He rolled his eyes. “You know, I doubt the woman has any African heritage at all. I mean she may have a touch of the old tarbrush, which I’m allowed to say, but I doubt even that. She frizzes her hair and applies skin darkener. Her black-speak accent is utterly bogus, and the chopping motion of her hands is so farcical as to make me cringe. What people like Laluna Jackson do is make an inadvertent and damning parody of black culture.”
I had no reply to that and said nothing.
He continued. “You know something else … I have a feeling she started out as a he.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“I’d bet that if you did a background check on Ms. Jackson you’d find she began life as a little boy.”
“You mean she had herself rearranged?”
He laughed. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“Why do you think so?”
“I have a nose for these things. She’s not all there. I don’t understand why people can’t just be what they are …”
“Not everyone is as blessed as you, Harvey.”
“You’re too kind, Norman, too kind. But don’t worry. I’ll come to that meeting with you. Let me do the heavy lifting on that one.”
I smiled. “I look forward to it.”
We ate well. We had a second drink. We got mellow. Harvey, his handsome face glistening, leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “I’m about to burden you with something, Norman. And I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not in the least. I hope.”
He hesitated. Then, “Okay, do you remember our first interview? You had my CV. You leafed through it, referring to notes you had made. Your questions were smack-on. And do you know why I like you, Norman? Do you know why I admire and trust you?”
I made a gesture of modest disavowal.
“Because, Norman, in the nearly two years I’ve known you, not once have you alluded, even indirectly, to the color of my skin.”
I shrugged. “There has been no reason why I should.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think you understand. So many well-meaning and well-off white liberals I’ve met over the years feel constrained to signal in one way or another that they are not prejudiced, that they approve of me, and that they want me to approve of them. And I don’t care how subtly it’s done or how well intended, I find it maddening. Demeaning.”
“As would I. But then, I don’t consider myself a liberal. Except, perhaps in the old-fashioned sense.”
He lowered his voice even more. “Do you know what liberals have done to people of color?”
“I would have thought they have tried to help … in one way or another.”
“Oh, indeed they have. And in doing so they have made us their moral pets.”
I sipped at my drink. I could taste the power of the rum. “I don’t doubt you, Harvey, but I’m not sure I follow you.”
He looked around. He kept his voice low. “To start with, white liberals would never dream of holding black Americans or black islanders or black Africans to anything approaching their own standards. To insist on that is to be called racist when exactly the reverse applies. Allowances are made for our behavior however egregious. Because, you see, we are moral pets.”
“But …”
He held up a hand. “It’s not only that, it’s the way we have come to figure large in the identity of affluent whites who can afford to patronize us. It’s mostly a class thing. As champions of us poor black people, white liberals can distinguish themselves from the benighted blue-collar workers, from Joe Sixpack. Your wealthy white liberal not only drinks better wine and eats better cheese, but he lays claim to being a better person. And people of color are part and parcel of that moral status. It matters not that most of them live comfortably and securely in white or upper-middle-class enclaves where any stray African Americans tend to be educated and middle-class as well.”
He stopped and took a good slug of his piña colada. “I’m sorry, Norman, but this is one of my pet peeves.”
“One of your moral pet peeves,” I rejoined. Then I pushed back just a bit. “But surely, Harvey, there are many whites who have worked for civil rights out of honorable motives …”
“Of course, of course.” But his acknowledgment bordered on the cursory as he went off again. Glancing around, he said, “It’s deeper and more pernicious than that. I’ve watched white liberals getting a moral thrill of vicarious indignation by rehashing past injustices against people of color. They pick that particular scab with great relish. It is one of the ways that they establish their moral credentials. It doesn’t occur to them that people who are encouraged to see themselves as victims remain victims.”
“But, surely, we cannot ignore history.”
“No, but there is no human group in the world that has not, at some point in their history, been enslaved in one way or another. To make slavery such a large part of black history is to reinforce the worst kinds of stereotypes. And to keep opening a wound is to stay wounded.”
He leaned back, his eyes askance. After a moment they came back to mine. “You don’t watch much television, do you Norman?”
“Not when I can help it.”
“Okay, let me tell you what you see these days constantly on the ads. They create a situation with a white person and a black person in it. Invariably, the white person is shown as far less intelligent than the character of color. Do you know why?”
“I haven’t given it a lot of thought.”
“Because white people are secure in their intelligence, they can afford to be portrayed as stupid. But because there are real doubts about the intelligence of black people on the part of the white, well-meaning ad producers, they must be portrayed as smart.”
“Really?”
But Harvey scarcely paused. “There’s another thing that nettles me no end.” Again he leaned into me and lowered his voice. “Nice white people love to sniff out and expose the least particle of racism in what they regard as lesser whites. Because, you see, to label someone else a racist is to imply that you are not racist, that you are not one of them, regardless of any objective criteria.”
