Kisser

by Stuart Woods

  “He’s very big,” she said.

  “How do you, being from Atlanta, know all this New York stuff?”

  “I am conversant with most of the arts,” she said. “And besides, I read magazines.”

  “Aha. Tell me, do you own a straight razor?”

  “Aha, yourself. You’ve been researching me.”

  “Do you?”

  “No, but Max does. We were having an argument in the bathroom once, while he was shaving, and I threw a bar of soap at him. He ducked, and in the process nearly cut his throat. I had to call the doctor.”

  “Oh.”

  “I suppose you’ve somehow heard Max’s version of that story, in which I attacked him with the razor and murderous intentions.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, believe me, it’s a lie.”

  “I believe you,” Stone said, and he meant it. “Things uttered in divorce court sometimes take on too much color.”

  “You’re very right,” she replied.

  “Call me tomorrow, when you get a break,” Stone said.

  “Wilco,” she replied, then hung up.

  STONE WALKED into the Parsons Gallery half an hour after the time on the invitation and joined the crowd walking up the stairs to the second floor. He lifted a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and was surprised at how good it was.

  “We don’t serve the cheap stuff at openings,” said a female voice at his elbow.

  He turned to find Rita Gammage standing there. She was really lovely, he thought. Tall, slim without being skinny, with long, dark hair, and breasts that looked real in spite of her slimness. “You certainly do serve the good stuff,” he said. “What is it?”

  “Schramsberg. Philip feels it’s the best California stuff and the patriotic thing to serve.”

  “The man is truly a patriot,” Stone said. “Can I fetch you a glass?”

  “No, thanks; I’ve already had my single allowable glass at an opening. Come let me show you Squire’s work.”

  “What’s his first name?” Stone asked.

  “He doesn’t use one, just Squire.”

  “Easier to remember that way, I guess.” Stone walked slowly along a wall, taking in the work. “An American impressionist,” he said. “I like that.”

  “So does the market,” Rita said. “We sold half the stuff before tonight, and we’ve already sold half a dozen. There won’t be anything left at the end of the evening.”

  “It’s a big show,” Stone said, “and I’m glad to hear of an artist getting a big paycheck. What’s the price range?”

  “Thirty to eighty thousand,” Rita replied.

  “That makes for a very nice paycheck indeed, even after the gallery’s cut.”

  “A good paycheck for us, too, especially in this economy.”

  “A lot of people in this city don’t have to cut back when the economy goes sour and the market is down.”

  “I guess half of a hundred-million-dollar portfolio is still fifty million,” she said. “A person could scrape by on that.”

  “Indeed,” Stone said, looking around. “Is Hildy Parsons here?”

  “Behind you, just getting off the elevator,” Rita replied.

  Stone turned and looked. Hildy Parsons was an attractive young woman, blond and athletic-looking. The man with her was a different thing entirely.

  “Is that Derek Sharpe?” he asked Rita.

  “I’m afraid so,” she said.

  Sharpe was wearing a white suit a size too small for him, white shoes, no socks, and a black T-shirt. His hair was graying, greasy, and down to his shoulders.

  “Good God,” Stone said.

  “My sentiments exactly.”

  “Grotesque,” he said.

  “I’m afraid that, in the art world, not everyone dresses as immaculately as you do,” Rita said.

  “Or gets a haircut,” Stone added. “Would you introduce me to them?”

  “I will, if you’ll take me to dinner when I’m done here,” she said.

  “You’ve got a deal.”

  The couple moved into the room, and Stone followed Rita toward them.

  “Hello, Hildy,” Rita said, and the two women exchanged air kisses.”

  “Hi, Rita. You know Derek, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” Hildy said without acknowledging the man. “And this is Stone Barrington.”

  Stone shook Hildy’s hand and looked into her eyes. She seemed smarter than her choice of companion would indicate. “How do you do?” he said.

  “This is Derek Sharpe, the painter,” Hildy said.

