One Fearful Yellow Eye

by John D. MacDonald

  She came up and handed me my drink and stood beside me looking into the studio. "Please don't ask me to explain my work."

  She had a rare talent for irritating me. So I said, "I doubt if you could, Mrs. Trumbill."

  With a cold smile as she turned toward me, she said, "And what is that supposed to mean?"

  "Sorry, I don't think you know what you're doing."

  "My dear man, abstract expressionism has been around so long that it..."

  "That it gets imitated too much. You've got some color sense. You go too far in setting up weird composition. But that doesn't mean you are setting problems or trying to solve them. It's glib stuff, Heidi. It hasn't got any bones. It hasn't got any symbol values, any underlying feeling of weight or inevitability. It's just sort of shock-pretty, and you certainly get some satisfaction out of doing it, but just don't start taking it or yourself too seriously."

  Fury drained the color out of her face. She went striding away, whirled so quickly she slopped some of her sherry onto the living-room rug. "Just who the hell are you? My work sells! I've been in damned good juried shows. I've had some fantastic reviews."

  "I'm just a guy who buys a painting once in a while."

  "Then what could you possibly know about it? You jackasses learn a couple of stock words and voila! you're a critic yet."

  "There's nothing wrong with decoration, Heidi."

  "You will call me Mrs. Trumbill if you don't mind."

  "I mind, Heidi. Your stuff will melt right into the wall after a week. Nobody will see it. That's no disgrace. It's decorative, but it ain't art."

  "Get out of here!"

  "You can call me Trav, or Travis."

  There was a piece of paper on a table beside a lamp. I saw a pencil on the coffee table. I took the blank paper over and put it beside the pencil. "Just make me a sketch of that lamp and the window beyond it, girl, and I'll go quietly."

  "Oh, you mean draw you a cow that looks like a cow?" she said with a poisonous and knowing smile.

  "Go ahead. Funny, but everybody I can think of right off the top of the head could sure God draw a fat realistic cow if they ever happened to want to. Hans Hoffman, Kline, Marca-Relli, Guston, Solomon, Rivers, Picasso, Kandinsky Motherwell, Pollock. And you know it, baby. If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. You dabblers bug me. You want the applause without all the thousands of hours of labor learning how to draw, how to make brush strokes, learning all the thing's that give painting some bite and bones even when you don't use any part of it. Go ahead, draw the lamp. Quick sketch. Prove I'm a jackass."

  She trotted over, flounced down, took the pencil and made some quick lines, then stuck her tongue tip out of the corner of her mouth and drew a more careful line, then she got up and threw the pencil at the paper. It went bouncing under a chair.

  "Shit!" she said. "So I fake it. Everybody does. And I get away with it."

  "Suddenly I think I like you a little better, Mrs. Trumbill."

  Her smile was wan and strained. "I'm underwhelmed, Mr. McGee. People don't talk to me like that often."

  "Drenches out the glands, they say."

  She studied me. "I suppose it's an approach, actually. You get nasty to a girl and it shocks her so she gets hung up. Nice try."

  I gave her my most amiable grin. "Miss Pussycat, I have the feeling if some jolly experimental giant crammed us both buck naked into a one-man sleeping bag, we'd apologize to each other, get back to back, and try to get a little sleep."

  "And that too is an absolutely transparent pass, damn you."

  "Try me. You turn on my lights not at all, Miss Heidi."

  "I damned well could if I should ever develop a taste for huge dull muscular men, but I'm afraid I put all that behind me when I reached sixteen. Can't we please finish whatever it is you came for and break this off?"

  "Pleasure. We're checking out Gloria Doyle Geis very carefully."

  "It's about time, wouldn't you say?"

  "I know you made some suggestions to Andrus." She sat on the couch again.

