The Exquisite

by Laird Hunt

  What you did was very serious, Henry. Murder is serious, there are consequences. These are the consequences.

  What did you do, Dr. Tulp? Are these your consequences too? Do you have any visitors? Am I your visitor? Is that it? Am I going to get to perform some surgery on you?

  She smiled.

  You are making progress, Henry, she said. And, unfortunately for me, I suspect, it will all become more and more clear as you continue to reflect on it. Perhaps you should set the results of your reflections down on paper. I will make sure you get some. I have thought of doing the same thing myself. There is so much I’m unsure of. You will see. I think we all will. There is light pouring into the darkness, flooding the corridors. It is moving more quickly now.

  TWENTY-NINE

  We walked then, arm in arm around the East Village, and as we wove our way past bus stops and beat-up garbage cans and derelict water fountains and the constantly, abruptly changing vectors of people moving forward, Mr. Kindt leaned in close to me and talked. He started by explaining that “by chance” Cornelius had phoned him just after I had left and that they had conferred and agreed that I might as well know the story of their night together “all those years ago,” that knowing it might help set my mind at ease, might allay my fears of being tricked “and so forth,” while at the same time producing the “happy result” of admitting me into an even greater measure of complicity with “my friends.”

  For we are your friends, Henry, Mr. Kindt said. Your dear friends, and none dearer, of course, than myself.

  I said I felt the same way and wanted very much to know what had happened, but didn’t want to precipitate another screaming episode. Mr. Kindt waved his free hand in a dismissive way, said he felt much better now, that a little stroll in the neighborhood would set him to rights and that I shouldn’t worry about him at all.

  All right, I said.

  Good, he said.

  Now I want you to picture, Henry, a town of fine homes and half-lit streets undulating on the banks of a shining lake and in this town two ambitious young men, who have met, shall we say, a third young man, and formed a happy triangle. This third point in the triangle is passing through town, making his circuitous way to New York from the Netherlands, with a valise containing an impressive number of valuable bonds. Can you picture it? Can you smell the late summer air, still warm, though shot through with the hint of autumn coming on? Can you admire the juxtaposition of three young men up to nothing terribly good in that lovely, quiet town next to those lovely, quiet waters? Now, never mind, dear boy, how we met this young man with his valise—let’s just say that Cornelius had his ear to the proverbial ground and that both of us were already involved in certain aspects of the trade that made us, on the face of it, unthreatening to others in our line. Suffice it to say that we approached this young man and offered him a number of drinks, first in his hotel room and then in an establishment we knew and then down on the banks of Lake Otsego. We entered into a kind of confidence as we drank, and it was on those banks that this young man pulled a rumpled reproduction from his pocket, unfolded it, pointed to the corpse lying at its center, and told us it was his favorite painting. He loved it so much that he had borrowed the name of the painting’s “hero,” the corpse he was pointing to, for the purposes of the bit of business he was attending to. He spoke at some length, not quite but almost slurring his words, about how strangely thrilling it was to be using a new name, one that had belonged to the dead individual who lay at the center of Rembrandt’s famous painting. He had had false documents made and was now, for the duration of his journey to New York City and perhaps, who knew, he said, beyond, called Aris Kindt.

  Ah, I said.

  And you see I looked very much like him and still had that touch of a Dutch accent.

  Your namesake.

  Mr. Kindt nodded. Yes, and carrying around a reproduction of a likeness of his namesake. He looked upon this tattered image of a man whose face is cast in shadow and who has been torn open in the name of progress with great fondness, almost tenderness. In speaking of this dead man, who had been so profoundly violated, he evoked Goethe’s notion of elective affinities and marveled that of all the people in the wide world he might have felt drawn to it was this Aris Kindt, this dead, dissected man. It’s a nice name, isn’t it? he asked us. And I thought to myself, yes, it certainly is.

  You killed him.

  In a manner of speaking. He was a swimmer, you see. He got it into his head—well, we helped with this—that he wanted to show us just what a very fine swimmer he was. So we all went out onto the lake. Cornelius and I in a sort of canoe. He made it surprisingly far. In fact he very nearly reached the opposite shore. Then I became Aris Kindt.

