And West Is West

by Ron Childress

  “Get over yourself,” Daugherty says to his pale, self-pitying scowl.

  “Sir?” a young woman’s voice calls through the bathroom door. “The restaurant is closing now.”

  “LOOKS LIKE YOU just woke up in a morgue freezer,” Pyle says, arms folded, leaning against the Taurus.

  They take a short walk across the parking lot to the Motel 6, where they catch the night clerk surfing porn on a laptop. He’s so voyeuristically entertained by the agents’ tale of a young woman and her dog that without asking he magnetizes a key card with Aldridge’s room number. Though she’d paid in cash, he’d insisted on seeing her ID.

  “Company policy,” he explains. “Also, I should go with you when you take her.”

  “You’ll cool your fat ass right here,” Pyle says.

  “Your cooperation is appreciated, sir,” Daugherty adds with a smile he does not attempt to make real.

  Taking the long way to room 211, around the back parking lot, he and Pyle find no escape routes. A perimeter walkway provides access to the rooms, which must abut a common inside wall. Some may have adjoining interior doors. But 211’s will be locked since Aldridge only paid for one room.

  When they reach her wing, Pyle mounts the stairs first and Daugherty follows. Daugherty sees that Pyle has taken along pepper spray. “In case the bitch gets jumpy,” he explains.

  “Her dog, you mean,” Daugherty says, imagining he’s still in charge.

  “No,” Pyle replies. “I mean the fucking bitch we’re hunting.”

  Aldridge, Daugherty sees, is probably still awake in her room—light is bleeding from the edges of 211’s curtained window. Since he’s not expecting a shotgun blast greeting, he stands in front of the door and knocks. It’s not a policeman’s knock, but it is firm. This shouldn’t be a hard arrest, not physically. “Jessica,” Daugherty calls more softly than intended.

  There is no response. Pyle moves in and starts pounding the door, making its frame rattle. “Aldridge! Jessica Aldridge! We know you’re in there!” Bang, bang, bang.

  “Great. Let’s invite the neighbors,” Daugherty tells him, envisioning an assortment of red-blooded gun owners peeved by their noisemaking. Dragging off a young woman in the middle of the night is a surefire way of turning a citizenry’s ire into stupidity. Daugherty can already foresee the bullet holes in their car.

  Pyle stops banging. “Come on. The goddamn key card,” he says as though Daugherty has gone senile. They have been in each other’s unbroken company for too many hours and the rush of the imminent arrest is compounding their irritation. Daugherty swipes the key and, with the toe of his shoe, pushes open the motel room door. It swings in all the way, unchained. Pyle lowers the pepper canister and shoves past. Daugherty almost doesn’t follow; he can tell that no one’s home.

  While Pyle checks the bathroom Daugherty realizes that his heart is racing—fluttering but not pumping blood. He deflates onto the bed—into an indent that Aldridge or her dog must have made. He puts up his feet and lies back.

  Pyle comes out of the bathroom with a trashcan. “She was here,” he says, rummaging, pulling out a McDonald’s bag. Then he sees his partner lying on the bed. “What the hell you doing, Daugherty?”

  “The trail is cold,” Daugherty says and shuts his eyes. “The room is paid for.” He is trying to sound worldly and nonchalant, coolly above any disappointment over losing their target again. “May as well get some rest.” In truth, though, Daugherty wouldn’t be able to move if the bed were on fire.

  CHAPTER 35

  New York City

  “Juliette, damn it, I should be there for Ethan. For Zoe,” Alex says, his eyes masked by the low-battery warning on Juliette’s iPad. They have been video arguing for far too long.

  “And miss the deadline for Sergei’s mural? Right now he is very important to us.” Juliette is again being the schoolmistress, reminding her difficult student of his error.

  “Yeah,” Alex says, “but Russians appreciate tragedy. Sergei will give me a few days off for a funeral.”

  “Alex, you are an artist. Stay there and put your feelings into paint. Besides, you did not even like this Zoe, not after all she did to your Ethan.”

