As before, the rooms gave off a sensation of gentility, as if a woman’s hand had been at work and the man who lived here dare not change a detail.
Kendra checked out the bedroom. The sheets were unmade, and clothes were strewn about, but the frivolous scent of a recent lover was absent.
In the studio, an unspoiled canvas was propped against the easel. A rag, smeared with paint, hung from the ledge. The credenza had been pushed aside. The palette was wiped clean. Brushes occupied a tin can, points up. Everything was prepped and ready to go. Perhaps the model would be a blonde next time. Or someone with auburn hair. Maybe older or possibly younger, divorced or widowed, housewife or feminist, pretty or plain, blue-eyed or green, African-American or Asian. Whatever she looked like, the requirements remained the same. She had to be unguarded, out of control, and gullible.
Standing before the blank canvas, Kendra recalled how it felt to have an artist create her from scratch as if she had never existed before. Prior to Hunter putting her likeness to canvas, she had been invisible to every human eye, including her own. Interpreting what he saw from a warped perspective, he wrestled her soul out into the open and slapped it across a canvas, taking away her complexity and replacing it with artlessness. Invisibility, she decided, had its upside.
The canvases had grown in number. They were everywhere.
Identical in size and study, the works of art exposed nothing more than wide swaths of ivory black applied in bands of Xs and Zs. After reviewing several stacks and finding the same unprovoked annihilation of one image after another, Kendra conjectured that her portrait, too, had become a casualty of love. Upon closer examination, she noticed tantalizing crevices and cracks, where the brush ran out of paint or an edge had been laid down fractionally distant from the one beside it. She prized those untouched bits of color. A cadmium-red line here. An ochre blotch there. A viridian splash somewhere else. And sometimes, a tearful eye, a curled lip, a firm jaw, or the tantalizing curve of female flesh. The artist planned it that way. He wanted to leave traces behind, not of the woman per se, but of his infatuation with her.
For Kendra, singling out the details that delineated one painting from the other began as an intriguing project. But finding the definitive portrait—the one depicting the yearning of a man for a particular woman, a flasher for his targeted mark, a hustler for his newly discovered whore—changed from enthusiasm to obsession. If there had been a precise order to Hunter’s lunacy, she didn’t give a damn anymore. Soon she was flinging the paintings across the studio helter-skelter until at length she zeroed in on a single canvas.
The shape of the uptight chin belonged to Kendra, as did the defiance of her left eye, and the bud of a nipple that revealed more than complete nakedness. Everything else the artist blotted out in a raging temper, the same way he eradicated the faces of all the other women who must have disappointed him in one way or another. Kendra was just one of dozens seduced with prick and paint brush, only to be trivialized, discarded, and buried beneath madness.
She tucked the canvas under an arm and made her way out of the apartment, this time by the front door.
Chapter 29
WHEN KENDRA EXPLAINED that she didn’t have a receipt for the cocktail dress, the saleswoman at the desk said, “Shouldn’t be a problem. Phone number?”
Kendra rattled it off.
“Here you are. Bought it on Wednesday. One-fifty-two in the afternoon. Wendy rang up the sale.” She started to process the credit.
“Tell me. This Wendy. She around?”
“Should be on the floor.” She surveyed the boutique. “Probably in back. I’ll page her for you.”
On first glance, Wendy was a stereotype. Tall, blonde, model thin, and dressed in form-fitting black. “I trust nothing was wrong with the dress, Mrs. Swain.” The sophisticated accent was supposed to conceal her origins, but there was no hiding the speech patterns of a schoolgirl brought up on the South Side.
“Do you remember me?”
Wendy raised her eyebrows. Her eyes were a curious green with more yellow than blue. Cat eyes. Nothing much got past them.
“I’m sure you don’t sell five-thousand-dollar Versaces every day of the week.”
