“How about Dale? Was he proud of her?”
She blinked. “I haven’t spoken to the man in twenty years. He doesn’t have anything to do with me or Nina, either one.”
“How about Ted? Was he upset with the modeling?”
She shrugged. “Dale was real sensual before he took to drink, but Ted was never at ease with the physical aspects of marriage. Not that he was cold. Just that he was … proper. When Nina got old enough to see what she could do to him by running around without clothes on, she hardly got dressed anymore. I guess it’s not surprising she gets naked for a living now.”
I didn’t know what to say so I stayed silent. After a moment, Judy Becker’s face softened, then reassembled to reveal the comeliness that had made her attractive to such disparate personalities as her husbands seemed to possess.
“I hear Ted’s getting married again,” she said softly.
I nodded.
“I hope he’ll be happy. I truly do. And I hope the woman knows what she’s getting herself into.”
“What is she getting herself into?”
The question snapped the benediction. “That’s her problem, not mine.”
“He didn’t abuse you, did he?”
“Ted? Why would you think that? Ted’s a kind, generous man.”
I looked at the house and compared it with the mansion I’d seen on Capitol Hill. “He doesn’t seem to have been too generous in the divorce settlement.”
“I got all I wanted,” she said stiffly. “He promised to give most of it to the kids when the time comes.”
“What happened between you and Ted? Why didn’t the marriage work out?”
“We were a mismatch from the start. He was rich and I was the child of his mother’s maid. He was educated and I wasn’t. He thought life was about money and I thought it was about love. Plus, he was shy. I was the first woman he made love to, so he thought he had to, you know, make an honest woman of me. He didn’t realize that no one had been doing that for thirty years.” She fell silent, her eyes depthless and unfocused, her breaths heavy with old air.
“Tell me more about Nina and Ted,” I said.
Her eyes closed halfway, the way they do when the sun gets too bright or the pain gets too fierce. “I’m not saying any more about that. It’s over and done with and no one’s the worse for it, thank God.”
Except it might only not be over—it might have led to Gary Richter’s death at the hands of an emotionally outraged Ted Evans. “Did Ted fall in love with his stepdaughter?”
Her head jerked as if to deflect the question. “You’d have to ask him that.”
“Was Nina in love with Ted?”
“Let’s say she made out like she was.”
“Why would she do that?”
“To punish me, was part of it. But mostly to explore her sexual powers. People think it doesn’t happen, that young girls aren’t that calculating about such things, but they are. Some of them. She had a new weapon so she decided to see what kind of damage it could do. It did a lot.”
“Punish you for what? Leaving the man she thought was her father?”
“I think that was it. When you get down to it, it’s all unconscious, don’t you think? The bad things are down where we can’t get at them, where we can’t make them better but they can still make us miserable.”
The indictment of our inner life split the soft breeze like a fin. I hoped Freud appreciated the testimonial. “Did Crowder ever find out his kids were going by Ted’s name and calling him their father?”
“I don’t see how. We all had Ted’s name, we lived in a fancy house; I don’t see how he’d make the connection. Plus, if he kept going the way he was, he’s been dead for twenty years.”
“Does Nina have any close friends, Ms. Becker?”
“Used to. She had so many boyfriends in high school I had to beat them off with a stick. She was sexually active at an early age—they could smell it on her, it seemed like. Whenever we went out of town she would have parties and the bed would look like … well. Let’s just say she was popular.”
“Has she stayed in touch with any of those boys?”
“Not that I know of.”
“How about girlfriends?”
“She used to be tight as a tick with a girl named Roan. Her folks were hippies who lived in Wallingford. Used to follow the Dead every summer and leave Roan behind with us. They moved to Orcas and I lost track.”
“I’ve met Roan; she doesn’t know anything, either. Anyone else?”
“Not that I recall. Oh, there was a woman named Mandy she mentioned once. That’s all I know, except I think something bad happened to her.”
“What was it?”
“Nina didn’t say. I think it had something to do with Jeff, somehow, but I don’t know what. I guess I didn’t want to know,” she added glumly. “I was full of bad news as it was.”
I handed Judy Becker a motel card and scrawled my name and room number on it. “Will you get in touch with me if you hear from Nina in the next few days?”
She took the card and nodded. Inside the house the phone rang and she muttered an apology and hurried in to answer it. I used the time to contemplate how a blunt and roughhewn woman like Judy Becker could have charmed a sophisticated man like Ted Evans. What I decided was that love was a vague and various concept and that no outsider can know the ways and means of someone else’s heart.
When she came back she told me she had to deliver a gown to a customer. I thanked her for her time and turned to go, then remembered my job and turned back. “Can you tell me where your husband is these days?”
“Ted lives on Capitol Hill.”
“I mean Dale.”
She laughed bitterly. “After I threw him out, he was living in Youngstown, some shack at the end of Dakota Street. But if he’s still there it’ll be a miracle.”
“Youngstown, Ohio?”
“Youngstown, Seattle. South of the West Seattle Freeway.”
I thanked her and turned to go.