“Such as …?”
“Oh, where they work, where they live, where they weekend, where they can send their kids to school …”
He finished his drink. Then, smiling at himself, he said, “Oh, God, here I am, another black man complaining to a white friend about how we are treated. So I’ll shut up. But let me say one last thing, Norman.” He paused. “Do you know what the real advantage of being a white male is?”
“There seems to be fewer of them.”
He shook his head. “The real advantage is that white males have no one else to blame when they screw up. No handy scapegoats, no excuses, no point in whining. That, my friend, is real empowerment.”
12
It was a fine, summery afternoon, the Fourth of July weekend, and I was in a foul mood. Diantha was furious at me yet again. I told her I had to stay in town with Alphus as all my careful plans to have him taken care of had collapsed. “Norman,” she hissed at one point, “I am a young, normal, healthy woman. I need a man.”
Getting a “keeper” for Alphus has proven to be a tricky business. Ape-sitting is not the same as dog-sitting or even babysitting. I suppose I could just let him be by himself. He knows that if he leaves the house unattended, he could be captured and possibly killed. Worst of all, he might end up in the Middling County Zoo, where there are real leopards. But Alphus likes to have someone around he can converse with, that is, someone who can sign. There’s always Ridley, but the young man, as Millicent attested, is not reliable. That means I not only have to get him someone like a graduate student from the university, but also allow him to have visitors from Sign House.
When I intimated very gently to Diantha the possibility of bringing Alphus out to the cottage with me, she could scarcely speak such was her anger. “I watched that beast killing and eating that little dog. God, Norman, you want to subject your child to that!
You must be losing it.”
I did not tell her that I suggested bringing Alphus with me because he had broached the subject earlier. In vain I tried to explain to him that my wife did not feel comfortable around chimpanzees. “Or around monkeys for that matter,” I added, to make general any possible offense.
“I am not a monkey,” he signed with emphatic indignation.
Later, in trying to make amends, I said, “there are mountain lions in the area.” As I believe there are.
“Mountain lions?” he questioned, making up the compound with the sign for mountain and the one for lion.
I nodded. “They are big yellow cats that feed on deer and … well, whatever they can catch. They have also been known to attack and kill people.”
“As big as leopards?”
“About the same size. Perhaps a little smaller.”
That mollified him, but did little for my peace of mind. I decided to bring him with me into the office to get some work done. To wax parenthetical for a moment, I am always amused by those detective narratives in which the principals do little but drive around and meet each other and talk about the crime to be solved. Rather like a Henry James novel in which the characters appear to subsist on little but their refined sensibilities. Nor do fictional private eyes ever get sick or go to the dentist to undergo the indignities of a root canal. At worst, they suffer a kind of tidy angst well suited to Hollywood. But I digress.
Among other things, I had to prepare for a meeting of the Council of Curators on Monday. And while that may not seem like much, I can see that once again Mr. de Buitliér is persisting in efforts to build a bureaucracy where none is needed. The second item on the agenda he sent around reads, “Report of the committee on the motion to form a committee to consider the feasibility of establishing a department of curatorial services within the museum.” It went on from there, mentioning necessary curatorial services, staffing requirements, departmental coordination, synergistic opportunities, and, the red flag, budgetary necessities.
The committee to study the formation of a committee to consider founding a department had been my ploy to stall the whole dismal process of bureaucracy building. Use the system to clog the system, I say. The question is how much longer can I resist, given my compromised position and the necessity for some kind of administrative apparatus for our growing collections, new methodologies, community outreach, public relations, and all that.
I was working away and Alphus had immersed himself in a book on batiks when the phone rang. I was hoping it was Diantha, but was surprised to find Professor Col Saunders on the line. He spoke somewhat gruffly. “You called,” he said.
We had met several times so I didn’t have to introduce myself. I asked him if he had a few minutes to spare, that I would like to drop by and talk to him if he were in his office.
“To what purpose?” He let his voice show impatience. I could tell that, like so many others, I had become something of a nonperson where he was concerned.
“I have received a communication regarding the von Grümh murder. You are mentioned prominently. I thought you might like to see a copy of it.”
“Oh … I see.” His tone changed decidedly. “Well, I’m pretty much free right now. Say in half an hour? I could come there.”
“Very good,” I said. This, I thought, would be an opportune time to test Alphus’s lie-detecting skills. I turned to my hairy friend and explained who was coming over and what I wanted him to do.
“No problem,” he signed with a sudden alertness I took for enthusiasm.
I then did something undoubtedly unethical and shrewd and, under the circumstances, justified: I rigged up a digital voice recorder I happened to have in my desk.
Col Saunders showed up twenty minutes later. A small handsome man, he was dressed just short of dandyism in a beige summer suit, pink shirt, and blue patterned tie. When I’d once pondered aloud to Di about his youthful looks, she told me he had obviously had a face-lift along with a hair transplant that looked a tad too reddish. His wide, lifted face, now tanned, and his eyes, which matched his tie, smiled at me as though we were close colleagues.
