A slender blond man in a linen suit standing on the other side of Anthony gestured with his wine. "Incredible, what she does with the human form in her art. It's relentlessly genital. Yet there's a delicate spirituality. Do you see what I mean?"
Gail saw Anthony's head turn slowly, slowly. She could imagine the dark glitter in his eyes.
The man smiled. "Do you live on the beach?"
"He's mine," Gail said, speaking around Anthony, taking his arm.
The man looked at her, laughed. "Well, more power to you." He withdrew a card from his shirt pocket and extended it to Anthony. "I'm with an agency. We're in the market for the Mediterranean type. There simply aren't enough good models your age. Would you be interested? It can be quite lucrative."
"No."
The man drew back his card. "Never mind, then." He went away.
Gail pinched Anthony's cheek. "Stop growling. He's right. You are pretty."
"What did Howard Odell want?"
"Oh, Howard. He was being a jerk, threatening me with exposure in the Miami Herald as a sorry example of why the American public despises lawyers. I'll tell you later." She laid her head on his shoulder for a second. "I have to go find Rudy and Monica. Then I want a drink."
"What did he say to you?"
"Will you beat him up for me?"
"Gail, this could be serious."
"Yes. I know that. I do know." She let out a breath. "He says Patrick was once arrested for drug possession. And please don't start on how I shouldn't have gotten involved."
"Would you like an investigator to look into this? I could have mine call you."
"It's an obvious lie. Back in law school, I never even saw Patrick smoke a joint."
"And law school has been ... how long ago?"
"God. Poor Patrick. Such trouble. Well, Howard Odell is no saint, is he? You told me he had a friend who was a pornographer. Your client, remember?"
"Not friend, acquaintance," Anthony corrected.
"Oh. Well, forgive me, Howard." She gave Anthony's waist a quick hug. "I'll be back." "Where are you going?"
"To find Rudy and Monica. I'm feeling reckless." "Don't get into trouble," he said.
She smiled over her shoulder. "And don't you get picked up."
Monica Tillett—Gail knew her immediately—was in the center of a group of people. She was a sturdy, square-shouldered woman in black tights and a flowing red blouse. She had brows like blackbird wings over deep-set gray eyes. Her black hair, parted in the middle, sprang in wild curls from her head as if an electrical current had passed through it. Her hands chopped the air as she spoke about the spinelessness of the current art scene.
"We're all scared to offend somebody. Gotta be so correct, don't criticize victims of society. Victims! The victims are discriminating against everybody else! It's an excuse for a lack of talent. You're discriminated against, ergo your art is valuable?"
Gail noticed a man taking notes. An art critic? A reporter? How much of this would appear in print?
"Like that fuckin' Whitney Biennial, those buttons they gave out. 'I can't imagine ever wanting to be white.' Hah!" And Monica laughed, a single loud peal. It was she whom Gail had heard before, over the dividers. "Oh, sure. If it doesn't have an agenda, it's not art? Adolf Hitler said that. How art has a duty to uplift. Fuck that. The minute you have an agenda, you start cranking out cliches."
A young woman asked, "But doesn't your own art contain feminist themes?"
"Excuse me? Like it's gotta fit in this little square box? With a label?" Her intense gray eyes, the brows gathering over them like storm clouds, suddenly fixed on Gail. Her words began to slow down. "Look, I don't care what it is. That's the point. It is what it is. Hey, you-all excuse me a minute, okay? I gotta talk to somebody."
Gail involuntarily took a step backward. Monica Tillett walked toward her, shorter by half a foot but moving like a heavy cat, all slit-eyed intensity. She looked up into Gail's face, then whispered, "Jesus effing Christ. I didn't think you'd show up here."
"I could leave."
"What, leave? No." Monica turned, looking for someone. "I guess we ought to talk, right? Hey! Rudy! Check out who's here."
Gail hadn't noticed him before, a brooding man with the same wild black hair as Monica's, though his was cut a little shorter. He was staring sullenly at Gail, rocking back and forth on his heels. He wore jeans and a faded black T-shirt that clung to rippling pecs and biceps.
