I giggle too, though I don't quite get the joke . . . unless Courtney means to mock the cliché.
"How did you meet her?" she asks.
I shrug. "Just around, I guess."
"Yeah," she nods, "like so many. I met her at Hard Candy. Of course I'd heard about her. Everyone has. Then one night someone pointed her out. I took one look, said to myself: 'What an incredible slut!'" Courtney glances at me. I smile and nod. "I'd never seen anything like her. Way she moved, came on. And the response she got! Like she was God's gift to us, you know." I nod again. "Like—wow!"
In the lobby I point out that there's a blank space opposite the buzzer for apartment 500.
"She kept it blank, least when I met her," Courtney says. Then she giggles. "I mean, what was she going to put in there anyway? 'Love Goddess'? 'Amoretto'?"
Amoretto. The word sears my brain. I feel my cheeks flush, my hands burn, as Courtney and I part on the sidewalk. The Amazing Amoretto: the name David deGeoffroy devised for Ariane when he contemplated devoting himself full-time to her career.
Apartment 500, I now know, was occupied by Ariane Lovsey. David was right, she was close. In fact, I realize, I may have only just missed her.
CHAPTER NINE
I want to find her now . . . if only to mourn with her and tell her where her brother's ashes were scattered. But I want far more, I want to know the secrets, how the twins survived after they ran away, their whole story, everything. Also I want to see this creature who so closely resembles Tim. I long to photograph her face.
Courtney Hill has given me a lead: Hard Candy. I know the place though I've never been inside. Along with Eros and ATF, it's one of the cutting-edge SoMa clubs where hip young people go to dance, score, indulge fantasies of decadence.
On my way home I plot my moves. I'll ask Sasha to take me, or turn up on my own and ask for Amoretto, or show around a photograph of Tim and ask if anyone's seen a woman with his face.
I pause outside my building, then walk into Sterling Park. I want to check if my bag of groceries is still on the bench. It's not. In its place I find a piece of torn brown paper bearing Drake's billet-doux: "Thanks again." This time the signature's a simple "D."
My phone's ringing as I come through the door. I'm still thinking about Ariane as I pick up. The woman's voice is East Coast and refined. She tells me her name is Marjorie Wilson, and before I can ask how I can help, she identifies herself as Sarah Lashaw's assistant.
I sit down. I'm not expecting this. Have my provocations finally forced forth some fruit?
"Sarah is extremely interested in your work," Marjorie gushes. "She wants very much to meet you. There's a project she'd like to discuss."
"What kind of project?"
"A photographic one, I imagine."
"Commissioned photographs?"
An awkward laugh. "It would be best to discuss that with her, don't you think?"
Since Lashaw's my suitor, I decide to have some fun. "I gotta tell you, Ms. Wilson, I think there may be a misunderstanding here."
"I assure you she's a great admirer."
"That's nice, but the fact is I no longer do commissioned work."
Another laugh. "Oh, I think she understands that, Ms. Farrow. I did the research on you and I can assure you I was thorough." Pause. "Do you ever get up to St. Helena?"
"Not often." In truth, I realize, it's probably been a couple of years.
"Sarah's asked me to invite you for lunch tomorrow. If that's not inconvenient."
"Tomorrow . . ." I stall to clear my head. "Don't know. I don't own a car."
"That won't be a problem. Our driver will pick you up and have you back in town by dark." A little pause. "Shall we say in front of your place tomorrow, eleven a.m.?"
I think a moment. No one in her right mind declines an invitation to lunch with Sarah Lashaw. As for a "project,"' it's hard to imagine it doesn't concern the photos I took of Crane.
"That'll be fine," I tell her. "How should I dress?"
"Oh, you know—country. We're all pretty casual around here."
I'm freshly bathed, wrapped only in a kimono, staring at the city through my telescope, when Sasha buzzes from downstairs. It's nearly midnight. I ring him in, then tilt the telescope up. It wouldn't do for him to find me snooping on the Judge.
He comes bearing gifts, a bouquet of roses in one hand, a split of iced champagne in the other.
"Is this courtship, Sasha?" I ask as I dodge into my kitchen to scrounge a pair of flutes.
"I'm a romantic," he answers from the other room. "Perhaps the last one," he adds as I return, glasses in hand.
I kiss him. I'm flattered, grateful too. It's been a long time since a man came to me with flowers and drink. Sasha's lips taste faintly of mint mouthwash. So thoughtful, handsome, hygienic! What more could a girl want?
