by John Decure
He took off his shades and winked as he slipped them into his breast pocket. A server offered him a white wine, which he took. “Cheers,” he said to me. “You got the whole sitch wired.”
But I was too beset with a new series of problems. “The Danforths will lie on the stand to keep Nathan,” I said. “We need corroboration.”
Jackie kept smiling. “No worries. A White House bash? Man, you know it was a grand affair.”
“There had to be a news story,” I said. “If I can find it.”
Which was doubtful. Tomorrow was Sunday; the public libraries would be closed.
“And pictures,” he said. “Rich folks love to have their picture taken, especially in fancy threads.”
I thought of the immense living room in the Davenport home, the pictures on the Steinway that never got played. There was a handsome outdoor shot of Phoebe and both her parents at sail on a gleaming yacht, the spinnaker spooled out full in a billowing white backdrop above a slash of tropical water. But no photos of people in tuxedos or evening gowns. I pictured Bill Davenport’s study, that time I talked Phoebe into lifting a few cigars from his private stash. A row of photographs on the deep-paneled wall above his desk. Bill Davenport shaking hands with the mayor, the governor. More pasty faces, as Lois Nettleson would say, than you could shake a meaty stick at. A framed invitation with the Seal of the President of the United States on it, the ’88 inauguration.
“J., you still with me?” Jackie said, snapping his fingers in front of my nose.
“I need the photos. I only know one rich conservative with political connections. He might have been there, too.”
“Excellent.”
I frowned. “One minor problem, he hates my guts.”
“Don’t sweat it, man,” he said. “Probably nothing personal. Conservatives hate everybody.”
Jackie spotted an unattached young female and left my side to pursue her. I took stock of the Bardo milieu. The gallery was divided into three rooms—two small, square spaces in the front and rear, and a larger, rectangular room in the center that displayed the bulk of the collection. Pam Baker was in the main room, standing before an enormous, mural-like painting filled with frolicsome undersea creatures awash in an ocean aquarium of deep, fluid blue. A dapper white-haired man stood next to her, scribbling dimensions on the back of one of Pam’s business cards. She thanked him, then waited for him to walk away before leaning over to place a “sold” sticker on the identifying placard.
“J., thanks for coming,” she said when she saw me. “This is so amazing . . . that’s my fourth,” she whispered.
Pam looked radiant in a black skirt and silk blouse, a houndstooth blazer and black stockings. Her skin was brown and sun-creased, the wrinkles tracking out from the corners of her eyes like tiny spokes. Her autumn blond hair was short in back and perfectly tousled on top.
We exchanged kisses on the cheek. “I just wanted to check in,” I said. “Looks like things are flowing.”
“Pamela,” Eugene Bardo discreetly called to her. “The Singletons.”
“Thank you, Eugene. Gotta run,” she said to me. “Have a look, J. Talk to Lamont. I’ll catch up with you later.” She briefly surveyed the congestion. “They’ll probably all be gone in another half hour.”
I spent the next twenty minutes drifting from one painting to the next. Lamont Dunne had talent, no doubt, a sure sense of perspective and tremendous control of his ethereal, airbrushed palette, yet his subject matter seemed limited. You could almost see the progression from schoolboy doodlings of perfect waves on Pee-Chee folders to cosmic surf scenes airbrushed onto virgin surfboard blanks before they were glassed, then onward and upward to the lush renderings of roiling undersea mammals and fiery sunsets that dominated the walls tonight. Viewing a gallery full of Lamont Dunne’s work was like perusing a Playboy calendar: the calculated perfection was pleasing enough for a time, yet ultimately a hustle.
Jackie and I had apparently seen the same pictures. “Quite a coup, brother,” he said to Lamont. “Surf art . . . I see. Kinda like the pet rock. It’s like, man, why didn’t I think of this and seriously cash in?”
Lamont Dunne looked rather stunned as Jackie threw an arm around his shoulder. I imagined this was the first pointed criticism Lamont had heard all evening, and he did not seem prepared to handle it.