“Norman, good to see you,” he said with false heartiness, his voice still redolent of time spent at Cambridge. He shook my hand and did a double take upon seeing Alphus over to one side with an open book on his lap.
“This is Alphus,” I said. “Alphus, this is Professor Saunders.”
They nodded at each other. Then Saunders took a chair in front of the desk. We exchanged the smallest of small talk before he said, with feigned disinterest, “So what’s this about a letter?”
I took a copy I had made for him and slid it across the desk.
He read it rapidly, frowning and then consciously, I thought, making his face blank. He read parts of it twice. He looked up at me. “Have you given the original to the police?”
“I haven’t yet.”
“Do you intend to?”
“I’m not sure,” I lied. “It will depend …” I paused. “On what you tell me.”
He harrumphed. “I don’t really have much to tell.”
“Then you have no objection to my sending the original along to the authorities?”
“Obviously, I don’t want to get involved in this mess.”
“Nor do I want to have obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and lawyers only know what else added to the charges against me.”
He nodded but without any empathy. He said, “The man couldn’t even die without screwing it up.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Professor Saunders,” I said, my voice confiding and portentous at the same time, “why not just tell me what happened. Later on, if you need me to substantiate your … statement, I would be only too willing to.”
He considered my offer for a moment. He glanced uneasily at Alphus who was watching him with seemingly neutral curiosity. He then looked around at objects in my office that I had borrowed from the collections. Abruptly, but still with an air of arrière pensé, he said, “In fact I did encounter Heinie that night.”
“Do you remember at what time?”
“Just about eight twenty-five.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“I recall it because I had a call coming in from a colleague in Bangkok at nine fifteen on my landline. I kept checking my watch.”
When a pause on his part turned into a hesitation, I prompted, “So how did you happen to see Heinie?”
“Well, just a few minutes earlier I left my town house to walk Spencer, he’s my Irish setter, which, as the letter indicates, I do around that time in the evening if I’m home. And I take a plastic bag along for you know … There’s a Dumpster near the work they’re doing on the Center for Criminal Justice. After Spencer had answered the call of nature, I took the results and tossed it into the Dumpster. Just then, I noticed a car on the gravel right-of-way between the parking lots. It seemed out of place somehow. Maybe it was the way it was parked and the way it had its motor and high beams on. I was heading home when it reversed and backed in my direction. The window rolled down, and Heinie called to me.”
“How did he seem to you?” Again, Alphus’s attention appeared to make him uneasy.
“I could tell he had been drinking. I mean his face was flushed and he sounded very agitated about something.”
“What did he say?”
“He called to me. He said, ‘Col, you’re just the man I need to talk to.’ ”
I waited as he decided what to tell me next.
“So I walked over to the passenger side and said hello. ‘Get in’ he said, opening the door. Spencer, a friendly dog, jumped in before I could stop him and went right over the seat into the back. As I was apologizing and trying to pull him out, Heinie said, ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m used to dogs. Get in.’ ”
“So you got in?”
“I didn’t want to, but I did.”
“Why didn’t you want to?”
He glanced at me suspiciously. “Well, everyone knows that Heinie and I have a history. The letter spells that out.”
“Did he have a gun?”
He hesitated just long enough for me to think he was lying. He said, “No. I didn’t see one. I mean it could have been there. On the floor or between the seats.”
“So you were parked near the Dumpster? The one you mentioned.”
He glanced at me warily. “Not that close. What are you getting at?”
It was my turn to lie. “Nothing. Really. I’m trying to nail down a detail.” In fact I was thinking that the Dumpster would be a good place for the murderer to drop the gun. With an inner wince I dissembled with a frown, I wondered if that was where I had put it after I had used it on Heinie.
“Go on,” I said.
“Well, he started right in apologizing. He said he had nothing personal against me, that the ‘misunderstanding’ about the chair was really between himself and his father.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Not really. I was more embarrassed than anything else. He got profuse, repeating himself. Then he started abusing you.”
“Really? About what?”
“He said you were trying to destroy him professionally by having the authenticity of the collection he gave the MOM tested. He said he had made a mistake giving it to you, that all the MOM had was a lot of native junk.”
I nodded. “That does sound like Heinie when he gets going.”
“Oh, there’s more. He apologized for grabbing the Dresden stater before I, I mean the Frock, had a chance to bid on it.”
“What did you say to that?”
“Nothing really. Something like what’s done is done. Then he shook his head. His voice was quaking. He said, ‘Listen, if you want the Dresden, it’s yours. I’m not going to give it to that son of a bitch Ratour!’ ”
I could not suppress a smile. This part of his story rang true.
The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man Page 15