“You’d be surprised.” As she consulted her memory, her eyesight drifted. “Last Wednesday? Sure. I remember. The dress, but not you. She had red hair. Short. Spiked. I remember ’cause of the outfit she was wearing. White blouse. Black suit. Woulda looked matronly, but she cut a cute figure. The red hair suits her, but the Versace would have clashed, know what I mean? Told her so. She didn’t care. Maybe she was going to be a brunette on Thursday. How would I know?”
“Was that purchase this purchase?”
“Like you said. Woulda remembered selling two in the same week. But since I don’t ....” Suddenly suspicious, she inclined her head. “What’s the scam? Seen a bunch, but I like to keep up with the trends.”
“Identity theft.”
Wendy tilted her eyes upwards. Kendra followed her line of sight and spotted the security camera. “We keep the digital files for a month.”
In the backroom, Wendy cued up the timestamp. “Know her?”
“The video quality is very good, considering.” The oblique angle skewed the image and the distance washed out details, but she’d know the girl anywhere. “I expected grainy black and white.”
“Do you know her?”
The girl was flashy but common. She emphasized her breasts with a low-cut sweater. Toned down her hips with a short-short skirt. Powdered her face ghostly white. Applied mascara an inch thick. And showed off shapely calves with fishnet stockings. At one point, she turned and stared straight into the camera, as though she had nothing to hide, as if she wanted to be seen. To make the point, she flounced the ends of her hair with sculpted fingernails.
“Mind telling me who she is?”
“Are we being recorded?”
The tiger-eyes blinked once. “Since you don’t wanna say, lemme guess. Your husband’s mistress?”
“Assistant.”
“Honey, they’re all assistants. Like me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. You think I’m a sales clerk. But only on my off-hours.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The wives never do. Oughta run a clinic. I’d make a fortune.”
“So you’re saying you’re assistant to ...?”
“My boss. Who else?”
“And he gives you ... what ... in return?”
“You know, I keep asking myself that very same question.”
Kendra offered her hand. Wendy took it with a wink. They were likeminded co-conspirators. Probably they would never run across each other again.
Chapter 30
THE REDHEAD EMERGED from the office building, mincing for unseen eyes, and fussing with her new hairstyle and dye job. A pair of glittery earrings accentuated the flip curls and Elvis-generation look.
Within seconds, an equally buxom officemate joined her at the hip, platinum hair swept behind large-lobed ears and hoop earrings. They made a pair: the kind of women who exploited their assets and laughed at the same smutty jokes. Together they lit up cigarettes. The blonde engaged her friend in conversation, but the redhead occupied herself with preening and posing. Whether anyone was watching or not, she had put herself up for auction to the highest bidder. She seemed—indeed, both women seemed—easily won over by flattery and guys on the make. The redhead, however, was infinitely more anxious.
After checking her cell phone for messages, she waved back at her friend and took a stroll, the cigarette still clasped between her knuckles and her shoulder purse swinging from the same arm. The leather jacket swung open in the breeze. The miniskirt fit tightly over bony hips. The sheer blouse revealed substantial cleavage and satin bra straps. Like the clothes, her face had been slapped on with a trowel. She came across as smug, X-rated, and unapproachable. Yet someone must have formed a liking to her because she wore an aura of conceit, the kind that said she was taken. The sparkle of a w
edding band confirmed it.
Her brisk pace turned into a meandering promenade. She crossed Madison Street and headed north, but made little headway, often glancing over her shoulder. This, and the way she checked her cell phone every so often, gave out unmistakable signals. She was meeting a man.
Presently a well-dressed man approached her from behind. Though lagging the girl by half the length of a city block, he applied an elegant stride, one hand thrust into his pocket and the other swinging purposely at his side. There was a time when he wasn’t so debonair or handsome. If anyone were to ask him when the transformation took place, he would have denied there had been one. Or if someone persuaded him that there must have been a moment, he would have been unable to pinpoint the exact day. Likely the change occurred over several months or years, each step insignificant unless taken in totality. Those closest to him, his wife for instance, would never have noticed the difference until one day, a day much like today, she looked at him as the stranger he had become instead of the man she married.
