Back to Blood: A Novel

by Tom Wolfe

  Cutler broke into a pit bull grin. “Hmmmm… I wonder if he’s taking a seventy-million-dollar tax deduction from forgeries he gave the museum to wipe out whatever he’s making from forgeries on the side… On this list John has all the names, all the contact information, and he has taped recordings of the calls he made from Gloria’s desk. He’s had calls from galleries, dealers, other museums—well, you can imagine. But the one that intrigues me is the one from a guy who owns a small printing press in Stuttgart. He’s worried because he thinks he’ll be blamed for something he did in all innocence. For some Russian company he manufactured a catalogue of a Malevich show, in French, from the early nineteen twenties. He says the company provided paper from at least as far back as the twenties, old typefaces, layouts, designs, binding thread, the works. The guy thought this was for some kind of Malevich centennial, and hey, what good fun! Clever, too. Then he saw some Maleviches on the wire and internet coverage of John’s story and the possibility of forgery by some Russians and put two and two together. Gentlemen, I think what we’re looking at is maybe the biggest scam in art history unraveling right before our eyes.”

  Ed and everybody else had their eyes pinned on John Smith. ::::::My God, this kid’s the one who has broken this case wide open! So why is he still there with his eyes all downcast, shaking his head?:::::: He heard Stan explaining to Ira Cutler that John Smith had been terribly stricken with guilt ever since Igor Drukovich was found dead, and he’s still stricken. “He’s convinced that if he hadn’t written that original story on Drukovich—to provoke the very revelations that came to light this morning—Drukovich would still be alive. I’m telling you he’s in a bad way.”

  Suddenly Ed burst forth with a loud voice and vehemence, in short, a roar, which nobody, including himself, knew he was capable of: “SMITH, COME HERE!” Now more frightened than forlorn, John Smith stared at his maximum editor, who said, “FEEL GUILTY ON YOUR OWN GODDAMNED TIME! YOU’RE WORKING FOR ME NOW, AND YOU’VE GOT A BIG STORY TO WRITE FOR TOMORROW!”

  Nobody knew Edward T. Topping IV had it in him! All the Loop Syndicate and Herald brass saw and heard it happen! It was in that moment, they all decided, that Ed Topping—old “T-4”—had become a new man, a strong man, a real man, and a credit to the newspaper game.

  Ed was surprised, too. Actually—and he knew it—he had thundered at John Smith out of fear, fear that the kid might mope off without writing the story that would get him, Ed Topping, and lots of others, out of a real jam.

  Her talk with Nestor had reduced Magdalena’s fear level from terrified to scared witless. There is a difference, and she could feel it; but she still got almost no sleep that night. She couldn’t find a single position lying in bed in which she wasn’t unpleasantly aware of her heartbeat. It wasn’t all that fast, but it was primed to gallop at any moment. After a few hours… or that’s what it felt like… she heard the latch on the front door turning, and that almost set her off. Her heart bolted, as if it wanted to attain insane levels of atrial fibrillation. She prayed to God to make it so—

  —and it was so: only Amélia coming home. “Thank you, God!” She actually said it aloud, although under her breath.

  The last two nights, Monday and Tuesday, Amélia had been at his place near the hospital, he being the thirty-two-year-old resident neurosurgeon suddenly in her life. Neurosurgeon! Surgeons were at the top of the status hierarchy at all hospitals, because they were men of action—surgeons were usually men—men of action who routinely held human life in their hands—literally, tactilely—and currently neurosurgeons were the most romantic of all. They faced the greatest risks of all surgeons. By the time someone had reached the point of needing brain surgery, he was already in a very bad way, and the rate of deaths in their field was the highest of all. (At the bottom of the ladder were dermatologists, pathologists, radiologists, and psychiatrists; no crises to go through, no emergency calls at night at home or, on days off, or over the hospital speaker system, no mortifying treks to waiting rooms in your scrubs, trying to think up the right rhetoric for telling the praying wrecks that their loved one just died on the table and why.) It occurred to Magdalena that Amélia’s and her love lives were now reversed. It seemed like only yesterday that Amélia was Reggie-less and forlorn, while she was about to go out with a young, famous, rich, handsome, dashing Russian named Sergei. Now there was no more Sergei, she devoutly hoped. She was forlorn, and on top of that frightened half to death, while Amélia was busy getting it on with a young second-generation Cuban neurosurgeon who was romantic per se.