  And Cornelius?

  I completed the delivery and we shared the proceeds. But I kept the name. And took full advantage of the surprisingly large network of contacts that came with the successful completion of the assignment. I made, as they say, good. Every now and again Cornelius has come to me and suggested that to ensure the healthy ongoing maintenance of our insoluble complicity we embark on a joint venture. I have always agreed. History binds us all and dashes us together whether we know it or like it. Shared history adds the intricacy of love to the arrangement.

  We had stopped at the corner of Third and Seventh. Cars and cabs swept past. I saw the woman with the green hair and piercings heading toward Cooper Union with her dog.

  That’s quite a story, I said.

  It is, isn’t it, Henry, Mr. Kindt said.

  Hell of a story, I thought as I sat there the night of the murder, feeling uneasy, watching the rain fall.

  Yes, I said.

  And now you have entered more completely into our intricacy, Mr. Kindt said.

  I’m more completely complicit, I said.

  Murder me well, Henry, Mr. Kindt said.

  Then, though it wasn’t time yet, I got up and walked out the door.

  Not sure what to do, I stuffed my hands in my pockets, crossed Seventh, and went into the park. After the thick, smoky air of the bar, the cold rain felt good, and I set off at a brisk pace. Tompkins Square Park—where I seem to have spent so much time over the course of these pages—is made up of a series of meandering asphalt paths that lead into open areas and wider lanes and surround fenced-off enclosures that contain a surprising number of trees and plants. Until not too many years ago, when they were forcibly evicted, the park was a haven for the homeless, but now on a rainy night you can pretty much walk the curved paths alone, seeing only the occasional cop or fellow stroller or worn-out drunks huddled together under beat-up umbrellas. It is a dreamy, slightly otherworldly place at night, and from time to time it plays host to vendors of odd comestibles, so I was not too surprised to round a bend and come upon a sweet-potato vendor set up beneath a lavender umbrella in the glow of one of the park lamps. As I passed, the woman behind the glistening, steaming metal cart called out “sweet potatoes, warm sweet potatoes” in a high, clear voice and almost before I knew what I was doing I had handed over a dollar and accepted one of the foil-wrapped potatoes, pulled it open, and taken a bite. The potato was incredibly sweet and moist and for a moment I stood under the heavy foliage of an oak tree, chewing, swallowing, and drifting—out over the city, the beautiful dirty rivers, the drenched islands, the roiled ocean.

  But the cold rain and the calories I was consuming were waking me up, so it’s not surprising, delicious, unlooked-for sweet potato or not, that my mind turned wearily, uneasily, back to love and intricacy and complicity, to silver bowls, dreams of Dutch polders, a look lifted directly from Rembrandt’s painting, wacko stuff about life in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, fake and real murders, gangsteresque behavior in restaurants, sextants, anatomy books, bottled plants, organs, Tulip, Cornelius, a death by drowning in the dark waters of Lake Otsego fifty years ago, and my dear friend, a confessed killer, lucid one moment, clearly mad as a fucking hatter, rocking back and forth at the center of his machine of mis
t and falsification, the next.

  The rain hit the top of my head and the sugar from the potato smashed into my system and I thought about murders and Mr. Kindt taking care of someone, some accountant, and about Mel the Hat and his peephole, and about how, as he had said, nothing was ever 100 percent fake, there was always some real there. It was this principle, I thought, that gave some validity to Mr. Kindt’s belief that somehow or other submitting himself to a particularly rigorous version of the murder procedure would help to alleviate a guilt spurred by the aftershocks of a violation that reached deep into the past. And there was something there, something in Mr. Kindt’s wish to be mock murdered, maybe something just tangentially related that I hadn’t grasped, something that involved me. Involved Cornelius and Co., including Tulip. Involved Mr. Kindt running out after me to relate, in overwhelming detail, a story he had declined to address fifteen minutes before. Involved all the murders I had committed around the East Village. Involved the instruction—who had it originated with?—that I had to strike him hard.

