The Riverhouse

by G. Norman Lippert

  “I’m sorry?” Shane said, taken aback. “Were you expecting me?”

  “What do you think I’m spending all my sociable security on, if it isn’t for you lackeys to clean up a spot of spilled coffee? I called down an hour ago already, told you I’d leave the door propped open so I wouldn’t have to get up again. It’s probably sunk right into the padding by now, and it serves you right. Where’s your cart, anyway? What you gonna do, suck it outta the carpet?”

  Shane couldn’t help grinning. “Sorry to say it, Mr. Kirchenbauer, but I don’t work for the facility. I just came over to talk to you. Your grandson told me about you.”

  “My grandson,” the man said, still eyeing Shane severely. “Shaun or Brian?”

  “Er,” Shane replied, searching his memory again. “Brian. He works over at the IGA. That’s where I met him, and where he told me about you.”

  “Oh, well why didn’t you say so? Sit down then. That Brian, he’s a good enough boy, if you don’t count the fact that he’s about as soft in the head as a November cabbage. Not like that uppity cousin of his, though; lives up in Chicago and thinks he’s ten different kinds of high and mighty. Works for some government office there, undersecretary of some stuffed shirt or other. I’ll take dull over uppity anyday. You know my Shaun, do you?”

  “No,” Shane said, seating himself on an old sofa near the chair. The television blatted away over his head. “No, I just met Brian this morning. He told me about you. Said you might be an interesting person to talk to.”

  “That Brian, now,” the man said, pushing his glasses up onto his bald brow with a horny thumb. “He’s all right enough. How long did you say you known him? It don’t matter anyway. Any friend of his is a friend of mine, long as they don’t interrupt my Royals games. You follow the Royals, er, what’d you say your name was?”

  “My name’s Shane, Mr. Kirchenbauer. Shane Bellamy.”

  “Bellamy, huh?” the man said, his eyes bright. “Sounds familiar. You from around here?”

  “No, sir. I grew up in New Jersey. I spent the last ten years or so living in New York City.”

  “Is that so!” the old man replied, impressed. “Well doesn’t that beat all! New York City. Had you a couple of decent ball teams, then, didn’t you? I went to a ball game there once, had to be sixty-four or five. I was there with my wife, but she didn’t come to the game. She never was one to go to ball games. She didn’t like the drinkin’ and the yellin’, always told me I should’ve gone in for a gentleman’s game, like golf. Golf! Can you believe that? I told her the day I start chasing a little white ball all over God’s earth is the day they may as well put me in a box. You golf, er…”

  “Shane. No, sir. I used to, when I was a kid, but I never really got a taste for it.”

  “Better off,” the old man said, waving a hand as if to disperse a nasty smell. “Buncha uppity son’s o’ bitches waltzin’ around like lords of the earth, chasin’ a white ball like it was the most important thing they ever saw. My Shaun goes out golfin’ with all his Chicago politico buddies. I always told him there was nothing for it once you started buying into that west county bull. Give me a ballgame, a beer and a frankfurter any day of the week. Brian took me down to see the Royals last year. He tell you that? They lost, but I got down close enough to the field to smell the grass and hear the chatter in the bullpen, just like when I was a kid. Some things never change and that’s the truth.” He finished and drew a huge sigh.

  “Mr. Kirchenbauer,” Shane began, but the old man interrupted him.

  “Name’s Earl. I never stood on formality. Only person that ever called me Mr. Kirchenbauer was my banker down at First Federal, and he’s been dead for twenty years now. You hungry? It’s almost lunch time.”

  Shane stood as the small man gripped a cane and hoisted himself to his feet. As he followed the old man toward the door, he shook his head, amused. “Earl, then. Are you at all wondering why I came to see you?”

  The man stopped in the middle of the doorway. He turned back and looked up at Shane, frowning slightly. “I only just now remembered you didn’t come to clean up the stain on my carpet. What do you expect from me? I’ll be ninety-five this winter. Be glad I remembered to put on my trousers this morning. You got some pressing matter for me to attend to, then you best make it quick, in case I keel over on the way to the cafeteria. Even if I live that long, the food there’ll probably finish me off. You got the floor, Mr. Shane from New York City.”