  Magdalena must have finally fallen asleep for a couple of hours sometime after six, because she had glanced at the luminous hands on her alarm clock and blip she was waking up, and the same clock now said 9:30. Not a sound in the apartment; Amélia must still be sleeping, because she came home late, and this was one of her days off. Magdalena could have happily remained lying there, but all the circumstances of her miseries and fears came plunging back from out of the hypnopompic fog and made her too wary to stay lying there in supine vulnerability. So she got up and put a cotton bathrobe over the T-shirt she slept in and went into the bathroom and brought two cupped hands full of cold water up to her face and felt no better. Her heart was again drumming away a little too fast, and she had a dull headache and a great weariness such as she never had in the morning. She went to the kitchen and made herself a cup of Cuban coffee, and that better pull her out of this, the coffee, or—the main thing was to be wary and scream to Amélia and call 911 the moment she heard anything, not after she went to the door and listened more closely. She went into their tiny living room and sat down in one of the armchairs, but even holding the cup made her tired. So she got up to put it on the little makeshift coffee table and, being on her feet, turned on the TV, digiting the sound down very low, so as not to wake up Amélia. A Spanish channel was on, and she found herself watching a talk show. The host was a comedian who went by the name Hernán Loboloco. He preferred to be called Loboloco, not Hernán, because Loboloco meant Crazywolf and he was a comedian. His specialty was asking his guests serious questions in the voices of other people, famous people, such as asking a champion skateboarder about half-pipe stunts in the angry, hortatory voice of Cesar Chavez warning the Americans about encroachments. He was very good at it—he could also make extremely funny animal sounds, which he was likely to do at any moment—and Magdalena usually enjoyed Loboloco on the rare occasions she watched TV. But being so depressed and wary, she wasn’t in shape to find anything funny, and the canned laughter irritated her enormously, even at low volume. Why would a comedian as good as Loboloco feel like he needed canned laughter? It didn’t help the show, it made it sound cheesy and—

  Her heart nearly jumped out of her rib cage. The lock on the door was turning and the door burst open! Magdalena jumped to her feet. Her new iPhone was back in the bedroom—no time!—no 911!—no Nestor! She wheeled about—and it was Amélia… with a big thirty-two-ounce Nalgene bottle of water she was tilting back and gulping down. Her skin was glowing with sweat. She was wearing black Lycra tights that came down to just below the knees and a black racer-back halter top with some crisscross cutouts. She wore no makeup and had her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Add it all together and it said spinning, the new fad. Everybody in the class—and rare was the Xersoul older than thirty-five—sat astride a stationary bicycle, one amid rank after rank after rank of them, and took orders from a teacher, male or female, who bellowed out commands and denunciations like a sadistic drill sergeant until everybody was pedaling away to the very limits of her lung capacity and leg strength and endurance. Three out of every four of these volunteer masochists were women so eager—to the point of desperation—to get in shape, they would subject themselves to… even this. Well… Magdalena would subject herself to this torture, too, except that classes cost thirty-five dollars a pop, and she had barely that much to keep herself fed—never mind fit—for a week, and even at that rate what little money she had left in the bank w
ould run out in a month… and what was she going to do then?

  Between gulps from the Nalgene container—she had progressed no farther than just inside the door—Amélia caught sight of Magdalena standing stock-still in front of the armchair on the balls of her feet, knees bent, as if she were about to leap or flee.

  Amélia stopped gulping long enough to say, “Magdalena, what’s that look on your face?”

  “Well, I… uhh… I guess I’m just surprised. I thought you were still sleeping. I heard you come in last night, and it seemed pretty late.”

