by David Fuller
He felt for his gun and was reassured. He watched more spectators enter through the arch and in yet another vertigo-inducing surprise, he saw Theodore Roosevelt walking and talking, come to see the show, an actual former president recognized from photographs, now proven to be blood and bone. Longbaugh moved all the way back to the entrance and stood beside one of the decorative pines. He had to settle himself down, because Moretti and Hightower were coming, and soon, and if he was to do what needed to be done, he needed a clear head. He scanned the room through anxious eyes. He fought for control of his brain, needing to recognize Moretti and the bear the moment they arrived. But he was not focused, he was not ready.
He closed his eyes, pushed the noise and music off into a corner, then talked to himself until his thoughts returned to his task. His breathing lengthened, the moments stretched, and his thumping heart quieted. There. Yes. He opened his eyes and the room had slowed. When he was sure he was ready, he reentered the exhibit.
In that brief quiet he had observed more than he realized, developing a feel for the exhibition and its hierarchy. He approached a woman who clearly held a position of power, as she was congratulated by arriving guests. Guards sidled up from behind and spoke in her ear. She gave instructions without sacrificing her public concentration. He waited his turn, then stepped behind her, as if he was one of her people.
“Ethel Matthews here yet?”
The woman leaned back, still smiling at the crowd. “Later, with her client.”
“Which client?”
“Fedgit-Spense, probably another half hour.” A beat before she thought the question odd and made a full turn to know who was asking. “I beg your pardon, you are . . . ?”
“Harry.” He put his hand out to shake. “Isn’t this just marvelous what you’ve done.”
“And you are with?”
“Don’t tell anyone, but Fidgy thinks I should buy.”
Someone distracted her other ear. She answered from the side of her mouth. “The price may be negotiable, but not tonight, next week if it’s not sold.” Coming back to Longbaugh. “His . . . man, his . . . person, that assistant, is in one of the back galleries, look in the Cubist Room, the farthest one on the left, in the corner. That’s where they all start, what they’re calling the Chamber of Horrors.” She shook her head with great annoyance. “Where they go to laugh.”
He thanked her and moved to the breezeway, this one on the left side, walked through two smaller galleries, more European paintings that he ignored, then entered the large back gallery under the giant clock. At the far end, he turned left into the Cubist Room, the most crowded of the spaces, with so many spectators gathered around one particular large painting that he was unable to get a good look at it. He did see the exit along the side wall, the door Wisher had used to reach the street and meet Prophet. He stopped next to a small sculpture of an oddly shaped mountain and scanned the space for Wisher. He looked at face after face, leaning and looking until he thought he had seen everyone there. He started watching the people as they came in, but something about the mountain sculpture by his elbow pulled at his attention and he looked down and saw it was not a mountain but a head created from rounded shapes and slices, as if the muscles and bones of the face had forcefully burst from the sculpture’s core, like boulders shoving through the ground after an earthquake. After a moment of looking, the sculpture evolved into a woman’s head, gazing down in what seemed a demure posture. He had been blind to it at first, had not even known to look for it. Now that he saw it, he could not unsee it, as it could be nothing else. The image was not generic but specific, and represented an actual person, so particular that, had she been there, he would have recognized her. He looked at the artist’s name, Pablo Picasso, above the title, Bust.
He looked to the crowd as if to call out so that they might share this magical transformation. The crowd had shifted and he was brought back to his mission, as he now saw Loney Wisher among the spectators, although Longbaugh’s view of the large painting was still blocked. Tonight Wisher was dressed less to impress than to express, working too hard even among this crowd of flashy fashion mongers. The spectators laughed at the large painting he could not see. Wisher chatted wickedly among them, his snickers mimicking theirs to curry favor, pawing the rich fabrics of their sleeves while secretly making notes. He seemed particularly drawn to one woman whose outfit was probably expensive.
Longbaugh made his way to Wisher’s side. At a pause in the conversation, he stepped into it.
“I believe we’ve met.”
Wisher turned and looked him up and down, in a way he had not bothered to do that day outside the Hotel Algonquin. “No. I would not have met you.”
“Then there must be another Loney Wisher. No matter, I’ll just talk to Fidgy.”
At Fidgy’s name, Wisher squared up. He moved Longbaugh away from the group, away from the painting.
“Silly of me, of course I remember. Buyer?”
“From what I’m seeing, yes, perhaps.”
Calculation ran through Wisher’s eyes. “Who’s your representative?”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Who explains things to you, who keeps you from being swindled, who have you hired to show you the ropes?”
Yes, thought Longbaugh. Who will collect a percentage on your purchase? “That would be Miss Matthews.”
Wisher turned his note-taking pad and let it drift casually to his side so that Longbaugh could not read what he had written.
“Mrs. Matthews,” Loney corrected him. “Remind me of your name.”
“So you don’t remember.”
Wisher didn’t miss a beat. “And she didn’t remember to be here to take care of you.”