  Shane followed the tiny man as he limped down the corridor, leaning heavily on his cane. In spite of his dire predictions, however, he moved down the hall quickly, almost as if he thought he was being chased.

  “The truth is, Earl,” Shane said, walking alongside the small, wizened man. “Brian mentioned you when I told him where I was living. My wife and I bought the property a few years ago, but I just moved in full time now, since we got divorced. Around here, I guess they call it the river cottage. It used to be part of the Wilhelm estate.”

  Earl didn’t break his limping stride, but he glanced up at Shane for a moment, his eyes sharp. “Is that so, then? That’s why your name rung a bell.”

  Shane nodded. “Brian said you used to work out there, way back when it belonged to the Wilhelms. He said you knew Gus Wilhelm himself.”

  Earl shuffled around the corner, joining a sort of slow throng in the main hallway, heading toward the cafeteria. He didn’t respond for a long moment. Finally, he said, “You say you’re divorced?”

  Shane looked aside at the old man. He nodded. “Yeah. It wasn’t my choice.”

  “Never is, is it?” Earl said, and cackled suddenly, loudly. “Shame about that. It really is. That place needs a woman’s touch. You ever think about trying to work things out with the little lady?”

  “Frankly,” Shane said, frowning a little, “That’s pretty much out of my hands. I did everything I could.”

  “Then what in hell made you want to move into that goddam cottage full time?” Earl said, finally glancing aside at Shane, almost furtively. “Does that really seem like such a good idea?”

  Shane stopped walking. “I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Kirchenbauer.”

  “Again with the ‘Mister’,” the old man said, turning aside and gripping Shane’s elbow, as if for support. His grip, like the old woman’s out front, was surprisingly strong. “I told you to call me Earl. Don’t be getting all uppity on me now. I’m just asking a simple question, that’s all, same as you.”

  “I don’t think I’ve asked any questions at all, yet,” Shane replied.

  “Yeah, but you were planning to, and I know just what kinds of questions you want to ask. I’ll save you the bother. You don’t really want to know any of the answers, Mr. Shane Bellamy. That house went and got torn down, and that’s that. Your cottage is all that’s left. Why you’d want to go living there, especially all by yourself, I can’t imagine, but you can suit yourself, just like the rest of the world.”

  Shane looked down at the old man, suddenly feeling as if he’d wasted his time. Earl was obviously a few exits past rational, even if he did wash his own car once a month, like Brian had said. He nodded his head. “Sorry to bother you, Earl. Thanks for your time, anyway.”

  But the man didn’t let go of Shane’s elbow. He stared up at Shane piercingly. “Just out of curiosity, Mr. Bellamy,” he said, his voice low now, without a trace of the previous cackle. “What do you do for a living?”

  Shane considered asking Earl why in hell it should matter, but knew that would just be petulance. Earl had piqued him about being divorced, and he was still smarting from it. Instead, he answered truthfully. “I’m a commercial artist. I work at home.”

  “Is that so, then,” Earl replied, nodding, not seeming particularly surprised. “Imagine that. You’re a painter. Quite the coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

  “That had occurred to me, yes.”

  “Brian’s right, dull as he is,” Earl said, his face sagging a little, resigned. “I us
ed to work out there. Knew the Wilhelms both, s’far as anyone from around here could. They kept their distance. All I can say to you is good luck with the place. It’s better for you the main house was torn down. You’ll be fine out there. Or, at least, that’s the hope.”

  Shane shook his head in consternation. “Look, all I was planning to do was ask what the place had been like back when it was first built, but I’m getting the feeling that that’s no small answer. Is there something I should know about the property? What can you tell me?”

  “Not much, not much,” Earl said, looking away, toward the cafeteria. “I stopped working for the Wilhelms in forty-seven, a year after Gus Wilhelm took off and left the place to the Missus.”

  Shane blinked. “Brian said you were the caretaker when he was a little kid. He said you took him out there sometimes.”