  Amélia took a few more gulps from the Nalgene bottle, whose volume must have been nearly as great as her head’s.

  “Since when are you into spinning?” said Magdalena.

  “How do you know I’ve been spinning?”

  “It’s not hard… that outfit, the size of that water bottle, your face is red—I don’t mean red sick, I mean red workout, a really hard workout.”

  “To be honest, this is the first time I ever tried it,” said Amélia.

  “Well,” said Magdalena, “what do you think?”

  “Oh, it’s great… I think… I mean, if you live through it! I never voluntarily worked that hard in my life! I mean, I… am… really wiped.”

  Magdalena said, “Why don’t you sit down?”

  “But I feel so—I have to take a shower.”

  “Oh, come on, sit down for a minute.”

  So Amélia sprawled in the easy chair and sighed and let her head tilt so far back she was looking straight up at the ceiling.

  Magdalena smiled, and it occurred to her, in so many words, that this was the first time she had smiled even once over the past forty-eight hours, and she said, “This new interest in working out, I mean really working out, it wouldn’t have anything to do with neurosurgery, would it?”

  Amélia chuckled faintly and lifted her head and sat up straight. For the first time she noticed the television was on. The Loboloco show was still going, displaying a lot of grins and orthodontically perfect white teeth and gestures and moving lips… giving way to what were no doubt convulsions of laughter that made almost no sound at all, since Magdalena had turned the volume down… “What’s that you’re watching?” said Amélia.

  “Ohhh… nothing,” said Magdalena.

  “Isn’t that Loboloco?” said Amélia.

  Immediately on the defensive, Magdalena said, “I wasn’t really watching it, and I had the sound down really low, thinking you might still be asleep. I know Loboloco is stupid, but there are shows that are stupid stupid and some that are stupid funny… like The Simpsons and anything Will Ferrell is in, and I think Loboloco’s kind of like that, stupid funny, or sometimes he is—” ::::::Let’s get off Loboloco!:::::: “Wait, what were you saying?”

  “Saying? Gosh, I already forgot,” said Amélia.

  “We were talking about spinning,” said Magdalena, “and how you got into it…”

  “I don’t remember what I was saying,” said Amélia. “Well… whatever… I found out today you can’t exercise really hard and think about anything but ohmygod can I make it through this! You can’t think about your problems at the same time. You should try it, Magdalena. I can guarantee you can’t spin really hard and think about… all this other stuff, too. You have to give yourself a break! You know what I mean? But how are you feeling? You sound a little better.”

  Magdalena said, “A little… did I tell you I saw Nestor yesterday?”

  “What?! Umm… no! You somehow failed to mention that one… Why?”

  “Well, I just… I guess I just…”

  “You just what?” said Amélia. “Come on, spit it out, girl!”

  Sheepishly Magdalena said, “I called him.”

  “You called him? You probably made his decade hahahah! Oh boy, a few dozen Hail Marys have hit the jackpot.”

  “Well, I don’t know. I called him because he’s a cop. And I guess I just thought he could help me, you know, with what happened with Sergei.”

  “You told him about that?” said Amélia.

  “Well, I mean, not about me being left naked in Sergei’s bed. Nothing about Sergei’s bed at all, or anything at all about how I know Sergei except that I was visiting him, me and some other people—and, you know, I didn’t even tell him what time of day this all was. I just said the whole setup freaked me out, Sergei giving people orders like he’s Mafia, the head of the Pizzo crime family or something, and he orders this huge bald-headed robot goon to drive me home—and maybe Nestor could tell me what to do besides go to the police, because if I did, it might get out, and then Sergei would send the goons after me for real.”

  “Isn’t he on the outs, though?” said Amélia. “Like, is he even still a cop?”

  “Well, I don’t really know. I mean, we know he’s been in the papers and everything, and even though some of it seemed pretty bad, it’s like he’s almost famous or something.”

  “The boy from Hialeah you couldn’t wait to get rid of?”