  I was getting somewhere.

  In fact, I am suddenly feeling just audacious enough to propose that if I had had a little more time that night in the rain with a sweet potato in my hand, I might actually have sliced through enough of my own mist to reach the conclusion that both Anthony and The Hat had been right, and that at the very least it would be better, much better, not to walk through Mr. Kindt’s door. But about twenty feet after I had that realization, my promising train of thought was cut short by a punch in the mouth.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever been punched right in the middle of your face while you are walking fairly briskly through a dark, rain-spattered park with your head turned down and all your attention turned elsewhere. If you have, you will not be at all surprised to know that the blow came very close to knocking me out, and that I ended up on my back with my arms lying useless at my sides. I registered their immobility almost immediately, because my first instinct was to check my teeth to see if they were still there, and I couldn’t. I moved my tongue, which I must have bitten, around inconclusively, then opened my mouth a little, then gave up.

  They’re still there, if that’s what you’re wondering, a voice said.

  What? I said.

  Your teeth—if that is what you’re wondering, they’re still there.

  Of course they’re still there, another voice said.

  Why of course? I said.

  Because I wasn’t trying to knock them out, that’s why. They would be out if I wanted them out.

  Well, thanks for not wanting that, I said.

  A face came into my field of vision then left it.

  Another face did the same.

  This isn’t in the scenario, I said.

  It’s in the margins, written in lemon juice, one of the contortionists said.

  Safety provision, the other said.

  Where’s Cornelius? I said.

  Keep you from thinking too much.

  Keep you from thinking too much in too much detail and fucking things up.

  Cornelius wouldn’t like that.

  Neither would Mr. Kindt.

  That’s quite a pair.

  Yeah, they go way back.

  This last remark made them both laugh. Unpleasantly.

  I put my head down on the pavement and shut my eyes.

  You know, I said, in my quietest voice, I had you two all wrong. I thought you were the nice ones. I mean, I figured Cornelius was sketchy, maybe even sinister, and that the knockout wasn’t nice, although she was nice, of course, I mean obviously, to look at, but that the two of you were the nicest. I guess I was wrong. I guess probably none of you are nice. Not even Tulip. Tulip, who found me. Who brought me in. Who does things for Mr. Kindt. Maybe they aren’t nice things. Maybe she’s got her own grudge. Maybe she’s related to the Aris Kindt who died swimming. How old is she anyway? Maybe the Aris Kindt who died swimming was her father. Or maybe it’s a grudge against me. Maybe she knew my dead aunt. Maybe my dead aunt was dear to her. I’ll ask her about it later. She’ll talk. No, she won’t. I’ll go ask The Hat. He seems to have answers. Who the fuck is he? Why exactly did Cornelius and Mr. Kindt decide to tell me about Lake Otsego? It’s a closed system. No outside perspective. Nothing to confirm. No one to confirm it. Even The Hat—did Cornelius hire him? Did Mr. Kindt? To what end? What do I mean? But the two of you. Maybe you would be nice enough to explain this to me. I mean, my miscomprehension on such a basic point: you aren’t nice. Do you think it’s important? Tell me about yourselves. Where do you come from? Flesh yourselves out a little. What are your names? Who is everyone? What the fuck is going on?

  Both faces were now back in my field of vision. They were very wet and very red and very, very close.

  You hit him too hard, one of the faces said.

  I did not hit him too hard, said the other.

  O.K., fine, but he’s unconscious.

  I’m not unconscious, I said. I heard some kind of wet scraping sound. Someone smacked their lips.

  You think he knows?

  About tonight?

  About poor old Lenny.

  Nah, Cornelius and Kindt were careful.

  Who is poor old Lenny? I said.

  He’s the accountant. Leonard Seligman, one of your victims.

  My victims?

  Let’s just say he didn’t make it.

  Give him some smelling salts.

  Who has smelling salts?

  Shake him around a little.

  Just let him lie there. There’s plenty of time. The rain’ll wake him up. He can dream about his great buddy, Mr. Kindt.