A waiter appeared, offering drinks, and Lamont grabbed a white wine and took a long drink. He was a small, compactly built man in his mid-forties, younger than Pam by a few years. His black suit was double-breasted. He’d slicked his dark hair wet and pulled it back in a short ponytail. As I stepped closer, he touched his tie—a saffron, Italian-silk beauty—and checked the time on his Rolex, as if to reassure himself that even if he wasn’t an artist in the truest sense of the word, he was still, in some circles, an unqualified success.
“Evening, Lamont,” I said, shaking his hand.
“Hello J.,” he said, still wary of Jackie’s presence. “Didn’t know you two were friends.”
“Don’t let him rile you,” I told Lamont. I was tired of hearing Jackie’s counterfeit protestations against commercialization. “He’s just jealous.”
A lanky brunette in black denim and a low-cut white blouse brushed my shoulder, backing up as she took in a large painting across the room. She didn’t stop retreating until she landed atop Jackie’s cordovan loafer.
“Oops!” She jumped, half losing her balance. Jackie reached out and gently steadied her. “I’m so sorry. Clumsy of me,” she said. Her lips and fingernails glistened in a rich vermilion sheen. “I just got so lost in the . . . the motion of the waves.” She gazed at the painting, then at Jackie again. “I know it sounds silly, but these paintings, it’s like, they speak to me.”
She struck me as a bit of a phony.
“Oh no, no, my dear, that isn’t silly!” Jackie said. “I know what you mean. Tell you a secret. They speak to me, too, to my inner child.”
“What’s the matter with the outer child?” I said. “He hard of hearing?”
Jackie bore down on the girl. “Allow me, Miss . . .”
“Nikki,” she said, blushing.
“Aah, Miss Nikki.” Jackie bowed before her. “Allow me to introduce you to the maestro himself, the incomparable Lamont Dunne,” he said with a grand sweep of his hand.
I’d had enough of Jackie for the time being, so I gave Lamont my regards and moved on.
“Hi kiddo,” Pam said, sliding in beside me. “Glad you could stay.”
“Good opening night?” I said.
“Best ever, I sold eleven. They went so quickly, Lamont’s heading back to Kauai for more pieces. And J., thank you.” She squeezed my hand. “You made this happen that day in Laguna.”
“But not tonight,” I said. “You did this.”
“J., I need a favor,” she said. “Lamont wants me to fly back with him to Kauai. We’ll be back in four, five days. The weekend.”
I briefly mulled over her revelation. “You and Lamont.”
“I know, it seems sudden. But we’ve been talking on the phone a lot ever since La Jolla, nearly every day. We saw each other again when he flew out to meet Eugene.” She smiled. “He’s a good man. Long time since I’ve been with a man who had his own life, no demands on me.”
We gazed upon a bleached-white South Pacific seashore.
“What’s the favor?” I said. “You know I can’t afford one of these things, even with the Baker discount—if there is one.”
“Just keep Britt. Can you?”
“Of course. He’s no trouble. We’ll see you next weekend.”
Our eyes met briefly again. “You all right?” she said.
“Fine.”
Pam stood closer, as if to create more privacy between us. “You look exhausted, like you’re somewhere else.”
“I wanted to talk to you about something. I went up in the attic a few days ago.”
“This is about Marielena.”
I nodded. “I found some of h
er old things.”
She sighed. “Oh boy. J., honey, I wish you wouldn’t do this to yourself.”
Pam and I never spoke of my mother anymore. By the time I’d turned eighteen and moved out of the Bakers’ house, I was too tired of the whole damn topic of What Ever Happened to Marielena Shepard to even talk about it. It was like staying home sick from work one day each year, setting up on the living room couch and turning on the tube to find the same old episode of Gilligan’s Island playing for the ten-thousandth time. Not this again. The castaways are never rescued. Marielena Shepard never returns. Shit happens. Gilligan’s time would have been better spent romancing Ginger or Mary Ann instead of sweating an unlikely escape.
But Pam was not swayed by my lack of vision. Expecting me to continue the search unabated, she’d packed up a milk crate full of the lists and cross-references—the net result of ten months of prodigious effort—and trundled the stuff right up my walk on Porpoise Way. Pam felt a good spot to set up might be the kitchen table, but I’d pointed to the garbage cans out back. An epic screaming match followed. Of course, it was all my fault, but I never apologized. The subject was dropped for all time.