The girl hailed a taxi and waited by the rear door. The man sauntered up to her as if their meeting were purely by chance. When he came abreast of her, he seized her like a trophy. Their embrace exhibited enough affection to be true but not too much to be vulgar. Determining the exact nature of their relationship wouldn’t have been easy for the casual observer. Were they husband and wife? Lovers rendezvousing on a downtown street? Or perhaps a boss and his assistant taking an extended lunch? Just about any pretty salesclerk would have guessed the latter, and she would have been right.
He cranked the door open for her, and she climbed inside. The cab pulled away, took a right onto Wacker Drive, and entered Lake Shore Drive, heading north. Had they been tourists, they would have remarked on the architecture, the scenery, and the sunny afternoon. Instead, they were making out like teenagers in the back seat.
The taxi let them off at Belmont Harbor. The pair made their way down to the pier, hands interlaced. The girl tittered as if she were tipsy. She wasn’t drunk, merely excited.
A dinghy was waiting for them. The girl needed help climbing down into the craft. Her lover was eager to accommodate and clutched her with familiarity. The motorboat churned up the water. The wind swirled the girl’s hair like a pinwheel. At the mooring, she climbed onboard. He caught her up in his arms and gave her a deep and lingering kiss. The dinghy swung around and headed back to the pier. The sailboat rollicked in the swells. So did the lovers. The yacht drifted on its mooring, and when the twosome moved in for yet another clinch, something caught the girl’s attention. She said something to him. He screwed his neck and squinted inland, toward the pier and the parking lot beyond. She asked him a question. Without taking his eyesight away from the shoreline, he enfolded her in his arms and gave her a reassuring peck. Her trust restored, she snuggled against him. Gradually they divided, holding hands and inclining toward each other the way lovers do. He kissed her again before taking her by the hand and guiding her below.
Kendra lowered the point-and-shoot camera and tossed it onto the passenger seat. A sudden gust whipped the wig from her head and flung it out the open window. She left it on the asphalt and put the SUV into gear. A few minutes later, she merged into traffic and headed south on Lake Shore Drive.
Chapter 31
OFFICE WORKERS CHOKED the sidewalks. Everybody was either going to an appointment, coming back from lunch, or taking a break at the corner coffee shop. Except for one man.
He was striking and almost beautiful, though not in the least effeminate. His slate-gray shirt, steel-striped tie, razor-sharp slacks, and trend-setting suspenders emphasized a graceful body in superb athletic condition. He looked like most other businessmen who wore the accoutrements of success, briefcase in tow and always on the go. Except he didn’t carry a briefcase, had nowhere to go, and wasn’t in any particular hurry to get there. Even though the weather was mild, he prowled the streets as if it were winter, unbreakable habits of old.
The popular Italian restaurant came up on his right, but he never once turned his head or slowed his speed. Farther inland, he found a high-traffic corner and hitched a jutting elbow around a lamppost. With one foot planted at the base, he swiveled around the pole and divided his gaze in multiple directions, culling out promising women from a block away. Tossed like salads, they were a hodgepodge of delectable blends. Like a starving dog, he was drawn to this one, repelled by that one, or neutral about another.
The young ones were the easiest targets since most of them hadn’t yet encountered sexual perversion strolling alongside bankers and commodity traders. Girls who poured themselves into jeans tighter than their assets were more problematic; their greatest desire was to experience life today and bicker over the price tomorrow. Blasé women who had been around the block once or twice were already jaded by an overdose of alcohol, parties, and a string of lovers. The smug ones wore wedding rings out in the open but dressed in provocative outfits that targeted members of the opposite sex who weren’t necessarily their husbands. Those who had arrived at an advanced age were in search of satisfying orgasms and evening meals garnished with sprigs of conversation more meaningful than football and breastfeeding. And the more mature ladies who gravitated toward fake fur and talcum powder were in the game for the long haul.