Monica grabbed Gail's arm. "Come on. We've got a room in the back." Gail looked over her shoulder for Anthony. Monica laughed. "What? We're going to bind and gag you?"
The dusty room, lit by a long fluorescent light, was no more than eight feet square, crammed with canvases, frames, a ladder, boxes, assorted junk. Rudy closed the door and silence fell.
Gail said, "I didn't think you'd recognize me after all these years."
"Why not? Ransom was a small school. You were student council, right? One of those girls that ran things. I remember." Monica laughed. "Cripes. You know what tonight is? My break-out. All these years of busting my buns. And get this. We had somebody from Art in America in here earlier. Down on vacation, sort of stumbled in by accident. He said he liked my stuff, and I don't think he was bullshitting me."
"Congratulations."
"Yeah. I'm like so high on this, then you show up."
From his place by the door Rudy crossed his arms. The muscles danced in his forearms. "What are you doing here, anyway?"
After a moment, Gail said, "Curiosity?"
"What do you want?"
Both of them, Gail noticed, had full, red lips, and their blood seemed to be racing just below the surface of their skin.
"Rudy, honey. Chill." Monica sat heavily on a middle step of the ladder. She looked morosely up at Gail. "I know what you think we did. If Patrick told you that, he's demented. Totally out of his fuckin' mind, okay?"
By now Gail had recovered herself. "Can I ask a question?"
Monica threw up her hands. "Yes! What do you want to know? Let's get this done, over." "Who found the will?"
"We did, in Althea's house, the day after she died. She's got a study upstairs and a desk, and we found it in a drawer."
"Why did you and Rudy go through her papers? Patrick is her nearest relative."
"So what? Althea was our stepmother for twenty-two years."
"How did you get in?"
"The housekeeper, Rosa." Monica barked a laugh. "It's our house. We grew up there!"
"What did you do with the will?"
"We took it and a bunch of other papers over to Alan Weissman's office, her attorney."
"You gave it personally to Alan Weissman?"
"No. His secretary, I forget. Whoever was at the front desk."
"Did you read it?"
"Sure. Wouldn't you? I nearly fell over. She actually did what she promised. She gave us our mother's house back. Didn't I say that, Rudy?"
"Yes, and the art." Rudy gazed coolly at Gail. "Althea said we could have it."
"When?"
"Several times. It was understood. It belonged to our parents."
"I thought you and Althea didn't get along." "Who told you that lie?"
"Let's say it's a general impression I get from talking to people who knew her." Gail began to feel a little claustrophobic in the cluttered room.
"What an asshole!" Monica pitched over, beating her fists on her thighs, then just as quickly she straightened, glaring at Gail. "You know what's going on here, don't you? Patrick is getting his revenge. Okay, fine. We treated him like shit after Daddy let him come live with us. We were kids."
"Our father, who we adored," Rudy said, "married within a few months of our mother's death a woman eighteen years younger than he. And then Patrick came into our home, and Monica and I—Well, of course we resented him." Rudy's nostrils flared, and his voice shook.
He added, "We didn't treat Althea very nicely either, to be candid with you. Nor she, us. But in later years we all put our
feelings aside. A rapprochement, as it were."
Monica leaped up, clutching at her hair. "I cannot fucking believe this is happening."
"Monny, don't." Rudy rushed the two or three steps from the door.
"It's our home!" She buried her face in his T-shirt, and he put his arms around her and rocked her back and forth. "Mama died when we were only children, then that witch drove Daddy to his grave, and now Patrick wants to take our home!”
"Don't, don't, don't." He patted her hair. It sprang back up. His eyes were on Gail, accusing.
"Okay. Okay." Monica stiffly held out an arm, fingers splayed. She wiped her cheeks with the heel of her other hand. "How much does he want? She didn't leave him enough? Fine, Rudy, give him the Degas and the Krasner. Give him whatever the fuck he wants."
"I won't give him one pencil drawing. This is blackmail."
"Rudy, please! I can't stand it!"
