The Art of Violence

by S. J. Rozan

  “Does it really?”

  “Asks Bill Smith?”

  “Unfair.”

  “Anyway, Kimberly and her date left early, and it was a busy night for the bartender, so neither of them could say. I called Tiffany’s parents and Annika’s sister and texted the photo to them, but more nothing. Which proves—wait, I know this one—nothing.”

  “A lack of bad news might be good news.” I finished my beer. “Shall we go? You look spectacular, by the way.”

  “I was wondering how long it was going to take you to notice.”

  “Oh, I noticed right away. I just wanted to get the business out of the way so you’d be able to focus before you got drunk on my praise.”

  She blew me a completely deserved raspberry and we left. The heels and dress required a cab, so I hailed us one.

  It was barely seven, but the streets around the Whitney were choked with limos and Ubers dropping off VIPs. “Early is the new fashionably late,” Lydia informed me.

  “Thank God I have you, or where would I be?”

  “You know it,” Lydia said, and kissed me.

  I cut our cabdriver a break and had him leave us at 12th Street so he could turn and flee. As we approached the Whitney, we picked up chants and angry shouts.

  “Protestors?” Lydia looked at me.

  “Peter Tabor said this might happen. A group that calls itself Conscience in Art.”

  We turned down Gansevoort and there they were, behind NYPD barricades on the sidewalk across the street. A crowd I estimated at a hundred and fifty—a good turnout for a museum protest—carried signs that said VIOLENCE ≠ ART, CELEBRATING VIOLENCE CAUSES VIOLENCE, and PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS, and their shouts said pretty much the same, sometimes in saltier language. Scattered through the crowd were signs aimed specifically at Sam, including what looked to be a bedsheet carried by three people that read, FOURTH FLOOR: MURDERERS’ ROW.

  “Are there other murderers in this show?” Lydia asked.

  I shrugged. “All art criticism relies on hyperbole.”

  We walked through the police-cordoned path and up the steps to the entrance, protestors chanting, “Don’t give in! Don’t go in!” I resisted the urge to put a protective hand on Lydia’s back.

  “They have a point, though, don’t you think?” she said. “The protestors?”

  “They might if the show actually celebrates violence. I don’t know if it does.”

  “Are you telling me to withhold judgment until I know what I’m talking about?”

  “I’m not sure there’s an answer to that that doesn’t get me in trouble. Oh, wait, how’s this—when have you ever not known what you’re talking about?”

  “Good job.”

  In the lobby, I gave our names to a mahogany-skinned young woman with cherry-red lipstick. She maintained a neutral expression as she scanned her list, then smiled brightly when she found us. She was walking a tightrope, I reflected: in case we were important, she’d best be nice to us, but if we were party crashers, she had to be ready to call in a surgical strike. Tomorrow and the next night would be cheese and white wine previews at descending member levels, and after that, the show would open to the public. Tonight was heavy hors d’oeuvres and fine champagne for donors, board members, art world titans, and other people the Whitney thought might benefit from understanding how much the museum esteemed them. In the lobby and throughout the open gift shop and restaurant, black-aproned waitstaff carried trays of champagne flutes or caviar on toast points, while a full bar stood by the windows facing the Hudson.

  Packed in with the esteemed, Lydia and I rode the elevator to the fourth floor. The doors opened on a sonic blast of talk and music—a jazz trio, which seemed like a missed opportunity, given all the available violence-themed rap—underlaid with the tapping of heels on terrazzo.

  We slid through the crowd, which was as much a show as the work on the walls. Spa-buffed men and women in black, white, black and white, or the occasional over-the-top pattern waved manicured hands in passionate argument, or stood as if transfixed by a construction or a canvas. I spotted Michael Sanger in earnest conversation with a heavyset black man, who might as well have been wearing Eau de Respectability. Both bore tasteful lapel ribbons identifying them as members of the Whitney board.

  Navigating around the maze of temporary walls, Lydia and I passed a series of gray urban images etched on glass with video flames flickering behind them. We walked under the points of swords, scimitars, and spears swaying on fine chains from the ceiling, and skirted a bubbling crimson lake with an uncertain form bulging from the center. One wall was hung with dozens of small frames filled variously with cigarettes, bullets, and dollar bills. Around the other side of that wall, a crowd stood in respectful silence before three giant Tony Oakhursts, all of them images of the same bruised, bleeding, black male face: profile, three-quarter, straight on. I told Lydia who the artist was and she moved in to take a closer look.