Until now.
“That private eye you hired to lift her prints,” I said, “didn’t he do some checking around town, see who she’d been doing accounting work for before she split?”
“Disappeared,” Pam said. Still loyal to my mother.
“Disappeared. Right.”
“He didn’t find out much,” she added.
“You remember if she ever worked for a company named Provencal Limited?”
“No,” Pam said plainly, fiddling with a gold bracelet on her wrist. “No, I don’t.”
We stood in awkward silence again. “What was that detective’s name again?” I asked her.
Pam hesitated before answering. “Hugh Gilman.”
“Maybe I could look him up, see if—”
“He’s been dead for ten years.” She took my hand. “J., listen to me. We tried everything. I remember what this did to you. Let it go.”
A sudden commotion arose in the front room of the gallery, several raised voices yammering at once.
“Just one more thing,” I said.
“I’ve never been to Kauai,” Pam said, trying to shift gears. “Have you?”
The noise in the front room grew louder. I could hear two men shouting over each other now. One of them was Eugene Bardo. The other guy was furious, growling like he was ready to fight.
I still had one more question for Pam. “Hey Pam. Have you ever heard of a development around town called Sea Pointe?”
“What?” Pam blinked at me as if stunned. “What . . . what do you mean?”
“Sea Pointe,” I said again.
“Why do you want to know about Sea Pointe?” she said, her voice trembling.
“It’s a public place and I’ll go when I want to go!” Grog Baker shouted as he pushed past a furiously backpedaling Eugene Bardo and spotted Pam. Lamont Dunne swept in behind them but kept a safe distance from Grog.
“I’ll call the police, Mr. Baker!” Bardo shouted.
Grog planted himself face-to-face with Pam. Jackie and the brunette crowded up close like school kids eager to see a playground tussle. The shouting died and for a few seconds, there was calm.
“What the hell are you doing?” Pam demanded of Grog.
The slender gallery owner stood wedged between his best saleswoman and her soon-to-be ex-husband. His freckled forehead had turned salmon pink in all the excitement.
Grog was in a black tee and a denim jacket, his massive shoulders straining against the seams. “Step aside, little man,” he said, flicking Bardo away with a beefy forearm. “I just want to have a word with my wife.”
“Are you all right?” Lamont asked Pam. Grog turned and glared murderously at Lamont, who swallowed hard and retreated a few steps.
Bardo wasn’t backing down. “This is my establishment! I’ll not stand for this kind of gate crashing!”
“It’s okay,” I said to Bardo. “Mr. Baker will be heading home with me in a minute. No trouble, I promise. Just leave us for now. One minute, I promise.”
Bardo mulled my proposition. “All right,” he said, tapping the face of his gold watch. “One minute, and he goes out. That’s it.” He shot a final look at Grog, whose eyes were on Pam, then turned and stalked away.
“Kauai, huh?” Grog said. “Britt told me everything. You hardly know the guy. Might I remind you, we’re still a . . .”—his voice broke—“a family.”
“That’s it?” Pam said. “I can’t go to Kauai because we’re a family? Dear God, Greg Baker, is that the best you can do?”
“What about Britt?” Grog said. “You can’t just leave him alone. You’re his mother. Good mothers don’t leave their children alone.”
Grog looked at me dumbly, realizing what he’d just said.
“I am a good mother,” Pam said.
“You’re breaking up the family!” Grog shouted, stamping his work boot. “Not even divorced and you’re already with another man.” He scowled at Lamont. “Goddam it, Pam. You probably planned it this way.”
“Ha!” Pam shrieked. “I’ve heard enough of this.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “You think this is about me hurting you?” She shook her head. “Well why not? That’s my whole life. It’s always about someone else.” A tear started down her cheek.
“You’re his mother,” Grog said, “and you’re still my wife.”
“Stop it!” Pam cried. Her mascara began to puddle a muddy black beneath her eyes. “You have to do this on opening night, humiliate me this way?” She sniffled inelegantly. “I’m tired of financing your harebrained schemes. I’m through”—she paused—“taking care of you.”