“Yes, I wonder where she is.”
“Wherever her whimsy carries her. That’s the danger of putting your business in the hands of a woman. Known her long?”
“Practically forever. Weeks.” He liked Wisher’s competitive tone. It meant he would stick close.
“And yet you called her ‘Miss.’ You don’t know her marital status. Do you even know her first name?”
“Ah . . .” Longbaugh thought he was about to be exposed, and tried to think of some plausible lie to get Wisher on his side.
“How rude of her.” Wisher took his arm companionably. “You need someone who will be honest and direct with you. While Mrs. Matthews is good, the fact that she’s not here is her loss, but if I daresay, your gain. My time, sir, is yours, as any friend of Sydney’s, and all that. If you wish, she can always take over, assuming she arrives. Assuming she’s not too busy with Sydney’s business.”
“I thought you handled Sydney’s business.”
“I handle many things at once. I promise you’ll be satisfied.”
Charm bled from Wisher’s pores, and Longbaugh thought he had left an oily dark spot on his jacket where he touched his elbow.
“Fidgy thought I might like this man Picasso.” He used the name because it was the last artist he had encountered and he thought he was pronouncing it properly.
“Picasso, oh no no no, next you’ll be saying you want a Matisse, and that is nothing but filth, odious work, have you seen the one with the goldfish?” He pointed through to Gallery H. “It’s obscene, show me an undraped woman who looks like that and I’ll show you a walrus. Edward Hopper has an excellent sailboat over in Gallery M, or look at the other Americans from the Ashcan group.”
Longbaugh considered the crowd around the large painting that so amused them all. “What about this one?”
Wisher snorted. “Well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I call it ‘Explosion in a Shingle Factory.’”
A woman near him brayed, her jewelry tinkling. “Oh, that’s fresh, Loney. ‘Implosion in a Shingle Plant.’ You don’t think this Marcel fellow is serious, now, do you? I can’t wait to see what the papers say in the morning.”
Wisher touched elbows to separate the crowd and gave Longbaugh a full view of the painting in question.
Longbaugh looked with a cold eye. He thought he probably disliked it, although he didn’t know for certain. Too many people had already had too much to say about it. He looked and looked. It certainly wasn’t what he had expected, given the magnitude of the negative reaction. The paintings in the other gallery had desensitized his initial shock, but this was no less unusual to his eye. Much as he might have disliked it on his own, he disliked the idea of agreeing with Wisher even more. For that reason alone, he took more time. And looked. He glanced down and read the card. Marcel Duchamp. Nude Descending a Staircase. He looked back. The painting was rendered in warm ochres and rich browns, with some green as accent, close to Etta’s olive. It was not as representational as its title. He saw what was meant to be a body in motion portrayed by what looked to be thin wood planks laid atop one another, some with curved edges, others more triangular. The body came forward from left to right, down an incline into brighter light. The more he looked, the more he accepted the illusion of a body in motion, but he was damned if he could guarantee a woman in there. He looked for the staircase and identified only one sure stair, squared off with a right angle . . . but Loney Wisher was leaning in with his greasy smirk, so he stayed with it longer, until stairs began to emerge from multiple perspectives, as if every angle on a staircase had been considered simultaneously, despite the two-dimensional canvas. All at once, he recognized a sophisticated intellect behind the work. Interesting. Unusual, unexpected, and interesting.
Wisher waited for his laugh and studied Longbaugh’s face. Longbaugh squinted and angled his head.
“You would take this much time with something so ludicrous? This ‘thing’ is a joke, a sham, not to be taken seriously by any cultured individual.”
“Of course not,” said Longbaugh. The more outrage he detected in Wisher’s tone, the happier he was.
It seemed as if Wisher might take Longbaugh’s cue and look at the painting again, but Longbaugh saw him talk himself out of that. Wisher tugged him away. “Time to visit the Ashcans.”
“I wouldn’t throw this out just yet.”
“Oh no no no, the Ashcans are artists, Robert Henri, John Sloan. They paint the world as it really is.”
“I couldn’t say what the world really is.”
“That’s why we have artists, to tell you through their work.”
This guy Duchamp is telling you, thought Longbaugh. You’re just not listening. “I’ve been in prison.”
“Uh? Oh yes, of course, very good, you’re a wit, addressing our emerging sensibilities. A dangerous weapon, wit, I will remember your gibe.”
“Steal it in good health.”
Wisher checked the time. “Come with me. Sydney should be here any minute. Fresh off the boat, so to speak.”
“Off the boat?”
“Just docked, saw it coming into the harbor on the way here. You didn’t know?” Loney hesitated, as if a doubt was setting in. “He’s coming directly from the wharf. Doesn’t want to miss a minute of this.”
“Why didn’t you meet him there?”