  “You mean forget the dead and collect my paycheck. What’s the Bible say? ‘Gain the world and lose your soul.’ ”

  “Now you are religious? And a million rubles is hardly the world. Thirty thousand dollars. Your work is what counts. That is your soul.” Juliette clicks away another battery warning. She cannot recharge because this Starbucks has blocked its power outlets.

  “My work. You talk like I’m Picasso. It’s scary how you hype me.”

  “I only see what others see. What your ami Ethan saw before anyone. That’s why I respect him. Oui, I do. You see, part of him says he wants you home to say goodbye to Zoe. But his other half wants you to succeed. Don’t forget, he has two dozen of your paintings, your best early work. They are worth a lot by now.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I did not want to distract you but your show has all red dots. There is a buying frenzy. I have even just heard that Dean Cato resold Money Shot.”

  “But it’s still hanging in the gallery.”

  “His hedge fund manager bought it for twice what he paid us. People are betting on you to be big. Basquiat big.”

  “Basquiat is dead.”

  “Basquiat is what they are saying. Some very influential people. Financiers. Bankers.”

  “What do those people know about art? It’s just an investment to them.”

  “They are the new Medicis,” Juliette says, “and they can make you great.”

  “You mean rich. You know what? I should have kept the original title on Cato’s painting—Blood Money. That would have scared away the speculators.”

  “When you want people to see, you don’t throw acid in their eyes. And Blood Money wasn’t your title anyway.”

  “Just because it came from Ethan—”

  “Écoute-moi, Alex.” When Juliette gets heated she slips into her French Canadian. “Listen, your Ethan is bitter because he has lost his job, his apartment, all his money. He is going down while you are coming up. I do not even think he will take Sergei’s job, after all my work. Don’t let misplaced guilt hold you back. You are not responsible for his failure.”

  “Ethan is my friend. And Blood Money came from his anger.”

  “But your art is not about the words. It’s about the painting. Ethan will understand.”

  “The painting. Jesus. I can’t believe Cato resold Money before he even took it home.”

  As Alex says this Juliette senses him relenting, finally if just barely, to pride. He is, as he should be, not displeased with his success. Their success.

  “This is your moment. Your chance to be famous.” Ideas pounce through Juliette’s head. “You know, maybe you should come back for a few days. The Wall Street Journal is asking for images. Perhaps I can get the Times interested in a profile. Then Sergei wouldn’t mind your coming home. It would give his mural more prestige.”

  “Christ,” Alex says, sighing, “you’re always minding the store. We should be talking about my coming home to help Ethan, to say goodbye to Zoe, not to leverage this . . . whatever this madness is that’s going on.”

  “Je comprends, mon chéri. I know. It’s sad about Zoe. But you can do nothing for her. Truly you cannot. In fact, you are upset. So maybe it is better you stay at work on the mural. We must be very careful about your image.”

  “And what about Ethan? He needs me.”

  “Chéri, I will see to Ethan. Didn’t I introduce him to Sergei, find him his new apartment? So let me help him again. You have only been crippling your friend, letting him hang around in the studio. He has lost his independence, his pride. Did you see what he wore to your opening? Dean Cato thought he was homeless.”

  “So you’re going to turn Ethan back into a presentable friend for me, the great artiste.”

  “Come,
Alex. You know you can’t help him.”

  “Where do you get this great confidence?”

  “I have helped you, no? And it is not confidence I have. I do what is realistic. That is all anyone who is responsible can do. I will help Ethan for you.”

  As Alex pauses to consider her promise, Juliette’s iPad warns again of her diminishing power. She will lose Alex soon. But she is almost finished.

  “All right. I’ll stay here. Who knows if I could get there in time anyway. But I won’t make excuses to Ethan about missing the funeral.”

  “I will take care of him. Now, what have you done today?”

  Alex sighs out of Juliette’s screen. “Not much. I’m not really into it yet.”

  “Point your phone. Let me see,” Juliette says, inflecting her voice with energy as if their twenty-minute quarrel has not drained her.

  “I’ve had some ideas,” Alex says defensively.

  “Remember, it is Sergei’s fiftieth in two weeks. He is planning a grand unveiling. There is a deadline and—”

  “Christ, I’ll do what I can. But stop it. Stop being the fucking shopkeeper!”