His brows knotted, and the lines deepened in his forehead. He drew her back to him, holding her tightly. "It's okay, Monny," he whispered, stroking her hair. "This is the best night. The best."
"Hah!"
"It's going to be all right, I promise." He glared at Gail. "You have succeeded in ruining my sister's show. Happy?" "Not particularly."
'Tell us what you want. Oh, do. Shall we divide the house down the middle with a chain saw? Or shall we give Patrick a shopping cart? What would please him most?"
Brushing the dust off her skirt, Gail walked the short distance to where they stood, shoulder to shoulder, both of them staring defiantly, their hair like dark penumbras around their heads. 'I’ll see what he has to say. I can't promise you anything. If there's a settlement, he'll have to approve it."
Monica gritted her teeth. "Tell the sanctimonious snake that there is no fucking way we're gonna give him our house."
A knock sounded on the door.
She yelled, "What? Who is it?"
It was the young man with the blond dreadlocks. He intruded only his head and one shoulder, his hand gripping the edge of the door. "I think you ought to come out here. Now."
"Why?"
"Trou-ble." He sang the syllables. "What's going on?" Rudy asked.
The young man squinted his eyes and smiled. "Your cousin?"
"God damn it to hell!" Monica leaped for the door and was gone in a swirl of red, Rudy close behind.
By the time Gail caught up, Rudy and Monica were standing as if turned to stone at the edge of a small crowd gathered along the west wall of the gallery.
The tall, thin figure of Patrick Norris was at its center. The spotlights in the ceiling bounced off his wire-frame glasses, and his extended finger pointed toward an oil painting on the wall, a square of white with faint lines of gray running through it. Not one of Monica's.
"This piece, for example. What is it? Nothing. It's empty of content and meaning. But we wouldn't dare say so, not here. We'd rather pretend to see the Emperor's New Clothes. We'd rather be among the elite—" His fingers curled into quotation marks. "—than the rabble along the parade route. Those slobs from Hialeah and Homestead and Kendall who can't begin to understand art and culture."
Gail groaned. "Oh, my God."
"Patrick, you son of a bitch!" Monica's voice shattered the momentary lull. Electronic music was still twanging from hidden speakers. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
He smiled at her. "Hi, Monica. Don't I recognize this from Aunt Althie's downstairs hall? If you're going to steal her paintings, you could be a little less obvious."
Gail felt a hand on her arm. Anthony. He said, "What's going on?"
"Help me get him out of here, will you?"
"That is Patrick Norris?"
"Afraid so."
Rudy had shouldered his way through the crowd, which seemed to waver between collective laughter and shock, everybody waiting to see what would happen.
"Get out. Get out now, before I have you thrown out into the street." They stood nearly chest to chest, Rudy half a head shorter, his hands drawn into tight fists.
Patrick smiled, his beard twitching. "Are we getting too close to the truth?" He calmly adjusted his glasses and bent to read the card affixed to the wall beside the painting. "Three thousand dollars. Goodness. This ought to pay the rent for a while. What else did you take out of her house?"
Rudy spun him around and aimed for his face. The blow glanced off and sent Patrick's glasses flying. The next caught him in the ribs and both men stumbled into a divider, Patrick with his arms crossed over his head. People screamed. Others came running to see.
"Ay, Dios mio." Anthony pushed through.
Patrick stumbled and sat down hard on the concrete floor. Rudy's black lace-up boot hit him in the thigh, then again. "Get out, get out, get out!" A woman giggled nervously, her hands to her mouth. Someone yelled to call the police.
Anthony shoved Rudy aside, then bent to grab one of Patrick's arms. Gail took the other, and they pulled him toward the door, his feet bicycling along the concrete.
Around the corner from the gallery was a row of small shops with a brick planter in front. They sat on the edge of it, Gail using Anthony's handkerchief to dab at Patrick's cheekbone where the glasses had cut it. In the dim light the blood appeared dark purple. Anthony paced back and forth brushing dust off the front of his jacket.
"I went," Patrick was saying, "because I suspected this. I thought they might be looting the place already."
"You should have told me," Gail said. "I'd have handled it."