“I think it was the baths,” she said suddenly. “Nina and the sex and the nakedness. I think it was because she and Dale used to take all those baths together when she was little. I didn’t think so at the time, but now I think that was evil. I think that’s when the wickedness got started.”
CHAPTER 15
“There are two aspects to the DigiArt project,” he says, crossing his arms, leaning back in his chair, lecturing her like a school kid. “The first, simply stated, is to exhibit electronically the finest works of art in the world and make them available on our subscription system. To that end, our legal representatives are visiting all the major art capitals acquiring licenses that allow us to offer electronic reproductions of their collections—painting, sculpture, tapestry, whatever—on a DigiArt CD-ROM. Within two years, a DigiArt subscriber will be able, with the touch of a button or verbal command, to sit in his den and surround himself with the masterpieces of Leonardo, Raphael, and Tintoretto. Or, for those of more modernist inclinations, Braque, De Kooning, and Rothko.”
She tries to remain blasé. “So you’ve got Mona Lisa on a computer. Who cares? The picture will be so fuzzy you can’t tell her from the Mario Brothers.”
His smile is so condescending she wants to slap him. “We’re not talking conventional monitors, Ms. Evans; we’re talking high-definition, flat panel display screens that hang on a wall and reproduce line and color with a fidelity far greater than anything you’ve seen on a Trinitron.”
“These things are really available?”
“Only prototypes at this point, of which DigiArt has several dozen. A similar number are with Optical Inventions, their developer, in which we have a thirty percent ownership interest. Mr. Lattimore is on their board.”
“Tell me about him. Just a little.”
“You’ve heard of Bill Gates?”
“Like I’ve heard of the sun. Are you saying Lattimore is as rich as Bill Gates?”
“No, but he’s not far enoug
h back for it to matter to anyone but the IRS. Jensen Lattimore made his fortune creating a variety of unglamorous business software—accounting systems, inventory controls, receivables tracking—Lattiware, the company is called.”
“Never heard of it.”
“The apps are only of interest to business people. But they were quite successful and they made Mr. Lattimore a rich man. They also, after a time, left him quite bored.”
“Good for him.”
“Two years ago he left Lattiware and founded DigiArt.”
She takes time to reorient herself. “I see what all this has to do with Da Vinci and Picasso,” she says at last. “I just don’t see what it has to do with me.”
“Your participation will interface with the second aspect of the project. We will not only offer subscribers the works of accepted masters, we are also going to offer original works created by the finest video artists in the country expressly for our system, as an add-on to the basic subscription. This special selection of art work will be offered to subscribers who are willing, as serious collectors have been since the time of the Borgias, to pay a premium for originality. They will own the one and only copy of the disk, to do with as they will, including exclusive enjoyment of the image.”
“Only one person will see it?”
“If that’s what the purchaser desires. It will be like acquiring a work on canvas—its fate will be determined not by its creator or distributor, but solely by its owner. If it ends up in the rumpus room, so be it.”
“Where do I fit in?”
“We have dozens of people creating art with designs and graphics that take advantage of the properties inherent in digitization, of course. But it occurred to us that the classic subjects of the creative impulse over the centuries should be available to our subscribers as well—landscapes, still lifes, portraits—”
“And nudes.”
“And nudes.” He reaches into a drawer and withdraws a stapled sheaf of paper. “Take time to read this over. If you find the terms and conditions satisfactory, please sign at the red arrow.”
“Shouldn’t I take it to a lawyer?”
“That would not be possible. Not because we are trying to snooker you, but because we would no longer be able to maintain the confidentiality required at this stage of the project. But as you will see, the terms are clear and unambiguous. You agree to a six-month exclusive personal services arrangement with an option for six more months at our discretion, your time and talent to be entirely devoted to DigiArt in such manner as may be determined by the project director.”
“Which is you.”
“Which is me.” He hands her the document. “Let me know if you have any questions.”
She pushes the papers back toward him. “Not so fast, Mr. Director,” she says with an unconcealed smirk. “You left something out.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ve seen mine, now I want to see yours. You and your friend Lattimore aren’t the only ones with standards. Let’s see some of this art you’re so crazy about.
Seattle’s Youngstown section is easier to describe than to get to. I took a wrong turn off the West Seattle Freeway and before I could get routed in the right direction I found myself in a maze of shipyards and container lots and railheads and other ventures allied with an active port. There’s something exciting about a port—teeming ships, looming cranes, lurking railcars, inscrutable metal boxes bearing names like Hanjin and Matson and Hyundai—and in Seattle it is visible and vibrant even though much of it seems to be Korean. In San Francisco, the only place from which to view a port is Oakland.
I finally got headed in the right direction, leaving the boats at my back and climbing toward Dakota Street. I took a right off Delridge and followed Dakota to where it dead-ended, which was where Judy Becker had told me Dale Crowder was living. Since he wasn’t in the phone book, my only option was a miracle.