  "But he won't really see what a cheap little adventurer she is. I think I've figured it all out. Of course there isn't anything on her record. I think she had an accomplice. They worked out some kind of a story about something she was supposed to have done, and then the accomplice blackmailed all that money out of my poor sick confused father. She had him on drugs, you know. I think that could be proved in court. Now all she has to do is just sit tight and pretend she doesn't know a thing. Believe me, that money is hidden in some safe place and when the fuss dies down, she and her unwashed friend will disappear with it."

  "Makes sense, I guess."

  "You know it does. My God, he denied his own children, his flesh and blood, by leaving that grubby little waitress a whole half of his money anyway. But oh no, that wasn't enough for her. There's no limit to the greed of that kind of person."

  "Pretty tough to prove that was the way he was cheated."

  "You people should track down all her old boyfriends, and you can tell just by looking at her that there are plenty of them and they weren't very carefully selected either. Did you know she knew Daddy was dying when she married him? What kind of a person would be so eager to marry a dying man who was pretty well-off? Ask yourself that."

  "I guess she didn't get a very warm welcome from the family when he brought her back here from Florida."

  "You can say we made it very clear to her how we felt." She shook her head, slowly. "And to think that Roger and I used to think what a shame it would be if Stanyard's husband died and Daddy made an honest woman of her. But we would certainly have settled for Stanyard a dozen times over rather than darling Gloria."

  "Stanyard?"

  "Chief OR nurse of neurosurgery at Methodist Hospital where Daddy did most of his operations. Her husband was hurt about the same time Mommy passed away. It was a fishing accident and they resuscitated him, but he'd been out too long and because of no oxygen going to the brain, there was a lot of damage. I guess he's sort of half in a coma. He's in an institution near Elgin. He sort of wanders around, I understand, and he can say a few words, and he seems glad to see her in a vague way. They had a little boy and he drowned when the boat was swamped. Stanyard has some kind of a thing about getting an annulment or a divorce. She was at the funeral. I hadn't seen her in years and years. I don't know when she and Daddy started having a thing. Probably not a very long time after Mommy died. I'm not censuring them, you understand. Two lonely people with the same interests. She's still fairly attractive-as nurse types go. And they did make a big effort to be discreet, at least. But the summer I was twelve, one evening after dark she drove him home because his car was being fixed, and I looked through the hedge and saw them kissing. You know how kids are. It made me feel quite ill and wretched and confused. I told Roger and he said to keep my mouth shut. He said he'd known it for a year at least. I guess it really must have shaken her up when he married that Doyle person. Poor thing. When he had to go off on trips to do special operations he'd arrange to have Stanyard go along as her nurse. She was-is-very good, I guess. I mean nobody would question his wanting her right there for tricky operations. But I guess it was... quite a handy arrangement for them."

  I said nothing. She realized how patronizing she had sounded. She colored slightly. "I'm not really a prude, Mr. McGee. When it's your own father... somehow it's more tawdry. You expect more. Mommy was such an absolute angel. I guess I should realize that Daddy was a man, with a man's... requirements. But it seems like such an insult to my mother's memory, the affair with Stanyard and then marrying the Doyle person. I guess that because a man is famous in his field, it doesn't mean he can't be foolish and gullible about women. Of course, I didn't exactly make one of the world's best marriages."

  "Better luck next time."

  Her smile was cold. "No need for a next time, thank you."

  At that moment the red door swung open and a young man came hurrying in, saying, "Really, it's too much! Dar
ling, that wretched Kirstarian is absolutely intent on ruining the entire exhibition, and I just..."

  He stopped and stared at me, eyebrows arching in surprise. "Well, excuse me! I didn't know anyone was..."

  "Mark," she said wearily, "you've promised and promised not to come charging in here. If you ever do it again, I'm going to make you give me that downstairs key back."

  "I was just terribly excited, Heidi. This is really a crisis! Wait until you hear! But shouldn't you introduce us?"

  "Mr.Travis McGee. Mark Avanyan. Mark and I run a little gallery on East Scott Street."