  Stone shook his hand and found it soft and damp. “How do you do?”

  “I do very well,” Sharpe replied.

  “I’ll bet you do,” Stone said tonelessly. He turned back to Hildy. “You’re Philip’s daughter?”

  “Sometimes,” she said.

  “He speaks fondly of you.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “When?”

  “As recently as this morning.”

  “Well!” she breathed.

  Rita jumped into the conversation. “Stone is a prospective client,” she said. “Philip especially wanted him to see Squire’s work.”

  “Oh, you must come downtown and see Derek’s paintings,” Hildy said.

  “I’d like that.”

  She took a card from her purse and handed it to Stone. “Be sure and call first; he doesn’t like to show people around when he’s working.”

  “I’ll certainly do that. Will you excuse me, please? I want to see the rest of Squire’s pictures.”

  “Of course,” Hildy said.

  Stone nodded at Sharpe and peeled off toward another wall of paintings, glad to be increasing his distance from Sharpe. Rita went to greet some new arrivals.

  Ten minutes later he heard a hubbub from the other end of the room and turned to see a knot of people gathered around a picture. He wandered over to see what was happening and saw that the picture had been slashed from one corner to another. Apparently, straight razors were coming back into vogue, he thought.

  He looked around and saw Hildy Parsons and Derek Sharpe on the other side of the room, studiously looking away from the damaged painting.

  15

  THEY SAT AT Stone’s favorite corner table at La Goulue, on Madison Avenue, sipping their drinks and looking at the menu. The waiter, a young Frenchwoman with a charming accent, came over, told them about the specials, and stood ready to take their order.

  Rita ordered sweetbreads and Dover sole, while Stone went for the haricots verts salad and the strip steak. He picked a bottle of Côtes du Rhône, the house red.

  “I know you want to know more about Derek Sharpe,” Rita said.

  “I’d like to hear anything you can tell me,” Stone replied. “I confess I don’t understand why women are attracted to him.”

  Rita sipped her wine while she thought about that. “I think it’s a combination of the bad-boy thing and the art, and I should place quotes around that.”

  “Not good, huh?”

  “He’s an abstract painter, the sort who looked at Jackson Pol lock’s stuff and thought he could do that. Do you remember a little documentary film called The Day of the Painter?”

  “Refresh my memory.”

  “A fisherman lives in a shack on the shore. He sees some Pollocks in a magazine, so he buys some buckets of paint and a big sheet of plywood, puts it on the foreshore next to his shack, and paints it white with a roller. Then he stands on his deck a few feet above the plywood and spills dollops of paint onto the white surface of the plywood. Finally, he goes down to the foreshore with a power saw and cuts the plywood into smaller squares, then he sells them as abstract paintings.”

  “That’s a funny idea.”

  “That’s the kind of painter Mr. Sharpe is. If someone criticizes the work, then they just don’t have the artistic taste or mental capacity to appreciate it, and he raises the price.”

  “He actually gets
galleries to show this stuff?”

  “No. When everybody turned him down, he hired a publicist to plant stories in the papers about him and then started selling out of his studio. He gets a prospective buyer down there, and he’s quite a good salesman, spewing gobbledygook about passion and genius, and people fall for it.”

  Their dinner arrived, and Stone tasted the wine.

  “Tell me about the drug rumors,” Stone said. “I suppose that’s what they are-rumors.”

  “Well, yes, but not entirely. I know someone who bought half a kilo of marijuana from him, and I’ve heard secondhand stories about his dealing in coke: not little bags, nothing smaller than an ounce, but as much as a kilo.”

  “Why has no one put the police onto him?”

  “The buyers are not going to turn him in-he’s their connection-and the nonbuyers don’t know about it, I guess.”

  Stone found Sharpe’s card in his pocket and looked at it. “That’s a pretty expensive part of SoHo these days, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is. Since I’ve been aware of him, he’s moved twice, both times to a bigger and better place. He bought the building he’s in now; he has a garage on the ground floor, his studio on the second, and his apartment on the third. He rents out the two floors above him.”