  And then, with no further warning, her iPad goes dark.

  “I WILL TRY to be not so much the shopkeeper,” Juliette tells Alex through her recharging iPad. She has migrated two blocks to Astor Place, to a Starbucks that is freer with their power receptacles. She is not looking at Alex but is observing the wall on which he is to complete Sergei’s mural. The area, prepared with a coat of plaster, sits between the room’s grandiose curved staircases. Juliette sees that after his third day at work Alex has very little paint on the ten-by-twenty-foot space. He is not progressing as he normally does, in bold swaths. He has only put down a jumble of unsure slashes.

  “I’m just not getting any traction yet,” Alex says. “And it’s not looking anything like the sketches we gave Sergei.”

  “Alex, you are the most talented artist I know,” Juliette says.

  She tells him this because she also needs to believe it. She needs to justify the last ten months of her emotional life, the monthly rent on his Chelsea studio, the social IOUs she’d called in to make his Medusa opening succeed, the professional promise she’d given Sergei that Alex Carr would produce for him a brilliant mural. Has she pushed Alex beyond his abilities? “Paint anything. Sergei will be pleased with whatever you do,” Juliette says. But this is a fib, for unlike most of her clients Sergei has an eye. There will be no convincing him to accept anything mediocre.

  “Whatever you say,” Alex replies.

  “And I will take care of Ethan tomorrow at the funeral.”

  “All right. Thanks.”

  “Really, you don’t need to worry about a thing,” she tells Alex. As the shopkeeper, she will keep up the accounts.

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, beneath a sidewalk canopy, Juliette meets Ethan with what she imagines are mutual looks of disregard. Juliette’s has to do with Ethan’s appearance—the beltless pants, the scuffed loafers, the nest of hand-combed hair, the business jacket grimy from being used as a smock in Alex’s studio. Ethan seems in the final stages of unmaking what he once was, a currency trader entrusted with millions of dollars, according to Alex. Yet even in the wreck that stands before her, Juliette can sense his former competence.

  And what does Ethan see as he looks at Juliette? She can guess—that petite salope who prevented Alex from being here to say goodbye to their former lover.

  “Bonjour, Ethan,” Juliette says with all the sympathy she can feign. Attempting to peck his cheek she smells alcohol seeping from his pores. “Ça va?” she asks nervously. “You are okay?”

  Ethan’s breath is toxic. “Supposed to be my funeral. Didn’t invite him. He’s already inside.”

  Juliette can partly decipher this gibberish only because, following her promise to Alex yesterday, she began to burrow into this Zoe business. After locating a helpful detective in the Seventh Precinct, Juliette learned that, lacking next of kin, Zoe’s remains were released to the first person willing to cover the burial costs. A friend of Zoe’s from Washington had balked at getting more deeply involved and so Detective Chen had called Ethan. So, it is his funeral, in that he is paying for it. Who the uninvited party already inside might be, however, Juliette does not know.

  Up the block a church bell chimes the hour. It is time but Ethan stays rooted to the sidewalk. “Are you ready, Ethan?” Juliette says. She enlaces his arm and turns him about. He is leaden and they weave through the funeral home’s entrance.

  A mournful-appearing man directs them into a chapel the size of a living room. It is set up with rows of chairs, all unoccupied. When Juliette lifts her eyes to the bier she understands Ethan’s reluctance to enter. Half the coffin lid yawns open.

  “You asked for a viewing?” Juliette says, diminishing her surprise.

  “I . . . I have to see her again.”

  Almost ceremoniously, arm in arm, Juliette and Ethan pass up the aisle. A Bach arioso infiltrates their ears. Aside from another couple, an older man and a youngish woman standing not far from the bier, the room is empty.

  “Did you not send out an announcement?” Juliette asks Ethan, perhaps sounding critical.

  He doesn’t respond.

  “I could have helped,” Juliette says, but she is talking to herself.

  They are close enough now to look into the coffin, into the overly made-up, unevenly puffy face of the young woman. Laid out as she is, like a collapsed puppet, it is difficult to imagine this Zoe alive.