  As I studied the eight-times-life-size depictions of a man in pain, the aftermath of an event unshown, I felt a hand on my arm. I turned to see the ponytailed Franklin Monroe. With his tuxedo he wore a white shirt with black studs, but open at the neck and with the cuffs folded back over the jacket sleeves. His ponytail was tied with a black velvet ribbon.

  “Smith, right?” When I admitted it he gave me a private, knowing smile. Nodding at the photos, he said, “So powerful, Tony. Always so powerful.”

  That was one attribute that was inarguable. “Yes.”

  Lowering his voice—pointless in that roar—Monroe leaned in and asked, “What did you think of the newest?”

  I could see why Oakhurst had found baiting Monroe irresistible. His smug, secret-society air made him a balloon begging to be burst. Never mind that he’d apparently inducted me into the secret society. And that the secret society was one that paid Oakhurst what he’d called a nice price.

  “I’m not sure about them,” I said. “What did you think?”

  “You’re kidding. They’re right up there with his best. Pushing the envelope! You didn’t like them?”

  “No, I didn’t say that. I’m just—sometimes it takes me time to decide how I feel about things like that.” Things like what, I could only guess.

  Monroe’s smile widened and grew more condescending at the same time. “I knew right away,” he said. “I’m buying the whole series.”

  You didn’t know until Oakhurst told you I was interested, I thought, but said nothing.

  “It’s always good to meet another collector of Tony’s. Of the limited editions.” Monroe’s tilt of the head toward the crowd around us implied we were slumming amid the ignorant hoi polloi. “If you’d like to get together, give me a call.” He reached into his jacket, withdrew a slim, ostrich-skin wallet, and handed me a card. “I can show you what I have. Tony’s work, of course, but other things I think you’ll like.”

  “Thanks.” I took the card, wondering if I was supposed to give him a secret handshake, but with another small smile he faded into the crowd.

  Lydia came back to join me. “Who was that oil slick you were talking to?”

  “One of Oakhurst’s collectors. He buys the work Konecki considers too dark to show. He wants me to come over and see what he has.”

  “Did you just wink at me?”

  “Never. Come on.”

  We stepped outside Oakhurst’s reverent semicircle. At the other end of the same wall milled a crowd that wasn’t silent. Men and women murmured and nudged each other toward three tacked-up, unframed canvases. We watched people lean in for a closer look and jerk back as if bitten.

  “I guess we’re here,” Lydia said.

  “Go see,” I said. “Before I introduce you.”

  Lydia slid through the crowd and approached one of Sam’s paintings, a sagging-roofed barn in an overgrown field, late afternoon light warming its peeling red sides. She paused, looked it over, took another step in and leaned forward. After a few more seconds she calmly stood straight again,
turned, and came back to my side.

  “Oh. My. God,” she whispered. “He’s crazy.”

  “Told ya so. Come on.”

  I led her to where Sam was backed up against the wall, surrounded by hand-shaking, smiling admirers. He looked like a man standing on a shark-ringed island watching the tide rise. Well, at least he was sober enough to stand. He did, in fact, have his pants on, plus a jacket, white shirt, and tie. The tie was blue with yellow alligators on it. Anyone else, I’d have thought he was a Lacoste fan. Sam was probably a fan of alligators.

  Peter was playing lifeguard on one side of him, Ellissa Cromley on the other. Peter welcomed people to Sam’s little island, introducing Sam, who mechanically shook hands. Cromley glowered, scanning the crowd as if for pirates on the horizon. Tony Oakhurst, in white T-shirt and black jeans, kept breaching the crowd like an orca, camera snapping. Leslie Tabor, tight-jawed and stunning in black silk pants and a tuxedo jacket, stood just beyond Peter, a landing craft moored offshore.

  Even farther offshore, I noticed Ike Cavanaugh riding at anchor. He was positioned across the room, wearing a rumpled gray suit, scowling at Sam and Sam’s admirers, waiting, maybe even hoping, for some kind of trouble. I pointed him out to Lydia.