“He needs me to catalog the art. He specifically wants to know which pieces people dislike the most. He can be very inscrutable. But I don’t question, I just do my job.” Longbaugh hadn’t met Fedgit-Spense, but he thought he understood what he was doing and was surprised Wisher did not. Fedgit-Spense had little respect for the unsophisticated American taste and he was using that to help guide his purchases. Anything the Americans hated must be good, and Wisher was blind to the insult. Longbaugh was caught in the irony, as he had started to like the art only because Wisher did not. “It’s my understanding your Mrs. Matthews is the one meeting him.”
Longbaugh followed him through the galleries that banked Twenty-fifth Street until they had returned to the entrance. These smaller galleries held mostly American painters, and Wisher pointed out his favorite canvases from the Ashcan School as they went by.
They arrived at the arch by the entrance to wait. Wisher droned on, speaking of the American painters with affection. Longbaugh had liked their work, but was tired of Wisher’s monologue, and he watched the crowd for Hightower, for Moretti. She was coming. She would come here, to this place. She was on her way.
Sydney Fedgit-Spense entered. Longbaugh knew because Wisher went for him without hesitation, leaving off in midsentence. Fedgit-Spense had a certain glow, unless it was caused by his habit of stepping into the cast of every strong overhead light. He was tall, thin, bony, with a schoolboy’s straight blond hair flopping over an older man’s face. His enormous nose led his skeletal frame wherever he went, and he looked as if he went wherever he pleased. After the things attributed to him, Longbaugh had expected someone more dangerous, or at least more handsome. Fedgit-Spense struggled to remove his heavy jacket, something more appropriate for a ship’s deck than a rainy summer evening. Longbaugh watched Wisher flow to Fedgit-Spense, each step a metamorphosis, now the amanuensis, now the acolyte, now the apostle, until he was alongside his superior, “Welcome back, sir,” lifting the shoulders of the jacket to allow Fedgit-Spense’s arms to slip out. “Thank you, Loney, fine to be back.” “I thought you might say ‘home,’ sir.” “Not that good, Loney, despite your presence.”
Longbaugh watched to see if Etta would come in with Fedgit-Spense, but Fidgy had entered alone. He looked and looked, and when the same people in the same plumage trading the same gossip and the same laughter continued to stream into the Armory, he began to think she was unreal, that everything he had heard about her had been manufactured to torment him.
Until he saw someone moving sideways against the current of the incoming crowd, back in the darkness under the arch, a woman slipping by in a blur of vermillion silk. He had a glint of recognition, the way she held her head, but . . . was he fooling himself, or had he truly recognized her? He’d been fooled before, especially when actively looking and hoping. The woman walked with her back to him, still going sideways through the crowd, different hairstyle, her dress of a color and profile he would not have expected. Had she always been so tall? He convinced himself it was not her as he started in her direction. She moved for a stairway that would take her to the floor below.
Wisher looked around for him. “Oh, by the way, Sydney, I met a friend of yours, now, where did he go?”
Longbaugh reached the top of the stairs as she reached the bottom. The lights were dim there, to dissuade the crowd from venturing down. He still had not gotten a look at her face, and he saw her turn to the left. He faltered, as if his legs were made of heavy liquid, but he forced himself to press on, holding the handrail for balance, going down as quickly as he could manage, watching his feet on the stairs, as he did not trust his step. He opened his mouth to call her name, but no sound came.
He reached the bottom of the stairs. The area was dark. There were apparently large rooms to the right as he saw arrows on the wall next to signs that read BOWLING ALLEYS and RIFLE RANGES. He concentrated on the hallway and saw her at the far end, in shadow, passing through a doorway, closing the door behind her.
He followed her down the hall. It wasn’t her, he knew it wasn’t her, this had to be another Ethel Matthews, it was a misunderstanding and he was chasing his imagination. He hesitated with his hand on the door handle. It clearly could not be her. He turned it, and the door opened quietly.
The room was dark. He heard her over there, shaking rain from her hair. She clicked on a lamp and a small cone of light illuminated a desk and her silhouette. Her back was to him as she opened a desk drawer and took out papers. He tried to speak but again he had no voice. He froze, sharing a room with her while she thought she was alone. All he could manage was to close the door behind him.
She turned at the sound. The light from the lamp lit a dark red sleeve, the curls of her hair, the underside of her chin, the
lower part of her cheek.
They entered a microscopic slice of time that seemed to drag for an age, eyes connected.
He stood there, the ex-convict, the old lover chasing her through the new city, pathetic with hope, reckless with nostalgia and unrequited need.
A microscopic slice of time congested with thoughts.
Tell me. One way or the other, tell me, say it.
What is in your heart?
Not a full second had passed when she took that step toward him, leaving the light behind her, and there in the shadow she smiled.
“Hello, Sundance.”
She came across the room as if the light propelled her forward, and he was lost to her, as that was all of it, he knew everything in that first honest step. She came to him and he caught her, wrapped her in his grateful arms, heart pounding against her scent, kissing her familiar lips, and feeling her excellent laugh bubble up in her breast.