  Amélia had begun to smile, and it was pretty obvious that she found all this amusing, but Magdalena didn’t hold it against her. Just having somebody to talk to helped her see things in a more organized way and, come to think of it, assess Nestor’s place in the world.

  “Yeah, I was kind of surprised myself,” she said. “It was like he was different, though—you know? When I saw him the other day, it was like he was bigger or something or—”

  “Maybe now he just has more time to go to the gym…”

  “It’s not that. I mean like if he got any more muscles, I don’t know where he’d put them,” said Magdalena. “But I don’t mean physically bigger. I didn’t really know who else to turn to, and when I first saw him again, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s the same old Nestor,’ but then after I started telling him the story he just got like… so mature, concerned, like he was really listening to me, like he really wanted to know, you know?”

  “Yeah,” said Amélia, “because he’s still madly in love with you.”

  “It wasn’t that. It was like he was being all manly and taking charge. He wasn’t listening just to make me feel better; he started firing questions at me, like really detailed cop questions, like he knew something about it and knew what to do. He was kind of… I don’t know…” She laughed, to take the edge off the word she was about to use—“hot.”

  “Oh, my God, I thought I’d never see the day come when you called Nestor Camacho hot.”

  “I don’t mean it like holy-shit, head-swivel hot… just like strong. You know what I mean? It made me wonder if maybe—” She cut it off there.

  “You think you should have stayed with Nestor?”

  “Well, I feel like maybe I took him for granted,” said Magdalena. “I mean, no one else has really been there for me like he has. And when something happens, he’s the one I think of first. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, I can’t really say you’ve gone up from there.”

  “Yeah, seriously, a perv, then a criminal,” said Magdalena. “I was really going places, wasn’t I.”

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” said Amélia. “I guess you could do worse than Nestor. He was really good for you. How did you guys leave it?”

  “We didn’t really,” said Magdalena. “That’s the weird thing. Just as I really started to feel something for him again, he was practically out of his chair.”

  “Typical guy.”

  “No, I mean literally. He was like, ‘I gotta go call my partner’ and ran out of there. It was so—what’s the word? Valiant? Like he was going off to fight—oh, I don’t know.”

  “Your knight from Hialeah!” said Amélia.

  Suddenly they both were looking at the television screen. The pattern of light and shadows had changed abruptly. The Loboloco show had obviously been indoors, in some studio, and the contrast between bright parts of the screen and dark parts was minimal. But now you were outside in a punishing noonday sunlight that made the shadows of a buildin
g look like India ink in contrast. It was a courtyard of some three- or four-story building with wraparound terraces—no, interior walkways they were—that projected over the courtyard. Between the floors were big outdoor stairways, and at the foot of one of them what was obviously a person’s body lay sprawled upon the last few stairs at a downward angle, headfirst, beneath some sort of white cloth, the head, too, meaning the person was dead. There were cops standing near it and a barrier, more or less, of yellow crime-scene tape holding back a bunch of mainly old people, quite a few of them leaning on aluminum walkers.

  “Hey, turn that up for a second,” said Amélia.

  So Magdalena digited the volume up, and the face of a reporter appeared on the screen, a young woman with blond hair. “You ever notice they’re always blondes, even on the Spanish channels?” Amélia said with some irritation. The blonde was holding a microphone and saying, “—and one of the mysteries is that the artist was known in this senior citizens condominium in Hallandale—although he seldom had anything to do with his neighbors—as Mr. Nicolai Kopinsky, and his apartment was apparently some sort of clandestine studio, which he never allowed anyone to enter.”

  “Oh, my God!” said Magdalena. “Did she say Hallandale?”

  “Yeah, Hallandale.”

  “Oh, my God-d-d-d-d-d,” said Magdalena, turning it into a cross between an exclamation and a moan and covering her face with her hands. “That’s what Sergei said on the telephone, ‘Hallandale.�� All the rest of it was in Russian! Oh, my God-d-d-d in Heaven! I’ve gotta call Nestor! I gotta find out what’s going on! Hallandale! Oh, dear God!”