"How?" he challenged. "A restraining order? A piece of paper?"
"No, Patrick, we'd have had them assassinated. Would you please try to remember you have an attorney? Do not do anything on your own. You're in more danger than you realize."
He squinted at her. His glasses were still in the gallery, and his face seemed empty without them. "What are you talking about?"
"The police, for one thing. I talked with a detective in the Beach Police. They believe that Althea was murdered and that you did it."
Patrick's laugh came out as a groan. "I figured that much." He glanced over at Anthony, who had reached the end of the planter, hands on his hips, and was turning back again.
Gail said, "Anthony Quintana's on our side. Besides being my friend, he's a criminal attorney. You may need him."
Anthony gave her a warning look. He would choose his own clients.
"What are the cops going on?" Patrick asked. "If they have any so-called proof, they fabricated it."
"He wouldn't tell me."
"Christ. Somebody put them up to this."
Gail heard Anthony snort, then start pacing again. She asked, "Do you know Howard Odell?"
Patrick shook his head. "No. Who's he?"
"He manages one of the charities in the will, the Easton Charitable Trust. I ran into him tonight by accident. God, what a smarmy bastard. Anyway, he threatened to kill us in the press unless you settle the case."
"Screw that."
Gail raised a hand to quiet him. "Odell says you were arrested for possession of drugs. True?"
"Yes."
She waited. "Well?"
"Heroin and narcotics implements."
"Patrick!"
"The case was dismissed. I was trying to help start a needle-exchange program in Belle Glade, and the cops didn't like it. Belle Glade, which is full of migrant workers, where the AIDS rate is higher than in San Francisco. They'd rather let everybody die from it. Get rid of your undesirables that way."
"Stop ranting, Patrick." Gail folded the handkerchief neatly and laid it on the planter. "Is there anything else you should tell me?'
"No. Nothing like that." He put his forehead on his fists. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get worked up. And I shouldn't have come here, you're right." He looked at her, took her hands in his. "So are you still with me, Gail? Looks like I need you more than ever."
In her peripheral vision, Gail could see Anthony stop walking.
She said, "Four people told me tonight that we're going
to lose. Weissman's partner swears she saw Althea and the witnesses come into the office and sign the will. Howard Odell says the judge will rule against us on principle. And your stepcousins say that Althea promised them the house because it belonged to their parents."
Patrick said, "But the will was forged. I know it was. Our document examiner can prove it. That's what counts, isn't it?"
Gail glanced at Anthony, who smiled at her as if to say Patrick had grasped the essential point better than she had.
She sighed. "Yes, Patrick. I'm still with you."
He soundly kissed both her cheeks, then embraced her. "I knew you wouldn't let me down."
Anthony came to a stop directly in front of Patrick, who let go of Gail and looked up at him. "Quintana. Are you Cuban?"
"Yes."
"Oh, God." He laughed, then shook his head when Anthony continued to stare at him coldly. "It's funny, that's all."
"Why?"
"It just is. Me, a socialist. You, a Miami Cuban. You have to see the humor in it."
"I stay out of politics."
"Life is politics. Everything is political. You have to pick a side. You have to choose, because in the middle there's only zeros."
Gail said, "You can't make judgments. You don't know who he is or what he believes in."
Anthony's expression darkened and his accent peppered his words. "Don't explain me to him. Don't ask me to represent him. He is an idiot. Are we finished now? I would like to go home."
Patrick looked at Gail. "Is he always this proprietary?"
"Butt out, Patrick," she said.
Under his satin comforter, Anthony explained how the machine worked. The $4,500 machine made of branches and twigs and leaves, with the gears and pulleys and screws that turned so smoothly, rolling over and over each other, arriba y abajo y arriba, and how the shaft was carved so precisely, so delicately, that it fit perfectly into the housing, adentro y afuera y adentro ... truly a work of art.
He moved his mouth from her lips to her ear. "Te quiero."
"Do you?"
"Do I what?"
She took his hair, lifted his head to see him. "Love me. Do you love me?"
"I just said so."
Suspicion of Guilt Page 16