With so many mouth-watering dishes on the menu, he was a hard man to please. He had a beau idéal in mind. She had to be tall ... at least five-foot-seven. Dark, untamable hair was required. So, too, were a wan complexion and a lost expression, as well as an interesting nose, a luscious mouth, and prominent cheekbones. She also had to be running a hundred-yard dash, making it easier for him to rope her in.
He targeted the woman of his dreams, but she sashayed past and failed to give him a second glance. Another feminine vision fitting his requirements sauntered his way, but unaccustomed to exhibitions of partial nudity in glaring daylight, she drew a wide circle around him.
They never yelled out, the ones he earmarked for special favors. Never hailed a cop or made an offhand remark to companions marching beside them. Only months or years later would they drudge out the incident for storytelling, the kind ordinary people never believed except in the backs of their minds, where they wondered what it was like to break the rules and get away with it.
He left the lamppost, trolled for better hunting grounds, and played pocket pool in a private fog of frustration. Sloped shoulders swayed with his ambling gait. He posted himself at several other intersections. After only a minute or two at each locale, he moved on, zigzagging north and west. The elevated trains rumbling overhead provided company for his loneliness. He reached his territorial limit, where the tracks spanned the river and pedestrian traffic dispersed. Shrugging weary disappointment, he cut through a building.
The skyscraper had seen better days. The air filtration system dispensed evergreen and mint in sickening quantities. Scratched marble floors and stained granite walls led through a dreary lobby. To go up, visitors used old-fashioned elevators, the kind constructed of rickety crosshatch gates and lever-controlled doors that only human operators were authorized to operate. Banks of four to a side marked out the atrium. One of the cars was out of order. But the rest, their sealed brass doors casting would-be passengers into golden statuettes, rose and fell according to verdigris-coated arrows housed in tympanums of arabesque tracery.
The doors of two arriving elevators yawned open. A distinguished gentleman and several women commandeered the first and asked for various floors. The hustler timed his approach and claimed the second for his lone use. He requested the fourteenth floor with the understanding that there wasn’t an unlucky thirteenth. Just as the elevator took off, another elevator rang its arrival.
A luscious lady with dark hair swept into a severe French twist emerged from her hiding place behind a column and hurried inside. Like the flasher, she too asked for the fourteenth floor.
On the fourteenth floor, the corridors formed a large rectangle surrounding a central cor
e of elevator shafts, washrooms, and stairwells. When the attractive woman stepped off the elevator, she stilled to listen. Soon she heard the faraway tramp of a man’s shoes. She trailed the invisible footprints around a corner and down a long corridor. The walls echoed with the snapping footfalls of her fashionable boots. She heard two women gabbing from behind closed doors, a keyboard clicking faintly from an inner office, and a distant copier churning up a ream of paper. A clerk emerged from one of the offices, looked over the hapless woman with a suspicious eye, and headed for the ladies’ room. An executive late for an appointment popped out of another office, briefly shot his eyesight in the lady’s direction, and took the stairs to an upper floor.
Except for the femme fatale and the pervert she was following, the passageways became deserted once more. He was still ahead of her, insinuating himself deeper into the maze. Her heels chased him, tapping out a double-time rhythm. She turned a corner, hoping to catch him out, but he disappeared around the next turn.
Silence replaced his thumping footsteps. Bewildered, she halted. After several seconds of stillness, he resumed his prowling gait. So, too, did she. He doubled his pace. She matched it. He dawdled. She slowed her tempo. Theirs was a game of cat and mouse.
“I know you’re there,” she called out. An unnatural hush replaced her reverberating voice. She marched to the end of the corridor, passing door after door, some bright beyond the frosted glass panes, and others dark and locked. Giving up on the forward path, she backtracked, tried several doorknobs, and stuck her head into a handful of offices, making one lame excuse after another. Losing her patience, she chased empty corridors until she found herself back at the atrium. She punched the elevator button. Paced and fumed. And decided he wasn’t going to get away from her that easily.
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