He pops the cork with precision, spilling nary a drop. We sit and sip. He tells me he's had an easy night—no knife or gunshot wounds, two falls, one heart attack, one not serious stroke, a couple of broken arms.
"Sounds like bliss," I say.
He gazes at me. His eyes are incredible. I could easily get lost in eyes like his. I imagine many women have.
"Do you ever do the club scene?" I ask him.
"There's s a Latino one I like. Venceremos in the Mission."
"How 'bout Hard Candy?"
He smiles. "I hear it's wild."
"Been there?"
"Once," he admits. "My date insisted."
"Well, one night soon I'm going to insist too."
His eyes enlarge, he grins. I've surprised him. . . which is good. Now he's wondering if I do drugs, triad sex, or, God help him, SM. Yes, poor Sasha, I can see, is falling ever deeper into lust. I set down my glass, take his hand, lead him into my bedroom, appropriately lit for another night of love.
I not only don't have clothing I consider "country," I'm not even sure what kind that is. Also, I'm angry at myself for inquiring as to the proper dress as if I care whether I blend in or not. Since I'll be damned if I'll cater to Sarah Lashaw, I squeeze into a pair of jeans, pull on a pair of cowboy boots, don my leather jacket, then thread the jeans with my only concession to fashion, a turquoise and silver concha belt I bought last winter in Santa Fe.
A dark Mercedes pulls up promptly at eleven. The driver is female; her name's Brit. She speaks with a Scottish brogue, is polite, formal, wears a sharply tailored black suit, white shirt, black necktie, black chauffeur's cap with shiny brim.
I feel almost kinky as I settle into the back seat, luxuriating against the butter-soft upholstery. Still, remembering that someone up north wants something from me, I vow not to allow myself to feel flattered.
The drive is uneventful . . . or perhaps so smooth and comfortable it lulls me into a reverie. After we cross the Golden Gate, I close my eyes and remember the feel of Sasha, his hairless silken chest and lovely satiny ass. I spent a lot of time riding his dark thighs last night, staring into the deep dark pools of his eyes. Even the condom he used felt sleek. All his moves were perfect. My South Asian Lothario!
There's something magical about the Napa Valley, particularly in autumn after the grape harvest, when the vines stand clean and bare. The air is fresh, the sky clear, the hills glint beneath the sun. It's paradise, a Northern California Eden. As we roll through the vineyards, I have trouble imagining this land could be more beautiful in color.
Before St. Helena, we cross over to the Silverado Trail, then wind through the hills. At one point, just past the sign for a vineyard named Stag's Leap, I'm amazed to see a magnificent full-antlered flesh-and-blood stag literally leap across the road.
A mile further we turn into a track between stone columns, then start to climb. We circle the hill, at the top reach a straight and formal alley of eucalyptus. At the end I spot the stone and clapboard house, scene of the lavish picnic depicted in House & Garden.
The house is beautiful, serene, perfect in its proportions, grand but not at all ostentatious. Its fa
cade speaks of that mythical protective place called "home" where no unpleasantness intrudes—a place of inviolate security one can always return to, a fortress against the harshnesses of the world.
If one in ten thousand of us comes from a home like this I'd be much surprised. No rancor here, no parents quarreling over money, no dirty dishes in the sink, crumbs in the toaster, dust balls beneath the beds. Here the linens are changed daily, no one uses a bath towel twice, one is enveloped by the aromas of the garden, the tinkle of wind chimes, the babbling of a country brook.
Even as the car rounds the circle that ends the drive, I squirm at the smugness of it all. Casual indeed! In this dream house, I suspect, the look of every nook and cranny will be calculated for maximum effect.
Marjorie Wilson is waiting for me. She's not the efficient gray-banged type I expect, rather a clone of Brit the chauffeur—young, poised, well put together. It takes her but an instant to size me up.
"Brit was fast today. Sarah's still at her tennis lesson. Why don't we go down to the courts? We can wait there while she finishes up, or if you prefer, I'll show you the pool. We've all shapes and sizes of swimsuits if you'd care to take a dip."
I opt for the courts. We stroll through the front hall of the house, then into a perfectly proportioned living room decorated to the nines. A vase of fresh-cut flowers sits on every table. The huge stone fireplace is loaded with perfectly arranged white birch logs. We pass through a set of brass-hinged French doors to a flagstone terrace that runs the length of the house. From here the views are extraordinary, embracing the valley from Oakville to Calistoga, a crazy quilt of vineyards between two rows of wild-growth hills.