  “How did Hildy become involved with him?”

  “I’m not sure, but she probably met him at an opening much like tonight’s. That’s the sort of event where he does his trolling.”

  “What can you tell me about Hildy’s relationship with her father?”

  Rita sighed. “I love Philip, and I wish I could say that he’s the sweet, adoring, indulgent father and that Hildy is an ungrateful little shit, but it’s not really like that. Philip is an enclosed man, and he doesn’t let much into his life that isn’t art or people associated with it.”

  “He told me that he thought he had left too much of her upbringing to help,” Stone said.

  “That’s an understatement. After his wife died, he hardly saw Hildy. I doubt they had a meal together when she was between the ages of six and sixteen. Her grandmother hired the governesses, chose the schools, and complained about his parenting or lack thereof, but she never hauled him into court and tried to take Hildy. I don’t know why. By the time Hildy started fucking her teacher it was too late, I guess. She was acting out big-time to get back at Philip for his neglect, and I think she still is, with Sharpe.”

  “And he has a low opinion of Sharpe?”

  “It wouldn’t work for Hildy if he didn’t. She got him to look at some slides of Sharpe’s work once, and he reduced it to the visual drivel it is in a few pointed sentences. Then he pissed off Hildy by refusing to go down to Sharpe’s studio and look at his stuff.”

  “The relationships are circular,” Stone said. “Hildy hates her father for ignoring her, so she chooses a man like Sharpe to annoy him, then Philip hates the guy’s work to belittle him, and that reinforces Hildy’s opinion of her father.”

  “Neat, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, except for the drug sales and the fortune at risk. If Sharpe got busted while Hildy was there, she could be charged as an accessory. I mean, she must know what he’s doing.”

  “I don’t see how she couldn’t, but who knows?”

  “Then there’s her trust. I suppose Hildy has no regard for money.”

  “About the same regard as most young people who’ve never had to give money a thought, because it was readily supplied by parents who used it to keep them from underfoot.”

  “And Hildy knows about his background, the name change and the four marriages?”

  “Oh, yes. Did Philip tell you that Sharpe was trailer trash?”

  “Yes.”

  “He doesn’t even know what that means. He says it only because he knows it’s contemptuous. Actually, Sharpe’s father made a fortune in the scrap metal business, and they lived in a nouveau riche house in one of San Antonio ’s better neighborhoods. Sharpe’s mother, who knew nothing about art, imbued him with artistic pretensions, even though he exhibited no discernible talent. I hear he can’t even draw.”

  Stone thought about it all for a minute while he finished his steak. “God, what a mess,” he said finally.

  “I take it Woodman & Weld sent you around to fix it,” Rita said.

  “Something like that.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think there’s much point in having an avuncular chat with Hildy-older man/young girl.”

  “Not really. Her only use for older men is to fuck them. Of course, it’s a bonus if they annoy Philip.”

  “What sort of father did you have?” Stone asked.

  Rita chuckled. “My father, bless his heart, is everything Philip should have been but isn’t.”

  “Sweet, adoring, and indulgent?”

  “Pretty much, and my mother supports him in all those things. They’re peaches, both of them.”

  “You’re a lucky woman.”

  “I am, indeed.

  “Dessert?”

  “Not on my diet, thanks.”

  Stone signaled for the check. “Where do you live?” he asked Rita.

  “Park and Seventy-first,” she said.

  Stone signed the credit card slip. “Come on. I’ll drop you.”

  “It’s early,” she said. “Where are you off to?”

  The waiter pulled out the table and freed them. “I’m going to see a man who might be able to do something about Derek Sharpe,” Stone replied.

  16

  STONE GOT TO ELAINE’S by ten o’clock and found Dino having dinner with cop about their age, Brian Doyle, who had served with them in the 19th Precinct detective squad years before. Stone shook his hand and sat down. A waiter appeared with a Knob Creek and a menu.