  Ethan pulls away from Juliette’s arm. “What’s this?” he asks as if the corpse would tell him. Juliette can only stare as Ethan reaches into the coffin and lifts Zoe’s wrist. He pulls at something attached to her hand.

  “Ethan,” Juliette whispers.

  “Pardon me?” says the older man. “Pardon me! Stop that!”

  He is dressed with the bland authority of a Washington politico—navy jacket, diagonally striped tie, light blue shirt. With his intellectually longish hair, he also radiates the pompous self-seriousness common to the capital. Having stepped back politely when Ethan approached the bier, he now takes a threatening step forward.

  His companion tries to hold him. “No, Dr. Coombs. He is suffering,” the woman, who has a scar on her face, says. Her voice is pleasantly cadenced despite its alarm.

  “This engagement ring,” Ethan says loudly. “How did it get on her finger?”

  “Please stop. It belongs to her,” says Coombs. “It was from me.”

  “But she didn’t accept it. Did she? Not when she was alive,” Ethan shouts. No, not shouts, screams. He wrenches at Zoe’s finger. “Why would you think she wants it now?” Ethan is pulling so hard at the ring that Juliette fears some morbid accident.

  She grasps Ethan’s shoulder to suggest restraint. But with a frenzy of elbows Ethan shrugs her away and Juliette topples backward off her platform shoes. Folding chairs spring like mousetraps as she crashes into them.

  Juliette lifts her head from the wreckage and flips down her upturned skirt to cover her thighs. She raises a hand toward Ethan. On her feet, she accepts a tissue from Coombs’ companion.

  “Your temple. It is bleeding,” the woman says, her brow knit.

  CROSSING FIRST AVENUE, a block from the funeral home, Juliette pursues Ethan—who has set a smart pace as if he suspects what she intends: an intervention. Platforms are not running shoes; however, she has made a vow to Alex and tries to catch up. “Ethan!” she calls, then she is alongside. She is uncomfortable about being the shopkeeper on this day of mourning. But she may not have another chance to speak with him. “You have not worked for a long time, no?”

  Speed walking even faster, Ethan retorts violently, “Don’t I work in Alex’s studio almost every day?”

  “But this is not your real work.” Jogging in his wake, Juliette thinks that they must make a curious sidewalk pair—the woman in black Helmut Lang chasing the disheveled homeless maniac. Fortunately no one cares. This is not
Quebec.

  At Second Avenue, a light corners Ethan. Juliette catches up again. “Ethan, please listen.”

  “No! You just want me to stop coming to his studio.”

  “I only think—”

  “You think I’m Bartleby?”

  “Who?”

  “A man who wouldn’t go away. And I won’t. Not unless Alex tells me to go.”

  “But you know he would never do that.”

  “I’m not holding him hostage.”

  Though tempted, Juliette does not reply with the truth—that it is Ethan who is hostage. Ever since college he has been living through Alex—first by buying his friend’s paintings and then by stretching his canvases and cleaning his brushes.

  “I’ll explain it simply,” Ethan says. “I’ve lost Zoe and now you’re taking Alex away.”

  “What? Ethan, no.”

  “You want me to work for Sergei a hundred miles away. Maybe . . . if Zoe were . . .” Ethan has stopped walking. “I can’t breathe,” he says.

  Juliette takes his arm. “I did not know that you and Zoe had gotten back together.”

  “We were . . . I mean, there was a chance.”

  “Here,” she says, leading Ethan to a door. “Let’s get off the street.”

  JULIETTE ORDERS A chamomile tea for herself and insists that Ethan have a sandwich. He picks at it, takes a bite. “I am not trying to get rid of you,” she says, realizing that she had been competing with him for Alex. But not now. Not really. Nevertheless, what will help Ethan will help both Alex and Ethan. Alex needs to separate himself a bit from Ethan in order to grow up. And Ethan needs a focus—work. “Sergei likes you. He’s offered you a great opportunity.”

  “To rip people off.”

  “But that’s not really what he’s asking you to do.”

  “Isn’t it? At least it’s not as bad as what I did for UIB. But what’s the point anyway.”

  “Ah,” Juliette sighs. “You mean, without Zoe?”

  “Without anybody.”