A clay tennis court is situated fifty yards below the terrace. Marjorie guides me down to a shaded area furnished with cushioned wicker. Here, waiting on a table, is a perfect frosted pitcher of fresh lemonade. She pours me a glass while I watch Sarah Lashaw play out her steely heart against her coach.
She's a powerful player—I see that at once. She has a merciless serve, a mean two-fisted backhand, a somewhat weaker forehand yet plenty strong enough. She's dressed for exertion in a plain white V-neck T-shirt, white cotton shorts, white socks with tassels and immaculate white tennis shoes. She wears one of those sunshades that consist of a bill supported simply by a band, thus showing off her locks of frosted hair. Her face and forearms are glazed as she runs about retrieving every shot her shirtless muscular trainer pounds to her across the net.
She's also, I quickly learn, a woman who doesn't like to lose.
"Well, cock-a-doodle-doo, Roy!" she hoots, when, at the end of a sustained volley, her trainer smashes a shot between her legs.
"Too fast for you?" he taunts.
"Never too fast, you wart!"
I glance at Marjorie. She meets my eyes and shrugs, as if to acknowledge that, indeed, Mrs. Lashaw sometimes does get riled while indulging in stressful sport.
I quickly gain the impression of an undercurrent between Lashaw and Roy. He's in his mid-twenties while she's probably fifty-five, but he shows her no deference or respect. On the contrary, he seems to enjoy flaunting his superior power while showing off his well-developed chest. Rather than playing the roles of employer and trainer, they behave like lovers engaged in a stylized fight. Yes! her tennis game would seem to say, you're bigger and stronger than me, but I can take whatever you dish out and smack it right back in your face!
"Deuce!" Roy calls out the score, then sets up to serve. Whish! His shot aces by her. Swish! She swings at it even though it's passed.
"Pee-yoo!" she exclaims, as Roy announces they're at set point.
I raise my camera, start shooting as they play the point back and forth, alternating shots down the line and crosscourt, forcing one another from side to side. Suddenly Roy breaks the rally by rushing the net.
"Ho ho!" Lashaw shouts.
But he bats back her returns until he wears her down; then he tips the ball across and watches amused as she rushes and stumbles in a fruitless effort to snag it back.
"Game, set, match !" Roy savors the words, as Sarah pulls herself up off the clay.
She brushes the dust from her hips, turns to him and crows: "You'll pay for this later, Roy-boy."
Spotting me, she turns her back on him.
"Kay Farrow! How great to meet you!"
I gaze into the fabled eyes. She extends both hands as if I'm a dear old friend. When I take hold, she pulls me against her hard warm moist body so I can feel her extraordinary power.
Roy rates no further attention, not even an introduction, as Sarah, with Marjorie two paces behind, walks me back up to the house.
"We've lots to talk about," she says. "Just give me ten minutes to shower and change, then we'll sit down to lunch."
The feast is served on the terrace on a table laden with a hand-embroidered cloth and gorgeous hand-painted ceramic plates. Conventional pleasantries and San Francisco gossip accompany scallops and crab over angel-hair pasta, garden-fresh mesclun, raspberry sorbet, accompanied by a local Chardonnay.
After the meal Marjorie excuses herself. Sarah leans forward as soon as we're alone.
"It's terrific to get to know you, Kay. I've long admired your work. Your show at Zeitgeist last year, those poor battered women, their eyes so proud—it really knocked me out."
An extremely handsome woman, she looks ten or fifteen years younger than her age. She's dressed in a prairie skirt and dark silk blouse. I try to imagine her wearing emeralds. To me, I believe, they would show as a bright mid-gray, slightly darker than her eyes.
"Marjorie says you had me researched."
Sarah smiles. "You don't believe I saw your show?"
"Did you?" I ask, meeting her eyes.
"Check the gallery guest book," she says merrily. "You'll see."
A good response I'm also flattered . . . though I promised myself I wouldn't be. But how could my brand of art connect to anything in her life? I reach into my camera bag, flick my little tape recorder on.
"Why did you invite me?" I ask.
She stares directly at me. When she grins, engaging crow's-feet form around her eyes.
"I'd like to buy some of your pictures, Kay. Negatives as well as prints."
I shake my head. "I don't sell negatives. No photographer does. You must know that."
"I do, but in this case there'd be no need to keep them. It would be a condition of the sale, based on appropriate compensation, that the pictures would never be reproduced."