  “I’m not dining,” Stone said and then turned to Doyle. “You’re looking pretty good for an old fart,” he said.

  “And you’re looking as slick as an otter,” Brian replied. “I hear you’re making more money than Donald Trump.”

  “I heard Trump was broke,” Stone said.

  “Not anymore; he found some more hot air to inflate the balloon,” Brian said, laughing.

  After Dino and Brian finished their dinner, they ordered brandies. Then the three old buddies sat back and began telling each other stories they’d all heard before, until, finally, Stone got to the point. “I’ve got a heads-up for you,” he said, handing Derek Sharpe’s card to Brian.

  “I’ve read about this guy somewhere,” Brian said. “I know a lot of what’s called art ought to be illegal, but I don’t think the city council has gotten around to passing the law yet.”

  “This guy churns out the kind of art that ought to be illegal and sells it briskly to the artistically clueless.”

  “I guess you can make a living doing that,” Brian said.

  “From what I hear, that’s not how he makes his living,” Stone replied. “If he had to rely on his art for money, he’d be living in a garret in the East Village instead of owning a five-story building downtown and living in three floors of it. He rents the top two.”

  “So what’s his dodge?” Brian asked.

  “Pretty simple: He’s moving quantities of drugs from his space.”

  “What kind of quantities are we talking about?” Brian asked.

  “I don’t know that he’s wholesaling, though I’ve heard he’s sold up to a kilo of coke, but it’s more likely he’s moving larger than usual quantities to individuals for personal use.”

  “Sounds boring,” Brian said. “Can’t you give me something sexier?”

  “Brian,” Stone said, “when this hits the Post and the News it’s going to be sexy enough to knock your eye out. This guy is plugged into the art scene from one end of this town to the other. He’s very well-known, and the press is going to love it, if he gets busted.”

  “Like Julian Schnabel?”

  “Yeah, but without the talent, the work to prove it, or his followin
g. Schnabel is the real deal; Sharpe is ersatz.”

  “And you want me to bust him? Tell me why.”

  “He’s glommed on to a young woman who’s about to become wealthy, and if he isn’t stopped, he’s going to get her hooked on something bad, steal her money, and throw her into the street if she doesn’t actually do time for being close to him.”

  “About to be wealthy? What’s she going to do, win the lottery?”

  “She’s about to become twenty-five, and when she does, a fat trust is hers to do with whatever she wants, and what she wants is Derek Sharpe. By the way, his real name is Mervin Pyle, and he’s from San Antonio, Texas. He’s skinned three or four wives already, and it might be interesting to run his names and see if he has a record back home.”

  “You know anything else about him?”

  “His old man made big bucks in the scrap metal business. Anything else you want to know you can learn by just meeting him. He’s a real lizard.”

  “Look,” Brian said, “instead of wasting resources on this guy, why don’t I just send a couple of people over there who’ll beat him to death and throw the corpse in the East River?”

  “That’s too easy,” Stone said. “Be a cop instead.”

  Brian took a notebook, wrote down Sharpe’s particulars, and pushed the card back to Stone. “Okay, I’ll put somebody on him.”

  “Might be a good idea to insinuate some young detective into his crowd and see what happens.”

  “How about a girl detective?” Brian said. “I’ve got a hot one on the squad, young and gorgeous.”

  “Add rich to that, and she’ll attract Sharpe like flies to honey.”

  “Is he dangerous?” Brian asked.

  “He doesn’t appear to be but cornered, who knows? That’s why I think it would be good to wander around in his background and see what turns up.”

  Brian looked at him closely. “Come on, Stone, there’s more to this than what you’re telling me. You got something else against the guy?”

  “Brian, I never heard of him until this morning and never met him until this evening at a gallery opening. I’ve got absolutely nothing against the guy, except for hating him on sight and hearing bad things about him.”

  “Well, I guess that’s enough.”