  “He looks like the charmer you told me he was,” she said. “Who would have invited him?”

  “I doubt anyone did. He must have badged himself in. He could always say he was with an NYPD security detail, something like that.”

  Lydia eyed Cavanaugh. “Well, he’s not helping the sartorial reputation of cops worldwide.”

  We shouldered through to Sam, in a chorus of “Hey!” and “There’s a line here!” When Sam spotted me, it was as though he’d seen a rescue ship looming.

  “Smith! Get me out of here.”

  “Don’t do it, Smith,” Peter said, low but clear. “Stay with him, keep him calm, but do not let him leave.”

  I moved directly in front of Sam to give him a brief break from his fan club. Lydia caught on and planted herself beside me. We made an effective levee, though I knew it couldn’t last. I introduced Lydia to Sam, and to Peter, Leslie, and Cromley. Sam gave her the mechanical handshake he’d been handing out. Peter, two-handed, thanked her for coming. Leslie shook her hand in a cold, businesslike way. Cromley, narrow-eyed, offered her the single pump you’d give an enemy before a duel. Lydia smiled, her eyes returning to assess each person after the formalities were over. Peter’s eyes, I noticed, also assessed her. Leslie, I noticed, noticed that, too.

  Sam turned to me. “Come on, Smith. I hate it here. Can’t we leave?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Soon.”

  Tony Oakhurst, grinning, darted out from the crowd again. He snapped my photo, lingered a little longer over one of Lydia, and dove back through the surf.

  “Can I at least have a drink?” said Sam.

  Peter shook his head.

  “No,” I said. “Later for that, too.”

  “Not much later,” Sam said. “I’m beginning to lose it. You know I lose it.”

  “You’re not going to lose it. Just a little longer. Then you can go home.”

  “I don’t want to go home. I want to get a drink.”

  “Okay, that, then. We’ll get a drink.” I ignored Peter’s frown. “Right now, shake hands.”

  Lydia and I stepped aside, and a ruddy woman with a David Hockney painting silkscreened on her dress thrust ring-encrusted fingers at Sam, gushing about his courage in telling truths everyone else denies. Sam gawped at her bejeweled talons. Peter nudged him. Flinching, he stuck out the mechanical hand.

  The woman was replaced by a jolly Asian man, followed by a pair of slim, handsome black men in tuxedos. Then the sea parted, and onto Sam’s little island, like some 17th-century privateer striding onto captured ground, stalked Sherron Konecki.

  Konecki was in bone white, including enamel-and-silver earrings, kidskin clutch, and stilettos. Again, no color in her makeup except the subtle pink on her lips. Nothing to distract from those piercing, glacial eyes.

  Her gaze swept us all. Tiny muscles in her face registered her reactions: forbearance for Peter, dismissal for Leslie, disdain for Cromley, disgust for me, mild interest for Lydia. Lydia smiled brightly, which threw Konecki off, just for a second. She returned a thin smile, focused on Sam, and spoke.

  “The wall looks brilliant, Sam. Hanging the barn in the center, I was right about that, I see. Your work is the talk of the show. You’re having quite a success.”

  What Sam looked like he was having was a heart attack. His face had gone ashen and his fingers drummed fast on his thumbs.

  “Now, come with me,” Konecki said. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  “No! No.” Dread in his eyes, Sam surveyed the churning art-lover ocean. “I want to stay here. No, I don’t want to stay here. I want to leave!”

  “Sam,” Peter said. “Just a little longer. Then we’ll take a break, we’ll go to the lounge. You don’t have to go with Sherron”—he gave Konecki an apologetic glance, which she icily shot back—“but let’s just stay here until Michael Sanger comes over. He got you into this show. You need to thank him.”

  “Thank him? I hate him! I hate everyone who had anything to do with this.”

  Peter’s face registered end-of-his-rope despair, a state I imagined was familiar. Leslie shook her head grimly, as though watching a predicted, preventable disaster unfold. As for Konecki, I could almost see her mental GPS recalculating the route to what she wanted.

  “All right, Sam, I’ll bring Emilio over here. He’s an important curator, and you really should meet him.”

