Angel With a Bullet (14 page)

I close the files and dial Frank. He answers on the third ring.

“Did you check Casper's phone?” I ask without preamble.

“Yeah, but I gave it back. Why? You want to call him? Could be a good catch.”

“Ha, ha,” I say without humor. “You read the text message from Diego?”

“Yep.”

“Genuine?”

“It was sent from his phone. That's about as genuine as we can be sure of.”

“So someone else could have sent it?”

“If they had access to his phone.”

“Which means legal ownership of the blood painting could be in doubt.”

“Sure, if someone wanted to take it to court, the text message wouldn't stand up as a last will and testament. Why? You think he wanted to leave something to you?”

I grin. “We parted on amicable but volatile terms. I don't think he gave me any thought.”

“You might be surprised,” Frank says. “You're a tough dame to forget.”

I laugh. “Thanks, Frank, you're all heart. I'll talk to you later.”

I hang up.

After dropping the archives in the library's return basket, I slink my way over to Clooney's desk. She isn't around, which is good, as I need to rummage through her desk. I find her social registry in the bottom drawer underneath something skimpy and silky.

I don't want to know.

It takes some detective work to find Roger Kingston's name. Curiously, it is listed under M, which I'm guessing stands for money, making me curious about the names listed under S.

I dial Kingston's private number on Clooney's phone.

“Good afternoon,” answers a very polite English accent. “You have reached the residence of Sir Roger Kingston. How may I be of service?”

I can just imagine the man on the other end of the line: tall, stiff-backed, and perfectly attired in tuxedo tails and starched bowtie. What the English gentry call a gentleman's gentleman.

I try to bleach some of the blue collar out of my voice.

“I would like to speak with Sir Roger, please.”

“Could I have your name and intended business, miss?” Efficient too. I can imagine a touch of silver at his temples to contrast short, lightly oiled black hair.

“It's Dixie Flynn. I work for
NOW
magazine and I'm interested in a painting.”

“Please hold the line.”

I rummage through Clooney's book while I wait, noticing that Kingston is also listed under P. Power? I flip forward to S, but don't recognize any of the names. I hear footsteps approaching over the phone and try to guess the butler's name. My money is on either James or Albert.

“Miss?”

“Still here, James.”

There is a slight pause. “My name is Oliver.”

“Of course. Cool name.”

“Thank you, my mother will be pleased that you approve, but as to Sir Roger. He has asked me to inform you that he shall be free to meet with you tomorrow at twelve-fifteen on his ranch here in the valley. He apologizes for the delay, but he has a full schedule today.”

“That's fine,” I blurt, surprised by the invitation.

“Will you be needing a car to bring you by?”

Impressive, but I've read too many Mickey Spillane novels to accept a ride out to the country from someone I've never met.

“No, thanks, Oliver,” I reply, then add on a whim, “the Jag could really use the exercise.”

“I understand perfectly, miss. And if you would be so kind, what is your favorite refreshment? I'll be sure to have some on hand.”

“What does Roger drink?”

“Sir Roger has been known to enjoy an Australian beer with lunch.”

“Make it two.”

“Excellent. I shall place the bottles on ice.”

When Oliver hangs up, I can imagine him dusting off the receiver before returning to his regular duties.

I copy Kingston's address out of Clooney's little black book before tucking it back in its proper hiding place under the unknown silky item.

Twenty-one

Cab drivers rarely take
fares to the Central Basin dockyards where Diego has his studio.

For one, it's the perfect spot to jam a gun into the sweet spot of their skull, take their cash, and leave them for dead. And two, if a passenger gets mugged after leaving the cab, there's a chance the company could be held liable for being careless enough to leave him or her in such a desolate area.

Welcome to the land of endless opportunity: sue thy neighbor, get rich, and use the money to sue someone else. No wonder we're all paranoid.

Mo isn't on duty when I call Veteran's Cabs, but the day dispatcher knows who I am and agrees to find a driver.

Twenty minutes later, I hand a taxi slip with Stoogan's signature scrawled on the bottom to a nervous Charlie Parker. I slide out of the cab to the crunch of gravel underfoot, my nose rebelling against the stench of fermenting seaweed and spilled diesel.

With a wink, Charlie hightails it back to civilization, leaving me alone between two rows of dilapidated wood-framed warehouses, their tails dipping into the black water like bloated whales washed ashore to die. Creosote-stained walls and sun-bleached tin roofs huddle together, collecting wind-scattered garbage at their feet like spilled offal.

I kick a crushed beer can down an alley just to break the silence, watching as it skids across the droppings of a thousand gulls. In five years, revitalization will probably turn the whole area into a fashionable fisherman's market or—if the current mayor has his way—a city-licensed, Amsterdam-inspired red light district. But for now it's just a ghetto for abandoned wares; the perfect spot for teen gangs to play dare.

I find Warehouse 222 and search for a recognizable way inside. After wasting fifteen minutes, I resort to pulling on some loose boards attached to a set of rusted hinges. A makeshift door bends open just enough for me to squeeze through.