The house was almost a hut—tiny and tin-roofed and barely visible through the thicket of brush and weeds that had overrun the narrow plot of ground on which it staked its claim. In the swale below the house, the blue-and-red buildings of Birmingham Steel added smoke to the afternoon air and answered a question—why did they call it Youngstown? From the length and strength of the rose and blackberry canes that crisscrossed the path to the door, no one had come calling in ages; of course, no one had come calling on me in ages, either. I eased my way through the brambles that guarded the stoop and banged on the door with my fist.
The woman who answered was sick or hungover or both: her moon face was crumpled with pain from a source that wasn’t visible, like a pear that had started to spoil. She shaded her eyes from the light even though it wasn’t all that bright out, squinting at the shadow I was casting across her life.
When she spoke, the words were swaddled with liquor and lethargy and a disinclination to commune with the outside world. “‘Guiding Light’ starts in five minutes,” she informed me without preamble, to set the parameters for discussion. “What’ya want?” Her floor-length shift billowed between us like a huge polyester pumpkin.
“I’m looking for Dale Crowder.”
The lines in her face switched from horizontal to vertical, as though she were being etched from inside. “What’s he done?”
“Nothing that I know of.”
“That’d be a first,” she grumbled, then laughed at a private joke, then cocked her head to listen to some dialogue that seemed to come from the TV. Someone was mad at someone else, accusing them of faithlessness, which meant it could be any episode from any soap in any year since 1950.
When the exchange ended and a commercial for Pampers came on, the woman rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, then inspected the viscous leavings of the exercise as though they might forecast her fortune. The reading didn’t please her, so she hacked up something from her lungs and spit it out of spite.
“My name’s Tanner,” I said with the sunny cheer of a sportscaster. “Are you Mrs. Crowder?”
“Am not. Never will be. I’m Mabel.”
“But you live here?”
“Where I live is none of your business. What is it you want?”
“As I said, I’m looking for Mr. Crowder. I was told this was his home.”
“Is but he ain’t here.”
“Do you know where I can find him?”
“Probably down at the island, pretending he’s looking for work. Half-hour of that, and he can head for the Juneau, which is what he wanted in the first place.”
I was confused. “Juneau the city?”
“Juneau the bar, on Marginal Way. Dale gets thirsty this time of day. I’ve had garbage cans cleaner than the Juneau, but when Dale gets dry he’ll drink out of a sock.” She adjusted the shift around the swell of her pendulous breasts; the nipples that fell out of them were the diameter of dimes. “What’s this about, anyway? He’s not losing his benefits, is he?”
“What benefits are you referring to?”
“Disability. Dale’s a hundred percent hurt.”
“What kind of disability is it?”
“Back. Can’t lift nothing heavier than a shot glass.” She looked down at her bloated body as if to point me toward the source of the strain.
“If he’s disabled, why’s he looking for work?”
“He’s not looking for work, he’s pretending he’s looking for work. That way the boys don’t ride him; that way they don’t know he’s a cripp. Which he’s not, he just pretends to be. For the check.” She took a step back. “I hope you’re not gummit.”
There was a burst of terror in her eyes, as bright as lightning in a fishbowl. She’d told me more than she should have, but to her credit she decided to be brazen rather than apologetic. “Hey. Everyone’s got to eat. Dale’s had a hard life; he can’t help it if he can’t hold down a job.”
“What’s been so hard about it?”
“Women. That’s what brought him down. Women take advantage of him. He’s too damned good to them, is why.�
�
The conversation was taking a surreal turn—the idea that Dale Crowder was burdened by benevolence was as absurd as my persistent mooning over Peggy. “I’m wondering if you’ve seen Dale’s daughter lately,” I asked, to keep contact with real life.
“What daughter is that?”
“Has he got more than one?”
“Claims to have several. Course he claims to know the mayor, too. Hell, he don’t even know the mayor’s a spade.”
“I’m here about Nina,” I said.
“The sexy one.”
“So he knows her.”
“Knows of her, anyways.”
“Has he seen her lately?”
She shrugged without interest. “The brother was by, though; month or two ago.”
“What was the reason for the visit?”
“Give Dale money, was part of it. He ain’t been sober since.”
“What was the money for?”
She shrugged, making everything beneath the shift bob like channel buoys. “Dale can’t pay his bar bills on the disability, so he needs a supplement.” She looked defensive, as though I’d contradicted her, but I hadn’t moved an inch.
“Everybody needs a supplement,” she went on. “Me, I got my Milanos. Don’t eat a bag of Mints ever day, I don’t feel chipper. Them Milanos perk me right up.”
When I told her I knew what she meant, I wasn’t entirely fibbing.
“Listen,” she said, her eyes suddenly active, her face suddenly seamless. “I got to get back to the ‘Light.’ You leave your name and number, I’ll tell Dale you was by.”
“Did Jeff bring Dale money regularly?”
“Nope. Never seen him till a month ago, and ain’t seen him since. Which I’m glad of. Dale’s all of that family I can handle.”
“Does Dale ever talk about Nina?”
“Only ever day.”
“What does he say about her?”
“He says she’s better-looking than Marilyn Monroe and Ann-Margret combined.”
Flesh Wounds Page 13
