flow down, as his father had always proclaimed, like a mighty, mighty stream.
Then suddenly his eyes flashed down and he saw Toffler’s hand as it grabbed the chisel, then flew up into the air and plummeted downward into Caleb’s back.
Caleb bolted forward, but the hand pursued him, slamming down again as Frank grabbed for it. He could feel himself stumbling forward, reaching for the hand, but it plunged through his grasp again and he saw it bury itself into Caleb’s throat.