The inside of the warehouse is dimly illuminated, natural light spilling from twin rows of windows two stories up that stretch uniformly below waist-thick rafters and a sagging roof. The air is stale and tastes of paint, turpentine, and salt. Waves crash against timbers beneath my feet and the floor groans in protest. One wrong step and I could probably break through.

To my left, the warehouse is a wide-mouthed cavern littered with old crates. Abandoned in its center stands a thirty-foot, ripe green avocado made from hammered steel and fiberglass. I reckon it's meant to be an outdoor installation, but Henry Moore can rest easy; I can't imagine someone ever buying it.

The rest of the space is empty, although thick shadows hide the farthest corners.

To my right, a plasterboard partition stretches across the full width of the building. The wall is at least twelve feet tall and the ceiling rafters are a good twenty feet above that. Cutting a gash through the middle is a narrow hallway illuminated by a single bare light bulb.

I walk to it and see that on each side of the hallway, five doors are spaced roughly ten feet apart. I guess they lead to individual studios, but no one has bothered to mark them with names.

I open the first door and peer into a pitch-black cave. After groping along the wall, I locate a light switch and flick it on.

The studio is painted in eggshell white and is clean enough to be an operating theater.

It belongs to a talented watercolor artist who is into postcard landscapes with perfect New England farmhouses sitting above velvet green valleys and fields of delicate wildflowers. Pretty standard fluff except for one half-finished painting that hangs off to the side.

This one shows a different, more inspired side of the artist. It's a portrait of a young farm worker with a deeply scarred face. He's chewing a stalk of wheat, his straw cowboy hat tilted back just enough to allow sunlight to filter across his eyes. One is blue, the other opaque.

Naked, the cause of the scars that mar his face still crisscrosses his body. He's wrapped in a tangled nest of barbed wire, every puncture of his skin releasing a droplet of blood. You can tell from his face that he bears too much pride, and it's that same pride that makes him struggle against the wire. But the harder he struggles, the tighter and deeper bite the barbs.

His flaccid penis is large, caught in that softening post-orgasmic state before it retreats back into itself. Its shaft wears the faded kiss of a woman's delicate pink lipstick. The color choice is not what I would have anticipated.

I shiver slightly, both moved and disturbed, before retreating to the next studio and the next.

Upon opening the fourth door, I am awestruck.

Glaring at me from the far end of the room is an unfinished Diego masterpiece. It's different from the work hanging in the Gimcrack, yet it embodies everything Cahn had been saying about him following a new path.

Strips of multicolored canvas have been brutally ripped, their edges in tatters, and then pasted haphazardly onto another whole canvas. At first, it looks like random shapes, but the more I study it the more I see. A rough, demonic outline is scribbled in black charcoal, and coating everything is a fine dusting of phosphorescent rock.

I can't tell what the outline sketch is going to be, but its anger and passion are undeniable. Even its unfinished quality strikes me as a reflection of the way its creator has died.

I'll need to tell Cahn about it. This piece, in my opinion, could one day be worth more than the blood painting.

I have to force my eyes from the canvas in order to begin a search of the studio, but even after turning away, the image continues to burn in my mind.

On a long wooden table pushed against the wall is the original canvas Diego had been ripping. It isn't multicolored scraps, as I first thought, but had once been a complete painting. In a rage, he must have ripped it with strong hands and maybe even sharp teeth. Then I spot the signature still intact on a piece of discarded canvas: Adamsky.

I hold the orphaned scrap in my hand, mind reeling. Somehow Diego came into possession of not one, but two Adamskys, and he was mutilating this one to create a new work of art. Why?

I return to the unfinished collage and note how he has added passion to the passionless by desecrating the work, but I can't understand what has built up enough anger within Diego to destroy another artist's work. Could it have been jealousy? Did he blame his own commercial downfall on Adamsky's rise?

“
What
were you, Diego?” I ask the shreds of canvas and paint.

“A tormented man,” replies a soft, girlish voice from the doorway behind me.

Feeling déj
à
vu, I turn to see a slender, small-breasted woman covered from head to toe in layers of colorful paint that offer the illusion that her skin is transparent. I can see muscle and bone, but there's something odd about the joints—and her heart.

Noticing my stare, the woman looks down at her body curiously to see if something is wrong.

“Oops. I guess that's rude.” Her voice is full of childish laughter. “You must be new here.” She turns and skips out of the room, the soles of her feet sparkling in the light.

I catch the movement of her spine and notice what appear to be clockwork pieces connecting each vertebra.

When she reappears, she is wearing a white linen robe.

“I'm working on a new show,” she explains. “It's going to be a performance piece. What do you think?”

“You, uh, look nice.”

“Ugh, don't say that.” She groans. “I don't want to be nice. I want to be battery acid dripping from the stars; your grandma, naked on a chair, leering; a wolf with no teeth; a spider trapped in a web; a clown on the end of a noose, hanged for making children cry.”

She stares at me, hands on hips, legs apart in a strong stance, robe gaping.

“Really?” I ask. “My grandmother … naked?”