  “True enough,” Earl nodded, still not meeting Shane’s eyes. “But that was later, after the official caretaker gave it up. I was the only one left in town who’d originally worked out at the property. They called me to take up the job. I didn’t want to, but it was good money, paid right out of the old Wilhelm estate.

  "Of course, the house was different by then. The Missus was dead, and the place had been converted into a sort of museum, staffed by volunteers. Hardly anyone ever came out to tour the place, though. Too far off the beaten path, for one thing. Not that many people even remember Wilhelm anymore, either. The man was most famous for his portraits, for Chrissake. It isn’t like folks today are clamoring to hang up prints of some old archduke or goddam secretary of state. They closed the museum down in the late seventies. I stayed on as caretaker until eighty-eight, when they sold off the cottage. The Wilhelm estate finally ran out of money for keeping the old house up, and the bank took it over. It’s city property now, since the last owner defaulted on their loan and the bank handed it off for a song. I wasn’t there during the time the Missus ran the place, though, if that’s what you’re curious about. That was Stambaugh’s tenure. He’d tell you everything you want to know about that strange time, if he could.”

  Shane was indeed curious, and even more so for the tiny bits of information he was gleaning from Earl’s cryptic statements. “Stambaugh’s long dead, I assume?”

  Earl nodded slowly, finally glancing up at Shane. “In a manner of speaking, yes. That’s close enough for government work, you might say.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Earl smiled a little crookedly and nodded toward the cafeteria doors. With his hand still on Shane’s elbow, they moved toward the open doorway.

  “See that skinny old cuss over there by the kitchen doors?” Earl said, gesturing. Shane saw him. A very old man was bent almost double in his wheelchair, his hands hanging loosely over the armrests, fingers thin and bony. To Shane, they looked like the legs of giant albino spiders. A male nurse sat next to him, spooning something white and dribbling into his slack mouth, wiping his lips with a napkin after each spoonful.

  “That there’s Stambaugh,” Earl went on. “He hasn’t said a meaningful word in ten years. Before he floated away, though, we used to talk about the old place. Oh yes. He had some stories. He was the last person to know the Missus, of course. He watched what she did to the house during those last years. Hell, he even helped her with some of it, when she asked him to. It was the job, and like I said, it paid well, at least by our standards.”

  Shane felt uncomfortable watching the old man being fed. It was like catching someone in the middle of some embarrassing but necessary act, something that should be done in private, not in front of a crowded cafeteria. No one else seemed to notice, though. Maybe his presence was even vaguely comforting to the rest of the residents. After all, compared to Stambaugh, Earl himself looked spry enough to break into a jig.

  “I’m keeping you from your lunch,” Shane said, extracting his elbow from the old man’s grip. “Thanks for your time.”

  “Look,” Earl said a little gruffly. “I don’t mean to be stand-offish, all right? It’s not your fault. There’s still a little bad blood between the folks around here and that old property. The less you know about it, the better. Either way, it’s in the past now, specially now that the house’s been torn down. The cottage is all right, though. It was part of the property back in the day, but hardly anybody even remembers that.”

  “What was the cottage?” Shane asked, hoping to leave with at least one question answered. “Was it a guest house or something?”

  Earl blinked at Shane, a little incredulous. “You really don’t know?”

  “Earl, before a few days ago, that cottage was just the place my wife and I spent a week or two every summer for the last seven years. I didn’t even remember the name of the original owners until I looked it up online a few days ago. I came to talk to you just because I was a little curious, that’s all. So no, I don’t know what the cottage was originally used for. I was just wondering.”

  Earl grinned, showing a set of big, yellow dentures. “Why, it was Mr. Wilhelm’s studio,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “That’s where he did all his painting, and what you might call his… entertaining. He and his models worked right there, in the upstairs, in the space between the windows, where the light was best. Nobody else was allowed in there. Not even Mrs. Wilhelm. That’s what I mean about the place needing a woman’s touch. Every home needs that, don’t you think, Mr. Bellamy? But some need it more than others. Oh yes.”

  Shane stared at Earl, speechless, but Earl just cackled again, a little softer this time, and turned to limp into the cafeteria, dismissing him.