  Laughter. Gales of it.

  I am awake, I said. Their faces had vanished. All I could see was rain and dripping tree branches. After a while, though I wasn’t sure if it could in fact be attributed to the rain, the use of my arms returned to me, as did that of various other tendons and muscles and limbs and nerve clusters, and I sat up.

  Good, now I’m soaking fucking wet, I said.

  It’s time, Henry, Cornelius said, coming up behind me, putting his arms under my shoulders and helping me up.

  As he helped me, I could see the contortionists, farther down the path, grinning unpleasantly. The knockout, too, had appeared, was sitting on a bench wearing a long black vinyl raincoat and holding a small gun.

  Is that real? I asked Cornelius.

  Of course not, none of this is real, Henry.

  None of it?

  He handed me a knife, a flat-handled silver buck knife.

  What’s this? I thought it was supposed to be a wire. I thought I was supposed to choke him until his throat bled.

  Last-minute change.

  What the fuck am I supposed to do with a knife?

  You will make a line with it across Mr. Kindt’s throat.

  A line, I said.

  A very straight line. Be sure to break the skin.

  Cornelius smiled. I looked over my shoulder. The knockout was also smiling, as were the contortionists.

  What was with the punch in the face?

  It’s time, Henry, Cornelius said. Mr. Kindt is waiting for you.

  He was sitting cross-legged on his bed wearing black silk pajamas and a black silk sheet draped over his head.

  What are you doing here so late, Henry? he said.

  You know what I’m doing here, I said.

  Mr. Kindt raised an eyebrow.

  Fuck all this, I said.

  What do you mean, dear boy?

  I mean I’m tired of all this shit. You with your slop in bowls and heart monitors and beat-up books and being a crybaby because you killed someone a million years ago and took his name.

  Mr. Kindt looked at me, a quizzical expression on his face.

  I know about Lenny, I said.

  Who is Lenny, Henry?

  Your accountant.

  I was eavesdropping in the rain. I heard about it. I know you took care of him. I know some fucking way or another I’m getting set up here to tak
e a fall, and that the one doing the setting up is you.

  He told me again that he didn’t know what I was talking about so I yanked him out of bed and dragged him into the living room, sat him down on the floor beneath the window next to a purple orchid, and hit him with the ashtray. I went to the fridge and retrieved the bag of Mr. Kindt’s blood, cut it open, and leaned over him with it and the serrated silver knife Cornelius had given me. Then I lifted the floorboard, retrieved the portfolio, and left him there. Lying in a heap in his black silk pajamas. Blue eyes open, rolled slightly back.

  I very casually left the building and headed down Avenue B. Breathing hard but also whistling a little. Across and along Houston. Past Essex. Car lights shattering the rain. Impressed by the state Cornelius and Co. had managed to put me into. To Orchard. Along Orchard. The authenticity their little late-in-the-game revelation about setups and so forth must have leant my performance. My exquisite performance. The one I didn’t yet know had been videotaped. Mr. Kindt’s killer. Because of course he was killed. The authenticity was magnificent. Cut across the throat with the knife, the one I had brandished then left sitting on the floor by Mr. Kindt’s head. I stopped. The little tattoo parlor was closed. Dark. No Tulip. Padlocked shut. I started thinking, and turned around.

  Mr. Kindt lay beneath the window exactly as I had, I swear, left him, except that his throat was open. And there was no empty blood bag in the garbage under the sink. And no cheerful little note written by me as a flourish, saying that I would call tomorrow so that we could have lunch.

  I leaned close to the window. I put my bloody hand on the cold, rain-splattered glass, pulled it away, and looked out at the park.

  Then Tulip was there.

  I didn’t do this, I said. I mean, not this.

  Save it, Henry, she said.

  He’s my friend, I said. My dear friend. I’m complicit. I know the story. I know Mr. Kindt isn’t Mr. Kindt, or didn’t used to be. I know he was trying to set me up, that he has set me up, hasn’t he? Is that why he told me about Cooperstown—so that I’d have something else to think about? What’s in this portfolio? Should I look?