Her eyes crinkle into laugh lines below bright blue paint. Despite the sweet defiance of her voice, her eyes appear fragile, like a woman arriving on the doorstep of an emergency shelter for the first time.

I expand my focus beyond her eyes to note she possesses an odd prettiness: small, round face, marred only slightly by twin gold hoops hanging from her left nostril; large, doll-like eyes with long, thick eyelashes; and the triangular body of a gymnast—more shoulder than hip. If she had a tail or a third eye, she could be an extra in a George Lucas film.

“Can I see your heart again?” I ask.

She grins and opens her robe as I move forward for a closer look. The stencil of her heart is made up of gears and springs, like a clock.

“Be cool if I could make the gears move, but that would require Pico projectors—and where do I put those?”

I nod as if I understand what she is talking about. “It's cool. I like it.”

“Thanks. You a friend of Diego's?”

“No … well, yes.” As soon as the words leave my lips, they feel strange. I have become more involved in Diego's life since his death than I ever was when he was alive—even during our time as lovers—and now, inexplicably, something feels missing. “I'm investigating his death.”

“You're not a cop.” It's a statement.

“No, I'm Dixie. I work for
NOW
magazine.”

“A writer, huh? I'm Aurora.”

She holds out a speckled hand and I shake her glittery fingertips.

“Cool name.”

“Thanks, picked it myself.”

She smiles again, and the joyousness of it lightens my mood.

“Did you know Diego well?” I ask.

“Kind of. We would dream to each other now and then, but his bicycle wasn't really built for two.”

“Bicycle?”

“His life,” she explains. “He was too … into himself, you know? But we shared some time together and we both had a common interest in art. I don't think he fully grasped my constant reinvention, but he enjoyed talking about ideas and stuff, you know?”

“What did you mean before about him being tormented?”

Aurora stares at me thoughtfully for a moment before leaping straight into the air. When she lands, she begins to skip around the room like a four-year-old.

“When I first met Diego,” she says as she skips, “he was timid, jumping at every sound. He always had a smile for me, though. I like that.” Her own smile slips slightly as she stops in front of the unfinished painting. “Over the last few months, his colors faded as though rain was falling all around him. He tried to bury his anger inside, but the devil wouldn't be quiet. I thought it would fly off in time, you know? But …” She pauses, closing her eyes for a second, fighting back tears. “But then I heard …” Her voice starts to quiver. “He was too talented to throw it away like that.”

In silence, Aurora stares down at her green and yellow toes.

“Were you lovers?” I ask.

She smiles. “He turned me down.”

“Hard to believe.”

She smiles wider. “He said he was on a journey and that he needed to keep his mind and body pure so his soul could be free.”

“A journey?”

“Art,” she answers. “He was rebuilding himself as an artist, rediscovering his true path.”

I point to the unfinished collage. “Did you know about this?”

Aurora shakes her head. “It's different, but it's still Diego. You can see his demons in it.”

“Demons?”

“You know: anger, pity, betrayal, greed.”

“What caused them?”

She shrugs. “Every path has its demons. Some are just more powerful than others.”

“I'm not sure I follow.”

She tilts her head and slowly rolls her eyes skyward as though attempting to see inside her own skull.

“If the path was easy,” she says, “no one would ever step off. We would all be the same cookie-cutter apes in straitjackets. As we journey through life, we're presented challenges to make us falter. Some of us accept the deals early on, sacrificing happiness for wealth or position. Some hold on a little longer, trying to find that middle ground: white picket fence, family, a job you don't hate, you know?

“An artist needs to fight both angels and demons to stay on the true path. Diego made it a long way on his journey. A child's heart made fighting the demons as natural as breathing, but when the angels offered him wealth and recognition, how could he resist?”

She pauses, remembering. “Last time we talked, he was excited about a revelation he had. It was to be the basis of his next piece. I still don't know exactly what he meant …” She turns to study the unfinished collage. “He told me: ‘Man created God in his own image, but God usurped man.' He kept repeating it like a mantra, like he was trying to convince himself as much as convince me.”

The words of the revelation puzzle me. If Diego believed God was created by man, rather than the other way around, then he wouldn't have any religious barriers against suicide. However, the second half, “God usurped man,” could indicate a rebirth of spirituality: At first, God needed man; now man needs God. Or would it be the reverse?

The pieces spin around in my head, searching for interlocking partners. I release my breath slowly and force myself to refocus.

“Do you know if Diego worked at a factory nearby?” I ask.

Aurora wrinkles her forehead in thought before nodding. “I heard him mention some paint factory or something that's near here. Some relative of his, a cousin, I think, got hired there, but I don't know which building, sorry.”

“Is it possible to find out?”

Aurora shrugs. “I can call a few people.”

I hand her my business card.

“My home number is on there. Call anytime. It may be important.”

“OK.” She pauses and shyly kicks at the floor with her bare foot. “Uh, do you think somebody from the paper might want to review my show when it opens?”

“Sure. Call me when it's ready and I'll escort a critic there myself.”