  Chapter Five

  Greenfeld was driving a slate gray Audi when he arrived, the next day. He steered the car with almost prissy deliberation, babying it along the rutted path and into the gravel turn-off. Shane sat on the porch, watching, a book of Sudoku puzzles on his lap. Greenfeld parked, killed the ignition, and climbed out into the sunlight. He peered over the roof of the car toward the cottage, spied Shane, and called, “You aren’t out here seeing how long you can grow your fingernails and collecting jars of your own urine, are you?”

  “I can’t afford to be that eccentric,” Shane called back, smiling. “The best I can hope for is unique. Come on up. It’s mostly safe.”

  “Keep your pants on, I gotta get my shit together,” Greenfeld replied, thumbing a button on his key fob. The trunk of the Audi popped open.

  Shane got up and ambled out to the car, joining Greenfeld as he produced a large manila portfolio from the depths of the trunk. Greenfeld was short, built like a jockey, with a wiry handshake and immaculate style. Today, he wore a white button-down shirt under a navy blazer, tieless. His short black hair was combed forward from his temples, and Shane thought he looked a little like a diminutive modern-day Caesar. Greenfeld pushed the portfolio toward Shane and reached for his attaché. Shane saw his own reflection in the mirrored shades clipped to Greenfeld’s glasses.

  “Let’s get inside and have a look, whaddaya say?” Greenfeld said, grinning. “I’ve got to say, Shane, your name on my client list has opened up an interesting new branch of work for me. Let’s just hope you can keep that savvy New York artist aura going out here in the sticks.”

  Shane shrugged as they entered the cottage. “I don’t think I ever really had that savvy New York artist thing down, even when I was one.”

  “Well, perception counts for a lot,” Greenfeld replied, crossing to the sofa. “At least we have that working for us. Here. Just got that portfolio from the agency down in Tampa. I’ve looked at it already and given them a tentative thumbs-up. Frankly, based on your previous work, I think you can do this in your sleep, but go ahead and take a look.”

  Shane sat down, opened the flap of the portfolio and pulled out a thick sheaf of paper. Some of the sheets were poster-sized, printed on heavy matte paper, showing enlargements of classic postcard art: grinning, bikini-clad women on the beach, a woody station wagon with a surfboard on top, a giddily colorful Florida s
unset over the ocean with waving palm trees in the foreground. The original artwork was grainy, resplendent with day-glo colors, printed with poorly aligned processing so that the red of the woman’s lips didn’t quite match the black outline of her smile.

  The rest of the prints, however, showed updated versions of the classic style, created for other state boards of tourism. One version showed a starburst of happy family travelers enjoying the Grand Canyon, complete with an image of a grinning, pipe-smoking dad planning the family’s vacation on his laptop. It was fairly typical stuff, kitschy and edgy, marrying the halcyon sense of the classic with modern ideals of convenience and hipness. Shane had, indeed, done stuff like it many times before. He said as much to Greenfeld.

  “That’s exactly what I thought,” Greenfeld nodded. “The question isn’t whether you can do it. The question is whether you can do it in time. The muckety-mucks at the agency handling this account want to see final shipment by the middle of November. They’re planning on rolling out this campaign by late January, in time for the spring vacation push.”

  Shane put down the last of the posters and leaned back on the couch. “How many do they want?”

  “Six versions, one for each market. Keys, coast, family, diving, historic and water sports. Each one will include five to seven scenes and the word ‘Florida’ in those big, three-dimensional block letters. You don’t do any computer generated stuff, do you? Photoshop, that kind of thing?”

  Shane shook his head. “Sorry, I’m pretty old school. We had a whole department for that kind of thing at T and C. None of those guys could paint, and I couldn’t draw with a mouse. Call it job security. Why?”

  “No point in painting the Florida hero word six times, that’s all,” Greenfeld replied, taking off his glasses and sticking them in the inner pocket of his blazer. “Paint it once, we can get a scan of it and place it in the other scenes, maybe alter the color digitally to keep them all distinct. Don’t worry about it. I have a guy that can manage that angle on the cheap. It’ll save you some monkey work, painting the same thing over and over. You can just leave a space in the middle. Make sense?”