“Come on, Pam,” Grog said, softening, “don’t say that. Vic and I got a good thing goin’. ” He pulled out his wallet and unfolded what looked like a payroll check. “Forty-two-hundred in commissions.” Still in love with his wife quite beyond reason.
Pam hung her head. “It’s always the same. I’m not going to review our marriage in the middle of this gallery, in front of—”
“This crap?” Grog said, waving a hand at the gallery walls. “This somehow better?” He sized up Lamont. “What’s it take now to sell a painting, Pam, a trip to Kauai?”
“Bastard,” Pam said, quaking. She turned to me. “You want to know about Sea Pointe?”
“It’s okay,” I said, confused by her switch in topics. “We’ll talk later.”
“Tell J. about Sea Pointe on your way out,” she said to Grog.
I was dumbfounded. “What about it?” I asked Grog. “Tell me, man.”
Grog faced me but said nothing. He turned and looked at Lamont, then at an emotionless Jackie. I focused again on Grog’s blank face, but from the edge of my peripheral vision I saw something astonishing: Jackie ever-so-slightly shook his head as if to tell Grog no.
Grog turned and blew out of the room.
“Grog, wait!” I called after him as Lamont moved in to console Pam.
“Not now!” Grog shouted over his shoulder.
I rushed up front. Bardo was standing at the door, still recovering from his earlier confrontation, when Grog approached. A handsome young man in thick biker boots, leather chaps and a neatly creased white tee—Bardo’s companion, I guessed—stepped into the doorway, blocking Grog’s path. “I’d like a word with you, mister,” he said. “Now”
“Fuck off, fairy,” Grog said, thumping the guy’s chest hard with the butt of his palm and knocking him back onto a barstool next to the door.
“Grog,” I called out to him as he climbed into his double-parked VW bus. But he gunned the engine, popped it into gear and roared off into the somnolent evening gray.
I fumbled for my car keys, watching the VW’s exhaust fade like a ghost at first light. My mind leaped uncontrollably. What did the Bakers know about Sea Pointe, and why would Pam be hurt by its mere mention? What did Jackie have
on Grog?
“Bad scene,” Jackie said from the sidewalk behind me. “Gonna go chase him down?”
“I don’t think he wants any company right now. Where’s Pam?”
I peered in through the gallery’s big window The exodus Pam had predicted earlier had come to pass, as the front room was near empty. A cleanup man stooped to scrub a spill from a square of polished wood while two food servers scooped empty plastic cups and trash from a tall metal ashtray. More patrons scurried off into the night. Bardo righted the barstool near the door and peered into the street, not recognizing me.
“Lamont squired her out the back,” Jackie said. “The Big Man looked pretty bent, eh? Back door was the way to go, for sure.” He grinned. “I think self-preservation was at the top of old Lamont’s list.”
“And why should Lamont get his ass kicked?” I said. “He didn’t create that situation. He’s like me, Jack, totally in the dark.” I glared at him. “Unlike some people I know.”
“What’s your problem?” he said as if calling me out.
“I saw how you looked at Grog,” I said, still unsure of what I’d seen inside. I’d already asked Jackie once about Sea Pointe, the night I climbed up into the attic. He said he’d never heard of it. But Grog warned me that night in Oceanside not to trust Jackie.
For an instant, a hint of regret registered in the grip of his blue eyes. Then they went stone cold. “You don’t know what you saw in there,” he answered.
I stepped closer, as if to cut off his escape. “You’re in it with him. Tell me.”
“What is it with you, man?” It sounded like the beginning of a standard deception, and I didn’t bite. “Well, I guess it comes with that job of yours.”
“What’s that?” I said, unable to resist his taunt.
He shook his head. “You just can’t stay out of people’s problems, let ’em work them out on their own, can you? Grog Baker’s a joke. Not your worry. Why sweat it, bubba?”
“That’s not it at all,” I said, “and you haven’t answered my question. What about you and Grog?”
The tall brunette named Nikki spilled onto the sidewalk behind us. “Right with you, doll,” Jackie said to her. “What can you say about the man, J.?” he said. “He’s a fucking loser. I got nothing to do with him.”