  "The Tempo East," he said. He wore a shaggy green turtleneck and skinny jeans in an almost white denim. He had the build of a good welterweight in peak condition. His hair was a half-inch length of dense black pelt that began about an inch and a half above his dark heavy brows. He smiled approvingly at me. "It's so marvelous to see somebody who looks really outdoors." He sat on a bright blue hassock and tucked his sneakers under him and scowled and said, "Kirstarian is absolutely adamant, darling. He brought in a new piece and he says it goes in the show or there won't be any show. And I can't endure it. It is absolutely ghastly."

  He turned to me and explained, "Kirstarian calls his latest work Stappenings. For static happenings. He makes these marvelous life-size wire armatures of people and objects and wraps them with muslin and then sprays them with some sort of hardener. They have tremendous presence, they really do. And I have been working myself into exhaustion since dawn, practically, making the most effective arrangements, and then he comes in with his... impossible thing."

  "What is it, dear?" she asked.

  "It's two large dogs-uh-copulating like mad. They are sort of vaguely dogs, you know. Kirstarian just stands there, saying it is one of the statements he wishes to make in this show, and he is not going to let anyone censor his work. And there are those fat white terrible beasts, and it is the only thing people are going to look at, and it seems like some sort of terrible vulgar joke he's trying to play on us. Actually, he hates me. I'm just becoming aware of it. Heidi, darling, we're not ready to show something like that. I mean you could say that Chicago isn't ready. And the preview is tomorrow. And we've publicized it. Darling, you have to do something."

  "He's your friend, dear."

  "Not any longer, believe me."

  "Run along, Mark, dear. Run on back and tell him to wait and I'll be by in a little while to take a look."

  As he started to leave he looked into the studio at the new painting on the easel. "Heidi!" he cried. "It's stunning. And I believe it's transitional. Your work is getting so strong!"

  After saying he hoped we'd meet again, he went hurrying off.

  "Poor Mark," she said. "Everything is always a crisis. But he does work very hard. Had we finished?"

  "There's a couple of questions. I'd like to get a look at those problem dogs. If you want to change, I could ask the questions on the way."

  She changed to a gray flannel suit worn over a pale green sweater, and agreed it would be pleasant to walk the four blocks or so to the Tempo East Gallery. I did not have to shorten my normal stride very much to stay in step with her. I said, "Did you have any idea the bulk of the estate had been liquidated before the bank told you?"

  "I had no idea! Roger and I knew he'd changed his will and was cutting us each from a half to a quarter. Roger even had his attorney look into it, but there was nothing we could do. I suppose we could have guessed the woman might be capable of some sort of trickery."

  "How was your relationship with your father the last year of his life?"

  "Unfortunate. The Doyle person poisoned his mind against his own children. We saw him a few times, of course. He seemed pleasant but... remote. Not terribly interested in what we were doing. Oh, he was a lot of help to me with the wedding, and later with the divorce from Gadge. Actually Jeanie-Roger's wife-seemed to get along with him better than we did. She'd stop with the kids. Daddy enjoyed seeing his grandchildren."

  "Gloria Geis claims that all she gets from the estate is the insurance policy that brings her in less than five thousand a year."

  "A lovely smokescreen. That's what I think."

  "Maybe that nurse blackmailed your father."

  "Stanyard? Janice Stanyard? Nonsense!"

  "Actually, since you couldn't have touched the principal, your inheritance would have been just the seventy-five hundred a year, right?"

  "Meaning I shouldn't care so much about it? Mr. McGee, I do not like to be cheated. The amount is not the point at issue. I can get along without it, of course. My alimony's four times that, and I do sell many of my paintings, regardless of your opinion of my work."

  "And there's an income from the gallery?"

  "A small one. My divorce was final about... fourteen months. There was a settlement and the alimony agreement, and at Daddy's suggestion John Andrus advised me on handling the settlement money. I bought the building where my apartment is, and I bought some good blue-chip stocks, invested in the gallery, and put what was left in a savings account. I can get along nicely, thank you. But why should that make me feel indifferent about someone else having something Daddy intended I should have?"