I can't believe she's being so brazen. Is she desperate, or testing me for weakness?
"I'm not a blackmailer, Sarah. I don't take pictures of people to sell them back."
"Of course not! I didn't mean to suggest—"
"But you did. You implied I can be bought. I can't. So if it's my pictures of your husband you want, neither prints nor negatives are for sale."
She fixes me with a fierce withering gaze, like the one she directed at Roy on the tennis court. It's not the charming grin of the society page she's showing now, but her true face, the one that announces its owner gets what she wants. It's a face I'd like to photograph so much I reach beside my chair for my camera. I pick it up, start to bring it to my eye, when I feel her hand upon my wrist.
"No pictures today," she says quietly, in a tone all the more frightening for being so certain and still. She tightens her grip. My wrist begins to hurt. Our eyes lock.
"Take your hand off me," I demand.
She flashes the society page grin. "Of course, my dear." She lets go. "No need to get testy."
I lower my camera. "I won't take pictures of you without permission, not here in your house. But outside you're fair game just like everybody else. You're a public figure, as is Mr. Crane, especially when he cruises Polk Gulch in his Mercedes looking to rent himself a hunk of male ass."
"Fine." She grins. "That's just fine. Got it all out of your system now?"
"Most of it,"' I say. "How 'bout you?"
"I'm doing fine too."
/>
"Good."
"Let's talk straight."
"Yes, let's. Why did you ask me here? Surely you didn't think you could buy me off."
She nods. She wants me to understand she's impressed, that she respects my guts for standing up to her even in her own rigorously controlled milieu.
"My husband has a complicated nature,"' she explains. "He has his desires, as I have mine. Neither of us has ever done anything to intentionally harm another person. If we stray sometimes, make mistakes, then our transgressions are only the faults of passion and of love." She pauses. "Sometimes by error people get hurt. Whenever that happens we try to set things right. That might involve some form of payment to alleviate the injury. Of course there are wounds that money cannot salve, though in my experience a significant cash payment can go quite a way when coupled with a sincere expression of remorse. As you know, Kay, we all have our longings and desires. This world we live in is a difficult place. We can only do our very best not to make it worse."
It is as pretty a speech as I have heard, and, delivered so frankly, calmly, without a waver of the eyes, contrived to soften even the harshest critic's heart. But my wrist, still smarting from her grasp, tells me this is a woman who will use any means, sweet or brutal, to get her way. So I take a moment to analyze what she's said, ferret out its rotten core. It doesn't take me long: Our transgressions are only the faults of passion and of love. Oh, yes! We only wound in the names of eros and amour! Never out of selfish lust, never because the flesh of another is for us but fodder! We buy bodies, and if the fragile souls within should sometimes break, it is but the flaw in the carnality all humans share.
"The hormone defense," I mutter.
She turns indignant. "What?"
"Everyone has his peccadilloes. But see, Sarah, I take pictures. I don't judge."
"Then what good, may I ask, do your pictures do?"
"You said my Transgressions show knocked you out."
"Surely you don't intend—"
"I'll tell you what I intend. A friend of mine, a street hustler, was killed. Savagely, brutally, without pity, most likely out of lust. Perhaps to someone like yourself a person who does that sort of work deserves whatever he gets. I don't see it that way. Anyhow, before he was killed I recorded his life on film, and that meant also documenting the life of the street where he worked. Your husband appears in a number of my shots soliciting minors for sex. He's well known on Polk Gulch. He cruises around there in his fancy car. He's what the street kids call a chicken hawk, which means he preys on underage boys. That's not a mere 'fault of love,' Sarah—that's a criminal offense. As you undoubtedly know, I trapped him with my camera the other day. The shots are great. At first he preens, tries to laugh me off, but in the end he looks like a cornered rat. Okay, what do I intend to do with those pictures? Right now I've no idea. If they're relevant to the murder of my friend, I'll publish them. If not. . . well, I may just publish them anyway. I probably wouldn't feel this way if, a few hours after our shoot, I hadn't been jumped from behind in the little park in front of my house. One of the men who jumped me (he also stole my best camera) is someone I've seen acting as flesh merchant for Mr. Crane. By the way, when your husband's out cruising he doesn't wear his toupee. I guess he thinks that's a good disguise. But still, for some reason, he likes to flaunt his car. Cars, you know, bear license plates. So, you see, it wasn't hard to track him down."
The Magician's Tale Page 17