  “No,” said Sam. “Let’s go.”

  “Sam,” said Peter, his voice controlled.

  “Sam,” said Konecki, cool and commanding.

  “Sam,” said Cromley, cajoling, almost cooing.

  None of these approaches worked. Sam’s agitation mounted. I was on the verge of grabbing his arm to lead him away before he did actually lose it when Tony Oakhurst reappeared, camera slung across his body and a glass in each hand. “Hey, beautiful.”

  Planting a kiss on Konecki’s cheek before she could jerk her head away, he handed a glass to Sam. Sam’s whole face lit up. He seized it and in a second he’d thrown back half the contents. He sputtered and coughed, and Oakhurst said, “Hey, champ, slow down. I had to smuggle those up here.”

  “Jesus, Tony,” Leslie barked. “What the hell?”

  Peter reached to take the drink from Sam, but Sam twisted away, grinned, and drained the rest.

  “Can I have that one, too?” He pointed at Oakhurst’s own glass. Oakhurst laughed and held it out. Sam grabbed it and managed to gulp down a fair amount before Peter got a hand on it. In the tug-of-war, scotch sloshed out and down Oakhurt’s T-shirt. He seemed delighted. Sam laughed, jerked the glass from Peter, and slurped down what was left. He loosened his tie, slipped it off, and waved it over his head like a lasso.

  “For God’s sake.” Leslie yanked down Sam’s circling arm. Through gritted teeth, she hissed at Oakhurst, “Asshole.” Oakhurst pressed his palms together and cocked his head in mocking apology. Leslie pulled Sam. “All right, let’s go.”

  Sam stumbled but kept laughing.

  Konecki’s imperious “What are you doing?” got no response. Sam, looking like he was enjoying himself, allowed himself to be towed through the objecting crowd. Oakhurst elbowed people aside to shoot Sam’s exit as though it were a choreographed event and he its official photographer.

  Peter, on the verge of following, stopped to apologize to Konecki. She was livid, her complexion a fiery contrast to her pale dress and hair. Cromley, on Konecki’s other side, tried a placating smile. In a voice that sounded as if she meant it to be both confident and soothing, she said, “It doesn’t matter if he leaves. Sam’s work speaks for itself.”

  Skewering Cromley with a look of barefaced contempt, Konecki spun and stalked off.

  I gestured to Lydia, and we cut through the crowd after Sa
m and Leslie. I caught a glimpse of Cavanaugh, across the room. His sneer seemed to take in not just Sam’s departure but the entire evening. He caught me looking at him and flipped me the bird.

  Behind us, Cromley, suddenly alone, cried, “Wait!” as she saw her ticket to legitimacy, even importance, in this crowd disappearing toward the elevator.

  12

  Lydia and I caught up with Leslie and Sam. “I’ve got this,” I said to Leslie. “You can stay.”

  She practically spat her answer: “Why would I want to stay?”

  Cutting through the press of people, Peter reached us at the elevator. He grabbed Leslie’s shoulder; the band was too loud for me to hear what he said, but her voice was louder and her answer was “For God’s sake, do you want Sanger to see him like this?” She waved Peter away. “You stay. Go make nice.”

  When the elevator door opened, though, Peter got in with us. We were squashed in tight with other early leavers, usually a situation that would drive Sam to the edge, but he was giddy with relief and guzzled scotch.

  Things changed when we hit the lobby. Through the thicket of suits and cocktail dresses waiting for the elevator or perched on stools in the glassed-in bar, I saw that the museum’s doors faced a larger, louder, more amped-up group of protestors than when we’d come in.

  I stopped our progress. “We can’t take him out that way. Come over here. I don’t want them even to see him.”

  We retreated back toward the elevator, Leslie gritting her teeth, Peter looking around in concern and Lydia in attention, and Sam seeming happily unaware of anything except the alcohol coursing through him and the knowledge that he was being allowed to leave. I crossed the lobby to speak to a security guard.

  “That’s him?” the guard said, eyeing Sam while I explained the situation. “Shit, he don’t look like much. Hold on.”

  He spoke into the two-way radio on his shoulder, then said, “Yeah, come on, this way.”