  "Is Roger doing as well?"

  "Better, if anything. Jeanie has her own money. And Roger is very good with money, very shrewd. But he doesn't like being cheated any better than I do. Here we are."

  The sign on the door said the gallery was closed. As she was looking for the key in her purse Mark Avanyan opened the door for us. When we went in, he gestured toward the dog tableau, gave a loud theatrical sigh, and turned away. Though small, the gallery was well-lighted, attractive, pleasantly designed not to detract from any work being shown. Kirstarian stood with his back toward us, arms folded, and he was as motionless as all his white muslin people. They made an eerie effect, white mummies frozen at some moment of action. The form was entirely derivative, of course. A movable spot on one of the ceiling tracks shone down upon the large dogs. Mark had not reported inaccurately.

  Kirstarian turned very slowly to face us. I was astonished to see how young his face and his eyes were in that small area not obscured by the huge, untrimmed black beard. He wore the kind of black suit favored by European intellectuals, and I had thought from the shape of him that he was at least middle-aged. But he was merely a plump young man with bad posture.

  "Avanyan," he said in a slow and heavy voice, "is incurably middle-class. He is a silly little tradesman and this is his silly little shop. Perhaps, Mrs. Trumbill, you have more integrity."

  Heidi stared at the muslin sculpture, fists on her hips. "This is a necessary statement?" she asked.

  "An expression of eternal relationships. Yes."

  "Dear Jesus," whispered Mark Avanyan, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling.

  I broke the impasse by saying, "I think it's fabulous, Mr. Kirstarian." I caught his hand and pumped it

  "Thank you, sir. But, please, not mister. Just Kirstarian."

  "Let me give you my card," I said. I had managed to turn him and position him perfectly. I fumbled in my wallet and dropped several cards. "Oops!" said I, and ducked for them as they were still fluttering down, and put my right foot crosswise, an inch behind the heels of his shabby black shoes. As I straightened up, I managed to nudge him in the chest with my shoulder. He teetered, waved his arms wildly, then sat solidly upon his dogs. As I had dared hope, the hardening agent made the structures brittle. Muslin love ended in a huge Nabisco crunching, a spanging of wires, a rattle of dogfragments across the floor.

  With loud sounds of apology and dismay, I lifted him up out of the unidentifiable ruin. As he sputtered I turned him and heartily whacked all the white powder off the back of his shiny black suit. He was in despair at the tragic accident. He kept picking up parts and dropping them. We all tried to comfort him. He said he hadn't even photographed it. He went trudging sadly off, a blackness marching through the brightness of the Saturday midday.

  At one point during the
helpless laughter I learned something about Miss Heidi. She clung to me, tears rolling down her face, and then suddenly, became aware of my hands on her waist. She froze at once, and turned rigidly away, taking a tissue from her purse and dabbing at her eyes. She said she had some errands, and left so abruptly it was very much like flight.

  After she left, when Mark wanted to know how I knew Heidi, I explained that I was investigating the disappearance of Fortner Geis' estate. He had no ideas. He wanted to be helpful, because I had extricated the gallery from an idiotic impasse. There is a delicate protocol in such relationships. He was carefully flirtatious, looking for any subtle encouragement. So I managed to drop into the conversation quite casually those clues which turned him off for good. His acceptance of the inevitable was philosophic.

  I am always skeptical of the male who makes a big public deal out of how he hates fairies, how they turn his stomach, how he'd like to beat the hell out of them. The queens are certainly distasteful, but the average homosexual in the visual and performing arts is usually a human being a little bit brighter and more perceptive than most. I've had the opinion for a long time that the creative work of the homosexuals tends to be so glossy and clever and glib that it has a curious shallowness about it, as though the inability to share the most common human experience of all makes it all surface and no guts, and when there is an impression of guts it is usually just another clever imitation.